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Lighthearted Facebook Friends Could Make You Join NAMBLA Group
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."
not to use facebook. This can have some SERIOUS consequences for people working in the defence industry where security is well known to have a humor level of 0.
Why bother with that pile of snakes?
If your "friends" refuse to respect your request, then they're not really your friends. If they're not really a friend, why are they a "friend"?
Facebook to users: We give you tools with which to communicate with people you trust. If you don't trust them, don't allow them to use those tools with you.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
If you have a friend that is adding you to Groups you do not want to belong to
That's how it works?
So, instead of inviting someone to join the group, you can just add them?
Dumb fucks.
I swear this is the standard response of any designer confronted, suddenly, with gaps in their thinking. "It can't be a serious problem, there is a workaround!"
What's wrong with the National Association of Marlon Brando Look-Alikes?
ROMANES EUNT DOMUS
Nothing wrong with looking like Marlon Brando, maybe it's the north American part that upset him?
Why is this an issue? Non-friends can't add you to groups at all, you can withdraw from any group ad libitum, and you can block obnoxious misbehaving friends who don't stop doing dumb shit to you.
I used to only have one friend, my mother. To prevent being added to a bad group I had to unfriend her. Now she's yelling at me to come up out of the basement and explain myself...
What if your friend puts you in a group that says that the Jews control the media and the Jewish Media destroys your life, like Israel destroys the lives of Palestinians?
Facebook Groups subscribe you!
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
but what if you were already in NAMBLA? you would be immune to this attack.
Why the hell would an option to do something like this even be added. I can see an invite system offering the ability to accept or deny an invite but being able to add someone automatically? Damn it was bad enough when my friends and I used to have junk mail wars and see who could get who on the worst mailing lists. This only ended when someone sent baby product catalogs to the wife of friend who was having trouble getting pregnant. I'm kind of surprised that guy survived. Perfect example of why this is a bad idea....someone always goes too far. Let's face it NAMBLA is pretty damn offensive.
TSA: "I see you were once a member of KillAmericaNow on MyFacePlace"
You: Yeah, my kid brother added me to that on April Fools last year. I got him good though, I added him to "IHateWestPoint" the day before he wrote his Congressman asking for a nomination. He's now a freshman at State.
Border guard: Well, we can't have people from families like yours flying on airplanes, after all, the risk of you planting a bowling ball with the word "bomb" on it your neighbor's luggage is just too great. NO FLIGHT FOR YOU!
So "friends" can automatically add you to a group? That sounds like a HUGE security and privacy hole. I could certainly see friends "suggesting" groups to you to join, but to give them default ability to add you to a group is just WAY beyond belief.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Wow. A story about how joining a social networking site actually turns you into a Pedophile. That sure is a new twist over the standard "Facebook is swarming with Pedos" line. I'm sure that Facebook will be promoting prostitution and terrorism by the end of the year as well, with at least one young life tragically ruined in an accident brought on by Facebook induced stupidity.... . Oh wait...
May the Maths Be with you!
until a 6'7" 300 pound man named Tiny is searching every crevice on your body looking for dope..
I think a better analogy is snipping an unsightly hair out of your nose.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Even if you don't share Your personal details, your friends Will do it for you.
Every time your friend installs an application, he/she/it shares your personal data that is visible to your friend to the Application Overlords.
You can't even stop yourself from being tagged in photos. And good luck keeping your phone number safe, it's most likely out there already, tied to your profile and visible to all your friends. For shits and giggles, if you've got a fb-account, check: http://www.facebook.com/friends/edit/?sk=phonebook and see how many of those numbers you've added yourself.
Allowing people to add more metadata to your profile without your direct consent goes along the same line, to gather as much information as possible from everybody.
The oddity to this is that they already have an approval mechanism -- it's evident when they say that if you leave a group that someone has added you to, you cannot be re-added without authorization. That makes it pretty clear to me that it would be trivial to make that setting a default, but they don't want to.
Anyone care to start making a bot that automatically joins and then leaves groups as they are detected?
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.
with ip tracking or have a new admin with ip log powers ie the feds.
If noted, you could face phone taps, sneak and peek searches, strange double bookings of a very on time tradesperson ect.
"Random" laptop cloning, extra searches and job applications just not getting to any of the stages they used to.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Facebook already had group pages. What’s this new groups thing?
And what the hell is with the bizarre claim that you can be added to a group without your consent? Stupidest idea ever!
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
you are offering the absurd choice: trust your friends with everything or have no friends
no, i want friends, and i want to decide how much i trust each one. am i asking too much?
your understanding of what friendship means is crude and useless
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Hopefully CIA is intelligent enough to know the difference. Intelligence is their middle name right?
