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Goodbye To Fake Friends

Dec 26, 2019
by Caroline Miller
2020 New Year's resolution, buying clicks and likes, Devumi, fake friends, Federal Trade Commission, social media
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My New Years’ resolution for 2020 will be to reduce the number of my Facebook friends. Unlike the woman from Kenya who had 5000, I can’t manage 400. Some friends I doubt are real.  They never comment on the news feed. Once a year I send them my annual birthday greeting to which I get no response.

Facebook friends are different in degree from real-life friends. I know that. Even so, I’ve managed to grow fond of those who comment on the news feed now and again. I enjoy reading about the snatches of their lives–births, deaths, or a report about the tooth that ached all night. Though we’ve never met, I know they are real. Their tribulations are too human.  Besides, they also make me laugh or offer an idea that teases me to think– people who live in places as far away as Kenya, India, Australia, and China.

We all know fake people exist on the internet and I work to banish them as best I can. What’s mindboggling to me is that some people do the opposite.  They “buy” fake people to add to their websites. It’s a marketing strategy for some, those who want to attract attention as a trendsetter. To each his own, but it strikes me as sad.

The Federal Trade Commission frowns on this chicanery, in any case. The agency recently prosecuted one industry that peddled fake people as a business. Devumi ran several websites where people could buy not only fake followers but also fake clicks and fake likes. Again, I shake my head. I’m too old to understand.

So, being old, come January 2020, I will whittle down the number of my Facebook friends. I’m confident no feelings will be hurt.  Given the absence of page activity, I suspect these people don’t exist.

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Contact Caroline at

carolinemiller11@yahoo.com

Portland, Oregon author Caroline Miller had distinguished careers as an educator, union president, elected official and artist/advocate.

Her play, Woman on the Scarlet Beast, was performed at the Post5 Theatre, Portland, OR, January/February 2015

Caroline published a serialized novelette, Marie Eau-Claire, on the website, The Colored Lens.  She also published the story Gustav Pavel,  a parable about ordinary lives, choice and alternate potential, on the website Fixional.co.

Caroline has published four novels

  • Ballet Noir
  • Trompe l’Oeil
  • Gothic Spring
  • Heart Land

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