I think you've confused facebook for twitter.

---------- Post added at 02:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:13 PM ----------



haha, thanks.

awww poor baby!

Okay, so long story short, I ended up joining Facebook and had someone who I knew from high school contact me. I have had NO contact with this person whatsoever for about 7 years, but I heard through friends that she had cancer. Anyways, right off the bat, she posts on my wall and wants to know how I'm doing and such, but the same day, she goes into remission with her cancer. Yeah I know, its sucks and I feel sorry for her, I have a family member going through cancer too and it's tough, but for all I know, she's another sad statistic for cancer, not a person close to me that I would feel empathic for. I haven't responded yet because I don't really know what to say. This was not one of the negatives I foresaw when I was debating whether or not to re-open my profile, but what would you do in my situation?

Facebook profiles capture true personality, according to new psychology research

so in essence, people who hate facebook, hate themselves, or at least, hate the fact that they're no longer really hiding behind a screen persona.

too interesting to not put up the article in case it disappears...

That's an interesting perspective. I think it has inspired me to post a new topic.

That's very interesting, and I suspected as much. Earlier, I wrote a lengthy reply observing how the people who were so adamantly against Facebook shared certain similar qualities while those who were supporting it had another type, but I decided against posting it because I thought it was too raw and potentially hurtful. But I would also guess that those who take Facebook excessively seriously are also hiding behind a certain persona as well. By collecting "friends" I think they are attempting distort their own reality as well, or perhaps display a successful area of their life to make up for other shortcomings.

I don't use Facebook too much. Basically:
1) Easily keep in touch with some of my extended family.
2) Monitor my kids Facebook (yes, I am one of those parents :) )
3) Easy discovery point for friends that I have fallen out of touch with, but would very much like to have contact with again.

The legions of people that I have friended, who now bombard me daily with Farmville, Mafia Wars, and other gaming garbage, are pushing me to the edge. I'm almost at the point where I am going to research unfriending people, and send them a message telling them why I did so.

My Facebook is pretty much a sanitized location. Things that are on there would not alarm a potential employer, nor would they shock my parents or in-laws. I do have a link to my LinkedIn page, where my "corporate face" is hosted.

Moondog: Just click the hide button so you don't see Farmville/Mafia Wars/etc.

I have a hard time understanding all the hate Facebook sometimes gets, because they give users a ton of tools to customize the experience. You don't need to say anything you don't want to see. And they're making it better too: soon, you'll be able to customize who has access to each individual item you post.

I'm a poker addict, and I reckon the Texas HoldEm app on FB is pretty cool.

Hah! That's rich. Where do you get that from?

...

So opting out of a fad that may prove detrimental to your career means that you hate yourself?

Wanting to spend time doing "IRL" things and not VainSpacing it up means you're a crankypants?

This pop science totally leaves out privacy concerns and 236 Facebookers is hardly a useful sample composition and size.

...

I vaguely remember the Internet before the Web and the thing that impressed me the most was anonymity.

Facebook is hardly different from a personnel database that can be searched by FERPA-style directory information.

...

Interesting perspective. I wonder it what it says about kids in third world countries without computers.

/Facebook Debbie Downer

That's a good question. I don't think that Sam Gosling (the author of the study) would make the claim that I don't know how one would get there from reading the study.

The study suggests that people on facebook behave similarly to the way they behave "IRL".

I don't think that privacy concerns matter in the context of the study. It seems to be making claims about people who use facebook, not those that don't because of privacy concerns. Regarding the composition of the sample, Gosling's sample is probably middle/upper-middle class white and hispanic college students. What does the population of facebook users look like?

Exactly. And my whole idiot rant above is directed at Shauk's comment... because it doesn't have backing in the posted text.

Rumor has it black people use Facebook. Children use it. Families use it. Grandparents use it. Dogs use it. Facebook is pretty damn diverse.

My extraction of it simply is that people who are active behind their fake user names and identities must have a preference for the imaginary names vs their real ones because they're still nursing the 90's cloak of anonymity that seems to be the draw of the internet for a lot of people when it comes to their social life supplements.

Just contrasting the people here or anywhere who say they refuse to use facebook because it scares them (paraphased of course)

"omg contact with people I dont know"

"omg my privacy"

or the myriad of other meme reasons in this thread which are based in the "i wish to remain anonymous, yet I choose to remain active here behind my self chosen username, revealing only what I choose to reveal" school of thought

I don't use facebook because it necessarily shows my real name or anything.. I don't use it because it just seems pointless and overly narcissistic for me.. and I'm pretty fucking vain.

people who want to use it..fine..I got no problem with you.. but me choosing not to use it doesn't make me less more or less afraid or more or less cool than people who spring to the newest internet trend.

