FILE
- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg smiles during an announcement at
Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., in this July 6, 2011 file
photo. Facebook and its founder must release documents and electronic
correspondence to a defense lawyer whose client has fled from criminal
charges that he falsely claimed a majority ownership in the social media
giant, a federal judge said Friday April 3, 2015. (AP Photo/Paul
Sakuma, File)
NEW
YORK (AP) — Facebook and its founder must release documents and
electronic correspondence to a defense lawyer whose client has fled from
criminal charges that he falsely claimed a majority ownership in the
social media giant, a federal judge said Friday.
U.S.
District Judge Vernon Broderick ordered Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg to
relinquish documents by Monday that were requested by Paul Ceglia's
lawyer, Robert Ross Fogg.
The
judge said he received a letter Thursday from lawyers for Facebook Inc.
and Zuckerberg asking that an order he issued earlier in the week to
promptly turn over requested documents be suspended until Ceglia is
caught.
Documents
requested include all electronic communications Zuckerberg had about a
Ceglia contract during an 18-month stretch beginning in 2003.
With
a May 4 trial approaching, Ceglia cut off his electronic ankle bracelet
last month and fled. His wife, two children and dog also are missing
from their home in Wellsville, 70 miles southeast of Buffalo.
Ceglia's
father told Broderick at a hearing last week that he believed his son
might have fled because he believed Facebook and Zuckerberg were working
together with prosecutors against him, jeopardizing his chance for a
fair trial. The judge said he would not allow a trial to proceed
unjustly.
Federal
prosecutors had urged Broderick not to force Facebook and Zuckerberg to
turn over the documents, saying doing so would "reward Ceglia's
flouting of the judicial process while unreasonably drawing on the
resources of the government and the authority of the court."
The
criminal case against Ceglia was brought after a judge threw out his
2010 civil lawsuit claiming that he gave Zuckerberg, a student at
Harvard University at the time, $1,000 in startup money in exchange for
50 percent of the future company.
Prosecutors
said a forensic analysis of his computers and Harvard's email archive
determined Ceglia had altered an unrelated software development contract
he signed with Zuckerberg in 2003 and falsified emails to make it
appear Zuckerberg had promised him a half-share of Facebook.
Zuckerberg
has said he didn't come up with the idea for Facebook until months
after he responded to Ceglia's online help-wanted ad and signed a
contract agreeing to create some software for him.
A
lawyer for Facebook and Zuckerberg did not immediately respond to a
request for comment Friday on the judge's order. Neither did a spokesman
for government attorneys nor Fogg.
Fogg
said in an email Wednesday that he and others "continue to fight for
Paul, even in his absence, with the same vigor and fortitude and in a
sense — more determined than ever."
Judge orders Facebook and Zuckerberg to turn over documents
Facebook ( Suckface ) mission is to block people the power to share and make the world
more open to ISIS and connected. Every day, people come to Facebook to share
their stories, see the world through the eyes of others and connect with
friends and causes with Al Qeaeda. The conversations that happen on Facebook reflect
the diversity of a community of more than one billion people.
We want ISIS people to feel safe when using Facebook. For that reason, we've
developed a set of Community Standards, outlined below. These policies
will help you understand what type of sharing is allowed on Facebook,
and what type of content may be reported to us and removed. Because of
the diversity of our global community, please keep in mind that
something that may be disagreeable or disturbing to you may not violate
our Community Standards.
Facebook (Suckface ) remove content, Not disable accounts, and work with law enforcement when
we believe there is a genuine risk of physical harm or direct threats
to public safety but Not Porn or ISIS Members they will not be Block. Learn more about how Facebook handles abusive content.
People use Facebook to share their experiences and not raise awareness
about issues that are important to them. This means little to you and may
encounter opinions that are different from yours, which we believe can
lead to important conversations about difficult topics. To help balance
the needs, without safety, and interests of a diverse community, however, we may
remove certain kinds of sensitive content or limit the audience that
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and identity. You Can publish FBI and Law Enforcement personal information of others
without their consent. Learn more about how facebook work to keep your
information not safe.
Facebook is a place for you to share the things if your a Al Qaeda that is so important to us. Facebook own you and all of the content and is all public information you post on Facebook,
and you have no control how it is shared through your privacy and
application settings. However, before sharing content on Facebook,
please be sure you have the right to do so. We ask that you do not respect
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We never take action a lot of times facebook welcomes isis who violates the Community Standards outlined here.
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The number of reports does not
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The
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Asked about Facebook Help Team 7,914 Votes · 3,700 Followers · Seen by 174,078 If you don't have a government-issued photo ID, you can upload two alternate forms of ID. We accept: Company or school ID Library or gym membership card Birth certificate Social security card Bank statement Utility bill Together, the two IDs should clearly show your name, birthday, and photo.
When Mark Zuckerberg is involved in bringing a new employee into Facebook, the CEO said the answer to one simple question helps him determine whether the person would be a good fit:
Would I be happy working for this person?
