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Facebook Naivete

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Clarissa

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So when messages from hateful places like University of Phoenix appear in my Facebook news feed, why does that happen? I obviously didn’t subscribe to be their friend. Is Facebook sticking their messages in people’s news feeds for money?

Also, when a message appears in Facebook news feed saying that “Your friend (real name of a friend) used this product and wants you to try it out” and the friend in question says she has nothing to do with the message or the product, is Facebook sending out these obvious lies in exchange for payments? But why be so heavy-handed about it?

I must be naive but all this seems kind of shocking. There is so much ad content on my Facebook page that I can barely see any legitimate messages from actual people.

21 responses to “Facebook Naivete”

  1. Roberto Severino Avatar
    Roberto Severino

    For profit colleges giving you trouble on Facebook, eh? I think Facebook jumped the shark a long time ago. More and more people would rather use Twitter and Tumblr to talk to each other. Facebook’s IPO hasn’t done that well either.

    In a few years, Facebook will sort of end up like MySpace. Who do you really know that uses MySpace anymore?

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      I’m old enough to remember the time when MySpace was as popular as Facebook. And then it started to become the place for creepy people to congregate.

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      1. Roberto Severino Avatar
        Roberto Severino

        I remember that well too. The thing I hated most about MySpace was the crappy layouts and how a lot of people will up their page with junk and annoying spam that would take forever to load.

        It was sort of during the era where you could find America Online CDs at your local Burger King and when a lot of people were still using AOL and dial-up internet. I still can’t believe that this was up to 8 or 9 years ago already. Time flew by fast.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          “It was sort of during the era where you could find America Online CDs at your local Burger King and when a lot of people were still using AOL and dial-up internet. I still can’t believe that this was up to 8 or 9 years ago already.”

          – Yes, I remember that, too! There was this unforgettable sound that a connecting modem would make. I can’t believe younger people will not even know what it sounds like. 🙂

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  2. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    I don’t have ads coming from universities in my Facebook.

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  3. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    On facebook you are the product. Why are you surprised that you’re being sold?

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      I seriously doubt Facebook is sticking me into people’s feeds like it does the University of Phoenix. 🙂

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      1. cliff arroyo Avatar
        cliff arroyo

        You have it backwards, you’re being sold to the U of P (and every other advertister that shows up on your page).

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          Ah, got it! I said I was naive about this in the post’s title!

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      2. Stringer Bell Avatar
        Stringer Bell

        “I seriously doubt Facebook is sticking me into people’s feeds like it does the University of Phoenix.”

        That’s exactly what it has started doing.

        http://gawker.com/your-ad-here-511529098

        “But in May, a friend of mine—an actual friend, in the pre-Zuckerberg sense of the word—published a book, and it seemed worth using Facebook to help him promote it. So I wrote up something about the book and threw in an Amazon link.
        ..
        I didn’t realize how badly I’d failed till a few days later, when my brother sent me a screenshot of his Facebook feed. There, at the top, was my post about the book. Only it wasn’t exactly mine anymore. Instead, it was now marked “sponsored.” Other friends—friend-friends, people who actually know me and deal with me—chimed in to tell me that day after day, it appeared as if I were throwing this post of mine up at the top of their feeds.”

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          This sounds very scary. I don’t know why everybody likes Facebook so much. The interface is outdated, the page looks messy and cluttered.

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  4. Evelina Anville Avatar
    Evelina Anville

    I used to get University of Phoenix advertising and then I started marking “offensive” every time it came up. I get other advertisements now–but not ones that offend my sensibilities to the same extent as the “University” of Phoenix.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Ah, this is a great idea! This is what I will do because I also find it offensive.

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  5. djiril Avatar
    djiril

    I’ve been getting advertisements for thinks my friends “liked.” I don’t know why the heck any of my friends chose to “like” Walmart, but apparently they did!

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  6. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    Off-topic: http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/chatting-with-quebecs-young-separatists

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    1. Sister Avatar
      Sister

      A delusional bunch. “I was forced to learn French and my rights were taken away for me. How great!” “Look at all the great businesses we have in Quebec!” Lets look at all the great businesses that actually left Quebec during the last referendum. Ugh.

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  7. Jennifer Frances Armstrong Avatar
    Jennifer Frances Armstrong

    The insulting adverts that are addressed DOWN to my feminine IQ amuse me the most. For instance, suggesting to me that doctors are “angered” by certain aging housewives applying homestyle substances to their faces, which make them look twenty years younger.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Yes! And the ones that offer me a picture of some man whom “all language teachers hate” because he supposedly invented a method of mastering a language in 2 days. Yes, I hate him so much I can barely sleep. He is so putting me out of work with his method.

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      1. djiril Avatar
        djiril

        I always think of you when I see that advertisement. Apparently the guy in the picture was a language professor who died in 1976. His Wikipedia page doesn’t say anything about his colleagues hating him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Pimsleur

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          Poor guy, he died so young!

          I looked up his method, and it’s just a gimmick that won’t work on its own. No method of language learning really does. The best approach is a combination of elements from different methods.

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  8. n8chz Avatar
    n8chz

    For those who are Firefox users, I created this. It doesn’t remove the “promoted” posts per se, but makes them stand out. This helps me prevent that feeling of being used when I’m halfway into a post before I realize it’s an ad.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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