Mark Zuckerberg's sister Randi Zuckerberg complains of Facebook privacy issues Facebook Shows XXX Photos on FB That Anyone Can See FB Public Privacy Settings
Savannah Guthrie iPhone went off Today Show
Debbie Koch Sharpe Topic facebook is a Scam
Google Fruit Games Sucks and Google Supports isis http://www.googleisis.com SNAPCHAT: Nicky Minaj T Mobile Tech
Prosecutors Weigh Whether National Enquirer Violated Earlier Agreement
If federal prosecutors determine American Media dealt unlawfully with Jeff Bezos, tabloid publisher could face criminal charges
David Pecker, chairman and chief executive of American Media, publisher of the National Enquirer.
Photo:
stringer./Reuters
By
Nicole Hong and
Jacob Gershman
Federal prosecutors are examining whether the National
Enquirer’s publisher violated an earlier deal to avoid facing
campaign-finance charges, according to people familiar with the matter,
after Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com Inc. and owner of the
Washington Post, accused the tabloid of trying to blackmail him. The Enquirer’s actions came under
government scrutiny after Mr. Bezos wrote a lengthy post Thursday on the
web platform Medium detailing recent communications with the tabloid’s
representatives. Mr. Bezos said the Enquirer threatened to release sexually
explicit selfies of him unless he called off investigators he had hired
to determine the sources and motivations behind an initial Enquirer
article exposing an alleged affair he had. The agreement reached last year between federal prosecutors and
the Enquirer’s publisher, American Media LLC, allowed the company to
avoid criminal charges for coordinating with the Trump campaign to make
an illegal payment in 2016 to silence a woman alleging an affair with
the then-presidential candidate. Manhattan federal prosecutors agreed not to charge American
Media with campaign-finance violations after the company cooperated in
their investigation of Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer
who arranged the hush-money payment. The agreement, however, says
American Media could be prosecuted if it commits any crimes in the three
years after the deal.
Jeff Bezos Escalates Fight With National Enquirer, David Pecker
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos publicly accused National Enquirer
publisher David Pecker of blackmail and extortion, alleging that the
company’s coverage of him has been politically motivated. WSJ’s Shelby
Holliday explains why his claims are making headlines. Photo by Emma
McIntyre/Getty Images
Whether the
Enquirer’s handling of the situation with Mr. Bezos amounts to extortion
or blackmail is a complicated legal question, according to experts. But
if prosecutors conclude American Media broke the law, it could
invalidate the non-prosecution agreement and expose the company to
criminal charges. In his Medium post, Mr. Bezos included what he said were emails
he and his legal team received from executives at American Media
describing the photos the tabloid threatened to run.
“Rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail, I’ve
decided to publish exactly what they sent me, despite the personal cost
and embarrassment they threaten,” Mr. Bezos wrote. In a statement Friday, American Media said it “believes
fervently that it acted lawfully” in its reporting and will investigate
Mr. Bezos’ claims internally. The crime of blackmail is notoriously hard to define, say legal
experts, but court rulings suggest that the threats and demands as
alleged by Mr. Bezos could meet the standard. Threatening to damage someone’s reputation is extortion under
federal law if the person’s goal is to get money or something else of
value that doesn’t otherwise belong to the person. For example, it wouldn’t be wrongful for a consumer to threaten
to trash a company online about a defective product if the company
fails to honor its warranty. Nor would a situation in which a private
club threatens to post the names of members behind on their dues. More problematic, however, are situations in which the demand and the requested outcome have little to do with each other. A federal appeals court, for example, in 2017 upheld the conviction
of a Virginia man for trying to extort an apology from an ex-girlfriend
who dumped him. The man had threatened to expose on social media that
she was a stripper and a prostitute unless she apologized for how she
treated him. The appeals court said it didn’t matter whether the jilted
man had a legitimate grievance; his threat amounted to extortion because
it had nothing to do with why he thought he was entitled to an apology. The Enquirer’s alleged actions may put the government in a
difficult position. Prosecutors have said American Media provided
“substantial and important” assistance to their investigation that has
directly implicated Mr. Trump. Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to nine crimes
last year, including two campaign-finance violations related to
hush-money payments he arranged during the 2016 presidential campaign to
two women who said they had sexual encounters with Mr. Trump. Mr.
Cohen, who is expected to soon begin a three-year prison sentence, told a
federal judge that Mr. Trump directed both illegal payments. As part of the government’s investigation, American Media admitted that it coordinated with the Trump campaign to pay $150,000 to one of the women, former Playboy model Karen McDougal, to prevent her story from influencing the 2016 election. David Pecker, the publisher’s chief executive, also told prosecutors about Mr. Trump’s involvement in the payment scheme and received immunity for testifying before a grand jury in the Cohen investigation, The Wall Street Journal has previously reported. Mr. Pecker has had a relationship with Mr. Trump for decades.
He has previously acknowledged buying embarrassing stories about Mr.