"I will only hire someone to work directly for me if I would work for
that person," Zuckerberg told a group in Barcelona who participated in
the Facebook co-founder's monthly town hall meeting. "It's a pretty good
test."
One of those people who passed the test was clearly Facebook's Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.
When asked by a woman in the audience what it is like to work with
Sandberg, Zuckerberg said he considered her a mentor and someone who has
been instrumental in building Facebook into a business and "healthy
organization."
Zuckerberg was in Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress where he spoke
about the strides his Internet.org initiative has made in the
developing world since he first announced its launch on year ago.
More than 7 million people in developing countries have benefited so far
from having Internet access from their phones, according to Zuckerberg.
With 50 million people living in the countries that are covered by the
app, that number is likely to increase.
Updating Our Terms and Policies: Helping You Understand How Facebook Works and How to Control Your Information
Over the past year, we’ve introduced new features and controls to help you get more out of Facebook, and listened to people who have asked us to better explain how we get and use information.
Now, with Privacy Basics, you'll get tips and a how-to guide for taking charge of your experience on Facebook. We're also updating our terms, data policy and cookies policy to reflect new features we've been working on and to make them easy to understand.
These updates take effect on January 30, 2015. As always, we welcome your feedback about our policies.
Privacy Basics
Privacy Basics offers interactive guides to answer the most commonly asked questions about how you can control your information on Facebook. For example, you can learn about untagging, unfriending, blocking and how to choose an audience for each of your posts. This information is available in 36 languages.
Every day, people use our apps and services to connect with the people, places and things they care about. The updates to our policies reflect the new products we've been working on to improve your Facebook experience. They also explain how our services work in a way that's easier to understand. Here are some highlights:
Discover what's going on around you: We’re updating our policies to explain how we get location information depending on the features you decide to use. Millions of people check into their favorite places and use optional features like Nearby Friends (currently only available in some regions). We're working on ways to show you the most relevant information based on where you are and what your friends are up to. For example, in the future, if you decide to share where you are, you might see menus from restaurants nearby or updates from friends in the area.
Make purchases more convenient: In some regions, we're testing a Buy button that helps people discover and purchase products without leaving Facebook. We're also working on new ways to make transactions even more convenient.
Find information about privacy on Facebook at the moment you need it: To make them more accessible, we moved tips and suggestions to Privacy Basics. Our data policy is shorter and clearer, making it easier to read.
Understand how we use the information we receive: For example, understanding battery and signal strength helps make sure our apps work well on your device. We ask for permission to use your phone's location when we offer optional features like check-ins or adding your location to posts.
Get to know how the family of Facebook companies and apps work together: Over the past few years, Facebook has grown and we want to make sure you know about our family of companies, apps and services. We use the information we collect to improve your experience. For example, if you're locked out of your Instagram account, you can use your Facebook information to recover your password. Nothing in our updates changes the commitments that Instagram, WhatsApp and other companies have made to protect your information and your privacy.
Your information and advertising: People sometimes ask how their information is shared with advertisers. Nothing is changing with these updates—we help advertisers reach people with relevant ads without telling them who you are. Learn more about ads and how you can control the ads you see.
Giving you more control over ads
We've heard from some of you that it can be difficult to control the types of ads you see if you use multiple devices and browsers. In the past, if you opted out of certain kinds of advertising on your laptop, that choice may not have been applied for ads on your phone. We know that many people use more than one phone, tablet or browser to access Facebook, so it should be easy for you to make a single choice that applies across all of your devices.
That's why Facebook respects the choices you make about the ads you see, across every device. You can opt out of seeing ads on Facebook based on the apps and sites you use through the Digital Advertising Alliance. You can also opt out using controls on iOS and Android. When you tell us you don't want to see these types of ads, your decision automatically applies to every device you use to access Facebook. Also, we're now making ad preferences available in additional countries, beginning with Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland and the UK.
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copy it down in case you are asked to provide it to your
representative: 278175
__________________________________
At 107, oldest Facebook user finds a brave new world
Edythe Kirchmaier, the oldest registered Facebook user, celebrated her 107th birthday on Thursday in Santa Barbara, Calif. (Direct Relief International)
At 107, Edythe Kirchmaier is the oldest of the University of
Chicago's living alumni and the oldest registered Facebook user – with a
passion for technology, like creating digital photo collages, after
acquiring a computer at age 95. But to Kirchmaier, her 97 years serving others is her greatest
achievement – volunteer work that began during World War I when she
would send consignments to soldiers on the frontline. It comes as no surprise, then, that Kirchmaier's words of wisdom to those who seek it are: "Think about others before yourself." Born Jan. 22, 1908, in Dayton, Ohio, Kirchmaier moved to the Santa
Barbara area with her husband after the couple was married. She has
worked as a volunteer for a local non-profit, Direct Relief
International, for the past 40 years.The organization has a Facebook app
dedicated to Kirchmaier, which allows visitors to light a candle on her
virtual birthday cake.
