Facebook has over 3 billion monthly active users, making it the most popular social media platform worldwide.

It is a terrific platform for families and friends to enjoy social interaction over their cell phones and computers.

Unfortunately, it is also used in despicable ways, primarily via fake names and/or disgusting personal attacks on Facebook hate sites - especially when it comes to online politics. Sadly, Ocean Pines Board of Director politics is no exception.

Are fake Facebook accounts prevalent? In the third quarter of 2024, Facebook took action on 1.1 billion fake accounts, down from 1.2 billion in the previous quarter. A record figure of approximately 2.2 billion fake profiles were removed by the social media platform in the first quarter of 2019.

What does all this have to do with Ocean Pines? A great deal, unfortunately.

First, lets talk about OceanPinesForum.com. Can anyone join using a fake name? Yes. Fake email? Yes. With regard to fake emails, those are detected and the user's forum account is flagged to not allow the user to post messages. With regard to posting messages, any new user joining with a valid email can immediately post messages. Every message posted here is reviewed for content. No personal attacks or vulgarity allowed. If there is any suspicion that the name of the person posting is a fake name, posting privileges are removed.

Can every user joining with a fake name and posting be discovered? Of course not. However, on the whole, the vast majority of those posting to this forum use their real first and last names, since the forum began in the spring of 2004.

Many of them, over the years, are well known in the Ocean Pines community, including numerous board members, a few County Commissioners, OPA committee members, OPA legal counsel, and thousands of everyday association members.

In Parts II and III we will examine the use of fake names to make political statements and attack individual association members on Facebook in general, as well as specific popular Facebook sites devoted to OPA issues, including politics. There are also individual hate sites devoted to attacking individuals on the Board of Directors, as well as a Facebook hate site dedicated to attacking a few women in Ocean Pines using some of the most disgusting and outrageous language humans can use.