Shauk, I don't use Facebook because I prefer to have control over which parts of my life various different categories of people see. I'm not aware of any way that Facebook lets me keep any particular "friend" from seeing all my other friends, and frankly, given what I do professionally (as well as certain aspects of my personal life) I'd prefer not to have everyone be able to see everyone. So yes, "OMG my privacy." It's more a question of having control over my life. I'm fortunate to be at an age where I can get away with not being on Facebook if I so choose. So I'm not.

not that you will change your mind, but yes you can set privacy as to who can see your friends list. you can set it to specific names or groups.

I set up a group called no share and put those people that I don't want to share anything with but still have to friend for whatever reason. It's a little more work like setting what group they belong to when I accept their friend request, but it works well.

What cynthetiq said. Facebook's privacy features are actually pretty damn good, and they're only getting better.

Besides agreeing with the posts above, I also do not get their point. I have friends that I am now comfortable sharing anything with. I don't have anyone who has restricted me access to anything and if you have, I will very promptly remove you. There is no point in being my "friend" with the quotes on.

I have a facebook account buy honestly I can't stand it and rarely use it. I guess its mildly amusing to see old friends and acquaintances from high school or college but quite frankly at this point I have the friends I have in real life and just don't care that much for somebody I sort of knew 13 years ago. After a while I just thought whats the point? I see the friends and family I love and cherish on a regular basis, I hear their stories and one line observations, watch their kids grow and look at their photos as they stand beside me and tell me what I'm looking at.

Why then spend time on a page that does little more then update you on people you don't care about while getting littered with results from quizzes and games hold any more value then just mild amusement?

I guess I'm just not much of a fan of social networking sites...it really seems pointless.

Exactly. Although I don't think age is a factor.

Common sense may be, though.

But this is where it's brilliant. Facebook doesn't ever say "access denied" to anything you cannot see. You just cannot see it. So as far as my sister's mother-in-law is concerned, my sister never updates or uploads any photos.

You don't know that you are being left out.

Not to mention, my Facebook contacts include everything from real life friends to professional contacts I have yet to meet.

I am curious to see what Facebook will be like 20 years from now (assuming it's still around). Will I have a "This is Your Life" collection of photos of myself that I have accumulated in my online album over the years? Will I have thousands of "friends" by then? Will virtually everybody born today have a Facebook page by then? Will I forget about it for 15 years, only to return to it and relive memories? Right now, I think a large part of its appeal is the newness of everything: adding friends, adjusting profiles, finding people. But what will be the appeal once your real-world social has been completely translated to Facebook?

you could have looked at geocities a few months ago. it was pretty funny to look at some peoples pages that were best viewed in Netscape 1.1 and the subsequent crap that is on the pages.

Okay here's another twist that has transpired since I recently re-joined Facebook.

I sent a friend request to one of my closest friends immediately after I signed up. He took an awfully long time in accepting my request, even though I knew had been on it several times during the weeks leading up to when he finally accepted. When I looked at the pictures he had in his profile, I was shocked, mortified, and embarrassed. There were at least a dozen pictures of me at various parties and events over the past few years that I certainly would not disseminated through the public. I am a private person, which was a big concern for me about whether or not I would actually re-boot my Facebook profile, so seeing these pictures of me that are available for everyone to see was horrifying. However, if it wasn't for me restarting my Facebook, I would never have even known these photos existed of me on the internet for acquaintances and friends of friends to see.

I really am in a state of shock. Remember Erin Andrews, the sideline reporter who was videotaped naked and exposed online? This is how it feels to me (though a fraction, I'm sure). I'm not exactly helpless, I can ask him to take them down or contact Facebook, etc. But the pictures have already been out there for everyone to see and digest by now and the damage has already been done. It feels especially violating when it is a close friend who has taken advantage of the privacy you cherish. I just saw them this morning and haven't discussed it with him yet, but it will definitely be a bone of contention between us. I haven't decided if I should bring it up to him casually and gently, or if I should sit him down and have a serious talk about it. Any ideas? Payback and revenge? Get the lawyers? Good old right cross to knock some sense into him?

Tell him to take the pics down.

If he doesn't oblige then blackmail or a right cross is a good idea.

You know...there are people in the world that have facebook accounts that don't do all they crap some of y'all keeping harping about. There is not one drunken pic of me on there, there is not one half naked pic on there, I dont play any of the "games", though I do take quizzes occasionally when I'm bored. I'm about as far from vain and narcissistic as you can get...I do not discuss politics on there with anyone.

