Facebook Stalking is a Massive, Global Problem

Facebook has provided wicked men an unprecedented forum for stalking women. It has reached epidemic proportions, and it is a global issue. According to a report in The Himalayan Times for Dec. 10, 2018, twenty Facebook stalking crimes are reported to the the Kathmandu Metropolitan Police’s Cyber Crime Unit every day. There are nearly one million Facebook users in this backwards country, a number which represents the large majority of the nation’s youth. An example of the social media stalking is a 17-year-old nursing student who was the target of attempted blackmail by a man who created five fake Facebook accounts in her name and posted obscene photos with morphed images of her face. He offered to take down the accounts if she would meet with him. Another young woman accepted a “friend” request from someone posing as a woman, but it turned out that it was a male stalker who tried to force her to send him obscene photos. When she refused, he created a fake Facebook account and posted vile photos using morphed images of her face. Nepal police inspector Lila Raj Dangi said that Facebook’s office in Hong Kong has turned down multiple requests for help in protecting these women and identifying the offenders. The global pop culture, with its fundamental principle of “live young and free,” has made young women exceedingly vulnerable to the malicious, duplicitous advances of wicked men. It has “liberated” young women from the close protective oversight of fathers, brothers, and husbands. Facebook doesn’t care two cents for these women. They are just dollar signs. It has been said that if a company doesn’t sell something (e.g., if it offers “free” services), it sells you, and no two companies have been more effective at commercializing its users than Facebook and Google. (Duckduckgo is an alternative to Google that doesn’t commercialize its users by collecting data. I’ve been using it for a few months and have found it to be a good search engine.)

(Friday Church News Notes, January 18, 2019, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

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