{"id":73557,"date":"2016-07-11T13:52:18","date_gmt":"2016-07-11T20:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/securingtomorrow.mcafee.com\/?p=73557"},"modified":"2025-08-26T23:55:56","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T06:55:56","slug":"facebook-cull-embrace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/family-safety\/facebook-cull-embrace\/","title":{"rendered":"The Facebook Cull and Why You Should Embrace It!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So, how many friends do you have on <a class=\"blue\" href=\"http:\/\/facebook.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Facebook<\/a>? Do you really know them or were they just a passing acquaintance? When was the last time you had interactions with every single one of them?<\/p>\n<p>If you are anything like me \u2013 you probably can\u2019t remember all the details of the interactions BUT I am confident that I know all of them. Although there maybe a few I haven\u2019t spoken to in person for over 20 years!!!<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes, online friends just creep on us. You may have \u2018friended\u2019 someone you met briefly at a conference, a parent of another child who you no longer see, or maybe an old neighbour who moved away years ago. And like all good bedrooms and sock drawers, a regular clean-up is a very healthy idea.<\/p>\n<h2>Should you Unfriend?<\/h2>\n<p>British University lecturer, <a class=\"blue\" href=\"http:\/\/www.blobelwarming.com\/about\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brian Lobel<\/a>, is currently touring the world teaching interested parties the most conflict-free way of culling digital contacts. In his part game show\/part lovestory\/part lecture, entitled <a class=\"blue\" href=\"http:\/\/www.blobelwarming.com\/purge\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Purge<\/a>, he explores the concept of modern friendships and how to cull with dignity. His workshop\/performance is based on a personal project he underwent in 2011 to delete a large number of his Facebook friends after considering the impact his online friends were having on his real life.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I believe people focus on their relationship with a given person, what it adds and what it takes away. If the negatives outweigh the positives, it might be time to delete,\u2019 he comments.<\/p>\n<p>And while culling friends will eliminate \u2018bloating\u2019 in your news feed and make the Facebook interactions you do have more purposeful, it will, most importantly, also help protect your online profile. And here\u2019s why?<\/p>\n<p>Limiting the exposure of your information, photos and updates to online friends you genuinely know and trust will minimise the chance of your identity being stolen. Unfortunately, identity theft is one of the very real casualties of oversharing online. So exposing your life to \u2018online friends\u2019 you really don\u2019t know or no longer trust could lead to issues.<\/p>\n<p>Cybercriminals are very clever and well constructed, fake Facebook profiles are one of the key ways they can get access to your private information with the aim of stealing your identity. It could be a mirror profile of an existing friend or a completely fake profile created to emulate the genre of person who has children at the same school or who lives in the same area. If you are a \u2018gung-ho type\u2019 and accept friend requests regularly, you may just be letting a cybercrime into your world with the ability to access your personal information.<\/p>\n<p>So, why not set aside sometime to review your online friends. Or better still, why not use the daily Facebook birthday reminders as a way of deciding whether you\u2019ll delete someone or not. If you\u2019re not comfortable wishing them \u2018happy birthday\u2019 then I\u2019d press delete!<\/p>\n<p>Till next time<\/p>\n<p>Happy Deleting!<\/p>\n<p>Alex xx<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So, how many friends do you have on Facebook? Do you really know them or were they just a passing&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":932,"featured_media":94782,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[100,4222],"coauthors":[5150],"class_list":["post-73557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family-safety","tag-facebook","tag-social-media"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Facebook Cull and Why You Should Embrace It! | McAfee Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"So, how many friends do you have on Facebook? Do you really know them or were they just a passing acquaintance? When was the last time you had\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Facebook Cull and Why You Should Embrace It! | McAfee Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"So, how many friends do you have on Facebook? Do you really know them or were they just a passing acquaintance? When was the last time you had\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/family-safety\/facebook-cull-embrace\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"McAfee Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/McAfee\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CybermumAU\/?ref=br_rs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-07-11T20:52:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-08-27T06:55:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Alex Merton-McCann\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@cybermum_au\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@McAfee\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Alex Merton-McCann\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/family-safety\/facebook-cull-embrace\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/family-safety\/facebook-cull-embrace\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Alex Merton-McCann\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/#\/schema\/person\/bc6a576667318b5e4668d03276459b6f\"},\"headline\":\"The Facebook Cull and Why You Should Embrace It!\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-07-11T20:52:18+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-08-27T06:55:56+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/family-safety\/facebook-cull-embrace\/\"},\"wordCount\":500,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/family-safety\/facebook-cull-embrace\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/facebook60.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"facebook\",\"social media\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Family Safety\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/family-safety\/facebook-cull-embrace\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/family-safety\/facebook-cull-embrace\/\",\"name\":\"The Facebook Cull and Why You Should Embrace It! | McAfee Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/family-safety\/facebook-cull-embrace\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/family-safety\/facebook-cull-embrace\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/facebook60.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-07-11T20:52:18+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-08-27T06:55:56+00:00\",\"description\":\"So, how many friends do you have on Facebook? 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