Can facebook groups bring about change?

I really wish I could put an end to poverty...


Aha!

I'll create a facebook group - that'll do the trick!

I don't know about you, but I seem to be getting invited to an increasing number of facebook groups that begin with the words 'I bet I can find 100,000 people who [fill in the blank]'. Typically these can range from grandiose worldwide humanitarian/political/ethical issues, to which BB contestant you hate the most (all of them).

Some of them no doubt are worthwhile in recruiting members and getting people to take action by signing a petition or writing to their MP etc. And if these groups get big enough to make it into the press - even better.

But some of them just seem to exist for the sake of it. Like, for example, 'I bet i can find 1,000,000 people against Abortion'. Yes, I bet you can, seeing as facebook has almost 124 million unique users. Pretty easy bet if you ask me.

Although after having a nosy around that facebook group, I do think that it opens a good forum for discussion and provides a place for people to air their views.

The real question is, can these groups really bring about change? I suppose time will tell...and awareness raising is the best place to start.

Facebook stalking

Ok I'm sure we've all done our fair share of facebook stalking over the years. Be it an ex, your other half's ex, your best friend's ex...pretty much, wherever there's some sort of ex involved. I think I was at my facebook stalking prime in my last year of uni - but that was mainly a result of my regular revision 'breaks'.



Facebook's really not that fun anymore, mainly because I keep getting invited to find out what type of flower/underwear/drink/desperate housewife I am (The Accidental Scientist tells it like it is). Luckily, I already know that I'm none of those things - so don't need to take the quiz (phew). But aside from that, I've found everyone I want to find. And if I want to know how someone's doing, I'd rather just pick up the phone or drop them an email - rather than scrolling down about a miles worth of application boxes and a funwall filled with obscene videos of obese people in the middle of sexual acts (why?) to write on someone's wall.

But anyway, every once in a while you'll stumble across an old classmate that you haven't seen in about 10 years, so will inevitably end up nosying around on their profile. Which is what happened to me today. Only to see this:



Yep, that's me, in an 'anti stalker' box, on the side of said classmate's facebook profile. Even though I wasn't actually stalking at the time (*ahem* my stalking days are long behind me), I can confirm that my heart did speed up a little, and I almost clicked the 'back' button out of worry that one of my facebook friends would KNOW that I was looking at her profile. SHOCK HORROR. Then I realised how stupid this actually was, and decided to find out what all this anti stalker malarchy is actually about.

Turns out, the Anti Stalker app is just designed to freak out your friends and can't actually tell people who has visited their page. Evil geniusness...

To be honest, the only people who need to be worried about facebook stalkers, are the facebook whores. And so far, the facebook privacy settings seem to the best anti stalker device out there yet...