Have you ever added someone as a friend on Facebook without knowing them?
I admit, that soon after joining Facebook, I did add someone – the name was a bit familar and I noticed she was also friends with a close friend of mine. So I blamed my memory, added her, and emailed my close friend for more details – only to be told that she had no idea who the new friend was, but had added her anyway!
At that point, it’s just too embarrassing to go back and email “Remind me again, who exactly are you?” So I quietly pruned her a few months back after she made no further contact with me after being added!
I was reminded of this by a news story at the weekend about a Swiss woman who lost her job after her employers noticed she’s been using Facebook after claiming to be too ill to use a computer. The woman denied she’s been using her computer and said she’d accessed Facebook via her Iphone. And astonishingly she suggested that her employers had created a fictitious Facebook persona who had become friends with her and then disappeared after she was fired…
Seems to be the week for social media catching undesirables out. US drug dealer Emmanuel Ganpot was identified by bounty hunter Bill Burgess from his Myspace and Facebook profiles.
Ganpot had been facing 15 years in prison but jumped bail from Florida and fled to Britain, where he changed his name by deed poll to “Neo Masuro” and settled in Surrey. Unfortunately for Ganpot, he set up profiles on Myspace and Facebook using his new name but his own photograph. Bounty hunter Bill Burgess tracked him down after he had noticed Ganpot’s friends linking to his new profile.
He has now been returned to the US where he faces a maximum term of 105 years for his original offence and his subsequent law evasion.
Since my post yesterday about facebook privacy, I’ve had quite a lot of questions so thought it worth doing a quick post about the privacy settings in more detail:
Where can I find my privacy settings? – Top right of the screen, under the settings tab.
How do I “block people”? – Blocking people is enabled on the main privacy settings page. Bear in mind that the person you may want to block has to be a member of Facebook already. Also the blocking only applies to Facebook applications – it doesn’t work with third party widgets etc.
What actions are always kept private by Facebook? – Recent Activity will never be shown about:
Interesting story in the press today about a landlady who discoverd her “respectable” tenants had trashed her rental property when they posted up the photos of their party on Facebook.
Obviously what happened to Carolyn Lorrimer is really dreadful – not only did the tenants wreck her house but they also left utility bills and unpaid rent as well as a sizeable clean-up bill. But it did leave me wondering whether her tenants had ever checked their Facebook privacy settings?
Facebook appears to some users as a safe version of the bad ole internet. You have to log in, after all, so it seems like a kind of private forum. But it’s much less private than you think….
Your Profile…When I first joined Facebook I didn’t realise for a couple of days that everything I was posting was also available to everyone in my network (Manchester). I needed to manually change the settings so that my profile was only available to my friends. So, if you don’t mind who can read your profile you have the option of opening it up to everyone, if not, you need to make sure you’ve checked one of the privacy boxes which best suits the level of access you’re most comfortable with.
Facebook Search… You are able to restrict who can search for you and also what people see when they find your profile (before friend requesting). For example, you may wish to keep your picture private, or you might prefer to keep it public so that potential friends may recognise you when they search.
Friends… Did you know that your friends are visible to searchers unless you make them private? Helpful for people checking if they have found the Joe Bloggs who’s friends with John Doe. And celeb spotters, if you’re not sure you’ve found the real celebrity and they have made their friend list public then you can have a nosy to see if they’re the real deal or not. If all of “Amy Winehouse’s” friends live in Chorley, then you may not have found the right one…
Check out the Privacy tab under your Facebook Settings to see what you’re sharing and with who… photo credit: cambodia4kidsorg
Have you ever added someone as a friend on Facebook without knowing them?
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