Spam On Rye

I think that I might have mentioned that I started my affiliation with Facebook several years ago after receiving an innovation to star an artist page. After several week, I tried to use certain features and kept getting a, " you must first establish a profile before accessing this feature," message. So I did. Not happy with  the way the site was run at the time I decided to deactivate my account. This only lasted for a short time, as I returned to the site to find that things had improved.

About a few months or so ago, Facebook started allowing everyone in a group to notify you of their post directly into your personal email inbox. So if you're a member of a large number of groups, your inbox could become flooded with notices of members posts. I tried to turn off the notifications individually, but at first was only able to turn off all them. This meant that I couldn't receive anything from the site at all. This must have been a big problem for many other members, because not too long after that, I was able to turn off individual group notifications by clicking the notifications icon and scrolling down to find the group or notification in question an then click "turn off" from the small dialog box. This also made things a lot less messier in my personal email inbox too. 

I know that all of this was done in an effort to control spam, but in a sense, Facebook had create some of the spam themselves. But wait, there's more. Just the other day, while sharing with friends and in several groups, I was summarily blocked because, "you were moving too fast."  What? Apparently, if you share as many as 6 or more items in a thirty minute period, you can lose the privileged to for up to two days. This policy affects profiles and not artist, fan, or other pages. You can still post as many photos and update your status, as only those post with links to other pages or website are affected.

First, I understand that unwanted messages and posts can be a problem at just about any social site. Second, there are many security features that allow users of Facebook to add or exclude anyone that they choose from participating in any posts that they might share. They already count the number of unanswered friend requests, and if they reach a certain number, you are blocked from making them for thirty days. I understand why this is done though at times, this too can be annoying, especially if you are certain that you've been giving prospective friends ample time to reply before making another request.

With about a billion users to it's credit, it's hard to fathom, at least in my mind, how Facebook could allow so much negative communication that I know goes on, on the site, while stiffing good intentioned sharing of news and information. I just don't get it. The site's owners are billionaires. the site's users just want to share. After all, there wouldn't be a Facebook without it's members, or would there be?