Facebook has been plagued with another viral scam – the false “dislike” button. Of course the irony is that many Facebook users have been asking for such a button, to complement the existing, legitimate “like” button. Apparently Facebook users want to be able criticize as well as show encouragement for user posts. This demand was taken advantage of by scammers who offered up a malicious, faux dislike button installation that once it obtains access the user’s profile posts spam from the user’s account.
On top of this, the world is speeding up. We are impatient and accept nothing less than instant. According to a recent survey, it seems that college kids are finding email “too slow” and instead are opting for IM or SMS. (SMS is winning the pack; it integrates with social networks and interacts over multiple platforms.
The combination of our impatience and dependence concerns me. When we move too fast we tend to miss things, our awareness is down. Dependence is another state of mind that also fogs up our thinking. It makes for fertile ground and statistics show that the scams are outrunning us. We are all clicking and sharing and up and downloading with great abandon. For individual users, and depending on the situation, the worst case scenarios are pretty unpleasant: disruption of communication, identity fraud which could lead to fiscal fraud, social embarrassment. I am getting the impression that as technology advances, our privacy is even less assured because the distance between malicious idea and defense against it is getting shorter.
We automatically and rapidly share and accept online communication and personal information on social networks, such as Facebook. The line between what is public and private is diminishing. Perhaps some people don’t consider that they have lost control of their data. But once a photo, message or video is uploaded, you don’t know where it goes and can’t take it back. Erasing your social identity is, basically, impossible. Google security advises to watch out for suspicious links. I agree but would also recommend, in general, to think twice before you hit ‘enter’.
