The Down Side Of Social Media
By Rob Safuto on Apr 24, 2006 in Blogging, Observations, Social Media | Tags: Blogs , Frappr , Spam
Shel Holtz reports that spammers have found their way to the social mapping community Frappr!.
Those dirty tricksters add people to public maps and include their ridiculous spam links in the description. The move to Frappr! maps proves that spammers will go anywhere they can their silly links posted for the world to see.
Users of Frappr! can activate a setting that puts new map members into moderation prior to being displayed on the map. It looks like some damage has been done over the weekend though and many people will be spending time cleaning up their maps of the offending members.
This particular situation does show the down side of being social on the internet. If bad people can take advantage of what you’re doing then they certainly will. That’s why my first piece of advice this week is to make sure that you’re protecting yourself everywhere that you allow people to provide open feedback.
Utilize services that allow you to moderate all comments and additions prior to being visible on your site. When possible, use RSS or email notification to track changes to your Wikis, Blogs, Maps, etc. Taking the time to insure your social spaces are spam free is a crucial investment given the situation with spammers.
And while taking these steps requires an additional investment of time, I still believe it’s well worth it for all businesses to get involved in Social Media technology.
[tags]Social Media, Spam, Blogs, Frappr[/tags]
