We Know Their Faces, But Do We Know Them?

By Mary Wavinya,

There is something strange about the internet. A person can be thousands of kilometres away but still somehow feel like they live just next door. We watch their videos, we know their jokes, we see their friends and families, their celebrations and sometimes their struggles. Before long, a stranger whose face we first encountered on a phone screen can begin to feel familiar.

But familiarity is not the same as knowing someone. The disturbing case surrounding Haitian TikTok personalities Nice B and Baby Love has brought that uncomfortable truth into sharp focus.

Esther Thomas, a social media influencer popularly known as Nice B, is currently being sought by Haitian authorities in connection with the investigation into the death of a woman and her social media friend popularly known as Baby Love. Haiti’s Central Directorate of Judicial Police has cited allegations including murder, attempted murder and criminal conspiracy. These are allegations under investigation, not a finding of guilt.

The case has attracted public attention online, led partly by disturbing videos online and a whole full of explanations of what might have happened between the two TikTokers.

The internet has not only brought the case to our screens, but it has also produced countless versions of the story.

Some claims about the motive and circumstances have circulated widely, yet Haitian reporting has acknowledged that several of those claims have not been established.

That should make us pause. Not only because of the tragedy itself, but because of how quickly we can convince ourselves that we know people we have only encountered online.

We mistake access for intimacy

Social media has changed the way strangers enter our lives.

Familiarity no longer comes with sitting across from each other at a coffee shop, attending the same school or evening growing up in the same neighbourhood. A few weeks of following someone’s content can give us access to parts of their life that even some people physically close to them may never see.

We know what they ate, where they travelled, when they are happy, when they are struggling, and we may even know their secrets.

There is a fundamental difference between seeing someone’s life online and actually knowing who they are. Sometimes we forget that a social media account is a window, but it is not the whole house. We give people credibility because they have thousands of followers. We trust them because they appear kind on camera. We disclose personal information because we have been talking for months. We agree to meet because, in our minds, the person no longer feels like a stranger.

But when did we decide they had stopped being one?

The argument is not against online friendships, nor is the problem meeting someone online.

Some of the most meaningful relationships today begin online. People meet spouses, lifelong friends, business partners and professional mentors through social platforms every day. The problem is allowing digital familiarity to become a substitute for trust built over time.

Someone can know our birthday without knowing our character, know where we live without caring about our safety, know our family without being part of our family and most importantly, know almost everything we choose to reveal online while remaining, in many important ways, a complete stranger.

It would be easy to look at the Baby Love case and turn it into a simple story about betrayal. But the truth is that we do not yet have every answer. Authorities are investigating, people are making claims, videos have circulated, and social media users have filled in gaps with their own explanations. That is exactly why caution matters.

If we are going to learn anything from this case, perhaps it should not be a rush to decide who is guilty, who is innocent or exactly what happened behind the scenes. It should be a reminder to question how easily we trust what and who we encounter online.

The same platforms that can make a stranger feel like a friend can also make an unverified story feel like established truth.

We should therefore be careful twice: careful about the people we trust online and careful about the information we trust online.

The screen creates a false sense of safety

There is comfort in a screen.

You can end a conversation with the swipe of a finger, avoid the conversation by blocking someone or even closing the application. We forget that real life does not always come with an exit button.

That is why meeting an online acquaintance in person should never be treated casually simply because you have chatted for months. Someone who has earned your digital familiarity has not automatically earned your physical trust.Meet in public places, tell someone where you are going, avoid giving strangers unnecessary personal information and don’t let the number of followers, attractive photographs or entertaining videos become substitutes for character.

We need to relearn what trust means

Perhaps our generation needs to slow down. We live in a culture where followers can be counted in thousands, friendships can be formed with a click and strangers can become household names overnight but trust has never really worked that way.

Trust is built through consistency, time, observation and through seeing how someone behaves when there is nothing to gain.

The internet can entertain, connect and introduce us to people but can it tell us who deserves our deepest trust?

The story surrounding Nice B and Baby Love remains a matter for investigators and the justice system. What happened, why it happened and who bears responsibility should be established through evidence rather than the court of social media.

But regardless of where that investigation ultimately leads, there is a lesson worth taking away now; person may feel familiar because we see them every day on our screens but that does not mean we truly know them.

Sometimes the person we call a friend is still a stranger and sometimes the story we are certain is true is only a story we have heard often enough.