Friendster Fights Fakesters

jerkface writes "Matchmaking/personal networking site Friendster is experiencing a 'problem'. Unruly individuals like John Locke, Socrates, Alf, and many incarnations of Jesus Christ are trying to take over the site, according to SFWeekly.com. For a few months, the 'fakesters' were mostly tolerated, so long as they didn't offend anyone with the images they posted. Fakester profiles exist claiming to be famous people (alive and dead), cities, buildings, abstract concepts, and - increasingly - Friendster CEO Jon Abrams. Abrams is now saying they're all going to be deleted because they ruin the site. Fakesters argue he's stifling the full potential of the site, and many people report that 100% genuine profiles have been deleted in the recent campaigns against fakesters."

Comments

Censorship always turns sour

[heironymouscoward]

Surely Slashdot (karma whoring, karma whoring) has shown that a self-moderating system can tolerate huge amounts of noise and still turn up valuable content.
There are several rules that a site like Friendsters has to follow to allow value to emerge and be protected:
1. No democracy: status depends on time spent in the system and behaviour, and high status gives more power. (Basically like Karma).
2. Reputation: aliases, so if you troll, people know who you are.
3. Tools for promoting good and punishing bad behaviour (like moderation).
4. Design around the social aspects of the groups, i.e. if people want to use the system a certain way, let them.
The last is a bummer when people don't do what you expect them to. But if ten million fakesters create a happy community, why not?

Re:Censorship always turns sour

[gowen]

Censorship always turns sour

If you call that censorship, you have no idea what censorship is... If I graffiti your house, and you clean it off, would you call that censorship too?

Freedom of speech is protected, but only from Governmental interference. Thats what the "Congress shall make no law..." bit mean in the First Amendment. (This principle also holds everywhere else, so don't bring the "I'm not American" stich. Me neither.

If you use use my private resources for your speech, I absolutely have the right to withdraw my resources if I don't like what you're saying.

Re:Censorship always turns sour

[gowen]

I don't think creating a fake profile is like spraying grafitti on someone's house.

No, you don't. But the friendster people do, and it's their house.

But deciding to kill profiles because they don't fit _your_ design for what people can and cannot do is most definitely censorship.

No, its not. Its their web site. Until you sign a contract with them saying otherwise, they get to set the rules, and they get to decide who plays. Don't like their rules, get your own website. Its not hard.

Re:Censorship always turns sour

[Anonymous Coward]

Censorship is when someone with power decides what other people can or cannot say.

That's right.

But deciding to kill profiles because they don't fit _your_ design for what people can and cannot do is most definitely censorship.

Hold it right there, Francine. What does "killing profiles" have to do with "deciding what other people can or cannot say?" Friendster has rules. Those rules say, in paraphrase and among other things, "Don't be a dork." Signing up for Friendster under the name Otis B. Driftwood qualifies you as a dork. So your account goes bye-bye.

Follow your own definition, okay? This ain't censorship. Ain't even close.

There are so many legitimate things to get frizzy about. Go find one of them. Don't get haughty about a trendy site for urban hipsters enforcing its own policies.

It will create bad feeling and backfire terribly: friendsters will not survive more than a few months if people don't feel free to express themselves any way they like.

People AREN'T "free to express themselves any way they like." We have free speech; we also have rules governing group behavior. Freedom != anarchy, you dweeb.

Besides, the only people who will have "bad feeling" are those who don't belong on Friendster in the first place: prankers and children. And if they stay away in droves, all the better for Friendster.

You're a whatchamacallit. Idiot.

in several months friendster will charge $s

[NeMon'ess]

Friendster is in beta right now, and in several months anyone wishing to browse profiles or send messages will have to pay $8 a month. It will still be free to make a profile for others to browse. The fee is why I'm not taking the site seriously. Friendster will end up just another dating site. I expect free open source versions to appear in its place though that could be worthwhile if they reach a level of popularity similar to Kazaa.

Re:Good Idea...

[White Shade]

You have a point, but you're also missing the point just a little bit..

It's more than just people not posting their real name, it's people who aren't even TRYING to be "people"... Instead it's people who (literally) use an abstract idea and then add lists of thousands of people to their friend lists.

The problem is that this completley opposes the entire purpose of the website. The point of friendster is that if you find someone who is linked to one of your friends, and you think that you might want to meet them, you can be sure that they're a real person.. But, now, all these Fakesters come along and suddenly you have no idea who is a real person or not; all these 'people' that you're connected are in fact just random people who probably have no idea who they are anymore. Now all of a sudden the promise of knowing that you might be able to meet these real people is gone, and at that point why would you even bother going to the site, much less pay money for it?

If these fakesters are allowed to spread, friendster will end up being full of 'networks' of completely artificial individuals, and all the real people will leave because they can't FIND any real people. Eventually these fakesters will get bored; there's only so long that you can be "Pure Evil", and everyone disappears, and the site collapses.

Reading through the article I realize that these fakesters are making a huge fuss bout 'free speech' and 'censorship', using all the latest buzzwords and ideas, when in fact they are BREAKING THE RULES of the website. Friendster and it's ceo are COMPLETLEY justfied in what they are doing; they are trying to protect Friendster for the "real" people, and they are simply enforcing the rules which these fakesters are not exempt from. While I admit that they're being a bit heavy-handed about it, I see NO legitimate reason AT ALL for these fakesters to be pissed off because someone called them on the fact that they are *breaking the rules* and completely destroying the purpose of the website, which WILL eventually bring about it's destruction (who's gonna pay to add a bunch of 'jesus' and 'evil' and 'death' figured to their list?!). It's NOT a free speech issue; it's an issue of people breaking the rules in a way which they find amusing but will eventually destroy the entire system.

The fakester interviewed in the article also mentions how they're "honest about being fake", as compared to these "really fake" people who like Adam Sandler. This argument is also complete bullshit; Plenty of people in real life are 'fake' and try to be something they're not; their lifestyle is to conform, and they end up dating and finding other people who follow the same conformity lifestyle... These are *REAL* people, following a specific lifestyle. These fakesters who are admitting flouting the rules have no right at all to make judgements about people whom they consider "fake"; they are the ones who are being honest, not the fakesters.

So, to summarize; these fakesters are breaking the rules of the WEB SITE (not newspaper, not media outlet, not government agency, merely a dating website), and are using all the latest loaded terms to try and get people outraged about the fact that the website is merely enforcing it's rules. Friendster is there so you can meet people, not find nouns linked to thousands of other nouns. No one's gonna pay to link to nouns. Frienster is merely protecting itself, and looking out for the interests of it's target REAL audience, albiet in a fairly heavy handed way.

I guess it just goes to show you how screaming 'free speech' is all that it takes to get a crowd of people to ignore blatant violations of policy and actions which will result in the destruction of the entire medium anyway.