Tricked him!

When you share a link on Facebook, you can edit any of the text - which means you can fool your friends into clicking on something that isn't what it seems. Which will make all their other friends think they have an STD or are getting divorced or something.

Here's how.

Alex Moss and I are connected on Facebook. And we are both using the Guardian's new Facebook app.

I shared this link on Facebook. Facebook does all the work when you share a link, so it turned my link into this.

Here's how it looks by default ...

You can actually edit all this (just click the bits you want to change), so I removed the thumbnail and edited all the text, to look like this. I've always thought it weird Facebook lets you do this - as I could be sharing a link to anything and it seems wrong it lets you obfuscate this.

I changed it to encourage Alex to click it

The result - when Alex clicked on the link, the timline feature updated instantly to say "Alex Moss read STDs in England: Breakdown by region, gender and ethnicity" (see the screenshot back at the top of this post).

Depending on what articles the Guardian has, I could trick Alex into clicking an edited link and make it look like he was reading up on depression, STDs, adoption, murder, divorce, applying for a new job, or joining Soulmates.

You can click to remove the update that you've read something.

But that just proves you've got something to hide.

This isn't a problem with the Guardian app per se - it's a problem with any app that might contain content that you wouldn't want friends to think you're consuming.

EG Spotify users - click here for an example of the sort of problem you could have.

Google says that: "One caveat to watch out for: while it’s OK to use the new schema.org markup or continue to use existing microformats or RDFa markup, you should avoid mixing the formats together on the same web page, as this can confuse our parsers."

Over here though, the Open Graph Protocol says: "We've based the initial version of the protocol on RDFa".

So that sounds like you can't.

But schema.org says: "Even if you mark up your content using the Facebook Open Graph protocol, schema.org provides a mechanism for providing more detail about particular entities on the page." That sounds a bit like you can use them together?

Yet over here it is written: "Which are you going to choose? Facebook’s Like button markup, or Google/Microsoft/Yahoo’s Microdata markup – you are being put into the position of choosing one of those exclusively."

So what's the answer?

My blog is set up in Facebook using the Open Graph protocol. So I should be able to use this new system to leave comments as my blog rather than as me. But when I look at the examiner.com page logged in to Facebook as my blog, all the Facebook like and comment options are missing.

If I switch back to using my personal Facebook account, they all reappear. I've tested this on Firefox, Safari and Chrome - logged in as my personal account, I see the like button and comments. Switch my account to be my blog on Facebook and they vanish.

I'm not sure if this is deliberate (because I'm using Open Graph I don't actually have a visible Facebook page to link to) or a bug. If it is deliberate, it's a bit odd that the like buttons disappear as well as the comments box. Any clues?

The good news is that you can still send people updates via Facebook without having to have a page - you instead use the Open Graph protocol and a Facebook Social Plugin.

You see that box on the right hand side of the page that says "New: Get blog updates via Facebook"? If you press the like button in that then I get the ability to insert messages in your Facebook news stream - without my also having to run a separate Facebook page. Here's how to do it.

How to get Facebook to like WordPress

Two types of Facebook like button

The first thing to get your head round is that there are two types of Facebook like button.

With the normal one that you see on many websites, clicking it will share the URL of the page you're in with your friends. I've got one of those buttons up there, under the headline - although I've changed the word on it from "like" to "recommend".

The other type of like button allows you to become a fan of a Facebook page even without visiting it. The fact you've clicked it will be shared with your friends - but you're not sharing a URL, you're liking a Facebook page.

As a website owner, if someone does the former, that's quite good as the visitor's friends may see the link and come and see your site - but you don't get the ability to have an ongoing relationship via the first type of like button. Someone's shared your URL. That's it.

With the second type of like button, anyone who likes your Facebook page will have any updates you create or links you share appear in their news stream.

Using Open Graph to turn your website into a Facebook page

The second type of like button can also be used even if you don't have a Facebook page for your site. You use the Open Graph protocol to effectively turn your website into a Facebook page in Facebook's eyes (don't worry, it doesn't actually turn into one - it's just that Facebook treats it as if it is one).

So here's an example - this is one of the messages that I sent to everyone who had clicked the like button over there on the right.

The message I sent people

You can read about the Open Graph protocol here. There are two steps you need to follow. The instructions below are for WordPress but very similar ones will work for any other type of website.

