UK Judge: Facebook Friends Are Not Real Friends

A judge in the UK has "settled" what many of us have wondered for some time - are Facebook friends real friends, even though you often don't really know the person?

No, said the judge in a case where a woman argued that she was being harrassed by her ex-boyfriend's friend requests on Facebook.

The Syndey Morning Herald noted:

... the magistrate accepted his argument that the contact was highly innocuous because being "Facebook friends" could not be defined as "friendship in the traditional sense".

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

The best Facebook advice I had was from Robert Scoble who suggested to me some time ago that a friend on a social networking site was whatever you wanted them to be. I loosened up my approval and invite process thanks to that invite and it has led to some excellent contacts I might not have made if I'd waited to actually meet all those "Friends" at a conference.