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#1
07-15-2021, 07:45 PM
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Surge in Facebook membership requests
Me and Bamagirl are admins in our FB group and page. We've seen a real surge in membership requests lately, which is great if they are all legit, but we're wondering if it could be something else?
When someone posts spam or anything out of line for that matter there are members who usually report it, but we're wondering if they might be spamming other members without using our pages? When someone asks to join our group, we usually look at where they are from. If they don't post that, usually we look at their friends and if they have their locations in FB, it's quickly available. We also look to see what videos and music they have listed. If it doesn't include Alizée, it raises a red flag. Other times, there's very little info list with some new applicants and we just use our judgement but again we are wondering if by joining our group, it's allowing them to use our members in some way that won't show up in our FB group or page? 
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#2
07-15-2021, 09:31 PM
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I definitely agree it is a concern. It’s gone from a few new member requests per week to over 100 so far this month. Many appear to be legitimate fans. But many have only joined FB recently, and yet have thousands of “friends” and belong to hundreds of other FB groups. They are from a wide variety of countries, so I don’t see how this could be a coordinated thing. But it is puzzling and does cause us to wonder the best way to handle it.
I am wondering if we should make the group private. That way, we can still set it so people can find the group and request to join. But only members would be able to see who the other members are. Any thoughts any of you have are welcome!
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#3
07-16-2021, 01:42 AM
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#4
07-16-2021, 09:09 AM
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As you two should know by now, I am scarce on FaceBook. If it weren't for family and close friends, I would have closed it long ago. I have no Twitter account and the only reason I have an Instagram account is because of Alizee  Social media used to be interesting and fun, but it has turned into a hostile place and the targeted marketing is annoying. I have a lot of privacy concerns with social media as well. That being said, I still follow the news surrounding social media and have read articles about the increasing number of fake FB accounts attacking FB groups. Bots. It's mainly for spamming and profile harvesting so it's not overtly destructive, but managing the requests have to be time consuming. I like Bamagirl's idea of going private. I did request access to a private group on FB (Ohio fishing group). It asked me why I am interested in joining the group and a place to checkmark if I agree with the group regulations. This simple exercise is similar to what we do on AAm, asking a new member to request being fully activated in the chat box. It quickly filters out the bots.
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#5
07-16-2021, 04:24 PM
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#6
07-16-2021, 04:47 PM
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Asking a very simple question or even a question which contains the answer keeps out most spam bots.
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#7
07-16-2021, 06:12 PM
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I'm all in favor of changes that would make our FB group more secure, but the word private worries me. Would it make our site less discoverable to fans?
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#8
07-16-2021, 07:17 PM
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According to FB, the difference between public and private is that in private groups only group members can see who is a member and what they post. Groups can be either "hidden" or "visible." Here are screen shots of the explanations from FB: groups2.JPG Groups.JPG
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#9
07-16-2021, 09:28 PM
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Private is both good and bad.
 It has pros and cons. Some just don’t apply to join and avoid the place if the place is private. For example, if this AA were closed and private so that messages are not visible to visitors, it would reduce the number of users On the other hand, it also reduces precisely those unwanted users.
__________________
  Alizée 💜 Last edited by AlizéeSuperFanFIN; 07-16-2021 at 09:31 PM..
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#10
07-16-2021, 10:16 PM
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When it comes to FB, I think the negative aspects of private depend largely on the subject of the group. For example, if a group is about movies, that is a sufficiently broad topic that potential members might have no idea if the discussions or posts would interest them unless they can check them out first. In our case, though, the group is about one performer—Alizée—so I think it could be presumed that fans would feel it was likely that posts would be quite specific—relevant to her—and therefore of interest to them. So, they might not need to be able to see what has been posted in order to decide to join. We still also have the FB page, which is open to all. I think making the FB group a bit more secure or selective would not be a bad thing.
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