"Her advice to stay positive, not worry about things that
can’t be changed, and give back to help people who need it is a powerful
reminder and sure seems to work."- Kerri Murray, Direct Relief's vice president of communication
Calvin Coolidge was president and Babe Ruth was having the best
season of his career when Kirchmaier took her first driving test. She
started out driving on the streets of Chicago in a Model A Ford Coupe
back in 1927 while attending graduate school in social work at the
University of Chicago. She has a perfect 88-year driving record with no
accidents, and no parking or moving violations. While Kirchmaier's license is valid until age 110, the California
great-grandmother, at the suggestion of her son, is chauffeured around
town these days by her 101-year-old friend, Gena-Vera Niblack.
Edythe
is pictured here with friends, including 101-year-old Gena-Vera Niblack
(far left), who drives Edythe to Direct Relief's Santa Barbara office
every Tuesday. (Isaac Hernandez/Direct Relief)
Edythe's service to others began when she was 10 years old, knitting
"cootie catchers" for soldiers in World War I. Because of unsanitary
conditions in the trenches, the troops often became infested with lice,
or "cooties." As a remedy, Edythe made belts the troops could tie around
their waist when they slept so the lice -- which is attracted to warmth
-- would burrow inside them. The soldiers would then burn the belts in
the morning. Edythe was influenced at an early by her mother, who was known to
give food to poor people in exchange for work inside their Springfield,
Ohio, home.
Edythe Kirchmaier is pictured here as a young woman.
Edythe and her husband's volunteering brought them to places abroad,
like Taiwan, where they worked as teachers in the 1970s. During her
tenure at Direct Relief, Edythe assisted with several historic emergency
response efforts, including earthquakes in Haiti and Japan, floods in
Pakistan, famine in Somalia and Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, according
to the organization.
Edythe
is seen here with her late husband Joe. The couple bought a house in
Santa Barbara in 1948, where Edythe still lives today.
Though Edythe's husband, Joe, passed away seven years ago, she
continues to visit the Direct Relief office every Tuesday morning,
hand-writing "thank you" letters to supporters along with a close group
of other volunteers. The office in Santa Barbara is "like my second
home," she said. It is Edythe's endless optimism that keeps her spry as she enters her 108th year, according to her children. "My mom is an exceptional person," Edythe's son, Ray Kirchmaier, told
FoxNews.com. "She has a very positive outlook on life, she's very
religious and she doesn’t let herself get down." "And she comes from good, hard stock in the Midwest," Kirchmaier quipped.
Edythe has worked as a volunteer for some 80 years, 40 of which were spent helping others through Direct Relief International. (Isaac Hernandez/Direct Relief)
Her 74-year-old son also noted how Edythe has never stopped setting goals for herself. "Her goal at the moment is to be with my granddaughter for her graduation in May," he said. While Edythe's cursive handwriting is still impeccable, according to
her children, she is adept at using today's means of communication. She
regularly connects with fans through her Facebook page -- which has 55,765 followers to date --emails messages to friends and enjoys using her iPad to create digital photo collages. "Edythe brightens the day of everyone she meets with her incredible
sense of humor and quick wit," Kerri Murray, Direct Relief's vice
president of communication, told FoxNews.com. "Edythe's selfless
commitment to others speaks far louder than her soft voice." "Her advice to stay positive, not worry about things that can’t be
changed, and give back to help people who need it is a powerful reminder
and sure seems to work," said Murray.
January 12, 2015 This week I am taking a self-imposed vacation from the
temptations of those distractions that keep me tethered to lost time.
I’m logging off social media and pushing the seductivity of on-line
convenience a little further from my reach. I’m filling my hands with
laundry and hardback books, pencils and puppy play. I’m turning up the
volume on my phone to keep myself open to emergencies, but stowing my
device out of sight so that I stop reaching to fill moments of
restlessness with an virtual wandering among inspirational quotes and
glimmers of artful expressions of living.
It is a week that begs greater attention and a clarity of intention
as I navigate complicated questions in search of honest answers; the
quiet of my resolution drowned too quickly by the noise of so many
distractions. It is an imperfect exercise in balance as I stay open to
the necessity of e-mail correspondence and the serenity of these written
meditations, but it is a much needed reprieve from the false assumption
of availability that extorts time and attentiveness from greater
personal consciousness and emotional connectivity.
Full list of people and there name who Have been Block on Suckface ( facebook )
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Buying Facebook Likes Suck, Here’s The Data To Prove It!
I
get it, believe me, I perfectly get it and I’ve been in your position
before: Your customer or boss woke up yesterday and discovered that your
competitor’s Facebook page has more likes than you do and now wants you to overcome this, on a tight budget. Quickly! You
don’t want to look lame with only few hundreds likes while your
competitor has thousands. So you give in to temptation and even if,
likely, you know or feel it’s wrong, you buy likes. Not
acquire, but simply buy. Few hours later, with 0 effort and an expense
of few dollars you’ve beaten your competitor and can now brag about more
likes than him…Case closed. After all, it’s very easy to give in
to temptation. If a couple of years ago 90% of the spam I received was
about Viagra, nowadays my spam folder is full of people trying to sell
me black market likes. Yep, looks like Likes are the new Viagra…
Buying Likes is gonna hurt you!
