"Facebook" user

[Pjohnson]

My board members have started to notice that a "Facebook" user is frequently listed among users reading a particular topic. They seem to be worried that Facebook can "see" whatever they are posting on the board. How do I assuage these fears? Why is there a "Facebook" user reading topics? How do I prevent this user from reading the board?

[Rimi]

Hello.

The Facebook bot iis sent out whenever the like button is displayed. Facebook is verifying the link. If you want it gone then disable share links.

[Ryan Ashbrook]

To be specific, the bot is grabbing the Page Meta information. The link to the topic, nor the content within the topic, is never actually revealed unless some shares it on Facebook or uses the Like button.

[Lase]

These two topics need to be merged.

There's an option to have it invisable somewhere I seem to recall.

[Kyle F]

No need to worry about the bot Pjohnson. I get the same bot on my board too. All is fine. ;)

[7Bya9K&Q]

You can either disable the bots from showing up on the guest list through the Admin CP option (I think it is still there) or you can edit the robots.txt file in your FTP to not display. You can also block the FB bot through that file. I do not know how you would go about doing either of those edits though.

Besides that, your members have nothing to fear. It is only looking for "Liked" posts or topics. Those topics or posts are then added to the "Liker's" profile. "John liked this post." It is no different than any other thing on the internet that can be liked. However, if your board is displaying information of a private nature that you do not want popping up on Facebook or other social media sites, then you will need to disable share links via the admin cp.