Theory of Knowledge - Course Companion for Students Marija Uzunova Dang Arvin Singh Uzunov Dang

2013 a team of researchers published results
In
they could predict personality traits
suggesting
Facebook Likes. Their method—called
using
modelling—laid the foundation
psychographic
what has been called microtargeting
for
with in depth in Chapter 2, IV.2). The
(dealt
Kosinski, Stillwell, Graepel and
researchers,
summarized their findings as follows.
Youyou
religious and political views, personality
ethnicity,
intelligence, happiness, use of addictive
traits,
parental separation, age, and gender.
substances,
model correctly discriminates between
The
and heterosexual men in 88% of
homosexual
African Americans and Caucasian Americans
cases,
95% of cases, and between Democrat and
in
in 85% of cases ...
Republican
Percentiles
3.7 shows that the personality traits
Figure
age of Facebook users is associated with
and
they Like on Facebook. For example, the
what
of users who Liked “The Colbert
extraversion
basic premise was that individuals
Their
be profiled from their Facebook
could
Figure3.8 shows how accurately the
Likes.
claim to be able to predict common
researchers
characteristics. They tested the
personal
of their predictions by comparing it
accuracy
users’ self-reported personality assessments,
to
found that their model predicted gender
and
race with over 90% accuracy. It predicted
and
details such as sexual orientation,
other
affiliation and religion with over
political
80%accuracy.
the lengths to which this thesis
Given
been implicated in alleged political
has
it is worth considering the
manipulation,
and methodology behind it.
assumptions
science was fairly straightforward; what
The
revolutionary were the massive amounts
was
3III. Methods and tools
Case study
Digital technology, social networks
and psychometrics
accessible digital records of behavior,
…Easily
Likes, can be used to automatically
Facebook
accurately predict a range of highly sensitive
and
attributes including: sexual orientation,
personal
Report” was relatively low.
(Kosinski et al 2013)
of data the researchers could use to discern
Openness Conscientiousness Extraversion Agreeableness Stability Age
100
100
100
100
100
100
Mitt Romney
Mitt Romney
The Colbert
Report
Nicki Minaj
90
90
90
90
90
90
Mitt Romney
Camping
Camping
80
80
80
80
80
80
The Colbert
Barack
Report
Barack Obama
Report
Obama
70
70
Barack Obama
70
Nicki Minaj
70
Cuddling
70
70
Cuddling
The Colbert
60
50
Hello Kitty
Camping
60
50
Cuddling
Report
60
50
60
50
Barack Obama
Report
60
50
Cuddling
60
50
Cuddling
Nicki Minaj
Hello Kitty
Hello Kitty
40
40
40
40
40
40
Nicki Minaj
30
30
30
30
30
30
Hello Kitty
Hello Kitty
20
20
20
20
20
20
Mitt Romney
Report
10
10
10
10
10
10
0
0
0
0
0
0
Figure 3.7 Personality traits, age and Likes on Facebook
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