[zeveb]

> But in the future, apps could identify sexists/racists/homophobes by their social media activity and preemptively blacklist them from joining. (Maybe this would aid the industry’s problem with harassment, too.)

I don't think blackballing people due to statistical inferences about their behaviour is any better than harassment.

> I’d guess the findings were racist: OkCupid statistics show that even though people say they don’t care about race when choosing a partner, they usually act as if they do.

It's weird that wanting to produce children with someone of the same ethnic background as oneself is seen as racist. It seems quite unremarkably normal to prefer folks from a similar background. There's nothing wrong, of course, with those who choose someone different than themselves, but I think they're the outliers.

[Analemma_]

> I don't think blackballing people due to statistical inferences about their behaviour is any better than harassment.

What? Harassment is active disruption of your life. Hiding you from someone's search results or "compatibility" list is not. It's not a great future, but let's have some perspective and not equate apples with oranges.

[zeveb]

Blacklisting people is active disruption of their lives, too. If it's based on statistical modelling, not actual misdeeds, then it's not even based on what they've done.

[pwinnski]

Something can be normal and racist at the same time. Racism is pretty normal.

I think wanting to produce children with someone of the same ethnic background as oneself is very mildly racist, but it's not nothing.