Trump and burying them, a practice known as “catch and kill.” American
Media has denied there were any political motives behind the report on
Mr. Bezos. Write to Nicole Hong at nicole.hong@wsj.com
Appeared in the February 9, 2019, print edition as 'Prosecutors Scrutinize Enquirer Parent.'
Mark Zuckerberg's sister Randi Zuckerberg complains of Facebook privacy issues Facebook Shows XXX Photos on FB That Anyone Can See FB Public Privacy Settings
Savannah Guthrie iPhone went off Today Show
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The Zuckerbergs, normal family folk like you or me, did what many did on Christmas Day: Posted an awkward family photo onto Facebook.
Except when Randi Zuckerberg does it -- and when that photo gets
inadvertently shared with the entire Internet -- it becomes a lesson in
Facebook's byzantine privacy settings. Here's what happened, as first pointed out by Buzzfeed: Randi, sister of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, posted a photo of the clan checking out Facebook's new app, Poke, which lets users share photos that get automatically deleted shortly after being opened. Callie Schweitzer,
a marketing director at Vox Media, saw the picture in her Facebook feed
and, thinking it was a public photo, reshared it on Twitter. Turns out, the pic wasn't public. Randi had posted it on her private
Facebook account and the only reason it was visible to Schweitzer was
because she's Facebook friends with Randi's sister. Randi chastised
Schweitzer on Twitter, noting that one's photos show up by default in a
non-friend's News Feeds when a third mutual friend is tagged in the
photo. To her credit, Schweitzer then deleted the tweet. Was that explanation confusing? We think so, too. The irony that publications -- including Buzzfeed, Gizmodo, Mashable, PC Mag
and others -- are latching onto is that even someone related to
Facebook's co-founder still couldn't manage to keep her "private" photos
private. Now that Zuck family pic exists on all those aforementioned websites
forever. The lesson: Don't expect anything you share on Facebook to stay
within the social network's walled garden. The dangers behind private photos being reshared publicly is
something Facebook implicitly acknowledges, too. After all, that's the
reason it developed that Poke app.
Earlier on HuffPost:
Facebook get on the school timetable in anti-libel lessonsLord McAlpine's case has one headteacher to educate pupils about the dangers of social mediaMark Zuckerberg's sister complains of Facebook privacy issues
Facebook users have long fought both sides of a war with Facebook,
eager for the company’s massive network of links and connections, but
wary of what exactly happens to the content they post to the site.
Many Twitter users added their two cents on the topic, suggesting
that the real issue lay with Facebook's sometimes confusing privacy
settings.
"Instead of vilifying a subscriber for not reading your mind, maybe
you should talk to your brother about recent FB changes," one person
wrote.
It seems everyone has privacy issues on Facebook sometimes.
Talk about ironic.
Randi Zuckerberg, the sister of Facebook’s zillionaire founder Mark
Zuckerberg, complained when a photo she meant to stay private on the
social network was made public.
Randi, the 30-year-old former marketing director of Facebook, had
posted a photo to her Facebook page showing her family’s reaction to the
new “poke” application, a photo-sharing tool that quickly soared to the
top of the charts for iPhone users. According to a story on Buzzfeed, a friend of a friend saw the photo and reposted it on Twitter, turning a semi-private moment into a very public moment.
Randi was not pleased.
“Not sure where you got this photo. I posted it to friends only on
FB. You reposting it to Twitter is way uncool,” she wrote on Twitter.
"I'm just sensitive to private photos becoming 'news,'" she added later.
Young
Facebook and Twitter users are getting lessons at a Somerset school in
how to use social media safely and legally. Photograph: Dominic
Lipinski/PA
It's a
school topic that seems to belong to an age far distant from home
economics, 1066 and jumpers for goalposts. A school in Somerset has
begun teaching 13- and 14-year-old pupils how to avoid defaming people
on Twitter. It is the latest way schools are adapting to technology and teaching about subjects such as online safety and cyberbullying. The move at the private school in Taunton to teach pupils about libel risks on Twitter, Facebook and other social media follows the Lord McAlpine
case. Earlier this year, the former Tory party treasurer announced he
would sue a number of prominent Twitter users after being widely and
inaccurately connected to allegations of child abuse in north Wales
children's homes. Taunton school said this had prompted teachers to extend teaching on the use of the internet
and social media, which falls into the personal, social, health and
economic, or PSHE, section of the national curriculum. The scheme, which
may be extended to older pupils, began with lessons on basic internet
safety, said Carol Manley, senior teacher at the school. She added: "We
then realised that actually this was becoming quite a serious issue
with things like parties on Facebook, the sorts of traps students can
so easily fall into. From there we've really tried to keep abreast of social networking. "Being
the wrong side of 50, I wouldn't profess to be an expert on Facebook,
Twitter or anything else, but I'm very aware of how much the children
use it. We've become increasingly aware as a school that university
admissions tutors are now accessing Facebook sites to check up on
students." Prompted by media coverage of the McAlpine case, the
decision was made to teach pupils in year nine the basics of libel and
defamation, not least how to avoid being chased for compensation. Manley said: "Of
course, celebrities tweeting the wrong thing is in a different league
to us, but it highlights how easily you can get something horribly
wrong. It's a good opportunity for us to say to the children, look, even
something that starts off as a joke or something silly can actually
get you into a lot of trouble. They're also being taught to not even
forward anything like that. " We've been trying to make them
accountable – if you wouldn't say something to a person's face, if you
wouldn't say it in front of me or your parents, then you don't say it. I
think that's the key bit that we try to get across to them." As a
private school, Taunton has the luxury of dedicated PSHE staff and has
also been able to call in experts for one-off lectures, but it seems
likely other schools could soon follow suit. A Law Society spokeswoman
said it seemed sensible for pupils to be taught the basics of libel law.
