Facebook is Crooked

Facebook 'Unfriending' Leads To Double Homicide

2012-02-12T15:18:00.000-08:00

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/12/facebook-unfriending-leads-to-double-homicide/

2/12/2012

Horrific: After Billie Jean Hayworth defriended a 30-year-old woman, Jenelle Potter, on Facebook, Potter’s father went to Hayworth’s house and murdered her and her fiance, sparing their baby, who was found unharmed in his mother’s arms. Hayworth, 23, and Billy Payne, 36, were both shot, and Payne’s throat was slashed.

One of the investigators says that there had “been bad blood” between the two families for some time, with confrontations in real life, including an altercation at a grocery store, but what triggered the murders was the act of severing ties on Facebook.

I cannot fathom homicidal rage over a Facebook blocking, but it’s not the first time that a Facebook defriending has inspired criminal retaliation. Last year, an Illinois woman set fire to a couple’s house after being defriended.

Facebook crystallizes the dynamics of our friendships and social interactions — bringing them a clarity that can be measured by clicks, visits, and comments. Having our social interactions brought into that level of focus means that a relationship that might have once ebbed over time naturally through avoidance and ignored phone calls can instead be cut off in a dramatic and confrontational way. Perhaps laying bare the end of a relationship in such a deliberate way means an intensified emotional reaction for those involved, or a sense of finality that one wouldn’t usually get. (When I blocked an ex-boyfriend on Facebook years ago, he was angrier about that than at any other point in our breaking up.)

For it to escalate to this level of retaliation, though, is horribly tragic. I suppose the lesson here, if there is one, is not to defriend/block anyone on Facebook who strikes you as potentially homicidal. (Or better yet, don’t friend them in the first place.)

Facebook Owns You

2012-01-22T09:08:00.001-08:00

The Onion Weighs in on Facebook

2012-01-22T09:06:00.001-08:00

Facebook addicts should get out and socialise more

2012-01-22T09:02:00.000-08:00

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/1/22/nation/10312466&sec=nation

January 22, 2012

WITH every new level of technology comes a corresponding wave of casualties.

From theft victims careless with their bank ATM cards to gullible folk cheated in online scams, the story is familiar enough.

So today we see the rise of Facebook addicts. The fact that this involves victims without criminal perpetrators does not make it any less serious.

Facebook addiction has been known to affect the psychological and physical health of its victims.

It also affects the personal relationships that victims had, or might have had, with others around them.

It is therefore a personal, domestic and social problem. The affliction is universally acknowledged by health professionals who have dubbed it Facebook Addiction Disorder (FAD).

It is compulsive, invasive of one's personal life, distorts priorities, damages one's capacity to relate to others around them and disorientates one to reality.

There are withdrawal symptoms, pangs of “cold turkey” and it is all downright senseless and wasteful.

How can it then be addressed effectively?

Relying on addicts to stop their addiction is not going to work. Neither will legislation, since Facebook can all too easily be accessed through computers or smartphones.

With children and young adults, FAD is particularly pernicious because it eats away at their health in their formative years.

Yet, it is with young addicts that the problem is perhaps easier to avoid with prudent parental intervention.

Adults as parents or guardians therefore have a responsibility to ensure that those under their care do not fall victim to FAD. And as adults anyway, with or without others under their care, they need to set an example by not falling victim themselves.

If push comes to shove, there is always the off switch.

For Malaysians to “have the most Facebook friends in the world” may at first sound gratifying, but in reality it is a condition ridden with problems and liabilities.

The best friends tend to be those you encounter in the flesh. A “friend” in cyberspace may be very unreal, whether as a notional friend of a friend, a fictional character, or even a predator.

If Malaysians have the most virtual friends in the world, it may well be that we have the least real friends in the world. And that would be another tragedy in itself.

Man Tortures Daughter and Posts Pictures at Facebook

2012-01-22T08:59:00.000-08:00

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/01/ohio-man-allegedly-ties-up-daughter-locks-her-in-cage-and-threatens-to-electrify-it/

Jan 21, 2012

Ohio Man Allegedly Ties Up Daughter, Locks Her in Cage and Threatens to Electrify It

An Ohio man is facing child endangerment charges after allegedly tying up his 12-year-old daughter with duct tape, sticking her in a dog cage as punishment, and then threatening to electrify it.

James Tapke, who was arrested Thursday, was ordered held on $50,000 bond during his arraignment Friday.

Police in Springfield Township, near Cincinnati, say Tapke, 41, wrapped duct tape around the girl’s hands and feet, then shut her in a large dog cage on Jan. 10.

While the girl was in the cage, Tapke allegedly dropped small amounts of water on her face, according to police.

Police said the girl’s 13-year-old brother let her out after about 20 minutes, but Tapke put her back in after she poured water on him.

Tapke then allegedly asked his son to get an electrical jumper pack from the garage. Tapke allegedly put the pack outside the cage and threatened to electrify it, although he never did, according to police.

The girl was eventually let out of the cage by her grandmother, who removed the duct tape from her hands and feet, police said.

Police were alerted after a concerned parent saw photos of the girl in the cage on Facebook and called the Hamilton County Department of Job and Family Services.

Tapke’s attorney, Christopher Jackson, said the incident was a joke that got out of hand.

“I believe this was a joke that got out of control. This is why his son, who is 13, posted the pictures on Facebook, as a joke after this happened. … Maybe not the best joke in the world, but I believe that will come out in trial,” Jackson said, according to ABC News affiliate WCPO-TV in Cincinnati.

ABC News affiliate WCPO contributed to this report.

Those Facebook posts could cost you a job

2012-01-22T08:55:00.000-08:00

http://www.philly.com/philly/jobs/137772838.html

Fri, Jan. 20, 2012

Steve JohnsonSan Jose Mercury News

SAN JOSE, Calif. — You might want to think twice about bad-mouthing your former boss on Facebook or posting those racy pictures of yourself from last night’s rollicking bachelor party. It could cost you a new job.

In a controversial twist on the exploding use of online social media, employers are poring over the websites to weed out job applicants whose posts reveal that they use foul language, take drugs, associate with gangs or have other questionable characteristics. Some employers are even demanding that job candidates disclose their social-network user names and passwords.

“We have seen pictures of people driving a vehicle with a beer in their hand, and that’s posted,” said Max Drucker, CEO of Social Intelligence of Santa Barbara, Calif., which helps screen the sites for employers in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. “We found a picture of a person wearing a T-shirt with flagrantly racist remarks.”

While companies long have kept an eye on workers posting information that might hurt business, their screening of job applicants’ social-media pages is proving especially contentious. Employers say they do it to keep from making hires they’d later regret. But courts have yet to hash out the legal implications of the checks, and critics find the practice offensive.

“That’s completely inappropriate,” said Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum. “It’s like saying, ‘Can I read your personal diary?’ I believe that chills free speech. If everyone thinks that to get a job they have to have a perfectly clean social networking site, no one will say anything to anyone.”

Another concern is that information dredged from social media sites may be inaccurate or may confuse two people with the same name. If mistakes occur, “how would the job applicant even know?” said Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.

In a survey last year of companies that screen applicants’ social media sites, 73 percent said they don’t give the applicants a chance “to explain questionable information,” according to the Society for Human Resource Management.

Other surveys have found that anywhere from 18 percent to 63 percent of employers review social media sites to assess job candidates. But many don’t know that. A 2010 Microsoft study found that just 7 percent of those it surveyed in this country realized employers might peruse that data.

And while employers often find positive information about job seekers on the sites, that’s not always the case. Of more than 2,600 hiring managers surveyed by CareerBuilder in 2009, 35 percent had rejected candidates after finding objectionable material, including photos of them using drugs, bad-mouthing previous employers and lying about their qualifications.

Even posting information deemed to have a negative tone can turn off some employers, according to Vlad Gorelick, CEO of Reppler, a Palo Alto, Calif., firm that helps social media users “manage their online image.” From what employers have told him, Gorelick said, it’s a bad idea to constantly post “I hate this” or “this really sucks,” because it suggests you might be negative at work. After all, he added, “Do you want to have somebody sitting next to you who is complaining all the time?”

It’s unclear how many employers do social-media checks. While Intel doesn’t, according to a representative, Hewlett-Packard declined to discuss the matter and representatives from two companies that advise employers on social-media screening wouldn’t identify the Silicon Valley companies they say engage in the practice.

One firm that provides such advice — Social Intelligence — has drawn federal scrutiny. In September, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., sent Social Intelligence a letter expressing concern “that there are numerous scenarios under which a job applicant could be unfairly harmed by the information your company provides to employers.”

Social Intelligence insists it does nothing wrong and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which examined its practices last year, found no reason to disagree. But with other consumer reporting agencies offering similar services, “it’s an area we are concerned about,” said FTC attorney Katherine Armstrong.

Many employers should be skittish about social media, too — particularly if the information they find prompts them to reject a candidate, some lawyers warn. Such sites often reveal a candidate’s race, gender, disability or other federally protected status, they note. So if the candidate doesn’t get the job, the employer could be sued for discrimination, forcing the company to prove that the social media revelations didn’t influence their decision.

On the other hand, these legal experts note, employers could be sued for not using social media to screen applicants — particularly if they hire a dangerous or otherwise unfit person, whose negative qualities could have been spotted through a social media check.

(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE)

As it is now, employers have limited legal guidelines to go on for what they can and cannot do, said Les Rosen, an attorney whose company, Employment Screening Resources of Novato, Calif., which advises hiring managers about such risks.

“We’re waiting for some court cases to come up” to clarify the issue, Rosen said. “It’s such a can of worms.”

———

SOCIAL MEDIA GUIDELINES:

Think twice about posting images or other information an employer might view as evidence that you’re unfit to hire.

Use social-media privacy settings to minimize the chances of a would-be employer seeing posts you’d rather not reveal.

Realize that such privacy settings may not hide everything you post, since employers may demand your social-media usernames and passwords.

Only search a job applicant’s social media posts after getting the applicant’s consent.

Don’t use fake identities to gain access to social media sites.

Give the applicant a chance to explain or dispute the detrimental information found about them on social media sites.

SOURCE: Employment Screening Resources of Novato, Calif.

Study Says Facebook Making You Sad

2012-01-22T08:49:00.000-08:00

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/01/feeling-sad-facebook-could-be-the-cause/

Facebook: Friends’ Happy Pictures Make You Sad?

Jan 20, 2012

There are plenty of reasons to feel down in today’s fast-paced, hectic world, and you wouldn’t think that the world’s most popular social networking site would be one of them. But that’s exactly what a new study at Utah Valley University has found.

According to the study, Facebook is making us sad. Why? It’s all about the kinds of pictures people to post on their pages.

Facebook photos generally depict smiling, cheerful people having good times, conveying a sense of happiness. Of course everyone likes to smile for the camera, so that good cheer may be inflated or false. As others view the photos, they may believe this conveyed sense of intense happiness is real, making them think that their friends are much happier than they are.

Sociologist Hui-Tzu Grace Chou said the study was inspired by her own experience: “Several years ago I started using Facebook because people invited me,” she said in a telephone interview, “and I started to realize my friends on Facebook looked really happy. That made me curious.”

