I often get frustrated with how technology problems are portrayed in the mainstream media.
Invariably, a nameless staff writer gets tapped to write a quick story about a tiny snippet that has appeared on a wire service somewhere, generally without any real knowledge or understanding of what they are trying to write about.
This example – a syndicated story out of AFP – has gone for the lowest common denominator, and a sure fire way to get the story syndicated by other news outlets who equally don’t understand, by coming up with a Facebook scandal.
| Facebook Users Exposed to Hardcore Porn |
I mean, really?
“Facebook is investigating reports that some members of the social network have been receiving extreme pornography and violent images in their news feeds.”
“It seems highly offensive spam content has successfully spread via Facebook for 24 hours or more,” Cluley said, adding that it not immediately clear how it was being spread.”
Oh my god, facepalm!
Ever wondered why people go to the trouble of creating all those silly groups named along the lines of “Like This If You Love The Carebears”?
So that in two years from now, when you’ve completely forgotten about it – (honestly, you’ve probably forgotten within a few minutes) – they change the name of the group to “I Love Hardcore Porn Images In My News Feed”, and start “providing” you with exactly that.
It’s the spammers and hackers folks, trying to get your details!
Just don’t “Like” these things, even if they seem innocuous. Most of the time they will be fine, but over time, some of them will not be.
Most of all, I got a laugh from the Sophos engineer saying that it is “not immediately clear how it was being spread”.
Oh, man, really?
I love that his name is Cluley. It should actually be “Clueless”.