14 DAY TRIAL // A big number of Facebook groups have been taken over and are in the complete control of an organization that calls itself “Control Your Info.” But the group says its intentions aren't meant to cause any sort of damage but to raise awareness of a design flaw in Facebook, the very issue they are abusing. Hundreds of Facebook groups have been affected and it's quite safe to say they've reached their goal of making people aware of the problem.
At the moment, if a Facebook Group administrator steps down or leaves the group, the position can be filled by any member of the group even the newest ones. Because the admins don't always get replaced when they leave, anyone can come in, take over the group and then do pretty much as they please as they'll have complete control over it. The malicious users could view the members’ private information, as well as change the group's name or image and any other data relating to it.
“Hello, we hereby announce that we have officially hijacked your Facebook group. This means we control a certain part of the information about you on Facebook. If we wanted we could make you appear in a bad way which could damage your image severely,” the groups that have been taken over by the organization now read. “For example we could rename your group and call it something very inappropriate and nasty… But have no fear - we won't. We just renamed it Control Your Info. Because this is really all we want.”
There are now hundreds of groups that have been renamed to “Control Your Info” and sport the very same message. The attackers say they have no intention of messing with anything within the group and that they'll leave and restore the name and everything else within a week. While the methods used may not be to everyone's liking, you can't argue that they aren't effective. The group has also set up a blog containing more info on their cause. Facebook hasn't responded so far, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out.