[Image from facebook.com]
A lot can change in five years. Just look at Facebook.
In the five years that I’ve had Facebook, they have changed the profile setup countless times and added video chat features, just to name a few. However, some of the newer features on Facebook have made the social media site nearly unbearable to use.
A major issue I take is with the privacy settings. Had I not done some Googling on the new interface beforehand, I wouldn’t have known that all previous posts would not be set to current privacy settings unless you allowed Facebook to do so. Also, many people are not aware that their posts prior to the timeline profile change are set to public. Facebook has come under fire so many times in the past few months for its privacy settings, so users must be mindful of this if they are to continue to use it.
I don’t ‘like’ it when you like things.
[Image from ecreativeim.com]
My personal grievance with the site right now is the likes and shares, and how they are made visible on my news feed. It’s fine and great that people like rage comics, or Y U NO memes, or love Jesus and rebuke the devil. It doesn’t mean that their friends care enough to see that – and literally nothing but that – on their feeds. This feature is, in my opinion, one of the worst features on Facebook right now. I, as well as many people, have deleted and reported so many people on Facebook for spam, abuse, and just for being an annoyance. This feature is something that needs to be altered on Facebook for the sake of Facebook users everywhere.
Perhaps some of the most disturbing sides of Facebook come from the like pages. Currently, there are insensitive memes being shared involving jokes about the recent Colorado shooting, tribute pages to the shooter James Holmes, and other things of that nature. Additionally, there are fan pages that are racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. in nature, and there is nothing being done about them. While it’s understandable that Facebook administrators simply cannot bar these pages from existence because of “freedom of speech/press” or because they have other duties or whatever, but it’s insensitive in nature; Freedom of speech protects your right to say something, but does not protect you from being punished.
Facebook has been in existence for a long time, and continues to be a social media site that connects people all around the world. However, when grievances, such as the three listed above, become unbearable, the site will begin to lose users. That, I imagine, is not good for business. Rather than focusing on buying out various companies, maybe Facebook should fix some of the problems they have. Especially the privacy settings. It’s impossible and impractical to expect them to fix every little thing that I hate about the site, because things I dislike or find offensive may not be to others. But sometimes, it’s just good to vent about them.