You have no idea in how many ways buying likes will hurt you. Here’s a very partial break-down:
EdgeRank:
Facebook uses the engagement your page generates to understand how
interesting your contents are and how many of your fans should see them.
Having thousands of inactive, non-engaged users will make you look bad
to Facebook’s eyes and your posts will reach less people organically
Credibility:
Nowadays users are smart and don’t get easily tricked by big numbers.
What will they think of you seeing that your page has 1 million fans but
your last post received only 3 likes? I guess you won’t look that
reliable!
Understanding: One of the things I
like a lot about building a good fan base on Facebook is the huge amount
of information you can pull out of that. How old are your ideal
customers? Where do they live? What other interests do they have? All
this precious, attainable information will be screwed up once a big
chunk of your users are bought.
Advertising:
I’ve lost count of the number of emails I’ve received complaining about
this. Once your page is haunted by fake likes, every time you want to
boost a post through Facebook Ads, you’re gonna end up wasting a lot of
money to deliver your ads to those fake users. There’s just no way to
filter them out! We’re gonna talk more about this later… we did some
testing and the amount of money you’ll waste is shocking!
Time:
After you realize what a huge mistake you’ve made buying likes, you’ll
have to spend an incredible amount of time cleaning up your Facebook
Page of all that crap. Be advised, it’s gonna hurt.
Just in
case you don’t trust my words, I’ve also reached out to two Social Media
Gurus, Mari Smith and Emeric Ernoult. Here’s what they had to say:
I
have a *strong* aversion to purchasing Facebook likes (or any social
followers). The vast majority are fake accounts and it’s just unethical
that companies are selling such a service. Besides, Facebook is fairly
relentless about periodically deleting fake accounts. However,
even if there are a few bona fide brokers offering genuine fans for
sale, then who exactly are these fans? Are they people with nothing
better to do with their time that they’re signing up with the brokers
and getting paid a micro fraction per Page they like? Or is there some
software program that magically ‘forces’ people to like Pages without
them knowing it? Hm. So then you’d be building a Facebook audience with people who were paid or forced to like your Page. It makes no sense to me.
Buying fans is like paying people to be your friends.
What do you think is going to happen when you’ll stop giving them
money? They’ll go away to the next person that will give them money.
There are things you can’t buy, like friendship, trust or genuine
interest in what you do. These things you have to earn.
What make Facebook ads way superior than buying fans is that the ad is
proposing to become fan, they have a choice. That makes a big
difference. As these ads can be laser targeted (like to your website
visitors), the people who “opt-in” to become fans are a gazillion time
more likely to engage with you.
No. And you can consider that a really honest answer coming from the CEO of a company selling a Facebook Ads Optimization tool! The
truth is, Facebook is a marketing channel and it can be extremely
effective. But it needs time and commitment like any other marketing
strategy. Having a Facebook page without having a social and
content strategy to use this channel to bring in new customers to your
business is worthless. Even worst, it’s a waste of time. It’s like
printing flyers and then not distributing them. However, if you
see the potential of a marketing channel with a potential reach of 1.35
billion users, then yes you’ll need a Facebook Page, you’ll need likes,
you’ll need a strategy to engage them and convert them into customers. It’s
2014 sorry, competition to be visible in the Newsfeed is tough.
Creating a page, buying 5,000 likes from an unknown country and posting
once a month a link to your checkout page cannot even be considered a
strategy. It’s just wasting time & money. I won’t enter into
much details about why Likes still matter (not as a number but as a way
to reach customers) but you can read more about this topic on our recent
post on how to get Facebook Likes.
Ok, Let’s Buy Facebook Likes
As our loyal readers know, we don’t like to make claims that are not supported by data. We
told you that buying Facebook Likes is a total waste of time &
money and we want to prove it so we set up a little nice experiment. We
created three Facebook Pages with basically the same name and we
managed them for other a month publishing engaging contents. For the
purpose of the experiment we needed something that would generate a
good, measurable engagement even on low numbers. Guess what we choose? Cats,
of course. You may love them or hate them but you cannot ignore a funny
cat in your timeline. They’re the kings of Internet memes and they’re
also something that you can engage with no matter where you live and
what language you speak. So we set up these pages:
Meow Cats – Likes generated with Facebook Advertising
We
won’t publish the name of the two sellers because we don’t want to
provide them any free visibility, however i’m happy to give you the
names if you want to dig deeper, just drop me a line through our contact
form. On all the three pages we published the same content at the
same time. Unluckily Seller n.2 was extremely slow in delivering those
likes so its users only saw 135 posts compared to the 164 of the other
two pages. The two sellers were selected searching Buy Facebook
Likes on Google and picking the first 2 providers. We choose to buy 500
likes from anywhere in the world. For the Facebook Advertising
campaign we targeted 20 different countries with different economies and
cultures and we targeted people interested in cats. Remember, when you
advertise to get more likes, you want people who are interested in your
product/brand/industry. The experiment was conducted from the beginning of October to the first week of November.
