2012 shaped the world in ways both good and bad, and the read receipts that Facebook introduced that year tilted the scales toward "the worst." The social media company announced that it's working toward implementing the same feature for Events, basically making it impossible to discretely dodge people like you used to.
Let's say you create a rooftop party and invite 100 guests. The feature allows you to know exactly who received your invitation and who viewed the updates on pages of Events, all in real-time. Having confirmations of those attending can help you estimate the number of guests so you know how many beer or wine bottles you need to order. It also helps guests themselves coordinate and share cars or pool together resources for a consistent gift. All platforms will support and feature these confirmations.
"We're piloting the ability for private event hosts and guests to know whether the friends they invited have seen the event," affirmed a spokesperson from Facebook.
This is what Facebook’s new friendship destruction device (event read receipts) looks like pic.twitter.com/Nv1IZfnCJ6
— Daniel Victor (@bydanielvictor) September 14, 2015
Read receipts are omnipresent in live chat platforms, and it all started with Facebook's Messenger app. It simply lets you know when your friend has seen your message, possibly creating a universe of unparalleled awkwardness and frustration when you don't get an immediate reply. Groups also have the option embedded, so everyone knows when other group members have seen a certain post.
Although Facebook never considered allowing its users to opt out of the dreaded "seen" notification, there are a number of workarounds that can take some pressure off your communication. Dailydot shows you how to do it. This makes it very likely that an ingenious user will devise a solution to bypass read receipts from Events as well.
If Facebook wishes to make everyone aware of what others are doing, why stop here? A similar option can be installed for friend requests, wall posts and comments, virtually eliminating the idea of private communication.
The social network did not comment on the further expansion of read receipts to other parts of its website.
