Facebook allows Force Joining of Groups
calacanis.com
calacanis.com
Seriously, though, can you elaborate on how Facebook 'became seriously uncool recently'?
What issues caused your loss of enjoyment?
One thing I noticed on social networks with a very large userbase (the definition of a social network having a very large userbase is my mum being registered on it) is that the more life you have, the less likely that you're using it, hence the more boring person someone is, the more they post/comment on social networks, hence most of the user-generated "content" on Facebook is incredibly boring. This is very different from "small" networks where most users are "cool", "trendsetter" people. Obviously this is an oversimplification and I have really interesting friends who are on Facebook all the time, but it's still a generic rule none the less and it makes the whole experience more boring.
My particular problem with Facebook is that I simply don't get what's going on; who can see what. I mean, which action of mine will be posted on my wall, who will be able to see it, etc. This may not sound very humble but I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person but still with all that brainpower I just can't tell whether my theoretical ex-girlfriend can see the photos of me that my theoretical current girlfriend of mine posted and if she can, how to disable it. I mean, these are everyday trivial problems that average people living a normal life face, this is not just being afraid of the government / snake headed aliens mining your super secret personal data. Do I really want to show my theoretical drunk party photos with my old headmistress from my elementary school? But then how do I share them with my closest friends? The whole thing is just too much hassle so I wouldn't ever bother posting interesting stuff. Which leads to most people (or at least the intelligent ones) only posting boring, "politically correct" things that wouldn't offend even their old headmistress. Which leads to boring content.
Given their track record it is safe to assume that everything you do will be public. If not now, then at some point in the future.
When I signed up for facebook, a big reason was the confirmation of "real-life" friends. Facebook was different than blogs or myspace because the network was "real". We were sharing with our real friends. This is becoming less and less the case. Which means privacy is slowly eroding in a non-obvious way. Sure I can just start assuming everything is completely public but 1) my friends/contacts don't always realize it and 2) without the real privacy, why not just move to blogs, etc. where it's clear?
For a moment there I was wondering what that meant. It took me a whole minute for me to understand you meant something like "hypothetical".
So, if Joe Idiot tags you in a photo of a goat, or joins you in an embarassing group: a) untag/unjoin yourself, and b) tell Joe THAT WAS NOT COOL. Optionally, unfriend Joe. I.e., exactly what you would have done if Joe wrote a blog post about your embarrassing medical problem, or put you on a mailing list you do not like.
I -just- rejoined Facebook yesterday due to the fact that I seemed to be missing out on too many opportunities by boycotting it, and my 6-month-long boycott has made absolutely no dent in their popularity.
Yeah, no real testing servers (they exist, but aren't actually required), no real dedicated QA, none of the usual trappings. The coop laughed it off. And the recruiter did too, and pointed out that a lot of responsibility is placed directly on whoever is coding the code. They're even the flexibility and freedom to do what they think they should do, and if it causes a little downtime? As long as its short, and nothing is lost, no problem. It's something to laugh at at the bar.
Now, I'm sure there's some embellishing going on there to ensnare more young minds, but I even if its half true, I think this anecdote provides a lot of insight into how facebook works. Perhaps many of the little privacy things isn't the result of Zuckerberg deciding that everyone doesn't need control, it's just the individual programmer placing it lower on their priorities to even think about, and there being no real overarching structure to impose these privacy concerns.
Until it gets released to production and 'blows up' in their face.
My point: It's actually rational to assume FB messages are more valuable, and given people who do that, it's equally rational to send them messages on FB :)
It's not a huge money-making opportunity, but it's the first step towards a path I've been wanting to take for quite some time.
It's not that I'm mining Facebook for jobs any more than I mine my phone for jobs... It's that by boycotting it, I cut off a means of contact that others might prefer. (And I could also appear childish or out-of-touch as well.)
Personally I am just old fashioned in that way, I still run my own email server. I don't feel too happy about my communications belonging to some mega corporation.
Also, I don't like having to log in to FB to get my messages, and in turn to be trackable by all the sites that partner with FB.
That's just my reasons - but I don't boycott it. If somebody messages me on FB, I usually reply. I just don't initiate communication on FB.
I also found a great band called "The 21st Century Monads" because I was looking through famous people's profiles, and it's the only music group on David Chalmers' page.
Try not to think about that too much, though.
> Similar to being tagged in a photo, you can only be added to a group by one of your friends.
Maybe you either don't really need 61532 "friends" or Facebook should have a distinction between Friends and contacts.
Not saying that's a reasonable feature, but still.
The potential problems are reduced if these groups are private and _will remain_ private in future versions of Facebook.
Only your friends can add you into groups. You also don't have to participate in the group and they have made it very easy to leave. Jason is not a typical user and probably has a lot of crappy friends due to accepting requests from anyone. Adding an accept option would only add an unnecessary layer without changing much.
