It would make as much sense to say that sites allowing straight men to filter for "cisgender" women automate homophobia and transphobia. People should be allowed to filter mates for any reason without guilt. Not wanting to date people of race X does not mean you think people of race X do not deserve equal rights, which I think is a better definition of racism (or perhaps racialism).
I am Indian-American and not in the dating pool (I'm married). If I were dating, I would not want to waste time on dates with women who don't want to date Indian-American men.
The academy over here does tend to train weaponization of outrage and has actively attempted to replace traditional ideas of morality with oppressor-oppressed dichotomies to varying results. This article is one of those results.
Because it then creates a victim class which can use that "victim" status to for change and gain power for their position. That is the way America works now.
Isn't the article more about algorithmic sorting that you don't have any control over, vs e.g. filters? Or another way of looking at it, the service filtering you rather than you filtering the service.
It doesn't seem like you are talking about the same thing as the author, but I didn't read it that closely so may have missed something.
There is at least something potentially interesting there, if an algorithmic sorting approach is responsive to a social bias, there are obvious mechanisms by which it could end up amplifying that bias, rather than just representing it.
Personally I didn't use an ethnicity filter (was there one?) a long time ago when I was using dating sites. But there are a lot of legitimate non-racist cultural reasons why someone might!
For instance, if one wants a lot of extended family around, being very involved with your family, Indian culture is phenomenal (I'm only adjacent to that via my in-law's spouse, and they treat us as their own too). It's rare to find White Americans -- at least on the West Coast whose families are so close-knit. Of course, some people probably don't want that and would rather visit every few weeks and be at arm's length from their families.
Obviously other examples abound, such as races that may serve as a proxy for religious belief, useful for the devout.
And yet, to deny that there's a difference in social ramifications for saying, "No blacks, fats, or femmes," to someone's face in a bar, versus only swiping right on people who could be mistaken for your twin/parent, is to deny reality. The point is that the technology makes a qualitative difference.
>I am Indian-American
What caste? That is to say, what was your ancestors' equivalent experience of racism? Persecutor or persecuted? This is relevant because you seem to have brought up your identity to lend credence to your argument as a person of color. I think it's fair to fully unpack that.
>The Indian caste system is one of the oldest systematized and institutionalized forms of oppression, having been in existence for over 3,000 years (Thapa et al., 2021).
>In much of Asia and parts of Africa, caste is the basis for the definition and exclusion of distinct population groups by reason of their descent.
Using one's status as a person of color to legitimize carrying water for racism doesn't work if someone is upper caste. They've essentially seen all the benefits of their ancestral form of racism; their arguing for it carries no moral weight. I would say the same of someone from a noble lineage in Europe if they were to make the same statements.
My gut reaction is similar. If you ignore the victim focused narrative of the article, I think there is still a reasonable case to be made that some users could be served better.
Some users may be more or less open minded than the predictive model on dating sites.
It seems like the best practice would be to give users a choice over how much screening the model does.
I think the problems are specifically due to the nature of it being online and automated.
If someone has preferences that’s fine; that doesn’t prevent them from interacting with people outside their preferred races. Maybe they’ll meet someone who surprises them. Maybe they won’t. But at least people get a chance and it happens organically.
But imagine it’s the future, you’re Minority A and the social default is to just block you entirely with no chance whatsoever, and oh 99% of people not in your demographic use online dating primarily. Your pool of potential candidates is unfairly tiny and all because society just decided one part of your personality (your race) is a deal-breaker.
Offline these things just aren’t as big of problems. But it seems like if we’re not careful they could become big problems.
> “Because when you see the data they have on you, it might make you think twice about the trade-offs. I was able to see my geolocation data, all the interest groups that I had linked from my Facebook account, every picture I had uploaded, and every single conversation with a match that I had had.”
This Harvard researcher is surprised that dating apps store your pictures and messages? Is she for real?
It’s important to say things that confirm people’s existing biases because it makes them more likely to believe the other things you’re saying. “She’s spot on about my data being misused, so it’s possible she’s right about this racism theory.”
> "Users rated Asian men and Black women as less attractive than their counterparts..."
Attraction isn't a choice or a preference. No one can control who they're attracted to. Dating sites "automating racism" = showing you people that you're likely to be attracted to. Nothing is wrong with that.
Funny how she made that out to be anti-Black and anti-Asian without confirming a similar bias against Black men and Asian women. It's almost as if it went counter to her desired narrative.
That is what I got out of the article, too. Attraction for most people is truly innate, it is not something they can really control. If someone prefers to only date within their race, culture, whatever, that should be fine. That is their personal choice; after all you don't have to date them if you don't like their preferences.
