How Dating Sites Automate Racism

&gt; &quot;Users rated Asian men and Black women as less attractive than their counterparts...&quot;<p>Attraction isn&#x27;t a choice or a preference. No one can control who they&#x27;re attracted to. Dating sites &quot;automating racism&quot; = showing you people that you&#x27;re likely to be attracted to. Nothing is wrong with that.

From the article: &quot;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.&quot;<p>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&#x27;m trying to figure what kind of other situation they might be referring to here.<p>I am all in favor of someone being called to account for seeking out someone (because they&#x27;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&#x27;re talking about.

It would make as much sense to say that sites allowing straight men to filter for &quot;cisgender&quot; 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).<p>I am Indian-American and not in the dating pool (I&#x27;m married). If I were dating, I would not want to waste time on dates with women who don&#x27;t want to date Indian-American men.

&gt; “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.”<p>This Harvard researcher is surprised that dating apps store your pictures and messages? Is she for real?

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.<p>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.<p>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.

How Job Sites Automate Experiencism

Never used dating apps. Is there a way to filter by weight? Just came to my mind while researching the book&#x27;s author

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.

Telling people they need to find you more attractive or else they&#x27;re racist and evil is a comically idiotic thing to advocate for.

There&#x27;s a lot of guilt and repression going on in America. Can&#x27;t be too healthy.