In the last few days, you may have seen Facebook friends urgently warning everyone and anyone that will listen that there is a sneaky new way to find out who is keeping an eye on your profile. Of course, no doubt with nefarious purposes.

There's only one problem - it's not real.

You may have seen a status update from a friend that looks something like this:

I just learned something new. If you go to account settings, blocking, block users, and type in “following me”, without the quotes, you might be surprised just who is following you. I had a lot people on it that I had no clue who they were. They are blocked now. I had to block them one at a time. Creepy! Most were Middle Eastern. And all my posts are to friends, not public!

When you follow these instructions and look on your own profile, you will indeed find a list of strangers with suspiciously foreign names like this:

Facebook Screenshot
Facebook Screenshot
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And then you panic, realizing that these people who you've never met before are watching your every move on social media!

Relax. It's a hoax.

Here's what's going on - take a look back at the names in that photo above. Do you notice how they all have "Me" in them?

When you type "Following Me" into the "Block" box, it doesn't bring up a list of people who are following you, it brings up a list of the many, many people around the world who have some version of that term in their name.

You can very easily see the people who actually are following you right on your profile page. It's right in the "Intro" section.

It's right there in plain sight. There's nothing nefarious about it.

You can of course remove followers if you wish, and it's always a good idea to check your privacy settings from time to time. But if you have your posts set to "Friends Only", then it's only your friends who can see the funny hat that you put on your ferret last night.

 

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