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Facebook Adds Friend Stalker Tool

Posted by Soulskill on from the can't-win-for-losing dept.

nk497 writes "Facebook has added a new tool that brings together conversations and photos between friends onto a single page, but — as usual — has crossed the creepy line. Not only does clicking the See Friendship tool let users view photos, comments and events shared between themselves and their friend, it also offers a search tool to do the same between any two mutual friends, making it easy to see everything any two people have ever said to each other Facebook. As usual, the site should have tested the function out on their users first, with one saying: 'I've always wanted this! And yes, I'm a creepy stalker.' Also, as usual for Facebook, all users are automatically opted in, and there's currently no obvious way to turn it off."

61 of 357 comments (clear)

  1. Put this on the list by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    of reasons not to use Facebook.

    As if you needed more.

    1. Re:Put this on the list by biryokumaru · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, put this on the growing list of pointless complaints about Facebook. If people didn't post idiocy on the internet, they wouldn't have to be so afraid of people seeing their idiocy.

      --
      When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
    2. Re:Put this on the list by finarfinjge · · Score: 2, Informative

      I suspect this thread will become populated with any number of "thereottabealaw" comments. This is not the answer. The purpose of facebook is to provide to marketers as much information about you as legally possible. But it isn't the marketers that will keep facebook policies skewed towards "openness" and away from privacy. Government, by its nature, is in favour of knowing as much about you as they can. Thus, governments like facebook. Many companies, such as insurance companies, like to be able to go to facebook and find out as much about you as they can. They LOVE facebook.

      So in addition to stalkers and thieves, who already find facebook to be a treasure trove, there are some big time money interests that will make sure that there never is a law. If you are on facebook, everything your "friends" write and post about you is searchable and can be related back to you and your profile. If you are OK with this, more power to you. One day, there will be something that you don't want shared. If you stay on facebook. . . well tough luck buddy, it's shared.

      JE

    3. Re:Put this on the list by cynyr · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But it's not just me i have to make sure that doesn't post idiocy, but everyone that i do anything socially with. Since facebook has no way for me to remove photos of me posted by other users. The best i can do is remove the tag, but not remove me from the photo or my name from the comments, or have the photo taken down entirely.

      --
      All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
    4. Re:Put this on the list by rufty_tufty · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Hang on, what happened to the Geek's warcry of "Information wants to be free"?

      So the big problem here is that if you have ever been an idiot or done something you'd rather forget then either you or one of your friends will purposely or accidentally post it on the internet in a way that can be linked back to you.
      I think like the record companies cannot put the genie of digital music/mp3s/filesharing back ion the bottle we as a society can't put all of personal privacy back in the bottle without also losing personal freedom. Unless you want draconian laws restricting information - which I thought was the antithesis of the internet - then we have to accept that if we do embarrassing stuff in public then that will stick with us.
      But that's no different from real life, if while drunk I told my best friend's wife I thought she was hot then that will stay with me for the rest of my life too. The difference is strangers/employers can get that information too, but remember they can do it for everyone so the lesson for me here is not to not make mistakes but to make less mistakes than the next guy and to learn from those lessons sooner.
      That said I wouldn't want to employ someone who didn't have a good time at University, If they didn't know how to have a party and relax then I'd be concerned they were a well rounded person. So seeing photos of someone drunk off their face could well help you if you met me interviewing you.
      The door swings both ways...

      --
      "The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
    5. Re:Put this on the list by Pojut · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Two things:

      1. If you engage in social activity with the kind of people that would post incriminating photos of you, you need to find a different group of friends.

      2. If you engage in incriminating activities in a public place where other people can take photos of you, you need to be smarter about where you engage in incriminating activities.

      --
      Living With a Nerd
    6. Re:Put this on the list by node+3 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You seem to be confused. Just because you'd like to keep something from general knowledge doesn't mean it's incriminating.

