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Liberal, Moderate or Conservative? See How Facebook Labels You
- randyrand 10y agoWell clearly they have some work to do because I'm labeled as very liberal but I'm actually conservative - and I engage with politics on Facebook a decent amount I do like to read liberal articles though because I find them interesting
- eddieh 10y agoIt has me labeled as very liberal too, but I've "liked" guns, firearms, and more conservative politicians than liberal ones, etc.
- TheAceOfHearts 10y agoThis prompted me to delete all my interests on Facebook, and it made me find a bug: when you don't have any interests, it'll show a spinner that never goes away. [0] [0] https://www.dropbox.com/s/35731h2se6d1ur2/Screenshot%202016-08-24%2001.46.33.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/35731h2se6d1ur2/Screenshot%202016-...
- randiantech 10y agoIts not showing up for me, even after clicking 'see more' until the end. Maybe a US-only thing?
- hughw 10y agoI'm in the US and don't see "US Politics" either.
- cfmcdonald 10y agoThanks NYT for pointing me to this hilarious section of Facebook. My hobbies apparently include 'tears', and my only food and drink interest is 'bread roll'.
- fennecfoxen 10y agoThat is somewhat amusing (my hobbies include "bark"). More interestingly my fitness interests included "braid" (image of a braided rope goes here) - because I liked a page related to "braid". Unfortunately, I don't think this fitness-braid includes rewinding time. The peril of strings.
- prawn 10y agoIf my only intake were bread rolls, my hobbies would include tears too!
- pauljaworski 10y agoApparently one of my hobbies is "Abstraction." I guess that is true...
- dragonwriter 10y agoApparently, one of my hobbies is Shapeshifting. And another is Resin.
- pauljaworski 10y agoNothing better than a weekend of shapeshifting and resin.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- eumoria 10y agomy food was butterscotch? It's because I have a friend whos band's name is 'Butterscotch Stanley'... man nearly none of this is correct with the exception of age and location related stuff.
- bduerst 10y agoTL;DR: for those hitting a paywall: 1) Go to https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences 2) Open the Lifestyle and culture tab under the Interests section 3) Find the US Politics box and see what Facebook thinks you are in the parentheses Edit: Apparently I am targeted for ads related to bubble wrap.
- raverbashing 10y agoAnd of course you'll only have the "US Politics" box if you are in the US (but I get "equivalent" results)
- Noseshine 10y agoI get nothing at all. Maybe that's because I have never clicked on or published anything related to politics, I only share "sciency" links (and none related to politics). I long ago decided that the best way to "lose friends and alienate people" [0] is to push political content to your network. [0] To those (few?) who don't know, that's a(n inverted) book reference.
- mrkgnao 10y agoNope. Indian, but get "US Politics (Liberal)".
- jahnu 10y agoIs there a way to get that info in the mobile app?
- jahnu 10y agoIs there a way to get that info in the mobile app?
- arenaninja 10y agoThanks. This is awesome. About the only thing they have right about me is under Interests: 'Women'. Ethnic affinity is Asian, which is wrong. I don't have a US Politics box
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- forthwall 10y agoInteresting information here from Facebook - I don't know why Facebook thinks I like coffee - I never drink it nor why it insists I thinks I'm a fascist who likes bucket hats.
- cornchips 10y agoArgh! Has anyone else turned this off and had it turn on again by "itself"?
- grenoire 10y agoI had written a small blog post about a few weeks back. This tab has been covered many times by other news organisations, especially when Facebook data mining procedures first resulted in a light scare wave. I'll quote myself: '...the really scary thing is that it likely knows much more, and these are only a part of what it knows. Although these are said to be used for displaying adverts, they are updated regardless of whether or not you are opted out of the interest-based adverts program.'
- patrickmay 10y agoThat's quite questionable. I work in adtech and when we get an opt out we remove all information about that profile and do not add anything new. We also keep the opt out flag recorded permanently. Facebook probably has more lawyers than we do, though.