She said: "Social media may be one of the first areas where children
are confronted by legal issues, as something as seemingly innocent as a
retweet can sometimes lead to legal action." At Taunton school,
meanwhile, Manley has just taken delivery of a new educational DVD, the
self-explanatory Think Before You Post. Pupils had to be aware that
anyone can be defamed, Manley said. "We see it in the context of
celebrity status, but it could just as easily be the person round the
corner who sues you," she added. "Students need to know that whatever they say may just come back to bite them."
Apple vs. Google vs. Facebook vs. Amazon
The Lines Between Software and Hardware Continue to Blur
Four big technology fiefs—Apple Inc., AAPL-1.38%Amazon.com Inc., AMZN-3.86%Google Inc. GOOG-0.09% and Facebook Inc. FB-1.56%
—have been creeping into each other's turf for years. In 2013, their
war is set to escalate around two fronts: hardware and search. Software
giants including Google and Amazon are interested in ramping up
hardware to boost customer loyalty and to extend control over their
software services and the revenues that flow from them. That is
heightening their collision course with Apple, which is responding by
building more of its own software to make its devices stand out.
Bruno Mallart
Google,
with the $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility under its belt,
plans to use the phone maker to release new Android devices to help
knock Apple's iPhone off its perch. And Amazon, which has upped the
ante in the tablet wars with the Kindle Fire, has also been testing its
own phone. Meanwhile, all four companies see search as a big
opportunity for retaining and profiting off customers. While Google's
paradigm of typing queries in a search box has prevailed for years, now
its rivals want to undercut the Web-search giant through mobile search
on smartphones and other devices, and a slew of search services that
allow recommendations from friends. Apple's foray is Siri, a
voice-activated service that answers queries about topics like the
weather or sports scores from the iPhone or iPad homescreen. Next year,
the company will continue its hunt for new data to power the service,
making it useful for a broader number of queries. And at a conference in September, Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg
riffed on the myriad ways that friends could provide useful answers.
He said the company would expand its search capabilities in the future.
The four companies are clashing in other areas as well, from e-commerce to online ads. "They
are all getting into each other's market," said Opus Research analyst
Greg Sterling. "It is a land grab in a way" to appeal to developers,
who can help make their services truly ubiquitous. Here's the outlook for the tech giants heading into 2013:
APPLE
Apple must prove it can play defense in 2013. Rivals
from Samsung Electronics Co. to Amazon are gunning for the Cupertino,
Calif., company, which has turned out category-defining devices like
the iPhone and iPad for years. Those competitors are having some
success. Apple's share of global smartphone shipments fell to 15% in
the third quarter, according to IDC, down from 23% in the first quarter
of the year. Phones are just one area where Apple has to watch
its back. Android tablets are also gaining ground against the iPad. To
defend its turf, Apple—which this year became the most valuable U.S.
company in history—recently released the iPad Mini, a cheaper tablet
aimed at competing against the slew of smaller tablets that have
debuted.
Defense will get Apple only so far. Look to the living room for where Apple will go on the offense. Apple CEO Tim Cook
has stressed Apple's "intense interest" in television and the company
has been testing high-definition televisions and discussing possible
partnerships over set-top boxes with cable companies. Whether
anything will be ready for prime time next year remains unclear. An
Apple spokesman said the company didn't want to discuss future products
and plans. As
for another new area, watch search and Siri. Following Apple's
ill-fated foray into maps this year, the company is continuing to
invest in its voice-activated assistant that routes users to sports
scores and other on-the-go information. Earlier this year, Apple
poached Amazon search executive William Stasior.
