As long as there has been a Facebook, there have been Facebook
stalkers. And as long as there have been Facebook stalkers, there have been
folk wanting to know just who is following them around the internet.
This primal fear of finding out that our exs still fancy us - or of our exs finding out that we still fancy them - is one that itself stalks the majority of Facebook users, and there is now a gang of Facebookers who are seeking to exploit this terror.
Social media rumour mongers have been busy at work spreading the idea that there are covert followers, people who can see what you post without you knowing. Confused yet? Basically, stalkers that you don't know are stalking you. Terrifying stuff indeed.
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Of course, as any football fan knows, rumours are usually a load of rubbish. And as rumours go, this is a pretty flimsy special. It's total nonsense, but if 2016 taught us anything, it's that people are willing to believe a whole load of nonsense.
The message that people have been sharing is as follows:
"I Just learned something new. If you go to account settings, blocking, block users, and type in 'following me', without the quotes, you might be surprised just who is following you. I had a lot people on it that I had no clue who they were. They are blocked now. I had to block them one at a time. Creepy..most were middle eastern. And all my posts are to friends, not public."
Now, this isn't the first time that this has been spread, but this week has seen it go properly viral. Let's put paid to it here, once and for all.
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If you put random text into the 'block users' bar, you'll get random answers if you don't have any friends that correspond to the letters you enter. So if you put in 'following me', the chances are that you'll get a group of random people with names that include either the world "following" or "me".
We just did it and every one of the responses included an M and an E in succession. Sorry Megans, Melissas and, yes, plenty of Middle Eastern sounding names. Mohammed is the most common name in the Middle East and has a "me" in the middle of it, as do plenty of other Arabic language names.
So there. Of course, if you were actually bothered about who was following you, you can check that. Go to your settings, then public posts and then you can edit which of your posts are public and which of your friends get to see them. Easy.
Featured Image Credit: PATopics: Social Media, Facebook