Y U NO RESPOND? U READ ALREADY!
June 5, 2012 2:40 PM Subscribe
Facebook has added read receipts that can't be disabled. This is a horrifying, non-negotiable dealbreaker. Technical ways to get around this without severing the only commonly used link to many of my contacts, and the link to the largest single pool of people?
Are there third-party clients that do not support the read receipt function?
This isn't your standard privacy question, it is of no relevance to me whether Facebook knows I've opened the message or not...your email company knows you opened email, after all. Now senders and recipients have open tracking. I realize that it won't be long before open tracking methods make their way into personal correspondence (I have written my share of email blasts and tracked my share of analytics), but I'm not okay with this in my personal sphere.
I can't convince everyone to switch to Gchat or a similar platform. More importantly, if people send me messages now that I've gone permanently offline on Facebook Chat, I have to guess what they are and the response time acceptable before I open it, among other complications.
With standard email and chat, there are only two considerations one has to make: timeliness of response and content of response. This also provided a socially acceptable cover for both parties to terminate with no response. Now I have to factor in time interval between receipt and opening and time interval between opening and response, and determine the expectations of the other party. This is a big price to pay for a little snippet of information! I won't beanplate with the other consequences of this.
Frankly, I don't fear Facebook, the company. I assume nothing I post is private anyway. It's indispensable because it's where the audience is, much as I would like to take everyone out of the walled garden. What I do fear is not being able to opt out of a function that complicates social interaction exponentially!
Help me!
Are there third-party clients that do not support the read receipt function?
This isn't your standard privacy question, it is of no relevance to me whether Facebook knows I've opened the message or not...your email company knows you opened email, after all. Now senders and recipients have open tracking. I realize that it won't be long before open tracking methods make their way into personal correspondence (I have written my share of email blasts and tracked my share of analytics), but I'm not okay with this in my personal sphere.
I can't convince everyone to switch to Gchat or a similar platform. More importantly, if people send me messages now that I've gone permanently offline on Facebook Chat, I have to guess what they are and the response time acceptable before I open it, among other complications.
With standard email and chat, there are only two considerations one has to make: timeliness of response and content of response. This also provided a socially acceptable cover for both parties to terminate with no response. Now I have to factor in time interval between receipt and opening and time interval between opening and response, and determine the expectations of the other party. This is a big price to pay for a little snippet of information! I won't beanplate with the other consequences of this.
Frankly, I don't fear Facebook, the company. I assume nothing I post is private anyway. It's indispensable because it's where the audience is, much as I would like to take everyone out of the walled garden. What I do fear is not being able to opt out of a function that complicates social interaction exponentially!
Help me!
If you use the web to access facebook or the standard app there are no read receipts -- it's currently limited to the Facebook iOS Messenger App only.
posted by modernnomad at 2:50 PM on June 5, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by modernnomad at 2:50 PM on June 5, 2012 [2 favorites]
(on reading the link more closely, perhaps it just hasn't rolled out to my desktop usage yet).
You can also access facebook chat through adium if you're on a mac, which may have the same effect as kokuryu's suggestion.
posted by modernnomad at 2:51 PM on June 5, 2012
You can also access facebook chat through adium if you're on a mac, which may have the same effect as kokuryu's suggestion.
posted by modernnomad at 2:51 PM on June 5, 2012
Just a thought, but there may be FB-Messenger compatible apps that haven't enabled this feature yet, I just tested Meebo/Messenger on iOS and it doesn't have read receipts as far as I can tell.
posted by Oktober at 2:52 PM on June 5, 2012
posted by Oktober at 2:52 PM on June 5, 2012
Yeah, it sounds like this is just for chat, and is a standard feature in most chat clients.
A way out is to use messages for messages, and chat for chatting.
posted by gjc at 2:57 PM on June 5, 2012 [2 favorites]
A way out is to use messages for messages, and chat for chatting.
posted by gjc at 2:57 PM on June 5, 2012 [2 favorites]
As far as I can tell, this is for chat only. I've seen it on chat, and think it's rather annoying and TMI, but I just checked and it doesn't show up on my messages (any of them -- and since chat and messages are linked, it's both messages that were sent as messages, and messages that were sent via chat). So for now, anyway, you have nothing to worry about.
posted by DoubleLune at 3:03 PM on June 5, 2012
posted by DoubleLune at 3:03 PM on June 5, 2012
Response by poster: I forgot the last part of my question--do iOS app users receive this information if the other party is on the web interface?
