Spurback Desperately Seeks Facebook 'Friends'

Mike Hudson with friend Evita Corby.

Roger Spurback (below) is flanked by two of his Facebook friends, Holly (above) and Toloza (far below). It is not known if they are block club members, but these are their Facebook photos.

Unsuspecting Facebook users all across the Niagara Frontier were spammed last week by Roger Spurback in a desperate attempt to boost the pathetically low “friend” count the self-described important person and well-known blowhard currently makes do with.

At press-time, Spurback had 712 Facebook “friends,” up from about 685 a week earlier, when the Niagara Falls Reporter published an article about his use of the social utility to harass and intimidate politicians and others he perceives as personal enemies.

“I couldn’t fathom it at all,” said one Niagara Falls resident who has been repeatedly targeted by Spurback. “This nimrod’s done everything he can to harm me and my family, and now he wants to be my friend on Facebook?”
Since the Reporter article appeared last week, Spurback has attacked the paper and this writer in every post he’s put up. His grammar, spelling and punctuation remain on the third grade level, and his endless blather about the block clubs, city council and the sport of wrestling remain mind numbingly dull.

His friends list, though, is kind of fun. In Spurback’s self-made Facebook world, he pals around with politicians like Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster and convicted felons like former City Councilman Mike Gawel. Young blonde strippers and sex workers take their places alongside housewives and mothers from some of Niagara Falls most prestigious families.

And then there’s Ken Hamilton.

The friends list is pretty typical of what you might expect for a lonely old retiree in a place like Niagara Falls, but for one thing: the sheer low number of friends he’s been able to attract. There are sophomores at Niagara Falls High School who have three times as many, and hairdressers on Pine Avenue with five times the number of friends Spurback can boast.

With one billion users, Spurback’s inability to crack the 1,000 mark despite desperate begging, pleading and, and attempts to co-opt people he’s tried to harm into supporting his feeble efforts, is just plain sad.

Facebook critics say that users waste vast amounts of time and are encouraged in their own narcissism. While the retired Spurback has nothing but time on his hands, his narcissism hardly needs any encouragement.

According to Bill Paterson, a leading counter terrorism expert, terrorists are using Facebook for hiring loners from western nations.

"Established terrorist cells have found social media to be a useful communication tool - Facebook, Twitter, that sort of thing," Paterson said.

Paterson stressed that social media has also encouraged the rise of home-grown terrorism, particularly among “disaffected loners sometimes on the margins of society.”

One recent example is Christopher Dorner, the former Los Angeles Police Dept. officer who has thus far murdered three people, and left a rambling diatribe on Facebook.

Paterson also pointed out that in democratic countries where Internet censorship is seen as an infringement of freedom of information or a breach on civil liberties, stopping terrorists from communicating on social media is difficult.