blocked on facebook?
August 11, 2015 6:49 PM Subscribe
Another (prev.) Facebook privacy/blocking question. An anomaly in FB blocking is that the blockee can see the total # likes and comments on the main page (including people who've blocked you), but the blockers likes/comments are not apparent within the post (so there's an obvious arithmetic disparity if you look closely).
If I can see (for example) five likes & 2 comments on a post, and I then go into the post and see only 4 likes, 1 comment, it suggests to me that someone is blocking me. However, is there another possible explanation? Most obviously via privacy settings I expect, where someone I don't know is able to hide all their likes and comments from anyone who's not a friend? Or can they only be hidden by actively blocking?
If I can see (for example) five likes & 2 comments on a post, and I then go into the post and see only 4 likes, 1 comment, it suggests to me that someone is blocking me. However, is there another possible explanation? Most obviously via privacy settings I expect, where someone I don't know is able to hide all their likes and comments from anyone who's not a friend? Or can they only be hidden by actively blocking?
I've also found short term disparities when I am viewing a page in one browser window and then load it in another browser window. I think facebook does a lot of load sharing between multiple machines that is almost seamless but not entirely seamless.
posted by jessamyn at 7:11 PM on August 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by jessamyn at 7:11 PM on August 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
Most obviously via privacy settings I expect, where someone I don't know is able to hide all their likes and comments from anyone who's not a friend?
This is certainly the case. If you look at any public post, like say for a page like The Reductress, the number of visible comments almost never matches up with the number of comments it says the post has. Obviously complete strangers have not blocked me and only me specifically. It's a symptom of their privacy settings.
The same thing happens less frequently on a smaller scale with stricter-than-friends-of-friends privacy controls.
posted by phunniemee at 7:38 PM on August 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
This is certainly the case. If you look at any public post, like say for a page like The Reductress, the number of visible comments almost never matches up with the number of comments it says the post has. Obviously complete strangers have not blocked me and only me specifically. It's a symptom of their privacy settings.
The same thing happens less frequently on a smaller scale with stricter-than-friends-of-friends privacy controls.
posted by phunniemee at 7:38 PM on August 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yep, that's what happening -- the likes / comments are from someone you blocked or who blocked you.
I blocked a couple assholes in an affinity group I belong to, and they're chatty assholes. I routinely see big comment numbers (and activity numbers) but then find much less when I actually go in to look. Fine with me :)
posted by intermod at 9:44 PM on August 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
I blocked a couple assholes in an affinity group I belong to, and they're chatty assholes. I routinely see big comment numbers (and activity numbers) but then find much less when I actually go in to look. Fine with me :)
posted by intermod at 9:44 PM on August 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
This also happens if one of the likers/commenters has deleted their account or had it suspended.
However, there is no way of making your comments on public posts invisible to strangers - comments have the same privacy level as the post they are on. The reason posts on pages have lots of invisible comments is because they are prone to spam accounts, which get suspended.
posted by intensitymultiply at 1:38 AM on August 12, 2015
However, there is no way of making your comments on public posts invisible to strangers - comments have the same privacy level as the post they are on. The reason posts on pages have lots of invisible comments is because they are prone to spam accounts, which get suspended.
posted by intensitymultiply at 1:38 AM on August 12, 2015
There must be other reasons for missing comments/likes besides blocking and spam accounts. Yesterday I was part of a thread where I saw some "Read more comments..." links but when I clicked, there were no more comments to be read. I'm really confident nobody was blocking me (plus, the missing comments would have been replies to mine), and it was friends-only so I'm sure there were no spammers in there, either. Today, looking at the same thread, those links have disappeared. Maybe someone deleted a comment or something; maybe there was a glitch in the Matrix.
posted by karbonokapi at 11:04 AM on August 12, 2015
posted by karbonokapi at 11:04 AM on August 12, 2015
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posted by sevensnowflakes at 6:50 PM on August 11, 2015 [1 favorite]