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Facebook doesn't collect explicit race information, it's inferred from user behaviour. You can choose to do the sorts of things on Facebook that black people do

Facebook doesn't collect explicit race information, it's inferred from user behaviour. You can choose to do the sorts of things on Facebook that black people do, then advertisers will think you are black. Just like you can choose to read Black Enterprise, and advertisers will think you are black.

imgabe 8y ago
What possible relevance could there be between "doing the things black people do" and qualifications for any particular job? TFA is about age discrimination though, and Facebook does explicitly collect age information.
rdiddly 8y ago
Facebook explicitly collects your birth date though, doesn't it? (Question is both rhetorical and actual.)
- danShumway 8y ago
  And gives you explicit warnings not to lie about it. And limits the total number of times you can change it (so you'd better hope you lied when you signed up 5 or 10 years ago). Facebook is not real big on the 'ol anonymity. In practice they can't really stop you from lying, but just telling people not to lie and making the question sound serious can often be enough to stop the average person. I suspect most people put in their correct age. Odds are also pretty good your friends are going to mention your age at some point while wishing you Happy Birthday. If Facebook's data collection is smart enough it could decide to trust them over you. I kind of doubt that it is smart enough to do that right now, but it probably wouldn't be the hardest thing in the world to do if people started commonly lying.
Larrikin 8y ago
Using dozens and possibly hundreds of pictures of the user is not inferred information in any meaningful since. They know your race, most likely with higher than 99% confidence on most people from the images alone. I'm sure it gets even more exact when they start doing text analysis, looking at your likes, and using the image data of your friends and family.
Spooky23 8y ago
Exactly. You had better make sure that your Facebook account doesn't look "too black", "too old", "too jewish", "too democrat".
- minitel 8y ago
  To be fair, all of those will help you land a job except for the second one.

imgabe 8y ago

What possible relevance could there be between "doing the things black people do" and qualifications for any particular job? TFA is about age discrimination though, and Facebook does explicitly collect age information.

rdiddly 8y ago

Facebook explicitly collects your birth date though, doesn't it? (Question is both rhetorical and actual.)

danShumway 8y ago
And gives you explicit warnings not to lie about it. And limits the total number of times you can change it (so you'd better hope you lied when you signed up 5 or 10 years ago). Facebook is not real big on the 'ol anonymity. In practice they can't really stop you from lying, but just telling people not to lie and making the question sound serious can often be enough to stop the average person. I suspect most people put in their correct age. Odds are also pretty good your friends are going to mention your age at some point while wishing you Happy Birthday. If Facebook's data collection is smart enough it could decide to trust them over you. I kind of doubt that it is smart enough to do that right now, but it probably wouldn't be the hardest thing in the world to do if people started commonly lying.

Larrikin 8y ago

Using dozens and possibly hundreds of pictures of the user is not inferred information in any meaningful since. They know your race, most likely with higher than 99% confidence on most people from the images alone. I'm sure it gets even more exact when they start doing text analysis, looking at your likes, and using the image data of your friends and family.

Spooky23 8y ago

Exactly. You had better make sure that your Facebook account doesn't look "too black", "too old", "too jewish", "too democrat".

minitel 8y ago
To be fair, all of those will help you land a job except for the second one.