 On Monday, PCWORLD.com reported that leading social networking website, MySpace, is apparently falling short of protecting its members against cyber-threats. In the past, we’ve seen MySpace stick it to spammers, winning big settlements against amateur hackers and spam kings alike. But there’s a new kind of menace tearing through MySpace, specifically its group pages, that’s got web developers and group organizers heated. MySpace groups represent niche communities ranging from “home beer brewing… [to] gay rights issues.” But so-called “trolls,” MySpace members who post bogus blank comments, obscene pictures, and hateful messages on group walls, have turned these interest-driven communities into “cyber-graffiti walls.” PCWORLD.com comments that trolls “delight in making a mess and try to one-up each another with aggressive vandalism.” MySpace group advocates contend that the social network has neglected to address several glitches which give trolls the ability to spam group walls for their own regressive objectives. One known glitch “allows vandals to post comments on a group even when they aren't an approved member.” Another, referred to as “bombing” allows trolls to post blank comments which in turn “push down the real comments.” Trolls can employ an automated tool which can repeat this process hundreds of times over. The blank comment pages accumulated by this “effectively [ruin] a conversation.” “Pinning,” another infamous glitch, is when a spammer “pins” a random discussion topic to an unrelated, preexisting forum thread. This isn’t exactly harmful, but rather, distracting, confusing, and frustrating for legitimate members. These legit members and group leaders allege that they have submitted various complaints to MySpace security officials with no progressive results. In fact, they have gone so far as to argue that “MySpace has been lax in fixing [these] well-known glitches.” Jamie Schumacher, MySpace spokeswoman, denied commenting specifically on these issues on behalf of the company. Still, MySpace “contends it has beefed up its security department” and works to the best of its ability to monitor site spammers and trolls. But Caroline Dangson, research analyst at IDC, has a different take. “So far, we have seen MySpace do very little to address the issues of trolling,” she stated. As of 2006, MySpace allegedly only had two young workers addressing the entire site’s spam problems. Since then, however, “security staff has been increased to 30 or 40 employees.” |
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