Chou and Nicholas Edge interviewed 425 students, asking them whether they agreed or disagreed with such statements as “Many of my friends have a better life than me,” and “Life is fair.”

They also asked about the students’ Facebook usage, including how many “friends” they had on the site, and how many of those friends were really people they knew.

After controlling for race, gender, religious beliefs and whether the volunteers were unattached or in a relationship, the researchers saw a pattern: The more time students spent on Facebook, the more they thought others had it better than they did.

“Those who have used Facebook longer agreed more that others were happier, and agreed less that life is fair, and those spending more time on Facebook each week agreed more that others were happier and had better lives,” wrote Chou and Edge. “Furthermore, those that included more people whom they did not personally know as their Facebook “friends” agreed more that others had better lives.”

The study, which was published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, also found that people who spent less time socializing with friends in cyberspace and more time socializing with them in real life were less likely to report they were unhappy.

“We’re not aware of the bias we have,” said Chou. “On Facebook we present ourselves at our best. People are affected and they don’t realize it.”

So if you are looking for a way to cheer yourself up, the researchers say you may do well to log off. Call your best friend instead.

Facebook's going down November 5

2011-08-10T16:18:00.000-07:00

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20090781-71/is-anonymous-unanimous-on-facebook-plot/

By: Chris Matyszczyk AUGUST 9, 2011

The more Facebook seems to dominate the world, the closer it seems to be to its end.

Earlier this year, there was dastardly nonsense being peddled that Facebook would shut down March 15. However, now we have news of an apparently credible threat.

It comes from Anonymous, the interesting group of people who express their principles in an activist way by infiltrating the systems of the unsuspecting or the merely complacent.

The Village Voice has pointed me to an Anonymous press release that states quite unequivocally that Facebook is going to get it on November 5.

Should that date not be dear to you, it is the day when British people let off fireworks to commemorate Guy Fawkes, a man who felt the passionate need to detonate Britain's Houses of Parliament.

For those who haven't bothered with British history (short version: a lot of colonizing, eating meat, and pretending to be friendly), you might have seen Guy Fawkes immortalized in the fine movie "V For Vendetta".

Anonymous' press release is candid to its core. It declares: "If you are a willing hacktivist or a guy who just wants to protect the freedom of information then join the cause and kill facebook for the sake of your own privacy."

It then offers an interesting accusation: "Facebook has been selling information to government agencies and giving clandestine access to information security firms so that they can spy on people from all around the world. Some of these so-called whitehat infosec firms are working for authoritarian governments, such as those of Egypt and Syria."

There follows a hearty disquisition about how Facebook allegedly owns your information, regardless of whether you delete your account, and makes money from it.

Anonymous makes very clear which side it believes Facebook has made its bed and laid its skateboard. It says: "Facebook is the opposite of the Antisec cause. You are not safe from them nor from any government. One day you will look back on this and realise what we have done here is right, you will thank the rulers of the internet, we are not harming you but saving you."

I know that, for many, Facebook will represent a slightly different target than those receiving the hacktivists' attention before--such as the International Monetary Fund, News Corp., or the Iranian government.

The question, though, on the lips of many, may be why Anonymous has given Facebook notice. You may also wonder whether Facebook is quaking, whether it has taken any precautions--and whether, perhaps, in the spirit of sharing, it has reached out to Anonymous to broker some sort of truce. (The offer of a super-duper fan page, perhaps?)

I have, naturally, reached electronically in Facebook's direction, seeking answers to these prewar questions.

It will be troubling if, come November 5, your Mom can't post pictures of the twins' birthday party. Are the hacktivists more powerful than the company that allegedly espouses "hacker culture"? That might make for a very good movie.

Update August 10 at 11:08 a.m. PT: Emil Protalinski at sister site ZDNet reports that while some Anonymous members may be looking to kill Facebook, the larger hacktivist group does not appear to support their cause. See "Anonymous does not support killing Facebook on November 5."

Taking Down a Politician Using Facebook (It Helps If He's a Weiner)

2011-06-07T14:07:00.000-07:00

From:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1395011/Megan-Broussard-reveals-Anthony-Weiner-pursued-Facebook.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

‘I am stalking you’: 26-year-old single mum reveals how Weiner 'pursued her online' after she ‘liked’ YouTube video of one of his speeches

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

Last updated at 5:59 PM on 7th June 2011

Single mom claims she and Weiner exchanged hundreds of messages during month-long 'electronic relationship', including many of a sexual nature

He sent her infamous 'crotch photo' - nine days before scandal broke

Started sending her messages after she 'liked' a video of his speech

Called her from his New York congressional office

Weiner confirms she was one of the woman he exchanged messages with

She said she came forward before her identity was leaked online

A 26-year-old single mother who claimed to have a month-long electronic relationship with disgraced congressman Anthony Weiner today revealed details of their explicit online exchanges.

Megan Broussard told how Weiner started pursuing her online after she ‘liked’ a YouTube video of one of his speeches.

She claims that they exchanged hundreds of messages and he even called her from his New York congressional office - an allegation he denies.

She provided dozens of photos, emails, Facebook messages and cell phone call logs to ABC News that she says chronicled a month-long electronic relationship with the Democrat.

Miss Broussard said that Mr Weiner contacted her after she ‘liked’ a YouTube video of one of his speeches on his Facebook page on April 20.

More...

Weiner - the naked truth: Shocking new pictures emerge as TWO more women claim on-line sexting with congressman

Husband calls police on teacher wife after finding 'sexting' messages to 15-year-old special needs student on her phone

The man who broke the Weinergate scandal is vindicated: Andrew Breitbart hijacks press conference and demands and apology from the congressman

She commented 'hotttt' on the publicly visible link. She claims Weiner ‘almost immediately’ added her as a Facebook friend from his personal account.

The woman from Texas said that they immediately began messaging each other through Facebook chat and exchanged 'hundreds of messages', many of a sexual nature.

During one Facebook conversation, Miss Broussard said she voiced uneasiness with the ‘online relationship’, to which she said Weiner replied, ‘you are not stalking me....I am stalking you’.

Miss Broussard said that they would exchange photos by e-mail as they chatted on the social networking site.

She also claimed that a man identifying himself as Weiner called her by phone from a number registered to his New York congressional office on May 18.

In the phone call she said: ‘You’re an internet rat, aren’t you?’ to which she claims he giggled.

'He heard her [Broussard's daughter] in the background, I think, and he said, "Oh is that --' and then he said her name, and I said, 'yeah, it's her birthday,' and that kind of freaked me out because you had to pilfer through my Facebook to find out her name,' she told ABC News.

Miss Broussard said the photos she received included the infamous photo of a man’s crotch that Weiner today finally admitted was him.

She received more than a dozen photos from the email address anthonyweiner@aol.com, which is listed on a campaign document.

One sent with the subject line ‘Me and the pussys’, appeared to show the congressman sat at home on his sofa next to a cat.

Miss Broussard, who describes herself as disinterested in politics, asked the congressman to take a photo of himself and write ‘me’ on it so that she knew it was him.

He replied with a photo that showed him holding up a sign along with his wedding ring.

‘I didn't think it was him,’ she told ABC News. ‘I thought for sure, “why would someone in that position be doing this?”’

The single mother from Texas said she had decided to come forward before her identity was leaked online to protect her career as an aspiring nurse and her three-year-old daughter.

In one Facebook conversation, Miss Broussard said she asked Weiner, 'Why are you so open? I said, I'm not an open book like that.

'He replied, "I'm an open book. Maybe too open",' she said.

Weiner also sent Miss Broussard several images from a separate email address, RockOh77@yahoo.com.

On May 18, she received an image showing a man's erect penis.

Two days later, she received a shot of a bare-chested man sitting at an office desk.

'I don't think he has any control over what he's doing in this area,' Miss Broussard told ABC News. 'I don't think someone can be that open in that amount of time.'

Miss Broussard said she received her last messages from Weiner on May 27, just hours before the scandal broke.

'Are you offline?' Miss Broussard wrote at 3:37 pm. 'Crashed back up,' Weiner replied at 4:21 pm.

'I don't think he's a bad guy. I think he's got issues just like everybody else,' Miss Broussard said.

'Everyone's standards are different, but to be elected to Congress and sit there all day on Facebook and chatting?'

Weiner confirmed at the press conference this afternoon that Miss Broussard was one of the women with whom he had ‘sexted’.

Facebook Date Gone Awry

2011-06-07T14:00:00.000-07:00

From:
http://www.freep.com/article/20110607/NEWS03/110607039/Novi-man-beat-up-his-car-driven-into-lake-after-Facebook-date-goes-awry?odyssey=nav|head

Detroit Free Press, 11:11 AM, Jun. 7, 2011

A 34-year-old Novi man’s planned sexual encounter arranged over Facebook took a bad turn when he was ambushed by a group of men hiding in the bushes, police said today.

When it was over, the man had a broken jaw, his possessions were stolen and his vehicle was driven into a lake, according to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office.

The incident occurred at 7:30 p.m. Sunday in Hickory Ridge Pines Park in Highland Township. The victim told police he met a woman on Facebook and arranged to see her at a BP gas station at Hickory Ridge and Highland roads. He then followed her to the nearby park for what he thought would be a sexual encounter, according to reports.

But as he was talking to the woman in the park, several men ran out of the bushes and attacked him, reports said. They beat the man with their fists, threatened to kill him if he said anything, and then took his Ford Explorer Sport Trac, driving the vehicle down a trail and into Murray Lake, reports said.

They also stole the victim’s wallet and cell phone from the center console, reports said. The woman and attackers left the park in her vehicle.

The victim waded into the lake and retrieved his backpack and keys, reports said. He walked out of the park, and a passerby called 9-1-1 after seeing the man walking along the roadway, bleeding from the face, reports said.

The victim was taken to a local hospital, where he had surgery for a broken jaw. Police said he is being “less than cooperative” in the case.

Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Kenneth Hiller at the Highland Substation, 248-887-5863, or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-SPEAK-UP.

Which Facebook user are you?

2011-04-13T08:43:00.000-07:00

From:
http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Science%2B%2526%2BTech/Story/A1Story20110413-273463.html

AsiaOne

Wed, Apr 13, 2011

By Dennis Toh

The social media has conquered our lives in a fast and furious way. It has infiltrated into all facets of our lives before we even know it.

Admit it, we are all Facebook addicts. We subconsciously log on to Facebook first thing in the morning and the last activity before we sleep, is to have a last look at the notification page.

Whatever it is, all of us have a stake to play in making Facebook a better social playground.

As we lead this 'Facebooking' lifestyle, let's study the various characters that exist in the Facebook world. One or two of the characters might resonate with you.

The 'Balanced user'
The balanced user access Facebook once every two to three days. He leads a hectic lifestyle and is involved in many social activities. He posts his updates once in a while, largely on his latest thoughts, updates and perhaps an event attended a couple of days ago.

He makes occasional comments on friends' status updates and disappears thereafter. He joins groups and fan page based on his interests and if he chance upon them.

