The (very real) prospect of Facebook owning your online identity is frightening.
I think it's already been well-established that people act differently under the guise of anonymity. This is both the power and the pain of the Internet. So it's no surprise that (effectively) anonymous comments have people acting like jerks.
There are basically two sites on the entire Internet where I will actually read comments: here and Stackoverflow. Everywhere else (particularly reddit), it's basically just noise (often hateful, uninformed noise).
The fact that Facebook comments can effectively wipe out much bad behaviour (possibly taking a lot of good with it; time will tell) makes it highly attractive to site owners. Even on my lowly, largely desserted personal blog, I've basically turned comments to moderated because of spam and general noise.
The fact that Facebook owns your identity in this way is a little scary but I think they'll either come underdone or, in the coming years, the issue will become so important that governments will intervene (this is, in part, why I think the upside to Facebook now isn't all that great; there's only so big you can get).
What Facebook will probably need to combat in coming years is spam int he form of fake profiles. This will probably take some time for the spammers to create profiles that are very hard to separate from the real (automatically I mean) but it will happen (IMHO). What then?
There are already services selling votes on sites like reddit. Why not likes on Facebook? The problem is harder but certainly not impossible.
Indeed. Currently you can do that. In my case I simply use Facebook as a photo-sharing site. That's all the interest I have in it.
Sites that require a Facebook login (as some startups create) get instantly closed. Sites that offer Facebook login have that option ignored. Sites that nag you about using that feature (eg tv.com) make me irate.
But comments takes things a step further. What if you get widespread adoption of Facebook comments to the point that you can't comment on most things without logging on to Facebook?
At that point it's getting to the point where either Facebook is your online identity or you have no online identity.
I think it's already been well-established that people act differently under the guise of anonymity. This is both the power and the pain of the Internet. So it's no surprise that (effectively) anonymous comments have people acting like jerks.
There are basically two sites on the entire Internet where I will actually read comments: here and Stackoverflow. Everywhere else (particularly reddit), it's basically just noise (often hateful, uninformed noise).
The fact that Facebook comments can effectively wipe out much bad behaviour (possibly taking a lot of good with it; time will tell) makes it highly attractive to site owners. Even on my lowly, largely desserted personal blog, I've basically turned comments to moderated because of spam and general noise.
The fact that Facebook owns your identity in this way is a little scary but I think they'll either come underdone or, in the coming years, the issue will become so important that governments will intervene (this is, in part, why I think the upside to Facebook now isn't all that great; there's only so big you can get).
What Facebook will probably need to combat in coming years is spam int he form of fake profiles. This will probably take some time for the spammers to create profiles that are very hard to separate from the real (automatically I mean) but it will happen (IMHO). What then?
There are already services selling votes on sites like reddit. Why not likes on Facebook? The problem is harder but certainly not impossible.