Social networking without social networking
July 5, 2011 3:34 PM Subscribe
How can I completely lock down my Facebook account? I thought I did, but I'm getting friend requests somehow. I simply signed up for Facebook to get to Turntable.fm
I friended two people and some mutual friends have begun sending me friend requests. I have everything in the "Privacy Settings" page set to "Only Me." I'm guessing I'm showing up in the feed as, "Blah is now friends with geoff?"
Is there anyway to avoid this?
I friended two people and some mutual friends have begun sending me friend requests. I have everything in the "Privacy Settings" page set to "Only Me." I'm guessing I'm showing up in the feed as, "Blah is now friends with geoff?"
Is there anyway to avoid this?
As far as I know, there isn't a way to avoid this, because you can't force (technologically, I mean) people you friend to not share whatever stuff they want to share, which can include who've they've friended.
posted by rtha at 3:41 PM on July 5, 2011
posted by rtha at 3:41 PM on July 5, 2011
Ignore those friend requests, and change your display name. The people who are requesting your friendship probably saw your name pop up in their "You might also want to be friends with.." box, which appears around the site in various places. If your mutual friends ask you in real life about why you're not 'friending' them, tell them you don't have a facebook account so they'll have to settle for IRL friendship. Facebook is by nature a social networking service—it's purpose is to hook you together with your friends and acquaintances—and the other side of that coin is that it's not really meant to only be used as a login for other sites. So there's not a lot of accounting for people who only use it that way.
This is not the answer you're looking for, I understand, but it is what it is.
posted by carsonb at 3:43 PM on July 5, 2011
This is not the answer you're looking for, I understand, but it is what it is.
posted by carsonb at 3:43 PM on July 5, 2011
Best answer: No, the only settings that the "Who can send me friend requests?" option has are "friends of friends" or "everyone".
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:43 PM on July 5, 2011
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:43 PM on July 5, 2011
EndsOfInvention is correct. You can see this if you go to Account > Privacy Settings > Connecting on Facebook > View Settings > Send you friend requests.
Changing your name (which is a violation of Facebook's terms) will not stop you from getting friend requests.
What is your problem with friend requests? Do you not want to see the requests, or do you not want to even receive them? These are two different goals. If you don't want to see them, that should be easy enough: disable notifications (or filter out the emails from Gmail), and don't look at them on Facebook. If you don't want to receive them, the only solution is to delete your account.
posted by John Cohen at 3:53 PM on July 5, 2011
Changing your name (which is a violation of Facebook's terms) will not stop you from getting friend requests.
What is your problem with friend requests? Do you not want to see the requests, or do you not want to even receive them? These are two different goals. If you don't want to see them, that should be easy enough: disable notifications (or filter out the emails from Gmail), and don't look at them on Facebook. If you don't want to receive them, the only solution is to delete your account.
posted by John Cohen at 3:53 PM on July 5, 2011
The only solution I've found is to have one "real" account, and one fake account made with a single-serving email address and a fake name which I use to log in to sites.
If you try making a "fake" account with one of your real email addresses, people will find you.
posted by auto-correct at 4:04 PM on July 5, 2011 [2 favorites]
If you try making a "fake" account with one of your real email addresses, people will find you.
posted by auto-correct at 4:04 PM on July 5, 2011 [2 favorites]
Seconding that the major problem is signing up with your real email address. Even if you actually lock down your profile this week, your profile could open right back up the next time FB decides to "update" their privacy settings.
Also, even with a fake profile, as long as your email address is the one you regularly use, your friends will keep seeing that profile show up as a potential friend.
posted by lesli212 at 4:18 PM on July 5, 2011
Also, even with a fake profile, as long as your email address is the one you regularly use, your friends will keep seeing that profile show up as a potential friend.
posted by lesli212 at 4:18 PM on July 5, 2011
There is a way to "Deactivate" your account. It keeps all the data there, and doing and undoing it is a single click. I have a friend who actually does this when she has a busy weekend to avoid distractions. Her account still exists, it is just deactivated.