GOOGLE
Google
moved aggressively into new territories this year, clashing not only
with its main rivals but also with cable companies and wireless
carriers. Next
year, the Web-search giant will work harder to control its own destiny
to ensure that its search engine, YouTube video site and newer
services such as Google Wallet (which lets people use their smartphones
like a digital wallet) can reach consumers without being hobbled by
poor Internet speeds or blocked by competitors. That
means accelerating initiatives it launched this year, such as wiring
homes with high-speed Internet and video in Kansas City, a prelude to
rollouts in other locations after 2013; exploring potential ways to
control wireless Internet access through partnerships; and
manufacturing smartphones and tablets through Motorola, which will give
it greater say on the services that run on the devices. Expect Google
to also help develop more Web-connected devices for people's homes,
powered by Google's Android mobile operating system. At
the same time, Google is making defensive moves as it looks to hold
off its primary Web rivals, Amazon and Facebook. Google has been
working with retailers that compete with Amazon by helping them to
reach consumers through the search engine. Next year, Google is also expected to help retailers offer same-day delivery of goods to online shoppers. And
to counter Facebook, Google has pushed users of its search engine,
Gmail and other services to sign up for Google+, which is a cross
between Facebook and Twitter Inc. that allows people to share news,
photos, videos and more. The
company must decide next year whether it will partner with an auto
maker to create a self-driving car using Google's software or get
involved in manufacturing more directly. Separately, Google's wearable
computing device, called Glass, also will be released.
FACEBOOK
At
Facebook, 2012 was the year of the initial public offering. Next year,
the focus will be on the social network's continuing transformation
into a mobile-centric business and how far it is willing to go to own
the smartphone experience. Over
the past year, the Menlo Park, Calif., company has rewritten its
mobile applications, rolled out mobile-advertising products and
promoted new stand-alone mobile applications, such as its messenger
service. Rivals
and tech executives also want to know if—or when—Facebook will push
into hardware. Mr. Zuckerberg has publicly quashed rumors that the
company is building a Facebook phone, calling such a move "wrong
strategy." However, people close to the company said Facebook has
worked closely with handset manufacturers, such as HTC Corp., 2498.TW-1.06% to design phones. A
Facebook-backed device, which will likely run a modified version of
Google's Android mobile operating system, would help the social network
promote the usage of its applications and gather more data from users. A Facebook spokesman and HTC declined to comment. Facebook
is also expected to ramp up its search offerings next year. This
month, it released a new mobile feature that helps users discover
nearby businesses based on their friends and the broader social
network. And
e-commerce will become increasingly important to Facebook, as it
builds its recently launched Gifts business. The e-commerce
platform—which lets users send goods, like StarbucksSBUX-1.04% gift cards and cookies, to friends—poses a threat to Amazon, especially as Facebook adds more retail partners.
AMAZON
For Amazon, 2013 may be the year that it rolls out its long-rumored smartphone. The
Seattle Web retailer has been testing a smartphone with its Asian
suppliers and could introduce it early next year, according to people
familiar with the company's plans. An Amazon smartphone would build off
the company's experience with its Kindle Fire HD devices and its
burgeoning app store, which now has more than 60,000 apps running on
Google's Android software. Such
a device could also cut into Apple's iPhone market share and challenge
device makers who build Android smartphones, such as Samsung. Amazon
could release its smartphone as a low-cost, low-profit gadget that is
built to profit from the sale of merchandise on its Amazon.com website,
as well as e-books, games and apps. That is the approach Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has taken with his tablet computers, describing them as a sales platform rather than a profit generator in their own right. A
smartphone would also further pressure retailers by easing online
purchases in retail stores, where Amazon has encouraged consumers to
experience merchandise and buy it later online, a practice known as
showrooming. Amazon declined to comment. Amazon
is also going after Apple in another area: tablets. The latest
iteration of the Kindle Fire tablet has gained traction and some
critical accolades. Expect Amazon to push out another low-cost update
next year that could further entrench its users into the Amazon
ecosystem. Write to Jessica E. Lessin at jessica.lessin@wsj.com, Greg Bensinger at greg.bensinger@wsj.com, Amir Efrati at amir.efrati@wsj.com and Evelyn M. Rusli at evelyn.rusli@wsj.com A
version of this article appeared December 26, 2012, on page B1 in the
U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Apple vs.
Google vs. Facebook vs. Amazon.
It's easy to have sympathy for those who have been misled by
Facebook's ever-morphing privacy controls. One should therefore have
additional sympathy when the person led astray is a former director of
Facebook and enjoys the name Zuckerberg. Randi Zuckerberg thought she had posted a picture to be only seen by
her friends. Suddenly, it was there for all to see. Yes, all. The world.
The whole misanthropic, green-eyed human race. As ReadWriteWeb's Dan Lyons icily fulminates,
it seems that one of her sister's friends saw the picture, assumed it
was for public viewing and -- because of its profoundly fascinating
nature -- tweeted it down the Styx to public hell. You'll be wondering about the picture. Well, it shows several members
of the Zuckerberg family standing around the kitchen, staring into
their cellphones and seeming astoundingly happy. You might imagine that Randi Zuckerberg felt this was not the right message to be sending to the world. Happy families at this time of year can be disturbing sights,
encouraging onlookers to wonder what lurks beneath those open mouths and
exposed teeth.
Yes, and do it publicly.
(Credit:
Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)
People will wonder what gifts these people bought each other and why
the boy with the very pale face and the hoodie is leaning smugly against
the kitchen cabinets.
