How very ironic.

This is probably the first negative thing I *can* say about facebook as opposed to myspace.

I don’t see terribly many people saying myspace was better anyhow, I’m curious to see what else doesn’t work.

Someone who actually uses it want to try other things like Google, Yahoo, Bebo?… I wonder how many terms it blocks and how relevant they are.

I don’t really think it’s a big deal, but it is definitely annoying. It’s especially annoying coming from companies where it seems extra hypocritical, a la Facebook or Google.

You’d think they’d realize that the attention a MySpace v Facebook poll on Facebook would get versus the attention that ‘censorship’ gets would have been far less.

Pat
you’re 100% right, and you know I was researching a positive post on Facebook being better than MySpace when I found this! Terms blocked only seem to be social networking competitors, but I didn’t try more than maybe a dozen or so terms.

What kind of pointless hyperbole is this? Free speech? Give me a break.

Yeah, it’s a stupid move on Facebook’s part. Yeah, it’s annoying and worth bitching about. But to couch it as some kind of “free speech” issue is absurd. It’s not, and you’re an idiot for trying to make it so.

Given that you have to pay to use these polls I really don’t think facebook is in much of a position to be restricting such arbitrary terms as competitors’ names.

errr, Duncan. This is a pro-Facebook blog. Didn’t you get the memo?

Ryan
I can’t mention Facebook’s competitors on a site that relies on user-generated content. It is a free speech issue.

Could there be any legal reasons for no competition mentions?

I’ve reported this as a bug. =)

You should try something like M.y.s. p*Ace

Wonder if that would work.

Very surprised that Facebook is doing this.
I really hope that they realise their mistake and remove censorship in polls.

Ryan and Duncan,

The topic of discussion here is free speech, however it does not concern our First Amendment rights since Facebook is a company, and technically just using their service is a privilege, not a right.

As much as some will make it seem, Facebook’s restriction of competitors in their polls is not analogous to the US government forbidding the use of say, other countries’ names in media polls.

Companies have always been more restrictive with free speech than what the First Amendment allows. Recalling some current issues, this is the same reason you can’t make racist comments as a DJ.

It’s a free speech issue, but not a First Amendment issue. And I think the TechCrunch team has called it correctly in this article and in their comments.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.....nstitution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech

I still don’t understand why they are doing this. Do they really think competitors would be using facebook to do their polling? Instead of implementing such a common feature on their site?

Dumb idea, because this negative publicity is bound to hurt them. Especially since they try to paint themselves as a “nice” company

Can someone link me to the post reporting TechCrunch being acquired by Facebook?

I’m sure there’s a completely logical explanation for this. After all, Mark Zuckerberg’s only goal is to help people understand the world around them better. The increased commercialization of Facebook is simply to fund all the great things Facebook is planning to bring to the world. Sometimes a little censorship is required when great things are being done, and I for one am ready to suspend my judgement and trust in the wisdom of Facebook since my social graph seems to indicate that the company is run by the most altruistic Harvard dropouts ever.

Free speech, or rather limitations on the ability to restrict speech, applies to government action and not private companies.

If MySpace released an API like FaceBook, it’d easily be better than MySpace again, so get to it MySpace (Facebook is just depressing.. you can’t seem to see people’s profiles unless you’re their friend, there’s no music, customization options are poor.. it’s so sterile)

To get restricted words published .. try this trick (it works on Live Spacess and should work anywhere)

Type My(alt + 0160)Space

Holding down on the alt key an then pressing 0160 generates a blank character. Now the facebook algorithm will not read it as MySpace but My()Space.. while to the human eye it will be ‘MySpace’

Sure it’s not that all company names are restricted? Maybe unauthorized use of trademark issues? Haha, but probably not huh?

My Bad..

alt + 0160 or 0173 doesn’t bypass the restrictions on facebook

MySpace does something similar. If you try to message someone within MySpace with the phrase “AIM” such as “My AIM ID is blahblah123″ it replaces “AIM” with two periods “..”

Anyway, I would agree that something like this will always come out, and will usually appear hamfisted. It would be good for Facebook to join the conversation on this to explain this design decision.

It may be something that their legal department wanted included, though this use of a competitor’s name would really come under fair use (Arrington, you’re a recovering lawyer, care to comment?).

At first blush, it does seem like something that would be a net negative, as Gadgetize points out above. It’s my opinion (and I think that the poll Duncan was trying to post would have borne this out, especially given the polling audience!) that Facebook has a much, much stronger product than MySpace, and only stands to win from open conversation about how the two compare.

Duncan, that’s beacuse no one would understand “MySpace” anyway - Facebook is doing you a favor. It should be “mYsPaCe fo SheeZZzz!!one1″.

By Pass Facebook Poll restrictions : http://liveandbeyond.com/bypas.....estriction

the alt + 0173 method works

Doesn’t surprise me at all. Just look and listen to Mark Zuckerberg. The guy is Bill Gates in diapers.

I went to Facebook recently and thought it was a very clean and organized site. It is also one of the more boring websites I’ve been to. Very dull site that left no lasting impression - not sure why they get so much hype. Maybe everyone has Myspace-envy or something.

