One of the dumbest ideas ever on Facebook is that friends can automatically add you to groups. I’m not sure why Facebook thinks that giving friends the power to add you to any group out there is a good idea, but the feature is there and it is actively used. So, if you ever wanted to create a I’m the Greatest group and invite all your friends to it, then this is your chance to do just that. Your friends will be automatically added to the new group, and it is up to them to either try and get out of the group again or participate in it.
It is not really clear why they are not sending out invitations instead, which would give every friend the choice to either join the new group or ignore the invite to not join the group.
It is apparently only possible to invite friends into new Facebook groups. If you visit an old group page on Facebook you will see the following paragraph at the top.
Over the next few months, Facebook will be archiving all groups created using the old groups format. When this group is archived, its wall posts, photos and discussion threads will move to the new groups format, but group members will need to be re-added.
The new Group page it links to offers little information about the new group concept on Facebook. It is only possible to automatically add friends to new groups on Facebook. The old concept was to send friends invitations if you wanted them to join a group on Facebook.
The new group concept is obviously flawed, considering that the majority of Facebook users are not only friends with their closest friends and relatives, but with many different users of the social networking site.
This may open the door for spam or even malicious attacks in form of phishing links or software downloads. It does not necessarily have to go that far, but being a member of a group that you do not want to be part of may be be reason enough to be against the new group concept.
How can you stop people from adding you to Facebook Groups automatically? The short answer is, you cannot. The only option you have is to leave the group and contact the friend to let them know that you do not want to be part of the group. If you get re-added, your only option is to leave again and / or remove the friend who has added you from the friend list.
Here is how you leave groups. Click on Groups on your Facebook profile page. The groups link is located near the top right corner of the page.
There you see a list of all groups that you are a member of. To leave a group, hover your mouse cursor over the group. A blue x is displayed next to the group. Click on the x to leave the group.
You will get a remove group membership confirmation prompt. Select Remove if you are sure and want to leave the selected group on Facebook.
Have you been added by friends to groups automatically? How have you handled this?
Update: Some users think that this article is misleading, as it is not answering the question they came here for. Here are several options that users in the comments have pointed out:
- You cannot be re-added to groups if you leave them, so this might help.
- You can create or subscribe to a lot of bogus / empty groups to reach the group limit. Once you do you cannot be added anymore to new groups.
- And finally: Communicate with those friends that add you to group ans see if you can get them to stop adding you to groups. If you cannot, you should consider unfriending then on Facebook as they cannot add you to groups if they are no longer your friend.
There you have it. Three perfectly fine answers for the issue at hand. It would obviously be better if Facebook would give users an option to accept or decline group invites, but since that is not an option right now, your only bets are the options listed above.
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As far as I know, once you leave a group, you can’t be re-added.
Ok that’s good, thanks Chewy.
You should add an edit to the original article – at the place where you assume that you can be re-added – to include Chewy’s info. Otherwise people will be mis-led. Not everyone reads the comments.
Change the title please…
This is NOT “How To Stop People From Adding You To Facebook Groups”
Why didn’t you just say how to leave fb groups…
Vanja, the only way to stop people from adding you is to remove them from your friend list.
So i’ll have 0 friends at the end?
Im just saying that your title is not proper with your text…
Okay i can understand that you want good seo at google… but its waste of time and its unnecessary text…
DISLIKE
I do not think its improper. The only option right now is to unfriend someone, there is no other option. I update the article as soon as Facebook changes the default behavior.
This is NOT “How To Stop People From Adding You To Facebook Groups”, you should not write under such misleading titles, it should be “How to leave Facebook Groups”….which is not so hard to figure out…
Well it is, but you have to read between the lines. The only way to prevent people from adding you is to have only friends that do not do it.
Your title is “How to stop people from adding you to Facebook Groups”. Then later on, you say: “It is not possible.” Don’t you realize people come here under the illusion that your article provides an answer? Don’t you realize people are fed-up with being lied to and led around by the nose? And then to top it all, your article contains at least one big lie, namely that you can be re-added to a group. If your intention with this article was to provide a service to people, you have failed miserably. Let’s see if this comment survives moderation! Even better, let’s see if you have the guts to edit your article and it’s title as well!
Hi there, do you know whether you can back up the old facebook groups that are soon to be archived?
Misleading title. How do i stop them from adding me? I know how to leave a group…
Misleading title.
