A little while ago, someone unknown to me on Facebook shared and/or liked several of my posts/photos. I thought he might be a FOAF, as one of my friends it pretty well-known IRL and has thousands of followers. He’s not a friend of hers (though he could be a follower), and he does not have any Friends on his profile.
Is he up to something? Or am I just that interesting?
I’m not clear what the concern is. I often share any FB posts that I find amusing or that catch my fancy. I sometimes post dope links or items on FB for general interest. I don’t really worry about the origin all that much. People sharing my original FB posts is of zero concern to me.
He has no Friends, while he might be following my performer friend, I don’t see any connections to me, and he liked/shared about a dozen posts, including a family photo and a page by a distant cousin that includes my paternal grandmother’s ancestry from the early-1800s.
It’s strange.
I had an issue for a while where someone kept tagging me in photos for someone in New Jersey, and sending me links to things, stuff like that. It made me nuts. I think they had just searched for someone with a similar name and decided that I was close enough. It eventually just stopped.
It looks like you can ban this person if you want, so they can’t do this anymore. Might be an option to consider.
I experienced this situation before and found it quite troubling. To walk you through it…
I really really hate this feature because it causes people to misjudge the intended level of sharing, and you have limited control over it. Sure, you need to set your own settings, but you can’t know if someone else’s page is public.
Most people aren’t even aware that the setting defaults to public. Or or maybe a technical glitch sets it to public. Or maybe Facebook just randomly flips the setting just for shits and giggles, because they can. Nothing we can do about it except to be aware and be careful.
Review what other people see on your Timeline
Who can see posts you’ve been tagged in on your Timeline?
Friends
Who can see what others post on your Timeline?
Friends
For the most part stuff like this is at worst annoying, but mostly just noise. As above, Facebook is much more public than most people think. That is the entire rationale for how it works and how its business works. Facebook has had an annoying habit of upgrading their security settings system and “accidentally” resetting settings for everyone when they do.
I detailed in an earlier thread how I had had a few posts liked by what was clearly a fake Facebook account. One that looked as if it had been set up to look like an attractive woman with a photo lifted from a Russian fake dating site. Maybe the operator of the account is hoping to attract lonely old men and strip their wallets. There are lots of fake accounts. Despite Facebook’s claimed policing of accounts, and rules on names used, they do a very poor job. (A friend of mine who legally changed his name to a single word was refused an account on the basis that this was not a valid name, and yet Facebook do almost nothing about clearly fake accounts.)
In the end Facebook likes from strangers are little different to spam emails. Your identity is out there. It is in Facebook’s interest that they make things as connected and as open as possible, and security setting that they do provide are the minimum needed to keep the users happy and staying with the system.
The fact he doesn’t have any friends suggests that it is not a legitimate account. I’m not sure what the angle is on sharing your posts though.
Subliminal “I’m a real, ordinary person” wallpaper?
In my experience a new account with no friends like this are usually from spammers who want to build up a friends list then spam people. Just block them and be done with it.
I attend food-beer pairing dinners monthly. I take notes and pictures of each course, later writing a review and posting it on Facebook. The bar that hosts these events shares my post on their site, which leads some people to investigate my Facebook page. While looking at my stuff they sometimes “like” or “share” things, and sometimes send me friend requests.
The only possible negative here is that I now have a handful of Facebook friends who share some interests with me, but who I’ve never met. Then again, “friends” are a good thing.
(emphasis added). Not saying you are wrong, but are you sure you simply don’t have any mutual friends? You can adjust your settings to allow allow others to see only your friends that you have in common with them (i.e. the same person is both your friend and the other person’s friend)
IME, spammers send Friend requests. This guy is just sharing my recent posts. Also, the spammers usually don’t have any photos. He does, though most of them appear to be off the web instead of snapshots.
Mutual Friends is the first thing I check for when I receive a notification from an unknown person. If there is no connection, I’ll look at their profile. This guy has nothing under his Friends tab. But I’ve been informed by someone who is also on SDMB that Friends lists can be hidden.
That’s what I was referring to. If you hide your friends list then people are only able to see your mutual friends.
Friends lists can be hidden but I am pretty sure mutual friends will always show up.
I’m an avid Facebook user and can’t actually figure out how someone who isn’t your friend can see your post, let alone share it, if it’s for only friends.
Your friends’ friends can see your posts if your friends are tagged in your post. They can also see your post if the post is public and your friend comments. If a post is public, actually anyone can see it but no one will see it unless they visit your profile.
So unless that post was public (is there a globe icon anywhere around your name or the date/time?) or you tagged a friend in your post…how did this person (spammer or not) access your post?