sort of breaking: 80 percent of blogs contain “offensive” content

by Violet Blue on April 25, 2007

the internets are scary

So basically, ScanSafe’s Monthly “Global Threat Report” for March 2007 means that 20 percent of you *are not doing your jobs*. Don’t make me get out the ruler. You know, the one that has “blogger” studded in reverse on one side. Snip from Ars Technica:

Blogs are known to be a free-for-all for “expressive” content, but according to a new report by ScanSafe, a vast majority of blogs host content that is considered “offensive” and potentially “unwanted.” ScanSafe’s Monthly “Global Threat Report” for March 2007 says that up to 80 percent of blogs host offensive content, ranging from “adult language” to pornographic images. The company suggests that businesses should be aggressive about preventing users from accessing some or all of this material. And of course, they’d hope that you’d use their products to do so.

ScanSafe says that it discovered the “offensive” nature of blogs by analyzing more than 7 billion web requests coming from their corporate customers. In doing so, they apparently learned that the so-called blogosphere is a lot like a George Carlin performance: diverse, sometimes entertaining, and loaded with “bad words.”

In addition to so-called offensive content, about six percent of blogs analyzed in March also hosted some sort of malware. “Blogs are a great vehicle for self-expression and the exchange of ideas,” said ScanSafe’s VP of Product Strategy Dan Nadir in a statement. “Employees visiting these sites can unknowingly expose corporate networks to legal liability, viruses, and loss of proprietary information.”

But what’s really considered “offensive” content? A blog merely has to contain a single instance of profanity to be considered offensive, according to ScanSafe. “There were as many blogs with the ‘F-word’ as the word ‘China’,” Nadir told Techworld.

Link.

Violet Blue

The London Times named Violet Blue "One of the 40 bloggers who really count" and Self Magazine named TinyNibbles one of the “Best Sex Resources for Women.” Blue is an autodidact and pundit on sex and technology, hacking and security, porn for women, privacy and bleeding-edge tech culture. She is a journalist for ZDNet, CBS News, CNET; she's an educator, speaker, crisis counselor, volunteer NGO trainer, and the author and editor of over 40 award-winning books.

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