This article just seems like more race-baiting and trying to identify a problem, and a victim class, where there really isn't one.
Attraction might not be something you have as much control over, but I wonder if it's something where parents have meaningfully more control? Will the experience of your sexuality really be unchanged if you grew up in US vs China? Muslim vs atheist household?
I think it’s just who you’re around when you’re hitting puberty, if I’m being honest. My school was pretty diverse mix of black and white, and a lot of my high school classmates got married to each other and are interracial couples.
So send your kids to a diverse school with lots of intermingling and life will uhh, find a way.
Anecdata: I'm a white American who grew up in China and it didn't impact me, nor in my experience most of the kids in my international school. Single adults who go back however are more likely to self select based on attraction.
Attraction is mediated by culture, i.e. there's uptick in Asian men attractiveness after kpop phenomenon at least in under 30s. Dating sites can do a "DEI" and brute force more variety into skew percentages of click throughs through mere exposure effect. They can remove option to filter by race or height or whatever physical characteristics. But that's competitive suicide vs dating sites that don't. There's nothing legally wrong with automating racism, but that's also more or less what it is. People don't "control" who they're attracted to, but platforms that mediate / gatekeep how people percieve attractiveness can mess with the dials, if they wanted to.
> Dating sites can do a "DEI" and brute force more variety into skew percentages of click throughs through mere exposure effect.
Why stop at forcing people to choose different races? Let's force women to date men who are short, bald, unemployed or homeless. Let's force men to date women who are overweight, elderly and annoying. Let's take the 'market' out of the dating market.
I believe that people who see a need to control dating preferences of others should take a step back and consider reorientation. I cannot see any gatekeeping of platforms here either for that matter.
Dating isn't fair, often it is opportunity, chance or pure luck. The attempt to correct anything here will likely not bear any fruits, on the contrary.
I also use another definition of racism. The belief or often conscious conviction a race or ethnicity is superior to others due to intrinsic biological/mental advantages. I am not racist against anyone I might not consider attractive.
Attraction isn’t innate. It’s learnt. That’s why wherever you are in the world you will find people you are attracted to. It’s also why body types like the Kardashians are considered attractive today and were not 30 years ago.
If you are constantly presented with people from a narrow group to the exclusion of others you will reinforce prejudices.
One reason Asian men are deemed less attractive in the west is the way our media has traditionally portrayed them. K-pop and the Internet are starting to change that. Black women are also suffering under centuries of negative stereotyping. It’s the stereotypes that are unattractive. People are all unique.
There seems to be entire swathes of researchers that are just producing content for the culture war. Saying sexual preference is a form of prejudice is certainly a hot take.
I think it’s sad how out of touch with reality you are. These comments are saintly compared to what you would read on 4chan. The opinions expressed here are very much in line with how the average person feels; they are not far outside the Overton Window. You are the one in the thread making it personal and calling people’s ancestors racists (as if that somehow had anything to do with them or their opinion)
Certainly more uncouth, but essentially the same sentiments of 1) being incensed at the idea of being called racist for choosing who to date based on race (which it is), 2) being baselessly distrustful of the author's motives and methods, and 3) pushing pseudoscience about the nature of attraction across "races". Actually, the 4chan posters were occasionally more charitable (praising the article for pointing out the plight of non-white men) and open-minded (avoiding a fixation on the race issue by pointing out that other forms of discrimination, like heightism, rarely receive such attention). Meanwhile, HN is supposed to be a much more principled forum. There are a few posts of the sort mentioned above, but they're almost to a one down-voted. The fact that discourse here (where people are putting a screen name on their comments, even) gets anywhere close to the kind seen on 4chan is incredibly distressing. That's reality.
In any case, I'm respectfully asking not to hear from you again. I don't think I have anything useful to gain from conversation with you and would like to be free from it going forward. I expect that you'll be reasonable.
This is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever read on orange site. You clearly have zero self awareness and/or are trolling. If you like posting on 4chan, go there.
If you read my other comment on the thread, you’ll find that I agreed with your core premise that racial filters for online dating are harmful. There were others too. I suppose you didn’t notice this or something because it wasn’t surrounded by slurs? Or you were too busy writing your pouty comment that got flagged? I don’t have any other explanation for why you think charitable comments on 4chan = good, charitable comments on HN = unacceptable.
I’ll comment on whatever I like, if that happens to be what you posted I’ll leave that comment with zero hesitations.
