Facebook Discusses Fight Against Spam
Facebook offered users a glimpse at its anti-spam arsenal recently in an effort to be more transparent. With billions of pieces of content being shared on Facebook every month and spammers relentlessly targeting users, fighting spam isn't easy, blogged Caroline Ghiossi, an associate on Facebook's user operations team. The site relies in part on its users to report bad behavior, and has used that information to identify common patterns of unacceptable behavior, she added. "For example, we've learned that if someone sends the same message to 50 people not on his or her friend list in the span of an hour, it's usually spam," she wrote. "Similarly, if 75 percent of the friend requests a person sends are ignored, it's very likely that that person is annoying others he or she doesn't actually know." Without going into detail about how the systems work, she noted that the anti-spam systems are designed to detect suspicious behavior and block it. "In extreme cases where the behavior continues despite our warnings, we may disable the person's account," she wrote. "When this happens, it usually isn't a person's account at all but a fake account or a real account that's been compromised. The compromised accounts are put into a process to give control back to the rightful owner. In all other cases, we always give the person an opportunity to appeal the decision by contacting us." Facebook's automated systems also protect against malicious Websites by adding them to block lists and deleting Wall posts or messages that link to it. "Sometimes, spammers try to hide their malicious links behind URL shorteners like Tiny URL or bit.ly, and in rare cases, we may temporarily block all use of a specific shortener," she added. "If you hit a block while using a URL shortener, try a different one or just use the original URL for whatever you're trying to share." "These systems are so effective at working in the background that most people who use Facebook will never encounter one," she continued. "They're not perfect, though, and we're always working to improve them. We do this by actively monitoring appeals and learning from the rare cases in which we make mistakes." |
Comments (8)
They are disabling accounts of thousands of people who are NOT spammers!!!!!!!!!!!
They are disabling the friend request feature of people who want to add their work members, family, graduating class and after just adding a few we are being blocked!!!!
Nobody in the media is listening or trying to help us!!! WHY??????????? Is it because you are in Facebook's pocket too?????
Posted by dave | July 4, 2010 4:40 PM
Hi, sorry to bother you again. Here is a link to our page. It's growing hundreds by the day! We really need your help. Facebook will not address the problem and the news media is ignoring it. PLEASE!!!!!
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Stop-blocking-me-for-adding-friends-you-suggested-Facebook/127620077272467?ref=ts
Posted by dave | July 4, 2010 4:48 PM
"These systems are so effective at working in the background that most people who use Facebook will never encounter one," ......Your system sucks!!!!
We do this by actively monitoring appeals and learning from the rare cases in which we make mistakes."...you+sytem=mistake..
Posted by angry | July 6, 2010 12:52 AM
Got Blocked again just to try to accept a friends request. which would have been my second friend i accepted in a whole week.
Posted by Nico | July 6, 2010 7:45 PM
I am absolutely gutted about your so called anti spam system - every member is treated like a criminal if they do not 'fit' into the parameters of 'normal conduct'! These so called parameters are false and unrealistic and most of all OFFENSIVE to the people who use facebook. I meet people from very different walks of life every day and we do not have ANY friends in common but want to say in touch. My profile is hidden so they can not find me and I am the only one who can add them - TO cut the long story short I am blocked from adding friends now and have been for at least 3 days already!!!! STOP THIS FUCKING NONSENCE - be so kind. If this continues members will be forced to leave facebook since a huge inconvenience aside - this is insulting! You are NOT a spammer if u happen to meet new people with whom you want to stay in touch on facebook and with whom you yet have no friends in common - and yes some people happen to meet 10 new people a day. On a separate note - my friend adds people he does not know and never will about 20 a day but they have shared networks - he does this just for fun since he made a bat with me that he can get 1000 friends in 2 weeks - why don;t u target behavior like this - or better still wait for spammers to be reported to you rather than accusing and insulting innocent people
Posted by Tatyana | July 7, 2010 10:37 AM
Dear Whoever's supposed to be in charge here,
I was minding my own business, catching up after several days offline, adding my friends, when all of the sudden a "Block!" box appeared on the screen, telling me I added "too many too fast" and so I'm blocked from adding friends on grounds of "abusive behavior".
