Facebook

Has Facebook reverted to lies to tempt us into foolish behaviour?

Kristine Lowe

16 Jul 2010 — 1 min read

Here's a thing that has puzzled me lately: most times I've logged into Facebook I've been met by Facebook ads claiming this or that friend of mine on the network has used Facebook Friendfiender, urging me to follow their lead.

The thing that's puzzled me about this is that a substantial portion of my Facebook friends are very savy when it comes to technology and privacy. Quite a few of them are journalists well versed in how to protect their privacy and their sources online, and I just couldn't imagine any of these giving Facebook access to their email boxes and -contacts by using Friendfiender. Others are privacy and/or anti-surveillance campaigners, I could't quite see them using Friendfiender either. So when Facebook claimed my FB-friend Leo Plaw, a web developer and artist, had used Friendfiender I shot him an email to double-check. Here's his reply:

"Thanks for heads up. Facebook is lying. FB has become the sneakies bunch of weasels. Blog that one."

Maybe I should start double-checking every time Faceboook claims one or more of my FB-friends have used Friendfinder. This sort of advertisement woud be against the law under Norwegian jurisdisction as it's misleading. I wonder, how does it hold up under US jurisdiction?

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