As I’ve alluded to previously, I administer a few Facebook groups. Groups are one of my favorite Facebook features, and they are useful to communicate with a subset of Facebook users without necessarily having to be friends with them.
There’s one problem with groups, however; anyone can add anyone to a group, without their say so or wanting to be added. This is a feature ripe with the possibility for abuse, so much so that it has been the subject of several news articles in Norway, of celebrities who’ve been added to groups without wanting to be. I first wrote about this issue almost two years ago, but as no change has come, I wanted to bring it to light once more.
As an admin, I routinely reject all requests that are not made by the person in question; I don’t want to be party to controversy, and if someone wants to be a member, they are welcome to request membership themselves. I feel, however, that this should be solved once and for all by Facebook. Doing so would require an extra step; simply have users who are added to groups confirm that they want to be added before they are added (or before the request is shown to group admins); this would effectively remove the problem altogether.
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