Add Open Graph meta data

First you need to say in the opening HTML tag that you're doing this. You can copy the code from the Facebook page. But after your opening HTML tag, add: xmlns:og="http://ogp.me/ns#" xmlns:fb="http://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml" - you can view the source of this page to see I've done that.

Then you need to assign meta data to the page on your website that you're going to set up as the pretend Facebook page. I do this on my homepage - you can choose another page if you want (EG a page with special offers or a particular category page).

The meta data is explained here. But here's what I've added for my blog:

<?php
if (is_home() ) {

echo '
<meta property="og:image" content="http://www.malcolmcoles.co.uk/blog/malcolm-coles-facebook.png"/>
<meta property="og:site_name" content="Malcolm Coles's blog"/>
<meta property="fb:admins" content="175996222437753,522100824"/>
<meta property="og:title" content="Malcolm Coles: SEO, Twitter and UK newspapers"/>
<meta property="og:type" content="blog"/>
<meta property="og:url" content="http://www.malcolmcoles.co.uk/blog/"/>
<meta property="og:description" content="The blog of Malcolm Coles. It's about SEO, Twitter, the internet and stuff like that. You'll like it."/>';
} else{} ?>

This is a PHP if statement which makes sure this code appears only on my home page and is pasted into my header.php file in the head area (if you're not using WordPress, you might need something different).

The meta data should be fairly self-explanatory. Again, it's explained here if you can't work something out. The one thing you might have problems with is the admins line - you need to insert Facebook user ID of your personal account. (To find your ID, look at your personal Facebook profile picture or album - the URL should contain it).

Add a social plugin

That's given Facebook the information it needs to understand your website. The next step is to add the relevant Facebook social plugin onto your site - that's the box over on the right that people can click to like your site.

You can get the code you need from the Like Box social plugin page. You fill out the box on the left, and then it shows you what the box will look like - you then hit get code.

The code generator for the Facebook like box

You'll be shown two sorts of codes: iframe or javascript. I've used the javascript version here, which means you also need to include Facebook's javascript SDK code on your page.

If you're also using the other type of Facebook like button (the one that lets people share the URL) I'd recommend using the javascript, not iframe, version of both as users can add a comment when sharing a page if you do.

Either way, add the code to your website. So in my sidebar.php file you'll find this code:

<script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"></script><fb:like-box href="http://www.malcolmcoles.co.uk/blog/" width="295" show_faces="true" stream="false" header="true"></fb:like-box>

I've also added a heading that says "New: get blog updates via facebook". You don't have to get a box that big - in fact, you can just use the standard tiny "like" button. I imagine users find this quite confusing (as they can't tell if the button shares the URL or likes the site) - so always add an explanation of what the button does (or else just trick them).

Adding the javascript SDK

If you are using the javascript version, you need to paste this code at the very end of your pages - in your footer.php file if you're using wordpress:

<div id="fb-root"></div>
<script>
window.fbAsyncInit = function() {
FB.init({appId: 'your app id', status: true, cookie: true,
xfbml: true});
};
(function() {
var e = document.createElement('script');
e.async = true;
e.src = document.location.protocol +
'//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js';
document.getElementById('fb-root').appendChild(e);
}());
</script>

You might be thinking "you clown, you've forgotten to put your app id where it says that." It doesn't matter - I don't have an app id and it works fine.

It's all working - how do I use it?

Go to Facebook, click Account in the top right and choose "Use Facebook as Page".

You will see a message at the top that says:

Administer Your Page.

This is the administration interface for your webpage at http://www.malcolmcoles.co.uk/blog/. You can see Insights and publish to the users that have liked your webpage. Only the administrators of the webpage can view this interface, other users are sent to the webpage.

And this is the key thing - you're the only person who sees what you can see. No one else see the Facebook page for your blog so there's nothing you need to manage and there's no wall where they can leave messages.

But if you click, say, link and share a link to a new piece of content on your blog, that update will appear in the news stream of anyone who has liked your site via this method - just as if you really did have a Facebook page and they had liked that.

One caveat

This method gives you a great way to communicate with people who like your website, without having the overhead of also managing a Facebook page.

However, you can't guarantee that people will see your status updates. There are two settings on Facebook news feeds - "top news" and "most recent". If they're looking at the latter, they will see your update if logged in when you send it (or if they look back that far). Whether they see it with the former view depends on how much Facebook thinks they want to see it - which depends on how many of their friends have also liked it, how many times they've liked previous updates etc. So there's no guarantees.

