I’ll start off by saying that I don’t like Facebook, not so much the concept, the concept is actually sound, keeping in touch with people you know. I don’t like the company, their attitude, their privacy values but most of all I don’t like their function creep. Facebook comments are an example of function creep with Facebook getting their grubby little claws into the commenting business and therefore further extending their stifling of speech.
TechCrunch is a classic example of this, they adopted Facebook comments apparently in an attempt to silence the trolls, but they also silenced a great many other people too. However their sister publication, Crunchgear, tried Facebook comments and then kicked them into touch. Facebook comments really do stifle speech, we have a social networking policy at work, I don’t want to bring work into what I blog or comment on because work isn’t relevant most of the time, but were I commenting via Facebook, work is linked whether I want it to be or not, so I opt out of using the system. There are many others in the same boat and they won’t be commenting via Facebook comments either.
However, I am not going to criticise Facebook for deleting Second Life Avatar Profiles, as reported here by Kim Randall and here by Daniel Voyager. People are flouting the Facebook TOS, tough titty if you get caught, it may not be nice but it’s a fair cop Guv’nor. However Linden Lab need to stop pushing Facebook Second Life side, it’s not a happy marriage.