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Facebook Is Full of Emotional-Support Groups

theatlantic.com

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Re: Facebook Is Full of Emotional-Support Groups

#51

Post by leetcrew »

emiliobumachar wrote: post #31
pcr0 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Playing devil's advocate, I've found the feature useful for meme pages and university groups. However, I think they should add another tap to the process as it's too easy to send accidental invites on mobile.

Alternative: keep it one tap, but hold it for a couple minutes while an "undo" option is visible. Possibly also a "confirm" option for those in a hurry.

this seems like a simple and effective solution. a one to five minute delay on a group invite does not seem like a terrible inconvenience.

Re: Facebook Is Full of Emotional-Support Groups

#52

Post by dathinab »

phalangion wrote: post #41
dymk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really easy to complain about this, but it's very hard to actually come up with a solution. Did you have any suggestions how cases like this could be detected?

Maybe make it a two-step process to add people to a group. Sure, show the list of friends to suggest, but make the "adding friends" page separate, so if you accidentally click, you're still a step away from adding someone.

Or better allow people to mark groups as more private (lets call it sensitive) and only if done so have a two-step process to add people and possible other changes.

Re: Facebook Is Full of Emotional-Support Groups

#53

Post by wlesieutre »

raverbashing wrote: post #28
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or that their tiny bubble doesn’t know enough about the real world to be careful with things like this.

Yes. See also: Google

Google Buzz was a much worse disaster for similar reasons.

https://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/technology/1012/gallery...

Re: Facebook Is Full of Emotional-Support Groups

#54

Post by bertjk »

DINKDINK wrote: post #44
phalangion wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe make it a two-step process to add people to a group. Sure, show the list of friends to suggest, but make the "adding friends" page separate, so if you accidentally click, you're still a step away from adding someone.

Product people are going to hate that friction, just add an undo invite button

That would work until another product person decides to eliminate the friction of "accept invitation" and adds an auto-accept invitation feature

Re: Facebook Is Full of Emotional-Support Groups

#55

Post by ravenstine »

dymk wrote: post #39
wufufufu wrote: post #15

If any Facebook employees are reading this, there's a really annoying "feature" that will show a list of suggested friends to add to a private group. I've accidentally added people to private groups by accidentally clicking a single time while scrolling. Imagine being in an AA group or HIV support group and adding your coworker to it on accident. Please change this.

It's really easy to complain about this, but it's very hard to actually come up with a solution. Did you have any suggestions how cases like this could be detected?

> it's very hard to actually come up with a solution

Just not have "suggested friends"? I've never gotten anything out of that feature, and I imagine it provides little actual value to anyone since if someone was actually a friend or even an acquaintance, they'd have that person in mind when adding friends on Facebook.

Re: Facebook Is Full of Emotional-Support Groups

#56

Post by fcarraldo »

rock_hard wrote: post #47
seandougall wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s pretty good that they allow you to do that now, but it can’t retroactively remove those interests from the personal data they’ve already sold about you. So it fixes the smaller issue of what ads Facebook serves, but doesn’t address the larger issue of privacy.

FB doesn’t sell your data though, never has! What they sell is the ability to target you based on it. But the data never leaves FBs servers! So if you remove the tags from your settings, advertisers won’t be able to target you with them anymore

This isn’t the whole truth. Facebook doesn’t sell data, but Facebook’s Graph API combined with microtargeting ad groups allows third party applications that the user has authorized to gather and sell sensitive data to anyone they want. In many cases, the data does leave Facebook’s servers as soon as the action is taken.

You could argue this is the user’s own fault, but prior to Cambridge Analytica, there was very little public understanding of what “connecting” an app to Facebook really meant among the general population.

Also, just because Facebook doesn’t sell this data today does not mean they never will.

Re: Facebook Is Full of Emotional-Support Groups

#57

Post by PhasmaFelis »

dymk wrote: post #39
wufufufu wrote: post #15

If any Facebook employees are reading this, there's a really annoying "feature" that will show a list of suggested friends to add to a private group. I've accidentally added people to private groups by accidentally clicking a single time while scrolling. Imagine being in an AA group or HIV support group and adding your coworker to it on accident. Please change this.

It's really easy to complain about this, but it's very hard to actually come up with a solution. Did you have any suggestions how cases like this could be detected?

> It's really easy to complain about this, but it's very hard to actually come up with a solution.

I don't want to be rude, but I'm really not sure what you mean by this. "Don't show suggested friends, at least for private groups" seems simple, obvious, and effective.

Re: Facebook Is Full of Emotional-Support Groups

#58

Post by PhasmaFelis »

village-idiot wrote: post #9

Anecdote, but it sure seems to me that the need for emotional support groups has skyrocketed within my lifetime. I’m sure all the members of these groups are legitimate (I’m not making a “snowflake” argument) but what in the hell is going on?

I think the need has always existed, it just hasn't been available. The internet has made it much easier to seek out like-minded strangers, and it's become much more socially acceptable to do so, for men especially.

Re: Facebook Is Full of Emotional-Support Groups

#59

Post by rock_hard »

fcarraldo wrote: post #56
rock_hard wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FB doesn’t sell your data though, never has! What they sell is the ability to target you based on it. But the data never leaves FBs servers! So if you remove the tags from your settings, advertisers won’t be able to target you with them anymore

This isn’t the whole truth. Facebook doesn’t sell data, but Facebook’s Graph API combined with microtargeting ad groups allows third party applications that the user has authorized to gather and sell sensitive data to anyone they want. In many cases, the data does leave Facebook’s servers as soon as the action is taken. You could argue this is the user’s own fault, but prior to Cambridge Analytica, there was very lit…

Sure, third parties can request access to the graph API by asking the user for permission.

But Facebook issnt selling that access! Access to the APIs is free.

Now users just giving any random app access is a whole different can of worms...you have the same issue on Android and iOS with permission dialogs...people worry about Amazon Alexa recording everything they say, but will give any app microphone/camera access to do just the same if the app creator is ill intended.

Re: Facebook Is Full of Emotional-Support Groups

#60

Post by nso95 »

dymk wrote: post #39
wufufufu wrote: post #15

If any Facebook employees are reading this, there's a really annoying "feature" that will show a list of suggested friends to add to a private group. I've accidentally added people to private groups by accidentally clicking a single time while scrolling. Imagine being in an AA group or HIV support group and adding your coworker to it on accident. Please change this.

It's really easy to complain about this, but it's very hard to actually come up with a solution. Did you have any suggestions how cases like this could be detected?

Dialog: "Are you sure you would like to invite x?" - This solution has existed for a very long time. Not difficult.
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