Slashdot Mirror
Germany Considers Banning Wild Facebook Parties
An anonymous reader writes "Wild Facebook parties tend to occur when a Facebook Event invitation to a typical small gathering is mistakenly posted publicly, and then goes viral. This results in injuries and arrests as hundreds or even thousands show up for a party meant for a handful of people. A recent wave of these out-of-control Facebook parties has left German officials and politicians trying to figure how to deal with the trend."
....Germany would already have laws in place for out-of-control parties.
Ban politicians from making ridiculous unenforceable bans.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
Aren't there already laws against things like disturbing the peace? Showing up at someone's party and harassing them surely qualifies. If they really try to ban facebook public parties, some group like anonymous will be on top of it.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I just checked myself: Facebook by default enables the "Anyone can view and RSVP (public event)" option. That should be disabled by default. It is easy enough to forget to untick that one... type your birthday invitation, when you're done mum calls "dinner's ready!", quickly finish up, click "post", off to dinner.
It's just plainly ridiculous that an event is public by default. And I'm sure that's a major part of the cause of these unintended mass parties. Now if Facebook becomes more sensible in these matters, then I'm all for your ideas. Until then, Facebook is definitely one to carry part of the blame.
Moron. How about reminding people what every ten year old knows the world over, that not getting an invitation means you're not invited?
If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.
3^2 * 67^1 * 977^1
This has nothing to do with facebook parties. There is an ongoing conflict between the current political caste and the internet community. Since the politicians managed to antagonize nearly all net activists with a law about net blocks (which never went into effect), the net has now become a dangerous mine field for politicians.
A net initiative toppled lately several high ranking politicians who have been discovered to have cut&pasted their PHD thesis. Among them was the secretary of defense who was a media darling and earmarked to become the next conservative chancellor (candidate).
Facebook parties are no real problem (i heard about 4 instances which became problematic in the last 24 months, about half of them have been unintentionally). So such a law will have no effect, especially since current laws already cover the area.
But it is a great opportunity for politicians to designate the internet as source of evil and to demonstrate their boldness by stepping forward and putting an end to it.
CU, Martin
Wild Facebook parties tend to occur when a Facebook Event invitation to a typical small gathering is mistakenly posted publicly, and then goes viral.
This effect shall herefore be known as 'blitzkeg'.
I know more than you drink.
Yes, 5,000 would be a problem. The police wouldn't be prepared for that. They would have to call in reinforcements from other towns first. Even 500 people drunk enough could become dangerous if the situation gets out of control.
The bill in this case would be the taxpayers burden in Germany. That's what we pay taxes for (one reason), the police protecting our health and property. They could try to get some money back from the illegal party goers. At least those who don't follow police orders to leave the place. The police can give this kind of order. In case of public danger they can tell you to leave a certain area.
But the main point here is, that the call for a new law is just utter nonsense. We have enough laws to cope with such situations. There where illegal parties long before facebook and nobody asked for new laws. If such events didn't run out of control, nobody cared. If they did, most likely somebody called the police and they handled the situation depending on actual events and based on existing laws.
How hard would it be for Facebook to do some elementary background check on a submission, and put up a warning for any public event of the "Do you really mean to do that" variety? For all the bloviating above, the moral of this story is that Facebook actually has some piss-poor programming practices. It's only beginners who don't validate and sanity check user input. Who is reviewing this stuff at Facebook? Anyone over 30?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."