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APIs aside, I'm really struck by the lack of professionalism on behalf of the Facebook employee the author mentioned. I'm friends with several Facebook employe

by garply 18y ago

APIs aside, I'm really struck by the lack of professionalism on behalf of the Facebook employee the author mentioned. I'm friends with several Facebook employees and several times I've seen this type of behavior (mostly through notes that the employees share to gripe about what they perceive to be an obnoxious userbase). One of the more inappropriate exchanges I remember was where a user sent an admittedly hostile complaint to Facebook and the employee sent back an even more hostile response - in which he mentioned that he had checked out the user's profile, noticed he was a Christian, and then proceeded to mock him for it.

mcslee 18y ago
Here's the note in question. I wrote it, and I think your comment mischaracterizes its true nature. http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=27551539159&id=204686 http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=27551539159&id=... The purpose of both my note and my personal replies to the hate-mail I received was not to express hostility. Rather, both were attempts to call attention to how the veil of anonymity provided by the Internet changes the way people treat each other, often for the worse. Not too different from the Hacker News Guidelines: "Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation." My intent in calling out Christianity was not to mock, but rather to make people reconsider their own behavior by viewing it through the lens of a belief system they feel strongly enough about to post on their Facebook profiles. Happy to discuss further if you still feel my post was inflammatory.
- psyklic 18y ago
  You have the wrong attitude if you feel that you need to tell customers to "reconsider their own behavior." From this reply, it sounds like you're insulting your customer by pretending to know more about their religion than them. That's not cool. It is very unprofessional to comment on irrelevant personal information you have stored about a customer.
  - natrius 18y ago
    If you send someone a message on Facebook, the recipient can view your profile. There was no breach of privacy here.
- garply 18y ago
  Thanks for responding to this. It seems I don't have permission to view this note (probably due to a change in networks on my side) and I believe the incident was a few months ago, so I may not have perfect recollection of the note. I hope I didn't mischaracterize your note. I recall the logic of the note being along the lines of: "You're saying nasty things to me. I see that you're a Christian. How can you do this when being hateful is against your religion?" It read to me like a snarky response calling him a hypocrite (even if you didn't explicitly label him as such). I have serious problems with this for a few reasons: First, as a business owner, I don't think an employee should be anything less than the pinnacle of politeness when dealing with customers (which is what FB's users amount to - even if they're only paying you with eyeball time). Implicitly labeling him as a hypocrite was impolite. The note damaged my opinion of how FB is run as a business. The second, larger, issue is related to privacy. Personally, I'm not comfortable with you treating my profile information as anything more than raw data - as neutral and uninteresting as a set of ones and zeros. Just as I wouldn't want my doctor to tell people things he knew about me, I don't think you should reveal information about this guy - either his religion or the impolite way in which he communicated with you. I seem to recall that information from his profile not being available to the general public. Finally, when it comes down to it, his religion just had nothing to do with whatever feature request / bug report he was making. Just as I wouldn't expect a waitress to call attention to me having orange hair when I order a burger, I don't expect you to bring up my personal information when I give you feedback on your service. Shortly thereafter, I quit using FB on a regular basis. I did so for several reasons, but that incident was certainly somewhere in my mind when I quit.
  - indigoviolet 18y ago
    That depends on what you consider feedback. In this case, the "feedback" was: 'you are a faggot. this facebook sucks. the one should come back. i want to kill you. go fuck a man'. I kid you not. Do you think people (any people, nevermind those who build products that are given away for free) deserve such abuse?
    - teej 18y ago
      These people deserve to be treated with the same courtesy, dignity, and respect as everyone else. You would be surprised to see how people change when they get a nice response from a human.
- deleted 18y ago
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lacker 18y ago
This isn't so bad. I've been at parties with Facebook people who brag about the celebrity accounts they've been spying on.

by garply 18y ago

mcslee 18y ago

Here's the note in question. I wrote it, and I think your comment mischaracterizes its true nature. http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=27551539159&id=204686 http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=27551539159&id=... The purpose of both my note and my personal replies to the hate-mail I received was not to express hostility. Rather, both were attempts to call attention to how the veil of anonymity provided by the Internet changes the way people treat each other, often for the worse. Not too different from the Hacker News Guidelines: "Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation." My intent in calling out Christianity was not to mock, but rather to make people reconsider their own behavior by viewing it through the lens of a belief system they feel strongly enough about to post on their Facebook profiles. Happy to discuss further if you still feel my post was inflammatory.

psyklic 18y ago
You have the wrong attitude if you feel that you need to tell customers to "reconsider their own behavior." From this reply, it sounds like you're insulting your customer by pretending to know more about their religion than them. That's not cool. It is very unprofessional to comment on irrelevant personal information you have stored about a customer.
- natrius 18y ago
  If you send someone a message on Facebook, the recipient can view your profile. There was no breach of privacy here.
garply 18y ago
Thanks for responding to this. It seems I don't have permission to view this note (probably due to a change in networks on my side) and I believe the incident was a few months ago, so I may not have perfect recollection of the note. I hope I didn't mischaracterize your note. I recall the logic of the note being along the lines of: "You're saying nasty things to me. I see that you're a Christian. How can you do this when being hateful is against your religion?" It read to me like a snarky response calling him a hypocrite (even if you didn't explicitly label him as such). I have serious problems with this for a few reasons: First, as a business owner, I don't think an employee should be anything less than the pinnacle of politeness when dealing with customers (which is what FB's users amount to - even if they're only paying you with eyeball time). Implicitly labeling him as a hypocrite was impolite. The note damaged my opinion of how FB is run as a business. The second, larger, issue is related to privacy. Personally, I'm not comfortable with you treating my profile information as anything more than raw data - as neutral and uninteresting as a set of ones and zeros. Just as I wouldn't want my doctor to tell people things he knew about me, I don't think you should reveal information about this guy - either his religion or the impolite way in which he communicated with you. I seem to recall that information from his profile not being available to the general public. Finally, when it comes down to it, his religion just had nothing to do with whatever feature request / bug report he was making. Just as I wouldn't expect a waitress to call attention to me having orange hair when I order a burger, I don't expect you to bring up my personal information when I give you feedback on your service. Shortly thereafter, I quit using FB on a regular basis. I did so for several reasons, but that incident was certainly somewhere in my mind when I quit.
- indigoviolet 18y ago
  That depends on what you consider feedback. In this case, the "feedback" was: 'you are a faggot. this facebook sucks. the one should come back. i want to kill you. go fuck a man'. I kid you not. Do you think people (any people, nevermind those who build products that are given away for free) deserve such abuse?
  - teej 18y ago
    These people deserve to be treated with the same courtesy, dignity, and respect as everyone else. You would be surprised to see how people change when they get a nice response from a human.
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lacker 18y ago

This isn't so bad. I've been at parties with Facebook people who brag about the celebrity accounts they've been spying on.