Website security has forced us to take a drastic measure
Limiting user registration on Cartoon Movement
We have had to take a somewhat drastic measure to ensure the continued security and usability of our main website. When we started Cartoon Movement in 2010, we set out to be a platform for cartoonists, but we also wanted to stimulate interaction between cartoonists and fans of political satire. That’s why we created a website where everyone could simply make an account; with this account, users were able to comment on cartoons, and also vote for the cartoon they would like to see as an editor’s choice on our homepage.
Over the years, a lot of interaction has moved to our social media channels and our commenting section is now mostly used by cartoonists discussing each other’s works and a couple of die hard cartoon aficionados. In 2020, when we did a full website redesign, we added the feature that users could also directly purchase cartoons for personal use or publication.
One problem has grown in tandem with our website: the issue of website security. We faced numerous attacks (with evidence pointing in the direction of certain autocratic countries whose leaders have a dislike for political satire), forcing us to beef up our security more and more.
With user accounts, we have always had a problem with spam accounts. And although we have taken numerous additional measures to prevent this, the number of accounts has only increased. What’s worse, over the last few months we’ve seen an exponential increase in accounts that share links to downloads of copyrights material, such as music albums and ebooks.
Although we could try to take even more measures to protect our registration process from spam accounts, but chances are it would only work for a while (if at all). And as a website with finite resources, we would rather use our funds to pay our cartoonists than to continue spending money on fighting ever more sophisticated bots.
So, we have decided to go for a more simple approach.
We have removed the ability for people to create their own accounts; from now on, people who would like an account on Cartoon Movement will need to send an email to cartoons@cartoonmovement and we will set up an account manually. This is the easiest way to make sure we are dealing with actual human beings.
