You've Been Fraped? (From The Argus)

You've Been Fraped?

7:25am Sunday 24th July 2011

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By Jo Chipchase - Letting off steam »

I see that some Sussex police officers have landed themselves in trouble for using Facebook to make “inappropriate comments” about suspects, et al. Why doesn’t this surprise me? The one thing that does surprise me is that the police are only using Facebook to discuss their cases, as opposed to using it for snooping purposes and, hence, ensnaring the suspects good and proper, Sonny Jim!

In my opinion, despite being an avid personal user of social media, Facebook has a lot to answer for these days. We complain about CCTV, store loyalty cards tracking our shopping habits, the prospect of national identity cards and anything else that might monitor our movements, yet we sign up to Facebook in our droves. Once we’ve joined, we willingly post our personal information up there: date of birth, birthplace, current location and what we are doing at any given moment of the day or night. What better tool for the CIA, tax authorities and police officers to look us up and monitor our activities, if they want to do so?

And did you know that Facebook owns the copyright to all the photos you’ve ever uploaded to its server? That’s right, if you become rich and famous in the future, a third party owns those embarrassing pictures of you getting drunk and falling over in the past.

The upside of Facebook is the opportunity to see what our oldest and newest friends are doing, regardless of their location. And, yes, it’s pretty ‘cool’ to see photos of people’s kids, their holiday shenanigans and whatever else they’re doing that might entertain us. However, there’s a major downside to all this accessibility. Before the advent of Facebook, we could, for example, split up with a partner and remain “just good friends”, and then get on with our own life. We most certainly did not have their every activity fed to us by social media 24/7. I have a friend who split up with a long-term girlfriend and was pretty cut up about it, and then heard, via Facebook, about the presence of a new boyfriend, complete with lots of public aahing and cooing from the recent ex’s friends. How horrible: it wouldn’t have happened like that when we were simply using pens and paper to communicate! And I have female friends who have compulsively checked their ex’s page every night for the presence of new “hot chicks”, and then been completely devastated if they spotted one. On a need to know basis, do we really need to know? I would say that the answer is “no”.

Although Facebook is intended as a tool for connecting with one’s friends and associates (as well as making oneself visible to authorities, hah hah!), I believe that most users have people they’ve never even met on their friends list. I’ve been at a party and someone I’ve never seen before has walked up to me and said “oh I know you from Facebook – you’re always chatting away about (insert trivial matter here)”. The girl could have been one of those Sussex police officers having a good snoop at local residents, for all I knew, and I wouldn’t have been any the wiser.

Then there’s the rise of “fraping” (Facebook rape, for the uninitiated). Fraping occurs when somebody posts slanderous and defamatory comments all over another person’s Facebook profile page. I’ve been fraped in the past by a best friend’s psychotic boyfriend. He thought I disapproved of the relationship so he retaliated by pasting extremely dubious material all over my profile page, which went out on the Facebook news feed to 300+ people, including some business contacts. And I’m fairly convinced that I’m not the only Facebook user who, after a few vinos, has considered or even acted upon the “amusement value” of posting some “funny” comments on an ex’s page at 2am. Facebook is an ideal tool for psychotic exes and “bunny boilers” worldwide, and we have all signed up for it willingly!

There's already a website called ‘Best Frapes’ (www.bestfrapes.com), which is advertising for “more frapes needed”. Before long, TV programmes based on showing video ‘funnies’ - such as ‘You’ve Been Framed’ – will be defunct. I’m pretty sure that the next generation of this show will be called ‘You’ve Been Fraped’ and it will screen the most witty and droll examples of fraping from around the world, with full sign-off from and payment to the Facebook users first, of course. Meanwhile ‘Crimestoppers’ will show how Facebook was cunningly used to entrap hapless criminals who went online and let slip some trivial detail about their nefarious activities. Won’t that be ‘fun’?

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