spam

F@c€b00k removed my post

Posted on October 10, 2024October 10, 2024

Yes, I know that it was a machine not a person.
And yes, I get the reasons behind this, given the subject of the post and the sort of people that are out there.

But when you look at their messages to me:

How my post is “misleading” is a bit beyond me. The posts on 6000 miles… publish directly to Facebook so that you can access from there, and the biggest fan of this whole operation is Facebook itself, which is constantly (and irritatingly) reminding me to post more on there.

But when I do…

I have broken none of those rules. Sure, you will end up on the blog when you click the links I share, but I’m not trying to hide it. If you choose to click, that’s your problem, not mine.

We all know what you are letting yourself in for.

The other thing here is that they’ve removed my post, even though I’ve published a blog post every day for almost 14 years, and for at least half of those to Facebook, but then you look at the hate speech, AI images, misinformation, spam, the myriad of scams and general crap that gets through, and you think: why me?

And if it looks like I’m somehow elevating myself above other people posting stuff to Facebook, well yes, I am. Certainly above all of that stuff, anyway.

Who knows if this post will be removed as well? I cunningly tried to disguise the name of the social media service in the title of this post so that Facebook won’t know that the post is about it.
I know: you didn’t even notice, right?

It’s also worth noting that Twitter had no issue with this morning’s post. But then their bar on content quality is so low that it’s a tripping hazard in Hell.

So that’s not that surprising.

My shipment on hold

Posted on February 21, 2024February 21, 2024

Bad news from my email today. My shipment on hold.

Hopefully, it’s not on hold next to the Al Kuwait (actually, she left this morning).

But it’s not great that my shipment sent through smash contains things that are dependent on customs obligations. No-one wants that to happen to them.

Those customs obligations are R16.13. That’s 67p or 85c.
It’s not a lot, but I’m glad that they might want to illuminate me about it.

Something seems to have been lost a little in translation [lol, you think?!? – Ed.] on the next line though. It’s almost as if for some reason, they mistook customs as in the department responsible for taxing products moving in and out of the country, with customs, meaning a way of behaving or a belief that has been established for a long time.

Hence their use of a synonym for the wrong customs and asking me to pay my traditions obligations.

Oops.

What happens if I don’t pay my traditions obligations, though? What are you going to do about it?

Wait, what? The shipment might get back to transporter?!? Not the same transporter that sent through smash contains things that are dependent on customs obligations?!?

I’d better visit their site and adhere to the directions, and then acknowledge the conveyance, sharpish.

Thanks Akismet

Posted on October 9, 2012

This message on the dashboard of your favourite blog this morning:

Akismet has protected your site from 100,717 spam comments already.

And already, despite a clear out:

There are 105 comments in your spam queue right now.

Akismet isn’t perfect. Either that or the spammers are getting more cunning. Here are two examples that slipped through this week, firstly from “free medication help”:

Hello, i believe that i saw you visited my web site thus i came to go back the want?

Which is obviously better English than what you want usual get on this blog the want.

And another one, unremarkable in content, but rather for the “name” of the sender, which was:

Regardless of your better efforts, everyone may ultimately get some good kind of a zit. Rather than taking this (this distributes the viruses and also oils inside the zit all around) try out putting toothpaste on it. The actual tooth paste works to absorb

The link attached took me to an online sex shop in Poland, which has some spectacular deals on at the moment. However, most of the spam that I get is far less useful. And (obviously), if I din’t have Akismet, I wouldn’t be able to do blogging here on 6000 miles… as I’d be too busy deleting spam comments.

So, thanks Akismet.

Twitter Spam – how you can prevent it

Posted on January 25, 2012May 15, 2012

This brief post in answer to FutureCapeTown‘s desperate request for assistance over Twitter DM spam, which seems to be an ever increasing problem:

@6000 Write a blog post about it. For the sake of our DM inbox.

Most Twitter DM (direct message) spam from your followers or followees comes from someone doing something a bit foolish, like giving their login details to an unscrupulous third party, which then (unsurprisingly) acts unscrupulously, as is the nature of the beast.
Of course, most users would baulk at the suggestion that they would ever willingly share their password with any third party, but that’s actually what you do each and every time you authorise an app to use your login.
Many (most?) apps are completely harmless in this regard, but if you authorise a dodgy app which is phishing for your details, then you only have yourself to blame. And what does a “dodgy app” look like exactly? Well, if you need me to tell you that, you’re probably in trouble already, but thankfully Twitter steps in to spare our blushes:

Be wary of any application that promises to make you money or get you followers. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!

Beware also of links promising free shopping vouchers, iPods, iPads and weight loss tips. And have a look at Twitter’s SpamWatch account.

So how do you know if your Twitter account has been compromised? There are a few rather obvious signs:

Have you:

Noticed unexpected Tweets by your account.
Seen unintended DM’s (direct messages) sent from your account.
Observed other account behaviors you didn’t make or approve (like following, unfollowing, or blocking).
Received a notification from us stating that, “You recently changed the email address associated with your Twitter account” (even though you haven’t changed your email address).

If so, then yes, your account has probably been compromised. Incidentally, if you are on the receiving end of such spam, don’t click on any links therein, but do let the sender know that you received it. Then they can prevent the problem from continuing.

Right, so your account has been compromised. How do you uncompromise it?

3 quick and easy steps:

Change your password, via the Password Tab in Account Settings.
Revoke access to any applications that you don’t use or don’t recognise, via the Applications Tab in Account Settings.
Update your password on trusted 3rd party applications.

It might also be a good idea to scan your computer for malware as well, especially if the problem persists despite taking the steps above.

The best thing to do is not to be silly in the first place. You wouldn’t wander round giving your PIN code to everyone, would you? Guard your login details in the same way, stand back and watch as none of the above applies to you. And limit those dodgy links as well – report spam you receive (using the “Report Spam” button) and let Twitter admin do the rest.

Incidentally, the same rules apply to Facebook as well. You can change your password via this page and revoke dodgy apps here.

The trouble with spam

Posted on March 10, 2011

Love it or hate it – and let’s face it, we all hate it – spam is here to stay. 14.5 billion email messages a day. That’s more than four Viagra offers for every man on this planet. Each. Every day. Some of us don’t need that assistance. Really.
And it’s an issue on blogs as well. Here on 6000 miles…, our ratio of trashy nonsense (“Spam”) to real comments (affectionately known as “Ham”) is around 7:1. That means we’re up to 40,000 spam comments on here over the last three and bit years since we moved over to WordPress. Ouch.

But that’s nothing when you look at the Dihlabeng Local Municipality site. It fades into absolute obscurity when you consider this post, describing the make-up of the municipal council. It’s been there for just over 6 months and has attracted over 640,000 spam comments, many of them advertising exciting-sounding sexual deviance of one sort or another.

But has no-one noticed? How do you miss three and a half thousand comments each day on one post on your site?

I’m actually hoping that no-one does notice. I reckon by mid-May, the council post will hit a million spam hits. I’m going to suggest that they throw a party and maybe invite some of those nice girls that they’ve been linking to.