Personal Profiles via Facebook’s Like Button

Should even more caution be exercised when using the Like button on Facebook? By studying about 58,000 Facebook users in the U.S. British researchers found out that based on the “Like” data the characteristics of Facebook users can be determined quite accurately. Does this research now show that we are not that far away from being transparent humans? At least on the Internet?

Especially with the help of Facebook’s „Like“ button we (voluntarily) reveal quite a lot about our preferences and personality. With a mathematical model serving as basis for this study the “Likes” of images, status notices, or other websites were used to create a quite accurate personal profile. The Facebook data permit conclusions to the personality of the user with a precision of up to 95%.

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Accuracy of the prediction of a characteristic with hit rate:

In a relationship/single: 67 %

Cigarette smoker: 73 %

Drinking alcohol: 70 %

Using drugs: 65 %

White/ Afro-American: 95 %

Christian/Muslim: 82 %

Democrat/Republican: 85 %

Homosexual/ heterosexual man: 88 %

Lesbian/ heterosexual woman:75 %

Gender: 93 %

Amazing, isn’t it? Do you draw any conclusions from these results for your online behavior, especially with regard to Facebook? Generally, you should always know what information is made publicly available on the net and be aware of your own digital footprint.

5 thoughts on “Personal Profiles via Facebook’s Like Button”

  1. Online privacy has been a concern ever since the dot com boom and the way companies make money with advertisement like google adwords and many other similar products that are watching your activities with out users notice, when compared to this “like” activity on facebook is some thing you would voluntarily click, but have you ever though about the data any websites are collecting with out your notice ?

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