Facebook found a new use for some of the Mafia Wars spam we see in our news feeds. Unfortunately many of these requests are in a players advantage to accept and they will now be slowed down due to a forced malware checkpoint. Players are now getting locked out of their Facebook accounts until they complete the viral scan either McAffe or Microsoft Essentials. The explanation provided by Facebook can be found here. Apparently this has been around for sometime but Mafia Wars players are now getting the check points for clicking on game requests. So far players have reported getting it when clicking on a Stranger’s Swag or War request. Zynga needs to talk to Facebook and get this nonsense to stop. Mafia Wars requests are an annoying part of the game but they aren’t malware nor will they hurt anyone’s computer. Obviously Facebook is getting paid by the companies offering these free but forced scans (see image #6). Below is a the process players locked out of their accounts need to go through in order to get them back. I would never let anything by McAaffe on my computer. That company practices some sleazy marketing tactics and their product isn't even that good.
Thanks to Edward Larson and Mike Nestor for the links and screen shots.
WHEN WILL ZUCERBERG STOP FUKING WITH STUFF THAT AINT BROKE TILL HE HAS GOT AT IT
ReplyDeletegreat..thats just what we all need.
ReplyDeleteFunny that when you click on the Microsoft Security Essentials hyperlink on Facebook message I got a pop up
ReplyDeletePlease enter your password to continue
Alessandra Lessa Bonati
The page you are trying to visit requires that you re-enter your password.
http://prntscr.com/t5v2z
ReplyDeleteFunaaaaaaay! .. that's what it seems to be getting to. LOL :D
DeleteOh No-They are going to start screwing with the newsfeed and profiles again.They are running out of things to do.
ReplyDeleteWhat a bunch of knobs. They are probably trying yet another tactic to stop players from using scripts, 'detected' as infected, remove from your pc immediately! HAHA! Yeah, I don't trust mcafee either, always been a norton user and no viruses here, thank you very much facebook :P
ReplyDeletelmao
ReplyDeleteFacebook can shovel it! McAaffe has never done anything good to my PC or Internet connection so if they make me use that crap I will be deleting my account forever.
ReplyDeleteZynga's problems with FB are beyond Mafia Wars. I was in Farmville, performing the perfectly ordinary task of sharing produce bushels with a neighbor. Facebook-- not Zynga-- declared the share to be 'spammy' and blocked the message. My bushel was already deleted from my farm so we both lost out. It was FB's fault, but Zynga faces the complaint from the players. What's next? My sending MW gifts gets declared 'spam' and my ZMC is emptied by Facebook? They've already interfered with MW by blocking my "Like" button for clicking on too many help links in the Octocraft event.
ReplyDeletethat aint nothing today a friends page was showing the whole page I told her to go to www,mafiawars.com I got a pop up from facebook saying this page I was spammy or some gabage like that and would not let me post into a chat box
ReplyDeleteZYNGA CAN'T TELL ANYONE THAT THEY ARE NOT GOING TO SHUT DOWN...FACEBOOK WILL HAVE TO DO THAT>>>THEY OWN MAFIA WARS< NOT ZYNGA>>...
ReplyDeleteWTF ARE YOU YELLING FOR?????????????? Trun off the caps and try posting in a normal "voice". FB does not own Zynga. FB and Zynga are two totally unrelated entities. They don't even get along and are incapable of playing in the same sandbox without both of them crapping their pants over the other one being present. Now stop yelling and acting like an idiot.
Deletei was done that way also and when i tried to complain i got no response after jumping through hopes i thought that was the worst and it literaly is an invasion on us because those scans affect our computer whch we paid for not face book and they certainly should not have that right to force that
ReplyDeletei think this is horrable this happened to me and after jumping through hopes to get a message off to them it was met with errors i am very aggrevated for this reason our computer is ours and should not be forced to allow them to invade us so if it happens again to me they lose yet another paying mw player i wont have that crap in my pc its mine and i own the thing if they want in one they should pay for them of course they will not so they have no right scan our pc's with a antivirus worse than i currently run i run Norton 360 and never a problem so to say the least i found this very unsettling
ReplyDeleteThis is NOT just MW players. I used to play. The account I have now had this happen today and has never seen MW on it. I however am an ADMIN on a few Fan Pages. MANY Fan Page ADMINS seemed to have had this happen all simultaneously today.
ReplyDeleteThis is a FB thing. I write about Mafia Wars so only focused on the Mafia War requests. This has and will happen to all links posted on FB regardless where they come from. As long as they are flagged as potential malware it will happen. Any link, illegitimate or not has the potential. Especially if other players report it as being spam which is easy to do.
Deletehappened to me yesterday when I tried to change my profile picture, I think it's not connected to MW or Zynga but facebook :/
ReplyDeletei dont even use windoze
ReplyDeleteThis is BS!! I would never put or let anyone I know put McAfee on their computer let alone have it on mine! This has got to stop or they will lose a lot of players yet again.
ReplyDeletethis isnt just happering with gamming accounts its happering to non gamming accounts,
ReplyDeleteMcAaffe --- need to edit post jen, it McAfee
ReplyDeleteI got that message when trying to reach this very page a few minutes ago :-(
ReplyDeleteThis has been happening for awhile but now more so since Facebook admitted to getting hacked by outside groups.
ReplyDeleteIf you have a Mac, you don't have to run the McAfee scan. You get a different message asking you to verify you've run a scan on your computer. Thank goodness. I've had friends who do *not* play MW get the popup for the virus, though, so it's not just us. Last night I got the "link reported to be spam" when I clicked in MW to ask for more crew. Luckily it didn't mark me as "asked" so I refreshed the page and was fine, able to click thru to make the ask. Definitely weird, wacky stuff though.
ReplyDeletewas wondering bout Mac's, cool thanks :)
Deletehttp://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/15/tech/social-media/facebook-attack/index.html
ReplyDelete