To Facebook, or not to Facebook - Page 4 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Cynthetiq · 12-04-2009, 02:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xerxys

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.

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.

SecretMethod70 · 12-04-2009, 07:47 AM

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

essendoubleop · 12-04-2009, 07:11 PM

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?

Cynthetiq · 12-04-2009, 08:28 PM

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.

essendoubleop · 12-09-2009, 10:20 AM

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?

Glory's Sun · 12-09-2009, 10:48 AM

Tell him to take the pics down.

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

ShaniFaye · 12-09-2009, 11:29 AM

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

Kaliena · 12-09-2009, 11:35 AM

Lamebook is awesome.

Xerxys · 12-12-2009, 04:12 AM

Quote:

The Day Has Come: Facebook Pushes People to Go Public
Written by Marshall Kirkpatrick / December 9, 2009 10:01 AM / 61 Comments

Facebook announced this morning that its 350 million users will be prompted to make their status messages and shared content publicly visible to the world at large and search engines. It's a move we expected but the language used in the announcement is near Orwellian. The company says the move is all about helping users protect their privacy and connect with other people, but the new default option is to change from "old settings" to becoming visible to "everyone."

This is not what Facebook users signed up for. It's not about privacy at all, it's about increasing traffic and the visibility of activity on the site.

Update: See also our in-depth interview with Barry Schnitt, Director of Corporate Communications and Public Policy at Facebook, about why these changes were made.

Information like your email address is recommended to remain limited to friends, but make no mistake about it - Facebook wants you to make the status messages you post visible to the entire internet.

According to the video explaining the changes, the new default for status messages is "everyone." That's a huge change. Of course it's not hard for people to keep their existing privacy settings, but confusion around what those settings are is hardly resolved by the phrase "old settings" and a tool-tip phrase appearing when you hover over that option.

Update: Some users are saying that their default options are in fact on "old settings" and not "everyone." We're hearing that "old settings" as private is the default for users who have ever changed their privacy settings and set them to private. People who have not changed their settings ever or who have set them to public already, will be defaulted to public. That's what we think, it's hard to know for sure. Facebook is maddeningly unclear about what exactly is going on. Part of the problem is that they are willing to tell press that they want to move users toward being more public, but when communicating with its users they appear to put more emphasis on communicating about privacy than is warranted by the changes at issue.

See also: Zuckerberg Changes His Own Privacy Settings

the Facebook blog post about the announcement. Previous moves by the company, like the introduction of the news feed, have seen user resistance as well - but this move cuts against the fundamental proposition of Facebook: that your status updates are only visible to those you opt-in to exposing them to. You'll now have to opt-out of being public and opt-in to communicating only with people you've given permission to see your content.

Will users go for it? If Facebook becomes a lot more like Twitter, will users stick around? The network of friends you've created on Facebook can't be taken anywhere else - access to those people off-site is limited due to "privacy concerns."

This is an amazing move that was announced with limited press attention. A Facebook group message to press was sent out at 6am, two hours before a press phone call. The announcement is a long, wordy and unclear text putting undue emphasis on Privacy when the new options clearly favor going public. Earlier this week the company made an announcement about forthcoming privacy policy changes and Open was not the recommended setting.

Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt told Reuters today that Facebook was recommending that posts be viewable to everyone because such sharing of information is consistent with "the way the world is moving." But as the largest social network in the world, isn't it Facebook that effects these kinds of changes?

Facebook confirmed to us in a press call earlier this year that the company does in fact want users to post more publicly and we expected a site-wide call for users to loosen privacy restrictions - but not like this. This announcement was couched in language of user control and privacy.

A much more honest approach to privacy would be to encourage users to create lists of contacts and encourage them to select which list any update was visible to. Instead, that's greatly underemphasized.

Expect to see this story blow up for the rest of the year. It's a very big move.

>>LINK<<

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

Shauk · 12-12-2009, 08:44 AM

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

SecretMethod70 · 12-12-2009, 08:50 AM

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.

