Comments on: How Diverse is Facebook? http://overstated.net/2009/12/16/how-diverse-is-facebook a weblog by cameron marlow Wed, 08 Sep 2010 19:16:57 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Lisa Welchman http://overstated.net/2009/12/16/how-diverse-is-facebook/comment-page-1#comment-48080 Lisa Welchman Fri, 18 Dec 2009 20:27:47 +0000 http://overstated.net/?p=729#comment-48080 I’m sure your statistical science and reasoning are sound but, nonetheless, your approach leaves me perplexed given the U.S. history around “race” and intermarriage. In my opinion, racial classification makes no biological sense and increasingly no social sense. The US census form is an at will self-classification. You can check off as few or as many as you want. Or, as of the last time I checked, be “some other race alone.” We’ve all grown up in a race-centered world and have assigned that designation a lot of relevance and power. I would hope that the folks at Facebook would consider their position in shaping and molding how we (humans) see each other online. Can Facebook try to be progressive and shake that 20th century “race” taint and help take this World Wide Web in another, less divisive, direction? There’s got to be better ways to sell and market to folks. Be smarter. I’m sure your statistical science and reasoning are sound but, nonetheless, your approach leaves me perplexed given the U.S. history around “race” and intermarriage. In my opinion, racial classification makes no biological sense and increasingly no social sense. The US census form is an at will self-classification. You can check off as few or as many as you want. Or, as of the last time I checked, be “some other race alone.”

We’ve all grown up in a race-centered world and have assigned that designation a lot of relevance and power. I would hope that the folks at Facebook would consider their position in shaping and molding how we (humans) see each other online.

Can Facebook try to be progressive and shake that 20th century “race” taint and help take this World Wide Web in another, less divisive, direction? There’s got to be better ways to sell and market to folks.

Be smarter.

]]> By: Estimating Diversity on Facebook « Permutations http://overstated.net/2009/12/16/how-diverse-is-facebook/comment-page-1#comment-48077 Estimating Diversity on Facebook « Permutations Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:48:15 +0000 http://overstated.net/?p=729#comment-48077 [...] her work, I, like many others, were very interested to see a release from Facebook today of a study in which their data science team estimated the racial diver... by statistical analysis of members’ surnames.  What has always set Facebook apart from other [...] [...] her work, I, like many others, were very interested to see a release from Facebook today of a study in which their data science team estimated the racial diver… by statistical analysis of members’ surnames.  What has always set Facebook apart from other [...]

]]> By: Measuring Diversity on Facebook http://overstated.net/2009/12/16/how-diverse-is-facebook/comment-page-1#comment-48076 Measuring Diversity on Facebook Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:36:00 +0000 http://overstated.net/?p=729#comment-48076 [...] approaches used, check out the original note on the data team page, or Cameron Marlow’s full repost.  Lars Backstrom, Jonathan Chang, Cameron Marlow and Itamar Rosenn conducted this research. [...] [...] approaches used, check out the original note on the data team page, or Cameron Marlow’s full repost.  Lars Backstrom, Jonathan Chang, Cameron Marlow and Itamar Rosenn conducted this research. [...]

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