General Chat

and now he will have to prove to GB that it is his real name :-(

For some reason, Arthur Uther Pendragon (AKA Druid King of Britain) has had his Facebook Page blocked because some nerd has decided it isn't his real name!!

It's not the name he was born with, but it has been legally changed.

Rollo posted .........

"You cannot use a nickname or pseudonym with facebook."

so FB says .............. but untrue!

What you do is pick a name that sounds real, and they really have no basis for finding out. I know a lot of people who are on there and not in their real names.

Like maggie, I have 2 accounts ............. one is my nickname, the other is one of my real names

I use a different free email address for each of those ............. I use Gmail, but there are others, such as yahoo

I use the real name only because I wanted to keep contact with relatives in other countries and with friends from old FR days.

The other I use as a member of 3 "secret groups" ....... FR has a way of categorising the accessibility of groups, from "secret" to "open".

Allegedly, whatever you post on a secret group cannot be seen by anyone who is not a member of that group. Anything you post on an open group can be seen by anyone and everyone.

Be aware that any photos you post on your "wall" , in your profile, or as your avatar become the property of FB and can be used by them in any way they wish, including publicity. That applies even after you take them off the site.

Be also very aware that ads for any site that you Google to get information, eg Expedia, store, hotel, etc, will appear in short order as an ad on your FB page.

The worst one I had was in the early days of being on FB .......... I had contact with a relative in another province. Less than a week later I looked at results for a hockey game via google ...... and there by the side was a photo of my relative telling me what she was doing :-S :-S :-S

I phoned her to tell her that this was happening, and neither of us could work out what had happened ............ but I went straight into the privacy settings on FB and made sure that I had them set at the highest possible level.

As others have said ............. don't tell the truth in your profile.

My birthday is shown as 1 Jan 1940. True? No ............... and it does cause confusion for friends and family when they get notification from FB that it is "Sylvia's birthday today" :-)

I do not have any phone number listed with them, even though they keep telling me that I could lose any means of contacting them if something goes wrong with my access

I have nothing showing as to where I live.

My avatar is not of any person.

I do not use the names of any family members when I am posting on the open site where most of my friends and relatives post, and it annoys me intensely when they do use my family's names in posting messages to me.

Facebook may know more about you than you'd think, but there is no reason why you can't adopt a non de plume.

The only suggested 'friends' I get are 'friends of friends' as it were. We're too tight to have an internet enabled, contract, phone. Mind you, although I may look every day or so to see what 'close friends & family' are up to, I rarely add to the site. At the last count I've 22 'friends' inc 3 groups. Am I bovvered? Nah! :-D

Thanks to you all - I'll get daughter to read this thread before I take any action. Emma - it is exactly this "privacy" idea that makes me cautious. I have no wish to fill it up with day to day personal trivia, but might be happy to get in touch with long lost friends. How much do I give away if I follow the Facebook pages of organisations (eg GR!) I appreciate Rollo's comment that Facebook knows all about me anyway, as I find Google does!

Elizabeth it took me several attempts to begin to
enjoy FB.
I took advice on privacy on who can see my posts
etc. :-)

You'll have the option to tick or untick who can see your posts, everyone, just friends or just yourself!

Or custom settings


I don't use the offered email address. I use a Gmail address for notifications...as I find less Spam comes through.

Only add things you would be happy for your worst enemy to read and gossip about, say nothing you wouldn't want family or friends to hear or that you wouldn't be happy to say to their faces :-)

I have found more advantages than disadvantages in using FB. I like its facilities.

There was a cartoon in a national newspaper recently which depicted a woman talking to a priest at the funeral of her beloved husband in a Church where a couple of hundred chairs were provided for the service but only a handful of mourners attended. “It’s strange,” she confided. “I’d expected a bigger turnout – he had hundreds of friends on his Facebook page.” :-D

I have two e-mail accounts. The first one I ever had was a nickname, which I use for Facebook (and a few other things)
The more recent one is my name - I use that when looking for jobs!!

The glory of using a nickname, is that it's difficult for people to search for you, and YOU can decide who's going to be on your 'friends' list.

I actually challenged a work colleague, who was 'friends' with one of my daughters, to find and befriend me on Facebook.

I had to give him 2 clues before he found me :-D

Edit: I also only 'share' with friends.

Goodness knows! Ask your daughter to help you and lock it up as tight as she can.

If you value your privacy, don't add an identifying personal photo as your profile picture. There's no reason why you have to add your dob, marital status, where you live or who you work(ed) for. It's only there so they can target the ads which appear on your page. Neither do you need to add a mobile phone number.

I am seriously thinking of signing up for Facebook - I feel I am missing out on a lot of things I can only reach on Facebook. But I do also read a lot of cautionary tales, including the ones on a very recent thread.

I'd like some advice on what I should and shouldn't do when registering - what do I tick and untick, should I use a different email (daughter visiting this weekend will probably fix things up for me).