Facebook Helps You Connect And Share With People Who Aren’t In Your Life
The other night I logged onto Facebook and found that a classmate from a writing workshop two summers ago had accepted my friend request.
Which I hadn’t sent.
In Facebook’s Help Centre, I found a number of users with the same complaint. Is this Facebook’s latest trick? (At the very least, think of their ad views from our navigating around, trying to find what the heck setting we’ve overlooked).
I couldn’t find any settings I’d overlooked that should have prompted this (though I hadn’t noticed that sometime in the last month or two Facebook stopped emailing me notifications when someone messaged me, commented on my photos, etc).
Sending automatic friend requests seems to me a categorically different level of overreach than what this spring’s kerfuffles concerned. Changing settings and defaults on our accounts with no notification was egregious, and annoyingly time-consuming to fix, but it was essentially passive aggressive, an action once-removed, enabling the possibility of actions we hadn’t signed up for.
But performing an action on my behalf, without notifying me?
I like this woman, liked her fiction, enjoyed having her in class. We’ve both gone on to MFA programs. There’s every reason for us to be in touch.
But that should be our decision.
