Facebook is now experimenting
The plan is currently in a trial phase, and the feature does not seem to have an official name yet. Facebook calls it a ‘small experiment’ to study ‘usefulness of economic signalling’ in determining the content shared by individuals.
As part of the ‘small experiment’, users will be able to pay one dollar (Rs 55) to ensure that any message they send to a non-friend user will end up in his or her inbox folder rather than the ‘others’ folder, thus, potentially opening up users to the threat of spam flooding their mailboxes.
Facebook maintains that the feature will help people, who have genuinely important messages to send. It also maintains that the new proposal will not generate spam since it charges each user $1 per mail, thus, limiting bulk mailing. The feature is not available to brands in the trial phase.
If this feature is a success, it will likely become a Facebook staple as the website struggles to generate more streams of revenue without disrupting its core competencies. This new feature would be a direct analogue to LinkedIn’s highly successful InMail feature. It is likely the first of many planned paid ‘premium’ features that are currently being tested.
What is troubling however, is that this feature is a strong indicator of Facebook’s increasing desperation to curb, limit or monetise individual privacy. Many astute observers of the world’s foremost social networking website are already aware of its dirty tactics in this regard — of changing the default privacy settings every few months without warning and intentionally causing privacy leaks. (E.g., one cannot fully delete any photographs uploaded. Profile pictures and cover pictures cannot be kept hidden.)
Thus, it would serve our users well to keep abreast of the all the new policy changes introduced. Keeping track of all the new developments may be difficult, so keep an eye out for our column.
Post new comment