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Topic: Facebook's location stupidity

Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 08-20-2010 09:39 PM

I see this sort of thing all the time "Phil just checked into the XXX titty bar" on people's facebook pages. This is really going a bit far though.

click here

quote:
In a new feature rolled out late last night, Facebook now allows users of its iPhone app to check themselves and their friends into locations where they're hanging out, allowing their friends to follow them in real time. Oh, there's no way this can go wrong!

The most worrying aspect of Facebook Places is that you can be checked in by other people. So if you're skipping work, for example, and having lunch with a friend instead, they can check you both in and your boss could see it and fire you.

Fortunately, you need to opt-in to that privacy setting. The first time someone tries to check you in, you'll get an option to not allow them to do so or to allow other people to check you in. But once you approve one, you'll approve all future friend check-ins.

Not to mention the inherent weirdness of having all of your Facebook friends knowing where you are all the time. What do you think, will you use Facebook Places?

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Chris Slycord
Film God

Posts: 2986
From: 퍼항시, 경상푹도, South Korea
Registered: Mar 2007

posted 08-20-2010 10:03 PM

And if someone requests to be friends with you who is a bit shady, they'd know you'd left your place empty...

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Nathan Tarpley
Film Handler

Posts: 12
From: Crystal Lake, IL
Registered: Sep 2007

posted 08-20-2010 10:42 PM

What is Facebook?

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 08-20-2010 11:57 PM

I call Facebook's new "places" feature their "throw you under the bus" feature. It's one thing if you want to announce you have just arrived at a certain public place, which may not be all that wise. It's another for others to do that for you and possibly throw you under the bus in the process. Any number of things are possible if others announce your real-time location on the Internet, many of those possibilities being bad.

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 08-21-2010 01:51 AM

quote: Brad Miller
I see this sort of thing all the time "Phil just checked into the XXX titty bar" on people's facebook pages.

No shit! I see Phil posting crap like that all the time! That and the naked pics he posts from inside various Regal Entertainment Group theaters. Phil goes crazy a lot on Facebook.

But anyway, you can turn that stuff off from within Facebook.

Upper right corner:
ACCOUNT > PRIVACY SETTINGS > CUSTOM > CUSTOMIZE SETTINGS.

-Change "Places I check in to" to Friends Only or Custom.
-Right below that, be sure to uncheck the enable box for "Include me in "People Here Now" after I check in"
-A little below that, change "Friends can check me in to Places" to DISABLE.

You're done.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-21-2010 06:15 AM

Hey Joe... Does Facebook have a place to check when you're getting a speeding ticket?

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-21-2010 09:18 AM

Facebook's privacy settings are too complicated and change too often to keep up with. They should just boil the whole thing down to two settings:

___ I give a shit
___ I don't give a shit

The teenagers would choose the second option and the smart people would choose the first.

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-21-2010 09:25 AM

Although I have no personal relationship to either side, I continue to be annoyed when people complain about Facebook privacy issues. The whole purpose of Facebook is to share information, yet people complain when it does its job too well. If you don't like it, don't sign up for an account. I fail to see why some people seem to think that they have any right to complain about a service for which they signed up voluntaily and which is provided to them at no cost.

Personally, I don't see why FB has become so popular. I keep in touch with people I know by telephone, email, and by seeing them in person. I am in the phone book and have a web site. People who need to get in touch with me already know how to do that. They also know where I live and what kinds of books and movies I like. I'm not sure what I would gain by giving FB a bunch of personal information for free so that they can put advertising all over it and redistribute it. But that's just me. [Razz]

Edit: I can sort of understand why the service would be popular for college students (its original audience), but I suspect that most would really not prefer to have those pictures of them doing stupid things while drunk in circulation twenty years later.

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Chris Slycord
Film God

Posts: 2986
From: 퍼항시, 경상푹도, South Korea
Registered: Mar 2007

posted 08-21-2010 10:19 AM

quote: Scott Norwood
Although I have no personal relationship to either side, I continue to be annoyed when people complain about Facebook privacy issues. The whole purpose of Facebook is to share information, yet people complain when it does its job too well. If you don't like it, don't sign up for an account.

