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Facebook says that 5.5%-11% of accounts are "fake". I'd guess the number is higher. There is so much spam, fake friend requests, and general internet hucksters
by speedplane 9y ago
Facebook says that 5.5%-11% of accounts are "fake". I'd guess the number is higher. There is so much spam, fake friend requests, and general internet hucksters on FB, that I've lost trust in the platform.
Real-life people send me friend requests a few times a week, but I easily get 5-10 spammer friend requests a day. I don't know if stuff I'm reading is (1) just there; (2) put there due to an algorithm trying to cater to my tastes; (3) inserted by spammers; or (4) paid for by god-knows-who.
Every time I log into FB, I feel like I'm stepping into a room with people I sort of recognize but don't know. On the internet, I rather make conversation with true strangers on Hacker News than these quasi-strangers on FB.
- ship_it 9y agoJust curious, why are you still on there?
- speedplane 9y agoI don't have a moral or ideological opposition to FB, more of a practical one... I don't really know who my friends are on there or who I'm talking to when I post something. I know I could exhaustively go through my friends and sort them out... but it's a pain. So I keep the account and check in once every few months. If they fixed the problems, I'd use it more.
- Terretta 9y agoFix your friends list. Consider one of these groups to keep it small and not-fake. People you’ve: - shared a roof with overnight - been in their home or had them over - shared a meal with (by invitation, not bumped into) Don’t let FB water down your personal definition of ‘friend’.
- speedplane 9y agoI don't do this anymore, but long ago (I've had a FB account since at least 2005), I used to add friends I met while traveling. We'd have an awesome night in some foreign city, shared a roof, and ate dinner together... so I added them. At this point, I can't remember anything about them, but it'd meet your definition. But it's not just friends I don't remember. It's that I have all my family on there, my ex's, my kindergarten classmates, my work colleagues. I'm wouldn't say the same think to Aunty Iris as I would to my college friends.
- jamesrcole 9y agoI don't know what the average person's FB experience is like, but yours sounds very different to mine. I rarely get fake friend requests.
- speedplane 9y agoNot sure what I'm doing, I got 6 requests in the past 2 days. As far as I can tell, all but one are fakes. Sometimes it's hard to tell if it's a fake or a person who I met only briefly.