Does facebook add you to groups without your permission? I dont recall this happening to me.

Yes Facebook does. It's a NEW feature.

Carolyn, I never cease to be amazed of the way FB comes up with new ways to...well you know!

THANK YOU!!

Thank you again.

Carolyn, any kind of AUTOMATIC adding to groups is SO WRONG. Thanks for the alert!! So annoying..

Carolyn, Facebook has over a half -a-billion subscribers do they really need to add more auto subscribe features wow...thanks for the quick tutorial will put this in to practice straight off.

Thanks for the heads up C!!

Here we go again ... every new feature except the one I want and need most ... AN EDIT FEATURE ... you know, the ability to correct a typo in an existing comment or status.....  :-)

Thank you for the heads-up....I don't understand why Facebook is continuing to alienate people with these features.

Carolyn,

I haven't been tapped by this yet but thanks to you I'll be aware of the problem. Thanks for the alert. AR is truly a community.

Thanks so much, Carolyn! Always good to know what The Face is up to.

I like my lists, see no reason to go to a group unless you want a private group for chat?

How do you see them being used?

Russell, I was sitting on the floor with my mouth hanging open in shock trying to figure out who a group was and why I was getting all their e-mail notifications. I was also tagged with over two hundred people for an item that (a) was not my photograph and (b) I have nothing to do with. I do not want people tagging me for events or beliefs that I do not endorse or am not attending because I have been added to a group that I did not join. 

Sindee, you are very welcome. :-)

Gary, I second that in spades. This can be very dangerous. We spend so much time monitoring our on-line reputations and now Facebook is hypothetically making us considering unfriending stupid people who may not realize it is not a joke to put someone like me in an atheist group because I love Jesus. My hubby is Jewish and I would never join an organization against Israel. FB is not thinking about the consequences of placing programming ease over member's security concerns. My settings allow friends of friends to view my information. That hypothetically means jokingly honoring me in a Hitlerish group shows up in the NEWS FEED (if posted to MY wall). That alone makes the new group feature suck.

Thanks for the heads up. I hadn't even looked into that. It's always something isn't it??

Oh crap!!! OK. On it. Thanks for the heads-up!

Steve, I am looking over my account to see what else has changed. There are over 100 applications pending a response from me based upon my associations with other people (sigh).

Leesa, you are welcome. :-)

OMG - Cher - I have been waiting and waiting for an edit feature too. Spellcheck would be nice. Geez... (LOL)

Karen, so many people either do not pay attention or don't care that they service the business end first and respond to user outrage second. The volume of users generating advertising revenue ensures FB will continue to invent new ways to get eyeballs exposed to those clients.

I love Opt Out. So going there today!

Thanks for this info. I haven't had any problems but I went ahead and tightened up my security.

Carolyn, This new feature does not appear to have impacted me … yet! I will follow your instructions and make sure it does not. Thanks for the heads up!

Dave, I love this place. Facebook is cool but every so often some of the social media decisions they make flip my B-switch (LOL). :-)

Robin, you're welcome. They certainly know how to keep one reading (LOL).

Missy, I think they originally envisioned like minded people getting together to be more effective with servicing their common causes based upon the assumption that friends know what friends like. What if 100 friends placed you in 100 different "support a cure for cancer" groups? The e-mail notifications for every comment for every cancer event would shut my use of my e-mail account down if that happened. FB was shortsighted and selfishly stupid for not considering users needs or concerns regarding hypothetically being inducted into groups by well meaning friends without permission. WHAT IF THE FRIEND IS A PRANKSTER OR DOES NOT MEAN YOU WELL? People fall out all the time and make up later. People have secret jealousies. A competitor could have a field day placing RE/MAX agents in every Century 21 group so they could post in their news streams and on their walls. If you only log in once a week think how pissed off you'd be to discover that. I am in a bunch of law enforcement groups I didn't join because of my connections with government friends. It's only been two days and my e-mail is waaaaaaaaay out of control.

Carolyn, thanks for the heads up.  I'm off to tighten up.

Thanks so much for the heads up and "tute".  I hope to get over to Facebook today and make the change.  Currently as I'm trying to caught up on some other technologies I'm only using Facebook for family, AR and local friends but have been seeing a lot of strange "stuff".

Sue of Robin and Sue

(2) Find the Groups Application, then select click Edit Settings, then click the Additional Permissions Tab and uncheck the boxes that read Publish Content To My Wall and Adds You To A Group.

But CTann.... I have followed your instructions, and have unchecked the box "publish content..."... which of course makes sense...

but the 'adds you to a group' only allows facebook to "notify" me when that occurs... it doesn't delete the ability to DO that...

