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The gold diggers are pretty easy to sort out. I have several FB friends that I have never met in real life, and we are real friends. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. It's easy to unfriend and/or block someone if you decide it wasn't a good idea.
The whole point of "social media" is just that, to be social, but as always, people in this coubtry with their loads of issues(anti social/ocd) have to ruin everything they touch.
Geeze, people are so paranoid nowadays. "Oh, don't accept that request, there's a 1 in a million chance that something bad could happen." Yes, I've accepted requests from strangers, I have 1,779 friends and probably haven't even met 10-15% of them in person. I've had an OCCASIONAL problem where people have tried to sell me stuff or messaged me and went straight into creep mode. If that happens, I delete them, but I give people the benefit of the doubt. I've even talked to someone from Haiti who randomly added me. That's pretty cool and something that people who close themselves off from the world don't get to do. To people who close themselves off, you're just making yourselves miserable inside those walls. Think about it, if you send someone a friend request (voluntarily) you have a reason.
I know it's hard, but the world would be a better place if we all learned to trust each other a little more.
I take your point, and if having hundreds of friends you haven't met makes you happy, then go for it. I would prefer to keep my friends list restricted to people I know and trust. I do enjoy meeting new people on C-D, though. Since I can be anonymous, there's no risk. It would be nice if we could all be more trusting. But with all the identity theft and phishing going on in the world today, and especially since I am female, I feel it's a wiser policy to guard my privacy.
I would rather not stop all friend requests on the chance that someone I'd really like to connect with might try to friend me. However, at the suggestion of others upthread, I checked the privacy settings on my profile. Facebook doesn't let you restrict your profile to friends only - all profiles including photos and gender are public - but I did make sure that all my other personal info such as marital status, employment, schools, home town, etc. can only be viewed by friends, and I have never shared my phone number or e-mail on Facebook. At the time I signed up, I didn't have a smartphone, so Facebook couldn't have harvested any of my personal data that way.
Since joining Facebook, I have received a number of friend requests from people I don't know. Sometimes the person has a friend in common with me and got my name that way, but lately I've gotten friend requests out of the blue from complete strangers. I either ignore them or send a brief message explaining that I don't accept friend requests from people I don't know.
Yesterday a man who tried to friend me said that he meant no harm and apologized for intruding on my privacy, but he liked my profile and just wanted to be friends. I politely declined the request, but now I'm wondering if these friend requests are an attempt at phishing or identity theft? It's kind of creepy, like being stalked.
The whole web site is creepy. And yes there are those who use The Internet for dating. I hate these people and they meed to smoke their brains out and just leave every body else alone. However, I have left face book for ever. If some body does not know how to contact me out side of face book then they do not deserve the privilege of talking to me.
MySpace didn't make you use your real name. Many people used screen names like we do here. Plenty of people on Facebook use fake names, too. I did on an old account. But when you create a Facebook account now, it wants your mobile phone number to verify who you are, and if you don't want to give it, it actually has the audacity to tell you it will accept a state-authorized ID instead. It has totally gone Big Brother.
I believe that one of the reasons to verify your identity is to make sure that you are not a child/tween who is not allowed to have an account.
About four or five years ago I was subbing at a middle school and a police officer was leading a discussion on internet safety. He asked the group of about 60 students (I think 6th or 7th graders) how many were 13 years old and about 4 students raised their hands. He then asked how many had Facebook accounts of their own and about 50 or more students raised their hands. I was absolutely stunned as I didn't even have a Facebook account at that time. The police officer then pointed out that it was illegal to have a Facebook account if you were 12 or under.
And proceeded to tell some pretty horrible stories regarding scams and abductions and other things that had happened right in our own area to children/tweens/teens who were not safe while using the internet.
Good Thread..
My new gig is great and at a classified facility where no electronics of any kind is allowed in any of our classified buildings, so much better then having people walking around looking like they lost their keys, lol. We actually get to talk from time to time on our free time, it's nice because our CAF is roomy with plenty of area to find our 2x2 quite space and free time.
Anyways, I have my privacy settings packed tight, I personally think Facebook is a good tracking tool for the simple stupid, careless is what careless does, so be very careful with your Intel out there...
I deleted about ten different friends request this morning when I found out it wasn't anyone I knew, sometimes, it might be my friends kids or friends of their kids which is harmless, not every one is really your friend, that being said, I never accept a friends request with out actually knowing them, never, always better to be old school, smarter, safer, and off grid. There it is..
I don't use my real last name on FB and don't have my photo set as my profile pic (it's my dog). I also have my privacy settings one shade off of the maximum. I don't have a lot of problems with strangers as a result.
I'm weird about stuff like that; unless I actually know you and don't mind having you all up in my business, I won't accept a Facebook friend request. Which explains why I only have 22 friends! I'm kind of over Facebook at this point, especially now that my husband opened an account and is cramping my style.
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Face Book Not Safe:
And yes there are those who use The Internet for dating. I hate these people and they meed to smoke their brains out and just leave every body else alone. 
However, I have left face book for ever. If some body does not know how to contact me out side of face book 
