[andrewem]

As the article says: “Social-media and ad-tech industry practices, however, discourage tracking potentially sensitive traits such as sexuality, according to people who work with digital information. This data can essentially create a list of vulnerable users in parts of the world where some LGBT people face harassment and violence.”

There don’t tend to be laws against liking kites or airplanes, nor violence against people who like them on the basis of that interest.

[cronix]

Name one major platform that if you watch LGBTQ related content you don't get suggested more LGBTQ related content. You can only do that if you track it, and each specific category within it as it's not just one category and many niches within each category. This is no different than any other category, like rock music or classical, and more specific various subgenre within (modern rock, classic rock, 70's rock, hard rock, speed metal, heavy metal, nu metal, grunge, etc). If you don't categorize content and don't categorize viewers, you can't recommend like content. So I'm wondering where this "industry practice" is actually implemented beyond virtue signaling to the media.

[smoldesu]

Generally people associate sexuality with other protected classes, not music genres. While I agree that these systems are indeed setup as feedback loops, it does seem like a bad idea for certain things.

> So I'm wondering where this "industry practice" is actually implemented beyond virtue signaling to the media.

Old people, people from other places, religious people, disabled people, pregnant people and veterans.

[kritiko]

The article seems really wrong on this.

E.g. there’s a big trend of congratulating companies for allowing users to opt out of Mother’s Day / Father’s Day ads, which requires companies to keep list of sensitive data about user’s relationship to parents. Similarly, FB has the “interested in” field on profiles… maybe some platforms don’t expose this to advertisers, but they all collect that data.

[iudqnolq]

The fact I don't want a Mother's day email isn't that sensitive. The specific reason why is.

> maybe some platforms don’t expose this to advertisers, but they all collect that data.

They all collect interest data, sure. They could be blocklisting advertisers from from seeing sensitive interests like LGBTQ. I don't know if they do, it certainly sounds like a responsible choice.

[hackernewds]

What if one would like to opt-out of gay content? not taking a stance, food for thought

[robertlagrant]

This isn't tracking sexuality. It's tracking who watches this content, which is definitely not aligned with sexuality.

[gettodachoppa]

If TikTok didn't have a LGBT category, they'd be called out by modern "journalists" for suppressing/not recommending LGBT content and treating LGBT unicorns as second class citizens.

It's disappointing that the full WSJ link was submitted instead of an archive.org link, outrage bait should not be rewarded with ad impressions.

[flangola7]

I'm glad someone gets it. So many comments in this thread are frighteningly naive.