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Former Diplomat Slams Facebook For Inaction On Fake Pages

Posted by Unknown on from the get-off-my-lawn dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Former diplomat to Belgium and the European Union Brendan Nelson describes his astonishment at his inability to get any response from Facebook when trying to get a diplomatically damaging fake page taken down. The social network ignored official protestations from the department of foreign affairs and security agencies."

4 of 164 comments (clear)

  1. I agree with the man by Camembert · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I read through the article. I must say that I sympathise with him - he sees technology as something that should support life, not something that is pervasive, like people non-stop updating FB or twitter accounts. I also think that there could be a better authentication system at FB.

    1. Re:I agree with the man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      As a former diplomat he neither has power or influence and theres no profit in Facebook helping so like an ordinary person he is screwed.

    2. Re:I agree with the man by CodeBuster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Correction. He was appointed as ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg, the European Union, and NATO by Austria and Austria does indeed have a consulate office in Los Angeles. From TFA he sounds like an intelligent and well educated man who's made a reasonable request. Saying things about someone online is one thing, but impersonating them is quite another. Perhaps after all of this Facebook can spare this gentlemen a few moments of their time. I especially liked his advice about dashing off messages while you're angry. I know that I've done it before, without much good coming of it, and so have many of us here on Slashdot. I suppose you learn a thing or two about polite conduct being a diplomat.

  2. Re:Define "Fake Post" by ModernGeek · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The solution to this is that all the legitimate businesses need to erase their presence on Facebook, and leave only the scammers on the site. Facebook has the attitude that we need them more than they need us. Legitimate business needs to move back to the World Wide Web. The problem of social media should be solved through some sort of de-centralized protocol such as e-mail, and certificate authorities should solve the problem of identification.

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