- stordoff 10y agoApparently "Democracy" is one of the ad groups I'm targeted for, along with both "Republican Party (United States)" and "Democratic Party (United States)". Weirdly "In-N-Out Burger" is also listed, despite the fact they don't exist where I live (UK). The suggested ad. preferences are also a little odd - it's almost entirely hip-hop related for no apparent reason (Ghostface Killah/rza/Raekwon/gza/Ol' Dirty Bastard/KRS-One/Computer data storage/Nas/Busta Rhymes/Big L). I also note that "information [includes] actions you take on and off Facebook". I assume this refers to embedded Like buttons and similar?
- m_eiman 10y ago* I assume this refers to embedded Like buttons and similar?* Probably, and most likely regardless of you actually clicking the button or not. I suppose they count a page view as a weak interest, a Like click as a strong interest.
- SmellyGeekBoy 10y ago> Weirdly "In-N-Out Burger" is also listed, despite the fact they don't exist where I live (UK). Heh, how strange. Me too. As well as Filipino politics, some American Football teams and someone called Rupert Neve. Also my food and drink interests include "Beef".
- JonnieCache 10y ago>Rupert Neve. Founder of Neve Electronics, famous for inventing the modern sound mixing desk. You're in good company there.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- AngrySkillzz 10y agoJudging by "Computer data storage," I assume their algorithm has conflated Nas with NAS.
- matrix2596 10y agoIs there something similar for google ??
- icebraining 10y agoYou can see your ad profile: https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads/authenticated https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads/authenticated
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Myrmornis 10y agoIf I were facebook I would hesitate to make this so visible because I wouldn't want my advertising clients to know how unsophisticated and inaccurate these inferences seem to be.
- chillingeffect 10y agoI know. In my case, they can show me ads for a Sukhoi-24 all they want, I'm not going to buy one. :)
- fnord123 10y agoAs someone who identifies as an attack helicopter, this is relevant to my interests. Is she on AirSupportr?
- Chronic9q 10y agoThese are not the tags Facebook uses to target ads. Well, they are included, but they use far more hidden, or "dark tags"
- Myrmornis 10y agoStill, a client might not know that, and anyway it doesn't paint a picture of sophistication in the realm of predicting user interests.
- Raed667 10y agoFor me (non-US) the political interests I found are hilariously inconsistent. - Leftist/communist - Democratic Socialist - Obama - Nationalist - Pirate Party - Workers international
- cornchips 10y agoWhat's inconsistent about them?
- mastazi 10y agoI guess the parent found that "Nationalist" was inconsistent with all the rest. As a side note, when the words "nationalist" and "socialist" were used together in the past, things didn't end up very well.
- Raed667 10y agoI personally find that being leftist implies that one is more open towards a more global view of politics (instead of the nationalistic approach). Also I find that Facebook thinks that Obama fits in that set, ridiculous.
- RodericDay 10y agoLeftist and Obama for sure Nationalist as well
- andybak 10y agoWow. Apparently my interests include 'production' (nice and ambiguous) and 'com files'!
- jamescun 10y agoMy profile lists my UK political preferences as all the three major parties (Labour, Lib Dems and Conservatives), as well as an interest in Religion and the Bible (I'm an atheist).
- DanielBMarkham 10y agoInteresting. I'm a moderate. Who knew? Also interesting: I'm a Christian. I haven't been to a church in 10 or 15 years. I'm an agnostic. I tell people all the time that I'm not religious. But, because of my upbringing, I have a lot of Christian friends. From time-to-time I like their stuff. So Facebook says I'm a Christian. So I must be a Christian? Facebook knows I have teenagers in the house, and that I have adult children. The vast majority of this stuff, however, is about things I own: an iPad, my phone, the browser I use, the fact that I'm an early adopter. (How in the world could FB figure out I'm an early adopter?) And of course, all of this will only get better over time. This is the extreme early stages of machine-based human classification. It's a very strange experience having all of your posts, likes, and comments being judged by a machine, then told who you really are. Seductively frightening.