Today, someone made a statement on my wall I totally disagree with, but I choose not to get into those debates there, same as I stay out of politics and stuff online, preferring "in person" discussions of that stuff. I think I pretty well know how to have a FB and use it in such a way that anyone with "authority" couldnt complain.

The people that have problems are the ones that have every thing on there page as open access and don't have the brains to know what's acceptable to the general public and what isnt.....thank goodness for them because lamebook would be awfully boring without them :)

Lamebook is awesome.

>>LINK<<

Ohh man, if there's anything I hate more than ... anything is changing my stance in a thread and agreeing with Gucci!!

the article basically admits they're clueless about facebook as well, it's ok. we get it.

Just for shits & giggles I went and checked my privacy settings and yeah guess what, they're still all tagged "Friends only" with a few exceptions of my choosing.

I feel like I got hyped up by this fear monger shit press in to wasting my time looking at those settings instead of getting to be smug that the anti-fb nerds are over-reacting again. Now I have to come back and be more smug than ever.


/smug

So, because Facebook lists "Everyone" as an option in the mandatory privacy dialogue, now they're "pushing people to go public?" Give me a break.

the only change that I know of that I'm affected by is that I had recently changed it so that people could not see my friends list. It is all that affected me with this last update.

Photos taken in public are public domain.

I have years worth of public pictures I took including some inappropriate ones where these strippers decided it would be a HARDYFUCKINGHAR good time to get naked down to the cherries and spread those legs wide.

Mind you, this was a public all ages event at a raceway park where we were putting on a music oriented stage show, the radio station that was also doing a show separate from ours has some weird business relationship with the strip clubs out here and questionable promotion tactics by using these girls to promote their shows.

I was taking pictures of the event, I had probably 1000 or so of that night including the girls up on stage being complete jackasses and getting naked in front of families. Granted, I wouldn't mind had they known what they were getting in to, but yeah I don't think you'd want your 10 year old getting a face full of snatch in all it's shaved tattoo'd glory.

About a week later I got a call from this girl. How she got my number? not too sure *shrug*

Now, i'm not an asshole. The girl called me up, asked me if I was who she was looking for, I confirmed that I took the pictures and that they were on the site where my years of photos were hosted and promoted.

Instead of asking me to take them down, she launched in to a string of profanities and namecalling and threats. I just hung up, eff that noise.

2nd time she called she just demanded I take them down. I said "they were taken in public, there were witnesses that you were doing this in front of men, women, and children of all ages, and just because you're in the pictures you think you have a right to dictate what happens to them? to call me up and threaten me? Maybe you should think about it next time when you're at a flyered event where it's clearly stated on the flyer that there were going to be pictures of the event online?

all in all, it was a pretty righteous owning. The pictures never came down, sold the site and all the pictures off to an interested party and put that drama behind me.


my advice, dont go out in public if you can't handle the picture being public domain.


However, if the picture was taken in your home. You're fine to request killing the pictures, but don't demand or expect anything unless you're willing to flex the arm of the law on your behalf (read: be ready to get ripped off for money)

...and they call lawyers assholes.

I'm not an asshole, I'm just largely unsympathetic to people in general, esp the ones that call me up and go in to a violent tirade.

Facebook privacy guide: 10 New Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know

Lawyers aren't assholes, they're just capitalizing on money market that is dumbassery involved in day to day keyboarding to your own peril.

>>LINK<<

For me personally, I don't like it. I've never had a "social networking" page nor will I ever.

First, the people I know are not all on equal footing. Some are close friends and some are mere acquaintances. I don't want to broadcast and have every single person I know knowing every single thing about me. It's pretty much not their business. What I'm doing, where I'm going, where I've been, what I ate for breakfast yesterday is just too much information and quite unnecessary.

I also don't care much about the people I know what they are doing, where they are going, where they've been, how much they drank last night. If they want or need me to know something, I'll receive a phone call or email telling me something important.

It's all just too much information. I have better things to do with my time then updating my wall (is that right?) or reading my wall or whatever.

The amount of info you put out there is up to you. I almost never see anything about what my friends have eaten, unless it's something particularly interesting. Not to mention, Facebook allows you to choose who sees what, so you aren't forced to put acquaintances on the same footing as close friends.

This is what makes TFP so great, you can always learn something.

Even with this additional information, I just don't see the point and have no desire for a Facebook page.

Just like TFP, you get out of it what you put into it.