I'd like to know what drugs you were on when you set the "speed limit", and where you came up with the notion that adding friends, however fast, is an abusive action in and of itself. Sure, if people add friends and THEN abuse them, spam them or whatever, call it abusive. If people send the SAME person a hundred friend requests at the same time, call it abusive. Wait, you can't even do that!
For everything else, there's a great little feature called a "reject button". You may not have noticed it, but it's been there for a while, and it allows requestees to control which friend requests are welcome and which aren't. And if a member has a REAL problem with another member, they also have the option to block them, in which case said latter member won't even be able to see them, let alone (God forbid) send them a friend request!
What more, you've removed the "warning" that came when someone apparently passed aforementioned arbitrary and ever-changing speed limit, not even giving people the good faith to REALIZE they've reached the limit and say, oops, sorry, I'll stop now! Instead, you just drop the block on someone with no indication whatsoever.
Then you say the block will be effective "anywhere from a few hours to a few days", yet give no indication ANYWHERE as to whether or not the block is still in effect or has been lifted. Top that with "attempts to use feature while block is still in effect will extend the block and might get the account permanently blocked"... umm, you might wanna take a step back and look at the HUGE GAPING PARADOX! How in all hells is one to know whether or not they're clear to re-engage in certain supposed "abusive behavior", when there's absolutely no indication whatsoever if the block is still in effect?? Without indication, how is one supposed to know if the block has been lifted WITHOUT trying to use said feature?? Are you kidding me?? This is beyond ridiculous...
In conclusion: I'm a good, law-abiding citizen who's been wrongfully blocked from adding friends. I've never abused a feature and I type all my captchas with full dedication (even though my validated account was supposed to rid me of those!). Please lift this ridiculous block from my account. Also,
1. Please bring back the "warning" before an actual block.
2. If block takes effect, please have a clear indication somewhere of whether or not a block on a specific feature is still in effect or has been lifted. You know, for us to not "attempt to use feature while block is still in effect". I mean, really, people!
3. First and foremost, please give the members a little more credit here. We are plenty capable of controlling certain aspects of our interaction with others on this site, like, you know, rejecting requests from people we don't wanna be friends with (or blocking and/or reporting them in more serious cases). For crying out loud, I had a sexual predator send me a friend request once! I blocked him (like one is supposed to do when encountering an actual "abusive" friend request, duh!), but this just goes to show that this totalitarian attitude makes no sense. He wasn't blocked from sending friend requests, yet I am?? Seriously, let people decide who they wanna interact with instead of deciding for them. Piling up more and more restrictions helps no one and only makes things worse!
Posted by Blocked after 1 add, no one to appeal to, canned reply from Facebot HQ, your "system" is crap. I'm n | July 8, 2010 3:53 AM
So Facebook wants to get rid of spammers. That's well and good except I am not a spammer. I am a gamer and I frequent Facebook for games. Majority of the Facebook games I play do not allow you to get ahead unless you add friends to their game. The solution: find people who play that game along with you: so you have to add new friends for that particular game. If Facebook is averse to this, they should police the Game developers as well, and not punish the end users: yes, that's us gamers who patronize these games. Facebook, after all, must be earning from hosting these online games within their site. So they should go clean up their act first and decide what they really want. Games that do not attract enough players will not earn money. That's a fact. They will only attract that much volume of players if we gamers add up other people and start spreading the news.
Posted by shinyhappy | July 8, 2010 7:29 PM
So I was just blocked from adding friends. This happened while I was adding friends for a new facebook game I've started playing. I wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary as I've added friends in such a manner before for other games such as Vampire Wars or Castle Age, and was filling in all captchas.
Now, I can certainly understand the desire to have measures in place to prevent spamming, but when these measures end up penalizing legitimate users engaging in normal behavior, that's a big problem.
Posted by Matt | July 9, 2010 8:34 PM