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Beware of Using URL Shorteners with Facebook
01/16/10
When Howcast.com accepted my Lemon Battery and posted it on their site I used Tweetdeck to simultaneously announce it on both Twitter and Facebook. It worked great until a few days later my wife, who browses Facebook frequently told me that when she clicked on the link which had been shortened with twurl.nl she got a popup saying the content had been reported as abusive.
After a bit of experimentation I realized that the default URL shortener used by Tweetdeck was what was blocked. Any URL in the twirl.nl domain causes the abusive content popup and blocks the Facebook user from accessing the link.
My advice would be not to post shortened URL's to Facebook. Facebook appears to be using a big hammer and instead of blocking a single URL is blocking whole domains. Now twurl.nl is blocked, who knows which URL shortening domain will be blocked next. Conspiracy theorists might also think this has something to do with the release of Facebook's own URL shortening service fb.me. Might Facebook be planning to block all other URL shorteners in the name of security?
2 comments
I can see why they blocked it. With the rise of spam becoming an even larger problem and social networking becoming a very popular avenue for spammers to now scam people and trick people into following links that lead them to sites that redirect to yet another site to force them to install malicious content to their computers in the back ground without them knowing and stealing their bank info or passwords and then hijacking their facebook account .. Facebook had to do something! I think it is a wise move as their own url shortener service would be a lot easier to monitor and only makes sense. Now I am not really a fan of Facebook in the first place mind you because of the security issues they have had over the long run, but I do know they are trying to improve things. However I think it is hindered by how they want all information public and that only leads to attracting even more scammers.
It’s hard to imagine a Web sans URL shortening services nowadays but you can rest assured that they’re here to stay – for better or worse. Question is: how do the likes of bit.Ly, Tiny URL and Google score in terms of speed and availability?
