Do you know your 'friends'? They may not be who you think they are.

I'm going to deviate from the subject of speech therapy for a minute.  This weekend, I made a new 'friend'.   This friend was actually the evil identical twin of an old friend on Facebook.

 If you are like me, I get excited when familiar people request to be my friend on Facebook.  I said 'yes' to a friend request---and then later learned that a complete stranger had lifted my old friend's profile picture and used that to create a fake identity.  This stranger then proceeded to ask the existing friends to be friends again.  I had vaguely thought that I was a friend already at the time, but said 'yes' anyway.  Later, when the new 'evil' friend was telling his new friends they had won the lottery if they reveal personal info, I realized he was a faker! 

The lesson here is that people who use Facebook need to have more conservative privacy settings.  I immediately hid my existing friends from the outside world.  Here are a few steps to help you do this if you don't know.  After this weekend's experience, I feel there is no reason to reveal your friends to everyone in the world (and the world is big).

If you don't know how the world sees your profile, click 'view as'.  Look where the arrow is pointing on the profile.   Click on 'view as'.

 A pop up window will appear.  Read that, and click 'Okay'.  Your profile will appear as the world sees it.  Please remember that there are many people in the world who want to be richer.

If you would like the whole world to not see your friends and solicit them for money or personal information,  go to your friends section of FB, and click on the little pencil to edit privacy settings.

This window will pop up.  I checked 'friends' only as those who can see my existing friends. Actually, since I have posted this, I checked 'friends except acquaintances'.   You are welcome to do this or make it even more restrictive.  I would encourage you (after this experience this weekend) to NOT check 'public'. 







I hope every one had a great weekend!    I did!