Why was Facebook designed?

[beeksc1]

Facebook is so fabulous. An electronic form of social darwinism, at its prime. Swim (someone who I met) loves to check another person's friend list to see if he has more than she does.

Do employers use Facebook and MySpace pages as a criteria of evaluation?

I know Facebook and MySpace are great ways to define and limit ourselves to short descriptions; but, if Facebook is marketed to increase social organization and communal activism, that would be wonderful. I mean, it is not like any corporation nor authority could ever find out anything that they would use to perpetuate their agenda, whatever that might be.

I am just glad that Facebook has so many features and it is so interesting that a person can list just about everything that touches upon "who that person is" and "what that person is about."

So, where did Facebook come from? Why was it designed?

 

[paximperium]

Calm down...step away from the coffee. Take a few deep breathes.
Sit down...calm yet?
...and click on this magical link from some weird place called wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook

Personally, I think Zuckerberg saw MySpace, had a seizure and had a prophetic vision while his face struck his book...but that's just me.

 

[beeksc1]

^ Good advice.

CIA, FBI push 'Facebook for spies'

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- When you see people at the office using such Internet sites as Facebook and MySpace, you might suspect those workers are slacking off.

But that's not the case at the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency, where bosses are encouraging their staff members to use a new social-networking site designed for the super-secret world of spying.

[Picture caption] A social-networking site for the world of spying officially launches for the U.S. intelligence community this month.

"It's every bit Facebook and YouTube for spies, but it's much, much more," said Michael Wertheimer, assistant deputy director of national intelligence for analysis.

The program is called A-Space, and it's a social-networking site for analysts within the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.

Now, just waiting to hear someone claim that CNN is bunk.

 

[Princess]

Do employers use Facebook and MySpace pages as a criteria of evaluation?

Yes, all the time. Nowadays, people can use Google as their own little private investigator. Anything you post on Facebook, Myspace, any auctions you bid on at Ebay, any websites you own, pictures you've posted on Flickr, Youtube videos, books you've reviewed on Amazon, and every other social networking site will leak information to all of your potential employers.

A few rules for successful interwebbing:
- Never use your real name on public forums on the internet. One day you might post that you hate PETA / NARAL / ACLU / whatever, apply for a job and be turned down because your interviewer just happened to be a member of that organization.

-If you have a blog and want to bitch about work, don't name the company you work for or products you work with, even if its a well-known multinational chain like McDonalds. Someone will find it, link the blog to you, and it'll trickle up through management until you lose your job.

- Assume that your work email is being read by upper management behind your back. Don't send private emails to other people from work. One email I sent to a coworker bounced back because I mistyped the email address; a copy of this email was sent to one of the higher ups in the company, and he replied back to me if I intended to send it to a different email address.

- Assume that software is tracking your every movement on the internet while you work. I used to work at a place that had somewhat menacing software; down in the task bar, there was an icon of a closed eye down at the bottom-right of the screen. When you right-clicked on it, it would show a few networking diagnostics. At random intervals, between 5 and 15 minutes, the eye would open for about 30 seconds, then it would shut again for the next 5 - 15 minute interval. It was the creepiest thing I'd ever seen -- in retrospect, it was an adequate tool that prevent employees from screwing around on the internet.

I was informed later that this software sends a report of everyone internet usage to boss at the end of the day, that it took screen captures at certain intervals, and was capable of capturing keystrokes to peer behind password boxes.

So, where did Facebook come from? Why was it designed?

One word: $$$$$

 

[The Sopwith Turtle]

^ Good advice.

CIA, FBI push 'Facebook for spies'


Now, just waiting to hear someone claim that CNN is bunk.

I don't think anybody is claiming that CNN is bunk, or the article is false. Facebook was designed by Mark Zuckerberg. Some government agency saw it, thought it was a great idea, and decided to use it, just like they decided to use, for example, pencils. Seems perfectly reasonable.

 

[Foolmewunz]

Why were The Yellow Pages designed?

Hiss-Nixon, in their seminal study in the 40s, determined that the Fourth International and CP both were making extensive use of the Yellow Pages to find seeming innocent sounding items like "hardware stores", "printers", and even "plant nurseries".

Now would anyone like to contradict a government study that I just made up? I think not.

 

[jeremyp]

An electronic form of social darwinism, at its prime.

What is this social Darwinism of which you speak? Are you saying that people who don't use Facebook are doomed to extinction?