Account Settings -> Deactivate
Makes all of this go away as long as you want and nothing is permanent.
posted by milqman at 4:41 PM on July 5, 2011
Account Settings -> Deactivate
Makes all of this go away as long as you want and nothing is permanent.
posted by milqman at 4:41 PM on July 5, 2011
If you have no desire to use Facebook, but want to have a Facebook account, you can do what is described in danah boyd's article Risk Reduction Strategies on Facebook and use the "Deactivate Account" feature. See the FAQ:
posted by artlung at 4:43 PM on July 5, 2011
How do I deactivate my account?If Turntable.fm requires your Facebook account to be active continuously, then this won't work, but if all you needed was a one-time check for authentication, then this might be a strategy.
If you're worried about who can see you and what they can see, remember that you have complete control over this and can edit your settings as you see fit from the Privacy page. If you still want to leave Facebook, you can deactivate your account from the "Settings" tab on the Account page.
Deactivation will completely remove your profile and all associated content on your account from Facebook. In addition, users will not be able to search for you or view any of your information. If you reactivate your account, your profile will be restored in its entirety (friends, photos, interests, etc.).
posted by artlung at 4:43 PM on July 5, 2011
No, the only settings that the "Who can send me friend requests?" option has are "friends of friends" or "everyone".
If you don't want to use FB at all, can't you just drop those two people? If you set it to "friends of friends" and you have no friends, problem solved, right? (You could drop the two a note of explanation if you feel bad.)
posted by drjimmy11 at 5:16 PM on July 5, 2011
If you don't want to use FB at all, can't you just drop those two people? If you set it to "friends of friends" and you have no friends, problem solved, right? (You could drop the two a note of explanation if you feel bad.)
posted by drjimmy11 at 5:16 PM on July 5, 2011
Response by poster: If you don't want to use FB at all, can't you just drop those two people?
The catch is that Turntable.fm requires you to have friends that are on it to use it.
I have no profile, no picture, etc. I was just surprised to see invites popup all of a sudden, especially after I set everything locked down.
I was also sort of surprised to see all the people I've emailed showing up on the, "People you should friend" section, since I didn't explicitly allow it to access my contact list.
No big deal that I can't deal with this, sort of pissed apps are assuming Facebook authentication isn't a big deal. Just was sort of taken back by signing up and then seeing like 10 invites when I signed back in a week later.
posted by geoff. at 6:42 PM on July 5, 2011
The catch is that Turntable.fm requires you to have friends that are on it to use it.
I have no profile, no picture, etc. I was just surprised to see invites popup all of a sudden, especially after I set everything locked down.
I was also sort of surprised to see all the people I've emailed showing up on the, "People you should friend" section, since I didn't explicitly allow it to access my contact list.
No big deal that I can't deal with this, sort of pissed apps are assuming Facebook authentication isn't a big deal. Just was sort of taken back by signing up and then seeing like 10 invites when I signed back in a week later.
posted by geoff. at 6:42 PM on July 5, 2011
I was also sort of surprised to see all the people I've emailed showing up on the, "People you should friend" section, since I didn't explicitly allow it to access my contact list.
Ah, but you see, THEY allowed FB to see THEIR contacts. Where it found YOUR e-mail. This is one of those under-the-hood things, presumably at least hashed, but how FB really guarantees that people can find you. Because that's the way it wants to be.
posted by dhartung at 7:12 PM on July 5, 2011 [1 favorite]
Ah, but you see, THEY allowed FB to see THEIR contacts. Where it found YOUR e-mail. This is one of those under-the-hood things, presumably at least hashed, but how FB really guarantees that people can find you. Because that's the way it wants to be.
posted by dhartung at 7:12 PM on July 5, 2011 [1 favorite]
For a while, I had "Search for you on Facebook" set to friends-only. That seemed to work.
posted by General Malaise at 7:48 AM on July 6, 2011
posted by General Malaise at 7:48 AM on July 6, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by phunniemee at 3:35 PM on July 5, 2011