Controversial direct action hits Facebook

Control Your Info (CYI), a campaign group wanting to raise awareness of online privacy issues, has taken a controversial course of direct action against Facebook to make a point:

Thanks to the nature of the Facebook group system itself, if there is no administrator present, anyone can join and make themselves an administrator. This is what CYI did. They used the Google search, and with the results, managed to make themselves administrators on 289 open groups. [The Tech Herald]

Although this isn’t the same as hacking, the sudden takeover of so many groups understandably caused all sorts of stories about hacking to circulate. Facebook’s response?

Facebook has issued statements that no personal information was compromised, anyone who looked at what happened with the groups was already well aware of this fact however. What Facebook has not said is whether they will fix the settings within the group properties to prevent similar hijackings in the future. For now, they are investigating the incident they say.

If the action prompts Facebook to take action, that will be a good result – but one that still leaves me dubious about CYI’s approach given that it is no surprise people were concerned and thought hacking was taking place.