I don't know if this qualifies as a "controversy" but it was worthy of being reported on by the CBC, if that standard of measure qualifies a story as important. A comedian that I had never heard of "infoman" created a phony Facebook account with the name of a man wanted by police. He then sent a friend request to PMO spokesman Dmitri Soudas who unwittingly clicked on "accept". Evidently his greatest crime is that he forgot to do a criminal background check before accepting a friend request on a social networking site. Oh the humanity.
The story broke as PMO aide accepts friend request from wanted arsonist. Granted, there were no sensitive Government documents on his page. The infoman was only given access to pictures of Dmitri's friends and family, which certainly does not represent any breach of national security. To be fair, even Kady O'Malley came out to defend Mr. Soudas, as she admits that she accepts friend requests from people she doesn't know. It is actually quite common in Facebook. The number of "friends" that one has in that virtual universe is considered by many of its loyal users as a status symbol.
I would advise people out there to be careful which friend or group requests they accept. I know that a lot of people will click to accept invitations to join groups without doing proper research into the nature of the group that they are joining. I deleted my Facebook account back when they announced they wanted copyright over my material.
The only Facebook group that I trust is Canadians Against Liberals Not Doing Their Jobs.
It's facebook. What do they think he's going to post top secret govt. information on there that this guy will now see?
ReplyDeleteNice - way to always bring up the greatest Facebook group in history!
ReplyDeleteWell, folks, that's why you don't accept Facebook requests from people you don't know.
ReplyDeleteI've gotten a few of them recently -- ignore and move on is my coda.
I never accept anyone I don't know and delete the requests straightaway. It's just a ego thing with facebook and twitter users to show off that they have that many "followers" or "friends" ... just goes to show their immaturity and lack of confidence in themselves.
ReplyDeleteI know that some just don't want to be presumed rude and discourteous and so they accept the invites without prejudice. This should be a lesson to all users of these social network groups.
Anyway, I consider Facebook addicts to be people who have nothing much happening in their lives and people who love gossip ... hey, but that's just me.