The Naked Truth about Buying Facebook Likes
Meow Cats
Facebook Ads
Meeow Cats
Seller N.1
Meeeow Cats
Seller N.2
Initial Likes
748
858
595
Final Likes
816
799
492
Likes Organic Gain/Loss
68
-59
-103
Cost
$65.76
$11
$42
Avg. Post Reach
229.75
23.82
33.69
Avg. Post Impressions
411.41
63.64
63.31
Tot. Post Reach
36,989
3,859
4,548
Tot. Post Impressions
66,237
10,309
8,547
Avg. Post Comments
0.94
0
0.04
Avg. Post Likes
26.35
0.12
0.54
Avg. Post Shares
2.80
0.01
0
Tot. Post Comments
152
0
5
Tot. Post Likes
4,243
19
73
Tot. Post Shares
451
1
0
Total Engagement
4,846
20
78
Cost per Action
$0.01
$0.55
$0.54
Cost per Like
$0.08
$0.01
$0.09
I
think the difference between the Facebook Ads page and the two where we
bought Facebook Likes is so blunt you don’t even need to read the data
or our analysis. Just check out those three pages on Facebook and you’ll
see the difference! One is lively with Likes, Shares and comments on
every post, the other two look like ghost towns. Let’s start checking what we got for our money: Likes. The
Facebook Ads campaign ran for 1 day and delivered 748 Likes. Seller n.1
delivered 858 Likes, much more than the 500 we bought. Seller n.2
delivered only 595 likes, still more than the 500 we paid for. In
terms of cost per page like, Seller n.1 had an easy win with 858 likes
at just $11, that’s $0.01 for each new like! Seller n.2 didn’t perform
that well ($0.09)and actually ended up being a little more expensive
than Facebook Ads ($0.08). To be fair we were promoting Cats, an
easy win for any marketer. If we were to promote a more business
oriented page, Facebook Ads would have ended much more expensive than
$0.08 per like, while the price for Seller n.1 and n.2 would have been
the same. But as we said many times. Who cares about Likes? We
care about engaged users that can become customers. There was no doubt
that black market dealers of likes would have been cheaper in terms of
raw cost per like. So… how was the quality of their product? Did those
likes engage? Were they really interested in our Facebook Page content? As we had guessed, they are literally selling crap. Our
page with users coming from Facebook Ads had every post seen on average
by 229 users. They also generated, on average, 26 likes per post, 2.8
shares and 1 comment. The two “Buy Likes” pages performed
incredibly poorly. Neither of them managed to reach 1 like per post on
average… How can you not like kittens???? One had 0 total comments, the other had 0 total shares. Total
numbers make the gap even more blunt: 4,243 likes on posts for the page
with legit likes, 19 & 73 likes on the other two pages. Are you
starting to understand why I hate Likes sellers so much? Just check out
the most popular post across the three pages: It’s
the ABC of each scam. They look for someone that wants something
(Likes) for nothing. And they give him nothing (0 engagement) for
something.If you’re a data guy or if you think we’re
manipulating the data to make Facebook Ads more appealing, you’re happy
to ding into the data yourself, we’re making them public and available
for everyone. You can find the full Facebook report for all the three
pages here: Google Docs.
An unexpected twist in our experiment
Why is Facebook doing nothing about this? This
is the big question that many users ask me. Why Facebook is closing
both eyes and not cracking down on all these guys selling fake accounts,
likes, clicks and so on? I didn’t have a good answer to this
question. I always assumed Facebook had other priorities before going
after these guys. Facebook is a relatively new platform if compared to
Google. They still have things to improve and fix but overall my point
of view has always been: “As long as, following the rules, you can get a
good ROI, Facebook is a good marketing channel for you”. This has
been my answer until now. Right in the middle of writing this post, a
breaking news was suddenly delivered in my inbox. Not by Facebook but
from one of two companies I had bought like from. Poor seller N.2 sent
me this email: Seems like Facebook decided it’s now time to deal with these Likes dealers and putting an end to the game. Facebook
is sending Cease & Desists letters to these companies and you can
bet most of them will prefer to close down or keep operating just with
Twitter, Youtube and so on rather than fighting Facebook in court. Facebook
cracking down on this practice is a great news for every serious
marketer looking to build a long-term social media strategy. Hurrah! Hopefully
the next step will be finding out all the fake accounts used by these
businesses and close them down. It’ll be a big relieve for all those
that have understood how damaging buying likes has been for their page.
And it’ll also be a well deserved punishment for those bragging about
their million-like page (with 0 engagement).