    7. Re:Put this on the list by CowboyBob500 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you lose your job because of a photo posted on Facebook, you have an asshole employer who cannot distinguish the difference between your work life and private life, and you probably ought to get a new job anyway - unless the photo is of you doing something illegal, in which case perhaps you shouldn't have done that in the first place. Still finding it hard to have any sympathy here.

      --
      Listen to my latest album here
    8. Re:Put this on the list by gknoy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you lose your job in a manner that makes you say "well I was better off without those jerks", you're still unemployed. Sour grapes don't pay the bills.

    9. Re:Put this on the list by edmicman · · Score: 2, Funny

      Unless you *sell* the sour grapes....oooo an idea!

      1. Find sour grapes
      2. ???
      3. Profit!

    10. Re:Put this on the list by grumbel · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Just because its "on the Internet" doesn't mean its viewable for anybody, my whole mail is "on the internet" after all and that is only viewable by me (and google). The problem with Facebook and social networking in general is that they are all extremely bad at telling the user what information is making it to the public or to the friends, so you end up with a lot of involuntary information leaks.

    11. Re:Put this on the list by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 2, Informative

      I feel like I'm going crazy re-iterating the same point - sometimes its NOT in your control.

      Your friends can post things about you - and your employers can look them up... You can have all the privacy settings on their most restricted settings and it does not change this fact...

    12. Re:Put this on the list by slim · · Score: 2

      Except that these days going to the pub while on vacation and having a photo show up is enough to get you sacked from your teaching job.

      The solution is so simple though - don't use facebook.

      Not in any part of the world with reasonable employment laws.

      I've seen the story you're referring to, and it seems to me that once it pans out, she should have her job back and some compensation too. Also it seems to me that it's an outlier situation -- if it was common it wouldn't be newsworthy.

      The solution to this kind of thing is *not* to start getting furtive about perfectly innocent activities. It's to stand up for our rights. That woman has an absolute right to share pictures of herself with a beer, and to keep her job.

    13. Re:Put this on the list by Culture20 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Please tell me, what perfectly innocuous things might your friends take pictures of that would ruin your job/life/whatever.

      If you drive a Pepsi truck, and your friend takes a photo of you drinking Coke Zero. (Or the other way around)

    14. Re:Put this on the list by slim · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In most states, employment is "at will".

      You can be fired for showing up at work early, because you boss doesn't like the color of your shoes, or just for the heck of it.

      This is most certainly not the case in the United Kingdom, and if it's true of the US, it makes me think your legal framework is more than a little backward. Here, there's a short list of fair reasons for dismissal (misconduct, inability to do the job, redundancy etc.) and if the employer can't demonstrate one of those, they can't dismiss you.

      OTOH I have seen American colleagues have their employment ended on a whim on several occasions, so nothing surprises me.

      Still, the answer is to campaign to firm up your employment law, not spend your life trying to hide stuff from your boss.

    15. Re:Put this on the list by lgw · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes, in most places in America you don't lose your fundamental freedoms just because you become an employer, though we do keep chipping away at that idea.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    16. Re:Put this on the list by clone53421 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes, an at-will employee can be fired for “any reason or no reason at all” – but if you were fired for an illegal reason and you can prove this or at least back it up pretty substantially, then you have a pretty good case for a lawsuit.

      It works both ways, though... an at-will employee can also leave for pretty much any reason.

      Employees who are contracted in for a longer period of time, on the other hand, will also have terms in their contract that ensure their employer can’t dismiss them for no good reason... but in return for that security, they give up their ability to leave that job whenever they want to find work elsewhere.

      It’s a give-and-take, and personally I think it’s better this way than having the government dictate to companies whether they can or can’t hire or fire someone.

      --
      Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
    17. Re:Put this on the list by eugene+ts+wong · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Also, who's going to believe you at the next round of job interviews, when you say, "He fired me because my car was messy?".