The 'Silent Killer'
These are friends who don't utter a word on Facebook. If they do, then it will be something serious or thought-provoking. 'I can't stand the way Mr Lee preaches his stuff' or 'always sad to see guys standing in mrt waiting alone with flowers in hand. So embarrassing. Does it delight ladies to put them through this?'

People who are silent killers cannot have their character assessed on social media. The real identity of a silent killer is difficult to be determined due to the sporadic nature of their messages and frequency of updates.

The 'Complainant'
As the name implies, this is someone who complains, curses and swears about everything under the sun. Common sentences are 'I hate you', 'Arrrrgh, why is this happening', 'feels sooooooooo alone now' etc. These people inject a lot of negativity and pessimism into the social media environment.

The complainant uses the Facebook as a channel to vent their anger and frustrations. Get a life and turn the angst into something more positive.

The 'Business minded entrepreneur'
There are a lot of Facebook users who are using social media as a platform to promote themselves, their products and services. There are two ways of doing it - forming a group or creating a fan page. Both are equally effective as the objective here is to segment your catchment and to ensure that people who join your fan page are your possible target audience and the more fans you have, the bigger the net you will be casting for yourself.

I know of a renowned photographer who posts his photos and updates on his fan page - in a way promoting his work and reminding people about his services. A speech coach used his fan page to promote his latest book. A prominent business owner of a fashion chain has also used Facebook to communicate promotional details of her stall, her whereabouts, spiritual views and philosophies in life.

You can turn the social media into a market place filled with business transactions, networking and business ideas. It is how far you want to go.

The 'Opinion leader'
These are people who are early adopters and trendsetters in their respective fields. More often than not, the opinion leader should have more than 1,000 friends in the friend's list. And since reach is all about numbers, having more friends will translate to having more power and influence.

There are a few celebrities who are very active on Facebook with a friends list running into the thousands.

Some bloggers also have a very strong following and are powerful opinion leaders.

Opinion leaders will share views and elicit several responses, whether good or bad. Their posts engage people and will garner responses due to the relationships built over time.

Some strategies used by opinion leader include 'retweeting quotes used by prominent figures or churning personal thoughts that are controversial and though-provoking.

The strategy is to evoke responses using out of the box ideas and seeking participation from other users.

The 'Gamer'
Gamers are people who don't like to express themselves but the only activity they love is gaming. Games that are popular amongst gamers are FarmVille, Zoo world and Café world, to name a few. Gamers do comment and communicate once in a while. But with most gamers, once their gaming mode is switch on, you can hardly find them.

The 'Tweet-er'
The Tweet-ers are users who like to share friends' links, videos or updates to their own friends. Tweet-ers generally do not generate their own content - they usuallyshare 'third party' contents with others. Be sure to alert them especially if you see any scam links or viral links spreading from their profile - they've probably been the first ones to fall victim to clickjacking scams.

The 'Cam whore'
The cam whore is a person who likes to post profile pictures as status updates. He or she likes to upload nice makeover pictures and perhaps group pictures taken over a meal or outing.

This user probably has at least 50 photo albums with tons of pictures uploaded. To the cam whore, pictures paint a thousand words.

The cam whore is likely an attention seeker as well. He or she will post about everything. ' i am eating ice cream', 'Avatar is a great show', 'love my sunday', etc.

The 'Social Media butterfly'
The social media butterflies are extroverts who will initiate a conversation with you. These are people who go around adding strangers as friends, initiate chats, and make friends along the way.

In their status updates, you will often see 'so and so is now friends with xxx and 25 other people'. In social media, our natural defenses are down and we are more open to making friends with people we do not know.

When a social butterfly add you on Facebook, do review the authenticity and sincerity based on his message to you, profile pictures and whatever info you can draw from. Ignore their add if you are not comfortable.

As an extrovert or social butterfly, you do need to be careful of your image on social networks. While it is good to be friendly, some people might be put off by your actions.

The 'Campaigner'
There are people who lobby certain causes via Facebook. Some causes include 'Save animals with just a click. Muilee.com donates to SPCA Singapore'. Basically these are people who have a passion for certain causes and aspire to make a difference by rallying people to join them. Be a change agent by campaigning causes which you strongly believe in.

These social media characters are interesting psychographic attributes which you can study in the Facebook environment.

Whichever character you choose to be, remember that social media is just part of our lives and we should not take it too seriously. Use social media to strengthen relationships and keep up with friends whom you have lost contact with.

Make a clear distinction between real and virtual life and lead a healthy lifestyle by staying connected with your real life friends, family and loved ones.

Pray to be Friended

2011-04-13T08:36:00.000-07:00

From:
http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/778016729.html

Facebook Lawsuits Rallies Christians Worldwide to Pray

ORLANDO, Fla., April 13, 2011 /Christian Newswire/ --DoersTV.com, an online Christian TV Network, believes it is in their best interest for millions of Christians, and ministries worldwide; that use the free Facebook platform, to pray for the recent Paul Ceglia lawsuit against Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO & Founder.

DoersTV understands that a number of Christians worldwide are concerned with keeping Facebook free. The recent email trail evidence presented by Ceglia, if true, includes language in which Zuckerberg toyed with the idea of charging for the site, which justifies the concerns expressed by DoersTV.com.

"I truly believe this is a lawsuit against Facebook that has some merit to it and if successful could alter the freedom of millions of Christians, ministries, and churches worldwide who use the free Facebook platform to express and promote their faith." Pastor David Wright, CEO and Founder of DoersTV.com, said recently. "Paul Ceglia's law firm, DLA Piper, a well respected major international law firm, through weeks of due diligence has become convinced them that Paul Ceglia's claims are valid. This is not a bogus lawsuit."

"The more lawsuits against Facebook, legitimate or not, increase the risk of Facebook not remaining a free platform, which could jeopardize the Christian community who are greatly benefiting from this social media giant. It costs millions of dollars in legal fees and settlements for Facebook to continue to fight these legal battles. And if you are one of the millions of Christians who are benefiting from this free platform, you should be praying."

DoersTV.com has a growing Facebook Fan Page and will be launching a new prayer channel where Christians can, not only log on to DoersTV's Facebook Fan Page to post their prayer requests, but also watch as Christians worldwide pray for Facebook to remain a free platform.

"We are not defending or promoting Facebook or Mark Zuckerberg, but Christians do have a vested interest in keeping it free. Facebook is a target and this will not be the last lawsuit. Every lawsuit against Facebook has significant implications, as far as I am concerned, for millions of Christians worldwide who use Facebook. Our prayers are to protect what Facebook offers for free that happens to greatly benefit the Christian community." Pastor David said.

Facebook, a place for a rapist to meet girls

2011-03-25T00:04:00.000-07:00

From:
http://www.allfacebook.com/n-y-rapist-who-used-facebook-gets-13-years-in-jail-2011-03

March 24th, 2011

A 24-year-old man from Albany, New York was sentenced Thursday to 13 years in prison for raping four of the hundreds of teenage girls he met on Facebook.

David Bradt pleaded guilty to having sex with a 15-year-old and a16-year-old in his home last year. According to the Times Union, he used Facebook to meet more than 700 girls, mostly between the ages of 15 and 20.

Apparently, Brandt’s profile photo appealed to the young girls. He had a tattooed bare chest and his underwear showed above his low-slung jeans. He would send a friend request to one teenage girl, and and then send requests to all of her friends, and so on.

Albany County District Attorney David Soares allegedly told reporters Bradt targeted high-school cliques and exploited them: “He was basically using those girls as leads, like you would in a business. That’s how he was venturing into these other networks and was able to identify and find all of his prey.”

Braddt was caught when the mother of a 16-year-old became concerned over an unusual text message her daughter received from him. This message led the police to Bradt.

Investigators found Bradt’s computer displaying MapQuest results to another home where he was allegedly planning to meet yet another underage girl, according to the article.

This isn’t the first time a rapist met his victim on Facebook, which suggests that young women need to exercise more caution about accepting friend requests from strange men online. Of course, that advice applies to all websites where people can make new contacts.

Facebook lacks color

2011-03-25T00:00:00.000-07:00

From:
http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2011/03/in-living-color.html?cid=6a00d8341c7de353ef014e86f2ed40970d

March 23, 2011

People on Facebook and other social networks are largely confined to their own circles of friends and acquaintances. They have no visibility into what the people they don't know are doing online, even if those people are attending the same events, working at the same company or living in the same neighborhood.

On Wednesday, a Silicon Valley start-up calledColor went public with a free application for iPhones and Androids that breaks down those boundaries. The app, also called Color, automatically shares photos, videos and text that users are creating on their smartphones with every other Color user nearby. It also automatically creates elastic networks of users who frequent the same places -- neighbors, for example, or co-workers -- and shares photos, videos and text automatically among them.

My colleague Jessica Guynn will go into more detail about the company and the app on The Times' Technology blog. Having seen the app, I have to say it's mind-boggling. I also have to confess that it freaks me out.

Here's a scenario. Imagine going to a party where there are several other Color users, none of whom you know. The pictures and videos you collect on your smartphone will not only be the ones you snapped but also the ones captured by the other Color users on the scene -- a perspective that Color refers to as "multi-lens."

Just as important, the pictures you take act as an introduction of sorts for you to the other Color users who are nearby. The material you contribute to the shared electronic scrapbook will be accompanied by a link back to your public Color feed -- the material you've collected from previous events -- as long as you're in the area. When you leave, whatever you captured at the event stays with every Color user who was there, but the rest of your Color photos, videos and text become inaccessible.

If you come into proximity with a person often enough, he or she will automatically be added to your personal network, sharing all your Color uploads. (That person will be removed automatically too, if you stop crossing paths.) You can block individuals whom you don't want following you, but if you really want to restrict who you share something with, don't run the app.

Color Chief Cxecutive Bill Nguyen, a serial entrepreneur whose last venture was the cloud-based music service Lala, said the point is to break down the social barriers that the Web imposes. "This will help you get to know better the other people in your life," he said -- the people around you, not just the people you've added as Facebook friends.

The company plans to sell targeted advertising, which could quickly cross the line from "personalized" to "creepy," depending on what information Color provides to advertisers. If you're inclined to be troubled by the thought of software collecting information about you, the advertising possibilities of the app will probably make you cringe.

Then again, I can't decide whether the whole thing should make me cringe. That's because the sharing is involuntary. You choose when to run the app, but once you do, anyone near you can see your feed and vice versa. Run Color often enough in the same place, and you're automatically plugged into the feeds of others who habituate it.

As Nguyen puts it, "Imagine a diary ... that's written by all the people around you, not just you." Now imagine everyone reading your diary.

There's something both narcissistic and voyeuristic about much of what happens online, especially in the context of social media systems that invite people to share even the most mundane developments in their personal lives. Online TV entrepreneur Josh Harris may be the ultimate miner of these veins; consider, for example, his experiments with living under the constant watch of webcams. I can't tell whether Color is the antithesis of this phenomenon or the ultimate expression of it.

