3 ms·

Really didn't like the way I was required to indicate to my entire network what articles I'm reading.

k-mcgrady 14y ago
That was the whole point of the social reader - integration with open graph. Removing that and there was no reason for them to build it in the first place. If you didn't want to share what you were reading automatically you could just go to the regular website and use the regular sharing/like button. I was very particular about which stories I viewed through it. It's surprising the articles you read on a news site that you'd prefer not be shared.
- bonaldi 14y ago
  It's more than just privacy, it's about utility: there's a huge difference in signal between an active recommendation for something from someone I trust, and the firehose of seeing everything they click on. The latter just tells me what headlines appeal to them, if that.
  - rdl 14y ago
    Yeah, I was embarrassed whenever I'd click on a linkbait headline, get disappointed, and then other people saw I'd fallen for it. There was no good way to indicate "wow, this sucked" other than manually deleting it from my newsfeed or adding a comment. I ended up just blocking the social apps entirely. In general, I hate facebook apps that exist on-facebook; I like the external use of the social graph by some other sites.
    - Crake 14y ago
      Whenever I'd try to visit a news link on facebook that one of my other friends had read (and had it autopost to the timeline) it would always try to get ME to sign up as well. I'm really suspicious of that stuff, so I always refused it and either decided I didn't care about the article or used google to find it on my own. I was always paranoid I'd click on some article that would actually turn out to be, I don't know, the secret sex lives of snails or something, and I'd be really embarrassed by it. (Why does a news application need access to all my personal info, anyway? I'm not agreeing to that!!) It's great to hear that newspapers are starting to reject it. I really hate the idea of facebook becoming its own walled garden affair. Especially because there's no way to tell wtf is ever going on it, it doesn't show me half of what I want to see...so now I barely use it and have just left it up for party invites and all the nontech people who act like you're asking them to get a tooth extracted if you expect them to actually e-mail instead of sending a fbook message :/
      - rdl 14y ago
        I think I'm a "tech person" by most definitions, and I still like using fb messages vs. email in a lot of cases. It's a great directory service (I still don't have a good address book for mutt), shows presence (which is missing from email), and the integrated-IM is even better than google (because it doesn't end up sending messages to my desktop if I'm on my phone, etc.)
        Crake 14y ago
        Yeah, everyone's different, plus it depends a lot on the situation (short message vs. long message, importance, is there an attachment, etc). Most of the people I know who insist on facebook messages -only- are more the type that can't figure out how to even open a zip file. Also, a lot of people I know got hit in a round of account deletions and got majorly screwed over because they were conducting all their freelance business through fb messages (and then had no way to communicate with their clients, since neither of them had each other's e-mail). Because of that, it just feels more unsafe to me, like I could lose all my data at any time. Plus they keep doing weird things like deciding what posts I want to see from my friends (I'd like to see all of them by default?? if they are annoying then I will change it), constantly resetting my news feed to "top stories!" and etc. I guess I don't trust them not to mess up the messaging too and then maybe I'll miss a message from someone about something that's really important. I agree that it works fairly well as a directory. I wish there were something like facebook that wasn't facebook, but none of the alternatives seem to have caught on quite as well yet. (also--I hope my original post didn't insult you or anyone else reading it on here, that wasn't my intention at all.)
- perlpimp 14y ago
  Spamming your friends with various bits of information like that is terrible. they should have a tab MISC on facebook to track state changes and stuff like what everybody else reads. Status updates and picture posts should be the only things on the first tab of the news feed. Right now at least for me newsfeed is very hard to read and in a very linear fashion - but then I read that was the intent of the facebook to increase engagement of their advertising services.
  - rdl 14y ago
    Facebook seems to do a pretty good job of tuning the newsfeed for me. I "only important updates" a few people, and block most apps, and everything else is either people I really care about or is interesting stuff about other people. I do "like" things I like, which may get fed back into the algorithm. What really impresses me is how it deals with Quora. Most Quora actions are boring (especially since I see them on the site itself), and they all go to fb, but I only see interesting ones.
- Ntrails 14y ago
  What it meant was that when I saw a link to an article a friend had shared, I had to copy it into a google search to find the original page. I was never, ever, going to let the Guardians app access my Facebook, and stopping me from following interesting links purely because of that was idiotic.

