How Can I Halt Unwanted Facebook Spam ?
By Barry Ritholtz - January 30th, 2011, 7:30PM
Its funny that Jesse Eisenberg and Mark Zuckerberg were on SNL last night.
Facebook has rapidly become one the largest sources of spam in my day. From people who send me unsolicited messages to ranging from reasonable to spamorriffic garbage, to invites to events 3000 miles away, it is rapidly becoming a time wasting junk fest.
The spammers are slowly over running FB.
Am I hyper-sensitive to this, or are other people finding its slowly becoming not worth the effort ?
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January 30th, 2011 at 7:36 pm
go into your privacy and account settings to change/customize your notification and privacy settings. The default is pretty much wide open.
In the end it is yet another channel for time consumption.
~~~
BR: I have everything set to maximum security
January 30th, 2011 at 7:37 pm
Don’t know; haven’t logged in directly in a while. TweetDeck covers all but Birthday details.
Also haven’t gotten much spam; there may be a connection there.
January 30th, 2011 at 7:37 pm
Don’t know; haven’t logged in directly in a while. TweetDeck covers all but Birthday details.
Also haven’t gotten much spam; there may be a connection there.
January 30th, 2011 at 7:45 pm
I judiciously block all third party applications the second I see them on the newsfeed and block event invites from anyone all people that are invite-happy (eager networkers, overly-social types, and anyone in fashion, publicity and media). If you disable email and blackberry notifications for all but the most important things, I think you’ll find you have no spam left. I mean, yeah, occasionally people post dumb things on my wall or people with facebook-aware malicious program infections end up sending me a message, but I’d estimate these incidents to happen once or twice a month at best.
The most important is really to block the big offenders from event invites and block all applications so you don’t end up getting or seeing posts about farmville or mafiawars or whatever quote of the day app or quiz people that don’t actually work at their jobs are using that day. Ialso have twitter blocked on facebook, since anyone who I would want to follow, I do already and don’t need to see their stream of consciousness twice
January 30th, 2011 at 7:45 pm
Just set up the controls so you can only get messages from your friends (or just block messages completely?), and hide all invites. Up until I did all of that, yes, the invites were overwhelming me. I simply see Facebook as an easy way to stay in touch with people, and see what they are up to…I’m definitely not there for the invites to play mafia wars or help my friends harvest virtual corn.
January 30th, 2011 at 7:46 pm
i don’t get much from fb other than photo sharing… so have few friends and medium tight security settings. I get very little to zero spam from fb. Okay – back to important & interesting topics? ;)
Dying to know, will the fdi report have any effect on regulation/policy? Will anything happen as a result?
January 30th, 2011 at 7:48 pm
funny your should mention this – i dont think you are alone – type ‘delet’ into a google browser and see what the autocomplete comes up with (this is based on search history)
January 30th, 2011 at 7:49 pm
oops. sorry for duplication.
January 30th, 2011 at 8:07 pm
Some high-profile friends on fb go thru an annual “royal flush” of their address book so if their unreal friends don’t make the cut they’re gone. Unreal is defined by those who send spam and those who don’t respond to messages. Also, one day last year I found fb had released what my fave bands were, etc., so I cut alot down to size and am not shy about saying no to unreal friend invites. Same rule applies on LinkedIn, btw. However am sure that public figures have a tougher time. Perhaps one suggestion is to have a private fb proxy account and an official fb Page for the great unwashed to mess with.
January 30th, 2011 at 8:22 pm
How to eliminate spam on Facebook?
Just don’t use Facebook.
Sorry. I know that wasn’t helpful. But the whole idea of Facebook reminds me of walking the halls of my high school, saying hello to everyone every time I passed them, though I had known most of them practically my whole life, and I’d just said hello to them about an hour ago. So boring. So confining. So banal. Which seems to sum up what my kids do on Facebook. Why bother?