Lizette, very true. They even deleted one of my business pages (OutsideBlog Minion Report) and I had to build it over from scratch. I lost all the people subscribed, their comments, had broken links all over cyberspace... I never got a reply from them as to why either. They just do what ever it is they do over there... It is a platform with growing pains. :-)

Lisa, you are welcome. :-)

Connie, it was at the top of my list of ten things to do today (LOL). :-)

Cheryl, it appears I always have to do a bi-monthly FB review of all my options just to keep up with their tweaking and applications (LOL).

Kathleen, you are welcome. :-) 

Lora, you are welcome. :-)

Sue, I know what you mean about trying to keep up with other technologies. Learning HTML5 is my latest obsession (LOL).

And Mark Zuckerberg was a member of NAMBLA Group on FB.

Briefly.  Points out the idiocy of this little FB Foible.

Like Alan, I did uncheck the publish to wall (thanks for that) but the other one just means that you won't get emailed.  It doe not prevent someone from adding you to a group.  From the best that I can tell, the only way to 'prevent' someone from adding you is if you've been added, you can leave, and ONLY THEN will someone need your permission to add you.

Alan, the subject of my post was about making the strange e-mails go away (ROTFL) as well as letting everyone know that your FB friends can put you into groups without your permission. 

I am still lurking and reading trying to figure out how to stop peeps from inducting you unwillingly into groups. I have yet to find those instructions. They may not be available. I think FB hasn't posted a script from us to opt out of this new feature yet, after all, it's new (LOL). More people probably have to let FB know they are  upset before they get inspired to respond with a reversal/opt out. :-)

LOL @ Mike. He may have been inducted into a couple of fun places (LMAO). ;-)

Roger, yup. I am in the process of opting out of quite a few places...

ahh... so is there a way to "opt out" of the ability for someone to add you to a group without your permission?

Thanks for the heads up, C.  Until now we have been asked.  I will make sure I am not added without my permssion.

I have a Facebook account but don't really "get" the value of Facebook. (I understand that it offers some really interesting targeted advertising opportunities, but that's a different issue.) 

Carolyn: I'm not trying to hijack this thread, but in what ways have you found Facebook actually to be helpful in your activities as a Realtor? Is it search engine optimization? Is it to stay in contact with clients? Has it been helpful in finding clients? 

Still, in any case, I appreciate the information you posted.

Thanks for sharing this.  I was "plopped" into a group the other day and now I know why and how to stop it from happening.

Alan, I am in the applications directory because I am trying to stop relatives from adding me to their Facebook family trees. Do they not understand the concept of identity theft? Ancestry.com posts the indentifiers for the dead but not the indentifiers for the living. Why do Facebook peeps feel the need to give all your info away? 

Check this article out : http://www.pcworld.com/article/207254/facebooks_new_groups_5_things_you_need_to_know.html?tk=hp_new

My fave quote from the above link: "Friends Only Since only your Facebook friends can add you to groups, using Facebook as a place to connect with people you actually know becomes more important than ever. Facebook is assuming that your real friends won't use this new power maliciously to add you to groups that might embarrass you, according to Search Engine Land. If you have 1000 Facebook friends, but you actually know only half of them, the chances you'll be added to groups you don't want to be a part of are probably pretty high. This could expose you to malicious links to phishing sites and other types of Facebook malware. Then again, friending people you didn't know was probably putting you at risk for malicious behavior long before the new groups feature appeared."

There are a whole bunch of people trying to figure out how to stop this auto feature but I have yet to hear FB state there is a way to stop/opt out of the new feature.

CT - Thanks for the heads up on this much appreciated... going there now...

Hmmm...okay, well I guess I'm busted now, C!  It's obvious that I only 'play' around on FB because I never knew there WAS a 'group' thingy!!  Ask me about AR or Posterous...but, FB has so much going on, I can't keep up!  I'm off to check out the 'groups'!

Jane, I don't know how to stop it other than telling people DO NOT DO THIS. If you unsubscribe from a group a friend plops you into, the FB program supposedly blocks the person from adding you to other groups.

Donald, I have business pages that I syndicate my blog posts to. Google "Life With Wee People" and check out the Facebook page rank. It's #2 under my AR outside blog out of about 2,160,000 results and helps feed my ActiveRain statistics because people click the FB links to read the posts.

That Facebook page is also considered a secondary business source to authenticate information published on other website. When we do a localism post about visiting a business we like, the information on that post can be used as part of an official profile for that business and for me as a writer/musician. Editors have cited my posts as a source for information for a number of projects. I am working with Wikipedia and SoundUnsound editors now on a few projects and my brand/band is going into a music encyclopedia.

I can say as an editor that ActiveRain and Facebook information has routinely been cited as source material for people, places and things because it points you in the direction of more source material.

YOUR BUSINESS PAGES MATTER, not the platform hosting those pages. Original content is what determines search engine rankings. You get out of your websites what you place into them and receive more clout if external sources cross link and authenticate your work by incorporating it into their work as a valuable, reliable source worthy of quoting. 