Insights and statistics

Once this is all up and running, you can also see data about who is doing what to your site. Here are the graphs for my Facebook insights.

Facebook insights graphs: you can click them for more detail

They look a bit crap as I haven't blogged for a while and also I only set this all up a few weeks ago.

If you liked this, maybe you'll also like the way I've shown the number of Twitter followers I've got using some PHP and wordpress.

And if you've got any questions, let me know below.

But I've discovered that this is rubbish. Facebook's methods for reporting inappropriate comments are confusing, flawed or missing. Problems I've uncovered include:

• Content that's impossible to flag.
• There's no way to explain why content is inappropriate, which means Facebook has to work out itself (as you'll see from the examples below, this is highly unlikely).
• Confusing error messages that tell you you can't report content, even though you can.

How Facebook's system works (supposedly)

Facebook's terms of service state:

"You will not post content that is hateful, threatening, pornographic, or that contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence."

If you do spot inappropriate content, there are "report" links allowing you to flag the content, like this (I've blacked out people's names):

The "report" link

To test the system out, I found Facebook pages or groups which contained the following:

• Claims that the parents of Baby P were responsible for his murder (they weren't - it was the mother and boyfriend).
• Claims that someone called David Calvery is, in fact, Jon Venables (who murdered Jamie Bulger) - even though he can't possibly be.
• Claims that Madeleine McCann's parents were responsible for their daughter's death (there is no suggestion from the Portuguese police that this is the case).

Why Facebook's reporting process is not fit for purpose

You can't report content that the owner of a page created

You can't report new comments by the person who set up a page. There's a page called "I hope Jon Venables gets his head kicked in now hes in Adult Jail..." If the creator / administrator of that page posts a new comment, there is no "report" link by their comment, as these pictures (one for that page, one for another one called "all pedophiles should hang") show  - there's no "Report" link next to the information on the date/time the comment was made.

Another comment that can't be reported

You can't report comments by a page's Admin

If anyone replies to this comment (or if the page's administrator replies to another comment), then there IS a "report" button - but it's not there for new comments by the creator of the page.

This makes it impossible to flag this comment incorrectly accusing an innocent man of being a child murderer.

You can't say why you're reporting pages

Let's say you decided to try to work around that by reporting the whole page - in the left hand column of these pages is a "Report page" link. But, crucially, this doesn't ask WHY you're flagging content. Here's what the reporting box looks like:

Reporting a page

Yes, they really have spelled categorised wrongly. You can put inappropriate content - but if you're trying to flag up one comment on a page with hundreds on, there's no way to explain this. Because once you've chosen an option and pressed to continue, you get the thank you screen. How do Facebook imagine they are going to work out which bit of content I wanted to flag up?

Once you've reported it, you see this box:

Yeah, thanks

Yes, they're not going to tell you what action they took.

This issue applies on a bigger scale if you actually do disagree with the entire page.

This page is called "Let Baby P's abusive parents get what's coming to them".

Baby P's dad was innocent

I've reported it - but because there's no way to explain why I've reported it, I'm relying on Facebook employees working out that it was Baby B's mother and her boyfriend, and not his mother and father, who were found guilty of murder.

This is, again, not a "robust" system as Facebook claim - it's relying on them working out what the issue is - and what happens if they miss the problem? Well, they don't get in touch, as we've seen. (They may remove the page because of its threats of violence, but this doesn't undermine the point - if these threats were missing, how would they know what I was reporting?)

You can't say why you're reporting comments

This problem applies to the reporting of individual comments, too. Take this one, incorrectly describing an innocent man as actually being a child murderer.

Incorrect accusation

I reported this - again, I'm not asked why. How are Facebook employees going to know why? Will they bother looking into the case - how will they even know that there is an issue with David Calvert being falsely named as Venables? The options don't even make sense: "attacks individual or group" isn't really why I'm complaining.

Reporting a comment

You can't report discussion topics

If you want to report an entire discussion, you can't. Here's a screenshot from a rugby songs group - apologies for the racist language (believe me, there are worse).

Racist language

Alternatively, here's one accusing Madeleine McCann's mother of being her killer:

Accusing Kate McCann

Discussion topics' problem is that you have to report them one comment at time - there is no way to report the entire topic. There could be hundreds of them, and you have to report them one at a time.

