Do you think myspace and facebook (online sites) make it easier for stalkers to get lure people in?

Question

i have a facebook/myspace- i noticed like my page was open and lots of people were looking at the page and reading my notes way too much- teachers, students, etc- so i set the page to private because of the controversy it was bringing- everytime i would add a friend or change my picture people would notice who weren't on my friends' list- and people who never thought i was anything before looking at the page, now saw me as being pretty- smart- creative- etc- so much so- they started to look at me like i was attractive and not a slob- based on pictures posted on the site- i had- so i am wondering do you think sites like facebook and myspace are dangerous? for stalkers to lure people in? knowing too much information about people? like their name and stuff- respond how you wish?

Answer 1

The whole point of being a stalker is to stalk and not to be detected and many social sites such as MySpace and Facebook invites to such behavior. People following people that they don't know, reading about their lives and so on. That kind of online stalking is rather harmless and it has become a part of the online culture, people expect strangers to follow their lives on sites like that.

Then you have the nut jobs that takes it one step further and add up all the information they can find about a specific person so that they can find them in real life. People do put out a lot of personal information on sites like that, even those who don't think so, little things can add up to a lot of information in the end. That kind of stalker will eventually know your name, where you live, where you work or go to school, your phone number and so on and they are creepier than the online stalkers.

Then you have those that take the information they find to stalk you in the real world, those are the dangerous ones since they could be rapists, killers or people that use you to steal your identity.

The people that lure people in are most commonly seen as predators, and con-artists that use the people they lure for some reason. They trick people to give out information that they then can use against them for some sort of benefit, most often money.

The jealousy and the stereotyped thinking that you describe is neither in my opinion, it's just people being people. People are curious by nature and they look up people that they know, it doesn't matter if they like them or not. They form opinions based on very little information, stereotyping, since it's in the human nature. People that you know that didn't like you in the real world might like you online since the picture you show of yourself is different online.

The most stupid thing I've noticed is how people judge you by your avatar. The avatar that I use now makes guys write me to tell my how nice I am. Another avatar I had made people think I was male, the avatar was gender neutral. One avatar make people more or less attack me. The thing is that I'm still the same person, posting the same kind of things that I have always posted. The only thing that changed was my avatar.

Answer 2

Okay...

I could definitely look at your page and think you're awesome-not...who does that?

People who ask for it make it easy for 'stalkers to...lure people in'...