And how many of your "friends" are ACTUALLY your "friends"? As much as it was once fun to reconnect with somebody I shared an elementary-school classroom with, that's a connection I'll need to revisit if they're given the power to latch my profile onto whatever cause they want ... implying my support of that movement.
Facebook seems to have created Groups as their implementation of Twitter Lists. I can create a list and call it whatever I choose ... adding whomever I choose to it. But my sense is that the perception of a Facebook Group is different than a Twitter List because Facebook already has/had the concept of groups, and they DID require opt-in.
That's the whole point. He's trying to restore the meaningfulness of saying someone's a friend. Friends don't enroll friends in NAMBLA. I have to say, for the second day in a row I kind of agree with Zuckerberg. This isn't going to be popular, but it could actually lead to Facebook being less of a distraction and more of a genuine form of communication.
100%, but I seem to be in a minority with that decision
The other 30% are family -- lord knows I'd defriend them in an instant if we didn't have to see each other on the holidays!
By this token, I feel kind of sorry for those friends of mine who have gotten all MySpace about it and have 1,000 friends. They're the ones who are going to be most affected by this change. Perhaps the net effect will be that people will start unfriending more and honing their friend lists down to those who they actually know or who are not annoying. This would have an added benefit of increasing the quality of peoples' friend lists, or in other words, to more-tightly integrate users with their friends.
I have 95 friends, they are all family or friends or coworkers. I previously had a lot more friends, but what's the point? I'm not friends with them, I don't care what's happening in their lives nor they in mine. I'm not even leaving room for the 'trust to add information to my profile argument'. Your perception of Facebook is kind of irrelevant, Facebook is giving you a platform that does one thing. You don't get the option to disagree with what it does based on a perception of what you think it does or should do -- aside from not engaging with their product or engaging in a way based on what the platform actually does.
But that one thing keeps changing at the whim of Facebook. The service 'evolves' and expects the users to do the same.
As a user adjusts to the facebook eco-system, some arbitrary fundamental change comes out, making the user constantly reevaluating their 'friend' relationships.
This can be a real time suck.
How about making a privacy option that allows you to set whether you automatically opt-in into groups or whether you want to be asked for a confirmation? I don't know about you, but I want to be in control of which groups I join, even if only my friends are able to force-join me.
Making public groups opt-in is probably a good idea. However opt-in wouldn't change much for private groups because no one else can see the private groups that you have been added to.
Why aren't you outraged that people can create email mailing lists with outrageous titles like "NAMBLA Email Monthly" that include your address?
Facebook is different. They solely control the medium, and can actually fix it if people complain. Also, the implications are not as readily apparent as with email - this aspect was certainly not played up in the announcement yesterday - and posts like this help people understand exactly what's going on, so they can figure out how to use the system correctly.
And, really, if a feature isn't going to offer a meaningful improvement over email, why does it exist? "It's just like email" just tells me I'm going to keep using email.
Mailing lists with outrageous titles won't become directly linked to a prominent profile theoretically controlled by you or part of an "open graph" of your interests should Facebook ever decide to make them publically viewable (which their track record strongly suggests they might)
You get a notification when added to a group and can easily leave with one click. Groups are private by default which means that nobody outside of the group can see your private groups or any of the content.
This has made facebook a lot more interesting for me. Essentially it's a great way to have private discussions between my close group of friends without broadcasting to all my "friends".
The facebook blog has a video overview: http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=434700832130
Any thoughts, then, on what Calacanis meant when he said "I was never informed that I was 'force-joined' to the NABLA group."? Was he just mistaken?
Groups are private by default
Okay, that's fine. But who controls if or when that group is made public? And can you still be "force joined" to non-private groups?
The group creator controls when the group is made public, and given Facebook's track record, you should probably assume anything you write in Facebook (except private messages) may eventually be public. Also I believe you can be "force joined" to non-private groups.
Yes, it is as bad as it looks. If one person can add you to a group without your approval, that's bad.
That's an identical amount of control that you're surrendering. I don't get the frenzy-Facebook-rage...
Not at all. If you send me an email without me asking, there is no public effect. One example of how this is bad with groups is what if I happen to be on a job search and someone adds me to the "I steal office supplies from my employer and sell them on eBay" group. Let's say a prospective employer is a friend of a FB friend of mine and looks at my profile and sees this. Job offer gone.
Much of the guild's recruiting is done via Facebook.
I wonder if we should just mentally translate the work 'Friend' on Facebook as 'person I allow to post about me on the internet'. Only friend that those people you trust to speak for you, and to you. You aren't declaring a public friendship, but delegating your privacy to them.
Its so odd, I do really like JCal's stance on other issues (paid pitching groups) but his fb rants are annoying.
He should have wrote them a thank you letter for delivering an easy to use tool for exporting all content rather than just a simple PS mention.
Hint - if you're really important, all you need to sign is your name.
~ epochwolf