Not much to �like�
The �like� function on Facebook has always seemed such a friendly thing. It�s an Internet-age way for Facebookers to engage in that most primal of conversation pleasantries: �hey, I like that too.�
It�s just amazing that it�s turned into such an effective vector for cheap advertising, affiliate click sucking and bait for rogues and malicious web sites. The words �tawdry� and �silly� also come to mind in the case at hand.
Today we checked out what was behind a surge of Facebook "like" messages about a girl committing suicide. This seems to be a theme in the last month. There were several campaigns going on at once and some were �liked� tens of thousands of times.
We�ll give away the ending here really fast. In order to see the suicide story you were required to install adware. Your reward was a link to a six-month-old news story on an Indian entertainment news site.
For some odd reason we were required to �verify� our age and when we failed we were required to complete a short quiz, which was really not a quiz:
We are 19 years old according to the goat Facebook account that these folks had access to, but, no matter, we chose to play Pac Man in order to �unlock� the content. That, of course, required us to install an innocuous, though annoying piece of adware.
That �unlocked� the premium content.
And our prize was�
�a link to a February news story on an Indian entertainment news site �NewsofAP� (which has nothing to do with the Associated Press except the cachet of the letters �AP,� we might point out.)
That took us down a rabbit hole into another whole wacky Internet wonderland:
Their �about us� includes the line that they use ��IMPARTIALITY� as a weapon.� They also write that although they will be reporting �gossips� they assure their readers that they will double check with the �concerned people to make sure they are quite authentic.�
Thanks Wendy and Matt.
Tom Kelchner
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