Bill is correct. Free speech is really only an issue when the government seeks to enjoin speech or perhaps when a private party sues you for for mere speech (i.e., speech that isn’t defamatory or slanderous). But technicalities aside, it’s pretty absurd for a blog with one of the widest readerships on the Interweb to cry censorship. There’s nothing preventing you from using another polling tool and publishing those results here. Indeed, the results would probably be more widely read here than on Facebook.

Also, Facebook has may have legitimate reasons for blocking references to Myspace and other competitors in its own polling app. Why should Facebook allow competitors to use its own tools and audience for market research that might potentially benefit those competitors? If, as Michael indicated, Facebook’s tool is a killer app for marketers, then restricting its use in reasonable ways is a valid competitive strategy. It might be silly, but it’s not “evil” or irrational.

Finally, I would imagine that other app makers will produce similar widgets that aren’t really so restrictive, making this a moot issue.

Jesus Christ. If facebook released a feature that took pictures of your used toilet paper and shared it with all the contacts in your yahoo/msn/gmail accounts you guys would put it on the front page.

-mike

WRONG about myspace. You can type in AIM, they bock AIM: (with the colon) however, for security reasons. People were using an AIM exploit url to mess with other users. MySpace blocks stuff for spam/security/ copyright violation reasons. They just get a bad rap because they never explain their actions to the whiners.

You can complain about it…think it’s “bad business” or a bad idea at least…think it’s petty of Facebook to block this. You can report on goofy practices like this, of course.

But it’s not a free speech issue. We get that term and “censorship” so confused in this country.

Do you not understand that websites run by companies and individuals can totally edit or restrict the content posted?

Users can revolt and not use the services provided or deal with it. Let’s not make it bigger or more culturally significant than it is.

my.space
my5pace
mi-shpace

the possibilities are endless (but then people with think you can’t spell).

At least it got them on techcrunch!

Facebook and all SSN’s are using you guys to get themselves filthy rich. They exist solely to make the most money possible off of your backs. This whole API deal smells of something fishy. Don’t trust them. They provide a platform may cost a few 100K to produce that is worth billions because everyone is addicted to it. Members do all the work creating all the content and page views. The key to getting rich on the web is create something where members do all the work, like clueless sheep, while the founder laughs all the way to the bank. Capitalism at it’s finest. I love it!

Duncan,

We made a mistake, and we’ve fixed it. Facebook did not intend to block the names of competitors from the new Polls product. Now researchers can ask questions with any company’s name. I’d encourage you to give it another try.

Thanks,
Matt Hicks
Corporate Communications, Facebook

@ Matt Hicks
What do you mean you did not intend to? C’mon it was so obvious!!

#32 Matt:

“We made a mistake, and we’ve fixed it. Facebook did not intend to block the names of competitors from the new Polls product.”

It’s good that Facebook is admitting the mistake, but it’s hard to believe that Facebook “did not indend to block” certain keywords when they are very obviously specific to your competition and hand-picked. Is this the case of one of your programmers adding an extra “feature” on their own, or is this an actual mistake that was originally and intentionally built in by Facebook?

Some outdated code was used that should not have been. When we learned it was blocking those words, we fixed it. We regret the mistake.

Do you like Facebook better than porn?

Does this work?

dude, facebook sucks so much. They should delete their site from the internet and spare us all

I started to sign up for Facebook due to the recent hype, but stopped at the point where it insisted on knowing my “real birthdate”.

Sorry, they have no legitimate need to know that information.

Online polls have a lot of potential, it may not be a mass appeal product but is of much use to groups.

What happens if the central office of facebook is established in another country ?
Problem solve?

Outdated code? I call B.S. on that. No one is honest about anything anymore. How about this:

“We had a stupid idea, we tossed it in. We didn’t think we’d get caught. Our bust.”

Peter, some of us consider the music one of the biggest *detractors* from Myspace. If I feel like listening to music, I’m already listening to my own. Otherwise, I don’t want to hear it.

I also don’t mind the lack of customization options, quite simply, because most Myspace pages I’ve seen have been customized to look like completely illegible crap. The Facebook team has put together an easy to read, and aesthetically pleasing (admittedly a subjective matter) layout. If its users are anything like Myspace users, we’d end up with black text on black backgrounds, awful music, and nothing but “OMG PONIES!!” everywhere.

I prefer Facebook because it focuses on the social networking aspect, it doesn’t try to make itself the web equivalent of finger painting.

FaceBook - they’re the open ones!

The companies featured in the F8 launch were prohibited from saying “like MySpace” in any press release referencing Facebook - as well as “social networking site” and “college aged site.” Hah!

An interesting debate over this Facebook debacle. I’m glad that Matt Hicks responded directly but it does seem fishy that the code was outdated…why not say, hey - originally, we didn’t think it cool to allow polls comparing our product to MySpace et al. The thing is, it’s better that they do allow such polls since it can help them gain further insight on what people think of their product, etc.

http://www.vtoreality.com/2007.....unch/1003/

Nice

Cool!

Nice!

Sorry

Nice…

Interesting…

Nice!

Nice

interesting

Nice!