The only thing worse than read receipts are read receipts that only one party gets.
posted by Hollywood Upstairs Medical College at 3:11 PM on June 5, 2012
The only thing worse than read receipts are read receipts that only one party gets.
posted by Hollywood Upstairs Medical College at 3:11 PM on June 5, 2012
I use facebook and virtually never use the chat function. So you could... just not do facebook chat?
Maybe look into calling, texting, sending email/messages, or contacting people in other ways if you think they couldn't handle knowing that you've maybe "seen" something and not responded yet?
Do you have a problem with this sort of thing already? Because that sounds like shitty behavior on the part of the people you chat with, not a problem of the Facebook chat feature set. Usually if a long time passes and someone doesn't respond to my gchat, I assume they were probably too busy or maybe got distracted and didn't notice I'd said anything.
posted by Sara C. at 3:11 PM on June 5, 2012 [3 favorites]
Maybe look into calling, texting, sending email/messages, or contacting people in other ways if you think they couldn't handle knowing that you've maybe "seen" something and not responded yet?
Do you have a problem with this sort of thing already? Because that sounds like shitty behavior on the part of the people you chat with, not a problem of the Facebook chat feature set. Usually if a long time passes and someone doesn't respond to my gchat, I assume they were probably too busy or maybe got distracted and didn't notice I'd said anything.
posted by Sara C. at 3:11 PM on June 5, 2012 [3 favorites]
Have messages forwarded to your email and read them there and stay signed out of fb chat. Put your gchat or whatever on your profile and encourage people to use that.
posted by martinX's bellbottoms at 3:16 PM on June 5, 2012 [5 favorites]
posted by martinX's bellbottoms at 3:16 PM on June 5, 2012 [5 favorites]
This may not be the answer you're looking for, but I notice people using the read receipt option more and more. At some point, there may not be any opt-out feature. Therefore, I have adopted an official "fuck it" policy.
I'll read what I want to read when I want to read it, and respond when I'm good and ready. In the same way that having a cell phone means that I can, technically, receive your call at any time of the day or night, I'm only going to answer the phone when I actually have the time and appropriate setting to answer a phone call. This is my right.
If someone ever has a problem with it (so far this hasn't happened) and actually confronts me about it, I intend to respond (in my own sweet time), "I have been busy and have not yet had time to respond." Short and simple.
In my opinion, folks who use this feature when they don't have to are basically clicking a button that says "go ahead, I WANT you to hurt my feelings," so I don't let myself feel bad about it.
posted by phunniemee at 3:35 PM on June 5, 2012 [19 favorites]
I'll read what I want to read when I want to read it, and respond when I'm good and ready. In the same way that having a cell phone means that I can, technically, receive your call at any time of the day or night, I'm only going to answer the phone when I actually have the time and appropriate setting to answer a phone call. This is my right.
If someone ever has a problem with it (so far this hasn't happened) and actually confronts me about it, I intend to respond (in my own sweet time), "I have been busy and have not yet had time to respond." Short and simple.
In my opinion, folks who use this feature when they don't have to are basically clicking a button that says "go ahead, I WANT you to hurt my feelings," so I don't let myself feel bad about it.
posted by phunniemee at 3:35 PM on June 5, 2012 [19 favorites]
Best answer: This is enabled by default. Maybe not for you right now because of gradual rollout, but you'll see it eventually because this isn't a little option for individuals, this is part of the basic infrastructure of Facebook chat. This isn't a feature that the OP's friends are going out of their way to turn on.
It's indispensable because it's where the audience is, much as I would like to take everyone out of the walled garden
I feel your pain. Folks who are telling you to use gchat instead don't seem to have friends as ideologically opposed to Google as I do. Besides, Facebook Messenger works really well on mobile and is much more widely adopted among my friends than any other cross-platform and cross-device chat. It's genuinely useful and I don't want to have to give it up.
To answer the question: certain third-party clients like Adium don't currently support read receipts. But I wouldn't count on this being true indefinitely; maybe other users like this feature and will clamor for it, and Adium will eventually be able to support it.
I think the best practical course of action is to tell people that they aren't entitled to an immediate reply from you. However, if confronted, I would probably just claim that my phone or web browser accidentally activated the receipt but that I never saw the message.
