Slashdot Mirror
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."
Someone pretending to be someone they are not on the interweb????!!!! Say it ain't so!! This can't be true!!
This is slashdot. People here are not interested in dating because they met a beautiful +3 half-elf on everquest. Please move to the next story.
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?
Ceci n'est pas une signature
c'mon! it's the web! pretending to be someone else while flirting with the ladies is half the fun.
no wait, i guess that's all the fun.
The next person that puts a product with a stolen naming gimmik is getting an iBullet in the Headster
It's 2003. Is there really no reliable way to electronically identify oneself, so that you can prove you are a person with the name and age given?
It would make sense for passports (as in the funny booklet thing you have to take with you when travelling, for some obscure reason) to include your PGP public key. Then the passport itself (or at least the machine-readable section at the back) can be PGP signed by the government. That way you are able to prove who you are. Messages sent from Friendster or other sites would be encrypted using your public key.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Who wants to be my friend? I would even accept, if would like to be my foe, but someone, please pay attention to me. Buhuhuhu!
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.
There's a feature on the same topic at salon
generic
I am not really an 18 year old cheerleader desperate for sex, especially with older men and particularly when my girlfriends can join in.
I am in fact a brussel sprout with time traveling capabilities.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
They are planning to do so anyway, the fakesters disruptions just give them a good reason to do so.
Granted, it won't eliminate the fakers, but at least they will be paying for the privilege.
Friendster is a really good idea. When a friend of mine sent me the link I thought it was another one of those dating sites. But it's really cool b/c you get to see who the friends of your friends are :)
Sure not everyone posts their real name etc, but who cares? Since it's amoung friends then we all know who it is. I guess the problem is if someone joins randomly and starts to "make" friends then yeah we have problems there.
But as always, there will be some sick bastards who try to screw up the system.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Most of them are just ways for creeps to harvest your email address for PrOn SPAM emails. I have even been told by a local strip club owner (work with his Mac and sound system) that his girls get on match.com and entice guys to come in all the time; that it's a requirement of the job.
I wish Yahoo and Match would police their ads better - sometime there's such a thorough or a good writer that it's hard to know whether or not they are a real person or not. Usually you can tell by the picture; model poses.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Before that happened, someone tried to post a picture of a Cardassian from Star Trek. Turned out the guy was an extra on Deep Space 9, but they still wouldn't let him post the picture in his profile.
The point being, there always has to be some regulation at a site like Friendster, otherwise it can't be used for its original purpose. I'm not going to waste time trying to track down old friends or expand my circle of friends just to get an email saying "The Brooklyn Bridge wants to meet you".
It might take a bit more time but implementing a the principle of slash dot might do the trick
Dont just mail it - Maileet
Who cares about "fake" members? Friendster, probably. And some journalist who can't find a better story. Yahoo and others don't seem to. This is just what Friendster wants and needs: media coverage to get new members. Hopefully more "real" members and not as many "fakes".
Indeed. Kinda my point exactly: if you don't accomodate people's preferred social models, they will go somewhere else.
I'm not debating the rights and wrongs, only the 'how'. I presume the idea of deleting fake profiles is to keep the system working. I believe it will instead break it. Look at the scene in 3 months' time and you will see that the interesting people have gone elsewhere, and built a better site that does what they want.
The problem is basically that even a good designer cannot predict what such systems will do, or even define what "works" formally. You can only create tools that allow the people who spend most time in the group to promote value and punish fools, and then let things progress as they will.
Personally I would make it possible for high ranking profiles to demote abusers of the system. However, many of the fakesters are very intense users, highly dedicated, and responsible for much of the growth of the network. Why on earth would you want to stop them doing their thing? It's foolish and short-sighted.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
I guess on Friendster, that would give a whole new meaning to the word "karma whoring".
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
Someone should make a peer to peer chat program where you link up in the same manner as on friendster.
what sig?
"Sir, are you classified as human."
"Uh, negative. I am a meat popsicle."
