Comments on: Facebook Needs To Know

By: Rita

Rita — Sun, 16 May 2010 04:39:02 +0000

Yes, they base the ads on it. (Just don’t look at them.) But also, if you have ever scrolled through your facebook homepage, it does list activities and updates like that. “Lisa commented on her status… Lisa edited her profile…”

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:37:59 +0000

Could be worse, I’m lsited as an atheist, and it seems to think i’m a devil worshiping fag who hates christians so much i’d pay for a shirt with a smart ass comment mocking religion. Sheesh, i have a sharpie you know!

By: Aaron

Aaron — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:12:39 +0000

or just install an ad blocker and never see ads in Facebook again. lol
I use Firefox and Adblock Plus, and have never seen an ad in Facebook.

By: Hulu and Targeted Marketing » Sociological Images

Hulu and Targeted Marketing » Sociological Images — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:17:03 +0000

[...] And, of course, the real question that is being asked is “Who are you?” Like with Facebook, they need to [...]

By: Jeff Kaufman

Jeff Kaufman — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 19:51:16 +0000

“the majority of their profile options should be boxes you fill in yourself, not choices from a drop-down menu they made up”

Facebook wants ad revenue, and being able to tell advertisers “your ‘meet hunky christian singles’ ad will run only for single female christians interested in men” is probably worth a lot to them. The more opportunity facebook gives for self categorization, the harder it becomes for advertisers to target people.

By: sara

sara — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:44:22 +0000

my boyfriend has himself listed as a her on facebook. he did it more to make himself hard to find on facebook, but he doesn’t really care when he displays his feminity. more of why i love him <3

By: BG

BG — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:46:03 +0000

“They should feel lucky for not having bigger issues”? Yeah, tell that to all the trans kids who are beaten up, harassed, and killed every year. Or the genderqueer people who are completely misunderstood. Or intersex people who don’t want to have to pick binary gender.

Not to mention, choosing the men’s or women’s restroom is a BIG issue for a lot of people.

And maybe some people just don’t want to deal with gender-targeted ads or don’t want to put their sex down for whatever reason.

Please educate yourself about trans and intersex issues, thanks.

By: mal

mal — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:15:37 +0000

Hahahaha. I’m a guy on fb b/c of this, to the confusion of a lot of my friends.

By: Louche

Louche — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:40:45 +0000

WHAT???? I have never put my sex on my Facebook profile, partly because I do not identify with any gender. I have never read messages asking me to identify my sex… well, maybe I did a long, long time ago (can’t remember for sure), but certainly not in recent history. I am glad I didn’t put my sex as female because I don’t need ads about feminine junk.

By: adilegian

adilegian — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 07:23:42 +0000

Thank you! All the hoops we’re taught to jump through in high school English are largely the result of the Enlightenment’s love of artifice and Latin.

Norwegians have no problem ending a sentence with a preposition, and their grammar is a whole lot closer to ours than the languages whose grammatical rules our “official rules” are based upon.

Also, thanks for bringing up the fake problem of the split infinitive. I love the look of annoyance, followed by relief, when I explain to a student that the infinitive form of the verb “run” isn’t “to run”… it’s just “run!”

By: Gene

Gene — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 01:03:20 +0000

When my gender wasn’t listed, it said things like “send them a message” and “help make Facebook better for them.”
When I did list my gender, the diet ads stopped altogether and I started getting a lot of ads for sketchy muscle-building supplements. A lot of the ads are pretty heavily gendered.

By: Gene

Gene — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:58:37 +0000

That’s funny. I didn’t list my gender on Facebook for a couple years. It asked me once and then went away. Maybe this is new.

By: Birdseed

Birdseed — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:17:41 +0000

There are some interesting efforts on Facebook that attempt to jam the gender issue a little bit.

One I’m playing along with at the moment is a fun group called “Operation: Sex Change”, which simply asks you to select the sex you do not identify with:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=173996678597

I quite enjoy being facebook-female so far, it’s an interesting cultural experience and the ads for dating are totally different.

By: Susanne

Susanne — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:02:53 +0000

I’m almost less annoyed about Facebook’s desire to state a gender than I am about the stereotyping ads. For the past few months, all of my ads show “Meet Christian Men”, “Meet Black Men”, “Want A Boyfriend?”, “Get the guy”, etc. I’m sure it’s because my status is listed as single, but that doesn’t mean I’m having a hard time finding a man – or that I even want one.

Which brings up another issue – their relationship status options are pretty minimal. I’m impressed they actually have “in an open relationship” as an option, but I think the majority of their profile options should be boxes you fill in yourself, not choices from a drop-down menu they made up.

By: Caitlin

Caitlin — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:45:40 +0000

“They”/”their” tells me that Lisa is a group of people.

…Why? They/their as a singular pronoun has been in use for hundreds of years (see: Jane Austen’s use of it). I’m a grammar stickler myself, but arguments against this jsut don’t hold any water. The usage makes sense; it’s easily comprehensible; it’s existed in the language for hundreds of years. What exactly is the problem?