Lighthearted Facebook Friends Could Make You Join NAMBLA Group 178
mykos writes "The Facebook groups feature is causing bit of a stir with its users. TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington was allegedly added to a group about NAMBLA, and in turn, he added Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. It's all in good (albeit tasteless) fun, except when a harmless joke goes awry and you find yourself being detained by customs when a friend decided to drag you into a mock terrorist group. Facebook representatives are aware of the matter, but are dismissive of it. A Facebook spokeswoman said, 'If you have a friend that is adding you to Groups you do not want to belong to, or they are behaving in a way that bothers you, you can tell them to stop doing it, block them or remove them as a friend — and they will no longer EVER have the ability to add you to any Group.' In somewhat related news, guillotines ensure you won't have dandruff on your shoulders anymore."
Re:Wait.. WHAT? (Score:5, Interesting)
Uh oh, not everyone can be your friend (Score:3, Interesting)
While I think facebook has a callous disregard for privacy in general, their suggestion that you simply un-friend someone who plops you into a group is spot-on.
Membership in a group really just means that your name will appear in their roster. No one will have additional access to your personal information. If you find it annoying that you have to remove yourself from a group you don't want to be in, just remove the friend who put you there along with it.
Facebook has long needed better "friend" vs. "acquaintance" handling; i.e. you can share more with your inner circle than with the person you met once and say Hi to about every 6 months. Maybe this ruffle will be the push they need to get cracking on that feature.
Re:Yes, learn to grow up folks (Score:3, Interesting)
A Facebook spokeswoman said, 'If you have a friend that is adding you to Groups you do not want to belong to, or they are behaving in a way that bothers you, you can tell them to stop doing it, block them or remove them as a friend -- and they will no longer EVER have the ability to add you to any Group.' In somewhat related news, guillotines ensure you won't have dandruff on your shoulders anymore.
Yeah, I'm a bit puzzled by the submitter's reaction, too. It may be the norm among high school jocks, college frat boys, and, after graduation, stalkers, to use abusive behavior as a form of affection, but mature, self-respecting people don't put up with it. Blocking someone on Facebook is what, two or three clicks? Anyone who thinks that's like the guillotine really needs to develop some perspective.
Re:yet another reason (Score:4, Interesting)
You know, you're totally correct there.
In one of my group of friends (real world, not just online), all but one had a Facebook account. They told him, "You'd better set one up." There was a legitimate reason for it, he just never got around to it. Since he didn't, they did. It had his name, picture, and they were posting comments for him. It was kind of humorous. And no, they didn't sign him up for anything illicit. :) It was enough encouragement for him to finally set up his own account, so they took the bogus one down.
Now, what's the difference between friends doing it for a friend, and someone doing it for their own nefarious purposes? Well, just about nothing, except the nefarious purposes would likely get that person in trouble.
We've all seen stories where someone got in legal trouble for pictures they posted. Like, a school teacher drinking beer, or a suspect in a case bragging about what they did. I found a profile not long ago of a rather attractive woman local to me. She was (or still is) a teacher at a local high school. By the posted comments, it was pretty apparent that it wasn't really the teacher. But if they were written a little better, some of the comments would have been damning. There were things about her liking sex with young boys, and frequent drug and alcohol abuse.
I'm sure this kind of thing happens all the time. So how do you tell? Well, you don't. If I wanted to put up a profile of a popular figure, and I filled it with things that were really happening to them, and photos gleaned from tabloid news sites and regular media, it would look perfectly legitimate.
Hmmm.
[JWSmythe goes off looking for photos of Bill Gates and the link to the NAMBLA group]
Re:yet another reason (Score:5, Interesting)
Happens a lot, not always with evil intent but ends up that way. Two of my coworkers have set up a sock puppet facebook account for a third coworker who is a relative technophobe but had recently acquired an iPhone. They found immense humor in his having the iPhone and felt that "facebook was the next logical step". They invited a lot of his friends, and made routine posts about his life that were factual although somewhat snarky. Anyone who knows the guy personally knew instantly that he wasn't operating the account. It was all in good fun, until someone posted something that was considered company confidential (by a petty piece of shit manager whose IQ may or may not exceed that of a 2x4). That got reported to the boss of the victimized coworker, said coworker of course has no idea what's going on, it stopped being funny at that point. The perpetrators did come forth and submit to their flogging, fortunately, but I can easily see facebook being damaging even if you avoid it.
Re:Yes, learn to grow up folks (Score:3, Interesting)
Who did that happen to?
Joe Lipari comes to mind (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.techdirt.com/blog.php?tag=joe+lipari&edition=techdirt [techdirt.com]