Strategically Communicating

I’m sure most of us who were on Facebook earlier this week were perplexed when our Facebook page was bombarded with the “Nicole Santos” virus. The virus spread like wild fire and in a matter of minutes the comments had completely taken over my newsfeed. The comment, which was quite crude and disturbing, included “Vote For Nicole Santos” along with other profane words. The virus was quickly spread because people kept clicking “Remove this app”, which really allowed the script to access thousands of Facebook accounts, resulting in the spread of the ridiculous message throughout Facebook. This is an example of the quick way news now travels with the use of social media. Facebook took control of the issue in a matter of minutes, and the comments were immediately deleted from users walls in less than 30 minutes. However, regardless of how fast Facebook removed the virus, the news of it quickly spread throughout both Facebook and Twitter. “Nicole Santos” Facebook pages were immediately made, with thousands of users “liking” the pages within minutes. The news of the “Nicole Santos” virus spread to twitter with people tweeting “Who is Nicole Santos”, and it quickly became a trending topic. It amazes me that a virus that was only on Facebook for about half an hour, quickly became the topic of social media outrage and discussion.

Although this was a slightly comedic example of Facebook hacking and the spread of viruses because of the absurdity of the message, it made me realize that now I honestly enjoy using Twitter over Facebook for reasons likes this. I remember back when I stopped using Myspace because it started to get taken over with ridiculous viruses and comments from strangers advertising products and other odd links. In my opinion, if Facebook does not figure out these issues with hacking and viruses soon, it seems that more and more people will start to prefer Twitter to Facebook.