Cynthetiq · 12-12-2009, 08:50 AM

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.

Shauk · 12-12-2009, 09:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by essendoubleop

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?

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)

Plan9 · 12-12-2009, 09:35 AM

...and they call lawyers assholes.

Shauk · 12-12-2009, 09:37 AM

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.

SecretMethod70 · 12-16-2009, 11:59 PM

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

Xerxys · 12-26-2009, 09:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Plan9

...and they call lawyers assholes.

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

Quote:

Facebook fuelling divorce, research claims

Facebook is being cited in almost one in five of online divorce petitions, lawyers have claimed.
Published: 1:02PM GMT 21 Dec 2009

Suspicious spouses have also used the websites to find evidence of flirting and even affairs which have led to divorce. Photo: GETTY IMAGES

The social networking site, which connects old friends and allows users to make new ones online, is being blamed for an increasing number of marital breakdowns.

Divorce lawyers claim the explosion in the popularity of websites such as Facebook and Bebo is tempting to people to cheat on their partners.

Suspicious spouses have also used the websites to find evidence of flirting and even affairs which have led to divorce.

One law firm, which specialises in divorce, claimed almost one in five petitions they processed cited Facebook.

Mark Keenan, Managing Director of Divorce-Online said: "I had heard from my staff that there were a lot of people saying they had found out things about their partners on Facebook and I decided to see how prevalent it was I was really surprised to see 20 per cent of all the petitions containing references to Facebook.

"The most common reason seemed to be people having inappropriate sexual chats with people they were not supposed to."

Flirty emails and messages found on Facebook pages are increasingly being cited as evidence of unreasonable behaviour.

Computer firms have even cashed in by developing software allowing suspicious spouses to electronically spy on someone's online activities.

One 35-year-old woman even discovered her husband was divorcing her via Facebook.

Conference organiser Emma Brady was distraught to read that her marriage was over when he updated his status on the site to read: "Neil Brady has ended his marriage to Emma Brady."

Last year a 28-year-old woman ended her marriage after discovering her husband had been having a virtual affair with someone in cyberspace he had never met.

Amy Taylor 28, split from David Pollard after discovering he was sleeping with an escort in the game Second Life, a virtual world where people reinvent themselves.

Around 14 million Britons are believed to regularly use social networking sites to communicate with old friends or make new ones.

The popularity of the Friends Reunited website several years ago was also blamed for a surge in divorces as bored husbands and wives used it to contact old flames and first loves.

The UK’s divorce rate has fallen in recent years, but two in five marriages are still failing according the latest statistics.

Mr Keenan believes that the general divorce rate will rocket in 2010 with the recession taking the blame.

>>LINK<<

Halanna · 12-27-2009, 02:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by essendoubleop

So what do you think about Facebook?

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.

SecretMethod70 · 12-27-2009, 05:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Halanna

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.

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.

Halanna · 12-28-2009, 12:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SecretMethod70

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.

Cynthetiq · 12-28-2009, 12:08 PM

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.

Xerxys · 01-06-2010, 08:04 PM

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!

Xerxys · 01-10-2010, 05:57 PM

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.

Quote:

Facebook's Zuckerberg Says The Age of Privacy is Over
Written by Marshall Kirkpatrick
January 9, 2010 9:25 PM

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told a live audience yesterday that if he were to create Facebook again today, user information would by default be public, not private as it was for years until the company changed dramatically in December.

In a six-minute interview on stage with TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, Zuckerberg spent 60 seconds talking about Facebook's privacy policies. His statements were of major importance for the world's largest social network - and his arguments in favor of an about-face on privacy deserve close scrutiny.

