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iePlexus Social Media News Brief: March 24, 2010

Google thinks it figures out how to get though Chineses laws, but then the government stuck back. We’ll give you the latest details in the battle between China & Google.  Then we’re talking spam. One social media site has almost no spam, while another is being flooded with it.  And the latest internet craze becomes today’s viral video.  Get caught up with iePlexus Social Media News Brief for today, Wednesday, March 24, 2010.

 China is slamming Google after they decided to leave mainland china and move their operations to Hong Kong.  This comes months after of battle over Chinese censorship.  The foreign minister of China said that this is just an individual incident taken by a business.  And he doesn’t see it impacting China/US relations unless someone wants to politicize it.  China called Google’s move totally wrong, since the search engine broke promises to play by the government rules.  Now, when users in mainland China visit China’s Google site, they are now redirected to Hong Kong’s Google servers, which are not required to be censored.  A number of people have left flowers and chocolates at Google’s headquarters in Beijing to show their support for the search engine.  The move though likely means that users won’t see googles uncensored content.  China’s own filter, which locals call the Great firewall of China is working hard censoring materiel.  Some say this move means that China will clamp down even harder on the search engine.  iePlexus will keep you updated on any developments on the story.

It seems like an impossible task to actually avoid spam on the Internet, but now Twitter is trying to change it, at least on their website.  In a blog post on Tuesday, the company announced the amount of spam tweets sent out a day is 1%, which is an incredible task if you think about it.  During the same time last year, spam on Twitter took up roughly 7% of the microblogging website.  And in August of this past year, spam on Twitter hit an all time high, with close to 11% of all tweets.  Although Twitter is proud of their accomplishment, they say they are going to continue their efforts to getting rid of spam all together on their site. 

Speaking of spam, Facebook users have been receiving e-mails telling them their passwords have been changed.  An e-mail which contains the note: “Because of the measures taken to provide safety to our clients, your password has been changed. You can find your new password in attached document.” Of course the attached document is a virus.  Facebook has warned users not to open that e-mail and also say they would never send out a file to change your password. 

 And finally, have you heard of Chatroulette? It’s the latest internet sensation to hit the web by storm.  Users connect via webcam and are magically linked up to another user, so they can talk randomly or be nexted.  One user wanted to spice things up, so he recorded his session as he sang to the people that came up on the screen.  Then posted it to YouTube, became a viral video. Take a listen.

The original video was taken down and had more than 4.2 million views. Since being reposted on Monday night, the video has since had more than half a million views. 

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