If you put nothing into it, you'll get nothing out of it. If you put something into it, chances are greater that you'll probably get something out of it.

So, if you are addicted to facebook and want to quit look here ...

Web 2.0 Suicide Machine - Meet your Real Neighbours again! - Sign out forever!

Man, facebook is really doing a number on it's members. I have always thought, give a man a plastic bag, and he will choke himself with it. Beginning from this moment when a product has a warning label that says "proceed at your own risk" I will not utilize it.

>>LINK<<

I personally believe that facebook has more to loose by being private than it does public OR they are phasing out facebook as an internet fad and implement another site. You know, like adult friend finder is the mother site of all those dating sites out there, so will FB be just another link'd in and another more private site comes along to screw us.

You just wait and see.

I have a question: say I use facebook as I do every other web service that employs a built-in serach engine, and I waste 25 minutes of my life digging myself deeper into the hole. I come across an interesting person's portfolio and decide to add him as a "friend /contact" to be kept abreast of their updates. Now, I don't know this guy from Bing, and perhaps he or she doesn't even speak English, (or Portuguese, Spanish, broken Japanese, and backwards French, etc.) what additional access am I granted to see, would you think, now that he or she has seen me add them a friend? Do they automatically add me as a friend as well just to see their "popularity counter" increase? Would they ask who I am? If they don't add me as a friend, am I just left to look at their name and profile picture and five random "real friends" of theirs behind a virtual plate-glass window, until, if ever, they consider me a facebook friend?


-- (I'm not very good at meeting new people. I like to study them first, then say 'hello'.)

Well first, it's not particularly common for people to accept random friend requests on Facebook. (Nor is it particularly common for people to send random friend requests on Facebook.) If I get a friend request from someone, and I have no idea who they are, then I'm almost certain to decline it.

Just sending a friend request grants you no additional permissions whatsoever. You are not told if the friend request is declined, so if the person ignores or declines your request, you will simply never become Facebook friends, and continue to only see what they have chosen to make public. If the person does accept your friend request, then you will be notified.

Just because your friend request is accepted, that doesn't mean you will necessarily have access to more information. Facebook allows you to group friends, and create privacy settings based on those groups. For example, I have a "Restricted Access" group, where I put some people who I only want to see a limited set of info. Professional contacts are one type of person I would put in here. If I were to accept a friend request from a random person on Facebook (and I wouldn't), that's the group I would put them in, so they would not be granted any additional permissions.

Facebook is not a dating site, and it's not really a site to meet new people. It's a site to keep in touch with people you already know, and it works very well at that.

Bam! My worst fears about Facebook realized in someone else's nightmare (although I don't think it would involve a MALE stripper, per se):

Teacher suspended over stripper photo
Friday, January 22, 2010
The Associated Press

A Brownsville high school teacher has been suspended for 30 days without pay after she appeared in a picture someone else posted on Facebook that included a male stripper at a bridal shower.

Brownsville Area School District officials aren't identifying the teacher who was suspended last month.

The school district's attorney, Jeremy Davis, says public comment on the issue won't be allowed when the school board meets Thursday. That hasn't stopped board members from commenting to Pittsburgh-area television reporters anyway.

Board member Stella Broadwater says the suspension is appropriate because the photo became public, but member Sandra Chan says it was too harsh because the teacher had no control over the photo being posted.

Read more: Teacher suspended over stripper photo


Regardless of whether you think it's amoral to be at a party involving a stripper, or take it as harmless fun, how do you feel about the potential for your professional life to effectively merge with your personal life. As someone with aspirations to get into the academic setting, this is a scary precedent to set. How can I possibly control every iota of information about me that gets disseminated throughout Facebook? Do I have to relinquish my social life in order to work inside academia by high-tailing it out of a situation that some university executive might deem inappropriate? Any time I'm in a social gathering, do I have to become the weirdo asking everybody to put away the cameras because I'm so important?

Facebook is good
 

I like Facebook, which I reluctantly joined, because it enables me to check in on insignificant or disjointed relationships without actually having to talk to anyone. I'm still "connected" and "care" about these 15 people, without ever seeing them or making any real effort.

"Oh...didn't you get my message on Facebook???"......

I like you...just not enough to get in my car or pick up the phone.

I'm not on Facebook, nor Myspace, nor any other social networking sites. I don't twitter, because I'm not (or at least I try not to be) a twit.

Other than finding old friends that you lost contact with years ago (and really, if they were so important to you in the first place, you wouldn't have lost contact with them, would you?) I dont see the point of these things. Cant you do the same thing with email, text messages and/or phone conversations?