A lesson in the pitfalls of Facebook journalism for gossip writers. This weekend, the Mail on Sunday had a great time with a page on two brothers educated at Harrow School who, the paper discovered on Facebook, seemed to have won millions on the lottery.
The article started like this: 'It is the alma mater of seven Prime Ministers and prides itself on breeding "gentlemen rather than scholars". But now Harrow School can boast another distinction - it has produced two lottery millionaires.' The next day, the same story ran in the Telegraph.
Only the thing about Facebook, of course, is that it's full of rubbish. No facts are checked. And rubbish is exactly what the story turned out to be in this case. The group the brothers (Alex and Seb Cater, in case you were wondering) had set up, called 'Who wants to marry the Cater brothers now we're millionaires?' was a joke between them and their friends. They'd not won the lottery at all.
The unreliability of Facebook is something brought to my attention recently by the discovery that there is another Oliver Marre up there. I'm pretty sure that there isn't another in the world, which leads me to conclude that it must be a spoof. Why anyone would want to do this to me specifically, I don't know. But it is just slightly alarming.
They could wait for my friends to befriend them online. They could post all sorts of unsuitable things on other people's pages using my name. They could announce 'facts' on my behalf that I know nothing about. Most worryingly, they could make me seem seriously uncool by befriending all sorts of people and making me look desperate for mates.
On the other hand, does it matter? And even if I decide that it does, can anything be done?