      --
      testing out my trending skills
    18. Re:Put this on the list by lgw · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm surprised that company was able to stay in business if they're that psychotic about their employees' activities outside of work.

      They were incredibly successful for a small company, and grew to dominate their vertical market. They were largely self-insured, and would fire people for doing things likely to make their health insurance rates go up (but also for crazy reasons, but the smoking/motorcycle stuff was at least in the employment agreement).

      I'll have to take your word for it that any of this really happened but it makes me wonder how anyone can even work under such conditions. If managers are spending that much time checking up on their employees' leisure activities, who the hell is running the company?

      From Wikipedia:

      Five months after the merger was completed, the new ownership of the company began to make broad changes to the daily operations of the business.[5] As the Houston Business Journal reported, "the blending of the two firms has created a culture clash that's led to the departure of Reynolds employees, from executives to field technicians, both through lay-offs and of their own volition, since last August [2006]. Reynolds' local employee base has shrunk at least 10 percent since January 2006."[5] In October 2007, pre-merger CEO Fin O'Neill left the company.

      They had an incredibly high turnover rate, and eventually had to open offices in new cities just because eveyone in Houston had heard of them and they had a hard time hiring. They simply didn't care. Small companies are simply spread across the spectrum of human behavior, because their owners are. Computer Associates was worse (their former CEO is in jail), and they were large and publicly traded. Ideally people just work for better places, but in the meantime, privacy still matters online.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    19. Re:Put this on the list by HeckRuler · · Score: 4, Insightful

      As much as I ought to get a new job where the boss isn't an asshole, where the users understand software development, where flextime is acceptable, where I'm paid an extra $20K, in an industry that isn't powered by fear, controlled by foreign influence, fueled by vice, or run on questionable economic principles, where nearby housing is affordable, and the neighbors don't suck, where they run Linux, and code in C, under the GPL, where my skills are honed and expanded, where the commute is painless and cheap, where my future employment is in my hands, in a city my wife can find a job with similar properties, where Sharepoint has been banished from the land, where they pay for overtime but don't ask for it often, where they're loose with vacation and don't mind weeks of unpaid leave, where buzzwords earn you slap across the face, where the mythical man month is understood, where the chairs are comfortable, the carpet is clean, and temperature doesn't have a 20 degree swing.

      As much as I ought to go get that job, it turns out that they're not hiring at this moment. I guess we can't all have the perfect life delivered to us on a silver platter. So you can take your apathy, add it as a bullet point on your resume, and shove it up your ass.

    20. Re:Put this on the list by QRDeNameland · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Please tell me, what perfectly innocuous things might your friends take pictures of that would ruin your job/life/whatever.

      How about a picture of you at a cancer patient support group, which is then discovered by a prospective employer that is concerned about keeping the cost of employee health benefits down? Even if such discrimination is technically illegal, do think such knowledge couldn't affect your ability to get a job?

      --
      Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
  2. RAWK by mark72005 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sweet, this will make it much easier to jump to conclusions about which of my friends are secretly bumpin' uglies

  3. Nonissue by Schezar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If this information was already extant, and this functionality is just an aggregation and compilation of said extant data, then there is no problem. No new information is being provided: public information has simply been correlated, something any person could do on their own at any point prior.

    Making already legally accessible data more readable is not in any way wrong. Anyone who fears or is angry about this is in for a shock over the next decade or so as technology reveals all sorts of already public things about them, and younger generations simply won't care.

    --
    GeekNights!
    Late Night Radio for Geeks!
    1. Re:Nonissue by ridgecritter · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This seems a bit like saying that because a computer is just a really fast abacus, there's really no difference between them or their effects.

      At some point, mere quantitative increase becomes a qualitative difference.

      If it now takes 2 seconds to do with Facebook's new tool what used to take 2 days, that's a qualitative difference (degradation of privacy) that people might reasonably be concerned about.