- dismantlethesun 10y agoFrom one point of view, Christianity is more of a culture than a purely religious thing. Books use allusions to the Bible, even if their authors and readers aren't very religious. People pay lip service to the idea of God (singular, capitalised, and having a particular brand of deity in mind), even if they haven't prayed in decades. > How in the world could FB figure out I'm an early adopter? Maybe if you accessed Facebook from a recently released device? Facebook decided that Mac OSX is part of my 'lifestyle', merely because of the fact that I access them through only through a Mac now despite being a PC owner for decades before that.
- DanielBMarkham 10y ago"From one point of view, Christianity is more of a culture than a purely religious thing." Excellent point. So much of the public dialogue involves similes and metaphors with references to an entire milieu of common myths and values. I was watching a history show once about religion in the U.S. An interesting thing that I never realized was that religious references were huge part of most every presidential speech up until just recently. It wasn't a dogmatic religious reference, rather the speeches used a common Judaeo-Christian backdrop as a canvas to make arguments about whatever the politician wanted. In a way, this common culture provided a lingua franca between folks of widely different belief systems who shared a lot of common stories. Even atheists and agnostics like myself were usually exposed to a ton of this growing up, and they could follow along -- many times making more of a religious argument in rebuttal than was presented in the first place! Because of this, even though I want the government to have nothing to do with religion, I feel that kids should be educated in whatever the common mythos is at the time in the culture around them. (I feel the same way about the classics) There's just too much nuance they would miss otherwise. So much of sharing and encouraging deep thought is about comparing complex ideas that are best introduced by reference. If you have no context for the reference, you're way behind the game (and likely will never catch up). Many times online if I'm in a discussion, I make a reference to a complex topic, waiting while the other person googles the keywords, and then I read a reply that obviously indicates that while facts have been consumed by the other person, the underlying concept hasn't really been absorbed into their life in order for them to be able to get it out and reflect upon it. They're just parroting Wikipedia blurbs. Would FB advertisers knowing this make them more able to sell to me? Probably not, but it might allow them to communicate with me in a more complex way than a pretty girl, an animated dancing bear, and an offer of a free iPod.
- donw 10y agoApparently my hobbies are Star Trek Vulcans, Old Age, and "Octopus".
- tdkl 10y agoSeems that a good measure for them not gaining much data about you is to keep logging in an incognito window and not liking much. All the Interests I see are from where I login (mobile phone models, browsers, OS), one Android wrapper app, apps I linked with FB and 1 Facebook page I liked (football club). Good news, less data FB has on me, more it makes me happy.
- ffggvv 10y agoDon't use facebook at all?
- mixedCase 10y agoApparently I'm an anticommunist communist liberal freethinking catholic atheist nazi. Guess I'm going flag shopping.
- DoubleGlazing 10y agoApparently I'm on the contact lists of several talent agencies. Which is odd I would pop out a turtles head in fear if I found myself on stage or in front of a camera.
- joonoro 10y agoIs there a way to see what Facebook labels you if you aren't registered on Facebook?
- throwanem 10y agoDoubtful. If you refuse to be of value to Facebook, why would it go out of its way to be of value to you?
- bjackman 10y agoMain takeaway from this: Facebook know much less about me than I thought. Maybe the whole online advertising industry is an emperor's-new-clothes situation. My favourite bands appear to be Blaise Matuidi (who is a footballer - I don't even know who he plays for though), Kool & The Gang, Kool & The Gang, Kool & The Gang, and Kool & The Gang. My favourite sports entities are Team and Kool & The Gang. Under food & drink I have been correctly identified as a fan of water. I'm a pretty active Facebook user too, so it's not like they have a death of data.
- fnord123 10y ago>I'm a pretty active Facebook user too, so it's not like they have a death of data. dearth.
- goodcanadian 10y agoI am one of those weirdos who is not on Facebook, but I have come to a similar conclusion about Google. The ads that I am served are almost funny sometimes.
- ravenstine 10y agoI've had the same conclusion for a while. I'm not a social media junkie, but I use Facebook often enough that they should know a lot about me but their ads and their algorithmic content show that they have a long way to go in getting a computer to actually understand my behavior and interests.
