Spam on BIC

[TeamBIC]

Hi BIC,

As you have likely noticed, the Community has been inundated with an exceedingly high volume of spam posts. We are aware of this issue and working hard behind the scenes to fix this. We know these posts can truly impact your experience here, and we appreciate everyone who has sent our team messages on this issue. Our goal is to maintain this safe space where you can all share and read about all things beauty – we’re so sorry this spam is getting in the way of that!

Please know that this is a huge priority for us and we are working to prevent this from happening in the future. We will share updates as soon as we have them. In the meantime, please know that our team and tech partners are on it!

-TeamBIC

[alexasteph]

A "first post approval" was discussed as a way to combat this... I do not think it would in any way deter legit posters from posting or joining, many many many forums use that system and it works perfectly fine. 

[RGbrown]

@TeamBIC @SephoraBIC @KatieBT 

The spam has gotten out of control again, specifically the Chinese/Korean language posts that are difficult for us to delete since something about them causes cookie/other errors. I've posted 11 accounts in the CS Group just tonight (because I can't use the "report inappropriate content button" either most of the time...I just get an error), one of which was up 297 posts as of a couple of minutes ago, and is posting an average of 4 times per minute.

THIS IS RIDICULOUS. Please don't say "we're working on it". Just stop the flood. Please.

(eta: it's been not quite three hours since I first posted this, and the prolific account is up to 923 posts and counting, and there are at least two more new accounts as well. I don't understand how a massive company like Sephora doesn't have at least one overnight mod/admin for basic board maintenance tasks...spam avalanches don't wait for business hours 😕 )

[elise222]

I tried visiting the community this morning and am giving up due to the amount of foreign language spam topics. Can the development team put in some kind of check so if an account starts multiple discussions in a short period of time, their account is frozen? 

At one point, I couldn't even get to this link because the spam had overwhelmed the site.

[niki172]

@TeamBIC @KatieBT whatever happened to talk about making a few members of the community admins? I think making some of us admins solely for the purpose of banning spammers with a log of what actions the admins have done (so there is accountability) would be a great help right about now.

[Kim888]

yup still really bad now @RGbrown .I can't report any of them as spam either. It really sucks when someone tries to ruin things for everyone - no one is buying whatever nonsense so it's clearly just down to hurt the community. Last time I know people suggested either requiring approval for new posters the first few times they post or blocking certain characters. Hopefully they'll be able to get the flood under control soon but since this seems to happen at least once a month seems like other steps are needed 😕

[itscarin]

@RGbrown I agree, this has been going on for months now.  I don't know what their IT team is doing but it's not working.  Maybe it's time to hire some consultants.

[niki172]

Man I wish I knew how to read whatever language that all these spam posts are written in - looks like there's some great opportunities here for some colleges. Since my parents aren't rich or famous this may be a way for me to get my foot in the door to say UCLA by saying I'm on the track team, but I'm really not ;). I'd really like to learn more about it!! 

Seriously though this is getting out of hand especially since it's happening during business hours as well. @TeamBIC any updates??

[jen143xo]

LMAO this made me laugh @niki172  But like you said really this needs to stop! beyond annoying! 

[Indy701]

@niki172  😂 I’m starting to get a complex because the university I went to isn’t included in all of the spam. Why isn’t it good enough to sell fake degree for?! 😜 

[ShortErica]

That's too funny @Indy701! I wonder how they are picking the universities. I am trying to laugh about it but yeah, it's getting old seeing the spam posts.

[niki172]

@Indy701 I've yet to see my college as well lol! Seriously though this is insane along with all the keto diets they've been offering - now that's giving me a complex :D.

[Indy701]

@TeamBIC This morning there is so much spam. 😭. Can we get a button to report it without opening the thread?  I feel there used to be one. 

[ShortErica]

Yep, I've been seeing spam the last couple days and hoping it was a fluke but it seems more consistent. I really hope they put a better prevention method in place as it really takes away from the awesome experience.

[itscarin]

@Indy701 There is a button -- Click on the three dots at the bottom right of a message and the last option is to mark as spam:

[Indy701]

@itscarin  I mean without actually opening the tread. We have the option to reply without opening it so it would be nice to have an option to report also.

[creasedshadow]

Is there a limit on how many posts you can report as spam? I was trying to just get through the front page, but after reporting about five, the "report spam" button disappeared from my options. It's disheartening that this messageboard appears to be better equipped for keeping spam posts up, than it is preventing them in the first place.

[RGbrown]

@creasedshadow 

I've never come across a limit. I was just deleting spam too...you probably went in a thread just as I deleted it (I knew someone else was working on it because I had the same thing happen on a couple myself) 😁

[SalBing]

@TeamBIC   It started again this morning.  I’m only able to deleted about 10s and start having the error telling me unable to complete the operation

[scott1201]

Hey @TeamBIC ! 

I’m sure you guys are still working on this in the background. Any updates or plans you can share with us?

[faeriegirl]

Hopefully they can get this straightened out soon🤞

[pocketvenus]

Was holding my breath but it seems like the spam is finally gone???? Thank you @TeamBIC !!!!!