January 30th, 2011 at 8:23 pm
Your spam is probably a function of the number of your friends. Perhaps switching over to a “fan” page instead of just being a person on FB could solve most of your problem. I have less than 200 FB friends, and I get virtually no spam, and the only malicious postings I get are from people who have had their accounts taken over by rogue applications.
January 30th, 2011 at 8:28 pm
I have resisted Facebook totally to date, but am starting to weaken due to continuing requests, which I find intrusive. Danger, danger, it’s a trap.
I fought LinkedIn tooth and nail to provide only the info I wanted to provide the way I wanted to provide it. And almost succeeded.
Sounds like a few people here are tech enough to offer helpful advice.
My approach if I enroll will be to turn off and block as much as possible, and if I don’t like what happens cancel out. If you can do that.
How did we ever survive with just email and telephone service?????
Somehow I feel like I’m being sucked into the Matrix, and it will be of my own choosing thanks to “invites” from my “friends”.
January 30th, 2011 at 8:47 pm
Why do you think their stock is valued at $50 billion? It’s going to take a whole lot of spam to generate THAT kind of revenue. Get used to it. Remember Myspace? Of course not, it’s so 5 minutes ago.
Soon the “next big thing” will come along and make Facebook obsolete and irrelevant. Just remember, if they have an IPO, get in fast, make a quick buck or two, and get out before the technology marches on.
January 30th, 2011 at 9:05 pm
Guillermo has a good answer .. a walk thru of Heading Tabs:
Account > Account Settings > Notifications
Uncheck everything in Email and SMS
I have a couple checks .. but if I told ya (you know the rest)
January 30th, 2011 at 9:29 pm
BR has more friends, electronic and otherwise than I, but, I agree.
Otoh, I don’t understand FB. What’s it for? I ask this even after I’ve seen the movie. I just don’t get it. I’m ready to be labeled a Luddite. Yet another whack of the ‘ol ego.
January 30th, 2011 at 9:40 pm
If all else fails, you can do this task of cleaning up your in-box side by side with a knowledgable Facebook groupie. I did, and I learned one thing especially that might help you. Say you’re on your News Feed, Most Recent. When you are hovering over a post, there’s a little “x” that appears on the right side of the post. Click on it. A menu opens. You pull down to select “Hide this post; Hide all by _____; Mark as spam.”
After a little extra cleaning up in this way, you can make sure that all of the posts that are unwanted from a repeating source never show up there again. Forgive me if you already knew this. I didn’t, and I’m happier now that the load of input is lighter.
I think of FB as a good way to have an email contact provided for the world-at-large, while still protecting my email address privacy. In other words – I mark the privacy settings to forward messages and friend requests to my email. If they are truly my friends, I let them in and then they can send me an emailed message. Maybe that works for you, maybe you already know better. Good luck!
January 30th, 2011 at 9:57 pm
I have an FB account and all the FB stuff goes directly to my spam folder at my yahoo e-mail…..
I don’t have a problem with FB and they don’t have a problem with me, so long as it stays that way, I’m cool….. In my opinion FB is boring and narcissistic….
Check out the Dow and SP futures holding steady, gld down 1, silver up some change and crude up a buck…. Not a big deal this Egypt thing right now..
Whadyathink…..?
January 30th, 2011 at 10:11 pm
Like The Curmudgeon says: Just don’t use FaceBook. What’s the big deal about this sophomoric site? Do you really need it? It reminds me so much of the banal and defunct SixDegrees.com from the late ’90s.
January 30th, 2011 at 10:21 pm
“…are other people finding its slowly becoming not worth the effort ?…”
really? you mean, it was, at one time, ‘worth the effort’?
somehow, I missed that stage..
January 30th, 2011 at 10:23 pm
Go to account settings -> delete account. Wait 2 weeks without logging in and you will be freed and have a lot more time every day.
January 30th, 2011 at 10:30 pm
I think Goldman’s sales powerpoint presentation would call this spam “monetizing the eyeballs.”
