What if we didn’t have to confirm our Facebook friends?
Comments: 4 - Date: November 30th, 2007 - Categories: In The News, Social Tools, Social Networking
This is a response to Chris Poile’s comment where he points to an interesting article by Cory Doctorow on Facebook friending….
What do you think the world (AKA the social networking website world) would be like if you didn’t need to confirm your friends on Facebook (LinkedIn, MySpace, Friendster, etc…) ? In that universe, it could be argued that friends lists would be meaningless. But as Chris, Cory, and many others point out, you often feel obligated to friend-back people you don’t particularly feel friendly with in our current universe, so how meaningful are friends lists now? You can draw a firm line and say you will only friend people you have met face-to-face, but that subset of “friends” still includes a lot of “non-friends” like the bully from high school.
If friends are unconfirmed, you would be freed to build your list anyway you like. You could actually create an accurate list of who you think are your close friends and colleagues. Or you could leave it empty. Or you could fill it with millions.
You could decide on a whim to add or remove people without offending anyone. Or would you still offend people? Is there so much pressure to reciprocate the friending (this pressure created by these websites, not by anything in our “real” lives) that we would carry that over to a universe with no required confirmation?
Real friendships are often not perfectly balanced. I consider my sister to be one of my best friends (yes!), but as we jokingly discuss, she might not even consider me a friend at all, but rather just a sister. I recently tried and failed to convince her to join Facebook so I can friend her. So where does that leave me? My Facebook friends list is totally wrong! I wish I could add her without requiring her to confirm or even join the site.
What do you think a no-confirm-required friending model would look like in practice?
Comment by Jake R. - 30 November 2007 @ 2:22 pm
Although not the same sort of social network, that’s pretty much how Flickr works. You can make anyone a contact, friend or family, and they can reciprocate if they want. Adding them as a friend doesn’t give you any special privileges, but it allows them to see you friends-only photos if they wish. The only that really change is that you see their new photos as they are added to Flickr, assuming you already had permission to view them.
Comment by Joan DiMicco - 3 December 2007 @ 12:16 am
Yea, Flickr is a good example of this. I know Live Journal also does this, and that’s been reported to have ended up in creating a lot of teen-agst drama.
Flickr kind of hides who is friends with whom. I wonder if that makes it less in-your-face when someone doesn’t friend you back?
I don’t know of a site that allows you to friend people who haven’t actually join that site. I think that would be cool.
Comment by Jim Morris - 16 December 2007 @ 8:12 am
Facebook doesn’t notify the defriended, so I did it to several people last week. People who are friending indiscriminately probably don’t notice. On the other hand, I asked a new applicant if we had ever met and he said “yes” and reeled off several places where I’d never been. I accepted. Anyone willing to lie to become my friend might have uses. :-)
Comment by Roman Tarnavski - 7 April 2008 @ 11:24 pm
One would have to view Twitter as an example of such ‘friending’ - if you can call it that, as its more a facilitation of permissive cyber-stalking than traditional friendship.
The model that allows anyone to ‘Follow’ your thoughts is one I think Joan you’re speaking about - and will only be viable once/if OpenID gets off the ground and as such, offer a transparent ether of collaboration which will allow you to add your sister, without requiring her to be a part of your specific sub-network.
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