2009 11
There are no trolls in Facebook
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
- Image via CrunchBase
At the beginning I only accepted people I knew as friends in FB but after having a waiting list of 700 potential friends I decided to accept them and new ones. I now have around 2300 friends. Recently a new phenomenom started: comments on Facebook. Maybe because of the closeness that FB inspires I now get a lot of comments on my status updates in FB. And because FB is linked to this blog I get comments on posts on FB instead of my blog. Now the interesting thing is that there are no trolls in Facebook and the average level of comments on FB is very good. There is dissent in FB, which is positive. But no trolling. In FB I don´t get antisemitic comments, or anti south American comments (yes in Spain some people have anti South American prejudice) or people insulting me because I have done well in life which seems to be a favorite occupation of some readers of my Spanish blog. People in FB disagree strongly with me sometimes, but their behavior is similar to the one they would have in public. Disagreeing without insulting. I only had one instance of a person insulting me in FB and I have been a member since mid 2006. And it was simple. I removed this person from my friend´s list. But that is one in over 2 years. In my Spanish blog I get insulted every week, especially when I write about religion or politics. In the end I think that the success of FB is that it elevates the conversation. But not everyone agrees. Benjami Villoslada co founder of Meneame for example for example recently wrote that he misses trolls in FB, that everyone si so polite it´s boring. Indeed his latest update was that he was going to Meneame because he wanted to find some trolls, that he missed them. Another friend of mine instead, Anil de Melo, who got “trolled out” after the Mobuzz closing, spoke to me about installing Facebook Connect in his blog and only accepting comments from friends in Facebook. But the problem I see with this is that it forces people to be in FB and that is also bad. None of us want FB to monopolize the conversation.
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No Comments
Adrian Elliot on January 11, 2009 ·
Sorry. Should have written that comment in English. My mistake… 🙁
Esther on January 11, 2009 ·
I believe that it is so because two important facts: people feel social pressure ( their comments can be seen by their close entourage) and their picture is published in most of the cases. Hooliganism is more comfortable when nobody knows…
Adrian Elliot on January 11, 2009 ·
Exactly. It’s the greatest achievement of Facebook. Breaking user anonimity.
Richard on January 11, 2009 ·
Facebook will be the new Big Brother ?
I hope not !!
Lasse Enersen on January 12, 2009 ·
That’s very true. People really do act more civilized in Facebook. I think whatever produces it makes it one of Facebook’s greatest assets. Maybe the online future will be less anonymous, and thus a bit more civilized.
Jose Miguel Cansado on January 12, 2009 ·
True, as Adrian said, that FB breaks anonymity, and true that it better not become a monopoly thanks to FB connect.
Off-topic:
But Martin, do not tell us that Spaniards do not like Latin Americans… I bet that in Spain we even have more people that hate Spain (separatists) than Spaniards that dislike South Americans.
Argentinians do lots of jokes on Spaniards (gallegos) but when I have been to Buenos Aires I feel there is an appreciation for Spain. Which is mutual, else you would not be living in Spain…
Even if many would say that we feel closer to Europeans than to Latin Americans, the truth is a Spaniard has much more in common with an Argentinian or a Mexican than with a Dutch or a Swedish.
FernandoG on January 12, 2009 ·
@Adrian Elliot
You can’t know who sees your post on FB News Feed because each user can configure what he wants to see. There is a default configuration, but a lot of people cut what gets in their News Feed to reduce the noise, specially if they have a lot of friends. They still can see your post, but they have to go to your profile for that.
Ben10 on January 12, 2009 ·
Many trolls don’t know that nobody is anonymous in the internet…
Toby on January 13, 2009 ·
How is FON doing?
I am looking for figures about FON, financial statement, balance sheet, profits or anything that tells how the company and business model is doing.
Can anyone assist, I need it for my school work.
/Toby
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Adrian Elliot on January 11, 2009 ·
Otra opción es moderar los comentarios. No hay que hacerlo con cada mensaje, hay programas que te permiten moderar sólo el primer comentario de un usuario. Los sucesivos, una vez el primero esté aprobado, se publicarán de forma automática. Así es más fácil excluir a los troll, aún manteniendo que algunos lectores disientan con dureza, lo que sólo puede ser positivo.
Por cierto, un problema que tengo con Facebook es que no siempre puedo saber quien lee mis entradas en su feed. La publicación es bastante aleatoria, de manera que si tengo 2000 ‘amigos’ no puedo garantizar que cada post que envíe llegue a esos 2.000 y tampoco sé si o no me puedo fiar de la segmentación que hace Facebook con dicha audiencia.