Zuckerberg, however, leaped onto Twitter
to explain her pain: "Digital etiquette: always ask permission before
posting a friend's photo publicly. It's not about privacy settings, it's
about human decency." Oh, but this only led to her receiving little lectures -- not exclusively about human decency, oddly enough.
Media Bistro wondered whether she was a Twitter bully. Lyons, pitching from the full wind-up, felt that the decency thing was a little indecent:
And a tweeter called Anna soothed her with: "@randizuckerberg Instead
of vilifying a subscriber for not reading your mind, maybe you should
talk to your brother about recent FB changes." You're already wondering how that conversation might go, aren't you?
You're already imagining whether the brother in question would listen
raptly or would stare into the medium distance, privately imagining,
perhaps, what live animal he might kill next.
Personally, though, I don't believe that money breeds spectacular
levels of self-righteousness. I actually agree with La Zuckerberg. She is absolutely right that the standard of human decency should fly
higher and more proudly than any handkerchief flag of privacy. Facebook should immediately impose a code of conduct. Its one principle should be that of human decency. Everyone on the site -- including Facebook's management and breast
police -- should first consider the intentions of users before doing
anything. It will be an excellent exercise of their human skills.
An indecent exposure, such as the one suffered by Randi Zuckerberg, should incur a fine of $20,000.
A second offense? $200,000. However, if someone -- say the site itself -- indecently impounds an image for a commercial purpose -- for example, to advertise 55-gallon tub of personal lube without the subject's knowledge -- they should pay the person $10 million. It's time the principles of decency were upheld fully and without prejudice on Facebook. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg herself has referred to her critics as -- oh, I
can't summarize this. Read for yourself what she tweeted: "Apparently,
the topic of online etiquette elicits passion, debate, anger &
Twitter crazies. Guess I just found the topic of my next TV show!" Her next TV show? Does that mean the last one will be canceled?
Chris
Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major
corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent,
sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world.
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After a segment catching up "Today" viewers on Randi Zuckerberg's accidentally viral Facebook photo,
the hosts of NBC's morning news show demonstrated just how acceptable
it's become to be totally, utterly ignorant of the social network's
privacy settings. To catch everyone up: On Wednesday,
Randi, sister of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, posted a family
picture to her private Facebook account that was inadvertently shared to
the rest of the world. You see, the picture showed up in the Facebook
feed of Callie Schweitzer, friend of Randi's sister, who thought the pic
was public and re-posted it on Twitter. After Randi wrote that she
thought her privacy had been breached, Schweitzer took the photo down. As "Today" reported on the incident, hosts Willie Geist, Savannah
Guthrie and Natalie Morales embarrassed themselves by exposing their
complete bewilderment with how Facebook, a website that's been around
since 2004, works. Here's the telling exchange:
WILLIE GEIST: Guys, I have to confess. I don't know much anything about Facebook or privacy settings.
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: And also, show of hands if you understand how the photo got onto Twitter. I don't quite get it myself. NATALIE MORALES: Well apparently, the privacy settings is the issue.
It's created some confusion, but I guess the sister posted it and...
thought she was posting it with the privacy setting but it got published
to like 40,000 people.
Morales seems to think that Randi Zuckerberg accidentally published a
public photo that should have been restricted to a smaller group within
Zuckerberg's network of Facebook contacts. Randi has tens of thousands
of followers who subscribe to her public Facebook updates, but the photo
wasn't shared with them. Instead, based on the back-and-forth between Zuckerberg and Schweitzer on Twitter,
it appears that Randi's photo visible only to her several hundred
personal Facebook friends. Because Schweitzer is both a subscriber to
Randi's public posts and a Facebook friend of Randi's sister (whom Randi
had tagged in the post), Schweitzer seems to have mistaken the photo
for a public update that was meant for all Randi's subscribers. How nice would it have been for "Today" to take a moment to explain
how to adjust one's Facebook privacy settings so that what happened to
Randi Zuckerberg doesn't happen to you. (You can read such an
explanation here.)
They could also have warned that what you post to Facebook can be
reshared elsewhere on the Internet, even if you've applied to your
profile the strictest of privacy settings. Instead, in the interest of being "relatable" to the viewers downing
pre-commute coffee, the show's hosts were perfectly confortable
remaining just as confused about Facebook as many in their audience
likely were.
FACEBOOK founder Mark Zuckerberg’s family have been tripped up by the social
network's complicated privacy settings.
The multi-billionaire web nerd’s sister Randi Zuckerberg was outraged to see a "private"
photo she had posted which featured her brother being tweeted to tens of
thousands of Twitter followers.
She then lectured Twitter users on “digital etiquette” leading to a barrage of
criticism which lashed out at Facebook’s complex and changeable privacy
rules.
Red-faced Randi was caught out after it emerged she and marketing director
Callie Schweitzer – who posted the photo on Twitter to her 40,000 followers
– had a mutual friend.
