Re:Facebook whistleblower says she wants to fix company, not...
by vrc on Monday October 04, 2021 @07:45AM
(#28745470)
Google+ was started in 2010, so Google didn’t “fore”see the problem as much as “see”. I think I banged into the 1500 (1600?) FB friend cap in 2008 or 2009 from the rampant friending, and already started reducing the number and openness of my posts once older and younger relatives started joining in 2006/7ish. The timeline redesign did pour gas on the fire, but the issue of unbridled friending was noticeable far sooner to users and observers.
Re:Facebook whistleblower says she wants to fix company, not...
by sbarre on Monday October 04, 2021 @09:23AM
(#28746360)
> it's impolite to not accept friend requests from e.g. coworkers or relatives that you know but don't really care about.
This always confuses me. I feel like it's more impolite or disrespectful to be two-faced about this.
What's wrong with telling someone, politely, that you try to curate your social media and restrict it to personal friends and family?
If they get offended, is that not their fault? Should they not respect your boundaries?
I think the real downfall was not that they added the timeline, it's that it's impolite to not accept friend requests from e.g. coworkers or relatives that you know but don't really care about.
And then you end up with a news feed full of people you don't care about. I think by the time they added "unfollow" options everybody had moved to WhatsApp where conversations are between 15 people you know quite well rather than 300 people you met once.
I have no idea how they can fix that, or even how they could have prevented it. Google clearly foresaw that problem with their "circles" feature.