It looks like Facebook is fighting for creative control over itself. TechCrunch is reporting that the networking site has been deactivating the accounts of users who have joined just for the purpose of using game applications like PackRat, and then adding strangers as friends in order to play.
Apparently, that’s a no-no: A tersely worded email sent to a disgruntled would-be Facebook user says that the site is only for connecting with people users know, or once knew, in the “real” world.
That was the original purpose of Facebook when it was launched in 2004, but as we all know it’s long since evolved far beyond that. That’s the interesting part of the social networking phenomenon-its growth can take on a life of its own. So can, apparently, the networking sites themselves.
And that’s where the social media line gets blurry again. Who controls the growth of a social networking site-its creators or its users?
The FB powers that be don’t mind strangers contacting each other over the various dating applications or Fan Pages available on the site. Their beef seems to be with people who have the potential to annoy complete strangers with their requests (PackRat is a card-swapping game and it’s possible users have complained about unknown fellow gamers adding them as friends and then pestering them for cards).
Whatever the case, Facebook seems a little nervous that its own users have evolved the site beyond its developer’s original creation and seems to be fighting to get that control back.
It’s the users, though, who have made Facebook the phenomenon what it is. And the users must think its growth is headed in the right direction, or the site wouldn’t have cleared a 100 million users just a few weeks back.
If Facebook tries to fight the site’s organic growth, it will only alienate the users who have made it a revolutionary success. At the same time, Facebook has a right to keep the site from being abused by spammers or simply nuisance users.
Will more social network sites battle for control of their creations-or will they allow for their natural evolution? It’s a question that’s going to come up more and more in the future.
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