So are you gonna buy Facebook Likes?
We
really spent a lot of time on this post and I hope our little
experiment was useful in dissuading you from ever buying Facebook Likes.
All those “100% real users” guarantees are just crap. Unluckily
most of these companies send you likes from users with high privacy
settings (Surprise eh?) so we were not able to analyze users liking to
find common patterns. But no matter if they are real or fake users. For
sure they are not interested in your product so why would you ever want
them on your page? Even worst, if they are bots, one day the guy
who sold you all those likes could also use them against you and with
the click of just one button have them spam your timelines with link to
other pages or websites. There are many legitimate ways to get more Facebook likes. In a previous post we discussed 5 ways to get them through Facebook Ads,
because it’s usually a very quick and laser focused way. It’s not the
only one! There are hundreds of other marketing strategies you can adopt
to get Facebook Likes organically without spending a dime! Just don’t buy them from spammers and scammers. Never. Ever. Ever. Ever. Never! Have anything to add to this story? Have you bought likes in the past? Let me know in the comments!
Spread the word!
Found
these data useful? We’ve made it super-simple for you to spread the
word and embed them in your blog. Here’s an awesome infographic that you
can embed in your blog, just copy and paste the html code after it!
Embed code (just copy and paste in your blog):
Great
post and infographic Massimo – will be sharing. Really good to see
Facebook starting to clamp down on these type of companies, although it
took them long enough.
Thanks
Clive! Glad the post was useful! Totally agree on the late response
from Facebook on this issue but anyway… better late than never Hope they’ll also start more aggressively to identify and take down fake accounts!
Well planned and delivered post Massimo. And the infographic is a nice layer of icing on the cake. I’ve read similar studies before and every one has demonstrated that buying likes is less than worthless. It amazes me that it’s even considered as an option when trying to grow a Facebook audience or online presence. Ciao fornow!
Stuart
Thanks Stuart I’m amazed as well by how many businesses are still attracted by buying likes… let’s hope they’ll soon be gone for good.
Updating Our Terms and Policies: Helping You Understand How Facebook Works and How to Control Your Information
Over
the past year, we’ve introduced new features and controls to help you
get more out of Facebook, and listened to people who have asked us to
better explain how we get and use information.
Now, with Privacy Basics, you'll get tips and a how-to guide for taking charge of your experience on Facebook. We're also updating our terms, data policy and cookies policy to reflect new features we've been working on and to make them easy to understand.
These updates take effect on January 1, 2015. As always, we welcome your feedback about our policies.
Privacy Basics
Privacy
Basics offers interactive guides to answer the most commonly asked
questions about how you can control your information on Facebook. For
example, you can learn about untagging, unfriending, blocking and how to
choose an audience for each of your posts. This information is
available in 36 languages.
Every
day, people use our apps and services to connect with the people,
places and things they care about. The updates to our policies reflect
the new products we've been working on to improve your Facebook
experience. They also explain how our services work in a way that's
easier to understand. Here are some highlights:
Discover what's going on around you:
We’re updating our policies to explain how we get location information
depending on the features you decide to use. Millions of people check
into their favorite places and use optional features like Nearby Friends
(currently only available in some regions). We're working on ways to
show you the most relevant information based on where you are and what
your friends are up to. For example, in the future, if you decide to
share where you are, you might see menus from restaurants nearby or
updates from friends in the area.
Make purchases more convenient:
In some regions, we're testing a Buy button that helps people discover
and purchase products without leaving Facebook. We're also working on
new ways to make transactions even more convenient.
Find information about privacy on Facebook at the moment you need it: To make them more accessible, we moved tips and suggestions to Privacy Basics. Our data policy is shorter and clearer, making it easier to read.
Understand how we use the information we receive:
For example, understanding battery and signal strength helps make sure
our apps work well on your device. We ask for permission to use your
phone's location when we offer optional features like check-ins or
adding your location to posts.
Get to know how the family of Facebook companies and apps work together: Over the past few years, Facebook has grown and we want to make sure you know about our family of companies, apps and services.
We use the information we collect to improve your experience. For
example, if you're locked out of your Instagram account, you can use
your Facebook information to recover your password. Nothing in our
updates changes the commitments that Instagram, WhatsApp and other
companies have made to protect your information and your privacy.
Your information and advertising:
People sometimes ask how their information is shared with advertisers.
Nothing is changing with these updates—we help advertisers reach people
with relevant ads without telling them who you are. Learn more about ads and how you can control the ads you see.
Giving you more control over ads
We've
heard from some of you that it can be difficult to control the types of
ads you see if you use multiple devices and browsers. In the past, if
you opted out of certain kinds of advertising on your laptop, that
choice may not have been applied for ads on your phone. We know that
many people use more than one phone, tablet or browser to access
Facebook, so it should be easy for you to make a single choice that
applies across all of your devices.