Zuckerberg offered roughly 8 sentences in response to Arrington's question about where privacy was going on Facebook and around the web. The question was referencing the changes Facebook underwent last month. Your name, profile picture, gender, current city, networks, Friends List, and all the pages you subscribe to are now publicly available information on Facebook. This means everyone on the web can see it; it is searchable. I'll post Zuckerberg's sentences on their own first, then follow up with the questions they raise in my mind. You can also watch the video below, the privacy part we transcribe is from 3:00 to 4:00.

Zuckerberg:

"When I got started in my dorm room at Harvard, the question a lot of people asked was 'why would I want to put any information on the Internet at all? Why would I want to have a website?'

"And then in the last 5 or 6 years, blogging has taken off in a huge way and all these different services that have people sharing all this information. People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.

"We view it as our role in the system to constantly be innovating and be updating what our system is to reflect what the current social norms are.

"A lot of companies would be trapped by the conventions and their legacies of what they've built, doing a privacy change - doing a privacy change for 350 million users is not the kind of thing that a lot of companies would do. But we viewed that as a really important thing, to always keep a beginner's mind and what would we do if we were starting the company now and we decided that these would be the social norms now and we just went for it."

That's Not a Believable Explanation[/size]

This is a radical change from the way that Zuckerberg pounded on the importance of user privacy for years. That your information would only be visible to the people you accept as friends was fundamental to the DNA of the social network that hundreds of millions of people have joined over these past few years. Privacy control, he told me less than 2 years ago, is "the vector around which Facebook operates."

I don't buy Zuckerberg's argument that Facebook is now only reflecting the changes that society is undergoing. I think Facebook itself is a major agent of social change and by acting otherwise Zuckerberg is being arrogant and condescending.

Perhaps the new privacy controls will prove sufficient. Perhaps Facebook's pushing our culture away from privacy will end up being a good thing. The way the company is going about it makes me very uncomfortable, though, and some of the changes are clearly bad. It is clearly bad to no longer allow people to keep the pages they subscribe to private on Facebook.

This major reversal, backed-up by superficial explanations, makes me wonder if Facebook's changing philosophies about privacy are just convenient stories to tell while the company shifts its strategy to exert control over the future of the web.

Facebook's Different Stories

First the company kept user data siloed inside its site alone, saying that a high degree of user privacy would make users comfortable enough to share more information with a smaller number of trusted people.

Now that it has 350 million people signed up and connected to their friends and family in a way they never have been before - now Facebook decides that the initial, privacy-centric, contract with users is out of date. That users actually want to share openly, with the world at large, and incidentally (as Facebook's Director of Public Policy Barry Schnitt told us in December) that it's time for increased pageviews and advertising revenue, too.

The Flimsy Evidence

What makes Facebook think the world is becoming more public and less private? Zuckerberg cites the rise of blogging "and all these different services that have people sharing all this information." That last part must mean Twitter, right? But blogging is tiny compared to Facebook! It's made a big impact on the world, but only because it perhaps doubled or tripled the small percentage of people online who publish long-form text content. Not very many people write blogs, almost everyone is on Facebook.

Facebook's Barry Schnitt told us last month that he too believes the world is becoming more open and his evidence is Twitter, MySpace, comments posted to newspaper websites and the rise of Reality TV.

But Facebook is bigger and is growing much faster than all of those other things. Do they really expect us to believe that the popularity of reality TV is evidence that users want their Facebook friends lists and fan pages made permanently public? Why cite those kinds phenomena as evidence that the red hot social network needs to change its ways?

The company's justifications of the claim that they are reflecting broader social trends just aren't credible. A much more believable explanation is that Facebook wants user information to be made public and so they "just went for it," to use Zuckerberg's words from yesterday.

(Why didn't Arrington press Zuckerberg on stage about this? The rise of blogging is evidence that Facebook needs to change its fundamental stance on privacy?)

