5 ms·

Services like these are just the start. It's not going to be too long before background social media checks such as these get absorbed into your Experian credit

Services like these are just the start. It's not going to be too long before background social media checks such as these get absorbed into your Experian credit report and become part of the general information a landlord or anyone else has on you. You won't even know about it or have any recourse if the algorithm gets it wrong. China is already trialling a 'Social Credit' system that aims to achieve similar. The only difference between China and the West is that as an authoritarian state they can be more brazen about it. Sadly, it being Britain, there will always be a fair share of people willing to go along with it because they 'probably know what they're doing' and the 'innocent have nothing to hide.'

x5n1 10y ago
don't use social media. problem solved. something called privacy, embrace it. privacy is a responsibility to keep your information private. it's not a right like many people are misled by those in power to believe.
- kristianc 10y ago
  It's very hard to 'not use' social media. If someone makes a post about you, you're on social media whether you like it or not. Most people would also say that foregoing the benefits of using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Wikipedia, Medium, TripAdvisor et al is an unreasonably large compromise for not having employers, landlords, business contacts, potential romantic interests not running machine psychoanalysis on your social accounts.
  - Arnavion 10y ago
    Wikipedia? Are you talking about editing or just plain reading?
Houshalter 10y ago
I'm sure this is an incredibly unpopular opinion here, but I really believe that these things can be a net good. At least in some cases, like your example of credit checking. I recall a startup nonprofit that gave loans to people in third world countries. The main problem was detecting fraud, and the only tool they had was checking social media profiles. Clearly this is a good thing if it maximizes the number of people who get loans. Even if a few good people get accidentally filtered, there is a net benefit. And yet this was really controversial in the HN comments. There is also a net benefit to having more accurate predictions on who will make a good tenant. Rent is the largest cost of living for the poor in many places, and anything that helps reduce that cost is a net benefit. Yet people react based on emotions. If a single false positive out of millions causes someone to be worse off, it's considered unfair and bad. Even if the net utility is positive and more people benefit than are hurt. It also rests on some underlying assumption that the existing system is perfectly fair, which is obviously false. Human's are way more biased at judging than algorithms. Bad loans and bad tenants have to be paid for by everyone else, which is hardly fair either. Social Credit has nothing to do with it. The goal of social credit is to discourage dissent. Whereas credit rating agencies don't care what your political opinions are, just how likely you are to pay your bills.
- kristianc 10y ago
  > There is also a net benefit to having more accurate predictions on who will make a good tenant. > Social Credit has nothing to do with it. The goal of social credit is to discourage dissent. That's the law of unintended consequences though. A well-intentioned system designed to determine who is and isn't a good tenant ends up having a chilling effect on online conversation as a whole because people are worried their prospective landlord, business partner, romantic partner won't want to deal with a Tory / Labour voter / UKIP voter / Trump supporter delete as appropriate. As Schneier points out in his book, it's the same technology used by Disneyland to match people's to their photos when they've been on Big Thunder Mountain as is used to pick out dissidents at political demos in Russia. Inherent in cost-benefit calculations is a tendency to overestimate short term individual benefits and underestimate long term social harms.
- a3_nm 10y ago
  You are suggesting that a background check system is doing a net good if more people benefit than are hurt. The problem is that a system like this would strongly encourage all people, good or bad, to avoid doing things that the system could object to. It's not enough to count the actual false positives, you have to take this loss of freedom into account as well. I don't think it's a good idea to have people self-censor because they worry how a surveillance algorithm will react to what they do. (The same way that you think twice, nowadays, about using problematic keywords or expressing a dangerously controversial opinion in a text message to a friend.)
  - louthy 10y ago
    Exactly. This is exactly why systems like this pose such a threat. And what about the few that decide to say "Fuck the system!", well they become a social underclass - they can't get loans, mortgages, jobs, etc. It's a very slippery slope. Everyone should be entitled to a private life. And not everybody's private life would chime well with 'the establishment'. I could imagine myself falling foul of this because I produce music. It wouldn't take long on my facebook page to see that, so if a landlord could mine that information then I'd be unlikely to get a tenancy based on my potential to be a nuisance to my neighbours.
cageface 10y ago
This is one more reason why I no longer post on social media.
visarga 10y ago
How long until colleges start making similar social network background checks to decide who to admit or reject?

