The book User Friendly is great and highly recommended for anyone interested in design. This piece here has seemingly little to do with user design, but it's real good for the talk here on Network Address about algos and predictive analytics.
The Cambridge Analytica operation, circa 2013, showed us how powerful predictive analytics could be when combined with persistent pervasive behavior surveillance; I think most people forget how much "it knows"
A few dozen "likes" can guess:
- race (95%)
- marital status (88%)
- political party (85%)
- marital status
- religiosity
- cigarette smoking
- drug use
- separated parents
70 likes gets you:
- the Big 5 personality trait survey responses
- better than a friend could guess
150 likes:
- better than a parent
300 likes:
- better than a partner
Post Script:
"Facebook doesn't spread information so much as affirmation" and it "allows the fringes to feel like the center" p264
User Friendly: How the Hidden rules of Design Are Changing the Way We Live, Work, and Play
Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant, 2019
Post Post Script:
"The best designs dissolve into behavior" (p304)
-Naoto Fukasawa
