I learned something new about Facebook today

[ZiprHead]

Go to Settings/Blocking. In Blocked Users, type following me. Then hit either Block or Unblock.

You may find some interesting results.

 

[Opoponax]

Someone showed that to me a few weeks back.

I post very little on Facebook and have deleted anything I've ever posted that may have possibly been of interest to anyone, but there were 6 or 7 people, all of whom appeared to be from outside the U.S. following me. Kinda weird.

I don't know that the reasons for strangers following you on Facebook are necessarily nefarious though. For example, my youngest showed me how to set up my Twitter account. I posted one tweet, an experiment just to see it work, and by the next day, 11 people were following me. My daughter said that people will follow you "just because." And in the social media-verse, that makes as much sense as anything else.

 

[James Brown]

I was surprised as well about people following me out of the blue on Twitter. Then someone told me that the idea is that I would follow them in return as a kind of courtesy.

And then they would start selling porn to me.

 

[Shake]

Someone showed that to me a few weeks back.

I post very little on Facebook and have deleted anything I've ever posted that may have possibly been of interest to anyone, but there were 6 or 7 people, all of whom appeared to be from outside the U.S. following me. Kinda weird.

I don't know that the reasons for strangers following you on Facebook are necessarily nefarious though. For example, my youngest showed me how to set up my Twitter account. I posted one tweet, an experiment just to see it work, and by the next day, 11 people were following me. My daughter said that people will follow you "just because." And in the social media-verse, that makes as much sense as anything else.

Same thing on Instagram. I've got several followers that I've got no idea who they are.

 

[J842P]

Someone showed that to me a few weeks back.

I post very little on Facebook and have deleted anything I've ever posted that may have possibly been of interest to anyone, but there were 6 or 7 people, all of whom appeared to be from outside the U.S. following me. Kinda weird.

I don't know that the reasons for strangers following you on Facebook are necessarily nefarious though. For example, my youngest showed me how to set up my Twitter account. I posted one tweet, an experiment just to see it work, and by the next day, 11 people were following me. My daughter said that people will follow you "just because." And in the social media-verse, that makes as much sense as anything else.

There is certainly some of that. There are also bots tryins to mine yer' datas.

 

[rousseau]

Someone showed that to me a few weeks back.

I post very little on Facebook and have deleted anything I've ever posted that may have possibly been of interest to anyone, but there were 6 or 7 people, all of whom appeared to be from outside the U.S. following me. Kinda weird.

I don't know that the reasons for strangers following you on Facebook are necessarily nefarious though. For example, my youngest showed me how to set up my Twitter account. I posted one tweet, an experiment just to see it work, and by the next day, 11 people were following me. My daughter said that people will follow you "just because." And in the social media-verse, that makes as much sense as anything else.

There is certainly some of that. There are also bots tryins to mine yer' datas.

Yep, on Twitter it's mostly accounts using paid Twitter tools to look for certain content being posted, and then follow specific accounts based on that content.

For instance.. some marketing influencer sees that you used the hash-tag #digitalmarketing. They've set up a tool to detect various key-words and auto-follow you when you use one of the keywords. These tools will also un-follow you within a certain time-frame if you don't follow back, this way these accounts maintain a sane following ratio.

This is actually one of the sore spots of Twitter, but they don't do anything about it because activity == money for them.

 

[Angry Floof]

That's weird. It's a long list of people I've never heard of. But when I go to Friends and then click Followers, I get a list of nine, some of them names I've seen before, but not all.

Why is this list different? I wonder if Facebook just gives you a pile of random suggestions because "follow me" isn't a user name. I doubt that whole list is following me.

 

[couch_sloth]

I was surprised as well about people following me out of the blue on Twitter. Then someone told me that the idea is that I would follow them in return as a kind of courtesy.

And then they would start selling porn to me.

If they were giving it away, it might be worth it!

 

[Shake]

Umm ... this is not exactly accurate.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I did it before seeing Shake's post. I noticed almost all of the users had first middle or last names that started with 'M'... no wait... 'me'... following me.

Silly.

 

[Angry Floof]

Umm ... this is not exactly accurate.

That's what I thought. Just a list of random people that facebook tosses up at you because "follow me" is not a user name. That it would start with searching last names for "m" or "me" is what I would expect of a facebook search.

 

[ZiprHead]

Umm ... this is not exactly accurate.

I learned something new about Facebook... again!

Doh!

 

[funinspace]

So this is another thing people do on Facebook... I'd try adding the nickname "following me" to one's account to find more friends

 

[Shake]

Umm ... this is not exactly accurate.

I learned something new about Facebook... again!

Doh!

Of course, there are some who are skeptical about Snopes, too:

 

[Malintent]

Someone showed that to me a few weeks back.

I post very little on Facebook and have deleted anything I've ever posted that may have possibly been of interest to anyone, but there were 6 or 7 people, all of whom appeared to be from outside the U.S. following me. Kinda weird.

I don't know that the reasons for strangers following you on Facebook are necessarily nefarious though. For example, my youngest showed me how to set up my Twitter account. I posted one tweet, an experiment just to see it work, and by the next day, 11 people were following me. My daughter said that people will follow you "just because." And in the social media-verse, that makes as much sense as anything else.

It's like when you put a bunch of contractor-sized garbage bags out on the curb after cleaning out a room in your house, and then observing them disappear off your curb long before the garbage men come to pick it up. You could say that strangers are picking through your garbage, "just because"... or you might say that they are looking for valuables... OR, maybe they are looking to steal your identity via discarded papers.... but, "just because" is exactly what they would prefer you to "think".

So, basically, what I am saying is that those are bots that are programmed to scrape as much information from the site as possible... maybe one day you will tweet something that reveals your location... and then maybe another day you tweet about going on vacation... and then you come home from vacation to find your home has been burglarized...

SOMEONE has to provide content for these guys: http://pleaserobme.com/

That is a website that lists empty houses... empty because the people that live there post way too much on Social Network sites. It exists as a form of Security Awareness.