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This morning someone on Twitter commented on this BBC article: Facebook Urged To Add Panic Button, asking people if they thought it would be effective. And there was some discussion about education being more effective than just “yelling panic”. Though apparently other panic buttons (unfortunate name) take people to a site “that details how to handle cyberbullying, hacking, viruses, distressing material and inappropriate sexual behaviour“, which sounds quite educational to me.
First of all, I was very surprised to find out that Facebook has no means of directly reporting offensive or inappropriate material. As the world’s largest “chat room” this seems irresponsible in the extreme. Every other forum or MU site I visit has a complaints button so why not Facebook? And while education is crucial, I think that a clear and easy way of contacting the people running a public site like this should be required “basic equipment”. There is a “report/block this person” link on the left-hand side of the page, but I think this just stops someone from viewing your own page. According to the article there is no actual means of reporting specific complaints to Facebook.
What are your thoughts on this?
casa azahar 
I get the feeling that Facebook has never placed a high priority on preventing abuse; everytime I see something about the site in the general press it seems to mention stalking, viruses embedded in the silly games, and similar untidiness.
Then there is this:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20001917-71.html
Everyone who reports this seems to think it is a big hoot, but I note the mother in the case DID hack her son’s Facebook password and DOES stand accused of not merely posting on his page but slandering him online. She isn’t the custodial parent — his grandmother has custody — and that speaks volumes. I saw a few seconds’ clip of her being interviewed on CNN and she projected the same poor-me, I-don’t-understand demeanor that all sorts of abusers, spousal, parental or peer, love to adopt when they’re busted.
Cases like that call for more than a panic button.
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Hmm. The more I hear about it, the less attractive “Facebook” seems to me. I’m not sure a “panic” button would cause me to redefine it.
A couple of days ago, there was a report that the government here in the US plus law enforcement agencies can track your movements using your cell phone account, and they don’t have to have a warrant or any just cause to do so. http://www.newsweek.com/id/233916
It’s not that we need a panic button so much as we need an “Outrage” button.
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What is this facebook?
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Heh, don’t get me started …
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I thought the Panic button meant ‘hiding facebook and put up worky-looking windows in emergency’ 😉
So yes, it is a bit strange that there is no way to report misbehaviour on FB. Even though, all in all they seem rather civil on there. Maybe I just have well-behaved Friends (unlike in sledpress’s example).
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A number of times have tried to report people either spamming or being abusive and/or racist and the only way to do so was to go to a certain Twitter profile and leave a post. However, in order to do that they had to “follow” them and then PM them but the “follow” thing didn’t work and you couldn’t even leave a post on the profile. I sent a “help” query which popped back with one of those useless “here are some of the most asked questions and their solutions” and “We’ll get back to you to answer your question” which was never answered. If I remember correctly, there was one of those circular “unhelpful help’ cycles. You would make the request and get the pop-up and “if this didn’t answer your question click here” which would immediately give you the same damn pop-up with the “frequently asked questions” thing again…
Now you can report spamming if someone tries to follow whose “Follow” is a spam but I don’t know if you can do than if someone is actually leaving repeated and annoying comments.
Frankly, I find most sites very unhelpful with help or when there are serious issues wither with your profile or you are being harassed. YouTube is one of the worst. There were people who were being attacked (often because they were handicapped or “different”) and a bunch of kids would repeatedly flag all the person’s videos which would get the persons profile shut down and it was very difficult to reach anyone to straighten it out. Meanwhile, the people who had actually DONE the attack were free to continue. They never bothered actually LOOKING at the videos which were being flagged and when you flagged videos which actually WERE racist or had overt sexual content, YouTube did nothing.
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Oh… I was referring to Twitter not Facebook. I haven’t had any problems with having to report anyone. Way back when I did report someone whose profile picture was a female crotch shot. I was able to do that easily.
I have more trouble with Facebook’s stupid changes that they foist on people where you suddenly can’t find anything or they make some security change “to make things safer for you” which requires you to go in and reset everything after you realize your profile has been made public.
