The study comes to us from the Psychometrics Centre at the University of Cambridge
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/03/06/1218772110.full.pdf+html
and was just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal (PNAS). Researchers looked at over 58,000 Facebook users and found that they were able to accurately predict “a range of highly sensitive personal attributes,” including things like ethnicity, religious affiliations, sexual orientation, intelligence, drug use, political views, and more, by simply analyzing the subject’s likes on the site.

For instance, using Facebook likes, the researchers were able to correctly categorize white vs. black 95% of the time and male vs. female 93% of the time. They were correct in their predictions about a users’ sexual orientation over 80% of the time, and could distinguish between Christianity vs. Islam in 82% of the circumstances.

(snip)

The researchers outline their nightmare scenario as such:

On the other hand, the predictability of individual attributes from digital records of behavior may have considerable negative implications, because it can easily be applied to large numbers of people without obtaining their individual consent and without them noticing. Commercial companies, governmental institutions, or even one’s Facebook friends could use software to infer attributes such as intelligence, sexual orientation, or political views that an individual may not have intended to share.

much more: http://www.webpronews.com/what-are-your-facebook-likes-revealing-about-you-hint-its-a-lot-2013-03

http://www.thespec.com/news/business/article/901376--facebook-likes-an-accurate-way-of-assessing-iq

“The best predictors of high intelligence include ‘thunderstorms,’ ‘The Colbert Report,’ ‘science’ and ‘curly fries,’” the study said.

“To be honest, we were mind blown when we saw the results for the first time,” Kosinski told the Star.

“We could predict so many things with so much accuracy. To be able to predict someone’s IQ or personality or whether their parents were divorced was very surprising, even to me, and I predict personality traits all the time.”