I am not a Facebook employee. I know Facebook employees but I haven't discussed implementation details or product roadmap with them.
posted by tantivy at 3:47 PM on June 5, 2012
It's indispensable because it's where the audience is, much as I would like to take everyone out of the walled garden
I feel your pain. Folks who are telling you to use gchat instead don't seem to have friends as ideologically opposed to Google as I do. Besides, Facebook Messenger works really well on mobile and is much more widely adopted among my friends than any other cross-platform and cross-device chat. It's genuinely useful and I don't want to have to give it up.
To answer the question: certain third-party clients like Adium don't currently support read receipts. But I wouldn't count on this being true indefinitely; maybe other users like this feature and will clamor for it, and Adium will eventually be able to support it.
I think the best practical course of action is to tell people that they aren't entitled to an immediate reply from you. However, if confronted, I would probably just claim that my phone or web browser accidentally activated the receipt but that I never saw the message.
I am not a Facebook employee. I know Facebook employees but I haven't discussed implementation details or product roadmap with them.
posted by tantivy at 3:47 PM on June 5, 2012
Do people really freak out if you don't respond right away?
posted by fshgrl at 3:56 PM on June 5, 2012
posted by fshgrl at 3:56 PM on June 5, 2012
Best answer: Do people really freak out if you don't respond right away?
Some people do. I think the root problem lies with those people, not this feature, but it still makes my life easier if I can avoid read receipts.
do iOS app users receive this information if the other party is on the web interface?
Yes, mobile app users will see read receipts when someone reads on the web. I think it detects mousing or keystrokes while the browser is open to any Facebook tab, though, so it's a lot more handwavey. You can easily claim you didn't actually see the message but the receipt got activated anyway.
posted by tantivy at 4:04 PM on June 5, 2012
Some people do. I think the root problem lies with those people, not this feature, but it still makes my life easier if I can avoid read receipts.
do iOS app users receive this information if the other party is on the web interface?
Yes, mobile app users will see read receipts when someone reads on the web. I think it detects mousing or keystrokes while the browser is open to any Facebook tab, though, so it's a lot more handwavey. You can easily claim you didn't actually see the message but the receipt got activated anyway.
posted by tantivy at 4:04 PM on June 5, 2012
I am seeing read receipts on the web version fwiw, so don't consider that safe. Adding to the awfulness, I have (jokingly) called out a recipient on a group message who appeared to be reading every message but not saying anything, and it turned out he hadn't seen anything or been on Facebook all day. That's some nice work there Facebook.
posted by yellowbinder at 4:40 PM on June 5, 2012
posted by yellowbinder at 4:40 PM on June 5, 2012
your email company knows you opened email, after all.
No, it doesn't, or at least it didn't. Prior to the widespread adoption of web-based email, standard practice was to have the local email client periodically poll the mailserver to download/delete whatever messages had been received to your computer. An email provider could only tell that you had downloaded the message, not that you had read it. Only when email became something that is stored in and read from the cloud did providers have the opportunity to note where and when individual messages are read.
Unfortunately technology paradigms change, and sometimes the choices we make out of convenience are not always for the better. If Facebook is forcing read receipts without offering users any means of opting out, I'm afraid there's not much you can do about it short of organizing Yet Another Facebook Privacy Protest (YAFPP).
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:54 PM on June 5, 2012 [2 favorites]
No, it doesn't, or at least it didn't. Prior to the widespread adoption of web-based email, standard practice was to have the local email client periodically poll the mailserver to download/delete whatever messages had been received to your computer. An email provider could only tell that you had downloaded the message, not that you had read it. Only when email became something that is stored in and read from the cloud did providers have the opportunity to note where and when individual messages are read.
Unfortunately technology paradigms change, and sometimes the choices we make out of convenience are not always for the better. If Facebook is forcing read receipts without offering users any means of opting out, I'm afraid there's not much you can do about it short of organizing Yet Another Facebook Privacy Protest (YAFPP).
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:54 PM on June 5, 2012 [2 favorites]
To answer the question: certain third-party clients like Adium don't currently support read receipts. But I wouldn't count on this being true indefinitely; maybe other users like this feature and will clamor for it, and Adium will eventually be able to support it.
Adium is open source so it could always be patched to remove read receipts.
posted by atrazine at 10:20 AM on June 6, 2012
Adium is open source so it could always be patched to remove read receipts.
posted by atrazine at 10:20 AM on June 6, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by KokuRyu at 2:50 PM on June 5, 2012