I’d call it “The Monetizing Sleazeballs”
Anyway, we’re only at the start of FB “growing into $50+billion valuation” which would require oh-so-much more spam, ads, wholesale selling of (or perhaps the selling out of) the users’ browsing histories, preferences and private info, and other nasty stuff that, by the way, Zuck was doing from the Day One!
January 30th, 2011 at 10:54 pm
i couldn’t say. i’ve never done fb. i reluctantly joined linkedin and expect i’ll let it go when it inevitably becomes a for-pay-service.
January 30th, 2011 at 11:05 pm
this: “BR: I have everything set to maximum security”
btw, is another howler~
as ref., see..
http://search.yippy.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&v%3Aproject=clusty&query=EFF+Facebook+privacy
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/facebook-timeline
http://www.eff.org/search?text=facebook
http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/16/advocacy-groups-poke-more-holes-in-facebook-privacy-facebook-responds/
January 30th, 2011 at 11:06 pm
I was one of the early adopters to Facebook, but became bored with it about a year ago, quit, and have never looked back. It feels quite liberating to not be caught up in the noise of other people’s lives.
I have had several other friends do the same.
First it was Friendster, then Myspace… I wonder who will supplant FB? I give it a few more years, as it doesn’t quite feel like the “top” is in yet. Maybe it’ll be sooner if they don’t get security and 3rd party intrusion under control…
January 30th, 2011 at 11:20 pm
Re zykem: “Go to account settings -> delete account.”
Ditto. Did that just last night. Really.
January 30th, 2011 at 11:27 pm
Barry, give me access and ill help ya with that spam.
January 30th, 2011 at 11:32 pm
I should add, I deleted my linkedin and myspace accounts last night too.
I received one too many, “We haven’t seen you in a while, why don’t come check out what you’ve been missing lately,” emails. I think it was facebook, but I don’t remember. Doesn’t matter, I snapped. No matter how often I click, “I don’t want to be bothered,” they decide to encourage me–with spam–to come visit a dormant account.
January 30th, 2011 at 11:39 pm
Barry, I think you’re now catching on to why the FB guys want to start cashing out.
It ain’t worth it.
Zuckerberg showing up on SNL is probably the “Magazine Cover Indicator” moment….
There are no “moats” here. There’s no real solid barrier to entry.
It ain’t worth it. Just wait for the “next cool thing” to come along…
January 31st, 2011 at 12:25 am
I suspect that the public nature of your work garners you this attention. You are an adult, you maintain your schedule and the demands placed on your time do not allow you to search out the value in Facebook. My suggestion is you simply drop facebook.
January 31st, 2011 at 12:44 am
what spridgets said is probably the best you can do.
Set up a “Big Picture” Fan Page or Group, announce your followers and use that page/group to share what you usually share.
Meanwhile – cleaning the friends list, deleting/ignoring spammers should do the trick.
January 31st, 2011 at 1:12 am
C’mon BR, don’t point this stuff out until after the IPO. I’ve been saying forever that Facebook is a mess. Just the fact that I keep getting ads for Masters of Teaching programs and Celtic gear (I’m in law school and a huge Laker fan) is a prime example that there is no way it would be profitable like google. And I hadn’t even considered the spam because I NEVER even look at my invites or any of that stuff.
Let’s have the IPO and get on the short side already…
January 31st, 2011 at 2:17 am
>> Am I hyper-sensitive to this, or are other people finding its slowly becoming not worth the effort ?
I decided it’s not worth the effort. So, I never signed up.
January 31st, 2011 at 2:36 am
I suspended my account last week. It’s just too intrusive.
January 31st, 2011 at 3:12 am
BR: You should change from a ‘person’ account to a Fan Page or a Group Page and then lock down the current one.
January 31st, 2011 at 6:03 am
Finally being forced to get a FB account (w/pseudonym) to chat with a niece who believes email too be overly whack and super lame… I found it certainly an ideal venue for those with nothing to say, but a need to keep saying it. (…and I betcha if I could ask Robert Frost if he agreed, he’d say… Like, totally!)