You're completely ignoring that facebook has changed how they work over the years. Someone who signed up a few months ago didn't have many of the privacy issues they'd have now, because the system was different then. And even more so if the person initially signed up a year or two ago.

Then there's the fact that they have been changing things and automatically forcing the change on you silently. Granted, they've apparently learned their lesson by having this new feature be one you must opt-in to enable.

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Claude S. Ayakawa
Film God

Posts: 2738
From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 08-21-2010 01:24 PM

I was introduced to Facebook by several of my Friends almost two years ago and at first I did not know what the fuss was all about this site. Over time, I became convinced that Facebook was a wonderful social venue and a great way to share information and images with others.

I have been in business as a professional photographer for a little over forty five years and have enjoyed my career very much. I have been posting some of my favorite images I had photographed with film many years ago at Facebook lately and have enjoyed doing it because many of my friends have enjoyed seeing them including some of you here at Film Tech. Some of the images have not been publicly shown in years and I am glad I now have the opportunity to share them with others through this site. I have appreciated all of the nice comments some of you had made about my images and will post more on a daily basis and I hope you will continue to enjoy them.

-Claude

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Manny Montes
Master Film Handler

Posts: 270
From: United States
Registered: Feb 2010

posted 08-21-2010 02:21 PM

I like facebook, keeps me in touch with people i'd have lost touch with from school and previous jobs. It is a privacy risk if you don't reign in your settings, I'm pretty much completely private except for name and a single profile picture for people to identify me if they want to add me.

It all depends on how you use it (or dont)

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 08-21-2010 02:48 PM

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
Hey Joe... Does Facebook have a place to check when you're getting a speeding ticket?

Well sure. While the officer is writing you up you can "check in" to a nearby place, but I think it'd be much easier just to type, "I am currently in the process of getting a speeding ticket, now the officer is yelling at me because I am ignoring him and typing on my phone. Now I am being beaten by the officer because that is what they do. Now I am being tasered. Now I am dead."

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Chad Souder
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 962
From: Waterloo, IA, USA
Registered: Feb 2000

posted 08-21-2010 03:25 PM

In Iowa, it is now illegal to do messaging of any kind while driving, so the cop could issue you another ticket for writing an update while behind the wheel.

The only security change Facebook needs to make is allowing the user to distinguish between "Friends" and "acquaintances." I may want to compare my gut with that of someone I went to highschool with, but if they weren't a friend then, they certainly aren't one now. Then you could have two different levels of security. Friends get to see everything, acquaintances get to peek at a couple pics, see some current info, and only have one out of 10 of their unnecessary, pointless, drivel laden status updates posted to your wall. Then they can try and convince you they're a friend to get to see more and make you read all their idiotic ramblings. I've hidden at least 30 of my friends.

Facebook for me has become little more than Mafia Wars for 6 minutes and spying on employees. I don't even know why I play Mafia Wars. It's so stupid, yet unexplainably addictive. I do spy on my employees though. Sometimes they're just stupid enough to make a mistake.

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James Westbrook
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1133
From: Lubbock, Texas, Usa
Registered: Mar 2006

posted 08-21-2010 03:41 PM

One of my facebook friends posted recently that her boss is a "c__t". This was over a month ago, and that friend is still employed. Must mean the friend's coworkers are not her facebook friends and thus didn't know and didn't tell on her.
I have edited my news feeds to omit Farm Town, Mafia Wars and any new game that seems to pop up. Most of which seem to be played by adults my age or older...

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Jim Bedford
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 597
From: Telluride, CO, USA (733 mi. WNW of Rockwall, TX but it seems much, much longer)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-21-2010 10:18 PM

There are enough frightening, funny, stupid, sublime, bizarre and strange things that people have pointed out can happen with the use of Facebook Places that it's just ripe for a movie script or a TV series. Hell, it might already be in the pipeline.

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