This is Very Important

Facebook allows everyday people to share the minutia of their daily lives with trusted friends and family, to easily distribute photos and videos - if you use it regularly you know how it has made a very real impact on families and social groups that used to communicate very infrequently. Accessible social networking technology changes communication between people in a way similar to if not as intensely as the introduction of the telephone and the printing press. It changes the fabric of peoples' lives together. 350 million people signed up for Facebook under the belief their information could be shared just between trusted friends. Now the company says that's old news, that people are changing. I don't believe it.

I think Facebook is just saying that because that's what it wants to be true.

Whether less privacy is good or bad is another matter, the change of the contract with users based on feigned concern for users' desires is offensive and makes any further moves by Facebook suspect.

>>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.

Jetée · 01-10-2010, 06:24 PM

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'.)

SecretMethod70 · 01-10-2010, 11:03 PM

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.

essendoubleop · 01-22-2010, 02:17 PM

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?

lunxpress · 01-23-2010, 08:05 AM

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.

Sion · 01-23-2010, 07:31 PM

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?

12-04-2009, 07:47 AM	#122 (permalink)
SecretMethod70 Human Administrator Location: Chicago	Not to mention, my Facebook contacts include everything from real life friends to professional contacts I have yet to meet. __________________ Le temps détruit tout "Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

12-04-2009, 08:28 PM	#124 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	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. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

12-09-2009, 11:29 AM	#127 (permalink)
ShaniFaye Submit to me, you know you want to Location: Lilburn, Ga	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 __________________ *I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!*

12-09-2009, 11:35 AM	#128 (permalink)
Kaliena Crazy Location: Pennsylvania, USA	Lamebook is awesome. __________________ ~Beware the waffle~

12-12-2009, 08:50 AM	#131 (permalink)
SecretMethod70 Human Administrator Location: Chicago	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. __________________ Le temps détruit tout "Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

12-04-2009, 07:11 PM	#123 (permalink)
essendoubleop Psycho	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?

12-09-2009, 10:20 AM	#125 (permalink)
essendoubleop Psycho	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?

12-09-2009, 10:48 AM	#126 (permalink)
Glory's Sun Registered User	Tell him to take the pics down. If he doesn't oblige then blackmail or a right cross is a good idea.

12-12-2009, 08:44 AM	#130 (permalink)
Shauk Confused Adult Location: Spokane, WA	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

12-12-2009, 08:50 AM	#132 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	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. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

12-12-2009, 09:35 AM	#134 (permalink)
Plan9 I Confess a Shiver	...and they call lawyers assholes. __________________ *Whatever you can carry.* "You should not drink... and bake."

12-12-2009, 09:37 AM	#135 (permalink)
Shauk Confused Adult Location: Spokane, WA	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.

12-16-2009, 11:59 PM	#136 (permalink)
SecretMethod70 Human Administrator Location: Chicago	Facebook privacy guide: 10 New Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know __________________ Le temps détruit tout "Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

12-28-2009, 12:08 PM	#141 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	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. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

01-06-2010, 08:04 PM	#142 (permalink)
Xerxys Junkie Location: My head.	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!

01-10-2010, 06:24 PM	#144 (permalink)
Jetée The Reforms Location: Rarely, if ever, here or there, but always in transition	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'.) __________________ As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world (that is the myth of the Atomic Age) as in being able to remake ourselves. —Mohandas K. Gandhi

01-10-2010, 11:03 PM	#145 (permalink)
SecretMethod70 Human Administrator Location: Chicago	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. __________________ Le temps détruit tout "Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

01-22-2010, 02:17 PM	#146 (permalink)
essendoubleop Psycho	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? Last edited by essendoubleop; 01-22-2010 at 02:19 PM..

01-23-2010, 08:05 AM	#147 (permalink)
lunxpress Tilted Location: Here	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.

01-23-2010, 07:31 PM	#148 (permalink)
Sion Dumb all over...a little ugly on the side Location: In the room where the giant fire puffer works, and the torture never stops.	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? __________________ He's the best, of course, of all the worst. Some wrong been done, he done it first. -fz I jus' want ta thank you...falettinme...be mice elf...agin...