Internet site Facebook Inc. Thursday said user accounts in India
weren't affected by the spam attack which posted pornographic and
violent images on the pages of users of the popular social networking
website in the U.S. earlier this week.
Denying a recent media report, Facebook said that there have been inaccurate reports of users' accounts being hacked in India.
"This is not true. Protecting the people who use Facebook from spam and malicious content is a top priority for us".
Facebook has 25 million users in India.
Earlier, a report on the Midday tabloid website said accounts of more
than 200,000 Facebook users were hacked and weblinks to their morphed
pornographic pictures were sent as news feeds to friends and family.
However, Facebook denied this, saying users' photos were not
transferred to an unwanted site and that no accounts were compromised.
Facebook's denial comes as the company Tuesday acknowledged a
"coordinated spam attack" in the U.S. over the weekend, where some of
its users were tricked into pasting and executing "malicious javascript"
in their browser URL bar, causing them to share offensive content
without knowing it.
"Our efforts have drastically limited the damage caused by this
attack, and we are now in the process of investigating to identify those
responsible," Facebook said, in a separate response to the attack
overseas.
The company has a no-nudity policy and requires that members be at
least 13 years old. Users are encouraged to report questionable content
via links on Facebook pages. The social network also removes pornography
on its own initiative.
"We are always working to improve our systems to isolate and remove
material that violates our terms, and take action on those who is
responsible for these types of content," the company said Thursday.
The site is facing challenges at a time when it is set to unveil a
major redesign of the profile pages of its 800 million users. The
redesign, called Timeline, is supposed to allow Facebook users to let
the site organize all of their actions chronologically.