I’ve stated in the past that I am very careful who I be-”friend” on Facebook. No professional contacts, no marginal ‘acquaintances’ – just genuine friends. Facebook security problems of the past have scared the heck out of me, so I have everything locked down to friends-only.
“Likes”, on the other hand, are limitless in my mind. I’ll gladly “Like” a web site, a fan page, or a group with no qualms whatsoever. And why not? If I “Like” the Swedish Bikini Mud Wrestling team, why should I be embarrased if only my closest friends know this rather than strangers and acquaintances on the periphery? (My friends will forgive me; a potential employer, maybe not so much.)
But does Facebook consider “friends” and “likes” to be equivalent? The reason I wonder, worriedly, is because I found my photo stream posted on the “Photos From Our Members” sidebar of one of the groups that I previously “liked”. Just because I “like” a group in no way means that I want to be-”friend” every one of that group’s members or expose my personal info to them. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Facebook treats “friends” and “likes” very similarly. Can group members and fan pages see my photos? My wall? My personal profile? That is so not cool.
As a programmer, I can concede that the mechanics behind “friend” and “like” are probably very similar and there may be considerable code re-use between those two actions. But the permissions model between the object types should be decidedly different. I’m not convinced that they are. I am searching for confirmation one way or the other…
July 21st, 2011 on 9:06 am
You raise a very good point for consideration and inquiry here Bill. Must admit that I had not really thought about the relative effect or possible differential result between “Friending” and “Liking” in detail.
I will acknowledge that I “de-friended” my sister after she contributed what was, in her mind, supposed to be a funny remark which, to anyone not knowing about my sister’s propensity for being completely unaware of the impact of what she says, could otherwise easily be misconstrued and thus potentially damaging.
This is, perhaps, one way in which adopting Google+ may be advantageous. I’ve been considering moving real friends into that circle in G+ while keeping FB more as a business enterprise network since we have our FB Business Page that cross-links with our web site.
Be interested in seeing what others have to say here and see what conclusion may be eventually drawn from facts or preponderance of opinion contributed.