Some people on social sites like to accumulate 'friends', hoarding as many as they can. This is good for networking and spreading the word on causes you are involved in. But I prefer 'friends' to be people I at least remotely know. With every friend request, I scrutinize their page and decide if I could be friends with them in the physical world as well. Usually yes. On rare ocassions, no. On sites like facebook where you can't always see their page before confirming a friend request, I will add them and then read their page. If it is offensive somehow, I un-friend them right away.

On care2 I receive ocassional friend requests and approve most. One person I rejected three times was a lady who is probably nice but had disturbing political stuff all over her page which I did not want to be associated with. Other than rare things like that, I have developed one basic criteria. I do not add people that have stuff on their page which would hurt my causes or reputation as an animal welfare advocate. There is one animal rights group which I never want to be tied in with, even though they are very large. Their name is like a bad word and creates a stigma I can't afford to have on my work. So instead of un-friending the supporters of this group, I will say right here and now that I do NOT support peta in any way. The other group is a very wonderful group but is unfortunately illegal in this country. Many do not understand that. Several of their leaders are in prison right now, charged as so-called 'domestic terroists'. If I lived in another country it would not matter, but no thanks to the risk of the fbi spying on my emails or worse. People who wish to risk this- thanks for caring about animals. Just do not link to me. I have removed six contacts so far due to this, one of which had over 1,000 friends. Sticking to my guns is more important to me than friend hoarding or blind networking.

At least one fellow advocate has taken great offense to this little policy of mine, and does not belive what I said about it. Sorry. As us factory workers say : C-Y-A...cover your ass.

Hope I have not offended or incensed anyone yet again. Just a little explanation.

Good luck to all in their causes, however they choose to do it.