My Facebook page is barely used and pretty well locked down. It also does not have my face on the profile. You kind of have to know me and what I’m passionate about to say… hmm that’s probably her page.
If you can even find it. Though some people have for sure and that’s great. I love seeing what’s up (when I log on – which I don’t do more than a few times a week).
So okay, my former manager and I have launched a company. Or are in the process of launching a company. There are lots of bits and bobs that need fiddling with, but it’s in process. (Say hello to the president. One of them, anyway. We have two co-presidents and I am one.)
We need a social media presence and so I created a separate “work” page for that. Because I have no trust at all in the privacy practices of certain social media entities.
Of course then I discovered that you can’t invite anyone to Like or Follow your page unless you’re friends with them. Because of course not – that’s what advertising is for.
Sigh… connect both accounts after all.
But that’s it. The page exists but we are still building our content so it’s just there. As is this secondary FB account – just there, still no face but a different image.
One of my best friends sees that profile come up as a friend recommendation from FB and immediately reaches out to ask if I’ve been spoofed.
No. Or yes, but by myself.
Two other people who are already connected to my real account have gone ahead and asked to be friends with my new empty one.
They don’t know this is me, folks. Facebook told them to connect with this account and so they did.
Which is either indicative that they don’t remember that they are already connected to me (again, I don’t post much, so that would be on me) or they just accept any prompt with a name they recognize that FB presents to them.
So if you still share PII on your Facebook account just remember that your friends may have little to no privacy set on their account and also very little discernment about connections they make.
Cybersecurity month was in October, but being safe online is worthwhile all year long.
aka gringita 