‘Control Your Info’ is a phenomenon coursing throughout Facebook right now, exploiting a weakness allowing for them to assume the role of admin for abandoned groups without any permission needed.
The control of these groups allows for the new owner to change the pictures, information, updates and issue messages to the members of that group, which is bad news for admin-less groups who face the threat of having malicious owners take over and utilize the groups for the wrong reasons.
The design is apparently Working As Intended, however it’s clear to see that the ability for anyone to assume the roll as an admin within Facebook groups where the admin has left, is a flaw and potentially dangerous in the hands of the wrong people.
‘Control Your Info’ have been taking over groups and replacing information with their own, raising awareness about this Facebook flaw, even if it has been done in a rather dis tasteful manner.
What Facebook need to do is to put a measure in place requiring the election of a new admin before the current can leave a group, instantly solving this current issue.
The owners of this ‘firm’ are claiming to help people remember to remain safe within social media, with their website clearly stating that they are NOT hi-jacking groups, simply ‘taking over’ them for a period of time to teach people a ‘lesson’ before restoring them back to what they previously were
Once they take over a group, they leave this message on the groups wall:
‘Hello, we hereby announce that we have officially hijacked your Facebook group.This means we control a certain part of the information about you on Facebook. If we wanted we could make you appear in a bad way which could damage your image severly.
For example we could rename your group and call it something very inappr…opriate and nasty, like “I support pedophile’s rights”. But have no fear – we won’t. We just renamed it Control Your Info. Because this is really all we want:
Think about the safety in your social media life to the same extent you do in your real life.
Watch the videoclip for more information or check out www.controlyour.info for more tips soon!
We promise to restore your group name and leave the group by the end of next week. Don’t worry – we won’t mess anything up.
Best regards
/controlyour.info’