The photo showed four people - believed to be members of Zuckerberg's family -
standing around a kitchen staring at their phones with their mouths open
while Zuckerberg is in the background.
But Mark's sister Randi was so angered the picture had been put on to Twitter,
she demanded her photo was removed.
Caught out ... Randi Zuckerberg
Splash
Randi - who used to run Facebook’s marketing department - said it was "way
uncool" because the snap was for friends only.
Randi then ranted on Twitter over the incident. She posted: “Digital
etiquette: always ask permission before posting a friend’s photo publicly.
It’s not about privacy settings, it’s about human decency.”
But Randi’s comments sparked furious reactions from people who thought the
issue was not about etiquette - but rather Facebook’s changing and often
confusing privacy settings.
Eva Galperin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy watchdog in San
Francisco, US, said: “Even Randi Zuckerberg can get it wrong. That’s an
illustration of how confusing they can be.
“The thing that bugged me about Randi Zuckerberg’s response is that she used
her name as a bludgeoning device. Not everyone has that. She used her
position to get it taken it down”.
Galperin added that while Facebook has made improvements in explaining the
social network’s privacy settings, she said they remain confusing to most
people.
December of 2012 may be the most engagement action my Facebook has seen since I joined the site in 2007. This isn’t about my Facebook page insights or promoted ads
interaction. This is purely the number of engagement announcements from
family and friends that have hit my feed over the past 30 days. That
number is nine for anyone curious (seven in the past ten days, Merry
Christmas people.) For many, this deluging of their news feeds is irritating at its best and downright depressing
at its worst. I’ve listened to many a friend wail on about the
inadequacy they feel seeing posts racing in with stories of the
accomplishments and life events that my friends are missing from their
life. Some are frustrated because they have actively opted out of such
milestones themselves and don’t care to have others’ milestones thrust
on them. Others long to click that fabled link that will finally allow
them to update their relationship status with a hunger that gnaws at
their heart. One girlfriend told me, after a healthy amount of martini
consumption, that she was “quitting Facebook” because she couldn’t stand
the seemingly constant reminders that everyone else seemed to be
getting what they wanted from life but she was barely treading
water. Treading water meant that she had a rocking triathlete’s body, a
condo in the West End, a successful career, a stream of suitors at her
door, an adorable kitten with white paw mittens, and much more. She was
living a life that everyone else should seemingly covet, but she still
couldn’t shake the sadness. I nearly bit through my lip to refrain from asking her if she was
planning to become a recluse and hide under a rock for the rest of time.
Otherwise, I had no idea how she was going to avoid such life event
updates in her world. Even when they aren’t cluttering our feeds, life
events and milestones are a part of our daily lives. From holiday dinners with your cousin’s new(est) boyfriend to
co-workers’ baby announcements and college friends wedding receptions,
there’s no escaping the changes in the lives of the people around you. As a person who is almost always on the road and separated (often on
the other side of the planet) from my closest friends and family, my Facebook news feed is like the local newspaper in my hometown. A daily digest of pictures and updates of the lives of the people who matter most. This was not a quick update or implementation. I’ve spent months
cultivating my lists and subscriptions to carefully architect a news
feed that (at least on the web interface) generally provides exactly the information I want to know. The first step to building a Facebook news feed you are excited to sift through is understanding Facebook’s EdgeRank system.
EdgeRank is an algorithm that determines what updates (edges) make it
to your news feed and where they land in the results. It is based on
three metrics:
Affinity – How closely connected are you? This is a
one-way metric that looks how you interact with the poster. Things like
Liking, Messaging, Commenting, Sharing, and Search all matter
Weight – How valuable are your interactions?
Commenting on a friend’s baby belly pic is going to carry more weight in
your algorithm than Liking a picture of their sonogram. Usually the
actions that take more time and effort are going to be the things that
yield the highest results
Time Decay – How old is the edge? Good news,
updates generally have a pretty short shelf life. This does not mean
that your fraternity brother’s face smashing cake picture is going to
disappear from your feed after a couple hours. It will eventually
though. Have faith.
It is also important to accept the fact that Facebook may be a free
service but they are not a charity. Something has to pay for the
programmers to update the news feed in a new way that will incite fury
and ire among its users. One way that they are doing this is through
their upcoming Facebook Gifts service.
Still in a state of beta-limbo, gifts will alert you to big life event
changes and milestones that might warrant a gift to your friends. Cause
nothing says “Congrats on the new addition to your family” quite like a
$50 gift card to Starbucks.
And you were wondering why you suddenly kept getting random life event
notifications in the upper right hand corner of your homepage. (You can
get rid of those by mousing over the right side of the notification and
clicking the X that appears.) Cut Friends Out Of Your Facebook Life Facebook subconsciously engrains in us the belief that everyone we connect with on our profiles are our friends. Yet Robin Dunbar, an anthropology professor at the University of Oxford, has spent years researching the cognitive limit of people
with whom an individual can have a social relationship with. That
number lies somewhere between 100-230, with most studies proving it is
closest to 150. This also applies to social networks.
