Porn posts. Hacked or Virus ?
- Sep 9, 2015
- 2 min read
Have you seen these posts doing the rounds warning friends that they might receive porno pictures, videos and rude messages that aren't actually from them? Sadly Facebook users never take responsibility for their own account or their actions on one of the most scam prolific mediums in the world today. Brushing it off as "my account got hacked" is as cliché as saying "the dog ate my homework" and pre-empting an invasion of dodgy pictures on friends walls by putting up a stock notice saying - they would never do such a thing, is equally trivial.
... And the user is always so surprised when this happens. Would they be as surprised if they left their car unlocked and discovered that all their shopping in the back seat went missing? You can liken a Facebook account to a motorcar. You are the owner and driver meaning you are responsible. If you have stuff in car you don't want people to look at - keep it in the boot and keep it locked and when you drive through a dodgy neighbourhood, the likelihood of you coming into contact with dodgy people increases. If you don't want to be hijacked or have your car window smashed avoid those neighborhoods. It is the same with the internet. There are safe sites and those that are decidedly seedy. Just for the record if your account starts spreading filth on friends walls and your groups and forums in almost all cases, the Facebook account of the user is not hacked - it is a type of Trojan Virus attached to external dubious apps and sites. Facebook users are tempted out of Facebook by being suckered into the click-baiting scam (eg : You wont believe what happened next ...)
This scam leads users away from Facebook to watch a video or read an article but first they have to register often taking the easy route and use the option to login through Facebook. Once done, the rogue app will use their profile to load inappropriate video and pictures onto their Facebook groups often tagging friends in the process. It works in exactly the same way as those annoying game requests from apps like Farmville and Candy Crush you get on Facebook. These are quite harmless and only send out updates to your friends about the game but if you visit a dodgy site, the result is not so innocent. If you join and use the game app and allow Facebook to access your profile (which includes a list of your friends) it is the app, not the user, who sends these game requests. In essence, its time that users of Facebook starting to take responsibility for their own accounts and if their "account" does start spreading smut, it might not be them directly doing it, but they are still culpable.
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