    2. Re:Nonissue by Schezar · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Ahh, but our entire society's expectations of privacy have been unreasonable for the better part of the last several decades. This false sense of privacy has existed solely due to the inefficiency of access to public data, much in the same manner that entire localized business models disappeared with the advent of national television and freeways.

      It's a nonissue only because the work, both in law and expectations, to actually address the fact that we're finally having to come to terms with the fact that there is a lot of perfectly legally accessible information about all of us in the wild will never be undertaken by our government or our society, and technological workarounds will evolve far faster than any legislation or agreement can. The point is moot. If Facebook didn't do it themselves, someone with a screenscraper and a database would.

      If you can see it, you can correlate it. This is a nonissue only because there is no possibility of a solution for anyone who is upset.

      --
      GeekNights!
      Late Night Radio for Geeks!
    3. Re:Nonissue by clone53421 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Agreed.

      Of course, all this information is already available to me. I could click around the site and find everything said between my mutual friends by sifting through their accounts. But that would take ages, and eventually — hopefully — I’d either get bored or ashamed of creeping on my friends. This makes it possible to stalk in seconds.

      “Hopefully”? Bored or ashamed? Seriously?

      He greatly underestimates the ability of a bored stalker to be creepy...

      --
      Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
    4. Re:Nonissue by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The point is moot. If Facebook didn't do it themselves, someone with a screenscraper and a database would.

      Quite correct. And it would be even simpler than that. It's Web site. At the end of the day, Facebook presents your browser with HTML and JavaScript. A competent individual could write a script to do this in very little time with any modern scripting language -- Python, Perl, Ruby, or [insert your favorite here]. Or they could create a mashup with Google Web Toolkit. In any respect, HTML is, more or less, easily parseable programmatically.

      Those griping have no room to do so. You provided the data to Facebook, and explicitly or implicitly, you have Facebook permission to display this data to other users. You have no idea how these users will end up using the data. If you have a problem with this, or any other aspect, you should terminate your Facebook account. Now. No buts. I don't want to hear it.

      --
      My blog
    5. Re:Nonissue by whoever57 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      as technology reveals all sorts of already public things about them, and younger generations haven't realized they need to care yet

      FTFY

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    6. Re:Nonissue by node+3 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Stalking can be illegal, even if the individual actions aren't. It's all about the effects you are having on another person.

      I don't know about IndustrialComplex's specific example, but his point stands. Privacy is pretty important and shouldn't just be ceded because it's difficult to objectively define where the line should be drawn between invasion of privacy and public knowledge.

  4. Privacy on the internet by Dancindan84 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Here's a helpful Venn diagram for people who still aren't sure:
    http://graphjam.memebase.com/2010/10/25/funny-graphs-never-forget/

    --
    "Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
  5. "there's currently no obvious way to turn it off." by somersault · · Score: 2, Informative

    Well duh. If you don't want your friends seeing who you're talking to, either don't friend them, or change your privacy settings so that they can't read your wall posts etc. Otherwise they have exactly the same information already available, just in a slightly less convenient format.

    Sure it's a little creepy, but you already see a lot of this stuff on the main updates page anyway, this is just making it more comprehensive.

    --
    which is totally what she said
  6. If people seem stalkerish.. by jDeepbeep · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why the worry about your "friends" doing stalker-ish things to you? Didn't you accept their request (or they yours) based on some level of familiarity and/or trust? It's not strangers watching you. It's people you agreed to let into your little online life.

    --
    Reply to That ||
    1. Re:If people seem stalkerish.. by Tom · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That is the #1 problem with Facebook (and almost all other social networking sites): You only get a binary setting.

      I have a few close friends, who by all means could see whatever they want to, if they'd ask I would tell them anyways.

      But I also have a lot of not-so-close friends, acquaintances, people I'm friendly with. Whatever you want to call it, there are degrees of friendship. And Facebook doesn't recognize that.

