Project

Typecasting

Social Networking Services (SNS) such as MySpace and Facebook are increasing in popularity. They encourage and enable users to communicate with previously unknown people on an unprecedented scale. Now our increased social sphere is requiring us to potentially distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate strangers. Automatically rejecting 'unwanted' messages has long been the function of spam filtering; however, as we move from Viagra ads in email to Betty the saleswoman in SNS, identifying a nuisance requires placing value judgments. Nuisances take the shape of legitimate social humans and commercial entities, and sometimes both�what is Britney Spears? We seek to redefine spam and how people are labeled more in the context of SNS by looking at users as prototypes.