Spam has become a part of our everyday lives (whether we like it or not). Spam not only accounts for two thirds of emails sent, but has now started to make its way into social networking sites such as facebook and twitter. Costing Americans billions of dollars a year, spam makes it nearly impossible to be safe on the Internet. According to the Social Media Examiner there are 5 ways to kill twitter (which can also apply to facebook) spam:
- Don’t auto-follow everyone
- Block unwanted contacts
- Avoid connecting with unrelated businesses
- Use tools to reduce incoming spam
- Consider other filtering tools (twit cleaner, twitblock, and stop tweet)
To read the full article and other articles on the social media examiner: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/5-ways-to-kill-twitter-spam/
The big problem with spam is that it is nearly impossible to stop it from happening. Our lesson this week goes over the various privacy issues in new and emerging media including spam. It states, “One big problem is that spam often comes from a multitude of sources and countries. The U.S. can’t enforce spam laws for messages that come from other countries. In addition, spammers are moving target, making the both expensive and difficult to locate (P.I. Reed School of Journalism, 2011).”
According to the Sophos Security Threat Report: 2010 Facebook is the largest threat when it comes to spam, although facebook is the largest social network. Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos said, “We shouldn’t forget that Facebook is by far the largest social network—and you’ll find more bad apples in the biggest orchard. The truth is that the security team at Facebook works hard to counter threats on their site––it’s just that policing 350 million users can’t be an easy job for anyone.” Below are some of the finding from the reporting 2010.
Read more and see more statistics of spam and social networking visit: http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2010/3392/social-media-malware-spam-up-70#ixzz1bdROm5hS
Overall, no one is safe from spam.
Jill V. Arvidson – signing out
Media Evolution 
Jill,
This is a really interesting post, I HATE spam just as much as the next person! I am curious though who clicks on spam mail and how effective from a marketing perspective could spam really be. Clearly it must some how be working because everyone gets it and it is such a large part of the market. I also do not find it shocking to see Facebook posing the biggest risk. Out of all of them it is the most used and so clearly it would be the biggest risk! Those spammers are dumb are they! hahah
Nice job, very interesting!