Google "Club Chaos Eye Candy" and you will discover the ActiveRain Group Club Chaos dominates approximately  194,000 entries with that phrase. Google the phrase "Club Chaos." Of About 7,440,000 results my group and blogs have 4 links on page one and we dominate the phrase because of our visuals, re-blogs and cross-links. I have branded it to death and am constantly marketing my intellectual holdings. Facebook and ActiveRain are major players.

If you are not leveraging YouTube and Facebook with your blogs then you are making a huge SEO mistake.

thank you for the heads up on this... they keep doing things with face book and google and all the others that are just too invasive... thanks going to fb right now!

Hi Carolyn... Facebook most hold the record for making the most boneheaded changes without users permission.  Unbelievable.  

Will this stop emails from 'friends of friends' replying ALL to emails from friends to THEIR ENTIRE FRIENDS LIST telling me where their purse is or what color their bra is? GRRRRRRR

If not, let me know when you find a way to make THAT stop. :)

C Tann - Excellent information and tips on another opt out by facebook. Thank you for sharing a very good blog.

Carolyn: Great tip - I just went through the steps and removed the group permission...awesome! ;-)

Thank you C-Tan, I have noticed that I belong to a bunch of groups which I do not remember signing up for. They do add you on those and your information here comes in handy, I went to the site and make the changes you suggested, thank you!

Antonio

Well, I sure appreciate your posting this.  I'd been getting some weird emails about groups I didn't remember joining and just deleted them and figured I'd go back and check.

What I appreciate most is knowing that I am not in early stages of dementia.  ;-)

Thanks Carolyn, off to check my groups as well.

Done, done and done! I wondered if I was losing my mind and signing up for groups in my sleep! THANK YOU Ms. T-S!

C, I wish I knew this stuff as well as you.  I get all excited about it, and then when I go try to do these things, I get lost, and then get frustrated.  I have a business page, but I don't know how to get folks to see it and "like" it.  Seems like a simple thing, but for the love of God, I can't figure it out!

Thanks for always trying to help us!

C your ALWAYS have good info for me, I did it, did it, did it. thanks.

PS friends don't let friends drive Facebook.......

I can't fathom WHY they thought it was a good idea to let people slam someone into a group in order to spam them. 

This is a tad disturbing that someone can add you to a group without your consent. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

I need to start using groups in Face Book so I can target my messages and updates.  Lots of things to do!

I belong to a group I never joined but not sure how to get out of it. That's how some Worms have been spread around, by clicking LIKE on a group that is really a hacker. I would also love to see an "opt out" button for notifications of everyone who posts a message on a page after I do.

Carolyn, this is important information - I was wondering what was up with all the emails I've been getting from FB. Hope they wise up soon and make it so nobody can add us to groups without permission.

Carolyn, I'm with Alan on this one - it seems you would want to get the emails so you could know you had been put in a group you didn't want to belong to so that you could opt out. Otherwise, how do you know? 

If you click on groups it will list all of your groups with the icons. When you have two pages of groups one day and five pages of groups the next day I think you'll know people added you without having to receive the strange e-mails (LMAO) ;-)

The messages still show up in my Facebook account but are not littering my personal e-mail accounts. I find I can deal with deleting the FB message list better. Everyone has to figure out the best way to deal with this situation in a manner that fits their comfort zone.

Done even before I took a moment to say thanks, CTS!

Thanks C!!! I just updated my setting.

Carolyn- I'm heading over there now.  

By the way, does this mean you won't be going to see the Social Network?  LOL

Carolyn,

Thanks for the easy to follow directions.  I have featured this on facebook fantatics.

ROTFL @ Jennifer P. How could I not go? The soundtrack is mad cool (LOL). ;-)

Thank you, Lori.

Thank you all. :-)

I haven't had this happen to me.  I learned of a new group today too - facebook fanatics.  Thanks

Thanks for the info and all the responses.  Will look into this now.

C,

Thanks for the info. I too am being added to way too many groups. I must fix this.

Have a great week,

Thanks C...  wondered where the @#$#$ those groups were coming from!!!  I actually went in and unchecked ALL the application setting privacy tabs!  geeez....  and I don't even care for FB....

I was hanging out in Starbucks yesterday with a singer I'd like to assign a holiday project to who didn't get the importance of FB. They may not always do what users like, but they are a part of the digital expectations of a lot of people so if you are not branding your business there you are disregarding the expectations of a large segment of Internet users.  

People scout me through direct messages and yes, I've been hired through Twitter, ActiveRain and Facebook. It is important that your business be discovered so if you are sitting on the fence looking for the "perfect platform," get off of it. The digital divide is constantly changing and "perfect" is a relative concept just like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. ;-)