Posted by Chris Gayomali
A loophole in one of Facebook's laxer policies has
been getting some unwanted shine in recent weeks:
for whatever their reasons, users have been able to
take down popular pages (like Ars Technica's)
using little more than a fake email address.
Read Write Web reports that the DMCA (Digital
Millennium Copyright Act) was originally intended
to protect copyrighted material that fails to qualify
under "fair use" -- content that basically has the
right to be freely distributed. However, trolly
Internet users of late have been able to pen letters
under fake email addresses, posing as the owners
of said copyrighted material when submitting
takedown complaints to Facebook.
But the main problem is that Facebook doesn't do
enough to verify the identities of the fakers in
question, who end up causing headaches for the
actual companies maintaining the pages. Though
they ask for a user's name, mailing address,
telephone, email and details, they don't do much to
double check if the information supplied is
legitimate or not.
This wouldn't be a problem if Facebook started
validating a complainant's email address (like: Hey, click this link we're emailing back to you... Thanks!)
But my guess is that with all these angry Internet
types waving pitchforks at Facebook's doorstep,
we'll begin seeing more rigorous identity-checking
measures soon.
In the meantime, you should Like our Facebook
page! Just please don't pretend to be us and have it
taken down...
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