So, you didn't read what I wrote, and defaulted to projection of your own lack of self-awareness and baseless insults. Actually, "subjectsigma" (really?), I think you'd be more at home on 4chan. Please stop lowering the quality of HN's comment section with the behavior I mentioned above.
From the article: "Williams urged dating platforms to do more to improve the experience for minority users and protect them when they encounter racism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism."
Is it now transphobia if you go on a date and a person, it turns out, has failed to disclose a key detail about their sex, and as a result you reject them? I'm trying to figure what kind of other situation they might be referring to here.
I am all in favor of someone being called to account for seeking out someone (because they're trans) on false pretenses in order to humiliate them or something, but if people are being upfront as they should be, it is unclear to me what transphobia harms they're talking about.
In some places, rejecting that person because they are trans could be considered a hate crime. Just because someone will not date me because I am Southeast Asian, or I won't date them because they are not the gender I prefer, does not make anyone racist or transphobic. It's a personal preference.
That's wild. Also this[1] one is interesting. Apparently the new hate crime law is being interpreted in a generous way toward the thoughtcrime offenders of Scotland so far (the "stirring up hate" is said to be a 'high bar'), but since it's based on a subjective standard, there's zero reason future governments can't revise their understanding of the law in a way that isn't so liberal.
If the way someone is rejecting a trans person is considered a hate crime, maybe that someone is the problem? If someone were to beat you up or misgender you just because you're Southeast Asian that would kind of also be a problem.
I believe it’s perfectly fine to say “I do not like the appearance of X”, “I do not like how the voice of Y sounds”, etc. Very few would argue that we should just command ourselves to like or not like some quality in a person.
If, while gaining life experience, we learn to generalize (say, you find you never seem to romantically appreciate people who live in a particular geographic area), then that’s just that; if we are careful that this does not spill over into other areas of life then that’s your prerogative.
I imagine this sort of generalization may cause one to miss out on interesting people, but that’s individual’s own business. I shouldn’t feel entitled that you like me; if I suspect you not liking me is a result of that sort of over-optimization on your part, then that’s tragedy but such is life.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 109 ms ] threadI am Indian-American and not in the dating pool (I'm married). If I were dating, I would not want to waste time on dates with women who don't want to date Indian-American men.
The academy over here does tend to train weaponization of outrage and has actively attempted to replace traditional ideas of morality with oppressor-oppressed dichotomies to varying results. This article is one of those results.
It doesn't seem like you are talking about the same thing as the author, but I didn't read it that closely so may have missed something.
There is at least something potentially interesting there, if an algorithmic sorting approach is responsive to a social bias, there are obvious mechanisms by which it could end up amplifying that bias, rather than just representing it.
For instance, if one wants a lot of extended family around, being very involved with your family, Indian culture is phenomenal (I'm only adjacent to that via my in-law's spouse, and they treat us as their own too). It's rare to find White Americans -- at least on the West Coast whose families are so close-knit. Of course, some people probably don't want that and would rather visit every few weeks and be at arm's length from their families.
Obviously other examples abound, such as races that may serve as a proxy for religious belief, useful for the devout.
>I am Indian-American
What caste? That is to say, what was your ancestors' equivalent experience of racism? Persecutor or persecuted? This is relevant because you seem to have brought up your identity to lend credence to your argument as a person of color. I think it's fair to fully unpack that.
This seems strange: to label entire people as either the victims or perpetrators of racism solely based on their caste.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10764522/
>The Indian caste system is one of the oldest systematized and institutionalized forms of oppression, having been in existence for over 3,000 years (Thapa et al., 2021).
https://www.hrw.org/reports/pdfs/g/general/caste0801.pdf
>In much of Asia and parts of Africa, caste is the basis for the definition and exclusion of distinct population groups by reason of their descent.
Using one's status as a person of color to legitimize carrying water for racism doesn't work if someone is upper caste. They've essentially seen all the benefits of their ancestral form of racism; their arguing for it carries no moral weight. I would say the same of someone from a noble lineage in Europe if they were to make the same statements.
Some users may be more or less open minded than the predictive model on dating sites.
It seems like the best practice would be to give users a choice over how much screening the model does.
If someone has preferences that’s fine; that doesn’t prevent them from interacting with people outside their preferred races. Maybe they’ll meet someone who surprises them. Maybe they won’t. But at least people get a chance and it happens organically.
But imagine it’s the future, you’re Minority A and the social default is to just block you entirely with no chance whatsoever, and oh 99% of people not in your demographic use online dating primarily. Your pool of potential candidates is unfairly tiny and all because society just decided one part of your personality (your race) is a deal-breaker.
