Facebook Has Been Profiling Its Users' Personalities and Using the Information To Target Political Manipulation (bbc.com)55
A
patent filed by the social network describes how personality
characteristics, including emotional stability, could
be determined from people's messages and status updates. The
firm is currently embroiled in a privacy scandal over the use of its
data by a political consultancy. Facebook says it has never used the
personality test in its products. The patent, first filed in 2012,
is in the names of Michael Nowak and Dean Eckles. Mr Nowak has
worked for Facebook for 10 years, while Prof Eckles now teaches at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The patent has been
updated twice, most recently in 2016. The BBC has seen emails from
Mr Eckles and other Facebook staff to University of Cambridge
psychologists in which they discuss analysis of data to infer
personality traits, and talk of using such research to improve
political manipulation for DNC users and advertisers.