When it comes to social media, sharing is a key strategy in propagating information and getting messages sent across borders to reach targeted audiences. But sometimes, people become wary of social media sharing when others tend to spam in the social media space. Social spam is one of the modern problems when it comes to social media issues.
What is social spam? According to Wikipedia, “Social spam is unwanted spam content appearing on social networking services, social bookmarking sites, and any website with user-generated content.” Consider the excerpt below:
Send “JESUS LOVES U” to 15 people right now. Let’s see if you have time for JESUS.”
Have you seen this or something similar? This is what is considered social spamming. The word “social spamming” is a derivative of the word ‘spam’ in ‘social sharing’ (communication). Share, as implied in cyber communication, means to distribute a copy of data (information) to another user through a network. Spam has to do with sending unsolicited messages to someone.
Therefore, in the social media space, “social spamming” is used to describe the act of continuously distributing unsolicited messages to people via social networks and messengers. Usually, the message requires a recipient to forward the same message “as-received”. There are so many forms of share spamming, and still, a thousand reasons why people are caught in the practice.
Why do people engage in share spamming
In most messages, like the one quoted at the beginning of this article, a user is required to forward the message to a number of their contacts, if not all, in other to receive a purported blessing or favour (A bit religious for those who are religiously inclined but outright nonsense to the opposite group, whatever).
Some versions maintain the claim that if one forwards the message, it shows their love for God or Jesus (sorry Atheists) otherwise they support Satan, the devil. Still, others maintain that bad luck awaits those who will fail to forward. Consider the example below:
This message just came into my inbox, and I can’t overlook it. “Jesus is coming very soon“. Send this message to 19 people except for me. You will get good news tomorrow. If you neglect it, bad luck for 9 years. This is your assignment.
Like the one above, the fear of the said bad luck for 9 years or so leads many to forward the message forcefully without pausing to reflect on the possible effect that may impose on other recipients. Is it worth the effort and practice to forward messages as received? This is what a WhatsApp user said on the issue:
Attention! Attention!! Attention!!! This goes to all my friends. This year, please do not send me a text requesting me to forward to 10 or so people for my blessings to come. I’m sorry that my blessings will come from God (sorry, atheists) and not from forwarding messages; and if I don’t send bad luck follows? Nobody can stop one’s blessing. Enjoy 2017.
This is very true. Blessings do not come from forcefully forwarding messages, they come from doing things honestly of our free will with positive intention. So do not think forwarding or ignoring messages can add to your blessings or curses. No!
Read Fighting Hoaxes, Pranks, Scams and Spams.
The fact is that forwarding such messages, especially those that contain the ‘bad luck’ wordings, will not just worry your recipients but will also force them to withdraw the respect they have for you. It is very disheartening to wish your contacts ‘bad luck’ all in the name of junk unsolicited messages. Plus, when you send such messages, the content will be attributed to you as a sender and not the original composer.
This means, your recipients will feel you have disturbed them by sending them a message that forcefully requires them to do something that goes against their will. Your family and friends deserve better than that. Think about how you felt when you received the message and never let sharing be ‘cursing’ instead of ‘caring’.
