"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| Since I don't use facebook or twitter either, I don't know what "follow"
| means. I can't _think_ of anything it could mean that would worry me.
|
Generally it means signing up to receive copies of
posts from that person. There was recently news that
celebrities were losing many of their Twitter followers
because Twitter was cleaning out fake accounts.
Celebrities pay companies to set up fake accounts
to follow them. It's become a status symbol. Anyone
who hopes to be anyone needs to have millions of
followers receive their 2 cents in their own feed. Then
they hire a staff to make posts, like, "I'm so happy
with my new Acme handbag. I don't know how I lived
without one for so long!!!"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44815550

For young kids it's the Internet version of a fan club.
But one also follows one's own friends.

I don't use any of these things, either, but I
have a neice who occasionally updates me on
Millennial culture trends. It seems that companies
like Twitter and Facebook started out as social
chats. People would follow their friends at Facebook
and thereby see posts their friends made. They'd
follow their friends quips on Twitter and also perhaps
follow pop stars and such. Then came ads
masquerading as posts. Companies offered trinkets
in exchange for following them. ("Follow us on
Facebook!") Facebook inserted ads. Things got
crowded. Facebook began deciding which of your
friends' posts were more important than a Pepsi ad.
(Who knew you'd friended Pepsi?
Facebook added news, as another excuse to show
ads and keep people on their site. The news got
infested with everything from corporate advertisers
to Russian spies.... We ended up with
Donald Trump in the White House and democracy
teetering, while half the population walk around like
zombies, glued to their feed. Because their social
reputation is constantly a work in progress that
needs minding. Because they follow and have followers.
And that creates an ever-changing web of posts
and comments that one needs to keep up with.

I suspect the follower notice you got, assuming
it came from Google, was some kind of ad scam.

I occasionally get email from LinkedIn. They're
now owned by MS and may not be as bad, but for
a long time they were tricking people into signing up
and allowing access to their address book. So I'd
get an email saying so-and-so is sending me an
invite to join LinkedIn. My elderly father fell for
that one. Someone told him to sign up, he let LinkedIn
steal his address book, and they'd send en masse to
all those addresses periodically, telling the recipient
that he was inviting them to join, wanted to add them
to his resume, or some such.

Recently I was getting invites from something
else. I can't remember what it was now. Someone
wanted me to meet them on Facebook or somewhere.
I need to reply. Blah, blah, blah. I've had 3 of them
from the same person that I've never heard of. Maybe
the company rifled through their email. Maybe it's a
scam. I don't know. That's one of the nice things
about not joining these "social" sites: when you
get email from them you don't have to wonder
whether it's legit. It's not.

There's always the very remote chance that it's
a friend of a friend who's trying to contact me. But
in that case the person will just have to discover
telephones and email. If they can't do that then
whatever they have to say can't be very important.