back to article Automatic Facebook couple pages: Nauseating sign of desperation

A week after Facebook introduced the nauseating idea of automatic couple pages, it has been rolled out to users across the globe, inducing reactions such as: "creepy and intrusive", "retch-inducing" and "smug". Facebook's new couple page, credit Facebook Here is your relationship Facebook users who have listed themselves …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.

Page:

                1. Alan_Peery
                  FAIL

                  Re: angry much?

                  That's only a partial truth. Yes, it was the people that did the deed and might very well have done so anyway without Facebook, but having a depersonalized-not-in-physical-presence space in which to start off in a bad groove doesn't help.

                2. Sean Timarco Baggaley
                  WTF?

                  "liek the old saying, guns don't kill people, people kill people."

                  But guns do make it a bloody sight easier to kill in the heat of passion, and also make it less dangerous for the killer as they can shoot their victim from afar, instead of having to get up close and personal.

                  Guns make it much easier to kill. They reduce the obstacles that would otherwise get in the way of an angry scrote and his intended victim. Those obstacles get in your way, slowing you down and giving you more opportunities to reflect and withdraw. That's the problem. Gun control isn't about banning guns entirely (although there really is no excuse for carrying one on your person at all times. Seriously: you do not live in the Wild West any more.)

                  Technology – and guns are also technology – is all about making things easier to do. Guns are a labour-saving device, like a washing machine. To pretend that guns are utterly harmless and should be made freely available is the height of idiocy. (And, of course, it's unlikely the authors of the US Constitution's Second Amendment had modern weaponry in mind when drafting it. The word "arms" also covered lances, knives and pitchforks. The word used is "arms", not "firearms".

                  A good revolver would set you back $17 – around $300 in today's money – which is outside the range of most of the population at the time, for whom $1-3 / day was considered a decent wage. A Winchester rifle was $40 – $700 in today's money; the equivalent of buying an iPad. Even ammunition cost 50 cents, which is a substantial chunk of a day's pay for the poorer workers.

                  It's clear that, in the context of the time when that Second Amendment was signed into law, firearms were unlikely to have been foremost in the legislators' minds. It was an age of cavalries, cannons and lancers. The hoi polloi were not expected to have guns in their handbags.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                FAIL

                Re: angry much?

                "What is it you fail to get? No Zuckwit = no Facebook. No Facebook = couple not violently murdered for unfriending murderers daughter on Facebook. No Facebook incitement to murder = no murder."

                Oh grow up FFS. If you want to do down that line of reasoning then you might as well call for every means of communication to be shut down.

                "Oh noooess! Someone upset someone else by text message and caused a fight - quick , lets ban SMS!"

                "Oh noooesss , someone ordered a hit by phone - quick , lets ban phones! Graham-Bell was like totally eeevil dude!"

                Do you realise what a complete moron you sound?

              2. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

                Re: angry much?

                "What is it you fail to get? No Zuckwit = no Facebook. No Facebook = couple not violently murdered for unfriending murderers daughter on Facebook. No Facebook incitement to murder = no murder."

                No Zuckerberg = someone else comes up with the same thing under a different name.

                No facebook = crazy stalker stalks people using some other means.

                It seems more than a little like looking for someone to blame when someone goes crazy and kills a bunch of people. What was the last thing the killer drank? X Cola? Ban X cola now! What, he was wearing clothes when he did it? Ban clothes!

                In other words, just because X might lead to Y, and Y might lead to Z, doesn't mean X leads to Z. I think you may need to go back to school and study 'causality 101' again.

              3. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: angry much?

                "Facebook outs teens as gay, putting them at risk of their lives and enables murder and other crimes"

                If you're living around people whose lives are endangered if their homosexuality is revealed, you have problems a fuck of a lot more systemic than Facebook, like basic failure of civilised society. I think you're flailing around for someone or something easy and simple to blame, rather than addressing the main issue.

              4. chris 233
                Coat

                Re: angry much?

                @jemma:

                > Facebook outs teens as gay, putting them at risk of their lives and enables murder and other crimes,

                Not a fan of facebook, but teen in your example did themselves place that information on public forum. If they didn't want to be outed, surely they would keep that information to theyselves, hmm?

              5. Minophis
                Meh

                Re: angry much?

