Facebook

[DArtagnan]

..and i'm not sure what a law abiding citizen has to fear. "But, but - it's my privacy?!" Yeah ok it's your privacy, and everyone is super interested in you and your "privacy"? yeah right. In your dreams maybe.

Personally, I'm not very concerned with such things in relation to myself as an individual - as I'm really quite anonymous even with my personal details known. I don't "mingle" online - and I very much doubt anyone would really care about it.

The thing is, though, that if I some day encountered someone with malicious intent, who wanted to hurt me or those close to me - it would be much easier today than in the past. As in, so trivial as to require almost no effort. Most people who'd want to do something like that would not bother if it required them to do anything active or that'd point directly back at them.

I'm mostly concerned for the young people who so freely share everything about themselves. For instance, I have a SHITLOAD of nieces who're all online with FB and stuff like that. The kind of shit they're sharing with (almost) strangers is just something I'm not feeling too secure about.

Maybe I'm slightly paranoid, but then so be it.

I don't like how adding a person to a FB account grants them the title of "friend". Old-fashioned? Perhaps. To me, a friend is something much, much deeper and more profound than a name, a picture, and a bit of dialogue.

 

[vurt]

Young people and FB is a whole other matter, im not sure if i would let my kids (if i had any) use it.. But i guess if everyone is sharing their privacy, everyone is also equally vunerable, it shouldnt take the kids too long to figure that one out. The most recent south park episode is touching this subject, kind of.

I agree about the Friends bit. You can have "close friends" etc though, i think you can restrict what you share to only close friends, for example.

 

[Fnord]

I find facebook to be quite useful as a tool for organizing events and sending information to a large group of people. Before facebook you either had to send out an email (which people are horrible at checking) an SMS (which had the added disadvantage of no-one else being able to see someone else's reply, which could result in a lot of back & forth between a large group of people), or call people (which had all the disadvantages of an SMS, plus it was time consuming). Facebook is just a big time saver for me. It has also helped me get into contact with a few old friends again, which was a nice bonus.
As for what people post, yes there is a fare amount of useless information. My start page seem to be flooded with peoples political opinions, links to political blogs and a lot of links to news sites though, some of which can be quite interesting.

 

[GothicGothicness]

I'd never join facebook, it is a stalker network more or less.

 

[BillSeurer]

I use it all the time. It's helped me keep in contact with a bunch of my relatives who I don't get to see often and my old buddies from college and high school.

I find some of the objections people have posted here rather silly. Someone friends you who you don't care about? Just don't accept. Your weird Uncle Fred is posting a lot of crap you don't care about? You can use groups, blocks, and filters to ignore the stuff. OMG Facebook knows everything about me! Don't post stuff you don't want others to know.

 

[GothicGothicness]

The thing is even if you don't post private things on facebooks it track the websites you visit what friends you have what they do, what your mother eats for breakfast and so on. Imagine what algorithms it took to figure out who your old school bodies are and send automatic invites.

 

[BillSeurer]

Imagine what algorithms it took to figure out who your old school bodies are and send automatic invites.

Yes, the terribly amazing algorithm of them looking me up and me looking them up. Ohhh, scary!

 

[GothicGothicness]

The point is that people get these invites without ever having looked each other up. Even without having entered what school you went to and so on.

 

[vurt]

The thing is even if you don't post private things on facebooks it track the websites you visit what friends you have what they do, what your mother eats for breakfast and so on.

..and then they sell this super interesting information to the CIA?

I'm not sure about those invites you're talking about, i've never seen them. The only thing i've seen is that it recommends friends to another friend that you have on FB, and that's not really an advanced script...

 

[BillSeurer]

The point is that people get these invites without ever having looked each other up. Even without having entered what school you went to and so on.

No they don't. Where do people get this stuff?

 

[GothicGothicness]

They do, what is even worse is a lot of people even me, got emails from facebook asking me to join because my friends are there. It had pulled the information from their mailboxes, and skype to facebook connections and such a things, collected all the info together and sent in one mail with a list of all of them. Quite creepy. That's when I decided never to join.

Usually the kind of people who are ignorant and don't realize the sort of things facebook is pulling, are the ones who are not bothered by being there. More and more of my friends are deleting their accounts as they come to realize.

 

[JDR13]

Actually, there is some truth to what GG is saying. I've received some "people you may know" notifications that have amazed me. For instance, people that I worked with at my last job. I wouldn't have a problem with that, except… I never listed that job on Facebook!

 

[Carnifex]

I put it in the same realm of having a cell phone....no thanks! I'm looking for LESS ways of people being able to annoy me, not more!! The idea of the concept simply escapes me, if I want to converse with someone I just write or call them.


-Carn

 

[vurt]

Actually, there is some truth to what GG is saying. I've received some "people you may know" notifications that have amazed me. For instance, people that I worked with at my last job. I wouldn't have a problem with that, except… I never listed that job on Facebook!

The FB account is linked to email contacts you have, for example gmail (or maybe its yahoo or both, cant remember atm). This is common with other communites too and surprised me too at first. Sometimes you have to click "connect my FB account to..", but some of these connections are default it seems (or maybe i've forgotten i've connected them).

Carnifex is one of those people i was talking about before, the arrogant type "i'm too important, too busy, please don't annoy me!! ..but please dont turn off YOUR mobile phone if i need to get in touch with YOU.". ;D i'm only half serious, but i have a friend like that.. he hates when i dont have my mobile on, but he would never dream of owning one himself because he doesnt want people calling him..

 

[GothicGothicness]

Actually, there is some truth to what GG is saying. I've received some "people you may know" notifications that have amazed me. For instance, people that I worked with at my last job. I wouldn't have a problem with that, except… I never listed that job on Facebook!

Some truth… why thank you… what I say is always true! ( disclaimer: it might be that it has happened something which by mistake ones or twice opposed this rule )

 

[JDR13]

The FB account is linked to email contacts you have, for example gmail (or maybe its yahoo or both, cant remember atm). This is common with other communites too and surprised me too at first. Sometimes you have to click "connect my FB account to..", but some of these connections are default it seems (or maybe i've forgotten i've connected them).

What does that have to do with my example?

 

[vurt]

What does that have to do with my example?

If you mean you dont have them/this person in your email contacts either i would agree it's a bit strange. This friend of a friend script thing goes quite deep too though, and since you get these "you may know" every time you log on there's always a possibility that someone you actually knows for real turns up there, eventually

 

[BillSeurer]

The "People you may know" thing is always friends-of-friends or people in networks that you joined. And they don't even notify you anymore unless you specific go look at the "friend-finder" page. Out of curiosity I just looked at that and everyone on the first 10 or 12 pages (where I stopped looking) was something like:

Bob Smith
Jill Smith and 4 other mutual friends

They are NOT friend invites. Friend invites are sent by specific people to specific people. Your friends can almost suggest other friends to you but that's the same sort of thing.

 

[Fnord]

It does seem to go slightly deeper than that. Back when facebook suggested friends, it suggested "friends" that I had had email contact with through the mail address that I used for my facebook account, so I guess hotmail shares a bit more information than just your friends list with facebook.

And no cellphone? If I don't want people to disturb me, I just turn mine off, but that thing is so convenient that I would not want to go back to living without one.

 

[JDR13]

They are NOT friend invites. Friend invites are sent by specific people to specific people. Your friends can almost suggest other friends to you but that's the same sort of thing.

Not sure if you're replying to me, but I didn't claim they were "invites".

As far as them just being friends of friends, that would be extremely random, and doesn't make much sense to me. So it's going to let me know that I might know this person just because they're listed as a friend of someone who listed me? Um...ok.