by Why does Facebook insist on continuing to tell me who my friends are and are not? On August 27, 2010 I wrote — Facebook as Probiotic: I Now Have 5,000 Friends — and I was delighted I had so many new and coveted virtual friends on Facebook:
The Facebook friends count is volatile as it jumps by a count of ten and then drops by ten throughout the day. One moment, you have 4,900 friends and the next time you update the page moments later, you’ve dropped down to 4,890 friends — that makes adding new friends a bit perilous and hard to predict because Facebook is sensitive if you try to add too many friends too fast, or if you accept too many new friendships too quickly.
Facebook will not hesitate to warn you against — or even ban you from — adding too many friends. I don’t understand why.
Facebook have always been bullies and censors when you try to add new friend requests if they don’t think you really really truly know those people — and they block you. That is annoying and irritating.
This week, Facebook started a new bullying ploy from the other side of the “friending” dyad — harassing ME if I want to accept a NEW FRIEND invitation from someone else they don’t think I know! Here’s the screenshot proof:
What’s going on with Facebook? Why do they care how well I know people or not? What business is it of theirs?
Of course, as per usual, I always accept friend requests, and I welcomed them into my heart. The “People You May Know” list that Facebook auto-generates for to me friend is never accurate or honest:
I don’t like this new bullying move by Facebook. Raise the friends limit from a measly 5,000! Get out of my face with inquiries about if I REALLY REALLY know the people who are seeking my friendship online. Leave us alone! We can decide our own friendship fates without Facebook censorship!
I hear that, David. I have seen this warning message for awhile, though. I think they want to discourage “game friendships” but what’s the point — what is it to them if I have 50 friends via The Sims Social or from my time at Peddie?
That’s pretty wild, Gordon! I don’t understand the meaning of “friend” as per Facebook’s definition. What’s the point of trying to regulate relationships online? It’s doomed to fail.
I don’t believe that Facebook is trying to be a ‘bully’ per se, but I do think that their reasoning behind the warning is so they can’t be held responsible if something were to happen to any of their users. I see Facebook as a way to communicate with those that you went to school with, go to work with, and are friends with (the type that you hang out with on occasion). There are people out there that (possibly) abuse Facebook, and that’s probably what the guys running Facebook are trying to prevent with their warning without literally going through every users’ profile and erasing all of the profiles that look suspicious. That is just my opinion though.
Thank you for your interesting comment. It seems to me that if people don’t want to friend someone they don’t know, they don’t need Facebook reminding them not to do what they already would not do in the first place. If, however, people use Facebook to interact with new people and be social and to create and preserve friendships, then Facebook’s warning appears interventional and not organic.
I look at it more of a matter of perspective, it could appear as though they are intervening, and they probably are trying to. However, the warning, as I have mentioned, could be put there as a way to not put any blame on Facebook if something were to happen to any of their users due to friend requests leading to harm. Look at it this way, hypothetically speaking, if there wasn’t the warning and someone added a person they didn’t know, the stranger and the person that added them have conversations and decide to meet in person. The stranger turns out to not be the person that was on Facebook and the person that added the stranger disappears or has something else bad happen to them. This occurrence could lead to lawsuits against Facebook for not having a filter of some sort on their friend requests. If you add this warning, then Facebook can’t be held responsible if something bad were to happen of that caliber, all responsibility would be put on the user that added the stranger. To make a long story short, they put the warning there as a possible way to save their skin from any sort of lawsuit regarding possible crimes that are linked to Facebook friend requests. I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing to be social, I’m just proposing a possible reasoning behind Facebook’s friend request warning.
It’s the ‘old thing’ with a new spin. I believe I’ve seen stickers on a lawn mower that says: “Caution: Spinning Blades” or the real bag of peanuts I received on a United Airlines flight that read: “Caution: Contains nuts”.
People MUST be protected from themselves. It’s sad.
Why waste time on Facebook at all?
I really only use Facebook to promote articles in the Boles Blogs Network.