                I hate Facebook as much as most people but I have to say that they are not responsible here.

                No Facebook != couple not violently murdered for unfriending murderers daughter on Facebook

                No Facebook = couple violently murdered for ignoring murderers daughter at party/insulting her new dress/splashing mud on her shoes/doing almost any trivial thing that upset her enough for her clearly unstable father to take dispropertionate retribution

                If a company makes hammer intended for hammering in nails and someone uses one to bash someones brains in it is not the companies fault. You can't say that the murder would never have happened in a world without hammers, because the murderer would have found something else.

                Also people managed to plot and incite murders, riots and all kinds of mayhem long before Facebook and Twitter. I imagine that if you took social media sites away the people who do these things through facebook twitter would be doing the same thing with email, or text messages, or notes passed round and quite converstaions in the pub

              6. greenawayr
                Thumb Up

                Re: angry much?

                Numpty tries to arrange riot on Facebook, gets arrested.

                Numpty tries to arrange riot without facebook, riot insues damage caused, livelihoods ruined blah, blah, blah.

                Facebook = plods snitch without doing a thing.

            1. Alan_Peery

              Re: angry much?

              People find it much easier to be unpleasant at a distance, or seems to be the consensus amongst physchologists. This unpleasantness can cascade in an online situation, and I think that is probably what @Jemma was referring to.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: angry much?

                Alan,

                Or put more simply...

                http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19

                (warning, swears within!)

              2. greenawayr

                Re: angry much?

                @Alan

                You mean like an online comments board?

          1. This post has been deleted by its author

          2. Senior Ugli
            Joke

            Re: angry much?

            meh all this is true, but could you really blame zuckerburg for putting the platform there? I think its more a downfall of the human race that they resort to childish bitching and bullying over a computer. Granted, if it wasnt in place online then less beef would happen, BUT you have to have the idiot mindset in the first place to go on FB and post death threats, cock pictures etc.

            Its kinda like a digital jeremy kyle at some points, but without ya boy Jezza to moderate.

          3. PsychicMonkey
            Big Brother

            Re: angry much?

            " Still think I am odd"

            yes.

          4. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: angry much?

            "both facebook and twatter are implicated in the arrangements for his ' ceasing to be a problem'"

            now are you trying to say that he would still be alive if twatter(sic) and facebook had not been around? Well in that case you can also lay blame on the maker of the knife and the shop that sold it, and while you are at it lay blame on creation and evolution as responsible for the construction and layout of the human body that designed it in such a way that it is susceptible to catastrophic failure due to puncture wounds with sharp implements...

            you can blame nobody but the person who used the weapon responsible for the death of another person, no matter what the surrounding facts are !!,

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: angry much?

              "now are you trying to say that he would still be alive if twatter(sic) and facebook had not been around?"

              <redneck>

              Guns don't kill people, Facebook kills people!

              </redneck>

          5. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: angry much?

            "Still think I am odd for loathing the zuckwit and the IPO he rode in on?"

            Yes because all that shit would still likely have happened even without the existence of Facebook or Twitter.

          6. greenawayr

            Re: angry much?

            You don't live in Midsomer do you?

        1. ratfox
          Boffin

          Get your names right

          It's Alice and Bob, not April.

          1. ranger

            Re: Get your names right

            That what Alice thought until she saw the Facebook page...

        2. Anonymous Coward 15
          Devil

          Re: angry much?

          You think there's weird shit here, don't ever go to 4chan.

          1. The Wild Tomcat

            Re: angry much?

            Wrong. 4chan doesn't archive everything for ever and ever and ever.

      1. VinnyR

        Re: This strikes me as more than a little desparate....

        I think that is more down to lax gun control than facebook or twitter. Information always gets passed somehow. I don't like facebook much but it is not their fault if people decide to go nuts.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "What happens is that the ex finds out shes with someone else, gets his prize uzi out [...yadda yadda...] the girl spends the rest of her life learning about the results of 5 .45 hits to the abdomen and their effect on the internal organs..."

        Fur Q approves.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          "Fur Q approves"

          ..magazine like a big testicle gland..

          Fur Q, sir. You have earwormed me.

      3. greenawayr

        Re: This strikes me as more than a little desparate....

        American???

