What do you mean by poke in Facebook:If you've spent any length of time on Facebook, you may have been "poked" by someone, or you may have wondered what it means to give someone else a poke. A poke is a small application on Facebook that is included with every account.

A poke notification on Facebook

Sending a Poke on Facebook

There are a number of reasons to send pokes, both to your friends and to people who aren't on your friends list, including:

Just to say a quick "hello"
To remind someone that you're waiting on a reply or message from him or her
To check in and see if a person has visited Facebook lately
To let someone know you're thinking of him or her
Just for fun

How to Send Pokes

How to poke someone on Facebook.

To poke someone:

Go to their profile page.
Find the "…" icon located on the cover photo of their profile.
Select the "poke" option.
A popup window will appear confirming that you have poked the person.

How to Tell If You Have Been Poked

If someone pokes you, you'll receive a notification under the "world" icon for notifications on the blue menu bar on the right. If you click on that notice, you'll be taken to a screen where you can choose a "Poke Back" option inside of a blue button with a hand icon. You will also see below that a list of suggested people to poke.
You can also delete the poke by clicking on the grey "x" to the right of the Poke Back button.
One thing to keep in mind is that you cannot poke the same person twice unless the individual has returned or removed your first poke.

Stopping Someone from Poking You

If you want to stop someone from poking you, you can block them by clicking on the question mark icon on the top right of the blue menu bar. Go to Privacy Shortcuts and choose the third option, "How do I stop someone from bothering me?" A screen will pop up where you can enter the person's name or email address.

Sending Pokes from Your Phone

You can send a poke from your mobile phone in a similar way to using a desktop computer or laptop.

From your Facebook app on the phone, go the person's profile.
Underneath their cover photo and name, you will see the vertical three dots on the far right.
Tap on this to open a drop down menu.
Select the "poke" option.

Poking Can Be Fun

If you're still unsure about poking on Facebook, give it a try, or look under the Facebook Help section for more information on pokes. It can be fun to sign in and see how many of your friends have poked you back.

Facebook Poking Arrest

By Carrie Grosvenor

The case of the Facebook poking arrest made international headlines in September 2009. With social media growing so quickly and becoming so popular, it was astonishing to consider that a simple click of a mouse could lead to an arrest. The full story has much more to it, of course.

What Is Poking on Facebook?

One way to quickly connect with people on Facebook is to use the simple poke feature. If you click on the poke link on a person's profile, that person gets a message on his or her homepage that you've poked them. Think of it as waving to someone in real life - it's not exactly a personal message or even a friend request, it's just a quick way to show them a bit of attention.

You can poke anyone on Facebook, not just those people who you are friends with. When you land on a profile page, the link to poke that person is located under his or her profile photo. Once you click that link, you'll be asked to confirm that you do indeed want to send the poke.
It is possible to prevent pokes from people who aren't on your friends list by restricting them in your privacy settings. Trying to figure all of this out proves difficult for many users though, because the settings themselves aren't always intuitive to navigate through, even for seasoned web users.

The Facebook Poking Arrest

On September 25, 2009, a woman named Shannon D. Jackson was arrested at her home in Hendersonville, Tennessee, for violating a protection order. The order, which is the same in principle as a restraining order, was filed against her by Dana M. Hannah, for reasons that have not been divulged.
The protection order specified that Jackson was to have no personal contact whatsoever with Hannah, including "telephoning, contacting, or otherwise communicating" with her. While normally that would indicate in-person or direct contact, the advent of social networking sites such as Facebook have widened the reach.
Hannah claims that she was poked on Facebook by Jackson, and offered a printout of her Facebook home page as proof. This simple form of communication caused the arrest, and the case is now about to go before a grand jury. If convicted as a result of this Facebook poking arrest, Jackson faces nearly a year in prison and a fine of up to $2,500.

The Burden of Proof

The main problem with trying to prove that Jackson did indeed poke Hannah is that there's no way to know if she did it herself or if someone else in her home or workplace made the gesture. Also, since there is no time or date stamp on pokes, it's impossible to know if it came through before or after the order of protection was issued. Jackson's attorneys have stated that they believe someone either hacked into her account, created an imposter account, or someone else logged in as her and performed the poke.
Facebook staff will most certainly have to get involved, at least to try and confirm when the poke was sent. On the other hand, poking someone on Facebook is clearly an attempt to make contact, especially when you consider that you have to confirm that you really want to send the poke before it goes through.

Keeping Up with Technology

As technology and social networking continue to advance, more cases like this one are likely to pop up. With so many people registering and sharing personal details online, it's getting easier to find and contact just about anyone, whether they want to be contacted or not.
On its own, a simple Facebook poke shouldn't be considered harassment. However, when that poke comes after a restraining order has been issued, the law has been broken and the situation becomes more serious. Ms. Jackson has learned this the hard way, but she will likely not be the last person to come into some trouble through social networking gaffes.

Facebook Imposter Scam

By Gray Miller

The Facebook imposter scam is one of many Internet frauds that have come about through the advent of social media. There are many variations, and all of them can lead to serious losses - unless you spot them first.

What is the Facebook Imposter Scam?