Swim (someone who I met) loves to check another person's friend list to see if he has more than she does.

What a sad individual Swim is.

Do employers use Facebook and MySpace pages as a criteria of evaluation?

Yes.

I mean, it is not like any corporation nor authority could ever find out anything that they would use to perpetuate their agenda, whatever that might be.

What about Facebook Inc?

I am just glad that Facebook has so many features and it is so interesting that a person can list just about everything that touches upon "who that person is" and "what that person is about."

Don't you find it slightly depressing that "who a person is" can be reduced to a list?

 

[Almo]

Facebook was designed to generate hits. The way the apps spread and demand to be forwarded to 10 people you know... it's just a complex viral marketing ploy. Having said that, when used well, it's a nice social networking tool.

I don't personally use most of it, but it's fairly easy to connect with people through it.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

It seems to me that FaceBook must have been created because MySpace didn't have enough capacity to hold all the illiterate retards that have come to infest the net.

 

[ZirconBlue]

It seems to me that FaceBook must have been created because MySpace didn't have enough capacity to hold all the illiterate retards that have come to infest the net.

While MySpace was largely inhabited by High School kids, Facebook was originally only open to College Students (First Harvard, then other Ivy League Schools, then all Universities). Facebook has allowed me to reconnect with a lot of old friends that I'd lost contact with, so I'm pretty happy with it.

 

[Ashles]

I think some of the above posts are a little paranoid.

A few rules for successful interwebbing:
- Never use your real name on public forums on the internet. One day you might post that you hate PETA / NARAL / ACLU / whatever, apply for a job and be turned down because your interviewer just happened to be a member of that organization.

I employ people all the time. If there are employers who have time to search prospective candidates on the internet and actually track them down to their posting history and read through it they can't be getting much work done.
I have actually bothered to type a prospective candidate's name into Google about 3 times. Only one produced a hit because they had their own website.
The only way I knew it was the person is because they had their photo on it.

-If you have a blog and want to bitch about work, don't name the company you work for or products you work with, even if its a well-known multinational chain like McDonalds. Someone will find it, link the blog to you, and it'll trickle up through management until you lose your job.

How will they find it? This really is unduly paranoid. If I work for Canon and I say "Canon suck" - how am I likely to get into trouble for this unless someone sees me actually type it?

- Assume that your work email is being read by upper management behind your back.

It might be more sensible simply not to send inappropriate email from work. Unless they have a specific reason upper management are very unlikely to be reading your emails. More likely is someone simply seeing your email on your screen.

Don't send private emails to other people from work.

Why not? (unless your company specifically forbids it?)

One email I sent to a coworker bounced back because I mistyped the email address; a copy of this email was sent to one of the higher ups in the company, and he replied back to me if I intended to send it to a different email address.

Not misstyping email addresses is a good idea. But your company didn't seem to be particularly draconian about your email usage.

- Assume that software is tracking your every movement on the internet while you work. I used to work at a place that had somewhat menacing software; down in the task bar, there was an icon of a closed eye down at the bottom-right of the screen. When you right-clicked on it, it would show a few networking diagnostics. At random intervals, between 5 and 15 minutes, the eye would open for about 30 seconds, then it would shut again for the next 5 - 15 minute interval. It was the creepiest thing I'd ever seen -- in retrospect, it was an adequate tool that prevent employees from screwing around on the internet.

That sounds a lot like the great big empty camera balls they used to have on the ceiling of shops that weren't attached to anything but had a red flashing light.

I was informed later that this software sends a report of everyone internet usage to boss at the end of the day, that it took screen captures at certain intervals, and was capable of capturing keystrokes to peer behind password boxes.

I think someone was messing with you. That's a hell of a lot of server space to use without any particular reason.
Even if the information was sent to the boss I would find it unlikely he ever gave it more than a perfunctory glance occasionally.
Again management really should have better things to do than manually monitor everyone's internet usage.

Usually companies either restrict internet usage (Websense etc.) or have extremely prohibitive firewalls or simply monitor people's performance. It's usually the actual amount of time spent on the internet that is a problem rather than specific sites being an issue.

Obviously if you are visiting very unsuitable websites at work then you are an idiot anyway.

It's easy to get paranoid about everyone watching everything - fact is most of the time if you aren't doing anything particularly dodgy and aren't spending a stupid amount of time on the internet, nobody really cares.