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Facebook knows most users don't want another email account that is just going to get filled with spam. So how does Facebook deal with spam? Simple, it puts it i
by swang 14y ago
Facebook knows most users don't want another email account that is just going to get filled with spam. So how does Facebook deal with spam? Simple, it puts it into your Others folder.
Otherwise you get users complaining about spam in their messages.
- imgabe 14y agoMost users didn't want another email account period. They certainly didn't want Facebook to make that decision for them. It doesn't sound like "Other" was meant to be a spam folder. If that's the case why didn't they just call it "Spam" and install a spam filter to send mail there?
- wahnfrieden 14y agoThey do have a spam filter, and it sends items to Other.
- mayanksinghal 14y agoIt is not a spam filter. I just checked my "Other" after days and found a mail that was not spam but from a old friend that I had not accepted as a friend yet. It is not 'detecting' spam but marking everything not-from-facebook as unimportant.
- swang 14y agoTo clarify, what I meant was the Others folder is just their way of preventing Facebook Users from getting spam in their "Messages" page. Since no one really checks their Others folder, you don't get any spam. The side effect though is that the Others section _may_ have important messages, but Facebook can't risk having spam invade the "Messages" page. Also if you name the folder Spam, you're acknowledging that the Facebook system can have spam, which is probably something Facebook doesn't want.
- FixThisPOS 14y agoNobody asked for or authorized "their way." Their way aucks, as does their entire communication system. Even their intra-Facebook messages are a disgraceful mess. Messages are simply tacked onto threads that are months old. Different types of communications are scattered all over the place. Friend requests, direct messages... it's pathetic. Facebook is not that complicated a concept, yet they manage to screw it up royally and never fix it.
- swang 14y agoTo clarify, what I meant was the Others folder is just their way of preventing Facebook Users from getting spam in their "Messages" page. Since no one really checks their Others folder, you don't get any spam. The side effect though is that the Others section _may_ have important messages, but Facebook can't risk having spam invade the "Messages" page. Also if you name the folder Spam, you're acknowledging that the Facebook system can have spam, which is probably something Facebook doesn't want.
- codemac 14y agoBecause anything not from someone in my Facebook friends list is spam? Jesus, why didn't any of these anti-spam devices, programs, companies, etc think of it! We'll just make a per user white list and be done with it! Oh wait, that's a horrible idea, and you should feel bad.
- swang 14y agoI have no idea what you're actually referring to. I never said everything in the Other page is spam. I am saying they decided to dump any message that isn't your friend or (friend of friend) into the Others page, which solved for them problem of users seeing "spam" in their Messages page but created other problems.
- codemac 14y agoYou may never say that everything in the Other page is spam, but if you present moving all messages not from friends into a folder called Other to solve the spam problem... Either you're going to have a horrible false positive rate or a horrible false negative rate, because sender email address is a really poor feature to determine spam from ham.