Facebook to filter angry comments in site tweak

Or, to use a newspaper expression:

"Below the fold". Because no one reads that. Oldest trick in the book. Beloved of politicians, as it can be done with absolutely (a) no money, and more importantly (b) no trail linking you to any media outlet.

Ever wonder why with the state of the country, newpapers have stories about X-Factor fallouts on the front page ?

Facebook Users?

Cry me a river.

Or just get your missus to monitor your comments

Like a certain right-wing newspaper columnist in Australia that ended up losing the defamation case and had a massive tanty about it.

"conversations will appear differently to each person depending on who they are friends with on the site. For example, missives by anyone who is a connection will appear at the top of the conversation."

...is it just me, or is this kind of antithetical to the notion of a 'social' environment? The idea is for lots of people to communicate - 'share', ahem - with one another all the time, right? Well, how does that work if the sharing medium automatically selects things so people only (or mostly) see what people they already know (and with whom they already agree) have to say?

Yeah, you can tailor things specifically to what and who people are 'interested in', but doesn't that basically ensure that people will never become interested in anything else? At some level, say, you have, for example, Electronic Gaming Monthly's Facebook page (or something). So you go there as someone interested in their absurdly glowing review of the Aliens game, and see all these comments about it - from people you know. But since you know and like people who tend to have the same kind of opinions and experiences, their thoughts will broadly mirror yours. There'll be a lot of chuckling and consensus but no real discussion.

And since everyone who goes sees something different, nobody is actually *discussing the thing itself*; they're discussing the thing as seen by their group of friends. There's no real communication, and nothing really 'social' about it, I don't think.

The same thing has been occurring in a self-organizing way with politics; people gravitate toward other people who agree with them, and become more and more convinced of and extreme in their views as they see more and more information that matches their beliefs and less and less that doesn't.

Even this forum is, to an extent, an example of that - if you just hang out here, you only find out how (mostly UK) tech guys think about things. And lo, I regularly see posts from people who truly don't seem to be able to grasp that other people have different interests and experiences and knowledge - eg, a discussion about marketing where guys will say, people who do internet advertising are so stupid, I've used adblock since 1982! And I don't own a television either, so people who make television programs are stupid too!

It's bizarre, but it seems like we're running the risk - in general - of having this amazing tool that took us from only being able to communicate with a few like-minded local people in the same demographic group, to being able to communicate with anyone anywhere on an equal footing... and carefully re-organizing the whole damn thing to provide the same limitations that we had when we were riding horses village to village. We'll have had this brief glorious period where a rich kid from Houston might strike up a conversation on IRC with a poor kid in his school in Russia, but as things get 'better and better', and as people (and now algorithms) tailor experiences to make sure they don't run into anything unexpected, normal service will be resumed: We'll all be spared from the ostensible discomfort of meeting anyone with a different perspective, or seeing opinions we don't already agree with. And we'll keep wondering why society keeps falling apart despite our making such an effort to be social.

WTF is up with that shit?

Yep!

Lets say John and Jane Doe had a baby and the couple were made famous because they both had aids and they both transmitted he aids virus to the baby and now they get bad replies because they created a life failed to be doomed.

Who would be more valid? The people who just give hugs and kisses or the people who give replies such as "WE TOLD YOU SO!"

On an open forum neither should be up or down voted but remain neutral but if this page belonged to the family then they can up vote or down vote or even removed the abusive comments as they see fit.

In regarding to the generalities then this would mean that only famous people have their voice heard while the average joe may as well go play KICK THE CAN outside and turn his/her pc off.

The commenting system does though need to be improved but people do not like to see the real side of life so they like to filter the comments like their filter their coffee as they try to live in a fake world to keep out the truth and other political views that may harm their holodeck based mental fantasies that their right is the only right and nothing else matters.

Such is the case where posting political viewpoints and where the facebook keyboard army admins will delete anything ANTI-Israel and will delete anything that is remotely sane and humane such as treating people from all faiths with dignity and respect... Such as was in my case where one woman was so happy to see a bomb on the head of prophet muhammad and making points about towels on the heads of these people and making jokes about them.