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On Twitter, when you click on someone’s profile there, you have options to follow, block or report for spam. I find these sufficient since Twitter isn’t a “chat room” sort of place. Most people I’ve reported for spam have had their accounts removed quite smartly.
I have never had a problem on YouTube, presumably because who is going to harass me about cat vids. 😉
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I think the problem here is not fb, per se, but this boy’s mother. Fb was just the latest in what is no doubt a long line of ways she has used to abuse the poor sod.
So, rather than insisting on adding a ‘panic button’ to the medium she used, it seems to me it would be better to get her some kind of parenting intervention.
Same goes for the kids being bullied – preventing the bullies from using fb to do it is not going to stop them bullying, they’ll just do it somewhere else. The intervention is needed with the bullies, not with fb, imho.
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The one valuable thing about an abuse report that gets actual human attention and a consequence to the abuser — even if it doesn’t end the problem — is that the bully doesn’t get a free ride. His little spree of malice has not been ignored. This may mean little in practical terms, but I think it means a good deal to someone who has been at the receiving end if the service provider sets a policy and follows through on it. It means that on some level, it matters to the keepers of the playground whether or not people are decent.
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The first forum/message board thingy I ever became involved with (in early 2003) was h2g2, which was started by Douglas Adams and taken over by the BBC after his death. And I thought their system for dealing with complaints worked very well. Every personal page, every post and every comment had a “yikes button” that you could click on if you came across something offensive, nasty, etc. And you were given a window to type in the specifics about your complaint. And THEN you received emails from the h2g2 moderators telling you what the outcome of your complaint was.
I remember times on h2g2 when some members were up in arms about this or that moderating decision. But the whole thing was that if you didn’t like it you could express that to an actual human being who worked onsite. I remember once having a lot of email correspondence with a BBC moderator over a known convicted pedophile who was clearly grooming a young girl there.
And okay, Facebook is far too BIG to start answering every complaint in this manner, but I don’t get why they have been against the “alert button” (much better name) idea.
Mind you, most things about Facebook are pretty dodgy. Why just yesterday I came across this…
Facebook Under Attack in Germany Over Privacy
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And speaking of h2g2, here is a list of some of the friends I met there who also visit me here at casa az … and some I’ve even met in real life! Hope I didn’t leave anyone out.
Noggin
Zoomer
Steve (aka Blues Shark)
Sara (aka Strange Little Angel)
Taliesin
Dogster (aka Dan’s Samovar)
Teuchter
Linda (aka Dancing at Lunacy)
Mudhooks
Dragonqueen
Healingmagichands
Spacecadette
Toy Box
Woodpidgeon (aka Colm Ryan)
Big Bad Johnny P
Ismarah
TRiG
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Hopefully you’ll be able to add to that “I’ve even met in real life” total – however, so many places so little time (and money)!
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I really gotta try planning another Sevilla mini-meet. How about a weekend in October? Cheap flights, good weather…
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I’ll put it to the finance committee!
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The lack of attention to abusers of the site and inability to report issues is one of the (many) reasons I really do not like FB.
I know – sacrilege – but there it is.
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Not sacrilege at all. I’ve never seen The Point of FB, especially if you have a blog and also make use of micro-blogging Twitter. FB can’t seem to grow out of its roots as a hangout for teenagers and university students. And they have no regard for their users, making changes without warning, allowing no way of personalising pages, and basically being a mess to figure out. It has a hideous format, is not user friendly, and mostly appeals to the LCD of those who want to “just want to stay in touch” with people online.
And NOBODY seems to take the privacy issues seriously. I mean, WTF? I won’t post any photos or anything other than updates via Twitter there. And neither should anyone else, imho.
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The 3 Facebook Settings Every User Should Check Now
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Heh, @ColleeninCA reckons they must have read this blog post.
Facebook Revamps Safety Center
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