Tranter Banter

You might have noticed that Facebook is now filtering your Facebook Message Inbox.  Facebook announced Thursday that it is “tweaking” the messages in your inbox to better ensure that important messages get to you quicker.  What Facebook deems as less important messages are being dumped into your “Other” folder which is the equivalent of a spam folder. 

Facebook has updated its filtering to two major settings and is asking everyone to choose a setting now.  “Moderate” allows more messages from friends of friends, groups and people who might be otherwise related.  “Strict” will strain everything out but close contacts.

Messages from people you are not close to will usually end up in the “Other” folder.  Thursday’s update now allows the sender to spend a dollar to have that message appear in the regular inbox. 

What a can of worms this could prove to be.  For both Facebook and users.   Facebook believes that spammers won’t want to spend a dollar to have their message seen while an old friend probably would.  But do you really want to hear from that ex-husband or old girlfriend, even if they are willing to pay a dollar? 

The Facebook blog post states “if you see a message from someone you don’t want to hear from in your Inbox, you can always select “Move to Other” or “Report Spam” from the Actions menu.  You can also block people that you don’t want t hear from on Facebook.”  This is certainly reassuring. 

Facebook believes that imposing a charge on a sender “may be the most effective way” to discourage unsolicited or unwanted messages and make the delivery of useful and relevant messages easier. 

I’m sure more will be revealed over the next few months.