    1. Thomas 4
      Meh

      Re: This strikes me as more than a little desparate....

      Well, I guess it's better than Amazon's couples page.

      "If you have enjoyed shagging this person, why not try shagging other people enjoyed by them?"

      The business with the star ratings was an unnecessary cruelty, I felt. -.-

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: better than Amazon's couples page.

        AAA+++ comment, would read again!

        The rest of this angle left as an exercise. Some things really are better left unsaid.

      2. handle

        @Thomas 4 - Amazon's couples page

        "If you have enjoyed shagging this person, why not try shagging other people enjoyed by them?"

        I got it from Agnes

        She got it from Jim

        We all agree it must have been Louise who gave it to him

        She got it from Harry who got it from Marie

        And everybody knows that Marie...

        Got it from me

        Giles got it from Daphne

        She got it from Joan

        Who picked it up in County Cork a-kissin' the Blarney Stone

        Pierre gave it to Sheila who must have brought it there

        He got it from Francois and Jacques...

        Haha, Lucky Pierre

        Max got it from Edith who gets it every spring

        She got it from her Daddy who just gives her everything

        She then gave it to Daniel whose spaniel has it now

        Our dentist even got it...

        And we're still wondering how

        Ah, but I got it from Agnes

        Or maybe it was Sue

        Or Millie or Billie or Gillie or Willie - it doesn't matter who

        It might have been at the club or at the pub, or in the loo

        And if you will be my friend then I might...

        (Mind you, I said "might")...

        Give it to you

        (Tom Lehrer)

      3. AndrueC Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: This strikes me as more than a little desparate....

        "Share this shag with another person".

  1. Bakunin
    Devil

    Repeat after me ...

    "You are not the customer, you are the product."

    So how much of an uproar will be needed for Facebook to offer an easy way to turn this off?

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: Repeat after me ...

      To turn off seeing data which is already available, and simply presented in a different format? Who cares. If you don't want that data on FB, don't tell them about your relationship. But sine the entire point of a social network is to build connections, you've probably missed the point and shouldn't use the service.

      If you don't use the service, then your commentary on what FB should or shouldn't do is fairly pointless. It'd be like someone who can't drive talking about what's wrong with the new Ferrari.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Repeat after me ...

        You almost had a point, right up until the bit where real-life businesses started becoming more and more integrated with Facebook(tm). After that point it starts getting progressively harder to NOT have anything to do with Facebook.

        I was all set to sign up for the Spotify service when it became clear that it was turning out to be a really good streaming music service ... the door slammed shut on that idea with it turns out you HAVE to have a Facebook account to join Spotify. Even more irritating, Last.FM - which I do have an account on, switched to using Spotify as its streaming play-on-demand service , so I'm double screwed.

        Maybe I'm just being belligerant, but I have started to disassociating myself with companies I deal with who of late have started insisting that I 'Like' them on Facebook. Personally I prefer to live my life without Web 2 "social media" - there exist plenty of ways to communicate and share stuff without Web 2.0 that aren't necessarily any worse, and in fact offer you greater individual freedom.

        While I respect that fact that a lot of younger people get a lot out of it (I fondly remember the days of bulletin boarding over dial-up modem where people used to 'hang out' in a primitive on-line way!!) I'm getting annoyed with being co-erced into signing up for reasons other than my own needs.

  2. Roger Greenwood
    Happy

    What if . . .

    you were in a relationship with more than one other? Maybe then, having a real (if complicated) life, you won't actually need facebook.

    Maybe they have already thought of this and facebook for philanderers is coming soon.

    Icon:- Because we don't smile enough.

    1. Bob Vistakin
      Holmes

      Re: What if . . .

      A Mitch Romney type Mormon you mean? They'd need a 1-many entity relationship manager. Then again, they're in San Francisco, so it'd need to be many-many.

      1. JDX Gold badge

        Re: What if . . .

        Mormons don't have multiple spouses, certainly not legally. That was rather a long time ago.

        Romney certainly only has one wife; to suggest otherwise is simply ignorant AND stupid because polygamy is illegal in the USA and nobody would get to run for president without their party running very thorough background checks due to the uproar if something like this was found.

      2. MJI Silver badge

        Re: What if . . .

        Too many Ms for Romney!

    2. Psyx
      Thumb Up

      Re: What if . . .

