Facebook Isn’t A Social Network. And Stop Trying to Make New Friends There

TechCrunch reports on a controversy surrounding the Facebook application ‘PackRat’. The app is basically revolving around the trading of ‘cards’, and is popular enough that people are signing up for Facebook accounts just to play PackRat1. The same users are also expanding their network on Facebook solely to have more people to play PackRat with2.

Facebook is unsettled enough about this to disable accounts created solely for the purpose of playing PackRat. In an email to one of the users in question, Facebook says:

Please note that Facebook accounts are meant for authentic usage only. This means that we expect accounts to reflect mainly “real-world” contacts (i.e. your family, schoolmates, co-workers, etc.), rather than mainly “internet-only” contacts. [Facebook] is meant to help reinforce pre-existing social connections, not build large groups of new ones.

Full report here: Facebook Isn’t A Social Network. And Stop Trying to Make New Friends There