Spammers and Hatena Haiku
Aug. 21st, 2019 04:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starseerdrgnSo... I've noticed that Weasyl has a very small spammer problem, where accounts keep getting registered to post links to piracy sites. And Weasyl staff are fairly quick on taking them down, once they're reported.
And yet, I can't help but remember Hatena Haiku, which is now completely gone from both the US and Japanese websites. It was a fairly nice social media website with strict moderation, and very quick staff working to keep the place free of drama and abuse. Unfortunately, it was completely overrun by Russian phishing and piracy spammers (everything was in Cyrillic and pointing to .ru websites). Even removing their APIs didn't help, since the spammers automated the smartphone app for posting. And it was such a flood that even the well-trained staff couldn't keep up. They were forced to close down the English language version, but it seems the same thing happened to the Japanese language side as well, which is sad to see.
From the look of things, they've completely abandoned the English-speaking market--aside from their blog engine and Nintendo-oriented services--leaving most of their features only available to Japanese speakers. And that's even more sad to see, since Hatena is actually pretty damn good for a social platform. Bookmarking, photo sharing, blogging, verified news... Hell, they were the Facebook of Japan, without the bullshit from Zuck and company. They mostly still are, too.
It's just disappointing that spammers keep ruining great things. Usenet, email, Twi-- Well, there's no helping that one. But you get my point.
Maybe some day, we'll figure out a good way to get rid of them. Some day.
And yet, I can't help but remember Hatena Haiku, which is now completely gone from both the US and Japanese websites. It was a fairly nice social media website with strict moderation, and very quick staff working to keep the place free of drama and abuse. Unfortunately, it was completely overrun by Russian phishing and piracy spammers (everything was in Cyrillic and pointing to .ru websites). Even removing their APIs didn't help, since the spammers automated the smartphone app for posting. And it was such a flood that even the well-trained staff couldn't keep up. They were forced to close down the English language version, but it seems the same thing happened to the Japanese language side as well, which is sad to see.
From the look of things, they've completely abandoned the English-speaking market--aside from their blog engine and Nintendo-oriented services--leaving most of their features only available to Japanese speakers. And that's even more sad to see, since Hatena is actually pretty damn good for a social platform. Bookmarking, photo sharing, blogging, verified news... Hell, they were the Facebook of Japan, without the bullshit from Zuck and company. They mostly still are, too.
It's just disappointing that spammers keep ruining great things. Usenet, email, Twi-- Well, there's no helping that one. But you get my point.
Maybe some day, we'll figure out a good way to get rid of them. Some day.
