Facebook doesn’t spam you, your friends do
January 10, 2008 //
There are two points I’d like to comment on, both have been inspired by recent conversations on Twitter. I won’t name names because there are too many to list and I don’t have the time to do all the hyperlinking right now (sorry guys).
Conversations taking place on Twitter
1.
Facebook is dead. Twitter is the new Facebook. Facebook has had its day.
My response.
Facebook isn’t dead. It might have appeared to be dead to Twitter users because most of their friends on Facebook were quiet over the Christmas period. That’s because Twitter users are a minute fraction of Facebook users. Twitter is mostly made up of extremely early adopting geeks. Most Facebook users would have been on leave over the Christmas period and not sad enough (like me!) to sign on every ten minutes.
2.
I’m sick of Facebook spamming me. Facebook is full of SPAM. I hate the SPAM on Facebook.
My response.
Facebook does not SPAM you. Your ‘friends’ SPAM you. If you don’t want to receive updates, or requests to join events and groups, tell your friends to stop sending invites. If your friends don’t listen to you, remove them from your friends list.
If you don’t want people to write on your wall, remove it, or make it visible to a select few.
Facebook is nothing more than a technology/platform. Your friends are the ones you should look at, not Facebook 
What do you think?
ian hayward says 
cheryl says 
BankCardUSA says 
Stephanie says 
I think Hugh sums it up with:
http://www.gapingvoid.com/ms2124.jpg
AND specifically:
http://www.gapingvoid.com/114446615687.jpg
January 10th, 2008
@Ant, I’ll probably update this post to include one of those cartoons - perfect!
January 10th, 2008
Its a matter of scale. If you enable this vast spam factory by letting people accidentally on purpose send stupid apps to all their friends then you are part of the problem.
Facebook has a long and illustrious history of doing things that increase their reach at the expense of their users privacy and wasted attention time.
All multi-million user base social apps have a duty to protect their users, some would argue Facebook haven’t done a very good job in this regard.
January 10th, 2008
Why not Joe. I mean, their privacy settings are absolutely fantastic in my opinion. During my interviews on this subject, I’ve said over and over again, it’s the duty of say, large organisations to help their staff better understand this type of communication and how to protect themselves. Some form of training perhaps?
Also, don’t you think that perhaps, most noise comes from those with fewer connections - thereby not appreciating how much noise can be created when connected to a lot of people?
January 10th, 2008
The privacy settings may be fantastic but where are they? From a users point of view the UI design is rubbish. From a spammers point of view its a dream.
Danah Boyd says it better than me
January 10th, 2008
@Joe - top right corner and in the footer. I’d have thought the option on the top was good enough, no?
Again, it’s your friends that SPAM you, not Facebook. Just because Facebook is so good at making things easy, it doesn’t mean they’re to blame.
January 10th, 2008
Yes, and its *all* on by default. If these guys really cared about your privacy it would be all off.
And if I do want to turn it all off have to uncheck a bazillion boxes. These guys do *not* have your best privacy interests at heart.
January 10th, 2008
@Joe if everything was switched off you’d have a flat, static, boring Web site.
January 10th, 2008
Paul,
There is a happy medium. But its clear that Facebook benefits from compromising your privacy in order to generate more publicity for themselves. Its fine for you and me to debate the finer points of the Privacy tab as technologists (nearly typed technologits and you know that might just work as a name :-)) but most people never even go there so they “all on” default exposes them to a mountain off total shite. Of course Facebook and its app partners all benefit from this to the detriment of their users.
Its an abuse of their power and its clear that they are unlikely to cede control back to their users in the near term.
January 10th, 2008
Paul
I’d have to side with Joe on this one.
Couple of things annoy the life out of me:
- it’s too easy to spam people with annoying applications etc.,
- it sends you emails telling you that someone has sent you a message, but doesn’t actually send you the message
Both of the above might work for the Bebo generation, but I already get about a thousand emails a day. I’m trying to reduce the amount of non-essential emails flowing to my inbox.
I much prefer the less intrusive nature of LinkedIn
Michele
January 11th, 2008
@Michele - Like I said, if it’s too easy for your *friends* to spam you ask them to stop or remove them.
You can disable the email update for each type of notification. I don’t receive any emails whatsoever and I get a lot of requests.
January 11th, 2008
@Paul
Who said they were actually friends?
Michele
January 11th, 2008
@Michele - I meant in the context of Facebook. So, I’m referring to the people you’re connected to. It’s impossible for anyone else to say, write on your wall. So, remove the suckers
January 11th, 2008
Paul has a point @Michele you said they are friends by accepting their friends request
I hate the amount of SPAM I get, a lot is from nutty real friends who like silly happy apps. I should spend time setting up privacy etc but just haven’t bothered so I see the fault as being mine. I equally hate the amount of rubbish I see on Google/Gmail but we all live with it.
January 11th, 2008
@aido - due to the way facebook “displays” profiles I end up accepting connections from $random people. The platform and UI is such a mess that I don’t use it unless I have to
January 11th, 2008
Facebook in the next three years will die. Becoming a barage of spam and anti-social behaviour.
Discuss.
January 13th, 2008