Guest post by Joe ‘Zonker’ Brockmeier

Most people have learned, by now, that it’s bad Netiquette to forward every little joke, picture, or whatnot to every person they know. It’s OK to forward those cute bunny pictures to the friends who will appreciate them, but just because your dentist is in your address book it doesn’t mean he or she needs to see it. But it took years before not sending mindless forwards was the cultural norm. Now Facebook, more than other social media sites, has become the new mindless forward.

Every application on Facebook seems to require access to my data, and every time you “become a fan” of something, Facebook wants you to spam everyone on your contact list so that people spend the maximum amount of time on Facebook being fans of things and using applications inside Facebook’s walled garden.

Maybe I’m a grouch, or maybe I’m connected to too many people (or both) but a few weeks ago my tolerance for getting suggestions to “become a fan” of things wore out. Maybe it was the small number of really persistent people who kept asking me to be a fan of things I already ignored. Maybe it was being asked to be a fan of completely irrelevant crap.

I know I ignored a few things I would have originally “fanned” just because I was getting too many damn requests. Whatever it was, I’m as sick of seeing “become a fan” as I was sick of seeing “FWD” in my inbox ten years ago. No, Bill Gates isn’t going to give $1 for every time an email is forwarded, and no, I don’t want to be a fan of “WIN NOW 10.000 FVCASH AND BUY EVERYTHING YOU WANT!EXCLUSIVE ZYNGA PROMOTION.”

I understand the give and take of building a “sticky” site and trying to make a business out of getting people’s attention. I fully respect sites like Twitter that strike a balance between providing a useful service and trying to build an audience that will enable a business model. (Whatever Twitter’s actual business model ever ends up being…) But Facebook is well over that line. The new privacy rules and the model of encouraging users to spam their friends and applications that want access to my data and hooks into my profile just to work…

Social media sites should be tools to enrich our real lives. Facebook can be used that way, but the site itself is geared to abuse of personal data and attention. Email’s functionality has been marred by intentional misuse by spammers. Facebook’s flaw is not only abuse by hostile parties — though it has a few of those as well — but that its very design is almost user-hostile. It actively encourages bad Netiquette and overreaching of personal data.

Surely Facebook could do better. Or maybe it’s time for someone to invent a more user-friendly site that encourages good Netiquette, conservative data access policies, and simpler and saner privacy policies.

Joe ‘Zonker’ Brockmeier is a longtime FOSS advocate, and currently works for Novell as the community manager for openSUSE. Prior to joining Novell, Brockmeier worked as a technology journalist covering the open source beat for a number of publications, including Linux Magazine, Linux Weekly News, Linux.com, UnixReview.com, IBM developerWorks, and many others.

I was talking to a guy recently about Twitter, and he was complaining that Twitter was too much work. He said he had to constantly monitor who was following him. When I told him he was in complete control of his followers because he could block anyone he wanted to, he said he didn’t have time to check his list and he worried (as a marketing executive) that the list could reflect badly on him.

We’ve written before about the importance of the quality of your followers over quantity (see Outside of a Small Circle of Friends). That’s why it’s important to review your followers list and weed out ones you don’t want. Remember, your followers’ list is public, and as this marketing executive pointed out,  it can reflect on you. There are a number of spammer types out there including an increasing amount of porn Spam, and you should probably block these people and avoid any possible embarrassment (unless of course you don’t care).

There are a couple of strategies you can undertake here: filter or tag your email to keep your new followers in a single place, then block people you don’t want following you.

Organizing Your Email

One of the best ways to begin to control your Twitter Followers’ list is to create a mailbox/folder and set up a filter so that all new follower emails get dumped in this folder. Then you can check the folder every couple of days, review your followers and block the ones you don’t like (or follow the ones you do). This works a little differently in each email program, so I’m not going to describe the process here, but check the Online Help for email program for information on setting up a new folder or mail box and creating a filter.

Blocking the Ones You Don’t Like

When you get a new follower, click through to their profile If you see one you would prefer weren’t following you, follow these instructions:

1. Click the Block link in the Action section on the right side of the window. A window opens asking if you’re sure you wish to take this action
2. If you’re sure, click OK I Still Want to Block This Person.

What Blocking Means

When you block someone it means:

• You will no longer show up in the list of people followed by Spammer
• Your updates won’t show up on Spammer’s timeline
• Spammer will not be able to follow you

It’s prudent to clean up your list from time to time and this should provide a system to make it fairly easy to do that.

Photo courtesy of AngeSoleil (aka Tweng) on Flickr.