Change your title! This is so misleading and a waste of time….
dude, whats up with the misleading title of this article?
Do people or the group creator get notified if you leave the group?
1) create a group “I’ve never fucked a goat”
2) add “friend” that added you to annoying group
3) they are now in a dodgy sounding group, if they leave, everyone gets message that
has left the group “I’ve never fucked a goat”
bonus points if you then create another group called “Goat fuckers Anonymous” & add him to it.
;-)
HAHAHA! BRILLIANT!
Misleading title, waste of time
A member I want to delete from a Facebook Group is not showing up on the members list. And he keeps taunting and abusing the group asking us Admins to remove him, which we can’t because he is not showing up on the member list. What is happening?
I have a way to do it and it’s working great :)
All that you want to do is to subscribe in a lot of groups … there is a limit for groups on facebook i.e when you try to request joining any group facebook will give you a message that you have to many groups, you should delete one of your groups.
At this time no one can add you to any group until he/she contacts you and tells you that I’ll add you to a new group .. so you can delete any other group and join the new group.
This is working great with me :)
That really is a misleading title. Instead of “How to…” it should be “You Can’t…”
You Can’t Stop People From Adding You to Facebook Groups
Then no one would be able to find this information on a Google search, dumbass!
Your title is wrong.
Follows the official answer.
Q: Can I prevent people from adding me to a new group?
A: The functionality of approving a group membership is not available. Similar to being tagged in a photo, you can only be added to a group by one of your friends. When a friend adds you to a group, a story in the group (and in News Feed for Open or Closed groups) will indicate that your friend has added you to a group.
Please keep in mind:
Only your friends can add you to groups.
When a friend adds you to a group, you’ll get a notification right away.
You can leave a group anytime. To do so, just go to the group page and click “Leave Group” in the right-hand column. Once you leave a group, you can’t be added by anyone else unless you explicitly request to be re-added.
Source: http://on.fb.me/Can-I-prevent-people-from-adding-me-to-a-new-group
Stupid Title ! :/
You keep answering people that tell you your title is wrong and misleading that it isn’t wrong because there isn’t any way to do so (short of removing all your friends). How does that make your title any less misleading?
It’s as if I would write an article named “How to live forever” which would then go on to say you can’t live on forever.
You did a nice job on properly writing the info, but since I, like most other people who get to this page, already know this info, reading this article is a complete waste of our time.
Now I want both FB to change the group setting and YOU to change your title!
Wow, it took me all of 2 minutes to read this whole post. Why is everyone so bent out of shape about “wasting” 2 minutes of time. I wasted more time reading everyone’s comments about the title. Too many people with way too much to say and no proper place to say it.
**bonus** I’m now the passive agressive type wasting readers’ time :)
lol!
This is NOT “How To Stop People From Adding You To Facebook Groups”, you should not write under such misleading titles, it should be “How to leave Facebook Groups”
Very misleading title. What an as*hole. I know how to leave a group. How about writing on how to PREVENT it from happening with other friends.
The biggest nuisance for me is the number of emails I start receiving in my hotmail inbox, because when someone adds you to a group, you are automatically configured to recieve emails for “All Posts”. You have to go to the notification settings for that group and manually turn them off. Far easier to just leave the group as described above!
your title … sh!t
It may be an accurate answer, but it is still a lousy solution. What happens when I make a group called bomb making for terrorists, throw in a couple of links and then join everyone I do not like with a facebook account. Do they all join the No Fly lists around the world, until they can prove (to each governing body) that the group is just a hoax?
JESUS people, this article DOES provide the answer. I wanted to know how to stop people from adding me automatically and found out that it isn’t possible. I didnt know that previously and wouldn’t have googled for ” leave group” as that is not what I was looking for.
He does provide the correct answer to the question of how to stop them ( can’t) and t went further and explained how to go about the next best thing (leave) and you are bitching ? what’s wrong with people these days ?
I am sure, if you try really, really hard, you will see that saying” It Is Not Possible” when you started off with a title saying How To Do Something, is not any answer at all. Rather say “Why it is not possible to stop people from adding you to a Facebook Group” or better “What can be done about people adding you to a Facebook Group?”
I am sure you can understand this simple logic – it isn’t really so hard.
What’s wrong with people these days, that they cannot understand simple logic like this?