-- Jon Healey

Phony Facebook Page Spreads Quickly

2011-02-26T21:49:00.000-08:00

From:
http://www.pennlive.com/editorials/index.ssf/2011/02/post_96.html

Saturday, February 26, 2011

This week, someone in Pennsylvania created a page on the popular social media site and titled it “Beaver County Hoez.” It included about two dozen photos of girls ages 13 to college age taken from their Facebook photo collections.

The photos themselves were fairly innocent. A few girls were in cheerleading uniforms. Another young woman was hugging her boyfriend. A few others were just smiling — the kind of pictures many people use as their “profile photos.” But the creator of “Beaver County Hoez” took the seemingly innocuous photos and put captions underneath them with sexually explicit references and wild stories.

In a matter of hours, people started commenting on the photos. From there, it all went downhill. The page received more than 3,000 views before Facebook took it down and state police started an investigation. The damage was done.

The young women, many of whom are in high school and college, became objects of school gossip even though the stories about them were false.

By now, most Facebook and social media users are smart enough to know not to post outlandish photos of themselves — ones of excessive partying or anything else that might bring unwelcome attention or harm a college or job application.

But how do you protect against something akin to the Beaver County incident?

Some might say security settings. Facebook does give users the ability to restrict their profiles so that only selected people can view images (or anything else) on their pages. The trouble is the Beaver County page appears to have been an “inside job.” The photos could easily have been pulled by someone who was a “friend.”

It would be almost impossible to protect yourself entirely from a similar situation unless there are no photos of you online — that includes on Facebook, LinkedIn, your business site or in media.

Sites such as Facebook have people who monitor for inappropriate material. It’s just that it took Facebook a few days to pick up on this one. The creator of Beaver County Hoez clearly knew how to go around the basic word screens sites use. Too often online, something can explode before an administrative team can catch it.

Given the nature of the Internet, this kind of behavior is impossible to stop entirely, but I am leaning to the conclusion that the legal system has to allow for easier prosecution of libel online. Ideally whoever created the Facebook page will be held accountable. The tricky part is finding the name of the person who did it.

The creator listed him or herself only as “Beaver County Hoez.” To set up a Facebook page, it takes only a functioning e-mail address. The rest of the information could be falsified. It’s similar on many social interaction sites.

Heather Long

There’s certainly no verification of identity from an e-mail address, especially ones such as “crazyguy1107” that can be created on Yahoo or Gmail. Police, however, have been tracking the computers used to create the page.

The only other option I see is to start holding host sites at least marginally responsible. In case law so far, that has not happened. Media websites — think New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Twitter, PennLive — are not held accountable for libel done by third party posters. They are protected under the Communications Decency Act.

“The idea behind the Act is to have enough protection to facilitate public comment,” says Melissa Melewsky, counsel at the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association.

Most of these sites (PennLive included) don’t abuse that leeway. They have policies of taking down inappropriate posts and blocking problem users.

But time can make all the difference online. What is particularly terrifying in the Beaver County case is the shrewdness of the person who created the page. He or she understood the ins and outs of monitoring and security settings as well as how to escape repercussions (thus far).

While I understand that platforms such as Facebook cannot stop every “bad” webpage, there should be a requirement that sites must respond to any user (or police) warnings about inappropriate content within a reasonable time frame.

On the Internet, that reasonable time frame has to be hours, not days. Just ask the girls from Beaver County whose lives are shattered from something posted for a few days.

"Friend" Kills "Friend"

2011-02-26T21:44:00.000-08:00

From:
http://hollandzeeland.wzzm13.com/news/news/zeeland-teenager-accused-killing-facebook-friend/53671

Zeeland teenager accused of killing Facebook friend

Saturday, February 26th

ZEELAND TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WZZM) - Two Ottawa County teenagers knew each other well enough to "friend" each other on Facebook.

Now one of the 18-year-old "friends" is dead and the other is charged with his murder.

The body of Jon Dargis was found Friday afternoon in the woods by the Maple View Mobile Home Park off 92nd Avenue in Zeeland Township. His Facebook "friend", Joshua Hambly, is under arrest for the murder.

"[Hambly] is very quiet, he keeps to himself," says a teenage girl who lives in the park. "He walks around here in a camouflage uniform and he's just really quiet."

The body of Dargis was found behind the mobile home where Hambly lived with his mother and sister. Detectives think it was there less than a day before it was noticed by a resident.

"One of the residents discovered what they thought were human remains," says Lieutenant Mark Bennett of the Ottawa County Sheriff's Department. "It appears some attempt was made to conceal the body."

"You couldn't really see the actual body because there is a lot of snow covering it and there are trees and weeds and stuff," says resident Nora Maccune.

A few hours after discovering the body, police arrested Hambly where he works in Hudsonville.

Although the suspect and victim were acquainted on Facebook, police aren't sure how friendly they were.

"They knew each other for a little while," says Lieutenant Bennett. "I want to do a little checking to see what the level of acquaintance was."

Police aren't saying what it is, but say they have recovered what they believe was the murder weapon. They also aren't suggesting a possible motive, but others in the neighborhood think they know.

"It was over a girl," says a teenage neighbor. "He liked her and the other guy liked her and he got mad," she explains.

Formal charges against Hambly are expected Saturday.

An autopsy on the body of Dargis is also scheduled to learn exactly when he died and how he was killed.

Life Lesson for Rodney: Don't Brag About Stealing on Facebook

2011-02-23T15:31:00.000-08:00

From:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1359952/The-stupid-criminal-pleads-guilty-burglary-stole-laptop-posted-photo-owners-Facebook.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Stupid criminal pleads guilty to burglary after he stole a laptop and posted photo of himself on owner's Facebook

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 6:23 PM on 23rd February 2011

He didn't exactly stand much chance of getting away with it.

And yesterday the man described as 'the most stupid criminal ever', who stole a laptop then posted a leering photo of himself on its owner's Facebook page, pleaded guilty to burglary in Washington D.C.

Last December, Rodney Knight Jr, 19, broke into the home of Washington Post journalist Marc Fisher and stole his 15-year-old son's laptop computer, $400, a winter coat and another laptop.

His own wanted poster: Rodney Knight Jr not only broke into a house and stole a laptop, but then posted a picture of himself on its owner's Facebook page

Except to rub salt in the wound, as well as stealing the family's property, Knight also decided to taunt them with his very own calling card.

At the time, Mr Fisher described how the burglar broke into his family's Washington D.C. home and kicked through the basement door while they was out.

Mr Fisher wrote: 'He opened my son's computer, took a photo of himself sneering as he pointed to the cash lifted from my son's desk, and then went on my son's Facebook account and posted the picture for 400 teenagers to see.

'In the picture, the man is wearing my new winter coat, the one that was stolen right out of the Macy's box it had just arrived in.'

Chicago Driver Sued for Updating Facebook Page During Fatal Crash

2011-02-16T16:03:00.000-08:00

From:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20032270-504083.html

Posted by Caroline Black

February 16, 2011

A 21-year-old Chicago motorist has been hit with a wrongful death lawsuit after she allegedly struck and killed a 70-year-old man while attempting to update her Facebook page on her cell phone.

The daughter of the victim, Raymond Veloz, filed the suit Monday in Cook County Circuit Court claiming that Araceli Beas' Facebook page showed an update posted at 7:54 a.m. on Dec. 7, 2010 - the same time that Veloz's cell phone records showed a call being made to 911.

Veloz's daughter Regina Cabrales alleges in her suit that Beas operated her vehicle without keeping a proper and sufficient focus, drove while using an electronic communication device and failed to slow down to avoid an accident, reports CBS affiliate WBBM.

Beas' mother, Rosario Rodriguez, came to her daughter's defense claiming that she posted the Facebook update as she sat in her car while waiting for it to warm up outside her boyfriend's home two miles away from where the crash occurred, reports The Chicago Tribune.

Beas told police that she had been temporarily blinded by the sun at the time of the collision.

Beas was ticketed for striking a pedestrian in the roadway, a Chicago police spokesman said, according to CBS affiliate WBBM.

Veloz had exited his vehicle after getting into a minor accident with another motorist around 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 7. He was standing near the other driver's vehicle exchanging information when he was struck by Beas, says WBBM.

Veloz was pronounced dead around 9:30 a.m. at a nearby hospital, says The Tribune.

Cabrales is asking for an unspecified amount of money.

The Anti-Facebook Revolution

2011-02-12T08:40:00.000-08:00

From:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/claire-gordon/the-antifacebook-revoluti_b_819968.html

Claire Gordon

Yale graduate student

Posted: February 10, 2011

Last Saturday, a quarter million people woke up to find themselves looking for love. Some of them were single, others in relationships. Some were Argentinian, some were Dutch, and a few liked Kings of Leon. A sizable chunk were smug and many more easy-going. But all of them were united in having no clue what was going on.

Face-to-Facebook is a project by Paolo Cirio and Alessandro Ludovico. The two artists stole one million Facebook profiles, filtered them through face-recognition software, selected their 250,000 favorites, grouped them by facial expression (smug, climber, funny, easy-going etc.) and uploaded them to a custom-made dating website, Lovely Faces.

Facebook is too crowded to be a home, claim Cirio and Ludovico, and too familiar to be a street. It's an "eternal, illusory party." And they decided to crash it.

Face-to-Facebook, like ICanStalkU.com, shows users the kind of information they have inadvertently seeped into the public sphere, and the ways a third party could nefariously or hilariously make use of it.

Within hours, many of these unsuspecting love-seekers sent Cirio and Ludovico enraged messages. Facebook sent a message too - a cease-and-desist letter - because the artists (activists, pirates, assholes) had raided their data.

Mark Zuckerberg knows exactly how wrong this is, having pillaged Harvard's system back in the day to create his Facebook prototype, FaceMash.

Facebook's privacy controversy last year piqued the collective consciousness about online security. On Facebook and many other sites, we re-embody ourselves through data and surrender our data bodies to the powers that be.

A lot of people find this terrifying and a lot of people don't. A lot of people care, but aren't sure why and a lot of people don't care and aren't sure why. I, for one, while not so perturbed, also know that future me is often disappointed by present me's decision-making. I am therefore withholding judgment.

But Google hasn't.

Clicking to import your Gmail contacts to Facebook, you will see a "Trap my contacts now" warning page, asking if you're "super sure." Google then invites you to register a complaint about "data protectionism."

Anti-Facebook sentiment gained momentum in 2009, when tens of thousands of people left the website all together. As Paolo Virno said, "nothing is less passive than the act of fleeing," and thousands of users have begun voting with their feet. Or rather, their index fingers.

Seppukoo was founded a couple years ago to assist you in your virtual suicide - simply log in and your Facebook page is ritually immolated post by post. "Go Seppukoo!" the homepage urged. "Have a really cool radical chic experience."

Seppukoo employed the same viral strategy as Facebook itself, in order to transform an individual act of defection into a collective exodus. Seppukoo, like Face-to-Facebook, received a cease-and-desist letter. Its crime: Users willingly gave the website their data, which is Facebook's property. Soon after Seppukoo's URL was blocked from Facebook, Seppukoo itself went to the grave.

Four young programmers took a more uplifting approach to the Facebook dilemma last year. Their vision was of a truly peer-to-peer social network, without info bounced through a "faceless hub," and where privacy and openness could cheerfully coexist. They named it Diaspora.

