impleri

Alright, here it is, another rant! The Telegraph reports that a man was arrested after “accidentally sending a friend request on Facebook to his estranged wife”: link. He claims that the login procedure confused him. OK, let’s look at the login screen:

And now, at the screen immediately after that, the “home” screen (names have been erased to protect the innocent):

Here are my questions: where is the “automatic friend request”? In fact, one has to go out of one’s way to send a friend request (either by going to someone’s friend list and clicking on the “Add to Friends” link or searching by name).
How could one not know whom one is requesting as a friend? Facebook quite blatantly uses people’s names as identification. Anyone’s profile is easily identified by their reported real name. There is no “coolprncss32″ or “Want to meet me tomorrow?” display names. It is only reported real names (of course, this can be tricked, but most of the people I’ve seen on Facebook haven’t done so).
What is so confusing about that login screen? Iit has a very noticeable location for login information and a basic ad for registering with Facebook. Nothing else. In fact, it is much simpler than MySpace’s login screen.