That was the whole point of the social reader - integration with open graph. Removing that and there was no reason for them to build it in the first place. If you didn't want to share what you were reading automatically you could just go to the regular website and use the regular sharing/like button. I was very particular about which stories I viewed through it. It's surprising the articles you read on a news site that you'd prefer not be shared.

bonaldi 14y ago
It's more than just privacy, it's about utility: there's a huge difference in signal between an active recommendation for something from someone I trust, and the firehose of seeing everything they click on. The latter just tells me what headlines appeal to them, if that.
- rdl 14y ago
  Yeah, I was embarrassed whenever I'd click on a linkbait headline, get disappointed, and then other people saw I'd fallen for it. There was no good way to indicate "wow, this sucked" other than manually deleting it from my newsfeed or adding a comment. I ended up just blocking the social apps entirely. In general, I hate facebook apps that exist on-facebook; I like the external use of the social graph by some other sites.
  - Crake 14y ago
    Whenever I'd try to visit a news link on facebook that one of my other friends had read (and had it autopost to the timeline) it would always try to get ME to sign up as well. I'm really suspicious of that stuff, so I always refused it and either decided I didn't care about the article or used google to find it on my own. I was always paranoid I'd click on some article that would actually turn out to be, I don't know, the secret sex lives of snails or something, and I'd be really embarrassed by it. (Why does a news application need access to all my personal info, anyway? I'm not agreeing to that!!) It's great to hear that newspapers are starting to reject it. I really hate the idea of facebook becoming its own walled garden affair. Especially because there's no way to tell wtf is ever going on it, it doesn't show me half of what I want to see...so now I barely use it and have just left it up for party invites and all the nontech people who act like you're asking them to get a tooth extracted if you expect them to actually e-mail instead of sending a fbook message :/
    - rdl 14y ago
      I think I'm a "tech person" by most definitions, and I still like using fb messages vs. email in a lot of cases. It's a great directory service (I still don't have a good address book for mutt), shows presence (which is missing from email), and the integrated-IM is even better than google (because it doesn't end up sending messages to my desktop if I'm on my phone, etc.)
      - Crake 14y ago
        Yeah, everyone's different, plus it depends a lot on the situation (short message vs. long message, importance, is there an attachment, etc). Most of the people I know who insist on facebook messages -only- are more the type that can't figure out how to even open a zip file. Also, a lot of people I know got hit in a round of account deletions and got majorly screwed over because they were conducting all their freelance business through fb messages (and then had no way to communicate with their clients, since neither of them had each other's e-mail). Because of that, it just feels more unsafe to me, like I could lose all my data at any time. Plus they keep doing weird things like deciding what posts I want to see from my friends (I'd like to see all of them by default?? if they are annoying then I will change it), constantly resetting my news feed to "top stories!" and etc. I guess I don't trust them not to mess up the messaging too and then maybe I'll miss a message from someone about something that's really important. I agree that it works fairly well as a directory. I wish there were something like facebook that wasn't facebook, but none of the alternatives seem to have caught on quite as well yet. (also--I hope my original post didn't insult you or anyone else reading it on here, that wasn't my intention at all.)
perlpimp 14y ago
Spamming your friends with various bits of information like that is terrible. they should have a tab MISC on facebook to track state changes and stuff like what everybody else reads. Status updates and picture posts should be the only things on the first tab of the news feed. Right now at least for me newsfeed is very hard to read and in a very linear fashion - but then I read that was the intent of the facebook to increase engagement of their advertising services.
- rdl 14y ago
  Facebook seems to do a pretty good job of tuning the newsfeed for me. I "only important updates" a few people, and block most apps, and everything else is either people I really care about or is interesting stuff about other people. I do "like" things I like, which may get fed back into the algorithm. What really impresses me is how it deals with Quora. Most Quora actions are boring (especially since I see them on the site itself), and they all go to fb, but I only see interesting ones.
Ntrails 14y ago
What it meant was that when I saw a link to an article a friend had shared, I had to copy it into a google search to find the original page. I was never, ever, going to let the Guardians app access my Facebook, and stopping me from following interesting links purely because of that was idiotic.