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
But outside of that, I think he is right to setup the rules for his site and operate his site the way that he wants to.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
Geek discussion site seeks similar for karma wh0ring and meaningful flaming. Interests include Linux, not paying for stuff, and sticking one over on The Man. Dislikes include Microsoft, the RIAA and SCO. Please include a recent screenshot in your reply. All respondents must be compatible with Mozilla 1.4.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
So what's the difference between friendster "fakesters" and real life fakesters? Think about it. In a bar there are always a few guys in there who are working it hard to be someone they're not, sometimes not even using their real names, they're often the ones surrounded by the simple-minded blondes who are attracted to their feaux persona. Same goes for friendster. Moving on, imagine if someone walked into a bar wearing a giant Oscar Meyer Weiner costume, immediately he would become the topic of conversation and a good number of people would approach him and become his "friend". This is the same thing that happens on friendster.
So maybe this phenomenon is a little more rampant because the anonymity of the internet allows people to drop a few inhibitions, but the concept is the same. Randomly deleting fakesters is a bad idea. The concept of charging for the service seems to be somewhat of a better idea. I know most of the /.ers will complain "it should be free" yadda yadda yadda, heard it all before. It would be nice if it were free, but I'm sure the folks who work for friendster would like a paycheck. Now, $8 a month seems a little high for friendster, if it were like $2, or even $5 I might consider paying for the service. Regardless, $8 a month is pretty good way to ensure the friendsters and fakesters who really serve some sort of purpose.
And just to piss of the Friendster folks...http://www.friendster.com/user.jsp?id=2339 91 last name, McGuire :).
Let's get one thing perfectly clear, I did not vote for George W Bush, and I do not endorse what he does or says.
"
The likely reason that it was posted is that /. has typically posted stories related to free content vs regulated content. It has come from the likes of public forums and games alike (EverQuest/Sims bannings).
I fail to see why people still have interest in this. Anytime you create some freedom, a few dicks will come along and ruin it for everyone else. Perhaps this dating service could benefit from the ability for users to 'vote' other users into the abusers category. Get enough votes and you get banned. The Sims has something like this, but then the dicks just team up and pummel the good users.
There are dicks in the world who like to ruin things. There are people who think they can create enough rules to get rid of the dicks. That leads to the ruin of a great many things. That's just the way these things go.
As a result, the online dating revenue model will shift from subscriptions to advertising.
So you are right to be pessimistic about subscription-based Friendster...
Of course, Friendster could always embrace Go_Ogle, via 'Powered by Go_Ogle' search, in which case Friendster would keep 80% of the ad revenue, and likely eliminate the need to charge a subscription fee...
More here
it could even be taken farther: have the software keep track of how many people have rejected your link. if it's more than 10, that's a pretty good bet that you're a fakester that can be modded down. or maybe you're just an asshole that no one likes, which is still a good reason to be modded to oblivion.
"You want a toe? I can get you a toe by three o'clock... with nail polish."
The 14th Amendment, and its jurisprudence, requires the States to abide by the First Amendment as well. This is good. You live in a republic, not a collection of co-equal states.
Q:How many libertarians does it take to stop a Panzer division? A:None. Obviously market forces will take care of it.
...i would hate to see it turn into a worthless connection of inside jokes and half-baked platitudes and simple-minded social consciences.
Yeah, we've got Slashdot for that.
evil math within Nature's Cubic Creation!
Just like the Internet, the Free & Open Source Software community, Slashdot, Sharereactor or your average MMOG.
And like in any social network, you have the "mainstream" and the "fringe" folks.
Call them "Fakesters", "Trolls", "Leeches", "Role Players" or "PKers", the "fringe" always has a different set of values and beliefs (v&bs). Which in itself is not necessarily a bad thing as they can often be very entertaining/interesting/though provoking.
However problems may arise when the v&bs of the fringe come in direct conflict with the v&bs of the community at large while, at the same time, the "mainstream" doesn't have the means to isolate itself from the behavior of the "fringe".
