Tech: When FB friend reqs become sinister...

Subject: RE: Tech: When FB friend reqs become sinister...
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 20 Sep 10 - 08:37 AM

In all the time I've been on FB, I've only had "random" friend requests from 2 people, both of whom seemed to be people who were just spraying requests out willy-nilly they had thousands of "friends".

Other than that, the only people who've asked to "friend" me have been people I've known. Maybe I've just ben lucky?

Subject: RE: Tech: When FB friend reqs become sinister...
From: Mo the caller
Date: 20 Sep 10 - 08:37 AM

Did you ask him why?

Subject: Tech: When FB friend reqs become sinister...
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 20 Sep 10 - 08:31 AM

Earlier today I was messaged by my daughter-in-law in Australia with a question: "Who is xxxxxxx? He has asked to be my Facebook "friend" and appears to be a "friend" of yours. What should I do?"

All of which raises the question - why should a FB "friend" of mine (a folkie and Mudcatter to boot) be attempting to befriend my son and doughter-in-law (they share the same FB account), whom he has never seen and is unlikely to ever meet, and with whom he has never communicated before? What is the motive here? At its simplest, it is a vain, misguided and childish attempt to boost one's number of virtual "friends" for bragging purposes. Or perhaps it is in order to peddle his art to new markets? If so, it is an abuse of the system and I will be tightening the security settings to avoid that in the future. or is it for more sinister reasons than this?

Whatever the case, such use of contacts is equivalent to getting hold of the address book of a friend and starting to contact all in it. It ranges from illegitimate to weird and all the way to objectionable.

And so this Mudcatter is no longer my Facebook "friend", as he did not behave like one. He is now deleted from my FB contacts list.