- nswanberg 10y agoIf by "emperor's-new-clothes situation" you mean the paranoia about what these companies "know" about individuals, I agree. But since at least Google's revenue last year was $75 billion, it's clearly valuable to have statistically significant information about groups of people. I think that people who are worried about data that others have on them would be better served by worrying about data brokers first, though: https://www.propublica.org/article/everything-we-know-about-what-data-brokers-know-about-you https://www.propublica.org/article/everything-we-know-about-... (though again, I think that the amount these people know and sell to others is less than a small town shopkeeper would know about their patrons 100 years ago).
- dismantlethesun 10y ago1. My music choices are frozen in time from college 16 years ago (incidentally, daytime Alt Rock music channels in DC similarly haven't progressed past early 2000 nostalgia). 2. My lifestyle and culture is Mac OSX and Android, due to whatever devices I happen to use Facebook on. 3. My food and drink interest is a single choice: "Food". Well played Facebook.
- JonnieCache 10y agoApparently the only thing I'm interested in is "Anarchism." Feeling pretty cool right now tbh. Just need to get Nihilism in there and I can paint my bedroom black. EDIT: they also know I'm a page admin who uses firefox, such insight. Are there higher-order inferences which we aren't privy to here? What are they doing with all that supposed AI? Stochastically optimizing their javascript pipeline?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- vilmosi 10y agoDoesn't work for me. Apparently, I don't have US politics as an interest.
- hobarrera 10y agoWAY off. I'm an agnostic atheist, and this lists "Judaism", "Christianism", "Bible", etc. There's also a huge bunch of other stuff I don't remotely care about. Plus, there's no politic-related entry there.
- alexhawdon 10y agoAs someone who self-labels as an 'agnostic atheist' I'd say an interest in those topics sounds likely; 'Interest' does not imply that you're a proponent, only what you engage with...
- hobarrera 10y agoAs someone not from the US, I don't quite understand while people go "democrat vs republican". Not only can democracy and republicanism coexist, but they frequently do (I live in a democratic republic, for example). Actually, I think a republican democracy is what makes sense the most, and probably amongst the most common forms of government around. Anybody care to explain why these stances seem opposed to US-citizens?
- fineIllregister 10y agoIt's not meant to be read as "democracy the form of government versus republic the form of government". "Democratic" and "Republican" are just brand names in this case; both parties believe in democracy (popular voting) and republicanism (representative government). When people say "democrat vs republican" it's just shorthand for "The political organization known as the Democratic Party vs. the political organization known as the Republican Party." You can substitute the names of political parties from your own country as a reference.
- pc86 10y agoThe US is a democratic republic as well. There is a difference between "democrat" and "Democrat" just as there is a different between "republican" and "Republican." They are political parties, not adjectives.
- dragonwriter 10y ago> As someone not from the US, I don't quite understand while people go "democrat vs republican". The are US political parties (Democratic Party and Republican Party). > Not only can democracy and republicanism coexist, but they frequently do Well, yeah, and the US Democratic Party's original name referenced both -- it was originally the Democratic-Republican Party -- it just got shortened over time...
- tnzn 10y agothey probably labeled me as "dangerous anarcho communist" by now
- douche 10y agoApparently I'm interested in "Solar Deity" All hail Amun-Ra
- rayiner 10y agoSeems to be based heavily on what your friends post. Has me labeled as "very liberal" lol.
- ffggvv 10y agoJust wow! The great hacker news community that doesn't like being tracked and loves privacy is using facebook! What a bunch of hypocrites! A small tip for you... https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account
- AaronDreamcoin 10y agoMaybe FB is intentionally giving us inaccurate labels to make us less concerned about them.
- nicolas_t 10y agoApparently I like soccer and te bible... As someone who is agnostic and cares very little about religion and hate watching any sports, they couldn't be more wrong :-) Only thing they got right is that I'm a frequent traveller (but that's not difficult to see based on my ips :-)).
- ulucs 10y agoIt seems that I've been it by the wrath of the K Nearest Neighbors model: The affiliations are those of my friends and not mine.
- tawpKek 10y agoThis trash algorithm identifies me as "very liberal". Excuse me, I am a leftist, not some modern liberal tyvm.
- tptacek 10y agoI'm less concerned about this and more concerned that Facebook lists first among my interests "slurry".