Facebook Abstainers Could Be Labeled Suspicious

bs0d3 writes "According to this article printed in tagesspiegel.de, not having a Facebook account could be the first sign that you are a mass murderer.(German) As examples they use Norwegian shooter Anders Breivik, who used MySpace instead of Facebook and the newer Aurora shooter who used adultfriendfinder instead of Facebook. They already consider those with Facebook accounts, who lack friends to be suspicious, but now they are suggesting that anyone who abstains from Facebook altogether may be even more suspicious."

Comments

No-one should put their true real-world there

[ron_ivi]

I thought most parents teach their kids "don't give your personal info to strangers".

Remember, Zuckerberg's a stranger to your kids no matter how many free things (services) he offers them, just as much as some guy offering free candy from an unmarked van.

In the U.S. it's the first sign you're a spook

[michaelmalak]

Many of my real-life friends have no Facebook presence because they have cleared software jobs and have been instructed to not have social profiles or blogs in order to maintain their clearance.

Just another clue that Holmes was a CIA asset.

Sociopathy

[stevegee58]

I get funny looks all the time when I say I know all about FacePlace and consciously refuse to join.
My sister worked on me for months (we're both "old") to join before I finally got testy and told her under no circumstances would I join. I think she thought I just didn't understand it and just needed to be shown how wonderful it was. She was genuinely hurt by my reaction.
It's like belonging to a religion in many ways. True believers have trouble understanding how others don't share their beliefs; clearly they just need the right explanation to bring them around.

Re:Overblown

[iamhassi]

I submit that this sort of story is overblown.Yes, this is one out of hundreds of characteristics on a list. Just having one or even fifty from the list doesn't mean any individual has crossed the threshold of "suspicious". Everyone on /. should be familiar with this sort of thing from spam filters.

Agreed - sort of. This is just one out of hundreds of characteristics, but the title is correct: Facebook Abstainers Could Be Labeled Suspicious.

And it makes sense, why would someone not want to join a site where all your friends are? It's 2012 equivalent to a shut-in or recluse. People are naturally suspicious of someone that chooses not to join normal society.

And it's going to get worse before it gets better, even if Facebook is replaced, there will be another website most people join. Facebook has been popular for what, 6, 7 years? There are teenagers today that don't remember life without Facebook, and as those teens become adults it's going to sound more perverse to hear someone say "I do not have a Facebook account"

Even now, I know people who have been denied jobs, apartments and loans because they do not have a Facebook account, because Facebook is a great tool to contact everyone you "know" to check background and try and reach you if something happens i.e. steal and skip town, etc

Re:Two words

[ultranova]

Isn't this just another form of discrimination? We've finally gotten (mostly) past looking at people's race, religion, sexual preference, and skin color but we can now look at their willingness to keep nothing personal and private and hold that against them? How is this legal?

You can't change your race, but you can easily create a Facebook account that contains nothing useful or interesting, send friend requests to random people and accept any that come your way. If this becomes a real issue I'm sure we can automate the whole process so that you can have virtual Facebook presence without having to actually visit the damn thing yourself. As an added bonus having various Facebots interact with each other trying to pretend they are humans while other bots try to spot them should help advance AI quite a bit.