Face book huh

Poke me !

The bane of a community builders life, Face-book has finally been asked to do something about their frankly lazy look towards security.

Details are sketchy but they really wouldnt be able to secure this site with a crack team of experts they have that many users !

It sounds like they have refused to install a panic button, which I think is common sense (people who ask for panic buttons are really not thinking about the issues with common sense) but it does sound like they are going to make it easier to report people, which is a bit of a cop out.

The main problem with Face-book is you are forced to use your full name when registering, this is a complete no no online.

So what do facebook do, make you register with your full name and also stick every other bit of personal information on your page as well, just in case they didnt know what you looked like or where to find you ?

The communities Ive been running for years have always told people to not use your full name online, its a recipe for disaster, with stalkers and nutters basically being able to find people, with a few simple questions and a phone book or the online phone book, I guarentte I could find where you lived if I wanted to within minites, this frankly doesnt bother some people, but this is human nature, thinking something bad wont happen to them, well it just might!

However I do have better things to do than scare people by finding where they live, I merely want people to take their privacy seriously and realise the dangers that are out there.  People should value their privacy but it seems in a sociaty taken over by celebrity culture and getting your name in the papers people had sadly forgotten the value of this.

If you fill out your facebook profile and put where you live and post your pics, then you have to realise there is a chance someone you might not want to find you, can find you, thats a FACT!

In fact I have no idea how they have managed to get away with it for so long, I registered with Facebook with a false name and was told to change it or I would be removed, I changed it to another false name, and havent had any problems since lol!

I dread to think what actually goes on behind the scenes at Facebook, they must be banning people daily, although you never hear of anyone actually being banned or chucked out.  I had a communty not even 1% as bit as face-book and I was banning nigerian scammers, older sleezy men and perverts from dawn till dusk, why blokes choose to post pictures of their bits ill never know but this seemed to be a particular hobby for some of my users.

I have had many communities over the years and the stuff that actually does go on behind the scenes is shocking because Ive seen it first hand, I would never let anyone under the age of 18 on any of my communities for the simple fact its not safe, parents simply do not realise what is happening on these sites.

People who have no clue about online security have been saying get a panic button on Facebook ? Whatever for ? what bloody good is that gonna do ?

So you press the button and then what exactly ? it contacts the police does it ? like hell it does, you want to try informing the police of any online problems, they are not even interested I rang them when I had idiots passing underage pictures on my site, they were not interested in the slightest.

Do you remember the Bebo panic button ? well I challenge you to be able to find it, because I’ve never seen it, I can only think you might need to register as an underage user, who know its like the yeti, I’ve heard about it and see a few dodgy grainy pictures but no ones ever seen it!

Another thing that really annoys me about Face-book, why do companies set up their own face-book pages ? and send all their traffic to face-book, I was listening to talk sport and Ian Collins the other night banging on about join his face-book page, don’t get me wrong I like Ian Collins hes a fantastic broadcaster, and the twitter doesn’t bother me as much as they are not monetising their site with advertising like face-book.

On what other buisness would you send your customers to another company ? None, Never ever so why do this with facebook, it makes zero sense at all to me.

Do those people realise how Face-book utilise this traffic and sell it on to advertisers, it costs something like 55p a click to advertise on Face-book, which is shocking, so Ill do a very conservative estimate that they get 50,000 clicks per day on their ads work it out 55px50000 its a lot of money, from people sending their customers to Face-book, completely bonkers if you ask me.

Face-book would argue you get access to all our features and their security, I would argue you could create your own site for very similar to Face-book on your own homepage, keep your advertising revenue and secure it yourself.

For a couple of grand, which would pay for itself in no time.

Don’t get me wrong, Face-book is an excellent site but it has more or less bulldozed every other community out of the way, this is never good for the online community.

In fact I might even forward this post to Ian Collins via his face-book which is the beauty of face-book.

Ive bored myself with my own moaning now so I will leave it there, if you dont agree with anything then go ahead leave a comment, be contructive or I will just delete it lol !

Steveo