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Once again, a rumor is making the rounds in social media, convincing Facebook users that there’s a secret list of people who are following them and they can find it from the Facebook blocked list. But Snopes and many other sources are refuting this. Yes, you can find out who’s following you on Facebook, but there isn’t a “secret list” anywhere of people you wouldn’t normally know about.
The hoax claims that Facebook users can learn that they are being stalked by strangers if they go to their Facebook’s “Blocked Users” page and type “following me” into the search bar. But this actually isn’t true. If you type “following me,” you’ll just see a list of Facebook users whose names and information somehow match the terms “following” and “me.” It’s random and has nothing to do with who is or isn’t following you.
One user even changed her Facebook nickname to “Following Me,” just to see what happened. She got thousands of messages from people asking why she was following them.
If you want to actually see who’s following you, just click on “Friends” below your cover photo and then click on “Followers.” There is no secret list on Facebook beyond this. If you don’t want people who aren’t already your friends to be able to follow you, just go to Settings — Public Posts — and under “Who Can Follow Me” change Public to Friends.
If you’re wondering what Snopes has to say about the whole thing, it hasn’t addressed this particular rumor yet. But it did address a nearly identical rumor from earlier this year that claimed typing Facebook Security into the search box would bring up a list of secret people Facebook was paying to follow its users. That rumor, of course, was also false.