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Facebook ID Probe Shows Things Getting Worse
An anonymous reader writes "According to Sophos, Facebook users are getting sloppier with their personal info, not better. Revisiting a 2007 survey in which a plastic frog got 87 hits out of 200 friend requests, this time a rubber duck and a cat got 87 out of 200 friend requests, plus a bonus 8 friends who decided to trust them anyway. The research also suggests that older Facebook users are sloppier than the young, being keener to build their list of friends. (The older users had more than 4x the friends each, on average, than the young.)"
...the younger members just need more time to make friends!
The older users had more than 4x the friends each, on average, than the young.
It's like older users know more people than younger users, and that's just not possible. Kids know everything, just ask them.
Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean that they're not out to get you.
I use Facebook to let members of the forum know if there's a server problem. Most of my 50 or so friends are from the forum with my Facebook Forum page at something over 100 fans. I set up a filter so I can filter out the forum members and get updates from friends and the sites I'm a fan of.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
From TFS: "The older users had more than 4x the friends each, on average, than the young."
They've also had a lifetime of real life social networking (not the online kind) to boost the level of friends and acquaintances they would like to keep in contact with.
Young people are very cliquey with their behaviour in regards to friends. When I was in school, I could've counted my true friends on my fingers. When I went out into the world and bounced jobs for a couple years, I met many more interesting people that I remained friends with after the jobs had come and gone.
Also, do we really need another article to tell us that the older people in society are less hip to the social network scams?
I'm thinking that a lot of people add folks they don't know into their friends' pile for the applications, esp. games. After all, Mafia Wars and the like are rigged to get you more in-game "power" (more defense, offense, etc) with the larger number of friends you add (and then subsequently add into your "Mafia", or "Neighbors", or "Crew").
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Who doesn't want to be friends with a rubber ducky. Anyone raised on that nefarious propaganda brain-washing show, 'Sesame Street' knows to sing "Rubber ducky! You're the one! You make bathtime so much fun! Rubber ducky, you're the only one for me!" I mean who wouldn't want to be friends with a rubber ducky? It's much more meaningful a relationship than anyone you knew from High School.
http://www.beanleafpress.com
This proves nothing of any use, since the first probe was done in the UK, and the more recent one in Australia.
Sure it does. It shows a disturbing trend among the people of the Commonwealth.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
I personally have 2 accounts. I use one strictly for games where I will accept any and all takers. I post to lists to increase my numbers and can see from 20 to hundreds of requests per day. That account has no real data.
My other REAL account only has REAL friends and Family. I scrutinize every request and all personal settings are very tight as to only allow friends to see the data. I'd consider myself an 'older' user @ +40. From what I have seen, this is not uncommon.
How about not putting stuff up on social media sites that you wouldn't want posted on a bulletin board at the local laundromat? Why on earth would I post my DOB, address, phone number there for example??
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
That's why I don't use my real contact info for my Mafia Wars account . . . I'm not sure why anyone would.
I was sure I knew that duck! Now that little bastard know all about me...
I'd probably accept anyone who cares enough to "friend" me, whether I know them or not. Mark me in the 43.5%, a guy who once accepted a friend request from "Some Pencils" and a random girl in Arizona (thousands of miles from me) just because she was a girl. What are these people going to find out... my hometown? My college? My favorite tv shows? Who cares? I don't think I'm really stalker material, and iIf my favorite movies are that important to some guy writing a corporate spambot, whatever, he can have it. He can't even find my address or my phone number on facebook, two things I consider more personal, and _those_ you can already find in any phonebook site.
Hell, maybe we're _more_ careful about our personal info since facebook doesn't really have anything on it that we value.
I am also seeing that more and more people are calling them promoters and advertisers by adding 1,000 friends on there and don't realize the information they are disclosing. The biggest example is the Palin email account hacking that most of the answers to security questions was found in her Facebook.
Bryan
If this trend is true, it points towards our "habituation" with the notion of the lack of privacy in our society. I think that along with the flood of information in our society comes the feeling that "all information should be freely available". People in general are becoming de-sensitized to this trend more and more, and expect more information about themselves to be available publicly. Not even just online - take a popular show like CSI. I think it's just sort of assumed that everyone is leaving this massive digital fingerprint behind them.
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
Could it be that these befriendings are from people who don't care about privacy, or, put a better way, want to use Facebook to send spam messages, and so will befriend EVERYONE?
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
FWIW.
Most of the "young" that I see on FB, e.g. my children, their friends, etc., have 200+ "friends."
Some of the !young that I see have 100+. I call them "friend collectors."
I personally only have about 50 (sucks to be me I guess). I don't send friend requests. I only accept friend requests from people I actually know.
