Have you been added to a Facebook group without your knowledge?

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This is a bit off-topic for TameBay, but here we go. Facebook has a very, very annoying new feature (or if it’s not new, I’ve never seen it before) which I’m almost loathe to blog about because I’d rather no one knew it.

There’s a new kind of group – Private Groups – where you don’t invite people to join, you just add them. Friends can now add you to the group, without your permission and without your confirmation. If they add you, you’re added: the only opt-out you have is to leave the group.

Here’s Chris adding me to a group…

click to embiggen


If your Facebook friends list is like mine – filled with people you don’t actually know – this has the potential to get pretty spammy.

11 Responses

  1. I read someone complaining about being added to a group in a facebook newsfeed a few days ago.
    If Amazon own Alexa, are Amazon giving away all of their Meta data research for nothing? or am I adding 2+2 together and getting 5?

  2. Bit OT but just adding some films to my lovefilm list and I can see you Sue and it’s telling me what films you like. Big brother in action.

  3. Yep , been added to a couple of groups , though not a major issue as all my facebook friends are people i know.

  4. Sorry you have this all wrong. The groups feature is designed so that users can easily ‘group’ friends if they wish for instance some people use it to split friends from work friends.

    My kids live on FB and they use groups so that they can put stuff on which only we see – it gives privicy on an open system. Do your research and get it right in future. Thanks.

  5. Another thing I’ve noticed about eBay sellers with websites is, the ones with more expensive hosting companies used SEO for their websites. And the ones with £2 a month hostings have no SEO, no sitemaps and the only traffic they get is via Facebook. But you can still use their links.

  6. Oh god!
    Really some of you have your actual friends on FB?
    Most of mine are via ebay i think and i really dont know how they found me.
    Though allot of other beauty Sellers add me to friends when i dont know them but i learnt finally to stop saying yes.

    How do i find out if i am grouped?
    Ty

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