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Comment by dao- | Hacker News Reader

> However, I can't get Facebook ads targeted to a different gender.

Actually you can by lying to Facebook. I have been doing this for a long time and the bullshit ads I get are kind of amusing.

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Provided that fb is a social network, lying to it must be lying to your environment?

I'm only friends with people on Facebook who know my gender, so it doesn't really matter. Plus it only actually shows in a few places such as "xxx replied to his/her comment" notifications.

Any idea how Facebook handles people with rare gender pronouns? Doesn't Canadian law require use of chosen gender pronouns and Facebook operates in Canada.

It really doesn't, https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/canadian-lawmakers-p... if you want primary and secondary sources.

Basically it just says you can't actively discriminate against someone because of gender identity. Which had been the defacto law for a long time.

I think I've seen "their" used instead of "her" or "his" where people declined to specify any gender. This works in English but not in German for instance, where I think they write "ihren/seinen" which translates to "her/his".

I suppose that's as far as Facebook's support for gender choices goes.

Ah, I thought that you’re faking your interests and posts, but it’s just a gender setting.

I thought FB allowed you to set your gender and pronoun independently now?

Lying to your environment is an evolutionary benefit in a lot of cases.

Is why we have species that impersonate other species, or that have camouflage patterning.

Or makeup.

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