[mcslee]

Here's the note in question. I wrote it, and I think your comment mischaracterizes its true nature. http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=27551539159&id=...

The purpose of both my note and my personal replies to the hate-mail I received was not to express hostility. Rather, both were attempts to call attention to how the veil of anonymity provided by the Internet changes the way people treat each other, often for the worse. Not too different from the Hacker News Guidelines: "Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation."

My intent in calling out Christianity was not to mock, but rather to make people reconsider their own behavior by viewing it through the lens of a belief system they feel strongly enough about to post on their Facebook profiles.

Happy to discuss further if you still feel my post was inflammatory.

[garply]

Thanks for responding to this. It seems I don't have permission to view this note (probably due to a change in networks on my side) and I believe the incident was a few months ago, so I may not have perfect recollection of the note. I hope I didn't mischaracterize your note.

I recall the logic of the note being along the lines of: "You're saying nasty things to me. I see that you're a Christian. How can you do this when being hateful is against your religion?" It read to me like a snarky response calling him a hypocrite (even if you didn't explicitly label him as such).

I have serious problems with this for a few reasons:

First, as a business owner, I don't think an employee should be anything less than the pinnacle of politeness when dealing with customers (which is what FB's users amount to - even if they're only paying you with eyeball time). Implicitly labeling him as a hypocrite was impolite. The note damaged my opinion of how FB is run as a business.

The second, larger, issue is related to privacy. Personally, I'm not comfortable with you treating my profile information as anything more than raw data - as neutral and uninteresting as a set of ones and zeros. Just as I wouldn't want my doctor to tell people things he knew about me, I don't think you should reveal information about this guy - either his religion or the impolite way in which he communicated with you. I seem to recall that information from his profile not being available to the general public.

Finally, when it comes down to it, his religion just had nothing to do with whatever feature request / bug report he was making. Just as I wouldn't expect a waitress to call attention to me having orange hair when I order a burger, I don't expect you to bring up my personal information when I give you feedback on your service.

Shortly thereafter, I quit using FB on a regular basis. I did so for several reasons, but that incident was certainly somewhere in my mind when I quit.

[mcslee]

I've re-posted the note so that anyone can access it: http://eff-yeah.com/fb_note.html

I admit that my responses were mildly snarky, and I acknowledged in the note the blurry distinction between my behavior as an individual vs. employee of Facebook. But I maintain that my responses could all have been comfortably delivered in person, as an individual.

A few important points/questions:

- Was I acting as an individual or as an employee of Facebook? This is a very difficult question. We set up and publicized numerous official channels for user feedback on the new profile. Of course, we would never respond in this manner through those channels. These individuals all elected not to use those channels and instead sent personal messages to my individual Facebook account. I understand that this will still largely be viewed as acting on behalf of the company, but I think the question of context is a very important one. Where do we draw the line between personal use of Facebook, and use as an employee? Was I interacting with customers or individuals?

- I didn't violate any data privacy. These people sent personal messages to my Facebook account, which granted me permission to view their profiles (as natrius correctly pointed out).

- In the note I posted, I removed the last names of everyone who messaged me. David, Carissa, and Derek are hardly unique identifiers.

- These were all blatant cases of hate mail. I'm not a lawyer, but some of these would likely have held up in court as charges of assault. Characterizing any of these as a "feature request / bug report" is honestly quite a stretch.

[cookiecaper]

You are _always_ a representative of Facebook. You can't get away from it, and every thing you do reflects back upon Facebook, just like everything that guy does represents Christianity. This is important to know.

That said, there's no contextual distinction here; using a personal account isn't enough to dissociate your professional responsibilities. Especially not when you're replying to a Facebook user's inquiry directed to you specifically because of your employment at Facebook. Any response to that is obviously going to directly reflect upon your employer, and responding to customer inquiries is obviously a part in line with your duties as a Facebook employee. There is no contextual distinction simply because your response was posted on your personal page and not an official company-sponsored page.

[indigoviolet]

That depends on what you consider feedback. In this case, the "feedback" was:

'you are a faggot. this facebook sucks. the one should come back. i want to kill you. go fuck a man'.

I kid you not. Do you think people (any people, nevermind those who build products that are given away for free) deserve such abuse?

[teej]

These people deserve to be treated with the same courtesy, dignity, and respect as everyone else. You would be surprised to see how people change when they get a nice response from a human.

[mcslee]

Why are you so eager to jump to their defense, but so reluctant to ask that they treat me with courtesy, dignity, and respect?

I do, however, agree with you. As I mentioned in the note, I did spend a lot of time responding courteously to a great deal of personal user feedback. Having invested significant time doing so, I know and fully appreciate the difference it makes. I am also personally appreciative when I am on the receiving end -- I enjoy the thoughtful personal feedback people take the time to send me, even if it is critical.

I only responded in this manner to the most intensely offensive and bigoted messages received. I was sent thousands of personal messages in the span of a few days, a pretty good portion of which suggested I should die.

I also agree with diN0bot. The professional decision is to simply ignore personal attacks in a professional context. In this case I can ask forgiveness for a momentary lapse, call attention to the tricky distinction between personal and professional contexts on Facebook, and chalk some of this behavior up to stress relief during a period of highly intense work.

[diN0bot]

no one deserves that abuse.

what does that have to do with dignifying such a message with a response? be professional. drop it or respond with the upmost respect and civility. getting off topic is a waste of your time.

[psyklic]

You have the wrong attitude if you feel that you need to tell customers to "reconsider their own behavior." From this reply, it sounds like you're insulting your customer by pretending to know more about their religion than them. That's not cool.

It is very unprofessional to comment on irrelevant personal information you have stored about a customer.

[natrius]

If you send someone a message on Facebook, the recipient can view your profile. There was no breach of privacy here.