Quitters are joiners who never joined, while joiners are quitters who never quit!

Quick question.

Have you ever joined a group that you did not join?

Silly as it may sound to pose the above question, it happens all the time. On Facebook. People with zero affiliations with — or even knowledge of — particular groups are publicly made members of them without their consent. All it takes is a friend putting you in a group, and then you are in it without your consent. The onus is then on you to “un-join,” which, as I have argued repeatedly, is totally unacceptable for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that distorts the very meaning of perfectly normal words: “join,” and “quit.” The last time this happened to me, I complained that because I had never joined, even though I felt forced to quit, I hadn’t really, truly “quit.” Once again,

…when I finally decided to actually go to the group I saw evidence that it is being manipulated by someone I cannot stand, and with whose name I absolutely refuse to be associated in any way, shape or form. So I found myself forced to act not because of anything I did, and even though I don’t think I should have had to, I felt obligated to “quit” a group I had never joined. I don’t like being put in a position of hurting anyone’s feelings, and seriously, I don’t blame my friend who meant well and is utterly sincere (if maybe a tad too zealous). It is Facebook that created this malevolent problem. It is to be expected that in politics people get excited about what they believe in, but sending an invitation is one thing; making someone a group member is quite another. It is wrong to allow this. By being forced to quit, I felt forced to do something I consider inherently wrong.

But still… Did I quit? “Quit” is in quotes above because I am conceptually puzzled. Is it possible to “quit” a group you never joined? Doesn’t the word “quit” by definition mean that you had to start the thing in the first place? Or is it possible to be be joined instead of join, and to be in a “place” you never went?

I don’t want to have to be someone who can be said to have “quit” that group, OK?

It might sound petty, but I am really steamed. I should not have had to quit, and I don’t think I did quit because I was never there! See my problem?

Surely there is reality somewhere. It’s just that it has managed to elude my grasp.

Where is there?

There is something downright Orwellian about this, and if you don’t think it can be used for Orwellian political purposes, imagine yourself working in an office with Facebook friends who include supporters of a presidential candidate for whom you don’t intend to vote. If that “friend” puts you in, say, an “I’M VOTING FOR JILL STEIN!” (Green Party candidate) Facebook group, then you are in it, and you have to un-join. Suppose your supervisor or next door neighbor put you in it? The implications are as obvious as they are odious; not all of us are political junkies with the balls to issue public statements about whom we support or don’t support, and not all of us are so public that we might find something like this amusing enough to write a blog post about the experience.

That this can happen at all indicates a serious, ongoing problem with Facebook, which the fools who “run” the place have yet to correct. I am far from alone in complaining about it repeatedly. So have a zillion or so other people, but Facebook has done nothing about it. Their attitude is that it’s a feature and not a problem.

I don’t especially “like”* repeating myself, and I wouldn’t have written this post but for an article in yesterday’s WSJ about the same topic with an additional wrinkle. A couple of young people were joined to some gay Facebook group without their knowledge or consent, and this caused them to experience serious family problems.

The two students were casualties of a privacy loophole on Facebook—the fact that anyone can be added to a group by a friend without their approval. As a result, the two lost control over their secrets, even though both were sophisticated users who had attempted to use Facebook’s privacy settings to shield some of their activities from their parents.

“Our hearts go out to these young people,” says Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes. “Their unfortunate experience reminds us that we must continue our work to empower and educate users about our robust privacy controls.” [Emphasis mine.]

Oh come on. Spare me the tears! All they need to do is simply get rid of the feature that allows people to add friends to groups without their consent.

So why won’t they? What will it take to make them stop? Will someone have to be fired from a job, or beaten up, or even killed for having “joined” a group he never joined, or for “quitting” a group he never belonged to?

This just stinks to high hell. I hate it so much I guess I better hit “like.”

* “Like” is becoming another once-meaningful word I am starting to dislike because its meaning has changed to include the mere expression of interest in a news article which might be about a deeply offensive (or gruesome, disgusting or tragic) topic.

MORE: WAAAAH! Facebook won’t let me like this post!

UPDATE: Many thanks to the Progressive SF Woman at InstaPundit for linking this post!

Yeeow!

Take that Facebook!

Like, like it or not.

And like if you agree, and like if you disagree….