Meaning that you are have some tough choices ahead. Some people will
ruthlessly go through their friends lists, “unfriending” anyone they
have not communicated with over a certain time. Others will refuse to
“accept” friend requests from people they do not have a close current
personal connection with. I prefer a third, less harsh, option… Create Friend Lists This one takes time investment on the front end (when I created my lists I had approximately 650 friends
on my profile.) Fortunately Facebook has begun making it easier by
allowing you to quickly categorize folks into two separate categories,
Close Friends and Acquaintances. You can assign people by opening your
full friends list
and hovering over the Friend button to the right of their name. It
takes a while to sort through everyone, but by the end you have defined
groups of the people that you can follow by clicking the list name in
the left sidebar of your Facebook homepage. This still doesn’t fully
solve the problem of random folks random updates leaking their way
through to your news feed… Update Individual News Feed Settings This step is best done in tandem with the creation of your new
friends lists as the option lies under the same Friend button pull-down
menu. Instead of assigning a list, however, you want to click on the
Settings under Show In News Feed. Here you can choose to receive All
Updates, Most Updates, or Only Important. For those being super
diligent, you can hand pick the types of updates you want to get from
certain people. Manipulate Your News Feed Results If you’d rather just avoid the news feed assault, there are a number
of applications that can replace photos or fully filter updates. Travis
Jamison, owner of Supremacy SEO and a professional search result optimizer, recommended Unbaby.me as
an easy way to swap out various baby photos with those of your
choosing. “Unbaby.me helps me focus my exposure on events that are more
related to my life. I can’t even fathom having a little one of my own,
and all of the posts that I see with babies are just completely out of
touch with my world. ” Pug pics now flood Jamison’s feed. With a little extra work you could install a browser extension like Social Fixer for Facebook,
which will allow you to filter updates on your feed by variables like
keyword, activity type, and Facebook users. This little extension came
in particularly useful during the recent election season. When All Else Fails, Unsubscribe The truth hurts. That truth is that most likely your 7th grade
biology lab partner did not friend you on Facebook because they
genuinely wanted to re-kindle your stunted study hall conversations.
They friended you so they could see your pictures to see how time has
treated you, where you are working or what you are doing, and do a quick
scan of your wall. Curiosity killed their cat. They most likely will
barely look at your profile after that. So when you are subjected to the
92nd picture of their family’s apple picking adventure week, including
neighbor kids that you have even less of a connection to than your
random middle school acquaintances current spawn, you can rest assured
that they are not going to be insulted that you no longer care to see
what is happening in their world. They don’t really care what is going
on in yours either.
Hover your mouse to the upper right hand corner of their
update on your news feed and a small arrow will appear. Click the arrow
and a drop-down will descend with a couple options. By clicking on Hide
you will hide that particular story from your feed. Take it one step
further and select the first link that appears after you hide the
story – Change what updates you receive from XXX. You’ll recognize this
menu from the one on your friends list, but at the bottom is a magical
new field: Unsubscribe. You’ll still be friends with them. They can
still stalk you at random hours, and you can stalk back if you feel so
inclined. Occasionally you might even want to say hi or offer
congratulations and condolences on various life events. Your distant
social relationship is maintained, but neither of you have to keep the
other in your 150 cognitive limit. Facebook does not have to be a weapon of mass emotional destruction
or a distraction to your social interactions. Like any community, it is
filled with many levels and tiers of interpersonal relationships that
have come together to make you the person you are in this very moment. By taking the time to optimize your news feed results, you’ll be able
to keep in touch with the most important people in your life. You’ll
realize how much this matters when you live 8,000 miles away from them. Elisa Doucette writes
about modern feminism, relationships and life lessons for young
professionals as she travels around the world. She spent two hours
Skyping with her family at 3 AM on Christmas Day to make sure that she
was about to share the holiday season, and loves the magic of such
technology. You can visit her at ElisaDoucette.com or follow her on Twitter at @elisadoucette.
