Facebook blamed for users' ignorance

"I think FB has an obligation to its users to say please don't fall for this scam," Cutler said. "By allowing the system to be hacked, it created a catch-22 for them. People now have negative feelings toward the company and it impacts the way people view them and their communication because they don't know if they can trust their communication."

The catch-22 is about how much attention Facebook should be paying to the messages users send to one another.  Should they filter all of them for keywords or domains which they deem as inappropriate?  Once they start looking in messages, where should they stop?

What is important is that users learn about security on the Internet.  The definition of "Web 2.0" is that we are supposed to be savvy enough now to understand how the Internet and websites work, so that we know to protect our information.  Don't open email attachments that seem strange.  Don't log into foreign websites with your personal account information.  Use the same logical sense that you would use on the street.  Don't get into cars with strangers.  Don't accept candy from someone who claims to know your family.  The Internet is not safe, and even those who are aware can be fooled when their guard is down.

"What happened is a friend of mine was a victim the day before with fbaction.net and I'm very computer tech-savvy and still clicked on it and stupidly logged in," Aarin Morrow of Denver said. "I said this is weird and e-mailed my friend and asked about the link, and he said he didn't send it."

The media needs to approach these incidents with a responsible tone.  Instead of simply reporting that it happened and there were lots of victims of the attack, it would be better for them to discuss why the attack was believable and educate their readers on how to be safer.  By allowing the writer of an article to blame Facebook for the naivete of its users, it allows the users to irresponsibly shift the blame away from themselves.  This gives the problem permission to continue -- the next message received will still be opened, and more accounts will be compromised.  Facebook can protect its users to a point, but users have to be smart and protect themselves.