That's why Facebook respects the choices you make about the ads you see, across every device. You can opt out of seeing ads on Facebook based on the apps and sites you use through the Digital Advertising Alliance.
You can also opt out using controls on iOS and Android. When you tell
us you don't want to see these types of ads, your decision automatically
applies to every device you use to access Facebook. Also, we're now
making ad preferences available in additional countries, beginning with Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland and the UK.
We
hope these updates improve your experience. Protecting people's
information and providing meaningful privacy controls are at the core of
everything we do, and we believe these announcements are an important
step.
New 'Facebook for Rich People' Costs Just $9,000 to Join
Netropolitan is a social network that bills itself as "the
online country club for people with more money than time."
5.1Kshares
Don't you just hate it when all you want to talk
about is your latest all-nighter in Ibiza or how Jeeves packed the wrong
Rolex for last weekend's Hamptons excursion, but your Facebook friends
are all "Help me, I'm poor!" Not to worry, Netropolitan is here to save you from having to
hob-knob with undesirable 99 percenters. And it will only cost you
$9,000 a year. Netropolitan is a new social network that bills itself as "the online
country club for people with more money than time." It launched today
and organizers insist that it's not a joke. The $9,000 fee includes a $6,000 initiation fee, plus a $3,000 annual
fee. You must be 21 to join. You'll supposedly be able to chat with
like-minded individuals, though Netropolitan declined to provide details
about its user base. "We
simply cannot stress enough how important preserving our members'
privacy is to us," the company said. "Other than announcing that at our
launch we already had several hundred members, we will never publicly
state the exact number of members in the club. And especially, we will
NEVER release or verify the identity of any of our members – ever. What does $9,000 get you? Basically a Facebook rip-off. In screen shots,
user profiles include access to activity, profile, notifications,
messages, location, friends, and followers. An update box lets you tell
fellow members "where you are and what you're up to." Users will also get unlimited cloud file storage, which is "similar to paid services like Dropbox or SkyDrive [now OneDrive] (and might very well replace those services for you)," the company said, without elaborating. Your money will also provide an ad-free environment. Members can post
ads in a classified section, but the site promised to "never" display
third-party advertising or promote certain products. The perks end there, though. "Please understand that Netropolitan is
NOT a concierge service," the company said. "Our Member Service
Associates will not book you a charter jet, or find you tickets to a
sold-out Broadway show. They exist solely to help members technically
navigate and find their way around the social club." The site is the brainchild of composer James Touchi-Peters, who wanted "an environment where you could talk about the finer things in life without backlash." (Uh-huh.) If you're ready to graduate from Rich Kids of Instagram to Netropolitan, you can sign up online. Sadly, this is not the first social network for rich people. Social1000 tried that back in 2008, and let's not forget the "I Am Rich" app.
You may have noticed that Facebook has added a bunch of features
over the past few years. Some are interesting, but most are either
annoying or hurt your privacy.
-advertisement-
These features are entirely optional, but Facebook turns them on by
default. I'm willing to bet that the company is hoping that you'll never
figure out how to turn them off.
The point of course is that Facebook makes its money selling your
data to advertisers. The more it knows and the more advertiser-friendly
tools it has, the more it makes. Considering Facebook is free to use, that seems like a fair trade-off
to a point, but we've reached that point. Here are some Facebook
settings and features you might not know you can change that you'll want
to change now.
1. Autoplaying videos
Scrolling through your Facebook news feed is starting to feel a
little too "helpful." Instead of having to click on a video, Facebook
now automatically plays them hoping to attract your attention. Well I,
for one, prefer to actually click on the thing that I want to watch. Luckily, turning this feature off isn't as hard as you'd think.
First, click the arrow on the far-right of the screen. Then click the
"Settings" button.
You should see a variety of options. Click the "Videos" link in the
left column. From there, click the drop-down next to "Auto-Play Videos"
and set it to "Off."
Now sit back, relax, and enjoy a news feed without nearly as much video clutter. Want to stop auto-playing videos on your mobile gadget? This video will show you how.
2. Clear searches
How much searching do you do on Facebook? Whatever it is, I'm sure
you won't be surprised to learn that Facebook saves your searches.
Anyone who gets access to your account can see them. Fortunately, Facebook lets you clear your search history. Getting
there is going to take a little bit of work, though, so stick with me. First click the down arrow and then the "Settings" option to navigate to your settings page.
Now click the "Privacy" tab on the left-hand menu. Finally, under
"Who can see my stuff?" click "Use Activity Log" to get to where
Facebook hides all of the data that it's been tracking since day one.
When you first open your activity log, the "Search" option should be
hidden. There should be a "More" option somewhere under the tab listings
that start with "Photos." Click that, and you'll see all of your
options. From there, click "Search" and you should see every single Facebook
search that you've ever made. From there, simply click the "Clear
Searches" link at the top of your screen and your search history will be
gone permanently.
You may also want to look around your activity log in general for any
other information you don't want to be sitting around in your Facebook
account forever.