x5n1 10y ago

don't use social media. problem solved. something called privacy, embrace it. privacy is a responsibility to keep your information private. it's not a right like many people are misled by those in power to believe.

kristianc 10y ago
It's very hard to 'not use' social media. If someone makes a post about you, you're on social media whether you like it or not. Most people would also say that foregoing the benefits of using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Wikipedia, Medium, TripAdvisor et al is an unreasonably large compromise for not having employers, landlords, business contacts, potential romantic interests not running machine psychoanalysis on your social accounts.
- Arnavion 10y ago
  Wikipedia? Are you talking about editing or just plain reading?

Houshalter 10y ago

I'm sure this is an incredibly unpopular opinion here, but I really believe that these things can be a net good. At least in some cases, like your example of credit checking. I recall a startup nonprofit that gave loans to people in third world countries. The main problem was detecting fraud, and the only tool they had was checking social media profiles. Clearly this is a good thing if it maximizes the number of people who get loans. Even if a few good people get accidentally filtered, there is a net benefit. And yet this was really controversial in the HN comments. There is also a net benefit to having more accurate predictions on who will make a good tenant. Rent is the largest cost of living for the poor in many places, and anything that helps reduce that cost is a net benefit. Yet people react based on emotions. If a single false positive out of millions causes someone to be worse off, it's considered unfair and bad. Even if the net utility is positive and more people benefit than are hurt. It also rests on some underlying assumption that the existing system is perfectly fair, which is obviously false. Human's are way more biased at judging than algorithms. Bad loans and bad tenants have to be paid for by everyone else, which is hardly fair either. Social Credit has nothing to do with it. The goal of social credit is to discourage dissent. Whereas credit rating agencies don't care what your political opinions are, just how likely you are to pay your bills.

kristianc 10y ago
> There is also a net benefit to having more accurate predictions on who will make a good tenant. > Social Credit has nothing to do with it. The goal of social credit is to discourage dissent. That's the law of unintended consequences though. A well-intentioned system designed to determine who is and isn't a good tenant ends up having a chilling effect on online conversation as a whole because people are worried their prospective landlord, business partner, romantic partner won't want to deal with a Tory / Labour voter / UKIP voter / Trump supporter delete as appropriate. As Schneier points out in his book, it's the same technology used by Disneyland to match people's to their photos when they've been on Big Thunder Mountain as is used to pick out dissidents at political demos in Russia. Inherent in cost-benefit calculations is a tendency to overestimate short term individual benefits and underestimate long term social harms.
a3_nm 10y ago
You are suggesting that a background check system is doing a net good if more people benefit than are hurt. The problem is that a system like this would strongly encourage all people, good or bad, to avoid doing things that the system could object to. It's not enough to count the actual false positives, you have to take this loss of freedom into account as well. I don't think it's a good idea to have people self-censor because they worry how a surveillance algorithm will react to what they do. (The same way that you think twice, nowadays, about using problematic keywords or expressing a dangerously controversial opinion in a text message to a friend.)
- louthy 10y ago
  Exactly. This is exactly why systems like this pose such a threat. And what about the few that decide to say "Fuck the system!", well they become a social underclass - they can't get loans, mortgages, jobs, etc. It's a very slippery slope. Everyone should be entitled to a private life. And not everybody's private life would chime well with 'the establishment'. I could imagine myself falling foul of this because I produce music. It wouldn't take long on my facebook page to see that, so if a landlord could mine that information then I'd be unlikely to get a tenancy based on my potential to be a nuisance to my neighbours.

cageface 10y ago

This is one more reason why I no longer post on social media.

visarga 10y ago

How long until colleges start making similar social network background checks to decide who to admit or reject?