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
    2. Re:If people seem stalkerish.. by slim · · Score: 5, Interesting

      But I also have a lot of not-so-close friends, acquaintances, people I'm friendly with. Whatever you want to call it, there are degrees of friendship. And Facebook doesn't recognize that.

      Yeah it does, if you can be bothered with the admin.

      You can create groups, and categorise your contacts into them. Then you can specify how much of your profile and your activity can be seen by each group.

      I have a "limited profile" group, into which I place people who ask to be a "friend", when I feel it would be rude to ignore them, but don't really want them to see everything.

      You can also choose to prevent friends-of-friends from seeing your stuff.

      At worst, the defaults are possibly a bit too open.

    3. Re:If people seem stalkerish.. by Tim+C · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You don't use Facebook because of the number of people you've added as friends not based on some level of familiarity and/or trust? Seems to be a PEBKAC to me...

      --
      It's official. Most of you are morons.
    4. Re:If people seem stalkerish.. by Cederic · · Score: 2, Informative

      Advertise carpet cleaning products and offer discounts on Doritos from a specific online retailer.

      Who in turn will seek to leverage their relationship, selling your vetinary services and cheap student loans for your child.

      Information is valuable.

  7. Aren't we over Facebook yet? by cindyann · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Personally I think it jumped the shark about two months ago.

    I rarely look at it.

    I've filtered out about half my "friends" because if I wanted to know what they had on their toast this morning I'd sign up for twitter and follow their stupid tweets.

  8. Solution by papasui · · Score: 5, Funny

    Delete your Facebook account like I did. Although I'll admit that the first week of not knowing what crops my friends were growing was a little hard on me..

    1. Re:Solution by slim · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Delete your Facebook account like I did.

      ... or you could keep it, and not post anything you consider private on it.

    2. Re:Solution by dintech · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That doesn't stop random asshats tagging you in photos.

    3. Re:Solution by slim · · Score: 2, Informative

      You can disable that if it really bothers you.

  9. The AntiSocial Network by NYMeatball · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm as big of a facebook hater as the next guy, but it seems like Slashdot's favourite pastime is getting on a social network for being, well, social.

    If their inference is that facebook should become an antisocial network, I think Slashdot honestly has that market segment covered pretty well already.

    1. Re:The AntiSocial Network by Anubis+IV · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't think anyone wants it to be antisocial. What I do think people want, however, is to have their privacy respected and to have control over it. As I recall, I registered back when Facebook still had around 50K users (my university was one of its first big breaks), and the settings I configured then in no way reflect the reality of my privacy today, largely due to unexpected and unwelcome changes Facebook made over the years which automatically opted me in to having information publicly available that I had explicitly expressed a desire to keep private in the past. It's that sort of behavior that gets them ragged on and trashed in the media. If Facebook would just stop making public information that we told it to keep private, I think it wouldn't be getting nearly as much bad press.

    2. Re:The AntiSocial Network by Anubis+IV · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You're so very right and so very wrong. The adage is absolutely correct, of course, and it does bear repeating (despite the fact that it has sunk in with me, thanks, and I only post data that is fine with being spread). Your other point is very wrong, however. We still need to place the blame due Facebook at its feet, and hold it accountable for the mistakes it makes. There's plenty of blame to go around however, and if people are posting videos, images, or text that they may later regret, the blame falls on them too for being stupid enough to do so, even if they thought it was private information. Both parties are at fault, but "Internet user is stupid" is not nearly as interesting or unexpected as "major company betrays user's trust (again)." Nor was it the point of my previous comment.

      As an aside, speaking personally, I know it's popular to attack folks with highly-modded comments by making assumptions about them, but I only post things that I'm fine having out on the Internet as a whole, should that ever happen to me. Even so, I have a preference that the things I specify as private should remain private, not because I have anything to hide (I live my life in such a way that I will never have to answer to a future employer, spouse, or child for a photo or video that was taken of me (i.e. I simply don't do compromising things)), but because I cherish privacy. I'm fine sharing my daily life with those around me, and I'm fine if that information does go public since there's nothing in my life that I'm ashamed of. I just would prefer that it didn't. It's a simple matter of preferences for me, and I would prefer that Facebook honor them as they said they would.

