I got 'poked' 200 times after appearing on Question Time, says Facebook user

By CLEMENCY BURTON-HILL

Last updated at 01:37 25 June 2007


Everyone's poking, from Prince Harry to Tracey Emin. It's the name for sending a greeting on internet phenomenon Facebook.

But as its popularity soars – 150,000 new members join every day – so are fears that it could be used for stalking, spying and harassment.

For weeks I resisted. Over and over again people assured me it was the new Big Thing – better than YouTube, more addictive than email.

My friends had started using a new lexicon

– sniggering about who they'd "poked", chuckling about something written on somebody's "wall".

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It sounded exhausting, yet another innovation that would only make my life more complicated. But like a runaway

om girls I hadn't seen since primary school to a man I once met on a train, plus most of my real friends. I quickly added them all as Facebook "friends".

For a few days I was converted. It was fascinating to see what everyone was up to and good fun to exchange news and views with them. But the novelty soon wore off and I realised I was living my private life online – with a potential audience of 29 million people.

I know it rather goes against the Facebook spirit of making connections with

all and sundry, but after an appearance on the BBC's Question Time – I am a journalist and an actress, and recently starred in the TV series Party Animals about the Tory party – I was astonished to find 200 members of the viewing public had got in touch, asking to be my friend.

I truly appreciate people's good wishes but I have made a decision to add only people I actually know to my

"friends list".

"Welcome to Stalkbook," wrote my friend Jack in Geneva. "Aha! I knew you couldn't hold out indefinitely," messaged my friend Ivo.

"Welcome to a forum for inadvertently sharing your most personal details with virtual strangers. The word 'friend' may never seem quite the same again."

"I claim your wall," declared Andy, the first to write on mine. "You're going to love this!" How wrong he was.

Facebook calls itself a "social utility", but what it doesn't tell you is that it actually wants the whole world's personal information, which is a frightening proposition.

Facebook reserves the right to pass on details from your profile pages to third

parties and will, unless you specifically stop it from doing so, go through your email address book, find anyone in there who's already a member of the website and send them a message saying: "Clemency wants to be your friend."

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That includes former teachers, former employers, former lovers...

While it is possible to set restrictions on who can view your profile, the rules of Facebook state that:

"You post user content at your own risk." Privacy settings, the owners point out, can always be circumvented, and certain features cannot be opted out of at all, including News Feed, which displays the recent Facebook activities of every members' friends.

Nor can you control what other people post about you: there are all sorts of photos up there that I have been named in (or "tagged") which

I find mortifying.

Many Facebook critics worry about surveillance and data-monitoring by the likes of the CIA or multinationals. Far more alarming in my book is the stalking that goes on by, say, ex-partners.

(How To Keep Sane On Facebook Rule Number One: never check your boyfriend's home page.) My poor friend Emily was outraged when a girl who had had a fling with her boyfriend tried to

add her as a friend – she seemed to be playing some sort of psychological game.

Another real friend was plagued every day with a "friend" request from her psycho

ex-boyfriend who had previously posted abusive messages about her on her wall.

Some use Facebook to garner as much public exposure as possible, posting pictures of themselves in a bikini or use glamorous headshots as a profile image.

Others seem to forget altogether how public it is – one woman stormed into a Soho bar the other night in floods of tears, wailing: "He's already got a new girlfriend! He was boasting about her on his wall!"

One girl I know excused herself from a social engagement claiming severe illness, and then posted drunken pictures of herself from that very same night and changed her "status" to "So Hungover".

She had clearly forgotten that the people she was supposed to have seen were Facebook friends and would be alerted to this by the News Feed.

Not only does Facebook encourage people to relinquish normal behaviour, it also plays havoc with social etiquette.

If a real friend introduced you to one of their acquaintances, it would be considered impolite to leap-frog over the mutual person and make friends with each other, but on Facebook anything goes. (How To Keep Sane On Facebook Rule Number Two: don't view the list of your friends' friends because it might annoy you.)

All sorts of exchanges that would normally be considered to be pushing the boundaries of courtesy are legitimised by Facebook; not least "the poke", which some claim is just a way of saying hello, but most take to be a virtual sexual advance.

Facebook also wastes an enormous amount of time. Chris Hughes, one of the site's co-founders, says members spend an average of 19 minutes a day on Facebook. A straw poll I conducted suggests that figure is likely to be far higher.

Even if you try hard never to log on, Facebook sends you an email every time someone adds you as a friend which, in my case, happens about ten times a day. (How To Keep

Sane On Facebook Rule Number Three: deal with friend requests in bulk on a rainy day.)

There are, of course, benefits to Facebook. It's a convenient way to send group messages and share photos. It's also brilliant for getting back into contact with people you miss talking to – just this week I had dinner with an old friend I hadn't seen in a decade.

But more often, the rapturous plans for coffees that I've made with people I've been reacquainted with have not materialised into actual meetings.

The sad truth is, there's probably a reason why you fall out of touch with people, and why real friendship is a very different thing from the way Facebook tells it.

The site does not enhance my relationships with those I genuinely care about: if I want to speak to them, I call them; if I want to write to them, I email or text them.

I've never exchanged a message with my boyfriend on Facebook. Why would we? We live together and communicate in various forms throughout the day; to do so through Facebook would feel weird indeed.

When normal modes of behaviour are

collapsing all around us, some things have to remain sacred.

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