Facebook’s Testing A New Feature That’ll Make It Easier To Filter Out Creeps

It looks like Facebook is keen to start killing your apathy for new pals (or creeps), with some users reportedly seeing a countdown timer for new friend requests.

We’re all guilty of leaving a request sitting unconfirmed for far too long. Maybe you don’t really know the person, or you’re simply not keen on putting up with their online bullshit. Either way, Facebook wants you to expand your network, and this might be the way they do it.

You see, the social media platform wants to feed you content, and the wider your friends network is, the more shit they can shovel your way. By only allowing you to connect with someone for a limited time, it might just spur you into saying yes rather than saying nothing at all.

Submitted to TechCrunch by Christine Hudler, screenshots appear to show that Facebook has begun testing the feature, offering a 14-day countdown to either accept or deny a request. A Facebook spokesperson has since confirmed to TechCrunch that it is indeed testing the timer with some users.

“I can confirm that this is a test to help surface the most recent requests,” the spokesperson wrote.

The “Learn More” link will take users to a page that explains how to accept or delete a request, as well as noting, “if a friend request expires before you accept it, you can send that person a friend request instead”. It’s unclear what happens if the user who sent the request tries to send another one after 14 days.

The feature could also solve a problem for extremely popular people. Facebook will only allow you to have up to 5,000 friends, and the amount of friend requests you can have appears to be 5,000 minus your actual number of friends. If the combined total of friends and friend requests hits 5,000, you won’t receive any new requests.

Introducing a time limit on accepting or denying these could help clear out blocked lists.

Whether or not the company will introduce the feature across the board is uncertain at this stage, but one thing’s for certain – Facebook is shitting its pants in the wake of Cambridge Analytica and is looking for any way to lift its reputation.

Unfortunately for the social media giant, the damage has already been done.


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