Friendster-the-company should have designed a way for the "Friendsters" to isolate the behavior of "Fakesters" without having to delete them. Something like the moderation system on slashdot. Maybe it's still possible to modify the social rules of this particular network and maybe it's too late and any deep change would kill it.
In any case, what this story illustrates once again is that designing software for social networks is hard.
As hard as dealing with humans can be...
There's no reason this isn't equivalent to spamming Friendster. What's going to stop "Viagra" or "UltraMegaPenis supplements" from joining up and making 'friends'?
When you create an infrastructure for people to communicate with, you must make a basic choice: are you the publisher, or only the provider?
Scenario:
I decide to start my own club, and I decide it will be a, say, fantasy football club, and that the only people allowed in will be those with an interest in fantasy football, and that most discussion *during the club meetings* will be about fantasy football.
Given the above scenario, I've created a private infrastrucure for communication, dedicated to one thing: fantasy football. Now, someone says they want to join, and says that they like fantasy football and wish to discuss it, but then come meeting time they show up dressed in a multi-colored jumpsuit with one of those stupid jester hats on, and only want to sing '60s folk tunes. If I kick this person out of my club, am I censoring them? Hell no. They can go somewhere else and sing whatever they want. I'm not denying them the *right* to say whatever they want, I'm just protecting my club member's right to do what they signed up for in the first place. That's not censorship. Now, if the government created a webforum for all US citizens to use however they wanted (ostensibly) and then they started deleting profiles they didn't like, *that* would be censorship. However, if the government started a web forum for discussion of tax policies, and they deleted all profiles that did not discuss tax policies, that would NOT be censorship. If a system is designed for a certain use, and people are not using it for that, the creator of the system can remove them. That isn't censorship. It says before you join up what the site is for. If you don't want to use it for that, go somewhere else. There is no 'well-defined constitution' on friendster.com that says you can be anyone other than yourself, or that you can post fake pictures/profiles. Your example and reasoning are both flawed.
http://xkcd.com/386/
One of the biggest problems with this arbitrary deleting of accounts is that they are also deleting the accounts which represent groups/institutions people may belong to. For example, I added a "friend" which represented the college I attend, and it had been deleted recently due to this cleanup. I have met several people from my own school whom I would otherwise not have known existed due to this connection, and that account was deleted because it did not represent a real-live human being. My friend was also pissed off because by "friending" an account named after a celebrity, she was able to connect with many other fans of that celebrity, yet now that account may soon be deleted as well because it is "fake". Since friendster advertises itself as a system to connect to people of similar interests (as opposed to a dating service), it should continue to allow such accounts
meanwhile, since it will soon charge, my friends and I are switching over to Ringo, another similar free service which seems to be the most popular alternative.
h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash-slash-dot-dot-org
About time. Fauxsters, and the people who link with them, have seriously diluted the usefulness of Frienster as a social device.
If I see an interesting profile of someone who knows a friend of mine, that's a legitimate social connection. But if the chain of relationships goes through "Mr. T", "New York City", and "Sex", it means nothing.
I do worry that actual celebrities might get incorrectly labeled as fake and have their accounts deleted. I've come across a few minor celebrities in my network (the Snickers voiceover guy, the Pets.com sockpuppet) and although mutual acquaintances have confirmed to me that they are who they are, it would be easy for a Friendster Cleanup Agent to assume it was fraudulent.
One of the funny things about Friendsters trying to recreate a natural society... society is almost driven by the arms race between the fakers and the cheat-detectors. We are constantly trying to fake each other, and constantly spotting and defeating these fakes.
At least, this is the theory used by social scientists to explain emotions, and I tend to agree. Emotions evolved to be unfakable demonstrations of sincerity, which is why we're so impressed by good actors.
So the problems that Friendster is having with fakesters is actually a very good mirror of real society, except that Friendster lacks the tools for detecting and punishing cheats!