It began as an idea proposed on Kickstarter, the micro-credit website that invites individuals to pledge small money to sponsor projects, in exchange for token gifts. Diaspora hoped to raise $10,000. After that was met, people continued to donate. Diaspora managed to raise close to twenty times their goal, from 6,200 different contributors. A Kickstarter record.

As decentralized, open-source software, Diaspora lets people control their own data, as well as the very architecture of the platform. Although still in its alpha phase, Diaspora has made such radical moves as making its Gender a text field, as opposed to a binary drop-down menu.

But the reality is, most people will not shift their accounts to Diaspora or commit Seppukoo. Last year saw the first Quit Facebook Day, but even that hardly tickled the beast.

The Internet landscape people encounter is increasingly signposted by brands as monolithic and inescapable as the billboards on a US interstate... Google, Amazon, Ebay, Facebook. Only a small slice of web-surfers will ever plunge into the Internet's countercultural depths.

This means a real revolution may have to come from inside the house.

Facebook Resistance is plotting the insurrection. The plan is to scramble the website's homogenized layout, which tidied the messiness and creativity of a Geocities or a Myspace into a 2.0 repository of economically valuable data.

"It's like if everyone's living room had the same Ikea furniture," said Tobias Leingruber, the artist spearheading Facebook Resistance.

Leingruber has already designed several artistic, prankish and borderline illegal browser extensions, including the China Channel, which lets you experience the Internet as if you were in China, and Pirates of the Amazon, which let Amazon browsers easily download for free the products they were thinking of buying.

Hacktivists can already use plug-ins to manipulate Facebook's code. But the reworked designs exist only locally on your own computer, which isn't so much fun. If someone else downloads the plug-in, however, every act of vandalism becomes visible to them too.

This has already happened with the Dislike Button (not the fake, spammy one, but the actual one). Already one million people, Leingruber claims, have downloaded the plug-in and "disliking" is part of their Facebook reality.

Other viral acts of vandalism in the works include custom wallpapers, a gender spectrum slider, the ability to list multiple romantic partners and to manically graffiti your friend's wall.

Some of the ideas are political, while others are as pointed as a kid with a crayon. But the idea is to restore fundamental principles that Facebook, and other sites like it, threaten: The importance of being anyone and not just someone, and of taking control of your online identity, before someone comes along and tags you as "smug."

Man arrested for soliciting sex with minors

2011-02-07T23:07:00.000-08:00

From:
http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/242894/147/Man-arrested-for-soliciting-sex-with-minors

Feb 7, 2011

By Frank Wiley

Columbia, IL (KSDK) - Columbia, Illinois police arrested 28-year-old Roy Browne last Friday. He's accused of soliciting sex from minors.

Police Chief Joe Edwards Joe Edwards said Browne used Facebook to connect with two boys, 15 and 16 years old. Edwards said Browne got their phone numbers from their pages online and began texting them sexually laced messages.

The 16-year-old told his mother what was going on, and they brought the issue to the attention of police. They then turned over a cell phone and a laptop to police.

Authorities set up a meeting with Browne at the library. They posed as the boys online, and once Browne approached the unmarked car, he was arrested.

"With the ability to access the internet and the ability to access Facebook, and knowing what we know that young kids put info out there that they shouldn't, and in reviewing Browne's Facebook account and seeing 1,512 friends, we're deeply concerned that a number of them are young juveniles," said Edwards.

The boys never had face-to-face contact with Browne; however, police fear he could've tried to reach more minors.

Browne has been charged with two counts of indecent solicitation of a child. He's being held in the Monroe County Jail on $10,000 bond.

Facebook is NOT big in Japan

2011-02-07T22:59:00.000-08:00

From:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/07/BUVU1HJV80.DTL

Number of the day

1.7%
That's the portion of the Japanese population that uses Facebook, according to Socialbakers, which tracks online statistics. Facebook is far less popular in Japan than in nearly every other developed country. In the United States, for example, almost half of the population uses the site. Many Japanese prefer a service called Mixi, which has 10 times as many users as Facebook in the country. While Facebook is growing in Japan, it isn't expected to challenge Mixi's dominance.

mixi, Inc. (ミクシィ Mikushī,) is one of several social networking websites in Japan. As of May 2008, mixi had over 21.6 million users and an 80% share of the social networking market in Japan. Founded by Kenji Kasahara, under E-Mercury, Inc. (actually Mixi, Inc.). The focus of Mixi is "community entertainment", that is, meeting new people by way of common interests. As is typical of social networking sites, users can send and receive messages, write in a diary, read and comment on others' diaries, organize and join communities and invite their friends.

Study: Facebook replacing Craigslist for prostitutes

2011-02-07T22:55:00.000-08:00

From:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20030954-71.html

by Chris Matyszczyk

When Craigslist withdrew from the adult services business last year, some wondered whether the prostitution business would be driven to less obvious and, perhaps, more dangerous places.

However, a Columbia University professor is suggesting that the business might have gravitated to somewhere even more obvious: Facebook.

Sociology professor Sudhir Venkatesh published the results of his work among New York prostitutes on Wired. And it makes for a stimulating insight into how technology is influencing the prostitution business.

Technology seems to have made men's behavior suddenly sophisticated.

"No self-respecting cosmopolitan man looking for an evening of companionship is going to lean out his car window and call out to a woman at a traffic light," Venkatesh said.

Instead, Venkatesh estimates that 83 percent of prostitutes have a Facebook page. Moreover, he believes that by the end of 2011, Facebook "will be the leading online recruitment space." Indeed, he says, even before Craigslist beat its retreat, Facebook was becoming a happy home for many prostitutes.

With more discreet and personal access offered through cell phones, the web and Facebook in particular, he believes that prostitutes "can control their image, set their prices, and sidestep some of the pimps, madams, and other intermediaries who once took a share of the revenue."

Even in 2008, he estimates that 25 percent of prostitutes' regular clients came through Facebook (compared with only 3 percent through Craigslist).

Perhaps it seems obvious. If every other form of relationship is made through Facebook, why wouldn't the more professional kind?

While the professor doesn't go into details about how connections are made with prostitutes on Facebook, some might assume that they might follow the same pattern as any other friending. But perhaps it might be more complicated, with a little more inside code employed to keep things discreet.

Still, if everything is becoming more personalized, as well as more social, why should anyone be surprised that Facebook might be the obvious place for a chance encounter or an adult service?

One can only imagine that prostitutes are, unlike some, very well versed in the Facebook privacy settings.

Is the Facebook Fad Ending at Last?

2011-02-01T09:38:00.000-08:00

From:
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/02/01/facebook-losing-focus/

By John R. Quain

Published February 01, 2011

It has a stratospheric valuation, an Oscar-nominated movie about it, 600 million fans, and its CEO just appeared on Saturday Night Live. So where's Facebook going to go from here? Down.
Okay, so maybe not right away.
But it certainly feels like the social-networking site is beginning to sag under its own ponderous weight and prodigious Netscape-era hype. In fact, Facebook is so overhyped that a recent $1.5 billion injection of capital from Goldman, Sachs and others meant it now has an estimated market valuation of approximately $50 billion.
Indeed, Facebook could be even bigger based on trading in the secondary market (the one for wealthy folks) where according to SharesPost the company is worth over $82 billion -- making it more valuable than Amazon.com.
But it seems like Facebook's days may already be numbered. Why? Facebook started out as a simple, fun place to digitally cavort and post silly, unflattering pictures of one another. It quickly transformed into a miasma of lurking dangers, threats to our personal security and safety, and a great way to get fired -- or worse, prosecuted for goodness-knows-what. Everyone should be a little more cautious about the "social" part of social networking, these days, and for good reason.
Jilted partners use Facebook to stalk the objects of their unrequited love. Mean girls use it for cyberbullying. Avaricious divorce lawyers use it to skewer fighting couples and tip the balance in child-custody battles. The police use it to catch criminals. Criminals use it to find out when victims are away from home and rob them. With FB friends like these, who needs FB?
Even the relatively innocent concept of posting a cheerful picture on the site has become fraught with potential disaster. The problem is that photos are often tagged with date and location information, which it is not necessarily a good thing to share if the pic is of your fancy car parked in front of your home (as a member of the Mythbusters TV show discovered).
More disturbing yet, face-recognition algorithms are being applied to some photos online. So if someone has identified you in one photo, programs may fan out and automatically tag you in others (at least one erroneous photo of me keeps cropping up online, putting me at an event that I did not in fact attend).
Perhaps Facebook's biggest problem, however, is that it's too bloated to manage any more. Just ask yourself how many times you've hesitated to post some snarky remark because it might be misinterpreted by some FB "friends"? Or thought twice about sharing a vacation picture because an old boyfriend or girlfriend or jealous business colleague might see it? Or even decided not to add a funny shot of your child to your digital album because, well, you don't know who's out there.
The truth is, once you accumulate a certain number of FB friends, you can't be sure who will see what you post -- or what they're going to do with it. And that's Facebook's biggest problem going forward.
Facebook fans will point out that there are ways to solve these social-networking problems. You can set up multiple accounts, for example, and use one profile for business, another for friends. Or you can restrict subgroups of friends from seeing certain comments or pictures by setting up separate friend lists.
In other words, you can create one list of only family members, another list of business friends, and presumably another list of your "real" friends. Then when you post something, you only post it to the appropriate list (a photo of you playing beer pong, friends only; a shot of you moderating an important business panel, definitely family friendly).
There are several problems with this approach, however. It's about as easy to use as the blinking cursor on an old-school computer -- and about as much fun. It's also not reliable; Facebook keeps changing its privacy settings, so unless you stay on top of the changes you may end up sharing more than you planned.
Moreover, managing a variety of lists can quickly become a part-time job. You have to remember to move people from one list to another, should their relationship with you change; today's friend is tomorrow's frenemy, after all. And just try explaining to someone why they are on the "co-workers" list and not on your "friends" list. Even remembering who is on which list is a problem.
Complexity is the enemy of social networking, and complexity is killing Facebook. The beauty of the ancient bulletin board systems from the eighties was that there were so few people on them you didn't need to worry. And no one thought about using something you posted against you in a job interview; they flamed you in ALL CAPS and that was that.
Facebook realizes it has a problem. There's already a "what's the next big thing?" vibe permeating its pages, as if everyone knows we've stopped honestly sharing things on the site because we're either too fearful or simply tired of friending and unfriending romantic partners (or just unfriending people who post too many funny possum videos -- you know who you are).
So the site is trying its hand at e-mail. It's also trying to work more closely with the world's largest Internet calling service, Skype, and in the process made exactly the same mistakes as eBay. It's even tried to mimic location-based services like Foursquare. None of these moves has been particularly successful.
On the other hand, when Facebook tries to use all that valuable customer information it has accumulated to make money, users holler bloody murder -- and security experts decry any changes as an incursion against our personal liberties. Just wait until Netflix connects to Facebook and the company tries to track all the movies and programs you watch. When you're as big as Facebook, people notice when you start selling their likes and dislikes.
So you can't use Facebook for fun any more. It's also not really for business. And it certainly isn't a safe place to pick up a date. So is the Facebook fad already over?
A lot of big money is betting that the answer is "not yet." But there's no such thing as brand loyalty on the Internet. Remember Prodigy? Remember Pointcast? Remember AOL and Yahoo? They were are all darlings of the digital age, too.
FB friends can be fickle, and if people from my list of truly cool FB friends join another site, I'll probably go too. After all, nobody wants to miss the next big thing.

