Research from the University of Cambridge suggests that the pages people “like” on Facebook can be used to determine their race, intelligence, emotional stability, religion, sexual orientation and political views.
The study included observing about 58,000 volunteers’ “likes,” psychological testing and demographic information.
Researchers then used algorithms to match up the psychological testing and demographic information to the “likes.”
“We show that a wide variety of people’s personal attributes, ranging from sexual orientation to intelligence, can be automatically and accurately inferred using their Facebook likes,” the report said.
Very few of these “likes” attributed directly to the characteristics the research defined. The algorithms were instead made by correlations between music, movies and TV shows.
“It sounds interesting,” Eastern Michigan University junior Lizzy Cainfarani said. “It reminds me of this test I heard about in my psychology class that could tell everything about you.”
The researchers were able to correctly identify the gender of a participant 93 percent of the time, whether the subject was a Democrat or Republican 85 percent of the time, whether the subject was Caucasian or African-American 95 percent of the time and whether the subject was a Christian or Muslim 82 percent of the time.
“I don’t really think that your Facebook profile can match your race, but I can understand it matching your personality type,” EMU student Tyler Blizzard said.
These findings have also raised privacy concerns with privacy campaign groups, such as Big Brother Watch.
Other industries, such as advertising companies, are hoping to use these results to their benefit.
EMU psychology student Mairi Mundy-Dowd said, “I agree that your Facebook says a lot more about you than you might think, whether you post a lot of self-photos or passive-aggressive messages. Facebook is really just an extension of yourself.”