  10. Simple solution: email by noidentity · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Also, as usual for Facebook, all users are automatically opted in, and there's currently no obvious way to turn it off.

    And as usual, Facebook is discussed as if it weren't opt-in. There are plenty of other ways of communicating with people.

    1. Re:Simple solution: email by clydemaxwell · · Score: 2, Insightful

      aside from whether anyone considers facebook necessary, the issue is that the service they signed up for, and the service they now use, have different privacy issues. so it is now an opt-out procedure every time they add some new security debacle. the opt-out is, if you're lucky, a setting. if unlucky, it means leaving facebook.
      I myself have what I call a read-only facebook, I post nothing and comment rarely. It is similar to twitter (but more universally used). Still, I get concerned about who can see my friendship network.

      --
      Browsing with classic discussion, noscript, at -1 and nested
      no hidden comments and I only mod UP
  11. Oh, I think I see the problem by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

    ws: Facebook Adds Friend Stalker Tool

    Gosh, within one line, asking people to join Facebook and then yet the Xth article about how dangerous facebook is for your privacy.

    We know this, but we don't care because we care more about our friend count.

    Facebook is a nudist colony. Fine if you want to air your tonker but then don't complain people can see it. You can't share all your personal details withour your personal details ending up shared.

    I wonder how people who use Facebook and complain about privacy go through life in general:

    Omg! I bought this phone with a subscription, but now I do the math I actually end up paying much more for the phone! How can this be?

    Oh no, I bought this gadget with monthy payments and now the payments are more then the original price, why!

    I borrowed money for my house, now the bank thinks it owns it. Why didn't anyone tell me!

    I streaked naked down the high street, now people are claiming they saw me! I didn't know that what I do in public can be seen by others!

    I gave a full confession to a cop and now they using it against me in a court of law! Won't someone safe me!

    If you do NOT want everyone on facebook to see what you do, don't use facebook. It ain't hard. It is not an essential product. Billions life happy lives without it. You can too. And the first person to claim that it allows them to keep in touch with friends they never bothered to keep in touch with before I will beat until they learn the difference between a friend, a distant aquintance and a stranger.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

    1. Re:Oh, I think I see the problem by StuartHankins · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The difference is that every minor thing can be recorded forever. To use an obvious example, pretend you picked your nose driving down the road one day. The other drivers might have seen it, but in Facebook terms not only does everybody you've ever known see it, but they can choose to send it to their friends and their friends and their friends. You might eventually end up on Tosh.O or something.

      At some point you have to say, wow, this is getting out of hand, now I'm paranoid to go out and do things because something might be misinterpreted and come back to haunt me later. When all activity can be recorded and transmitted easily you lose your privacy.

  12. I think Seinfeld says it best... by Chameleon+Man · · Score: 5, Funny

    To reference an episode of Seinfeld...

    GEORGE: Ah you have no idea of the magnitude of this thing. If she is allowed to infiltrate this world, then George Costanza as you know him, Ceases to Exist! You see, right now, I have Relationship George, but there is also Independent George. That’s the George you know, the George you grew up with — Movie George, Coffee shop George, Liar George, Bawdy George.

    JERRY: I, I love that George.

    GEORGE: Me Too! And he’s Dying Jerry! If Relationship George walks through this door, he will Kill Independent George! A George, divided against itself, Cannot Stand!

  13. Billions of dollars are being made off your info by digitaldc · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's a pain to turn off all the default features that facebook conveniently opts-in for you. By WHY should we have to?

    --
    He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
  14. Some of us are not on Facebook by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You could always just not be on Facebook -- that strategy has been working just fine for me. I am still in touch with my family, I am still in touch with my friends, and I still get invited to parties.