And, again, when you do, you're not asked WHY you're reporting them. It might be obvious to you - but what if it was a less obvious topic, or what if the Facebook moderators aren't in the UK and don't know about the McCanns?

You're told you can't report content

You might notice inappropriate content when you're not logged in to Facebook. If you try to flag it, you see this error message:

Confusing

This doesn't tell you that you have to log in to report it - it just says you "don't have sufficient permissions to do that". This leaves the user none the wiser that they could report the content if they logged in.

How it ought to work

Facebook do have the tools in place to improve these systems. If you try and report a group, the system works slightly better, as you have to answer two questions. The first is a proper list of reasons:

Groups: what's the problem?

The second is to be more specific about where the inappropriate content is:

Groups: where's the problem?

It's not clear why this more informative way of reporting content isn't standard.

Conclusion

You may think these examples are obvious. But that's because I've chosen extreme ones. In less obvious cases, Facebook has a system where people can't report content and can't explain why they've reported it.

Its reporting system is a sham. It needs to change.

According to Tom Watson MP, the decision to hold Google liable for publishing the video:

"is the biggest threat to internet freedom we have seen in Europe. The only people who will support this decision are Silvio Berlusconi and the governments of China and Iran. It effectively breaks the internet in Italy."

Well, Tom, you can make that Berlusconi, the Chinese and Iranian governments - and me.

Why it's right to find Google guilty

Google has made several statements arguing that the ruling is wrong - as have a lot of other people. Here's why I think they're wrong.

They took the video down straightaway: no they didn't

Google says it took the video down as soon as it was notified:

"We took it down within hours of being notified by the Italian police."

But the prosecutors say it actually took two months:

"The prosecutors accused Google of negligence arguing the video remained online for two months even though some web users had already posted comments asking for it to be taken down."

So either they didn't realise people were reporting the video as offensive (due to an ineffective flagging system, or by not properly communicating the system for reporting video) or they were ignoring the reporting (negligence).

I'm not sure which it is. But if people are complaining that your platform is allowing abuse of a vulnerable boy, and you do nothing about it - either because you've ignored complaints or have no effective way to discover those complaints - it is right you are held to account.

The executives had nothing to do with it: wrong

According to a Google spokesman in Italy:

"We will be appealing against this verdict because the people in question had nothing to do with the uploading of the footage, they did not film it and they did not view it."

No, but they are senior executives at the company - responsible for the systems put in place to stop abusive content being published. If those systems have failed, it is right that senior executives are held responsible.

One of those found guilty is reported as saying:

"The judge has decided I'm primarily responsible for the actions of some teenagers who uploaded a reprehensible video to Google video."

Again, no, they've decided your systems for dealing with publishing videos of bullying and abuse of a boy were inadequate.

They can't preview everything: irrelevant

The Telegraph reports that lawyers for Google:

"argued that regulation would be impossible as it would have to preview thousands of hours of footage before it was uploaded every day onto sites like YouTube."

First, tough. You have set up a platform that allows people to publish things - some of which it's illegal or immoral to publish. If you can't police it properly, that's not our fault. Second, no one's arguing you should preview everything. But you need an adequate system for reporting material, and you didn't have one that worked in this case.

YouTube is like the post office: no it's not

According to the BBC, Richard Thomas, the UK's former information commission, says:

"it is like prosecuting the post office for hate mail that is sent in the post".

It is exactly NOT like that. The postal system is not a publishing platform that allows people to broadcast what they think to anybody who wants to watch. Google Video / YouTube is.

The post office is a private, push system - if I want you to receive something by post, I have to send it to you personally. No one knows what's in the letter until you open it.

But if I want anyone to watch a video, I can leave it up on YouTube and forget about it - anyone can then see it by choosing to go and view it. I don't need to be involved in them seeing it, and anyone can see what the subject of the video is.

This is why Google can and ought to have systems in place to alert it when abusive videos being published, whereas the post office can't and shouldn't.

YouTube is a like a box of tissue: barrel scraping

Mike Masnick, co-founder of influential technology website TechDirt, is reported by the Telegraph as saying:

"Honestly, I can't see how anyone would make a ruling in this manner and think that it makes sense. You would think that suing the execs of the company that made the tissue box [which was thrown at the boy in the video by his bullies] would make more sense than Google's execs. Why not charge the execs of the company that made the camera that was used to film the incident? It's hard to hear about this ruling and not consider the Italian legal system to be a joke."

