Facebook impostors are proliferating alarmingly as reported by the media. What started as a social networking website founded five years ago by Mark Zuckerberg, then a Harvard computer science major student, along with his colleagues, to communicate with friends and other contacts, has now become a medium for unscrupulous individuals to hatch their evil schemes.
Just recently, alarming exposés on scam artists, hackers, identity thieves and other Facebook Impostors posing as friends and stealing personal information from members rocked the global social networking community drawing almost universal criticism of the website.
One report tells of Bryan Rutberg of Seattle, USA, whose account was used to extort money from his friends. Rutberg’s impostor posted “Bryan NEEDS HELP URGENTLY!!!” on his status update to which one of his friends responded by sending money to London where Rutberg was allegedly robbed and in need of fare to get back to the U.S.
In another event, Anthony Stancl, a resident of New Berlin, Wisconsin, solicited naked photos of high school boys by posing as a woman on his Facebook account. He purportedly used the photos to compel the young men to engage in sexual acts with him. Stancl was later seized by authorities on grounds of 12 complaints of felony, which included ‘sexual assault of a child younger than 16 and possession of child pornography’.
Even a public official like President Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana wasn’t spared from this vicious online modus operandi. In his case, an account was set up containing 174 supporters and two photo albums featuring the Berbice Bridge in Guyana and pictures of international leaders, some posing with the South American head. Jagdeo denied any involvement on the existence of the account and sought the assistance of the police to investigate on this matter.
In the light of these disturbing incidents, how do we ward off Facebook impostors?
With the advent of the internet came the introduction of many high-tech forms of communication and services. Our socio-cultural awareness has been revolutionized by social networking sites such as Friendster, Facebook, MySpace, Multiply and the like. These online communities have widened our reach from just within our local neighborhood to the entire world. However, in so doing, they have also posed danger to our privacy and safety as they have become a vehicle for criminals to invade our lives through stalking or sexually harassing us, stealing our personal identities or performing similar other forms of cyber-bullying. While some of us just bear witness to these perpetrators, others are unfortunate enough to have become their victims.
Despite this setback, I don’t think that any one of us is ready to rid our system of all these networking sites. What we can do, however, is to look for the safer venue where we can hang out and make friends, and use our heads to make valid decisions.
Let’s examine two of the leading networking sites in the last few years - Facebook and Myspace. Over the years, both sites have battled criticisms regarding the security of their members, and although Facebook has been regarded as the “safer” choice than MySpace, let’s try to probe some more to really answer the question Is Facebook safer than MySpace?
Last weekend, my friends and I were hanging out at my house. A couple of hours later, I discovered that Maria, who was using my mac earlier, forgot to log out of her facebook account. Being the inquisitive person that I am and having no background regarding the features of the said social networking site I decided to explore it using what was conveniently left open for me. Ergo, I used her account. Besides, it was a good venue to get gossip from whatever her online buddies may have posted. I thought to myself, maybe they have been talking about something juicy. AND the juicier the conversation, the better it is for me. Now before you start thinking that I am so outmoded for not knowing the features of facebook, I would like to clarify things. I have always been a fan of myspace and as a fan, I tend to be LOYAL. Anyhow, going back to the topic, I clicked around the site and saw that apparently, Maria was friends with the hottest guy in our school. Then I saw a POKE ME underneath his photo. This was a sure shot sign of invitation for me, SO I POKED HIM, logged off and left a message on Maria’s phone to tell her what I did.
The next day, Maria screamed with delight while plopping down beside me at the cafeteria. She said that Josh (that’s the name of our campus hunk) poked her back in facebook. I rolled my eyes and asked her what was so great about that. It wasn’t as if he asked her out on a date. She said, in a matter of fact voice that Josh was in fact flirting with her when he poked her back. So I was like “HUH?” I might have given Maria a stupid look because she immediately launched into a lengthy explanation of what poking in facebook means.
One of the primary things you can use Facebook for is keeping up with what your friends are doing. The best way to accomplish this is by looking at their Facebook Status updates.
Jeff, Mary, and Joe are all friends on Facebook, living in different countries, in different time zones. In order for them to stay updated with each other they would have to either go to each others Facebook Profiles or monitor their homepage feed constantly. If they each have 200+ Facebook Friends (which is the norm) and they don’t login each day this can become a pain, quickly.
This is no longer a problem, as of last week Facebook has added the ability to view your friends updates based on the Friend Lists you setup. This will save Jeff, Mary, Joe and YOU a lot of time and allow you to stay even more connected with your friends.
Are you ready to learn this new way to QUICKLY and EASILY stay up to date with what your Facebook Friends are doing?