    --
    Palm trees and 8
  15. 100% dead on by circletimessquare · · Score: 2, Informative

    you don't get to post things on the internet, and then complain when people see it on the internet

    if you don't want people to see something DON'T POST IT ON THE INTERNET

    because the fine level of control you desire: "only this person, at this time, in this context, can see this piece of info" is a nonstarter, because it takes 10x more time and effort to define the context of the info you are sharing than it takes to post the info. there is no better way to completely and utterly destroy the pleasure of a social life than weighing it down with such weighty micromanagement

    so just don't post the info! no one is going to micromanage their social lives to the point where no information is leaked in the wrong context, mainly because people aren't machiavellian supergeniuses with omnipotent future sight to know every miniscule fine grain social context in which their information is not being told to someone they didn't want that info told to

    the better solution is far simpler: SHUT UP and DON'T POST. or post freely and talk freely, AND GIVE UP YOUR RIGHT TO COMPLAIN ABOUT MISUSE. that's really your only choices

    the control you seek starts with your mouth, or your keyboard. blaming facebook is just shifting responsibility and personal accountability away from you when things go wrong because you weren't discreet

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:100% dead on by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      blaming facebook is just shifting responsibility and personal accountability away from you when things go wrong because you weren't discreet

      If only the system works like you described. Like someone said earlier, you have more to worry about from OTHER people's posts than you really do your own. Let's say I make a Facebook page - but I don't enter any information but my name and photo. I don't add any of my friends, I basically be a social outcast and hermit on Facebook.

      Facebook still allows people to tag "nothings" in photos, so they can tag me in a photo and I won't get ANY notification because the Tag itself won't like to my page - instead it'll just say my name when they hover over it. A potential employer does some research on me - and they find that I have a facebook account but can't see anything but my picture. They then continue their goolge search and see a random picture someone put up of me with my tag on it and know its me because of the photo.

      Damn - all I did was enter my name and a good photo of myself - and my reputation got ruined outside of my control.

    2. Re:100% dead on by circletimessquare · · Score: 4, Informative

      any potential employer or significant other that would judge you so harshly for simply having a life is frankly an employer/ S.O. you don't want to have anything to do with

      live your life, and stop worrying so much about micromanaging your public image. us who are well-adjusted simply doesn't care as much as you think we do about pictures of you drunk. its just simple not that big of a deal. the misperception is yours: that anyone cares. we don't care

      the internet is what it is: it shows more of our lives, longer, as permanent mementos. adapt to that new reality and accept it, because you can't manage or alter it

      anyone who would reject you or fire you based on what the internet contains about you is someone without a level of tolerance you don't want to be involved with in the first place. and if you don't want that behavior of yours made a permanent part of your "internet record", then learn the art of discretion

      because this is not about other people, or facebook, or the internet affecting your image in ways you don't want. it's about YOU affecting your image in ways you later regret

      you have no one to blame if something is out there you don't want to be out there except yourself. take responsibility for your image. or shift blame onto others, and whine about it, to no effect whatsoever, because you can't do anything about it

      --
      intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    3. Re:100% dead on by GeckoX · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You know, once upon a time a person could make a mistake or do something they regretted that would be forgotten and never become an issue. You really want that pic that some 'friend' took at a college party and posted tagged with your name to still pop up on searches when you're 40 something looking for a new job?

      Is it no longer OK to make mistakes and have them forgotten?

      The number of posts in this thread that are basically saying 'be perfect all the time and you'll have nothing to worry about, or else suck up the consequences' is absolutely shocking.

      Sure, if _I_ choose to post something online about myself then I will live with the consequences of doing so. But that is not what this is about. Not even a little bit. (Is it just me or is this thread getting very Orwellian?)

