The truth about the 'following me' Facebook hoax

A Facebook hoax has had the unintended consequence of making minor celebrities of random people.

You might have seen a chain message if you've been on Facebook recently - which, if you're anything like the rest of the world, you have been.

It reads:

If you go into your ACCOUNT SETTINGS then to BLOCKING (on left side of screen), then in the BLOCKED USERS search bar type in “following me” without the quotes, you might be startled by who is following you. Unfortunately you have to block them 1 at a time, which is annoying. I had 20 in the list and knew none of them. I blocked all of them. You might share or copy/paste if you found this helpful.

The hoax is true in one respect: a string of people do show up if you search'"following me', but they are not vicious stalkers. Rather they are the victims of a strange quirk of Facebook's search function.

These users show up because their information - including nicknames, about Me sections and employment - most closely match the terms 'following' and 'me'.

While those who have fallen for the hoax are desperately contacting those they think are stalking them, others are changing their nicknames to - yep you guessed it - "Following Me".

Facebook user Melissa Freck explained to NYMag she changed her details to include "Following Me" to see if she would get a response.

She certainly got a response - Freck was reportedly inundated with thousands of messages, demanding to know why a stranger was following them.

Unsurprisingly, quite a few of the voluntary members of the 'following me' list changed their names back after messages flooded their inbox.

One to watch out for.

HT NYMag

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