A friend of mine is in a quandry: She bitches and gossips about her love life and who she has a crush on to her 'friends' on Facebook but now one of these crushes may be turning serious and wants to be her Facebook 'friend' too[*], but to allow this would reveal all her bitching and gossiping to this potential amour.This would be solved if Facebook allowed different levels of friendship. In this scheme some updates you post are reserved for 'higher' levels of friend and none of your 'friends' knows the level you've assigned them.---[*] In dating now, this is apparently a semi-serious milestone, like asking someone out for a drink used to be.-- hippo, Aug 18 2009 Daily Mail (sorry): Woman Sacked after complaining about her boss on Facebook http://www.dailymai...g-added-friend.htmlApparently, she forgot that her boss was one of her "friends". [zen_tom, Aug 18 2009] Facebook privacy suggestions http://www.allfaceb...2/facebook-privacy/Including the use of friend lists to control access. [tatterdemalion, Aug 18 2009] My wife's mother has just sent her a friend request. Could be a very bad thing...-- wagster, Aug 18 2009 She should have thought of that before putting her gossip on a practically public website!
I'll concede that it is an oversight on Facebook's part as far as functionality is concerned - I am connected to friends and work colleagues alike. I therefore do not post anything of my adventures to avoid work scrutiny, nor do I post about my work because that would be boring.
So I rarely post.-- Jinbish, Aug 18 2009 Bitching and gossiping should be done behind closed doors, with whispering and such. Wasn't that the old way of it? It is a quandry for your friend, I agree, but she really should have done all her bitching in private messaging.
I don't think adding this further level of complexity is the answer to that, as someone who doesn't know to keep their feelings private also won't think to continuously update their frighteningly complex web of friend-categorisation.-- theleopard, Aug 18 2009 [Jinbish] Yes, absolutely, she should have thought of that. And I rarely put anything on Facebook for exactly the same reasons as you.[theleopard] Yes, Facebook should really be used only for dull stuff you don't mind the world seeing - then it would be boring, which exposes the essential uselessness of Facebook and all other sites like it.-- hippo, Aug 18 2009 theleopard agrees and is going to have a crumpet for brek, YUM!-- theleopard, Aug 18 2009 //Before you know it, you end up saying nothing to anyone or if you do, it's in the blandest and most neutral sense possible//Uh oh. That's how I talk normally. Now that I'm on facebook and have censured myself, I must be REALLY, REALLY mundane.-- blissmiss, Aug 18 2009 Really this is about the incredible naivety of many people who use the internet without realisiing what an incredibly powerful tool it is. I think it must be a psychological issue because people sit at their computer quietly typing their comments onto the forum of choice and don't seem to appreciate that it's the conversational equivalent of using a megaphone to shout across a very crowded room full of strangers to your friends in the far corner. And you are not even sure that they are your friends anyway. Seemingly, people don't think twice about posting stuff in public forums on the web that they wouldn't dream of writing in a private letter. Things like the story in zen_tom's link leave me utterly bemused by the depths of stupidity that some people can achieve. So, I'm going to vote against this one I think, on the grounds that people shouldn't post stuff on the internet that they wouldn't be happy for the whole of the rest of the world to see. [Shakes head sadly and wanders off tutting]-- DrBob, Aug 18 2009 Though it sounds like a hoax, I don't doubt there are people just this stupid.-- ldischler, Aug 18 2009 //people shouldn't post stuff on the internet that they wouldn't be happy for the whole of the rest of the world to see// - <sifts through everything DrBob has ever posted on the HalfBakery...>[DrBob] - Yes, normally sane people become stupid when faced with the internet.-- hippo, Aug 18 2009 Facebook can do this now, using friend lists. You can create different lists and control what aspects of your Facebook page each list can access.
Facebook privacy settings are actually quite robust. The problem, it seems to me, is that they are not well described and many people are not aware of them, or how to use them.-- tatterdemalion, Aug 18 2009 I have always been very wary of posting anything slightly contentious on Facebook. Maybe that's why I've always found it really dull. That and not being interested in quizzes about Michael Jackson.-- wagster, Aug 18 2009 <Also hastily sifts through everything DrBob has ever posted on the HalfBakery, just in case...>-- DrBob, Aug 18 2009 //hastily sifting// it rather depends whether DrBob really is a Doctor, called Bob - that's one thing I quite like about the halfbakery - here, behind my moniker, I feel reasonably anonymous, at least in terms of my employers, and other general acquaintances. As always however, the edges of what was once a strictly, cleanly and easily delineated section of my life have ever so slightly started to blur and run a little bit.
The general topic does make me wonder how the youngsters are coping with all of this - If I were on the internet aged 13, I'm sure I'd have posted something I'd not be completely comfortable with by now - and have to live with the knowledge that it's going to be there (potentially) forever - but I suppose that's what made-up usernames are there for.-- zen_tom, Aug 18 2009 what [tatterdemalion] said.-- daseva, Aug 18 2009 What might be interesting would be to have 'circles' of friends that remain separate that you'd rather interact with on your terms rather than broadcasting to all of them, rather like mailing lists.-- RayfordSteele, Aug 19 2009 random, halfbakery