Privacy Advocates Hijack 300 Facebook Groups

Protesters say it's too easy to gain access to personal information
By Nick McMaster,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 10, 2009 3:29 PM CST
Privacy Advocates Hijack 300 Facebook Groups
The Logo for Control Your Info, an online privacy advocacy group.   (CYI)

A group advocating for social-networking privacy has hijacked nearly 300 Facebook groups over the past few days to point out weaknesses in the site’s control of personal information. The protesters renamed all the Facebook groups “Control Your Info,” pointing out that after administrators of groups step down, anyone else can take over. "We control a certain part of the information about you on Facebook," said a posted message.

"For example we could rename your group and call it something very inappropriate and nasty like 'I Support Pedophiles' Rights,'” the message said. Two users who posted those messages from hijacked groups have been booted from Facebook, despite claiming they were only advocating for better awareness, CNN reports. Not all fellow users saw it that way: "It's pretty inappropriate that you hijacked a Facebook group for Palestinian rights to selfishly promote your little conspiracy theory page," one user wrote.
(More Facebook stories.)

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