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from the we-told-you-this-would-happen dept.
In a move that should surprise no-one, The Guardian reports that :
One of the biggest insurance companies in Britain is to use social media to analyse the personalities of car owners and set the price of their insurance.
The unprecedented move highlights the start of a new era for how companies use online personal data and will start a debate about privacy.
Admiral Insurance will analyse the Facebook accounts of first-time car owners to look for personality traits that are linked to safe driving. For example, individuals who are identified as conscientious and well-organised will score well.
The insurer will examine posts and likes by the Facebook user, although not photos, looking for habits that research shows are linked to these traits. These include writing in short concrete sentences, using lists, and arranging to meet friends at a set time and place, rather than just "tonight".
As usual the insurer claims that this is "voluntary," where "voluntary" means you'll pay an extra amount up to £350 if you choose to protect your privacy.
The long term goal is to add other social media platforms, and yes, "...we've been working closely with Facebook in Europe to get the service ready"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 02 2016, @11:54AM
That's pretty much what I've always done with social media, ie. very selectively post material to project that "acceptable social profile." The stuff I post is true, nothing is fabricated, but it's consciously curated to fit that profile. I mentioned this before on SN a couple years ago and one or two people flipped out on me, but this article is exactly why I believe it's going to be an advisable practice for the foreseeable future.
Back in 2003 when I was very active in grassroots politics I met a fellow activist and FLOSS geek who worked at Acxiom. This was before Facebook and Twitter hit the scene. Friendster and Meetup.com were the social media plays du jour. The shenanigans he told me about Acxiom's data mining and aggregation activities made my blood run cold, such that it became clear to me that as things progress there will be no way to avoid being profiled in the datasphere. The only thing you can do is project what you want people to see, and by people it's safest to assume "people who mean you ill."
Some day the Revolution will come, the mega corporations will be undone, and the absolute Right to Privacy will be enshrined in the new Constitution, but until then assume that the worst thing that can be done with your data, will eventually be done.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Webweasel on Wednesday November 02 2016, @12:28PM
Suddenly I see a job market for "Social media curator".
Ofc, over time the insurance companies will latch onto this happening and realise their stats are useless because everyone's gaming the system.
And the pendulum swings from one extreme back to the other.
Your facebook profile is too perfect so we doubt it and charge you extra....
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 02 2016, @01:41PM
Believe it or not that's already happened with celebrities, politicians, and other public personae. About 6 years ago in New York all the big PR firms went on a hiring spree for "social media experts." They were staffing up that very position, "social media curator," except they referred to it as "reputation management."
All the jockeying on social media for Hillary and Trump has been done by those paid shills. Well, at least for Hillary. Many of Trump's supporters seem to be honestly enthusiastic about him, whereas Hillary's supporters have all the energy of the Walking Dead. You can tell by the way that the pro-Hillary social media tend to cite policy positions that are taken verbatim from campaign press releases; it's because they're old school and insist that everyone stays "on message," rather than effectively emulating the real support of real people who can't cite policy and tend to gush about candidates they truly like and support.
So, if Hillary winds up clawing her way into the Whitehouse there will be a growing demand for "social media curators," and Soylentils looking for work should keep an eye out for those new positions. But fair warning: if you take a job like that you have to simulate enthusiasm for clients who mostly deserve universal approbation and loathing. In other words, you would be trading your soul for a paycheck.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 02 2016, @02:32PM
If Trump wins there will be a growing demand for prozac.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday November 03 2016, @12:56AM
If Hillary wins there will be a growing demand for bullets.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 03 2016, @10:01AM
"We love our country so much we can't wait to ignore the legitimate results of the election and overthrow its constitutional form of government!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 03 2016, @09:55AM
From what I've seen, they're only enthusiastic about what they think he'll do - like deport people based on their religion (unconstitutional), jail his political rival (actions of a despot), etc - and their irrational hatred of Hillary over manufactured non-issues ("Emails!" while ignoring that Bush and Cheney deleted 22 million emails after a subpoena and "Benghazi!" while ignoring that more diplomats died under every previous Secretary of State and that that SoS doesn't fucking deploy troops in the first place, not to mention the Bush admin literally outing a CIA spy and then committing perjury about it during the investigation, etcetc; if you're going to hate Hillary, at least do it for real reasons instead of being a fucking massive hypocritical lost in tribalism).