January 31st, 2011 at 6:15 am
Should I change the Account to a Fan Page?
Or:
Would I be better off setting up a new fan page, then kicking off everyone who is not an immediate family/actual friend to the new page ?
January 31st, 2011 at 6:49 am
BR:
Yes, to your last suggestion. I am a fan of your work and have seen you on TV but could walk right past you on a Manhattan street without knowing who you are.
January 31st, 2011 at 7:04 am
below is a repeat from my FBnotes .. our city CommunityDev Director keeps us up to date with stuff coming down the pipe and pleas for help (its a ComFBpage) .. mines a PerFBpage (almost 1yo) .. but I’m wondering about changing to an OffFBpage since I’m the chief cook & bottle washer here … beyond that I have a friend from Jaycee days that has a bar – her massive pile of friends – I hear that her page streams by with updates from the breakfest lunch dinner drivein tables … that is a primary issue for me – it would be nice to have a massive list of friends – but why have that many if you don’t or can’t possibly follow them – but without being BeFriended you can’t say to them high5/oouuhh – and that is why I’m wondering which primary classification I may switch to – how and if posting to non friends is affected (not a front burner job for me but on the stove)*
Explaination of the various Facebook primary classifications:
Personal FBpage
Official FBpage
Community FBpage
.. not sure thats the full list (yet)
.. was wondering about the functionality of the various styles and the Applications that are allowed to run in each ..
I found the below page thru a Google search and here’s a shoutout to it:
http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/05/03/unofficial-facebook-page-owners-can-appeal-community-page-classification/
*coda – Pinky “what’ll we do today Brain” Brain “same thing we do everyday – Try to Take Over the World” .. and save it from itself
January 31st, 2011 at 7:14 am
Don’t friend anyone you don’t know, don’t allow any 3rd party apps, don’t keep people as friends who spam you – even if it is just by accident because they did something stupid. Just drop them. Life is a process of ruthlessly culling down things that don’t prove valuable and keeping things that do. I’m still considering getting rid of facebook altogether because I hate the idea. But I like being able to be in touch with some of my past that it helped me find. Now that I have those people, I could ditch the go between. . . .still uncomfortable with even being on facebook.
January 31st, 2011 at 7:17 am
ps – I have found that the Reviews Tab in 1 of the other classifications* that I am not allowed to have (or have yet to figure out) as a PerFBpage – allows comments from non-friends
* another peav – page type classifications should be “Typed” somehow
January 31st, 2011 at 7:45 am
I dropped Facebook several weeks ago after reading this piece by Bill Pytlovany, the developer of Win Patrol: http://billpstudios.blogspot.com/2010/05/can-facebook-be-trusted.html
I noticed Facebook spam last year and it was gradually increasing, even after changing settings at Facebook. It was very annoying, so after reading Pytlovany’s piece I decided to drop Facebook.
Haven’t seen much if any spam lately.
The Facebook site appears to be a bunch of disorganized patchwork…..thrown together over time, just one patch after another, and the security/privacy setting instructions are not very clear.
Although Zuckerberg may have alleviated lots of security issues at the site, his core philosophy remains that of sharing information via Facebook will make the world a better place. Pytlovany quoted Zuckerberg pursuant to Facebook’s announcement of new privacy policy:
“Six years ago, we built Facebook around a few simple ideas. People want to share and stay connected with their friends and the people around them. If we give people control over what they share, they will want to share more. If people share more, the world will become more open and connected. And a world that’s more open and connected is a better world. These are still our core principles today.”
It appears he has not found a proper mix yet between being open/sharing and protecting one’s privacy and security.
My advice: Contact sombody at Facebook, that is, if they have anyone there who will talk to you.
January 31st, 2011 at 7:46 am
I second/third the fan page/friend page split. I spent a couple weekends last year catching up in person with long lost friends as a direct result of Facebook contact… but I do limit my ‘friends’ to people I know or knew well and would want to spend time with if the opportunity presented itself. Someone suggested limiting FB friends to ‘people you’d walk across the bar to talk with if you saw them there’, and something like that seems useful.