      Problem here specifically is that there is this online social community out there that a ton of people use. A lot of people carry out all forms of conversations on it. Sometimes two people will even have a conversation between themselves discussing someone else with the intent that the someone else won't be able to see it, at least that's the way it was the other day when they had the conversation. Now lo and behold, for example, your SO knows all about the exciting trip you have planned as a surprise for the weekend! (See, doesn't have to be about getting fired over some drunken party pic now does it?)

      Kids today, so used to their freedoms being given away by the powers that be that they take it for the norm and now are totally willing, or worse, expect that, privacy is to be given away or be non existent as well!

      Anyways, for my own self, just another tick on the reasons not to Facebook list.

      --
      No Comment.
    4. Re:100% dead on by lgw · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why would you mind people seeing those?

      Because not everyone has the same values as you and your friends. I know that may come as a shocker, but different people have different deeply-held beliefs about what is moral and what is not. You may not even know what your employer (or potantial employer) considers deeply wrong/offensive until it's too late.

      I keep my private and professional lives as separate as I an. That includes not having a Facebok account, and never posting anything, really, under my own name on the internet. There's just no need for it.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  16. Remember Wall to Wall? by rakuen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Remember when Facebook used to have a Wall to Wall feature? You know, you'd be able to click on someone's post on your wall, and then you'd see every wall post either of you had ever made to each other. I'm pretty sure you could use it on two friends, but this was a while ago and I can't quite remember. I also believe they removed the feature when they added comments on wall posts. If they didn't they sure hid it from me.

    Now we have the See Friendship tool. It does... the same thing, pretty much, perhaps a little more extensively. Essentially you're all complaining about Facebook adding a feature they removed earlier out of redundancy. Do you have a right to complain? Yeah, of course you do. However, if you were fine with that feature before, don't you think it's a little hypocritical to criticize Facebook for putting it back in now, just because it's shiny and "new"?

  17. Wall to Wall? by edmicman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hasn't this been around the whole time as "Wall to Wall"? I remember there used to be links where you could see a "Wall to Wall" conversation between yourself and your friends, and you could change the PID in the URL to other mutual friends and see conversations between them. I envisioned making an app to basically do the same with an interface....I thought it would help in searching for conversations. There currently is no good search tool for stuff on facebook as far as I know. For example, I'll remember having someone post a link to me, or mentioning something in a comment but I have no way of finding that. If I could view all of the history between them and myself, I could at least ctrl-f for it.

    Good to see Facebook making this easier!

  18. "Stalker tool"? by Beerdood · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Oh come on now, Facebook has always been a stalker's paradise. A stalker will meticulously look at someone's profile anyway - how does this help them? They're gonna see everything their "stalkee" posts already.

    This only really a helps stalkers stalking multiple people - that way they can see all the juicy details both stalkees are saying to each other

    --
    Global warming and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking number of pirates - Gospel of the FSM
  19. What? by canajin56 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Google is awesome for letting people search the web. Facebook is ultimate evil for letting you search Facebook. If you posted information publically, that all your facebook friends can read...in what way did you have an expectation that your facebook friends wouldn't read it? Were you hoping it would get lost in the flood of bullshit and nobody would read it? Really? You were relying on signal:noise ratio for privacy, rather than actually sending a PM? That's beyond absurd.

    --
    ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
  20. Privacy on the Internet?... by skiman1979 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If you don't want something seen on the front page of the newspaper, don't post it online.

    I think as long as this tool abides by the privacy settings on your Facebook account, it should be ok. If you don't want people seeing your communications on Facebook, why have them as a friend? Or put them in a group that doesn't have access to certain areas. If you want communication between you and another friend to be private, use a more private means of communication. Secret posts to your mistress don't belong on a Facebook wall post.

    The information this tool makes available is already available anyway. If you're concerned about one of your Facebook friends having access to all of that information, why not just remove them as a friend?

    --
    Having a smoking section in a public restaurant is like having a peeing section in a public swimming pool.