I assigned all of my "game friends" into their own group and then used Facebooks group security to limit the personal information that they can see. It took all of five minutes to setup. Someone in that group can see as much information about me as someone who isn't my friend at all, which is to say not much.
Now I'll accept every friend request that comes my way. If I don't recognize the name and the friend doesn't leave a note saying how they know me then I push them into the game friend group. Problem solved.
I was running a similar experiment. And my pet cat Heisenberg befriended the Rubber Duck, a Nigerian prince, a Ukrainian boyband, and various sundry inanimate objects from other similar experiments.
TFA is full of shit- their rubber ducky was probably friended, but put on a restrictive friend list.
I'm friends with a famous turkey (long story), but said turkey is on a restricted friend list that can see barely more than my public info. I guarantee you every kid has a restricted list of one sort or another.
Also, did they bother to track how many people friended it just enough to check it out, and then unfriended it?
Please help metamoderate.
not for nothing...but you're doing a study of 200 people on a network of 350 million...kind of small study...
I assigned all of my "game friends" into their own group and then used Facebooks group security to limit the personal information that they can see.
Does that actually work at the moment? A few months ago myself and a friend had a play with those features and no matter what settings he used I kept being able to see everything I could before we started. Admittedly we didn't report the issues nor have we bothered re-testing (so maybe our experience is just a fluke or a temporary issue at the time).
I must be in the minority. If I don't know a person I won't add them as a friend. Heck I've gone through my friend's list and purged out people I don't talk to or in other instances strongly dislike from way back in high school. I also don't play Mobwars or Farmville which is just a needless waste of time. I avoid them because I would become engrossed in it.
Keep in mind that the game itself still has access to all of your information. The Facebook terms of service prohibits the game from using or storing that information for anything not game-related, but there's nothing other than the honor system and Facebook's vague threats to occasionally enforce the rules that prevents it from doing so. The API itself will happily grant access to everything, whether the game needs it or not.
Your best bet, if you must play FB games, is to maintain an entirely separate profile just for that purpose, and put nothing personally identifiable on it.
I think you can blame Mafia Wars, Farmville
Thanks for reminding me. I need to harvest my crops!
I fear the Y2038 bug
You're being ridiculous. In no way does Google provide the same ability to reconnect to old friends. Before social networking, most people did not have an internet presence. The vast majority of my friends who are on facebook have no other internet presence, and a google search would reveal only their facebook profile.
And if you're hosting an event, you don't want to have to enter 50 numbers in a text message in order to invite people whose participation is only marginally necessary. It's also nice being able to keep track of people with whom you've been acquainted in the past, but aren't close enough to for a phone call to be warranted.
For example, you may not be close enough to Mike to call or text, but with Facebook might cause you to say, "Oh, Mike is getting married. Maybe I should shoot him a note." Or, "Jim is moving. Maybe I'll drop by that going away party our common friend posted." It may not be the ideal tool for communicating with your closest friends and family, but it's great for keeping in touch with your fringe friends and acquaintances.
I will say, though, that if you don't have any real friends, and all of your are internet friends, facebook may not be as useful.
The article seems lost entirely in its own little world and clueless whats going on. Facebook IS farmville, vampire wars, pet society, arena, etc. People join those groups, spam them for invites, and get invites in return to build up their game networks. I know one actual person in my list that doesnt do this, shes in high school and actually uses facebook to talk to her friends and complain about homework. Weirdo.
Now to discuss that people who play facebook shouldn't put too much personal information on their profile is a decent topic. But dont come at it so naive.
Heck I've gone through my friend's list and purged out people I don't talk to or in other instances strongly dislike from way back in high school.
Personally, I think its irresponsible of your friend to have given you the kind of access necessary to remove people from his or her list.
None of the photos we tag of him reveal his face - we find pictures of normal college activities (parties, football games, etc.) and tag a guy who's turned the wrong way, standing in the distance, or whatever. There are about 100 of these photos and none of them are of the same person.
I think he currently has more Facebook friends than I do. Girls will constantly accept his friend requests, especially if they have at least one friend in common. Each time we chat with someone we use his created persona and 99% of the people never call us out on not being a real person. I can't count the number of times a girl has accepted an invitation such as the following:
"heeay gurl u comin 2 ma paaartay?"
We've acquired dozens of numbers (never used, obviously) and made vague promises to meet up with these girls.
It's scary, really. Imagine how easy it would be for a predator to create an online persona that is NORMAL? When this guy, who's status is regularly updated with lines such as "ayyy yo cause when i git crunk i like to toke...yaa digg??/? ahhaahaahh", is able to have even one successful conversation.