I suppose it was inevitable. With Facebook being so popular, spam and viruses (or something!) had to invade it.

I’ve been getting messages from someone saying:

• OH MY GOSH! I know I shouldn’t talk about this here in facebook, but I thought I would message you from my new APPLE IPHONE 4G that I just got for free. Don’t tell anyone but there is a website sending out free iPhone 4G to anyone that signs up, http://www.[namedeleted] dot com. That is where I got mine btw follow these steps exactly to get one for yo…urself, go www[namedeleted] dot com enter you email, enter your shipping address and wait 3-5 business days to receive your it in the mail! it works!!

Of course it’s spam.  If the phrasing, so unlike my Facebook friend’s usual language, didn’t tip me off, the fact that the same message arrived several times in the last day would have done so.

And then there’s another example someone sent me:

• I ❤ summer!*I ❤ summer!*I ❤ summer!*I ❤ summer!* (and so on).

No idea what that one’s trying to do, since I didn’t open it. I did look at the comments, though, and there were a string of very uncomplimentary ones, as well as several that said they’d complained to Facebook and not gotten a response… this one persisted for several days, but I think it’s gone now.

So I guess the point of this post is: Be as careful with Facebook as you are with email. The spammers are probing its defenses.