Slog
News & ArtsMonday, June 25, 2012
Teh Internets Facebook Continues to Be Really Creepy
Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Jun 25, 2012 at 2:59 PM
While you weren't looking this weekend, Facebook has changed your default e-mail address to your @facebook.com address. The Verge says this was a rare case of Facebook trying to protect your privacy: "...the point was to make everybody's personal email addresses private until each user unhides each one manually, since the site now allows more granular email visibility settings."
What a stand-up company Facebook is! Always looking out for our privacy. Wait, what else did they do this weekend?
Facebook was stealth testing a new 'Find Friends Nearby' feature over the weekend that would show the Facebook users who were around you—think Find My Friends on iOS or Where You At? on Boost Mobile—but has now pulled the feature completely.
Creeeeeeepy. This shit had better be opt-in when it eventually comes back, because nobody wants to use a Grindr where everybody knows your name.
1
If you're stupid enough to use Facebook after all the crap they have been pulling the last couple of years, then you deserve everything you've got coming to you.
2
I have a Facebook email address?
Maybe it's that I've never looked into the details of my settings, but I've always found that as long as people can fill your "messages" with invites, actual inter-person communication on Facebook is fucking useless. You'd be crazy to expect a reply from someone that has to wade through 300 DJ event notifications to get to your message.
Maybe it's that I've never looked into the details of my settings, but I've always found that as long as people can fill your "messages" with invites, actual inter-person communication on Facebook is fucking useless. You'd be crazy to expect a reply from someone that has to wade through 300 DJ event notifications to get to your message.
3
@1:
It's not a matter of being stupid, it's simply that 99% of the people I prefer to interact with continue to use FB, so if I want to interact with them, I don't have much choice BUT to use FB as well.
And FB is fully aware of it, so they keep pulling this kind of shit because they know they have a captive audience - because it's not like there was a mass exodus to Google +, as was the case when FB supplanted MySpace as the social media interface du jour.
It's not a matter of being stupid, it's simply that 99% of the people I prefer to interact with continue to use FB, so if I want to interact with them, I don't have much choice BUT to use FB as well.
And FB is fully aware of it, so they keep pulling this kind of shit because they know they have a captive audience - because it's not like there was a mass exodus to Google +, as was the case when FB supplanted MySpace as the social media interface du jour.
4
I have never signed up for a facebook account. Likely never will, but then I have one foot in the grave, and I find most people rather boring these days.
5
The Google+ app gives me a feed of posts made near my location and nobody seems to be complaining (yes, at least a few people seem to be using Google+).
6
Meh. For privacy reasons I've never actually had an email address visible on facebook. I can't say I find this at all disturbing, why would I care if I suddenly have a facebook email address visible?
I'll decide whether the find nearby friends service is creepy when I know more about it. I already find the people who constantly post location info creepy. Why would anyone want other people to know where they are all the time anyway?
I'll decide whether the find nearby friends service is creepy when I know more about it. I already find the people who constantly post location info creepy. Why would anyone want other people to know where they are all the time anyway?
7
@4 Yeah Facebook is for people with friends.
I am not too concerned about this. The people who would email me at Facebook are the ones who don't need my real email address.
I am not too concerned about this. The people who would email me at Facebook are the ones who don't need my real email address.
8
It's less obtrusive than outside-the-walled-garden email, which is nice. It doesn't lead to a top-level notification, for example- just increments a number next to "Messages." I suppose the intent is to replace gmail for people whose primary interaction with the net is Facebook, which I'm guessing is mostly younger teenagers. Why they didn't announce it is puzzling to me- maybe they've found that the buzz created by bloggers commenting on new stuff as they discover it attracts more attention, if mostly negative, than announcing it themselves?
9
It's going to be opt-out because that's how facebook runs things. And honestly, if you gave half a rat's ass about online privacy, you'd have deleted your account years ago.
Advertisement
Most Commented on Slog
-
All You Motherfuckers Complaining That aPodments Are Too Small at 200 Square Feet by Dominic Holden
-
SL Letter of the Day: Did You Think I Was Going To Tell You Not To Come Out? (PLUS: Help Free Kate!) by Dan Savage
-
Rightwing Anti-Gay French Activist Commits Suicide at Notre Dame Cathedral by Dan Savage
-
Spoiled Rotten: Star Trek Into Darkness by Paul Constant
-
There Are No Atheists In Foxholes by Dan Savage
-
America's Epidemic of Toddler-on-Toddler Gun Violence Continues by Goldy
-
Well-Regulated Beaverton Militia Accidentally Fires Shot into Neighbor's Bedroom by Goldy
-
Saint Genet Re-Creates "Shoot" by Brendan Kiley
-
Dutch Artist Turns Dead Cat into Remote-Controlled Helicopter by Bethany Jean Clement
-
Puggle: Love It or Shove It by Grant Brissey
Stranger Personals
The Stranger
RSSSeattle Art & Performance Quarterly
A complete guide to Seattle's current art, film, dance, and theater season.
Facebook
Twitter
Comments (10) RSS