Ceci n'est pas une signature
The guy who runs it seems to be one of those totally joyless bean-counter types the other programmers all make fun of. He checked out the journalist's friends list, didn't approve of their whimsical photos, got snotty about it, and *while hitting on* one of the journalist's friends, got snotty with her, chiding her for using a "silly" picture!!! What kind of creep insults a chick he's trying to pick up, I mean really! No WONDER he can't get laid.
I suspect this guy is some kind of AV geek with zero social skills and a serious superiority complex, who can't understand why women (and others) don't like him, and who built a website to help him get laid -- then couldn't get laid and got pissed because everyone was having fun but him, so he retaliated by kicking out all the fun people.
Yeeaaah. Riiiight.
Hang out with us... Unlike the crowd at Friendster, we don't care if you post potato chip bags (maybe they're good chips! You'd probably get +1 informative...).
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
Please look up the George W. Bush entry.
Fave Book: "The only book ive ever had read to me was the bible."
Fave Music: "Anything by Francis Scott Key."
Couple this with entries for "The Dude" from big lebowski, the aforementioned "War" and you have further insight into what these peoples interests are like. I know my sister made George W. her friend after reading the disparaging profile. I think the creator should limit deleting accounts to profane ("A Big Penis") accounts and is really selling himself short. The entropy of interacting people is bound to create unexpected results, however they are not always "bad."
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
I think you used the word entropy way wrong. How does 'people interacting' create more microstates that have the same microstate?
I think the word you are looking for is chaos, or maybe you should have just said "large numbers of people interacting will cause unexpected results"
Entropy is the number if microstates, the individual kinetic energy of each particle) that have the same 'macrostate', like the heat.
For example a block of ice has lower entropy then a glass of water because in the ice the water molecules can only move around a little bit, while in the water they can move all over the place, and have many more possible amounts of kinetic energy.
The 'entropy' in Friendster would be the connections that could be severed without changing the over-all macrostate of the site. So if bob is connected to everyone that Jane is connected to, and he deletes Jane, it doesn't affect anyone else on the site. These fakesters actually do add entropy because lots of people connect to them. In some cases you could drop a whole group of them without changing the over all state for anyone else.
(anyway, please let me know if I made any mistakes in my explanation of entropy)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I will say that I've seen very funny, very entertaining fake profiles. Like Christopher Walken. And he's got like 400 friends. That profile probably serves to connect people who otherwise never would be ...
and that's good AND bad. For the purposes of Friendster, for it to be what its creators and a lot of its users WANT it to be, these fakesters really do fsck up the system. There's no real chain of communication. You can't go to your friend's friend and say "What an ass!" or "Damn s/he is awesome!" cuz there's no real logical connection if it is thru one of these fake profiles.
I think the fakesters are abusing the system and watering down the experience and intent. I also think that they are obfuscating a very neat idea of building a semi-accountable community of people that can really trace thru who they know all these myriad individuals around the world.
The Fakesters may add flair, but ultimately they dilute any value it has.
Now, do I support deleting these Fakesters? No - but there must be a way to cap the account in some way, i.e. make it impossible for someone to add friends with or to these fake accounts. This would solve the problem of bad relationship data while at the same time not putting valid profiles at risk.
But y'know, in the long run, its their site, their bandwidth, their service - they can delete who they want, and if your actual profile gets deleted by accident, then be pissed at the fakesters who created the situation in the first place.
Just my 2
Ya know, what if Jesus is back and they delete the real Jesus's account... that wouldn't be very nice. Although I don't think it's a sin.... hmmm...
I wonder how big his personal network is...
- Danny
Right, so we've got a community site, and some people start using it in a way the owner didn't anticipate, and the owner decides the new use is contrary to the "purpose" of the site, and decides to engage in an increasingly draconian crackdown on the "disruptive" users, yeah?
Hmm.
I'll betting it's only a matter of time before we find Jon Abrams blaming Friendster's every shortcoming, and its overall failure to quite live up to his "vision," on the tro^H^H^H fakesters.