January 31st, 2011 at 9:02 am
When my wife passed away, somebody (not me) put her Facebook account in “memorial” status. I received notices of comments but couldn’t read them. She had many friends, and I would have appreciated their expressions of sympathy.
Facebook provides NO, absolutely NO way to talk with a human being to fix odd problems like that. Once in a while, in automated systems, you need to be able to get human intervention. Facebook does not provide human intervention.
I tried joining to see if that would help. It didn’t. So I used their automatic procedures to quit. There is no way I’m staying in a system where I cannot talk to a human in case of need.
One advantage of quitting Facebook is that I no longer receive solicitations from local realtors wanting to be my friend.
Screw Facebook.
January 31st, 2011 at 9:04 am
yes i finally went showin off on facebook and immeialtely got spammed
assune zuckerberg unlike say google has abolutely no regard for privacy he not forced to
January 31st, 2011 at 9:04 am
I have to say. I donot receive any SPAM from facebook. Actuallt did not realize that there was spam on Facebook. I do have one friend who keeps sending out invites for a dinner that is designed tor aise money for a friend who is sick. She sends the invite out once a month. Don’t want to block her, so I deal with it.
I did, however, block a certain politician who sent 1 e-mail out a day asking me to sign up for thier causes. No loss, he is a schmuck anyway.
January 31st, 2011 at 9:37 am
JohnT thanks for the FYI .. and since thats another 1 I had no idea existed in the 1st place – and for people wondering without accounts .. here is the Help Page that I hope providing wont get me in trouble:
Help Center > “memorial” > Search
How do I report a deceased user or an account that needs to be memorialized or deleted?
Memorializing the account: Please [report this information here], so we can memorialize this person’s account. Memorializing the account restricts profile access to confirmed friends only. Please note that in order to protect the privacy of the deceased user, we cannot provide login information for the account to anyone. We do honor requests from close family members to close the account completely.
Removing the account:
Immediate family members may request the removal of a loved one’s account. This will completely remove the account from Facebook so that no one can view it. We will not restore the account or provide information on its content unless required by law. If you are requesting a removal and are not an immediate family member of the deceased, your request will not be processed, but the account will be memorialized.
Immediate family members may request to remove an account from the site here. You may also use this form if you have a special request regarding a deceased user’s account or would like to remove the profile.
January 31st, 2011 at 11:18 am
What is “Facebook”? Do I need such a thing?
January 31st, 2011 at 11:33 am
Just say no.
January 31st, 2011 at 12:21 pm
You’ll know it’s over when you see a picture of Zuckerberg wearing a shirt with a collar.
January 31st, 2011 at 12:59 pm
I’ve had my account suspended for quite some time. The thing literally took over my hotmail account, which is already a spam magnet, and destroyed it. And I had the strongest security settings. I had about 125 friends at the height of my fb’ing. It’s just too much of a time suck for non-interesting people like myself. I’ve really got nothing going on, business or entertainment-wise. However, my wife is a big fb person, and my 11 year old has recently been given an account with heavy supervisory guidance from my wife.
I about got myself in trouble with it, so that’s why I ditched it. Way too much temptation and too much time sucking. With my job and my 2nd career, i’ve no time for updates.
January 31st, 2011 at 1:28 pm
My 2 cents on the “is it worth it” thread. Can’t remember where I read this (probably on this board)
“If you aren’t paying for the product YOU ARE the product.”
January 31st, 2011 at 2:18 pm
Just Say No …. to facebook
January 31st, 2011 at 8:06 pm
I don’t think your settings are on the highest privacy. I just looked up your name on FB. I see a list of your friends (not so many), a list of your interests. If your settings were on highest, this would not be apparent to a non friend (nothing personal…). unless that is another BR.
I don’t get any FB spam. Don’t know what you are talking about. Not that I trust them for a nanosecond.