Facebook Promotes Friend Lists with Notification When Added to Featured People
Facebook has been generating a new notification since the user profile redesign: It alerts a user when a friend list they’re a member of is added to the Featured People section of a friend’s redesigned profile. The notification is designed to promote awareness of friend lists which Facebook has said only 5% of users create. Prior to Featured People, friend lists were always completely private.
When clicked, the notification reveals all the members of that list. This may raise privacy concerns as Facebook doesn’t warn users that adding a list like “Boring people”, or “Ex-girlfriends”, to their Featured People will immediately notify the members of the list, though an explanation does appear in the Help Center.
Friend Lists, Powerful but Forgoten
Friends lists were originally created in 2007 to help users message multiple friends at once, but later became a way to efficiently control who could see parts of a user’s profile. Facebook later allowed friend lists to be set as the distribution parameter for content posted through the publisher. It then added suggestions and characteristic sorting to ease creation of friend lists, and they were recently reinstalled as a method of filtering the news feed.
Despite being a potent way to refine content consumption and share with specific people, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said “almost no one wants to make lists. We’ve been at this for a few years, and promoted heavily. Most we’ve gotten is 5% to make lists, and most don’t make more than one.” But the December user profile redesign allowed users to proudly display subsets of their friends in the Featured People section beneath the profile picture, creating a new opportunity to spread lists.
Impact of the Friend List Notification
The notification is a promotional tool Facebook had yet to try for friend lists. It could inspire curiosity through a social recommendation. Since users are apt to adopt the behaviors of friends, friend lists could begin to grow virally. Facebook should tread carefully though, as users are particular about what appears in the notification channel, judging from the negative feedback to the tested re-addition of game requests to notifications.
The name and membership of any friend list added to Featured People is visible to anyone who is allowed to see a user’s friendships. This isn’t as concerning since a user can simply remove a list if they want to hide it. But as soon as a list is added to Featured People and the changes are saved, every member receives a notification leading back to the list’s membership. Since users are inexperienced with the new Featured People, they might inadvertently expose their private friend lists.
Users with friend lists can share more frequently by easily restricting content distribution to an appropriate subset of recipients. It’s therefore in Facebook’s interest to get users creating friend lists. Unfortunately, there’s still a wide gap between viewing another user’s list and creating one’s own. To promote friend lists more effectively without leading users to accidentally reveal sensitive information, Facebook could add a warning to the Featured People tab of the profile editor, and a prompt to create one’s own friend list when viewing the friend lists of others.
Update: Facebook has since changed Featured People such that friends are no longer notified if a list they’re on is added to the Featured Friends area of someone’s profile. This change protects the privacy of friend lists, but also prevents users from knowing if they’re being prominently displayed on a friend’s profile. Thanks to Simon for the tip.
January 4th, 2011 at 9:56 am
I see your point, but don’t really think this is a big issue. The description “Featured Friends” already gives an indication of publicity, and adding a list there makes it visible on the profile, as you demonstrate. While it’s possible that users could inadvertently add a secret list to their Featured Friends, I don’t think that’s very likely. Perhaps I’m misjudging how well users will understand the features, though.
January 5th, 2011 at 6:56 am
I’m wondering how you can delete a list after you’ve created it. Can’t quite find that info. Do you know?
January 5th, 2011 at 9:05 am
@Melanie: If you go to Edit Friends under Account, then select a friend list from the bookmarks on the left, then scroll to the very bottom you’ll see a link to “Delete list”.
January 5th, 2011 at 2:15 pm
@theharmonyguy
“Perhaps I’m misjudging how well users will understand the features, though. ”
You are. I now have several friends mad at me for the simple fact I had a list called “Top 12 Friends”, named after the myspace sorting tool, which I used to display the 12 people I wanted to show on my profile as my friends.
The list wasn’t made up of my best friends, it was made up of the people that old friends of mine might recognize if they were looking for me on facebook. I had it set up that way >before< this new feature went into effect, and didn't think anything of adding this list to the featured section. Little did I know it would send notifications to everyone, AND display the list name on my profile. Several conversations, phone calls, and hurt feelings later I deleted the list completely. I never would have guessed such a simple thing would cause so much trouble, and you know what? I blame facebook, because I should have been warned!!!!
January 8th, 2011 at 1:48 pm
I completely agree with Miranda.
I’ve just created a list to separate friends I know from Uni, and those from home.
I had no idea a notification was sent to people until I got a few texts saying things like, ‘I thought we were friends for life, not just at Uni’.
What I thought was a helpful tool for me to organise my friends when sending group messages etc. turned into a few upset people texting me!
Not too harmless, but I should have been warned nonetheless!
January 14th, 2011 at 6:00 pm
There really should have been a warning or something. I started sorting the girls on my FB by putting them in one of ten groups based on hotness, however they started to notice and the sixes and lower got really pissed.
January 15th, 2011 at 8:57 am
I also have to agree with Miranda. I live in New York and have everything from “friends” to “frenemies,” and as I am one of the 5% who started using friend lists from the outset, I created my lists for what is commonly called “Internal Use Only” – in other words, so I can quickly sort people I really know from “hot girls I met at a club” (I didn’t really name a list that, but I have lists names I DO NOT want the people on those lists to see!).
Now that these notifications exist, and I haven’t added anyone to a list or made the slightest edit to my new profile, here is the million dollar question:
What action can I take right away so that no one on these lists will ever receive a notification showing the name of the list I categorized them under? Do I have to delete all of my lists?
January 15th, 2011 at 9:04 am
It would seem I have to be very, very careful with how I apply any settings to this new “Featured People” section. Right now, taking no action at all until I really understand this seems to be the only sure way to avoid embarrassment.
January 15th, 2011 at 8:17 pm
Yup, this is a big issue. I had a list called “Restricted Friends” that I used for privacy settings. 5 minutes after adding that list to the Featured Friends list, I got emails from some people on that list asking why they had been restricted. Facebook has made these types of careless privacy breaches before. I got so irritated at this Featured Friends notification that I deactivated my Facebook account. I intend to keep it deactivated for at least a couple weeks until my friends forget about the notification. Maybe I’ll never reactivate it.
It is also irritating that there is no way to segregate friends from other friends. I don’t want my family or co-workers knowing everything about my life. Also, I don’t want a nephew or niece to see my entire friends list when some of those friends may post inappropriate profile pics. This is a serious issue.
January 16th, 2011 at 3:18 pm
@Sometime: Members of your lists will only be notified if you add the list to the Featured People section of the redesigned profile. Otherwise, your lists will remain completely private.
January 17th, 2011 at 2:59 pm
[...] Under the redesign, some friend lists can be made public. People on a particular list will get a notification if that list is added to the "Featured People" section of a user's profile, so users [...]
January 23rd, 2011 at 5:16 am
uhm, that’s just not true. try it with a friend of yours, there are no such messages.
January 24th, 2011 at 9:05 am
@Simon: Thanks for the tip. Facebook has since disabled the notification generated when a friend list you’re on is added to the Featured People section of someone’s profile.
February 27th, 2011 at 9:57 pm
I’m confused. Your “Featured Friends” option is completely separate from your other “friends lists”. I only have 1 FF list, but I have 8 other lists just for my personal use that do not show up on my profile.
February 28th, 2011 at 1:26 pm
@Jake: Correct. Your friend lists are completely private unless you choose to share them through the Featured Friends option.