So I may have done something as a sort of 'experiment'. To say it was successful is an understatement. It is also quite disturbing.
A young friend of mine is having issues with his baby momma spreading lies and hate over social media networks, namely Facebook. I've been her 'friend' on my real account for nearly a year, but was recently blocked because I called her out on a lie she told, by using one of her earlier posts to prove that she was just lying to create drama...I created a fake 18 year old account.
I then friend requested this gal and several of her listed friends.
Should I mention now that 90% of these folks (guys and girls alike) have absolutely NO privacy settings set. Before friend requesting most of them I was able to see everything about them that they'd posted. After they freely accepted my request I was able to even access their phone numbers, a combination of cell and land lines.
I have had this account open and in operation for less than 40 hours at this point...Fake name, complete with fake picture and no real information about myself, just that I'm homeschooled and live in the area and not from the area.
Within 12 hours of having this account I was messaged for the first time by someone...at that point my friend count was up to 30. He wanted to welcome me to his friends list, asked if I was from the area, I gave my generic response "been here for a year or two, homeschool, know no one"...his next message to me included his phone number with a request that I text him, with assurance that he wasn't a creep.
I know of the kid in real life, his mom and a dear friend of mine are friends, he went to school with my friend's son, etc...so that's a whatever issue...the issue though is that HE doesn't know if *I* am or am not a creep (I promise I'm not and I've since neglected to reply back to him, at least until I can let the powers that pay for his cell phone know what's up).
By the time I hit the 24 hour mark of having my account open I'd accepted another dozen random requests from kids requesting me to be on their friends list. And a few others had accepted my sent request. Within 24 hours my friend count was nearly 50 and only one of those 50 asked if I knew her personally. I gave her the same bullshit line about being homeschooled, not knowing anyone around here, just attempting to meet people....she accepted my request without further question.
I have now had my account for a whole 40 hours and my friend count is over 50 people, the requests and accepts have slowed, but not stopped...
I know where most of these folks work, go to school, the TV shows they like to watch, their phone numbers, when they're home, when they're gone, when they're where and with whom.
Now, I wouldn't necessarily have to friend all these folks to know any of this information, they have it all out there in the open for any troll to run across.
THIS is how easy it is to troll, stalk, and potentially harass these young adults. Yes, I've checked, at least from the information provided the folks on my 'fake' profile page are between the ages of 17-25, most around age 19 & 20. You really don't want to know what else I've learned about the 'new' young adult culture over the last 40 hours either. It's enough to make your head spin....and will be fodder for a future blog post.
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