A recent study entitled “Private traits and attributes are predictable from digital records of human behavior” has some 80 millian German privacy advocates terribly concerned that Facebook might even be more revealing than they already feared it was.
The study has uncovered, for instance, that the vast number of users with female first names are in fact women. What is more, users who post pictures of themselves on Facebook run the very real risk of revealing to everyone their racial background. And perhaps creepiest of all was the discovery that the so-called “Facebook likes” a user “likes” with his or her Facebook like button reveal to the entire world just what it is said user “likes.”
This brings with it many sinister implications, of course. Unscrupulous data miners could deduce, for instance, that men who regularly like posts and pictures about beer are very likely to like beer themselves. Women, say, who actively like all things Barack Obama (especially after the first four years) are most definitely Democrats. And the list just goes on and on and on.
It is unclear at the moment what the privacy advocates will be able to do to curtail this flagrant invasion of privacy but at least most have agreed not to like it.
Mein Geschlecht, meine Hautfarbe, meine Drogen.
Observing Hermann 