STUDY: Facebook Can Increase Risk Of Eating Disorders

2011-02-01T09:33:00.000-08:00

From:
http://www.allfacebook.com/study-facebook-increases-risk-of-eating-disorders-for-some-2011-02

Posted by Jackie Cohen on February 1st, 2011

Approaching Facebook with a poor self image can exacerbate mental health problems, as a study produced by the University of Haifa found a correlation between use of the social network and eating disorders in females age 12 to 19.

The research, led by Prof. Yael Latzer, Prof. Ruth Katz and Zohar Spivak from the Faculty of Social Welfare and Health examined the effects of “media exposure and personal empowerment” on a group of 249 nonreligious Jewish females.

The girls in the study perused a fairly wide range of media — including plenty of content depicting females whose bodies have been digitally edited to look thinner than they really are. Females with low self esteem proved more vulnerable to all of these images, and researchers found the strongest link between eating disorders and Facebook.

Facebook holds up a mirror — make that a magnifying glass — to society and adds visibility to things that already happen. So with respect to eating disorders, social media gives females more opportunity to compare themselves with their peer group and others.

Ever notice how groups of females in situations that promoted comparisons between them also happen to be at least unusually thin or prone to strange eating habits, if not having outright eating disorders? It’s almost a stereotype that sorority girls have group purges after meals — my sister cited this when she transferred colleges in the hopes of leaving the Greek system.

That said, I would like to see the University of Haifa share actual numbers from the eating disorder study. And while we’re at it, additional research involving larger numbers of females could provide more conclusive findings and possibly suggest ways to use Facebook to promote better attitudes among at-risk females.

What do you think about the study finding a correlation between Facebook use and eating disorders?

Are you safe on Facebook?

2011-01-29T09:24:00.000-08:00

From:
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/01/28/are-you-safe-on-facebook/

Posted by JP Mangalindan, Writer-Reporter

January 28, 2011

Mark Zuckerberg's fan page was hacked, scams permeate the news feed, and fake profiles abound. What's Facebook doing about it?

Objections over privacy, or the lack of it, have plagued Facebook for almost as long as it's been around, but only recently has the social network's security become a contentious issue.

Earlier this week, a hacker hijacked CEO Mark Zuckerberg's fan page, and updated his status with a message that started "Let the hacking begin." The social network also tripped up when, in an attempt to clamp down on fake accounts, it disabled the profiles of two women who shared the same name as Prince William's fiancée, Kate Middleton. (The profiles were later restored.) And hacked accounts continue to inject deceptive updates into the news feed like, "XXXX persons viewed my profile in 2010! ... You can check who viewed your profile here now [insert malicious link]." With incidents like these, some users are bound to ask how they safe they are on Facebook.

With nearly 600 million users spending more than 22.7% of their time on social networks like Facebook – significantly more time than email -- scammers, spammers, and hackers have another, potentially better playground to take advantage of, since users are generally more susceptible. Most Internet users are now wise enough to ignore emails with crazy subject titles from shady-looking senders, but with Facebook, there's a higher level of trust between users since they have to approve one another as "friends" first.

Still, a recent study conducted by anti-malware company Sophos revealed that 67% of social network users had been spammed and 40% of social network users received malware like worms.

"It's really reared its head in the last two to three years," says Sophos analyst Graham Cluley of "social engineering," or psychological tricks used to convince people to compromise their own online security. "Because these links were being shared by friends, people were more likely to click on them than if they arrived out of the blue via email."

Cluley feels Facebook's security measures have a lot of catching up to do, though he questions whether that's even possible -- after all, how big of a "police force" would the company need to protect hundreds of millions of people?

Others believe the security issue hoopla is overblown. "Given Facebook's relative youth and focus on the consumer, it's not all that surprising they stumble with certain pursuits, but I don't see that as a major problem," says Gartner analyst Andrew Walls. The problem may lie more with unrealistic consumer expectations rather than with Facebook. Should a free consumer product be expected to offer the same level of security as an enterprise or major corporation?

Facebook's privacy quest

For its part, the social network says it has devoted an unspecified number of employees across its organization to beef up security. As a baseline, it relies on automated systems that flag suspicious login attempts based on things like device and location. If for instance, you log in from Los Angeles at 10 AM, and someone else tries to log in as you at 2 PM in New York City, Facebook may prompt the latter user to confirm their identity by answering a previously provided security question, filling in a birth date, or identifying a Facebook friend in a photo randomly plucked from your profile. If you try logging in from a computer, tablet or smartphone you've never used to access Facebook before, chances are you'll get a prompt to authorize the device as one of yours – you'll also receive an email confirming the authorization.

Most recently, the social network introduced a browsing option via a secure connection, which should help thwart tools like Firesheep, a Firefox plug-in that basically lets users steal site log-in information. And to raise awareness, it launched the Facebook Security page, which offers tips on how to deal with suspicious messages, profiles, and software. It currently counts more than 3.5 million people as "fans."

"We take the security of people's accounts and information very seriously," said Simon Axten, a Facebook privacy and public policy associate, in a recent statement. "It faces a security challenge that few, if any, other companies, or even governments, have faced -- protecting more than 500 million people on a service that is under constant attack." According to Axten, less than 1% of Facebook users have ever encountered a security issue on the site, a dramatic contrast to the 67% of users Sophos reported had been spammed and 40% who received malware like worms.

What's certain is that Facebook still has its work cut out for it -- 3.5 million fans of Facebook Security is a drop in the bucket compared to the social network's overall user base. And when was the last time you heard about a Gmail account disabled because the handle bore a striking resemblance to a celebrity's? Ultimately, all the security settings in the world are useless if its users aren't aware they're there and know how to use them.

Until all, or at least most, of Facebook's 600 million can say they do, the social network's security will remain an issue every bit as precious as privacy.

Woman Runs Over Cousin Because of Spurned Friend Request

2011-01-26T10:29:00.000-08:00

From:
http://www.allfacebook.com/woman-runs-over-cousin-for-spurned-friend-request-2011-01

Posted by Jackie Cohen on January 26th

A spurned Facebook friend request became the center of a family feud that led a Long Island woman to literally drive over her cousin with a minivan.

The driver, Melanie Spanopoulos, actually hit her cousin twice with the vehicle after learning that her relative, Giselle Penagos, had gotten in contact with a man on Facebook who’d denied Melanie’s friend request, according to the New York Post.

Spanopoulos was charged with assault yesterday and released on a $20,000 bail. Penagos had to undergo emergency surgery for a shattered pelvis and broken leg on Monday. An unidentified man rescued her that morning and rushed her to her father’s house in Queens. A local policeman told the Post that if the unnamed good Samaritan hadn’t picked her up she could have gotten hit by another driver. Or she could have died of exposure because the temperature was close to zero.

Spanopoulos learned that Penagos gotten in touch with the guy on Facebook while the two women were driving home from a bar; he’d accepted Penagos’ friend request after denying one from Spanopoulous. She pulled over the van to focus on arguing, and Penagos got out. Peagos refused to get back into the vehicle, and Spanopoulos leapt out of the car and started wrestling with her cousin. Then Spanopoulosgot back into the minivan and ran over her cousin once, put the vehicle in reverse and hit Penagos a second time.

Now Facebook itself didn’t cause this conflict, but rather allowed these two girls to attempt to contact the gentleman when they might not have otherwise. Jealousy really started this family feud, and it’s very likely the girls may have had spats in the past that would have increased tensions between them. It’s tragic how frequently people overreact to things involving the social network and get violent.

Unfortunately, the more entrenched the social network gets in people’s daily routines, the more emotional people seem to get about the site, and they’re not always expressing happy feelings. Other than continuing to release statements expressing regrets and cautions on how to use Facebook, I can’t think of anything the company could do to prevent these violent incidents from happening and risking unwanted negative publicity. Do you have any ideas on how to address this problem?

Facebook selling user content to advertisers

2011-01-26T10:24:00.000-08:00

From:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20029593-17.html

January 26, 2011

by Don Reisinger

Your Facebook content may soon find its way into ads on the social network.

Facebook unveiled details yesterday about a new advertising initiative called Sponsored Stories. The effort allows advertisers to find mentions of their brands--either through Places check-ins, recommendations in a news feed, likes, or actions in a Facebook application--and repurpose them as advertisements on the site.

Facebook said that if a person currently checks in at a respective company's store or "likes" a brand page, the action often gets lost amid all the other content that a user's friends may see. Sponsored Stories solves that problem for advertisers by plucking valuable content from user news feeds and making it more readily noticeable to others.

The Sponsored Stories, which kicked off yesterday for Facebook's "premium" advertisers, will be labeled and viewable only to the content creator's friends, Facebook noted. The service will respect a person's privacy settings. However, Facebook users won't be able to opt out of the service. That's somewhat surprising, since Facebook users can modify their inclusion in the company's existing Social Ads by letting their social actions be includedin a marketer's ad on the site and be shown to friends--or opt out.

In a video, Facebook talks up the word-of-mouth aspect of Sponsored Stories. The company said that people want to know what their friends care about and that friends' opinions have more authority than a simple ad from a company trying to market its products.

"When we make decisions about the products we want to buy, the places we want to go, we're basically looking for cues from our friends about what those things should be," Facebook product manager Kent Schoen said in the video. "And all of us aren't out there trying to market ourselves or trying to influence people to go somewhere or do something. But the reality is when we make a decision, we're looking for information. And we want that information to come from people we trust."

Inevitably, comparisons will be drawn between Sponsored Stories and Twitter's Promoted Tweets. At first glance, they are somewhat similar because they both use content on the respective social networks. However, unlike Sponsored Stories, Promoted Tweets feature content created by marketers, which is then advertised on the site.

Even without help from Sponsored Stories, Facebook's advertising revenue continues to grow by leaps and bounds.

Online Creeper Forwards Nude Pics to Women's Contacts

2011-01-17T22:31:00.000-08:00

From:
http://dns.tmcnet.com/topics/internet-security/articles/135423-online-creeper-forwards-nude-pics-womens-contacts.htm

January 17, 2011

By Juliana Kenny

If all the hubbub surrounding Facebook’s (News - Alert) security andrecent consequences of posting inappropriate pictures on the Internet hasn’t dissuaded you from harboring nude ones of yourself, this story will.

A 23-year-old guy named George Bronk actively monitored certain women’s Facebook profiles and activity in order to hack into their email accounts and forward nude pictures of them to all of their contacts. He has since admitted to that act in addition to possession of child pornography, computer intrusion, and false impersonation. Bronk is originally from California, but his victims reside all over the United States and the UK.

Bronk’s strategy included monitoring wall posts and notes thereby discovering what the victims’ answers to security questions were. He was able to breach their email accounts, and then proceed to forward nude and seminude pictures of them to all of their contacts. Once he had their email account passwords, he also gained access to their Facebook profiles and posted the pictures there.

