 This appropriation and expansion of the concept ‘friend’ by SNS has provoked a great deal of scholarly interest from philosophers and social scientists, more so than any other ethical concern except perhaps privacy. Early concerns about SNS friendship centered on the expectation that such sites would be used primarily to build ‘virtual’ friendships between physically separated individuals lacking a ‘real-world’ or ‘face-to-face’ connection. This perception was an understandable extrapolation from earlier patterns of Internet sociality, patterns that had prompted philosophical worries about whether online friendships could ever be ‘as good as the real thing’ or were doomed to be pale substitutes for embodied ‘face to face’ connections (Cocking and Matthews 2000). This view was robustly opposed by Adam Briggle (2008), who claimed that online friendships might enjoy certain unique advantages. For example, Briggle asserted that friendships formed online might be more candid than offline ones, thanks to the sense of security provided by physical distance (2008, 75). He also noted the way in which asynchronous written communications can promote more deliberate and thoughtful exchanges (2008, 77).