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Facebook Blocks Users From Mentioning BugMeNot.com
ThinkingInBinary writes "The other day, I was trying to mention bugmenot.com in my Facebook status, and I discovered to my horror that Facebook blocks the phrase 'bugmenot.com' as "abusive" in status updates, messages, and presumably any other communications on the site. Facebook isn't even listed on BugMeNot, as they requested that logins for Facebook be blocked. This is pretty ridiculous, as I can't even send my friends a message mentioning bugmenot.com!"
It's quite simple actually. Go to wikipedia's article on spaces and copypaste U+2060 ('word joiner') into the middle of the domain. Then carefully remove the brackets around it (you will be able to tell it's there because you will have to use left/right arrow keys twice to get past it). Now the resulting text won't trip facebook's filter.
At the risk of getting the hook set in my mouth, I am going to dive in and take the big risk that you know that "Freedom of Speech" only refers to the law that Congress can't abridge it.
I'm sure you realize that it doesn't at all stop private people or entities from abridging "freedom of speech" (sometimes called 'freedom of speach') all they want?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
Exactly. If you don't have a person's email address, then they're not exactly your 'friend', are they? Yeah, everyone has 500 friends these, they're just that popular! Yet how many of these friends would they trust their housekeys to?
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
I just tried throwing "bugmenot.com" into my status update and it showed up on my wife's account.
perhaps the best way to unblock things is to submit them to /.
-1: flamebait should really be -1: inciteful
Just for reference for those who may also be blocked or otherwise can't get to it...
You know all those sites where you have to register for a free account in order to access the content, sites where there's no real logical reason why you should have to register for an account except for the purpose of them harvesting your e-mail and personal information?
What Bug Me Not does is provide usernames and passwords for registrations that people have created and uploaded to their site that you can use to access content without giving up your personal information.
Perhaps a simple example would make it more clear. Let's say you go to some news site, and they insist that in order to access the site, you register for a free account. Of course, they want your name, address, and e-mail address. Even after you fill out your information, they drop you a registration e-mail that you have to validate. Then, and only then, you can access the site.
If you don't want to go through these hoops or give up your information to them, what you can do instead is go to Bug Me Not. Punch in the site name, and voila, you get a username and password you can use to access the site that someone else has already registered. If one doesn't exist and you're motivated enough, you can register one (probably using a service like Mailinator) and provide the username and password so that the next schmoe that comes along that needs one will have it.
There's also a nice Bug Me Not Firefox extension that will automagically fill in the information for you so that you don't even have to bother going to the web site.
The only problem, as someone else mentioned, is that if you're behind a content filter, some companies tag Bug Me Not as a "hacking" site. (As is Mailinator, usually.) Obviously, some people have trouble with the concept of people who don't like giving out their personal e-mail addresses or other personal information just to read a frickin' article.
Anyone remember [expletive deleted], circa Watergate?
"No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up." -- Lily Tomlin
As of now, Facebook offers users the ability to switch between the new layout (new.facebook.com) and the previous layout. I can switch my status to "Matt likes bugmenot.com" on the old layout but trying to do so on the new layout pops up a box stating "Warning: This Message Contains Blocked Content".
Uhhhh, the 1st only applies to what the US Government can't do, not to what a private company can do with it's free service.
With that, I hope you were being sarcastic.
There were some significant expenses involved in supplying the service. An incoming phone line and high speed modem for each "node", rows of computers, file servers, networking - and all of this could only support a limited number of simultaneous users.
What we were trying to stop were the people who would register several accounts in order to use more online time - preventing others from being able to log in. The whole point of verified user accounts was just that - to insure that the resources of the BBS were shared fairly.
Things are different now; not many of us here remember when a good 9600 baud modem cost $1000. Multiply that by 25, then add the monthly charges for 25 phone lines, etc.
We couldn't just "add more lines" to support every person who wanted to use the system for as long as they wanted, so limiting the amount of online time was necessary. Verified user accounts were there to insure that everyone got their share because some felt it was their right to take more for themselves.
These days you can put up a website that does most of what a BBS did, support thousands of simultaneous users - and do it for far less than the cost of one of those modems. The sites that require registration (and don't verify that the registration is legitimate)- their motives are questionable at best. The information they're collecting has a very low signal to noise ratio due to services like Bug Me Not and the basic truth that most people fill those registration forms out with false information. Sometimes I suspect that those news sites require registration "because all the other news sites do it"...
...but it's not. I just entered "bugmenot.com" in my FB status line and it worked just fine.
in order to break goodwins law you would have to never mention Nazis... ever.
"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."
Whether or not the mention pertains to the discussion is irrelevant. Also, there is not a negative connotation about Godwin's Law, as many people believe. So many people misinterpret Godwin's by thinking if what they say is true or fits the situation somehow, it isn't Godwin's. It still is, you just don't know the actual law. So here it is:
Godwins Law
"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."
That is the entirety of it.
"But this one goes to 11!"
tm
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The problem is that a lot of sites require you to actually verify the e-mail address. When you sign up, it sends you an e-mail with a link you must click before your account is valid. Until you click on it, you can't log in.
If you put a fake e-mail address in, you don't get access. Thus, the needs for services like Mailinator. But Me Not is an end-run around this entire process. You don't have to register anything; valid account information is already provided for you.