Sep 30, 2009

MIT project on Facebook could determine whether you’re gay

A 2007 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) project has found that you can reliably determine whether a guy on Facebook is gay. The project was dubbed “Gaydar” and it is essentially an analytic application of the adage “Tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are.” You can read all about it from this recent Boston Globe article, an excerpt of which is found below:

Using data from the social network Facebook, they made a striking discovery: just by looking at a person’s online friends, they could predict whether the person was gay. They did this with a software program that looked at the gender and sexuality of a person’s friends and, using statistical analysis, made a prediction. The two students had no way of checking all of their predictions, but based on their own knowledge outside the Facebook world, their computer program appeared quite accurate for men, they said. People may be effectively “outing” themselves just by the virtual company they keep.

Now before you go “unfriending” all of your gay friends on Facebook, Friendster, Multiply, and other social networks, take note that this project only looked at a small sample of MIT students on Facebook and that they verified their hypothesis with only a small fraction of that. Their study might not be applicable to us because of our different social culture and norms.

That said, I think there’s some truth to their findings. I was able to guess that a college acquaintance of mine is gay (let’s call him X) when I noticed that X started hanging out a lot with this other guy (whom I’ll refer to as Y) based on posts on Y’s blog. I suspected that Y is gay, though I have no definite proof. My only evidence for Y is that he commented on MGG several times, which is pretty incriminating, right? I confirmed my suspicion when I ran into X and asked him about it. Turns out he and Y became boyfriends. Well, I confided to X that I was PLU too.

You can actually infer quite a lot based on one’s circle of friends. So if you’re the ultra-discreet PLU, I suggest covering all of your tracks, especially online (use proxies!), if you value your closet. :-P

11 comments:

Tristan Tan wrote on September 30, 2009 at 10:41 AM:

Do you think I should delete my blog? Im worried that some people might think I'm gay. Haha.

 
Anonymous wrote on September 30, 2009 at 4:54 PM:

big deal! so what if a person is gay or straight. this does not make them less of a person...

 
Vince (Discreet Manila) wrote on October 1, 2009 at 2:18 PM:

Tristan, LOL.

Anon, while ideally one's sexual orientation should not be a big deal, it however is in most parts of the world and we should not forget that yet.

 
talksmart wrote on October 3, 2009 at 11:28 AM:

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Tony wrote on October 3, 2009 at 11:45 AM:

Yeah, I think this pretty much common sense....

My friend's joke around, that just by mentioning that they are friends with me is an easy and practical way of outing themselves. :D

On a side note: I just assume everyone is gay (or at the least gay for pay) until proven otherwise. Makes my life simplier. :P

 
Vince (Discreet Manila) wrote on October 4, 2009 at 10:12 PM:

Tony, assume that everybody is gay? I'm not sure how that makes everything simpler. Hehehe.

 
TerRENCE wrote on October 20, 2009 at 3:58 PM:

Tell me who your friends are ...probably i don't know them. hahaha. apparently, people judge you by the company you keep. its an inevitable criteria set by norms. so even to the slightest truth this study reveals, you can actually predict a guys orientation by the friends list he keeps. like, who wud keep a dozen of shirtless guys in their profile? tell me about it!

 
Vince (Discreet Manila) wrote on October 23, 2009 at 12:42 AM:

TerRENCE, I agree with the shirtless guys! :-D

 
Anonymous wrote on October 23, 2009 at 4:34 PM:
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.  
Unknown wrote on October 27, 2009 at 1:01 PM:

eh ano naman db? wala silabng paki dun db? kaya nga tayo may freedom to live db?

 
Vince (Discreet Manila) wrote on November 1, 2009 at 11:27 PM:

Lawrence, oo wala dapat sila pakialam. In an almost-ideal world. Pero dahil hindi pa ideal ang world, mahalaga pa rin na alam nating nakikialam ang ibang tao.