I decided to be uncool and stay out of Facebook. I feel better and better about that decision every week from the articles I see. Now, why on earth would Facebook allow other people to subscribe YOU to a group?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
. . . I knew not having any friends would pay off in the long run! Suckers!
Facebook can't be this stupid.
A friend should be able to SUGGEST that you join a group-- TO YOU so you make the decision.
I wasn't aware this was even a feature of facebook. So there is no way to disable this short of unfriending the person? (and then it's still on my record as being part of that group anyway!)
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
who enjoyed reading that Mark Zuckerberg got caught up in one of his own snares.
He and his people just don't want to accept the need to inform people before making decisions with their information.
The nearly obsolete google usenet reader has the same flaw: any group can sign you up for it. Spammers and religious fanatics are abusing this feature.
I think the problem is FAR less Facebooks and FAR MORE the governments (NTSB, FBI, TSA, HS). What are they thinking using Facebook groups as "Reliable Intel" on terrorist organization membership. It makes about as much sense as arresting and charging everyone within a 20 mile radius of a crime who is wearing a white shirt because the person committing the crime was wearing a white shirt. You have no idea if the individual on facebook is the same one you are questioning/detaining!?
In what insane world is it acceptable design to let _someone else_ add you to groups without your consent?
it's all fun and games until someone gets sent to Guantanamo Bay.
Palestine is the name of the country where Jews murder, imprison and steal land from it's rightful owners. It's the name of the country where Jew rats forbid drilling for water while they (in typical Jewish style) steal the water from it's rightful owners.
Palestine is the name of the country where the scheming Jew demonstrates his true nature.
hey, we should, like, totally form a social group for people who aren't on facebook. Here, I'll pencil you in...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
"The people you add to the Group are automatically members--they don't have to accept."
Given some of the bad apps that are on Facebook, this capability is rife for abuse. A shady application could presumably add all of your friends to some scammy group--and then all of your friends would have to remove themselves. What was so wrong with the old system where the invitee had to approve group invites?
Sent from my iPhone
I admit that wanting to molest pre-pubescent boys is reprehensible, but how is it terrorism? The summary is misleading. That being said, even if they fix this problem, another will come up. Every time you think you have idiot-proofed a system, someone builds a better idiot.
Bingo! Give that man a ceegar! Only YOU should have the power to join a group PERIOD. This sounds like the guys at FB simply refusing to admit a feature is a "Bad Idea" and ignoring their users. I personally hope with all the asshattery FB has been pulling they will go the way of MySpace and another will come along that actually listens to their users. Sadly there are simply too many out there that use FB as an accurate source of info, even though it makes wikipedia look like encyclopedia britannica.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Strangely enough, whether someone is my friend or not does not hinge on the status of a web site.
Good for you. Next time you're denied a job because they looked you up and found some questionable group affiliations... well, you're not even going to know about it because they won't tell you why.
E pluribus unum
Why would an option like this be added? Just look at the history of FB and how "concerned" or "aware" they are of privacy rights. I'll clue you in...it's zero until the torches and pitchforks start assembling.
Some implications (like the one stated above) are so offensive, defamation laws have a special category for them, damages are presumed and do not have to be proven:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation_per_se#Defamation_per_se
The idea that they had no awareness of how this "feature" would be used shows that they are:
* ignorant of how their product is used, how people interact and what their stated "goal" is
* have no care whatsoever for privacy or user rights
Both of these are quite damning.
http://www.techdirt.com/blog.php?tag=joe+lipari&edition=techdirt
This is a serious issue. The actions described in the summary would, in many states, result in "defamation per se" where the allegations are so damaging that damages are presumed and don't have to be proven.
Setting up a system where someone connected to you can add you to a group without your approval and where this results in an action that is broadcast to the public (i.e. "Joe Smith joined Group XYZ") that make it appear you joined of your own volition is indeed both a privacy and security problem.
Security issue - Other users taking actions on my behalf without consent
Privacy issue - broadcasting those events as if said actions were taken by me
Hopefully Facebook will fix this. In the meantime, or if they don't, I suggest someone start a group for, "Obnoxious Friends that Add Their Friends to Controversial Groups," group. Then, every time someone adds you to a stupid group, you add them to that group. Recursion and drama ensues. Nobody can take Facebook groups seriously ever again...Of course, the fact that they did in the first place is just too bad.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
Facebook's rules --not yours. Because, in real life, most of us can naturaly ignore the "trust your friends with everything or have no friends" ridicule that facebook rules require.
The catch is getting out of facebook once you started its downward spiral. Close friends don't want to stop enjoying their digital privileges, even if you must continue suffering FB's annoyances. But I haven't heard of friendships dying out of unfriending/facebook quitting actions.