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If anyone from Facebook is reading this and wants to help, ALLOW USERS TO HIDE PRESENCE. As-is, any time you log into Facebook, anyone who is friends with you

If anyone from Facebook is reading this and wants to help, ALLOW USERS TO HIDE PRESENCE. As-is, any time you log into Facebook, anyone who is friends with you can see that you are active in the Messenger bar on the right-hand side (even if you have chat disabled). This gives stalkers (who, as the article explains, are sometimes best not blocked) an excuse to message you, to which a victim will feel pressured to respond. This makes Facebook a very unpleasant place to be. I personally have written a Chrome extension to hide my presence. Facebook, please ALLOW USERS TO HIDE PRESENCE if you want to make a positive impact against stalking.

closeparen 9y ago
This is actually a regression. Long, long ago in the days of AIM and other instant messaging platforms, "invisible mode" was a staple, and Facebook Chat had the same feature. Looks like it's gone now.
- deepsun 9y ago
  Also, long, long ago there were open protocols for instant messaging, so we could use any messenger of our choice to communicate with any other.
deepsun 9y ago
It's an old request, they certainly know about it. But, apparently, they think it would be bad for their business to implement it. In the end, Facebook is not a public utility, it's a private website, belonging to Mark and shareholders. We're just allowed to use it, if we like it.
- rlpb 9y ago
  > But, apparently, they think it would be bad for their business to implement it. While this is true, users have the power to change this dynamic. If the statement "Facebook promotes stalking behaviours by refusing to implement an invisible mode to help protect victims" (whether true or not) is accepted as common knowledge, for example, then that can change things. It is accurate to say that they presumably must not have a business case, they're a private company and they can do what they like. This does not contradict others promoting a particular opinion in what they should do, because that has the power to create the business case for doing it.
NightlyDev 9y ago
Facebook is not the problem, users are. Back in the day most users would not even share their name on the internet and now most people are doing the complete opposite: They share way to much without thinking about what can happen. If you don't want a person to see that you are online, just remove the person..or even better, don't add the person in the first place. If you join a service made for sharing personal data you should at least think about the consequences.
- King-Aaron 9y ago
  > Facebook is not the problem, users are. Back in the day most users would not even share their name on the internet and now most people are doing the complete opposite: They share way to much without thinking about what can happen. Facebook is indeed a major part of the problem which you just described. They hold a 'real name' policy, and have well-crafted call to actions which pressure people into feeling obliged to share information. The entire service is designed to mine data from you, which is a bonus for a stalker. Though I don't feel your suggestions - 'just removing or never adding them in the first place' - is a bit moot when the author has described exactly why the person is on their list..
  - manquer 9y ago
    Well facebook is the biggest stalker of them all. It is only natural they will have features enabling stalking
- pluma 9y ago
  "Guns don't kill people, bullets kill people"
Cthulhu_ 9y ago
Not if you have unfriended / blocked said stalker - as is probably Facebook's official response to feature requests like this.
colanderman 9y ago
And a second note for said hypothetical FB employee, I just learned today that accidentally touching the "Q" key activates chat without prompting. That is yet another anti-user pro-stalker misfeature that should be done away with. I need chat to STAY OFF FOREVER.
saghm 9y ago
Not that this is a complete solution, but there's an option for users to "turn chat off" for given users in their friends lists so that you don't show up as online to them and vice-versa. I use it for a substantial portion of people on my friends list simply because I only message a small subset of my Facebook friends, but theoretically you could enable it for everyone on your friends list so that you never showed up online to anyone. The only catch is that there's no way to turn it on by default, so you need to make sure to enable it for the given user every time you become "friends" with a new person.
- colanderman 9y ago
  Unfortunately disabling the "online" notification is useless. The little time ticker next to one's name still gets reset to 0 every time one logs in.

closeparen 9y ago

This is actually a regression. Long, long ago in the days of AIM and other instant messaging platforms, "invisible mode" was a staple, and Facebook Chat had the same feature. Looks like it's gone now.

deepsun 9y ago
Also, long, long ago there were open protocols for instant messaging, so we could use any messenger of our choice to communicate with any other.

deepsun 9y ago

It's an old request, they certainly know about it. But, apparently, they think it would be bad for their business to implement it. In the end, Facebook is not a public utility, it's a private website, belonging to Mark and shareholders. We're just allowed to use it, if we like it.

rlpb 9y ago
> But, apparently, they think it would be bad for their business to implement it. While this is true, users have the power to change this dynamic. If the statement "Facebook promotes stalking behaviours by refusing to implement an invisible mode to help protect victims" (whether true or not) is accepted as common knowledge, for example, then that can change things. It is accurate to say that they presumably must not have a business case, they're a private company and they can do what they like. This does not contradict others promoting a particular opinion in what they should do, because that has the power to create the business case for doing it.

NightlyDev 9y ago

Facebook is not the problem, users are. Back in the day most users would not even share their name on the internet and now most people are doing the complete opposite: They share way to much without thinking about what can happen. If you don't want a person to see that you are online, just remove the person..or even better, don't add the person in the first place. If you join a service made for sharing personal data you should at least think about the consequences.

King-Aaron 9y ago
> Facebook is not the problem, users are. Back in the day most users would not even share their name on the internet and now most people are doing the complete opposite: They share way to much without thinking about what can happen. Facebook is indeed a major part of the problem which you just described. They hold a 'real name' policy, and have well-crafted call to actions which pressure people into feeling obliged to share information. The entire service is designed to mine data from you, which is a bonus for a stalker. Though I don't feel your suggestions - 'just removing or never adding them in the first place' - is a bit moot when the author has described exactly why the person is on their list..
- manquer 9y ago
  Well facebook is the biggest stalker of them all. It is only natural they will have features enabling stalking
pluma 9y ago
"Guns don't kill people, bullets kill people"

Cthulhu_ 9y ago

Not if you have unfriended / blocked said stalker - as is probably Facebook's official response to feature requests like this.

colanderman 9y ago

And a second note for said hypothetical FB employee, I just learned today that accidentally touching the "Q" key activates chat without prompting. That is yet another anti-user pro-stalker misfeature that should be done away with. I need chat to STAY OFF FOREVER.

saghm 9y ago

Not that this is a complete solution, but there's an option for users to "turn chat off" for given users in their friends lists so that you don't show up as online to them and vice-versa. I use it for a substantial portion of people on my friends list simply because I only message a small subset of my Facebook friends, but theoretically you could enable it for everyone on your friends list so that you never showed up online to anyone. The only catch is that there's no way to turn it on by default, so you need to make sure to enable it for the given user every time you become "friends" with a new person.

colanderman 9y ago
Unfortunately disabling the "online" notification is useless. The little time ticker next to one's name still gets reset to 0 every time one logs in.