Well, if someone made a dangerous product, they can be prosecuted. But we don't normally hold companies responsible for misuse of their products.

On the other hand, we do hold companies responsible for what they publish or facilitate the publishing of if they are negligent.

Google runs a publishing platform. It doesn't send out individual videos in boxes that were used to hit someone. It has ongoing control over that platform in the way that the tissue-box and camera manufacturer do not.

To sum up

Google has form with not bothering with the consequence of what it allows people to find via its service - such as when anyone could uncover stories about 12-year-old "dad" Alfie Patten even though the UK media were (and still are I imagine) bound by an injunction.

It's not alone. Go on Facebook today, and you'll find all sorts of pages devoted to exacting revenge in the case of Baby P's parents - the problem here being that it was baby Peter's mother and boyfriend who were gulity. His other parent, the father, was completely innocent. These pages remain up. Should Facebook really not be accountable for what it allows to be published?

The issue here is not one of freedom of the Internet. And I am not suggesting that these services should pre-vet what users publish.

But Google should have had better systems in place, or should have adhered to its own process. One of these things didn't happen, and as a result senior executives have been held accountable. Let's leave the last word to the prosecutors:

"We are very satisfied because by means of this trial we have posed a serious problem: that is to say, the protection of human beings, which must prevail over corporate interests."

Let me know what you think in the comments ...

PS

[1] It seems he had autism rather than Down's syndrome, in another triumph for journalism.

Below are the best of the 1,500-odd comments, to save you the trouble of ploughing through them. After the first page or so, most of the "I want to log in" comments appear to be jokes - leading to the suspicion that this is not the most hilarious thing the internet has ever seen after all. And that, after the first few genuinely confused people, this massive thread is, in fact, between people pretending to be idiots, and people claiming they can't believe people are such idiots.

