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Facebook 'accidentally outing gay users' to outside firms through targeted ads

Councilman

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This has nothing whatever to do with the morality, right or wrong of homosexuality.

The subject here in my mind is either ignorance, stupidity or both and even more.

Answer me this. If you are a bank robber and you go on a web site and tell the world you robbed the bank down the street, and are subsequently arrested for bank robbery, whose fault is it you got caught?

The web site or is it the fault of the idiot who posted he robbed a bank? This has happened and as I recall it was a bank robbery.

So if you are Gay and want to remain in the closet are you not being a bit stupid for openly talking about it in the web?

Yeas I know this is about advertising specifically to gays and that somehow outs them. However if you use G-Mail and you and your BFF are chatting about your dogs you will notice if you look, that advertising about Dog Food appear on the right side of the screen.

Does this mean they are reading my E-Mail. NO it means they have software that scans for key words and when those words come up advertising that matches appears.

I'm a dumb ass when it comes to computers but I picked up this the first time I E-Mailed my best friend and chatted about BBQ and saw ads for BBQ sauce.

During the Clinton administration rumors came up on the radio about project Carnivore and Echelon, that were monitoring all communications on the web and by phone using key words to trigger recording, or coping that communication.

This was vigorously denied and laughed at with Government officials saying there is no way computer power that can monitor everything all the time could ever happen.

The Lame Stream Media dubbed it a conspiracy theory, thought up by wing nuts.
Now we find it's real:

Enhanced Carnivore and Echelon

Carnivore as publicized intercepts only select Internet communications while Echelon is claimed to intercept all forms of communications. The US government has admitted to operating Carnivore while no official admission of Echelon has ever been made.

The FBI Website has a section which describes Carnivore's operation with diagrams. There is no governmental site which describes Echelon, at least not in overt terms.

Back on point if this is outing people it was pointed out that Ellen DeGeneres has over one million fans on Facebook and no straight guys watch her show, so did this out thousands?
Facebook 'accidentally outing gay users to advertisers' | Mail Online

Facebook might be inadvertently outing its gay users to advertisers, according to a new study.
Researchers have discovered that different targeted advertising is being sent to users’ accounts if they have described themselves as gay or straight.

The discovery could mean that people who wish to keep their sexuality private may be sharing it with advertisers without their knowledge.

The loophole is yet another example of a Facebook privacy breach after it emerged that millions of pieces of personal information were being shared without users’ consent after using popular apps.
 
This has nothing whatever to do with the morality, right or wrong of homosexuality.

The subject here in my mind is either ignorance, stupidity or both and even more.

Answer me this. If you are a bank robber and you go on a web site and tell the world you robbed the bank down the street, and are subsequently arrested for bank robbery, whose fault is it you got caught?

The web site or is it the fault of the idiot who posted he robbed a bank? This has happened and as I recall it was a bank robbery.

So if you are Gay and want to remain in the closet are you not being a bit stupid for openly talking about it in the web?

Yeas I know this is about advertising specifically to gays and that somehow outs them. However if you use G-Mail and you and your BFF are chatting about your dogs you will notice if you look, that advertising about Dog Food appear on the right side of the screen.

Does this mean they are reading my E-Mail. NO it means they have software that scans for key words and when those words come up advertising that matches appears.

I'm a dumb ass when it comes to computers but I picked up this the first time I E-Mailed my best friend and chatted about BBQ and saw ads for BBQ sauce.

During the Clinton administration rumors came up on the radio about project Carnivore and Echelon, that were monitoring all communications on the web and by phone using key words to trigger recording, or coping that communication.

This was vigorously denied and laughed at with Government officials saying there is no way computer power that can monitor everything all the time could ever happen.

The Lame Stream Media dubbed it a conspiracy theory, thought up by wing nuts.
Now we find it's real:

Enhanced Carnivore and Echelon

Carnivore as publicized intercepts only select Internet communications while Echelon is claimed to intercept all forms of communications. The US government has admitted to operating Carnivore while no official admission of Echelon has ever been made.

The FBI Website has a section which describes Carnivore's operation with diagrams. There is no governmental site which describes Echelon, at least not in overt terms.

Back on point if this is outing people it was pointed out that Ellen DeGeneres has over one million fans on Facebook and no straight guys watch her show, so did this out thousands?

If somebody sets their preference to 'homosexuality' on FB(as in a person with a male name setting their preference to male) it's a pretty safe bet that they're out already. However I find it odd that the simple act of typing homosexuality on your page would make advertisers put you out as gay. However if everything on your page says you're gay. Your relationship status, pictures, friends, groups, then as I said, it's a pretty safe bet that everyone around you knows you're gay. I don't see why people would get angry about gay ads on their page if they're openly gay.
 
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Once again people are shocked that a social networking site is leading to personal information being used be others.

Facebook in particular makes its money off of mining consumer data. If you don't want it known then don't post it online.
 
Remember the adds that used to be at the top of every page here? It always cracked me up that threads attacking gays always had adds for gay cruises because the algorithm for picking adds simply looked for keywords, ignoring the context involved.
 
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