Instagram
may or may not have lost some users over the last week, depending on
whom you ask, which caused Facebook’s stock to fall briefly on Friday. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired
The fallout from Instagram’s terms of service change that wasn’t
actually changed continued Friday. Facebook, which owns the popular
social media app, saw its stock price fall 3 percent amid a report that
the TOS flap cost Instagram 25 percent of its users. Whether that number is accurate — Instagram insists it isn’t — was
almost beside the point as Facebook saw shares fall to $25.22 before
gaining almost all of it back a few hours later. It is further evidence
that Instagram completely blew it by ticking everybody off with the idea that it would license user photos to advertisers
without telling, or paying, users. Instagram insists the whole thing
was due to confusion over the rewritten terms, then made the point moot
by reverting to advertising rules set out in the TOS published in April, 2010. Friday’s dust-up started when AppData — a research firm that tracks user numbers for iOS, Android and Facebook apps — said Instagram had lost 25 percent of its users
since attempting to change its terms of service. According to AppData’s
numbers, Instagram had about 16.4 million active daily users last week,
but only 12.4 million as of Thursday. It appears that the New York Post broke the story;
it was followed by a dozen or so tech blogs. Wall Street got wind of
it, and Facebook’s stock price started falling even as Instagram
insisted the report was bogus. “This data is inaccurate,” an Instagram spokeswoman told Wired
by e-mail. “We continue to see strong and steady growth in both
registered and active users of Instagram.” She declined, however, to
quantify “strong and steady growth” and would not provide actual user
numbers. Investors appear to have gotten the message, because Facebook shares
had rebounded to $26.03, just three cents less than Thursday’s closing
price, by mid-afternoon Friday. AppData, widely cited my major tech publications (and many mainstream news outlets too) as an authority on such matters, also reported user drops for Pinterest, FarmVille,
and a number of other popular apps. But while AppData’s findings are
generally considered accurate, they don’t appear to paint a full picture
in this case. AppData’s metrics come from Instagram users who have
linked the app to their Facebook accounts. According to a report from Marketing Land,
only about 20 to 30 percent Instagram users have done this. While
AppData indeed did record a drop in Instagram’s active users over the
last week, it did so by measuring a slice of Instagram users, not the
entire pie. Although Instagram denies there’s been a decline in users, its
refusal to offer specifics makes you wonder just what’s happened during
the past week since we already know some users jumped ship.
Don’t
get me wrong: My use of Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook has
never been greater. But I’m growing tired of seeing everyone’s perfectly
framed, glittering nightscapes of the Manhattan skyline, their
impeccably prepared meals, those beautifully blurred views of the world
from an airplane window seat. I’m getting tired of carefully crafting
and sharing them myself. As these mediums have matured and more of
our friends, colleagues, former flings, in-laws and friends have
migrated to them, our use of them has changed. We’ve become better at
choreographing ourselves and showing our best sides to the screen,
capturing the most flattering angle of our faces, our homes, our
evenings out, our loved ones and our trips. It’s success theater,
and we’ve mastered it. We’ve gotten better at it because it matters
more. You never know who is looking or how it might affect your
relationships and career down the road, and as a result, we have become
more cautious about the version of ourselves that we present to each
other and the world. Even Twitter, a service steeped in real-time and
right-nowness, has added filters to its photo uploads, letting its users
add a washed-out effect to their posts. It makes me miss the raw and
unfiltered glimpses those services used to provide of the lives of my
friends and the people I follow. But the ubiquity of success theater is why I’ve become so fascinated with Snapchat and, more recently, Facebook Poke,
services that let you send photos, messages and videos with a built-in
shelf life, that self-destruct after a time interval that you choose.
The beauty of these applications, perhaps their main redemptive quality,
is that you can only send photos, messages and videos that you have
created within the application. You cannot access your phone’s photo
library for a more attractive self-portrait or an exotic locale to mask
that you’re really sitting on the couch on Friday night in pajamas,
wearing a face mask. These applications are the opposite of
groomed; they practically require imperfection, a sloppiness and a
grittiness that conveys a sense of realness, something I’ve been craving
in my communication. They transform the screen of your phone into a
window into the life of your friend, wherever they are at that exact
moment. All of this is not to say that Snapchat or Facebook Poke
have any permanent home in our daily routines. The applications, in
their current iterations, have yet to gain significant traction in any
of my social circles. Part of the fun is the novelty, as with any new
service. And both have specific uses that are not as mainstream as
services like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or even Tumblr. After all,
it’s much harder to find your comfort level within them. It’s startling,
at first, to see the poorly lit, grainy pictures of your friends’
unfiltered faces, to adjust to the intimacy of realizing that the video
of your friend that just landed in your in-box is meant for your eyes
only, and that you are expected to send something of equal or greater
intimacy in return. It is also possible that over time, Snapchat,
VidBurn and Facebook Poke will become warped by their own versions of
success theater, or lose steam if they gain seedier reputations. But
they capture a behavior my closest friends and I had already begun to
adopt: The practice of showing each other where we are at any given
moment in time, either through a short video or photo of our
workstations, our faces as we lie half-asleep in bed on rainy Sunday
afternoons, a look into our lives that is reserved for only those
closest to each other. It is an acknowledgement that the version of
ourselves we share through other social media is not the truest one, and
has not been for a long time. This is a variation of the same
impulse that made Chatroulette a viral hit, and something that Apple has
tried to capture with FaceTime, Google with its Hangouts, even Color’s
ill-fated last and final iteration. It’s enough to make me think that
the real real-time social Web is coming, in one form or another.
David Pecker, chairman and chief executive of American Media, publisher of the National Enquirer.
Photo:
stringer./Reuters 
, a friend of a friend saw the photo and reposted it on Twitter, turning a semi-private moment into a very public moment.
Email
Bruno Mallart
Poke, a Facebook app, lets people send messages that self-destruct after a few seconds.
It’s boring.