Jon Hickman: Why has the Guardian received little backlash over jobs board hack?
Cast your minds back a few weeks: the Guardian UK jobs board, operated by Madgex, was targeted by hackers. The Guardian reported the incident in its print edition, and the comments beneath an initial blog post show some strong criticism and speculation over why the attack occurred.
But Birmingham City University researcher Jon Hickman reflects that it passed with ‘little comment’:
“Guardian Jobs must have many thousands of members, and this security breach could be affecting them all in a very real way, yet I haven’t seen much in the way of a backlash.
“Twitter should be out in force decrying this failure in the website’s duty of care. Questions should be asked of the Guardian’s response which puts the onus on individual consumers. Instead: nothing.
“How, in these times of consumer activism and online protest has this passed uncommented? Given the pressures of the marketplace, why do The Guardian not have to work hard to keep in favour with their audience?
“Perhaps even in this digital age the old myths of the mainstream news media still hold true today: we work for them, all the while thinking we are the customer when in fact we’re the product.”
(via @PaulBradshaw on Twitter)
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