The way this particular scam works is as follows:

First, someone hacks into your Facebook account. This may be through some kind of coding trickery, but it could also be a lucky guess. If your password is your dog's name, and you have a picture of "Fluffy" on Facebook, it's not too hard for someone to guess it.
Second, they post an urgent message to all your friends' pages. This message is some kind of cry for help - for example, "I'm in London and my passport and wallet were stolen!" This is followed by a request for money to be sent through some alternate source.

You may think that no one would fall for this kind of a scam - but remember, this is coming from a personal facebook account. It's the same account that announced the birth of their niece, posted embarrassing pictures of the office party, or that went through the heartbreak of changing relationship status to single. For many people, Facebook is almost intimate in the way it allows people to stay connected.
There is also the disadvantage in that Facebook allows people to have hundreds of friends - and with that large a pool of possible marks, the scam artists know that they have a good chance at hooking someone. In some cases, people have formed quite close relationships only through Facebook - so there is no reason they would not want to help their friend in what appears to be their hour of need. Thousands of dollars have been lost to these online grifters.

Not Just Facebook

The Facebook imposter scam is not actually limited to Facebook. In fact, it likely has existed for as long as people have been able to communicate over distances. Other popular social networking platforms such as MySpace have reported similar issues. It is simply the size of the Facebook membership that makes it such a ripe hunting ground for the scam artists. However, any web communication - from email to instant messenger or even Twitter - could be used to try the same game.Other common tactics scam artists use to gain access to your passwords is to send you a message - whether in Facebook or email - telling you that you need to "change" your password. When you click on the link, you think you are going to Facebook - but in reality you are on a site that only looks like Facebook, and when you enter your password to "change" it, the scammers have you.

Avoiding the Scam

Like most online scams, the Facebook imposter scam relies on trusting people doing ill-considered things without checking. In almost any case, a simple phone call will verify whether or not a cry for help is genuine. There's also the simple matter of taking the time to think: if your friend were really in trouble, is Facebook the means by which they would ask for help?
It's possible the answer is yes - but it's still worth following up, and following up with some personal questions to establish identity. Ask them where you first met, for example, or what the last conversation the two of your had was about. You can also use alternate means of communication, such as email, to try and verify their identity.
Anytime you are asked to log in or do something else with your account, check the URL link location - if it is not Facebook.com or another trusted site, do not enter any personal information - instead, report it to Facebook.
You should also take the simple precaution on your own account to change your passwords for real to things that are not easily guessable, and to change them on a regular basis. Any suspicious activity should be reported to Facebook, which has an entire page dedicated to avoiding similar situations.

Facebook Imposters

By Courtney Ramirez

Facebook imposters are cropping up in many different forms. Since Facebook is now one of the largest social networking sites (with over 150 million worldwide users), it was only a matter of time before people started to use it to scam others. There are increasing numbers of Facebook imposters who plague the site with everything from hacking accounts and posting false information to creating fake celebrity accounts.

Hacked Facebook Accounts

In January 2009, the Better Business Bureau released a warning on its website for social networking users. The warning stated that due to the popularity of social networking sites, users should be particularly careful about sharing personal information on those sites.
The warning was due to a recent surge of Facebook imposters who were using a scam to get users to send money to people who they thought were their friends. The scam works the same in all cases, and it has already affected about 1 percent of Facebook users. The way it works is that a scammer will add a new contact address to an account in order to gain control of the person's profile. He or she will then post an urgent message to the effect of "Help I'm stranded and need some money." The status update will appear on the news feed of all of the original account holder's friends.
The requests come in different forms. Some scammers stated that they were robbed at gunpoint and needed money transferred to a wire service in order to get home. Others stated that they were robbed in a taxi and needed money for airfare home. Friends of those with hacked accounts willingly sent money to those "in distress" to the tune of several thousands of dollars. Money is normally sent through wire transfers or through overnight cashier's checks, so those being scammed can't tell that they aren't actually sending money to their friends.

False Facebook Accounts

Another common Facebook imposter is a person who creates accounts under fake celebrity or business names. While the creators of these accounts don't normally have specific malicious intentions, they can be problematic if you find someone is using your business name for a profile that you didn't authorize.
This type of scammer attempts to capitalize on the popularity of the name in question. If someone creates an account with the name "Pepsi Co." or "Beyonce Knowles", they'll attract a lot of followers quickly. What they do with these followers varies.

How to Protect Yourself from Facebook Imposters

Facebook is already taking steps to prevent imposters from taking control of other users' accounts, or creating new fraudulent Facebook accounts. The company started implementing new security measures in early 2009 after the sudden increase of "stranded" Facebook imposters.
One of the main focuses of this security increase is altering the way that people can change their e-mail addresses. Since the most frequent Facebook imposters use the e-mail address change feature in order to gain access to accounts, this will greatly reduce these types of scams.
Even though the social networking site is making attempts to improve their security, there is still a lot that you can do in order to protect yourself. If you receive a call for help through your Facebook account, be sure to contact the person through their e-mail address or a phone call before trying to help.
Be wary of Facebook users who have celebrity or major corporate names. If they add you out of the blue, try to double check their authenticity before adding them as a friend. Consider adding these friends under a category that has limited access to your profile.
If someone is using your company name, contact them first in order to see if they are a fan or if they are pretending to be you. Depending on their response, you can contact Facebook to have the account removed. You may also be able to take legal action if you have a registered trademark for your company.

What do you mean by poke in Facebook