Facebook Changes Friend Rejection Protocol

Things have just gotten a little creepier on Facebook. The social-networking site has essentially added a de facto “follow” feature by changing their friend rejection methods.

Previously, when users received a friend request, they had two options: “Confirm,” or “Ignore.” When a friend request was ignored, that person was blocked. Several days ago, however, Mark Zuckerberg and company replaced the “Ignore” button with a new “Not Now” button.

Clicking “Not Now” essentially sends the person into friend purgatory, where they can still see all of your public posts and activity, similar to the way followers can on Twitter. Blocking someone on Facebook is now a two-step process. When you click “Not Now,” you are prompted with “Don’t know ____?” If you click that you do not know the person, they will be blocked from making any future friend requests, but if you don’t, they’re stuck in limbo on the Requests page.

Curse you, Facebook, for making it slightly more difficult to reject That Kid Who Never Talked to You in Junior High and That Sketchy Guy From the Bar Last Night!

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