Yes I agree with what your saying as for most public social networks that would be the case.
I should have been a bit more clearer.
In my scenario the site is private and purely for family members (I have quite a large family spread across the globe) with the intention of everyone seeing what everyone else is upto. Hence new member have to follow all existing members to keep up with everything that’s going on.

Was wondering if there was a way of making Following opt-out as opposed to opt-in?