• Ok If I have to I will comment,I love facebook so right now just want to log in if thats ok with you..lol Keep up the good work...
• The new facebook sucks> NOW LET ME IN
• I just want to log in to Facebook - what with the red color and all? LOLLLOLOL!!!!!111
• This is such a mess I can't do a thing on my facebook .The changes you have made are ridiculous,I can't even login!!!!!I am very upset!!!
• This is what happens when people use Google to enter sites instead of typing it on their address bar...
• Could I just log on please!
• I am going to delete my account (IF I CAN EVER LOG IN) as this SUCKS BIG TIME ! If this does not get back to NORMAL you are going to lose a lot of folks who hate this and as you can see from all the comments they think it sucks too !!! facebook was great for connecting with old friends ...now, NOT SO MUCH. SO HOW DO I LOG IN ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
• ummm guys? Everyone realizes this page is not Facebook right? To login to Facebook, go to Facebook, and use the login option. This is a blog post about Facebook which references logging in.
• m going back to my fuckin space u ass holes have to fuck up a good this !!!!! dumn asses
• This reminds me of an article I read recently about the ever-escalating rate of illiteracy in America. It makes you wonder how these people ever make it down the street alive, much less how they are able to log into Facebook.
• So I just thought of a pretty good literacy test for deciding whether people are allowed to internet
• This thread reminds me of the time my grandfather typed his phone number into the microwave's keypad, then wondered why his kitchen was on fire.(Seriously, that happened.)
• this is a bunch of garbage just let us on face book
• unsubscribe
• YOU FUCKING IDIOTS! IT'S A FUCKING BLOG ABOUT FACEBOOK. GO TO FACEBOOK.COM
• Might I suggest you write the URL for Facebook on the palm of your hand? Or maybe tattoo it. F***ing morons.
• I thought that I was the only one. How do we get in?
• I'm not very pleased now w/ the new facebook. Simplified? Well, I'm not so sure. I typed a message to my daughter and went to send it and could not fine a SEND button!! I couldn't even close the message box and had to close the whole site and log back online. AARRRGGHHHH! Please, let me know where it went.
• what has changed this time?
• I TRULY DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON BUT I FEEL LIKE CURSING SOMEBODY OUT!!!!!! I CAN'T EVEN GET TO MY WALL OR ANYTHING !!!! I FEEL LIKE I'V BEEN PUNKED PUT IT BACK LIKE IT WAS!!! YA'LL ACT LIKE YOU WANT TO BE TAKEN TO COURT OR SOMETHING ,I DON'T HAVE THIS KINDA TIME TO BE FOOLING ARROUND ALL I WANT TO DO IS GAIN ACCESS TO MY FACEBOOK PAGE WHAT'S REALLY UP????????
• I do not like this new Facebook...........it keeps feeding me postings that i have no interest in....it is a pain in the rear end to get to friends and I cannot get to the few games that I would like to play with friends.
• Sometimes new is not better than old - Unsatified Facebook User
• THis is a virus!!! The only way to get rid of it is to press ctrl+alt+delete, click on the process tab, end these 2 processes (with the end process button at the bottom): explorer.exe and iexplore.exe. Then you must delete both of those files from C:\Windows\System32. If that dosent work, you will need to call GeekSquad right away!!!!! This virus is stealing bank account info from all infected Facebook users!!! Hope this helps...
• This sucks, Just let me in.....
• I think these comments make a pretty good case for closing the internet down...
• BRING BACK THE OLD READWRITEWEB! WHAT IS WITH ALL THIS FACEBOOK?
• I'm only on page 5 of these comments so far, but I think part of what is confusing to these poor people is the fact that the comments box has an option to "sign in with Facebook" I think the concept of OpenID / single-sign-on is beyond most Facebook user's ability to comprehend.
• Can all you peoples please stop commenting on my wal1!
• This is almost too unbelievable to be real. If this is some epic, well-organized troll by people who registered fake facebook accounts and then found the article by googling it intentionally, then well played, my friends. If not, brix have been shat.
• Any of you who think any of these people seriously thought this was Facebook are the morons here. Like teabagger-dumb.
• acebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login facebook login
• Why has the url changed to readwriteweb? I can't comment on my friends walls or even read their walls. And how do I log in or update my status? This is ridiculous, do you not undertake any usability studies or research before you decided to so drastically change a site????
• the person who said to go to "Bing" and search for Facebook actually had a point because you get to this page http://www.facebook.com/login.php?ref=pf Versus the normal home page http://www.facebook.com/ (you probably have to be logged out to really see these pages). The second one has the login box waaaaaay over to the right as someone else pointed out. On a small monitor people don't see anything except that dumb graphic. It's Facebook's so-called 'web designers' fault.
• That's why phising is so easy these days.
• ...I'm 12 years old, what is this???
• The best part is that this comment thread provides anyone who wants to launch a Facebook phishing attack with a slew of potential rubes. They just have to crawl this comment thread looking for any facebook profile urls, and send messages to those facebook users directing them to a fake facebook login page.
• In fact, they don't even have to try hard to make the fake login page look real. If they put the ReadWriteWeb logo on it, these people might remember it and assume it's that new Facebook login page.
• I have nothing useful to add other than I am now a part of interweb history.
• i am no moron. I am an intellectual and have my masters Don't be stupid If you change he system please have the integrity to explain the "modus operandi" Don' treat us as stupid just because you can not explain the system. I need to log in to-night. Kindly sort this out and thank you in anticipation
• I'm confused. I just want to log into my facebooks. I typed log in and I came here. Obviously since this is the only way to enter the Facebooks, you have broken the internet. Who's gonna manage my farm now??? How'm I gonnna know what 80's cartoon character best matches my love life?? Damn it ReadWriteWeb... who gave you the right?
• does no one ever read the address bar?
• If you want to login to facebook, post your username and password in the comments.
• Our dear Lord invented the internet just for this moment! 1220 comments and climbing!
• Posting in epic thread
• Also, I'd be willing to bet that most of the posters that claim to have read through many pages of comments and are still naively professing their bafflement are 4chan types that are doing realistic impressions of a fictitious individual adept enough to navigate the thread and comment, but too idiotic to comprehend the variously phrased admonitions to put "facebook.com" in the address bar. Which only serves to inflame the "I've now lost all faith in humanity" folks even more, which makes the thread count +1 and adds to its "epicness," which attracts more 4chan types, which ... ad nauseam ... The internet (and humanity) is more twisted and turned in on itself than merely a heap of bewildered facebookers - have some laughs at the "idiots" exposed by such memes, but question the memes themselves too. Someday a meme is going to take on a life of it's own, fed and shaped by forces intent on using its power to accomplish their own purposes.

I think that last one sums it up ... (And thanks to Trish Dever for the tip off).