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I have a wattpad friend who i met two years ago, but we don't talk that much. The thing is, sometimes i go to their profile and look the stories they have, or the messages that people put in their board. I don't have any bad intentions, but does that count as stalking?
As far as I'm concerned, stalking should be a term reserved for situations where someone is being covertly intrusive and is doing things that have some sort of impact on their target's life, or the stalker is gathering information with the intention of impacting the target's life in the future.
I find it ridiculous how so many people spread so much of their personal life all over the internet, and then get upset when - whoa! - they suddenly realise that there are obsessive freaks out there, and some of the really disturbed wingnuts are capable of fantasising non-existent relationships with people they don't know at all. So then they start whining about stalkers, when the reality is that they've basically put up a huge billboard saying, "STALKERS WANTED HERE!"
If you don't like the idea of freakazoids shoving their way into your life, real or on-line, keep your information locked down. If you really, really must share all the astoundingly wonderful things that happen in your amazingly perfect life, use a pseudonym, and be ready to hit the Block button at the first whiff of weirdness.
If the information you're looking at is public, then the author is extending an invitation to you and everyone else in the world to look at it. You occasionally accepting that invitation is not stalking. The most appropriate description is that you're some sort of low-level, casual fan.
That's what social media was intended for.... to allow you to follow other people. Not stalking at all.
So using social media the way it is intended is now stalking? Sounds pretty innocent to me.
Kind of. But there's worse stalking, you're looking at someones public profiles after all so everything's there because it's okay to view otherwise the profile would be private or you would be blocked if they didn't want you specifically to see anything they post. Plus if you talk, even if just sometimes, its even less creepy. Pretty much everyone who frequents social media looks at the people they find interesting's profiles to see what they're up to.