Did you know that total strangers can follow you and be alerted to your posts and likes on Facebook without your knowledge? Follow these instructions to see who is following you:
Go to your Facebook page click on upside-down triangle on the top right of the screen.
Next click on “Settings” from the pull-down list.
When new the page loads click on “Blocking” on the left side of the screen.
When the new page loads, type “following me” (without the quotation marks) in the text field next to “Block users” and click on BLOCK or press your ENTER key on your keyboard.
You will very likely see a long list of people you don’t know who are following you from all over the world. If you don’t know them you can block them. You will have to re-enter “following me” after each block.
You will have to check back from time-to-time to see if you have new unknown followers.
These people likely found you and followed you after you liked or posted a comment on a public Facebook post. When you like or comment on a public post anyone who clicks on that post can see you and follow you without your permission.
No social media page is really 100% private but I bet most people would be surprised and even creeped out to learn they were being followed by strangers on Facebook as if it were twitter. After all our Facebook posts are usually more personal and revealing about us than our twitter posts. We do this because we expect a certain level of privacy on Facebook! But why is that? Facebook and twitter’s slogans are “find us on Facebook” and “follow us on twitter”. Were we misled? I guess we are to presume they mean the same thing.
I don’t know why a total stranger would want to follow a person on Facebook with whom they have never communicated and have no interest on being their “friend”. It is probably/hopefully not a nefarious reason but for me, the creep level on this is high and I would rather block them before finding out why they were following me on Facebook. My Block list looks like a phone book!
