Earlier this week Iain Dale blogged on "Carla Jones", the fake Facebook profile of a Daily Mirror journalist. Every Tory MP and PPC on Facebook was advising each other to remove her. I certainly did, if only because it's deceitful. If a Daily Mirror journalist, or Labour party member, asked to friend me I'd have no roblem with it.
The incident did demonstrate a couple of things to me. One, that no public figure should have anything on their public profiles they wouldn't want to see in, say, the Daily Mirror; but that's just common sense. More to the point, it underlined that many people still don't understand social networking sites.
One commenter on Iain Dale mentioned me and chuckled at the fact that I had "friended" someone I knew nothing about. Erm, clue: Facebook "friends" are not real friends, just because the site uses that term. On Facebook I have more than eight hundred "friends" and I can assure you I'm not that popular! Facebook and Twitter allow me to offer information to anyone who might be interested in me, as an author or PPC, and to get it from others.
Twitter describes me as a "friend" of Alex Hilton, Peter Mandelson and John Prescott merely because I follow their feeds. Uh, no.
My policy on Facebook is to use it occasionally to reach actual friends, more usually to offer a few campaign and book updates, etc. I accept every "friend" request on that basis. I realise some people keep these sites for their personal friends, but many more of us use them as a tool.
Sometimes you can catch that a person should not be on your list; they mention the BNP or post inappropriate pictures and updates; but with many hundreds of contacts the Carla Joneses of this world will slip through the net. It doesn't alter the usefulness of these sites as a tool. Nor does it mean I claim to personally know, and like, 800 plus folks on Facebook!