      "Maybe they have already thought of this and facebook for philanderers is coming soon."

      Facebook has an option for "In an open relationship with..."

      1. JDX Gold badge

        Re: What if . . .

        But IIRC you can only select one person to have an open relationship with? Not sure what happens if two people try to indicate they have an open relationship with you.

        1. AndrueC Silver badge
          Joke

          Re: What if . . .

          >Not sure what happens if two people try to indicate they have an open relationship with you.

          Your friends start looking at you enviously?

  3. Matt J
    Facepalm

    What's the big deal?

    So they're mashing up public data where people have actively chosen to set up a link between accounts? What a horribly creepy thing to do...

    And as for the couples page - are people really scared that this is a privacy issue? The URL www.facebook.com/us sort of gives the game away that it's going to be specific to each user, with no (intentional) way of seeing those of others.

    Don't get me wrong. Facebook do lots of potentially creepy stuff, but it must be a slow news day if this is the privacy scare of the moment...

    1. TRT Silver badge

      Re: What's the big deal?

      They're making assumptions about the nature of your relationship and imposing a social-norm template on them. That's what's wrong. I do not and never shall be a part of this evil facebook thing.

      1. JDX Gold badge

        @TRT

        So you're upset because they assume you're normal?

        1. TRT Silver badge

          Re: @TRT

          Oh, I'm not. I won't let Facebook make any assumptions about me, because I wouldn't touch them with yours. But assume makes an ass out of u and me. And I think anyone would and should have the right to determine how and when others see their interactions with someone else. It's the online equivalent of someone patrolling the park entrance and supergluing together the hands of anyone who enters the gates as a "couple".

          Not only that, but it's a change to an established thing, as the person somewhere here who had "married" someone else for some other reason to do with finding a way around Facebook's interface.

          1. El Andy

            Re: @TRT

            Except there isn't anything there other than what you and your partner put on there. So it's not like there is any information on that page that isn't already on your (or your partners) FB page. The only possible issue is privacy leaks if you have different settings on things (or different "friends" on FB), but as long as that's taken care of sensibly there really isn't much to be upset about.

            It might be a bit twee and I'm not really sure there is much of a point to it, but there's also little reason to get bothered about it.

    2. Matt_payne666
      Thumb Up

      Re: What's the big deal?

      Bingo... content aggregation at its best... this is what facebook is for, you sign up, you sell your personal data to them in return for webhosting... they then market your details in various ways...

      This can only help couples on FB, just think... you have broken up with your beloved, your in tears, close to the edge, this saves the task of putting up a gut wrenching attention grabbing status... you just change your marital status and everyone is instantly emailed...

      Christ, ive seen an upside!! just friend all the fit girls you can find, when you get the automated breakup email, dive in for some rebound sex!!

    3. J 3
      Paris Hilton

      Re: What's the big deal?

      That's what I was asking myself too. It's not like typing the /us will allow me to see other couple's pages. Silly, yes; stalker-enabling? Hardly. But then...

      But then I tried something else, which I do not know whether it was available before this. I went to a married friend's page. I've never met his wife, and she's not a "friend" on FB either. The word married in "Married to ..." was a link. When I clicked on it, it created a page showing the relationship. A URL of the form www.facebook.com/user_name1?and=user_name2

      Of course then I tried to replace user2 with my user tag or whatever it's called. Voi là, a page showing my FB relationship to my friend. It's the same as clicking on the "see friendship" link on a friend's page. So, it's not couple specific, and nothing new I assume. Just a new, teenage-ish URL, to do something that was already possible. Or did I miss something.

  4. Anonymous Custard
    FAIL

    Divorce

    So what happens when things become "it's complicated"?

    Are we gonna get arguments from divorce lawyers?

    "You have the page, I don't want it!"

    "No you have it, I don't want it either"

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: Divorce

      Maybe it only does it for certain relationship types?

      FB doesn't let you list past relationships does it, it would be fun if you could see a list of past girlfriends/boyfriends/divorces.

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

        Re: Divorce

        I've got an idea for a new website. It's a combination of Facebook and Tripadvisor. All we need to do is to add user-ratings to couples pages, and we've got a brilliant resource for helping us to avoid bunny-boilers and bastards.

Page:

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like