Facebook is offering web developers a new commenting system that requires people to sign-in with their Facebook credentials before commenting on blogs and other sites that use the free service.
Any website operator can add the code to a site by copying a couple of lines of code that you can generate from their comments/plugin page.
With that code in place, visitors to the site see a comment box from Facebook that they can use to make a comment that will appear on that site and, at the user's discretion, on their Facebook profile as well.
Helps Ward Off the Trolls
For site owners, it means not having to manage your own commenting system because Facebook does it for you. It also means fewer really obnoxious or obscene comments because people who log on with their Facebook credentials are less likely to be anonymous and, therefore, more likely to post something that could embarrass them or cause them to lose their Facebook account. The reason I say "less" likely is because this system doesn't fully guarantee accountability. Facebook has what it calls "a real name culture" and considers it a terms of service violation to register under an assumed identity, but it's not all that hard to do so, especially if you start by creating a throw-away email address using a web-based service such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail or Hotmail.
As a site operator, I can relate to this. I've actually removed the ability to comment on my sites SafeKids.com and LarrysWorld.com because of the hassle involved in moderating comments. I love feedback and am accepting of critical comments, but I don't love having to deal with trolls, spammers and others who post comments that are inappropriate.
What Bothers Me About the Service
But there are a couple things that bother me about the new Facebook service. To begin with, it puts even more power in the hands of Facebook which not only has 600 million people visiting its own site, but now has its tentacles into perhaps millions of other websites. It also bothers me that site owners are turning over the storage and "ownership" of comments and their relationship with the commenters to Facebook instead of being able to manage it themselves.
I'm also bothered that it requires a Facebook membership for people to comment. It becomes one more reason people feel compelled to join Facebook and means that folks who don't have a Facebook account can't comment on some other sites.
On TechCrunch, MG Siegler wrote that "overall number of comments have fallen dramatically" after his company started requiring users to use the new Facebook commenting system. The system, he said, has "silenced the trolls" but it may have silenced others too.
As an experiment, I've added the Facebook commenting system to one post on my LarrysWorld.com site. I'd be curious about your reaction so -- in addition to commenting below on Huffington Post's well moderated commenting system, please click here to visit the page on my site and use Facebook's very own system to tell me what you think.
Disclosure: Facebook provides financial support to ConnectSafely.org, a non-profit Internet safety organization where I serve as co-director.
Follow Larry Magid on Twitter: www.twitter.com/larrymagid
Adoree Durayappah, M.A.P.P., M.B.A.: Facebook Enhances Self-Esteem, Study Finds
that sentence says a bunch towards this thread .. so PO'd I was - I logged out of HuffPo - and discovered my FB logged out too (uhm) .. but I think that as disruptive truth can be it has 100 years from now benefits (maybe) (maybe blogging and talk radio is tooo big a step for a 300 year old society) (wait FB reaches 8000 year old societies)
Should identify similar comments (redundancy) in thread to avoid duplication of content.
Should identify posts that might be better as a reply rather than new thread.
Should find places to post comment other than current blog (sell your work to other consumers).
Should value content with score for originality (using Google type algorithm)
There are some who ambit to work in concert to 'spin' the media. One sign of their work in progress is censorship. Problem is, you tell a lie, then you have to tell another lie to cover that one, and another, and so forth, and so on, and then people, not being stupid, figure out what you were up to by discerning out what it is you don't want said or added, and they fill in the blanks themselves, then THEY publish, and you're caught out, or, in the vernacular, BUSTED!
Zuckerberg and the Harvardistas may have money, but they don't have a monopoly on information. Truth comes out eventually, might as well tell it the first time, right? Right.
Censorship is nothing new. It's been around ever since sponsors threatened to pull their money out of television or radio or print if certain things were said or not said.
But, maybe this story's a good warning, to all concerned, if you intend on having free and open access to information on the web, and it looks like a major company such as Facebook, or AOL(owner/partner of Huffington Post) is trying to mess with it, go elsewhere in search of enlightenment and open democratic dialogue. Just because people have a lot of money, doesn't make em honest, and sometimes, the total reverse is true. B.S.ing the public is Big Business. Think, ask questions, and make your own decisions in life...walk your own path.
I can't speak for other websites, but my purpose in adding these links is NOT to limit the ability of posters to comment anonymously, nor to give control of comments to facebook. My purpose is to allow people who use these social networks to (if they want) recommend the site to their friends. The purpose is to gain additional exposure for the web site.
It is a fact that hundreds of millions of people use facebook. It is a fact that large numbers of people use twitter and stumbleupon. It makes good business sense to allow people on these FREE social networks to spread FREE news of your product.
The facebook embeddable link allows a person to make a comment as well as registering a "like." This is not inherently evil. My guess is that the use of this feature, by external web sites, as a blog commenting engine is not what facebook originally had in mind. Nevertheless, it may bring more customers to them, which is good for THEIR business.
There are still millions of blogs out there with free and open commenting systems that don't use facebook. I don't think the sky is falling yet, at least not because of this feature.
That's a pretty big rule.
Ha
Farmville?
The option of only having Facebook commenting box means we cannot comment if we have to say or have an opinion against Facebook.
We know Facebook is having numerous issues among our loved ones, friends and colleagues. For all of us who are concerned about Facebook issues we have created the website called Avoid Facebook @ www.AvoidFacebook.com