Offline these things just aren’t as big of problems. But it seems like if we’re not careful they could become big problems.
This Harvard researcher is surprised that dating apps store your pictures and messages? Is she for real?
It’s important to say things that confirm people’s existing biases because it makes them more likely to believe the other things you’re saying. “She’s spot on about my data being misused, so it’s possible she’s right about this racism theory.”
Here’s an example of people all to ready to believe an article that follows this narrative, from HN 10 days ago - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39858850
Attraction isn't a choice or a preference. No one can control who they're attracted to. Dating sites "automating racism" = showing you people that you're likely to be attracted to. Nothing is wrong with that.
This article just seems like more race-baiting and trying to identify a problem, and a victim class, where there really isn't one.
So send your kids to a diverse school with lots of intermingling and life will uhh, find a way.
Attraction is mediated by culture, i.e. there's uptick in Asian men attractiveness after kpop phenomenon at least in under 30s. Dating sites can do a "DEI" and brute force more variety into skew percentages of click throughs through mere exposure effect. They can remove option to filter by race or height or whatever physical characteristics. But that's competitive suicide vs dating sites that don't. There's nothing legally wrong with automating racism, but that's also more or less what it is. People don't "control" who they're attracted to, but platforms that mediate / gatekeep how people percieve attractiveness can mess with the dials, if they wanted to.
Why stop at forcing people to choose different races? Let's force women to date men who are short, bald, unemployed or homeless. Let's force men to date women who are overweight, elderly and annoying. Let's take the 'market' out of the dating market.
Dating isn't fair, often it is opportunity, chance or pure luck. The attempt to correct anything here will likely not bear any fruits, on the contrary.
I also use another definition of racism. The belief or often conscious conviction a race or ethnicity is superior to others due to intrinsic biological/mental advantages. I am not racist against anyone I might not consider attractive.
If you are constantly presented with people from a narrow group to the exclusion of others you will reinforce prejudices.
One reason Asian men are deemed less attractive in the west is the way our media has traditionally portrayed them. K-pop and the Internet are starting to change that. Black women are also suffering under centuries of negative stereotyping. It’s the stereotypes that are unattractive. People are all unique.
Uh huh... So I decided to test that theory. The first thread got the equivalent of flagged and killed, just like HN's. Strike one. The second:
https://imgur.com/a/WtDAL9o
Certainly more uncouth, but essentially the same sentiments of 1) being incensed at the idea of being called racist for choosing who to date based on race (which it is), 2) being baselessly distrustful of the author's motives and methods, and 3) pushing pseudoscience about the nature of attraction across "races". Actually, the 4chan posters were occasionally more charitable (praising the article for pointing out the plight of non-white men) and open-minded (avoiding a fixation on the race issue by pointing out that other forms of discrimination, like heightism, rarely receive such attention). Meanwhile, HN is supposed to be a much more principled forum. There are a few posts of the sort mentioned above, but they're almost to a one down-voted. The fact that discourse here (where people are putting a screen name on their comments, even) gets anywhere close to the kind seen on 4chan is incredibly distressing. That's reality.
In any case, I'm respectfully asking not to hear from you again. I don't think I have anything useful to gain from conversation with you and would like to be free from it going forward. I expect that you'll be reasonable.
If you read my other comment on the thread, you’ll find that I agreed with your core premise that racial filters for online dating are harmful. There were others too. I suppose you didn’t notice this or something because it wasn’t surrounded by slurs? Or you were too busy writing your pouty comment that got flagged? I don’t have any other explanation for why you think charitable comments on 4chan = good, charitable comments on HN = unacceptable.
I’ll comment on whatever I like, if that happens to be what you posted I’ll leave that comment with zero hesitations.
Is it now transphobia if you go on a date and a person, it turns out, has failed to disclose a key detail about their sex, and as a result you reject them? I'm trying to figure what kind of other situation they might be referring to here.
I am all in favor of someone being called to account for seeking out someone (because they're trans) on false pretenses in order to humiliate them or something, but if people are being upfront as they should be, it is unclear to me what transphobia harms they're talking about.
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-42652947
1. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-68712471
If, while gaining life experience, we learn to generalize (say, you find you never seem to romantically appreciate people who live in a particular geographic area), then that’s just that; if we are careful that this does not spill over into other areas of life then that’s your prerogative.
I imagine this sort of generalization may cause one to miss out on interesting people, but that’s individual’s own business. I shouldn’t feel entitled that you like me; if I suspect you not liking me is a result of that sort of over-optimization on your part, then that’s tragedy but such is life.