Facebook Places

[holymadness]

If you haven't heard, facebook launched its geolocation feature this week. It's basically identical to foursquare inasmuch as you can notify people of where you are, and the service uses your social network and crowdsourcing to tell you about points of interest around you, with one important exception: you can tag other people as being in the same location as you, much as you would tag them in a photo.

http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2010...e-web-apps.ars

Of course, there is the option of turning off the feature so that you can't be tagged, but for those who forget, don't know how, or simply don't, I can imagine the following scenarios being fairly common: person 1 calls his boss to tell him he's sick, hits the golf course with person 2. Person 2 tags person 1 as being at the links with him all day, boss finds out, guy gets fired. Or: guy 1 says he can't go to his girlfriend's piano recital because his friend's cousin's funeral is that day, then heads to the bar. Guy 1's buddy tags him at the bar, boom, relationship over.

Believe it or not, you can even tag people as being around you when they aren't even there. That has the potential for some next level sabotage or pranksterism.

I don't use facebook but I am consistently impressed with the way that its sole distinguishing feature these days seems to be greater encroachments into private life than any other comparable service. Yet it flourishes. To an extent, Zuckerberg was right when he said people don't really want privacy.

 

[bdeuce22]

yeah. i don't like the tagging of other people. wait until some dude kills his GF over it because one of her friends tags her at being at the bar or something. Facebook does have some shady ass privacy policies. I don't really care if people tag me or not, but some do.


sidenote: holy can we facebook friends?

 

[Douglas]

If you have nothing to hide, there is no need for concern.

 

[whiteslashasian]

Originally Posted by Douglas

If you have nothing to hide, there is no need for concern.

Oh Dougy....

 

[Keroberos]

Originally Posted by Douglas

If you have nothing to hide, there is no need for concern.
You's trollin'.

 

[Simion505]

You know this means the really irritating, awkward one from your office or school can now turn up uninvited at any of your gatherings?

 

[blairh]

I was once a Facebook member like millions of others. My close to 700 friends were made up of the usual suspects (friends, relatives, former schoolmates, current/former coworkers, etc). I didn't check Facebook unless someone wrote on my wall or a direct message. Every month or so I'd look over a select group of especially hot Facebook females I was friends with just to see if they had posted a hot pic, etc.

I had to disable my wall because an ex-coworker made a snarky comment that was masked to be a jab but was really a serious diss on his side (he was a gay young man who was generally mad at the world).

I eventually decided to deactivate my profile and turn it on periodically just because I wanted to make sure my girlfriend at the time wasn't acting suspiciously on it (she had some shady guy friends). So I'd activate about once a month, peep her profile, the hot girls, and move along.

Sure enough I caught her lying to me about where she had been the previous day (she said her mothers, in reality she went to a party and posted a status update about being there). Because my profile was deactivated she probably didn't realize that I was keeping tabs on her on the random (as I think is a smart move in any relationship in case your gf/bf is on Facebook). When I caught her lying she was about to breakup with me (I didn't mention what I knew), so instead of calling her out on her lie I just kept my mouth shut, let her break up with me, and moved on knowing she was a ******* liar.

A week later I scrapped that account entirely. I gave my Facebook friends list a serious look and decided the website was pretty pointless IMO aside from peeping out my hot female friends, keeping tabs on my current gf, and keeping in touch with friends who did not live in the States.

So instead I created a new profile. This one features a flag of a different country and a different name entirely. I provide no info about myself and essentially have it just to keep Facebook friends with the hot girls and international friends. I also add whatever new girl that is in my life. It's a good way to get an idea of what a girl is like that you have just met, and also in my experience to see who she interacts with on the website (and hopefully doesn't act shady like my ex did).

All my guy friends just email me vacay photos when necessary. I really feel like email/text/phone is all the contact that I need. And I especially love the fact that I no longer have to be Facebook friends with blast from the pasts that I no longer care to be in touch with or coworkers that I couldn't give two ***** about.

This new places feature is just more proof that Facebook wants to expose as much of your life as you're willing to give. And people are stupid enough to give their privacy away and not realize the importance of keeping **** to themselves.