MIT Students Invent 'Gaydar' Software

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ta152h

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Is this really useful? I mean, everyone can pretty much tell a homo from a hetero in real life, and if they can't, they need more than a software program to help them. Online, do you really care? As long as the risk of them grabbing my butt is zero, I don't care at all if a guy is gay or not.

Should I?

The other side is, now they will have homosexuals worried about how they act online. Is that really fair to them? Don't they have enough problems dealing with how they act in real life? Now they have to worry online too. Good grief.
 

jellico

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The point is not that they are going to market a program that can do that, so much as letting people know that you reveal a lot more about yourself, on social networking sites, then you might otherwise have realized.
 
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I'm afraid to leave a comment here. Someone might find out I'm gay!
 

rooket

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[citation][nom]ta152h[/nom]Is this really useful? I mean, everyone can pretty much tell a homo from a hetero in real life, and if they can't, they need more than a software program to help them. Online, do you really care? As long as the risk of them grabbing my butt is zero, I don't care at all if a guy is gay or not. Should I?The other side is, now they will have homosexuals worried about how they act online. Is that really fair to them? Don't they have enough problems dealing with how they act in real life? Now they have to worry online too. Good grief.[/citation]

That's not exactly true. I've met normal looking people that turned out to be gay. Also told a lady about a guy who was wearing finger nail polish and she didn't have a slight clue he was gay. It's not as easy as you kids think.

Why does it even matter if someone is gay? As long as they aren't imposing on you, they should be able to do whatever they want. Who cares. This news story is useless.
 
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I can usually pick out which guys are gay, they are the unusually charming, well dressed, good looking men who don't have a wife, yet their house is actually clean. The rest are straight.
 

thackstonns

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[citation][nom]ta152h[/nom]Is this really useful? I mean, everyone can pretty much tell a homo from a hetero in real life, and if they can't, they need more than a software program to help them. Online, do you really care? As long as the risk of them grabbing my butt is zero, I don't care at all if a guy is gay or not. Should I?The other side is, now they will have homosexuals worried about how they act online. Is that really fair to them? Don't they have enough problems dealing with how they act in real life? Now they have to worry online too. Good grief.[/citation]


They dont really care if they are homosexual or not. It is a proof of concept. It is for marketing. Now imagine facebook knows you are gay and starts to shape thier ads accordingly. Also lets say they can determine other things like social status, income, personal preferances, etc. Then they can shape marketing to match. Or if you are paranoid than just think the government will know way more about you than what you would like them to. I wouldnt be suprised if the gov. doesnt already have statistical software like this already. That way the can pander to different groups, not that it matters they all just lie anyway.
 

truthismistrue

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I can imagine a member of the CIA reading this and chuckling. They can probably tell how many asshairs you have by your friends of facebook but they don't bother because they have satellites that can see how many asshairs you have anyway.
 

tayb

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Better yet is the study that links homophobia and dislike/hatred of gay people with homosexual arousal. There is a strong link between people who hate gay people and people who are afraid of gay people and being aroused by homosexual porn. Do a google search for the study and be prepared to laugh.
 

mikepaul

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I'd say the real issue is what ELSE can be gleaned from similar analysis. It's not like terrorists will have a bunch of terrorist friends, at least there's probably no checkbox marked 'pro-terror', but say one of your friends turns out to be into Child Pornography. Will some researcher send the cops over to interview YOU?...
 
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