Bronk will be defended in court by Monica Lynch, who cites his cooperation with the investigation as reason to be lenient with his sentence. She stated that Bronk was simply immature and is a “23-year-old boy going on 15.” She went on to note that he is now fully aware of his infringement upon the law, “He's accepted full responsibility. It's a tragic situation.”

But the prosecutors say that Bronk was in full knowledge of his errors and deserves six years in prison for his crimes. His defense has surely been compromised by the seven other felonies he admitted some of which are mentioned above. Bronk even went so far as to threaten one of his victims so she would send him more explicit photos.

One of his victims in Connecticut contacted the police who were able to trace his activity to California. California officers obtained a warrant and searched his computer discovering 172 emails with incriminating images of his victims. This breach of email security once again brings to light the security issues Facebook has been dealing with, and calls for tighter controls.

Murder-Suicide Tied to Facebook Post

2011-01-11T09:08:00.000-08:00

From:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/11/pamela-and-aaron-sevey-mu_n_807354.html

01-11-11 11

On Monday afternoon, a Colorado Springs woman posted on her Facebook wall that she'd caught her husband in bed with another woman. Less than an hour later, police responded to what was later declared to be a murder-suicide at the couple's home.

The Colorado Springs Gazette reported on Monday evening that Aaron Sevey, a decorated Iraq War veteran had died of multiple gunshot wounds. A coroner ruled that his wife, Pamela Sevey, died of a single self-inflicted gunshot wound.

KRDO in Colorado Springs reports that Pamela Sevey posted on her Facebook wall at 3:10 PM that she'd caught her husband in bed with another woman. According to 7News in Denver, she posted the following: "just walked in on my husband in bed with another woman. Real nice." Police received a 911 call less than 30 minutes later.

A family friend of the Seveys, the well-known detective and bail bondsman Bobby Brown, told KRDO that the couple had been experiencing marital woes for some time.

The couple leaves behind 16-year-old twins.

Man Poses as Dead War Hero to Meet Girls on Facebook

2011-01-10T12:53:00.000-08:00

From:
http://www.switched.com/2011/01/10/dylan-sorvino-poses-dead-war-hero-roberto-sanchez-facebook-meet-girls/

by Amar Toor on January 10, 2011

If you're a spectacularly average guy looking for love on Facebook, you could spend some time meticulously crafting your profile with Photoshopped self-shots, or quirky interests, in an attempt to make yourself seem more handsome and/or interesting than you really are. Or, if you have absolutely no soul whatsoever, you could just pretend that you're a dead soldier, and use someone else's heroism as your digital pick-up line.

That, believe it or not, is the exact tactic that a guy known as "Dylan Sorvino" employed to "meet" several women on Facebook. Instead of filling out his profile with information about himself, Sorvino assumed the identity of Sgt. Roberto Sanchez (pictured), a 24-year-old Army Ranger who, in 2009, was killed in Afghanistan after five tours of duty. (Sanchez was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart.) The impostor collected photos of the soldier to use as profile pictures, and even advertised himself as a chiseled guy that grew up in New York, studied law, and joined the Army to fight for his country in Afghanistan and Iraq.

With his disguise intact, Sorvino would then play poker on Facebook, looking to friend female players. Upon making a connection, the fraud would use his false military credentials to start online affairs. After months of courtship, he would typically write about his impending deployment, which provided him with an easy excuse for never meeting any of the women in person. "Tomorrow night is my crew's last Iraqi patrol and we start packing up," Sorvino wrote in one e-mail to 37-year-old Carolyn Hinz, from Minnesota. "I've been warned by command not to discuss my departure due to national security so we have to keep this talk to a minimum."

Hinz, like many others, fell for the ploy. "He had all these plans of getting dinner, going to the movies, going dancing," she said. "I was really excited. The guy was good -- he blew my mind." It helped that Sanchez was easy on the eyes, too. "I was a sucker for a cute face," Hinz explained to the New York Post. "It was a very cute face. Too bad it was someone else's face."

Sanchez's family eventually became aware of the scam, thanks to a woman who recognized their son's photo on Sorvino's Facebook page. A group of Sanchez's friends soon confronted the clown, and, on Thursday, he finally decided to delete his account. Sorvino's troubles, however, may be far from over. Posing as a war hero on Facebook may constitute a direct violation of the Stolen Valor Act of 2005, which expressly prohibits claiming false military awards. Several of Sanchez's supporters have already contacted both Facebook and the FBI, in the hopes of pursuing further legal action.

Legal implications aside, Sorvino's actions have already re-opened fresh wounds within the Sanchez family, and have wreaked emotional damage that may be impossible to quantify. "This guy went on the Ranger battalion Web site looking for a fallen soldier to use," Wendy Holland, Sanchez's mother, told the Post. "My son died for this country. How can anyone do that? It's so heartless.

Sarah Palin "Crosshairs" Map: Still on Facebook!

2011-01-10T12:49:00.000-08:00

From:
http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2011/01/sarah-palin-target-list-still-on-facebook/

January 10th, 2011

It turns out that Sarah Palin's controversial list of "targets" in the 2010 elections, which included U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, is still on Facebook.

Giffords was shot over the weekend and is in critical condition.

No one thinks Palin was responsible or even indirectly to blame for the act of lunacy committed by Jared Loughner, but she been getting flack for her fiery rhetoric and apparent gun imagery in the wake of the shooting.

Facebook scammers depend on your trust

2011-01-04T20:41:00.000-08:00

From:
http://heraldnet.com/article/20110101/BIZ/701019903/0/COMM0604

ORLANDO, Fla. — Facebook is the latest hot spot for swindlers in search of new victims.

And the world’s most popular social-networking website can be a gold mine for such crooks, experts say.

Scams on social-media sites are much the same as the ones you may have received as e-mail, said Kevin Johnson, a consultant for Secure Ideas, which does security research.

“The big difference in the (social-networking) scams is the level of trust that the users have,” he said. “People trust them more than they trust e-mail.”

Over time, we’ve become leery of unusual e-mails with strange links, but many people’s ingrained suspicions of e-mail scams have not carried over to Facebook. The social network tries to keep track but isn’t responsible for everything on its site.

Cybercriminals on Facebook today come cloaked as real friends sending messages asking you to wire them money in a foreign country or posting a note on your wall with a funny video that’s really a dangerous link.

Facebook Makes Life Easy For Drug Dealers

2011-01-04T20:22:00.000-08:00

From:
http://gothamist.com/2011/01/04/facebook_makes_life_easy_for_drug_d.php

Considering it was used by college kids for the first few years of its existance, is it any real surprise that Facebook has been a great tool for international drug rings? Luvman Allison has been indicted by Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn after allegedly using Facebook to arrange a heroin delivery through JFK Airport. The Ghanaian native allegedly "explicitly discussed the methods he uses to covertly transport narcotics" over the website, so clearly he's not too familiar with their lax privacy settings.

2010, the year that privacy died?

2010-12-31T11:20:00.000-08:00

From:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12049153

By Jane Wakefield

For the twin pillars of the web, Google and Facebook, it has been something of an annus horribilis when it comes to privacy.

Facebook's attempts to make more and more of people's profiles publicly available and Google's seemingly laissez-faire attitude to data have made headlines across the world.

People hitherto gung-ho about their digital footprint, knowing little and caring less about the trail of information they leave, have been forced to think a little deeper about their online lives.

Facebook has made no secret of its desire to make the web more social but its increasingly complex privacy settings meant people were starting to give away more information than they wanted to more people than they intended.

"The environment of social networking is designed to encourage people to share. Often the default setting is privacy-unfriendly," said Ian Brown of the Oxford Internet Institute.

Mark Zuckerberg wants a 'social' web

At the start of the year, Facebook's privacy settings ran to more pages than the US constitution forcing founder Mark Zuckerberg to announce wide-ranging changes in May.

"Making the privacy controls on Facebook comprehensive and easy to understand is an important part of our commitment to giving every person the power to control their own Facebook experience," the firm said at the time.

But not everyone is convinced it went far enough.

"The changes have made some aspects easier to control but more and more of people's public profile is being made publicly accessible," said Mr Brown.

Facebook is beginning to understand the importance of ring-fencing our net conversations, thinks Gus Hosein of Privacy International.

"It has realised that the internet isn't just one big space where we are yelling at each other. With the introduction of Facebook groups there is now a way of ensuring that my mum doesn't get all of my updates," he said.

Data breach

Google's desire to gatekeep the world's data has long made privacy advocates sit up in fear.

Privacy just does not come naturally to the search giant, thinks Mr Brown.

"One of Google's mantras is to organise the world's information. Its mindset by default finds the European obsession with privacy slightly bizarre. It's view is why wouldn't people want it to tell them where they should go for their next holiday," he said.

It wasn't just European privacy commissioners who sat up and took notice when Google launched its social network tool Buzz and linked it to 170 million Gmail accounts, without actually checking that the mail users wanted to be a part of it.

It moved quickly to change the system after much criticism but a much bigger problem was lurking around the corner.

Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt has been bullish about privacy issues

In June it was revealed that Google's StreetView service had been scooping up the personal data contained in thousands of unsecured wireless networks.

At the time the search firm apologised for what it called "a mistake" although chief executive Eric Schmidt was later more bullish, declaring "who was harmed?".

It led to enquiries around the world, with Canada's data commissioner Jennifer Stoddart leading the charge.

She issued a severe rap over the knuckles to the search giant but stopped short of imposing a fine.

She did however make it clear that the culture within Google had to change.

Google blamed its data lapse on rogue code and has now vowed to offer privacy training to all its engineers.

It has been making huge strides towards a more privacy-friendly service, even before this year's data breaches thinks Mr Hosein.

"Google has already introduced its dashboard which allows people to know what information it holds on them. If only every other companies did the same," he said.

This year it also began publishing the data requests made by governments around the world, a hugely significant step, thinks Mr Hosein.

Piracy clamp-down

It is an interesting twist in 2010's privacy story that while private companies have been forced to put their houses in order, governments seem intent on increasing their snooping powers.

BT and other ISPs have become vocal allies of privacy advocates

2010 has seen a major crackdown on piracy, with governments around the globe demanding that service providers hand over the details of persistent pirates so that tough penalties can be applied.

Piracy has undoubtedly damaged the music and film industries as a generation of youngsters grow up believing that they don't have to pay for such content.

Many aren't convinced that cutting offenders off from the net is the right policy while internet service providers (ISPs) are becoming increasingly irritated with their new role as net police.

Tracking down pirates relies on the co-operation of ISPs handing over the addresses of users that are found to be sharing content for free.

BT and TalkTalk are not convinced of the legality of such requirements and have taken their challenge to the High Court where they were recently granted a hearing in the new year which will decide if the UK's net piracy legislation can go ahead.

Government snooping laws means ISPs have become odd bedfellows with privacy advocates but how long such a policy will last as they struggle to make money remains to be seen, thinks Mr Hosein.

"It is not part of their business models to collect their customer's information but as they see things like location-based services making money, they are going to ask how they can get a share of it," he said.

