How to Protect Your Blog, Facebook and Twitter Pages from Online Spam and Phishing
Because they are interactive, blogs, Facebook and Twitter pages have become targets of two online threats: spam and phishing. Spam is unsolicited bulk email communication from unethical advertisers. Phishing is more damaging and is a form of fraud. Individuals and small business and non-profit organizations need to be proactive about protecting themselves by recognizing spam and phishing and letting the appropriate authorities know about these communications and website addresses.
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Recognizing spam
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On a blog:
- Comments on a blog that are irrelevant or useless to the specific post are usually considered spam.
- Comments like “great post!” “cool” or “great site” and then have a website link.
- Those who follow the links back to a spammer’s actual site will find no contact page or email address. Further, comments are moderated or disabled all together. Often, the site is on Blogger or Blogspot because these platforms do not require any identity proof and web hosting isn’t tracked. The sites contain usually content copied from other pages and then post Google AdSense advertisements for products related to that content. These spammers make money from the Google AdSense ads until they’re discovered.
- Beware of phishing (see below).
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On a Facebook page:
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Because some Facebook users accept all friend requests, Facebook has become a magnet for spammers.
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Because some Facebook users accept all friend requests, Facebook has become a magnet for spammers.
w this: Facebook sometimes mistakenly suggests a spammer as a friend. This happens because a friend of a friend accepted a spammer as a friend. Facebook looks to friends of friends in order to make suggestions.-
On a Twitter page:
- Commercials that have nothing to do with your profile, your business (e.g. Could your teeth be whiter?) including a link.
- Too good to be true: (e.g. This simple online business earned me $56,754 in just one month!) including a link.
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All websites:
- Be cautious of names and comments that sound nonsensical or written by a non-native speaker.
- Random comments or promoting commercial services and products.
Protecting your Blog, Twitter and Facebook pages from spam
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On your blog: Ask or research the blog platform provider to find out (e.g. WordPress, Web Easy, a developer) what comment “filters” they offer.
- WordPress offers several spam filter plugins. Akismet is popular and rumored toAdSensey effective. Hashcash is a new filter that requires proof that the commenters have actually opened your website in a browser, not through a robot. Both have to be installed into your blog, however.
- Blogger and Typepad include a spam filters with every account. Most likely, Blogger and TypePad developers will create better spam filters and release them as plug-ins soon.
- Ask your website/blog developer what spam filter they’re using.
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On Facebook:
- Do not accept friend requests from people you do not know (many users do, in order to get their Friend numbers up.)
- If you aren’t sure about the identity of someone Facebook suggests to you, do not automatically friend them.
- Guarantee your identity with “My Safe Friend.” This Facebook application lets you validate your identity so that your friends know a post coming from a page claiming your identity is really you. The basic, free service is sufficient.
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Facebook utilizes a spam filter.
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On Twitter
- Know that by following someone, you are giving that person permission to send you direct messages on Twitter.
- Before following anyone on Twitter, take a look at their profile first. Make sure the profile indicates the person’s or business’ intentions.
- Look at a few days worth of the individual’s tweets. If they are all sales pitches or cover content in which you have no interest, do not follow them.
- Those getting a lot of spam can considering using the TrueTwit service. TrueTwit uses a "CAPTCHA" test (whereby you have to type the funny shaped word that a computer robot can't read) to confirm that each user is a human and not a robot looking to gather clicks.
- Tweet Blocker catalogs spam and claims to rank the top spammers on Twitter. This tool also allows users to quickly find spammers.
Next page - Reporting Spammers
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