So to point out her low IQ to her I flipped it and I replied: Let me make some art with a jar of urine and let me put the picture of your child and husband and picture of your god in that jar and let me call it art so that you can not banish me because it is now free speech.

No! Do not get angry lady! You wanted free speech against these towel heads so now you get the same medicine you gave to the muslims!

Oh!!! boy oh boy her hate must have sent her blood pressure through the roof and I made my point that she refused to treat each human being as an equal to find peace and humanity with all people of the earth and well you can guess she did not want that kind of equality and she complained and got my facebook account banned because I treated her just as harsh as she treated people NOT LIKE HER. But I am sure the neocons would have loved her.

No I am not a liberal or conservative. I am a centrist. Before you ask for yourself certain freedoms please make sure you allow it for others as well.

Isn't this what the reg implemented awhile ago? Seems a bit hypocritical to have a go a Facebook for something you're doing already.

Ah Farcebook - you just gotta love em.

NOT

One more slap for the consumer

Sometimes the ONLY way to get to a company is to go and post on their Facebook pages (including all their images etc)

Papa Johns for example, their failed online payments system took the credit card details and the cash, but never passed the order to the restaurant. No chance of ever getting through to someone in their customer services, so I was forced to bring the issue of non-return of fund to their facebook. Which got a result.

Exactly the same thing with BT, terrible customer service meant the only way I could get them to take notice was to make it public.

All these companies want the benefits of SOCILZ MEDIA LOLZ but don't want to accept the other side of "being in communication with your customers" is to actually listen to them and provide some form of, if not customer service, then just be polite and talk to them when needed.

I really hope this shoots facebook in the head and people begin to wise up to how companies treat them like idiots.

Final word on this, only 10k followers? You can buy that for 20 quid.......

This is the beginning of the end of Facebook. This is a decisive moment. Now when it goes by the way of MySpace you will know why.

If you have a "page", it implies that your pushing something, even if it's your own lack of talent. I know a good few people with small niche businesses (promoters, film makers, designers, togs, MUAs, djs, lighting techs etc) who've been trolled on their pages by weird vindictive sockpuppets, who seem to be acting in the interests of competing small businesses. I've chased a few away by trollbaiting them to the point that they breach fb's abuse threshold and feel the banhammer. As a grownup, I think it's better to unwrap them and see what's driving their spleen. Some well directed ridicule of their hackneyed technique poops their party every time, and deters them from returning with a fresh alias..

Heavy handed moderation unbalances a site, and seeing as how facebook mods seem to have eased off on the kneejerk timeouts, it seems only fair to keep the monkey dancing till it's all worn out..

Younger folk can find relentless fuckwittery a bit demoralising , especially when they're self employed designers and the like. They're under enough stress creating stuff to sell in order to eat and pay rent, without having to deal with deluded cockwranglers, and failed Model Mayhem wannabes with chips on both shoulders..

Most of the aforementioned designers have built their pages into the thousands by word of mouth, and zero spamming, so I don't mind playing Tex Avery troll bingo on their behalf. With lemmings and miniguns. If you don't take trolls seriously, they have no power to shock or intimidate, which denies them the psychotic validation they crave.

On the other hand, monolithic entities who exist only to spam their glorious corporate charisma into socmedia from every angle, probably deserve an occasional shitstorm, as demonstrated by the kerfuffle over the "Keep Calm and Rape" T-shirts, which Amazon "didn't know" were being flogged through its UK site. A gentle reminder for them that talking ain't walking. And not for the first time.

No doubt the usual suspects will turn up here, and trot out their standard "I don't use it , so i hate it" shpiel, but for people who have extended social and commercial circles, it's a useful medium. And no matter how often FB tries to churn it in favour of advertisers, there'll always be large groups of clued-up users running adblock and purity on it (with apps turned off globally) to keep the noise to a minimum.