Do You Have an Online Stalker?
Do you have a stalker? Sure. Everyone has meddling snoopy neighbors probing and scrutinizing your behavior through passing glances. We’re all bored creatures. Low-key spying on other people is what we do to get the dopamine going when we need a distraction from the workplace grind. Proximity to other humans ignites a primal urge to watch a coworker or anyone else you routinely interact with. You’ve likely noticed yourself paying too close attention to mindless banter of coworkers or the neighbor taking out the trash. While persistent privacy incursions can be unnerving, we’ve all inevitably paid too close attention to someone we share the same space with. But what happens when a harmless side-glance from the corner of the eye becomes a dangerous infatuation? In a hypervigilant society obsessed with the inane and peculiar, we’ve all become a little paranoid. But when does your baseless fear become a frightening reality?
Tell-Tale Signs You’ve Got a Stalker
We live in a digital-first society. Everything and person has a binary online footprint. Gone are the days of hiding behind the bushes to scope out exes or slowly driving past the house of a romantic rival before dunking and swerving when the front porch light comes on. But thanks to Mark Zuckerberg and the advertising revenue that depends on inadvertent online interactions, we can stalk interests online without ever leaving the couch. Why risk clandestine exposure when you have all the intel at your fingertips? For all its benefits of connectivity, social media blurs the creepy line. Anonymity is a stalker’s best weapon. Unless you’ve maximized your account’s privacy settings, potential stalkers could be lurking on your pictures and posts from a decade ago without you ever knowing it.
The “Thumbs Up” Icon is The Digital Fingerprint of Stalking
Facebook and Instagram makes it all too easy to examine to scope out potential suitors, partners and long-lost relatives. Facebook has made us stalkers at some point in our knowledge thirsty lives. Too bad we can’t use this incredulous nature to weed out misleading information when making informed decisions about healthcare, world events, and politics. For all of their invasiveness, like sharing our online data with advertisers or shaping our political beliefs, Facebook places high value on secretness. Too bad this level of transparency doesn’t go both ways! Sure, the talented coders in Silicon Valley could easily provide profile tracking features for our accounts, but where is the fun in that? If everyone could see who viewed their profiles, Facebook would see a mass exodus, such as on X, or the website formerly known as Twitter.
One of the most obvious signs of a stalker is the accidental Facebook “Like.” In their late night incognito inquiry, your stalker accidentally liked a photo or status from a decade ago. This is a dead giveaway of online stalking. Even more disturbing is the “like” came from a person who you don’t share a single mutual friend with. Who is this person? Why are they liking your photos from your Harry Potter inspired Halloween costume from a party you completely forgot about? This in turn, of course, led to retaliatory stalking on your behalf. Before you know it, you’re down another rabbit hole gathering as much intel on this digital stranger. Thanks Facebook – your seedy algorithm continues to bring out the worst inclinations.
Using Technology to Divulge Stalkers
Another way to tell if you have a stalker is your “suggested friends” list. If you suddenly see someone consistently pop up as a suggested friend, this person has likely paid your profile more than one or two visits. While Facebook won’t directly disclose profile visitors, built-in features exist to at least reveal new profile views from people not on your friend’s list. An easy way to discover new profile views is through the Facebook “My Story” feature. Facebook stories allow users to post short videos of songs, pictures, and text that will remain visible for 24 hours. Of course, the stories will only be visible to current Facebook friends and followers. But to find out if you have a stalker or new profile visitors, you must allow yourself to become temporarily vulnerable. Change your visible story status in your privacy settings from “private” to “public.” Then, post a story to your profile every day for a week. You can click “story views” to see which friends have seen your story. If someone (who is not your friend) has inadvertently clicked on your profile’s picture from another page, they will accidentally view your story. This interaction or view will be logged under “others” in your viewers’ list. While you can’t tell who viewed the story, you will see the number indicating how many people other than your friends clicked on your profile.
Protection From Real-World Stalkers
When does harmless Facebook stalking cross the line? Unless this person starts spamming your inbox with their undying love for you, they’re likely harmless and not worthy of your attention. But if it’s getting a little too creepy, you could always just block the person although this too could have sinister consequences. In 2013, an online Facebook feud between two Tennessee families culminated in murder after the parties unfriended each other on the platform. While scenarios of digital bullying turning into real world crime is rare, you should always keep your guard up and conduct yourself online the same as you would in physical society.
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