Things That Stick In My Craw - Facebook Sucks

What is it with the social networking sites? They start out great, then they "make changes for the better" and we users end up hating the changes. Facebook is on my hitlist right now because of the newest change - "Live Newsfeed."

It sucks.

Period.

I do not need to know when any of my "friends" adds a new friend, joins a group or becomes a fan of something. All I want to see is what their status update is, if they post a note or photo so that I can comment on it if I want to and any quizzes they do.

Now my "status updates" newsfeed is filled with a bunch of garbage I could care less about.

So I joined the group, "Switch Back to the Old Newsfeed" at http://www.facebook.com/groups.php?ref=sb#/group.php?gid=155541434951, which has over 300,000 members and counting (please join it!)

I'm sick of the changes Facebook is making.

When Facebook started out, you need a real e-mail address from the school you either went to or worked for to become a member of FB. I loved that exclusivity. Then they decided to compete with Myspace and open it up to every Tom, Dick and Harry worldwide. Did you need a valid e-mail address from a real ISP? Nope. You can use a free e-mail address from Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, whatever to get an account. You don't need to verify who you are to get an account, so anyone can pretend to be another person. In fact, I have an alter ego who is a teen that I use to make friends with students at schools I'm going to be speaking at. FB doesn't care that people have bogus accounts with them. That is, of course, until said account is used in an illegal or immoral manner.

School resource officers, recruiters, employers, law enforcement, etc *all* get fake FB accounts to look for trouble online, check out potential students and employees, and even current students and employees to see what they're doing online.

It's just amazing how many people will approve a friend because they're:

1) A cute boy or girl
2) Mutual friends with at least one of their own friends (that really starts the ball rolling - as soon as other friends see "you" are mutual friends with their friends, they'll approve you, no questions asked)
3) In the same network
4) Just because they asked to be your friend

Another thing that sticks in my craw about FB is the inability to quickly report someone for harassing you. It used to be you'd click on "HELP" at the bottom of the page, then you could do a search for "harassment" and get a link to send a complaint in. Now, if the person is currently on your friends list, you have to Remove them as a friend, go back to their profile, then click on Report/Block this Person and fill out a complaint form.

I also would like to be able to pick and choose what updates I see from those on my friends list, especially if they're going to keep this new crapass Newsfeed. Let me choose from the following (and this is a suggestion for FB):

Check off the updates you'd like see from your friends -

__When they update their Status
__When they post a Note
__When they post a new photo
__When they join a group
__When they become a fan of something
__When they make progress in a game they're playing
__When they take a quiz

Can anyone think of anything else to add?

With all the options you can supposedly choose from in your settings, this is the most important that should be there and is NOT!

I'd also like the option to NOT be tagged in a photo without my permission. If someone decides to tag me, I should get a notification to approve/not approve the photo. Some people don't have a lot of photos in their profile for personal reasons and when someone tags them in a photo and that appears in their profile, it ticks them off. Then they come to me to ask how to get that photo removed. Oy.

What is it with FB that you can "like" something, but there is NO "dislike" button? Are they afraid we'll all become an angry mob and turn on FB? Maybe now we all will with the latest lovely changes.

Pick up your pitchforks, folks - let's go get those mad scientists at FB and give them what's what!

We want the old newsfeed back. We want the old Facebook back!!!!!!!