Web-based hate groups on the rise
This highlights the ‘other’ side of Web 2.0 and the sometimes negative aspect of user generated content…
Websense Security Labs has seen an increase of over 300 per cent in the first five months of 2009 the number of sites it categorizes as containing “racism and hate” and “militancy and extremist” over the same period in 2008. The content was particularly prevelant on Web 2.0 sites such as Facebook.
The rise in this category of sites potentially forces businesses to reevaluate their policies on allowing Web 2.0 sites to be used at work.
A Websense survey of 1,300 IT managers in 10 countries showed that although 95 per cent of IT managers allow access to Web 2.0 in some way, only nine per cent have security to protect all threats. The statistic becomes troublesome considering the survey also found that 62 per cent of IT managers believe Web 2.0 is necessary for their business.
Part of the trouble with Web 2.0 is correctly identifying the kinds of sites that it encompasses. The same Websense survey showed that only 17 per cent of IT manger correctly identified all types of Web 2.0 sites from a list. Half of these IT managers identified wikis, video uploading and cloud computing to be Web 2.0.
