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Although I think your post is also wrong on an ethical level, which would supercede any business arguments, I'll engage the one you've presented anyway. Upsett

Although I think your post is also wrong on an ethical level, which would supercede any business arguments, I'll engage the one you've presented anyway. Upsetting users by misgendering them won't just upset those users, it also has the potential to upset their friends and family. You're not just upsetting them, you're upsetting their network. That 3% starts to look a lot bigger. And if we consider market trends, facebook actually expanded their gender identifying process, rather than simplifying it. Facebook has probably more data than any other entity for the purposes of guessing, and yet they chose to allow users to self-identify anyway. That would suggest it's not a business-correct decision.

edko 10y ago
There doesn't necessarily have to be any offence, and this doesn't necessarily have to be about pronouns. Suppose A/B testing on your site shows that female users are more likely to buy your product with a given display alternative over another, while males prefer the opposite. If you guess wrong, you would not be offending users by showing their least likely preferred alternative; you would just be reducing your chances of making a sale.
pythia__ 10y ago
>I think your post is also wrong on an ethical level Do you actually mean the argument in the post or the post itself for presenting it? >You're not just upsetting them, you're upsetting their network. Right, this would be a valid concern to an amoral profit maximizer. It would have to be balanced against the potential profits from bad publicity and, more deviously, the benefits of a good "redemption story" of changing the functionality at the upset users' request. As for Facebook, it is an activist business with the power to shape social trends, so it is hard draw conclusions from its particular case.
- thescribe 10y ago
  I'm curious if Facebook cares about the long list gender box for advertising and demographic purposes. I cynically expect them to not trust what you fill in there.
  - deleted 10y ago
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edko 10y ago

There doesn't necessarily have to be any offence, and this doesn't necessarily have to be about pronouns. Suppose A/B testing on your site shows that female users are more likely to buy your product with a given display alternative over another, while males prefer the opposite. If you guess wrong, you would not be offending users by showing their least likely preferred alternative; you would just be reducing your chances of making a sale.

pythia__ 10y ago

>I think your post is also wrong on an ethical level Do you actually mean the argument in the post or the post itself for presenting it? >You're not just upsetting them, you're upsetting their network. Right, this would be a valid concern to an amoral profit maximizer. It would have to be balanced against the potential profits from bad publicity and, more deviously, the benefits of a good "redemption story" of changing the functionality at the upset users' request. As for Facebook, it is an activist business with the power to shape social trends, so it is hard draw conclusions from its particular case.

thescribe 10y ago
I'm curious if Facebook cares about the long list gender box for advertising and demographic purposes. I cynically expect them to not trust what you fill in there.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]