“Start Quote

There is strong pressure to put liability back on service providers. I wouldn't be surprised to see legal changes over the next two or three years”

Ian BrownOxford Internet Institute

The UK's broadband minister Ed Vaizey has made no secret of the fact he wants ISPs to take more responsibility for the content on their pipes.

Mr Brown predicts tougher laws as governments seek to make that happen.

It may include taking away service provider's 'mere conduit' argument which states that they just provide the pipes for communication and are not responsible for what goes on on their networks.

"There is strong pressure to put liability back on service providers. I wouldn't be surprised to see legal changes over the next two or three years," said Mr Brown.

A side-effect of the piracy clamp-down has been a spate of law firms chasing people it believes to have unlawfully downloaded pornographic films and asking for one-off fines.

One such firm ACS: Law was responsible for a huge data breach of its own when its database was leaked online in protest at its methods.

Unlike Google's StreetView data, which was not seen by anyone, this breach had the potential to do real harm to people, containing the email addresses of thousands of people and the pornographic films they had been accused of downloading.

The case is currently being investigated by the Information Commissioner's Office and ACS:Law could be liable for a hefty fine.

It has led ISPs such as Plusnet to reassess what information they give out about customers.

Consumer power

People's information, as well as being of interest to government, is fast becoming the most important commodity online.

More and more firms are finding clever ways to mine data in an effort to improve their interaction with customers and step ever closer to the haloed 'personal web'.

Net infrastructure firm Cisco, for example, offers a tool called Social Miner which it sells as a way for companies to "augment customer contact and service by proactively injecting customer service agents into public discussions on companies and brands on Facebook and Twitter".

In non-corporate speak that means that Facebook friends criticising, say, the recent flight chaos at Heathrow might find a representative from an airline or BAA popping up to explain their actions.

Cisco says the tool only looks at publicly available information on the social web.

"It only sees what consumers allow it it to see. In many cases Cisco SocialMiner offers consumers another way to ensure their feedback is heard and addressed appropriately," its said.

But Mr Hosein wonders about the function of such tools going forward.

"On the face of it this may seem like it is giving power to the consumer but it becomes less empowering when people don't know exactly what companies know about them," said Mr Hosein.

And having the tools to know what people are doing could mean that, at some point in the future, firms make value judgements about what services different customers have access to, he said.

It is why privacy is so crucial to the current net neutrality debate and why privacy advocates will continue to put pressure on firms and governments to safeguard it.

"For the moment, privacy is very much alive and well online," said Mr Hosein.

Facebook Users Vote Palin & Friends as Most Facebook Savvy

2010-12-31T11:12:00.000-08:00

From:
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/12/31/facebook-users-in-survey-say-republican-pols-handiest-with-socia/

Republicans Sarah Palin, Scott Brown and freshman Sen. Marco Rubio get high marks from Facebook users for their social media skills in terms of staying in touch with supporters and constituents in 2010.

Facebook, the wildly popular social networking site, asked its members this week to rank politicians and government agencies for their facility in using its pages. Palin, the former governor of Alaska, Sen. Brown (R-Mass.), Rubio (R-Fla.) and Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) were rated highly for their regular but unobtrusive use of Facebook, the Washington Post said. More than 2.5 million have "liked" Palin's page. "Gonna have to go with Sarah, you betcha!" one user said. Another said Brown's team showed expertise in using the site "without appearing cheesy or boring."

Republicans outnumbered Democrats in favorable mentions in the informal survey. But Californians Jerry Brown, the next governor, Attorney General-elect Kamala Harris and Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) got props for their use of Facebook. So did Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).

President Obama, the Armed Forces -- especially the Navy -- the Veterans Affairs Department, the U.S. EPA and Disability.gov were also applauded for their Facebook pages.

Facebook said it looked forward to innovative use of the social network by lawmakers and agencies in 2011 as they seek to stay in touch with citizens and provide services to them.

Myopic Buddies China & Facebook

2010-12-28T21:14:00.000-08:00

From:
http://story.malaysiasun.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/b8de8e630faf3631/id/41583612/ht/Will-Facebook-Become-Chinas-Eyes-Ears-On-The-World?/

Will Facebook Become China's Eyes, Ears On The World?
Malaysia Sun
Tuesday 28th December, 2010
(Source: Forbes)

Child Pornographers Lurk on Facebook

2010-12-28T21:09:00.000-08:00

Lincolnton Man Indicted For Distributing Child Porn On Facebook

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WCCB Newsdesk

Story Created: Dec 28, 2010

From:

http://www.foxcharlotte.com/news/nc-news/Man-Indicted-For-Distributing-Child-Porn-On-Facebook-112568614.html

LINCOLNTON, NC - Six Lincolnton men are being accused of distributing child porn on a website they created using women's names.

From January 2 - April 12 James Paul Byrd, and five others: Michael Engelking, David Large, Brian Slott, Daniel Slott, and Henry Wright; used Facebook to advertise, distribute, possess, and view child pornography. They set up two groups titled "little girls love to play to :)" and "girls girls girls :)".

Byrd is scheduled to appear in federal court January 10th. He has filed a motion to continue his case to a later date.

Older Facebook Apps May Still Have Unfettered Access to Your Data

2010-12-28T21:05:00.000-08:00

From:
http://www.switched.com/2010/12/28/older-facebook-apps-have-full-access-your-data/

by Terrence O'Brien on December 28, 2010

If you're an avid reader of Switched, it's probably not news to you that Facebook apps are to be eyed with suspicion and carefully managed. What you may not know, however, is that even seemingly trustworthy but older applications might need to be booted from your profile. Before Facebook's massive privacy overhauls, many apps were simply granted free access to your data. Older versions of apps from YouTube, Digg and Delicious -- along with all of those apps that let you send hugs, cupcakes and other virtual paraphernalia -- often required that you give them unfettered access to your profile information, including relationship status, photos and friend lists. Clearly, these apps don't need that information to serve their purposes.

We've covered how to check your privacy settings before, but it bears repeating here. Click on "privacy settings" under the "account" menu. Toward the bottom of the page, you'll see a link for 'Apps and Websites,' under which you'll find all the information you need, including the ability to remove apps. To check an app's permissions, simply click on the name. If you have an older version of an app installed, and still want to use it, simply remove the app and re-add it. Many apps, like Digg and YouTube, have newer versions whose access to your data is much more restricted. They haven't been updated automatically, though; you'll have to manually remove the old versions first.

Boy who posted choking game on Facebook succombes

2010-12-23T21:55:00.000-08:00

From:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1341051/Facebook-choking-game-claims-life-Brandon-Stine-11-home-Michigan.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
23rd December 201

An 11-year-old boy died after suffocating while playing a game that has become dangerous new internet craze.

Brandon Stine was found dead in his bedroom at the family home in Michigan, Detroit.

His parents believe he was playing a game called 'pass out', in which people intentionally deprive themselves of oxygen in order to get a quick buzz upon waking up.

Tragic: Brandon Stine's parent believe he died while playing a choking game

The game - also known as the fainting game, tap out, hangman, elevator, and blackout - is often played by groups of teens who partner up and cause each other to lose consciousness, but it can also be played alone.

His mother, Jenny Stine, said she had pleaded with her son not to play the game and that he had told her, 'Mom, I would never do anything that stupid.'

But police searched Stine's Facebook page and found evidence that he had played the game before.

More...

'They will forever be two beautiful little boys': Father of children killed by their mother pays tribute

'I just thought we would be best friends forever and he'd always be there for me, and I just never thought in a million years something like this would happen,' said Brian Stine, Brandon's father.

The game has been played for many years but has been receiving increased media attention recently because young people have begun posting pictures and videos of themselves playing it on YouTube and Facebook.

The Dangerous Behaviors Foundation, a nonprofit organization that tries to educate parents about risky behavior among teenagers, said there were 26 reported deaths attributed to the 'pass out' game in the U.S. this year as of late October.

Man accused of assaulting girl he met on Facebook

2010-12-23T21:47:00.000-08:00

From:
http://www.ktvn.com/Global/story.asp?S=13735935

Associated Press - December 23, 2010

RENO, Nev. (AP) - An Alaska man has been accused of traveling to Reno with two Southern California girls he met on Facebook and sexually assaulting 1 of them.

The Reno Gazette-Journal reported Thursday that 18-year-old Blake Holmes of Anchorage was arrested after traveling to Reno with the 12- and 13-year-old girls on Tuesday.

Police say the girls, who are friends, began communicating with Holmes on Facebook and then began texting him. Holmes was staying with a relative in Ridgecrest, Calif., when he communicated with them.

Investigators say Holmes picked up the girls Monday and was arrested after driving them to Reno. The girls now are safe and await their parents to pick them up.

Police say the case shows the need for parents to closely monitor their children's online activities.

Information from: Reno Gazette-Journal, http://www.rgj.com

Pedophiles find kids on Facebook

2010-12-22T19:01:00.000-08:00

From:
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/pedophile-arrested-for-facebook-breach-20101223-1967b.html

December 23, 2010

A pedophile has been arrested for allegedly breaching a restraining order and contacting children on Facebook.

The arrest in Adelaide has prompted a police warning to parents to talk to their children about using the internet safely.

Detectives say they arrested the 29-year-old from Elizabeth East over breaching his pedophile restraining order and obligations under the child sex offender registration act.

"Police will allege the offences were committed by the man utilising the internet social networking medium known as Facebook to liaise with children," police said in a statement on Thursday.

The man was released on police bail and is expected to appear in court at a later date.

Sexual Crimes Investigation Branch superintendent Steve Ryan says the arrest highlights the emerging challenges and risks associated with using social network sites.

"Some people unfortunately use social network sites as a means of inappropriately identifying vulnerable persons," he said.

Parents and carers are encouraged to discuss this issue with children and adopt safe strategies, he said.

Facebook scams reveal who the F'ers really are

2010-12-22T18:58:00.000-08:00

From:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40787534/ns/technology_and_science-security/

By Matt Liebowitz
December 22, 2010

A new scam making its way around Facebook is hoping to lure victims by tapping into two of their more primal instincts — anger and lust.

Researcher at the security firm Sophos have noticed Facebook wall posts with the message "This American GUY must be Stoned to De@th for doing this to a GIRL!!!" Beneath this impassioned plea is a link beginning with http://apps.facebook.

Users that are riled up enough to click on the link and find out what exactly the "GUY" did are then taken to another page showing a fake video thumbnail of a very scantily dressed girl with her back up against a door, presumably blocking someone from entering.

"You can imagine that this is going to be hard for many hot blooded males with a twitchy mouse finer to resist," wrote Graham Cluley, Sophos' senior technology consultant.

Hitting the play button on the video doesn’t satisfy curiosities — instead it takes users to a page that prompts them to grant the scammers access to their name, user ID and list of friends. After that an online survey pops up, Sophos reported, and "meanwhile, your Facebook profile has spread the message on virally to your other Facebook friends."

Cybersecurity professionals urge people to be suspicious of links, even if they appear to come from Facebook friends, and to never divulge personal information if you aren’t completely sure of the source.