Facebook Wants to Redline Your Friends List

[KamaAina]

Not The Onion!

http://www.psmag.com/nature-and-technology/mo-friends-mo-problems-might-have-to-defriend-joey-with-the-jet-ski-bankruptcy

If there was any confusion over why Facebook has so vociferously defended its policy of requiring users to display their real, legal names, the company may have finally laid it to rest with a quiet patent application. Earlier this month, the social giant filed to protect a tool ostensibly designed to track how users are networked together—a tool that could be used by lenders to accept or reject a loan application based on the credit ratings of one’s social network.

In short: You could be denied a loan simply because your friends have defaulted on theirs. It’s the kind of digital redlining that critics of “big data” collection have been warning of for years. It could make Facebook a lot of money, and it could make the Web even less safe for poor people. And it could be just the beginning.

The United States has a long and storied history of discriminatory lending. Bank redlining practices denied many people of color the opportunity to apply for mortgages and buy their homes and forced racial segregation in cities across the country that persists to this day. Federal laws passed in the 1970s made these practices illegal and further protected the poor from discriminatory credit reporting and lending practices. But these laws narrowly define lenders and creditors in ways that don’t apply so neatly in an era of big data.

Depending on which factors are considered and which aren’t, predictive modeling based on one’s own history and behaviors can be terribly incorrect. When there’s more and more data to choose from, that could be good or bad news for consumers, depending on the algorithm.

Boy, am I screwn! All those disability rights activists!

[peacebird]

1. How can my credit worthiness be downgraded because a friend has a poor rating? Or bankruptcy?

That makes zero sense.

[Avalux]

3. Guilt by association.

It's wrong of course, but that won't stop them from doing it.

[peacebird]

5. Well my friends should be very happy to know me then, my rating is sterling!

If it works one way then it should also work in the other, no?

[Avalux]

13. Yes it should.

Won't affect me though, I don't have a Facebook account.

[dixiegrrrrl]

18. I sense a money making opportunity here...

I have a sterling credit score.....how much is it worth to you to be my friend???????

and btw...I am posting this on my Facebook account.


Just posted it on my brand spanking new FB account...and shared it publicly. Feel free to do the same.

[Ed Suspicious]

7. It makes perfect sense. It's the perceived power of big data. As a human being it makes no sense.

You're right from that perspective. That's why they need to cease viewing you through the lens of humanity in order for you to become a data-point from which they can draw out all sorts of weird and profit ensuring trends.

[dixiegrrrrl]

19. same way your house value can be downgraded if your neighbors trash their yards/homes

which is one reason there are laws about property maintenance.
In fact, your home value can go down if there are too many rental homes on your street.

same way car insurers consider ALL drivers in a household even if they are not related.

The lawsuits ought to be interesting, down the road.

[Ed Suspicious]

2. So people of the future will need to build up their social media rating? Start out small with a few

very solidly financially secure social media links to build Social Media Rating? This is like Insurance companies raising car insurance rates based upon credit score only weirder and even worse than that.

[FLPanhandle]

4. Modern predictive modeling based on large samples sizes is incredibly accurate.

Modern algorithms are quite complex and when combined with large datasets, are more accurate than human judgement based on one or two simple factors like a credit score.

Companies spend millions on these systems because they work.

We may not like it and their are always some individual exceptions, but they do work.

[arcane1]

6. Apologies in advance for any effect my half-ass credit score has on my FB friends!

[KamaAina]

8. Oh, great. I figured I was on solid ground with you.

Being in IT and all.

[arcane1]

12. LOL sorry to disappoint you, but I'm only IT-lite.

I'm the pilot fish to the IT shark

[annabanana]

9. When did facebook start insisting on real names?

They don't have MY real name . .

[hobbit709]

10. The name on my FB account is NOT the name on my birth certificate.

[KamaAina]

11. Quite a while ago.

Drag queens and others were up in arms. At least one person was thrown off for using his real Native American name!

[Erose999]

15. I got kicked off for using an alias as well. And my friend whose a concert promoter and manages band

s got booted for his stage name.

[Snobblevitch]

17. How does Facebook discover you were not using your real name, unless one of your 'friends' outed you

[snagglepuss]

27. From what I read awhile back, one way is by zip codes. If someone

uses an alias but uses their own zip code, FB can't catch them.

[Erose999]

28. I deliberately put as little personal info in my profile as possible. Just age (not my actual age),

gender, and the city where I live.

I'll be damned if I give that bastard Zuckerberg my address or phone number so he can whore it out to telemarketers, junk mail, etc.

[arcane1]

14. They've done it to a few of my friends, but it's taken years to do.

It must be a tedious job!

[ScreamingMeemie]

16. Right? For the longest time, my daughter's last name was "Hookerpants..."

Inside joke.

[GoneFishin]

20. How long before they offer filters based on how many non-white faces appear on your FB page?

No, I am not kidding. They have redlined based on minority neighborhoods, so I don't believe this is a stretch at all.

[seabeyond]

21. the upside, will my good credit help a friend?

btw, i would be outraged if i didnt have suh a huge headache. i hate all this stuff. wary of micro 10 update. i know nothing, about nothing. it makes it hard

[DirkGently]

22. Breaking: Facebook Still Evil; Still Wants to Exploit You.

Remember kids, liking or speaking with poor people will be held against you.

Bad credit? Try liking more bankers and CEOs!



Jesus.

[Facility Inspector]

23. You don't have to use Facebook

Just say no

[davidpdx]

24. Ridiculous

That would also allow them to use relatives scores against them as well if you have relatives friended on Facebook.

I see the real potential for a lawsuit the first time someone can definitively tie the denial of a loan to information that was used about Facebook friends. Granted that won't be easy because we all know they are going to try to hide it, but someone is going to have to do the research and that person will have to be a person who is denied credit.

[hatrack]

25. This just in: Facebook = Suck-ass Parasites

In case anyone was wondering . . .

[Hassin Bin Sober]

26. That does it. I'm mailing credit apps prior to accepting friend requests.

[LWolf]

29. It's a good thing

I don't use my real name, then.