This is when Facebook gets odd.

I just got notified that a friend of mine answered the question mentioned in the picture above. And, please, don’t get me wrong – especially not YOU if you should read this post. I am absolutely fine with taking part in these Q&A entertainment formats available on Facebook. And I’m fine with taking naked photos. Why not;-)

This post is not about human behaviour.
This is about something like internet-terrestrial attacks.

Because, what I am not fine with is to get notified by a technology based system, about things other people probably don’t want to notify me about, at all. They are pretty likely not even aware about the fact that I get notified.

And this is my point. This is were I have to show my media lawyer and human rights advocator side. Let me show you how ‘What your friends think’ works.


You get asked questions like the one above and have to decide: answer YES, answer NO, or don’t answer, and – and I’m quite sure this mostly gets overlooked – do I want this friend to get notified about what I think. Of course you have to check the box in order NOT to notify him or her, which is because getting to know things you usually don’t get to know about is a powerful fuel of social networks and social media. Specifically, it’s a fuel of socializing in general.

These are the little tricks I don’t like about social media applications. Because they try to outsmart fundamental human rights which, in this case, is the right of informational self-determination.

I am really sorry that I didn’t find a more ‘reliable’ source than the wikipedia site above, but it describes the right quite accurately, as far as I know it from my lectures. In a nutshell: It’s ‘The right of the individual to decide what information about himself should be communicated to others...’ and that comprises ‘What your friends think’ as well.

I know, this legal construct sounds like a German invention – it’s so unhandy and, well, constructed. And you probably might have read: It is a German invention indeed. But I have to say that I am proud of it, and want the right to be protected. Because it’s important.

I don’t want to know everything my friends think about me. It’s there business. It's their right to think about me what they want. All that I can do is to make it as hard as possible for them, to make it anything bad.


(Again, this post didn’t get written because of a personal problem with the ‘naked picture’ question. Not at all. That’s fine with me. And if you should want some send me an email;-)

No. That’s about a matter of principle in the developement of social media applications.)