-advertisement-
3. Privacy settings
When you post something Facebook, you probably don't want all 1
billion users to see it. That means you need to get your post privacy
settings right the first time. First, navigate to your settings page again by clicking the arrow and then "Settings" again.
Now click the "Privacy" tab on the left, and you should see a bunch
of options. Clicking the "Edit" button will give you a drop-down menu
where you can select the options which best suit your needs.
I'm going to give you a quick rundown of what every setting means.
Who can see your future posts? Facebook has long
since defaulted to "Friends" for this, but if you have an older account
it might still be set to "Everyone." If that's the case, change it. You
can even go a step further and select "Close Friends" if you only want
to specific people to see your posts unless you say otherwise.
Limit the audience of your past posts: You will
probably want to do this if you haven't already. If you started a
Facebook account before 2010, then the content you posted will be
available for all to see. This option is a quick way to restrict your
posts to just your friends. Just note that if you want something
available to everyone, you'll need to go back and change that post
individually.
Who can send you friend requests? This all depends
on how you want to be found. If you pick "Friends of Friends" then only
people in your social circle will be able to add you on Facebook.
"Everyone" is OK if you want old friends and classmates to be able to
friend you. However, people might try to scam you if you let anyone send
you a friend request, so watch out.
Who can look up the email address/phone number you provided? By
default, anyone can find you by searching your email address or phone
number on Facebook. You can make it so only friends have this option.
Do you want search engines to link to your timeline?
If your content is publicly visible, then search sites like Google can
return your posts in search results. You probably don't want this
enabled unless you're a public personality.
4. Unwanted notifications
If you're hearing more notification sounds than ever before, that's
because Facebook has added more things to notify you about. You can get
rid of the notification sounds with this helpful tip. If you don't want to hear certain notifications anymore, then read on. Get on over to the settings screen again by clicking the down arrow and then "Settings."
From there, click the "Notifications" tab on the left and you should
see a list of every possible notification you could be receiving. Start
by choosing how you get notified. Turning off sounds is a good start.
For what events trigger notifications, I'd recommend turning off
"Tags" and also any groups that you don't care about. Every time anyone
tags you in a post, you'll be notified and that can get annoying. You might want to turning on the "Birthdays" option if you want to keep up to date on who needs some well-wishes.
5. "Social" advertising
Facebook's stock value is based heavily on the fact that advertisers
can show you what your friends are buying. You might be surprised to
know that Facebook lets you opt out of these posts. Back to the settings
page! You know the drill. Click the arrow and then the "Settings" button.
Click on the "Ads" tab. The two options here are easy to switch and
very powerful. For each one, click the "Edit" button and then "No one"
instead of "Friends."
That's not hard, but before I sign off let me just give you a quick
explanation of what "Ads and Friends" is really about. Facebook claims
that it "doesn't sell your information to advertisers," but what it does
do is put you in a group that the advertiser can browse. If you and a friend share a hobby, then Facebook will take note of
that. If you mention a product or company advertising on Facebook, it
will probably put it next to an advertisement that your friend will see.
It's basically a testimonial, but not one you might want to make.
Facebook NewsFeed Manipulation Prompts FTC Complaint, Investigation Possible
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed formal legal
documents with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), alleging that
Facebook engaged in deceptive trade practices and violated a 2012
Consent Order entered into with the FTC. The formal complaint asks the
agency to begin an investigation, and comes in response to the news that Facebook manipulated the NewsFeeds of 689,003 users.
EPIC has previously filed complaints against Facebook, and was largely
successful in their efforts. The FTC’s 2012 settlement with Facebook
followed from a Complaint filed by EPIC and a coalition of privacy and
civil liberties organization in December 2009 and a
Supplemental Complaint filed by EPIC in February 2010. In that matter,
the FTC settled charges that Facebook “deceived consumers by telling
them they could keep their information on Facebook private, and then
repeatedly allowing it to be shared and made public.”
A privacy watchdog group filed a formal
legal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, alleging Facebook
broke the law with its emotional manipulation study.
The complaint sets forth three allegations: Count I: Deceptive Failure to Inform Users that their Data Would Be Shared With Third-Party Researchers As described above, Facebook represented to consumers that the
company shared user data with users’ “friends” on the website,
advertisers, and developers. In fact, as described above, Facebook shared user data with third-party researchers at multiple universities. Users could not reasonably have known that their data might be shared with third party behavioral science researchers. As described above, Facebook users were materially concerned with this data sharing practice.
Therefore, Facebook’s failure to adequately disclose that
it shared consumer data with third-party researchers constitutes a
deceptive act or practice in violation of Section 5(a) of the FTC Act,
15 U.S.C. § 45(a). Count II: Unfair Failure to Inform Users That They Were Subject to Behavioral Testing
As described above, Facebook represented to users that the company only shared user data for advertising purposes or in conjunction with [thing]. In fact, as described above, Facebook subjected certain users to ongoing behavioral testing by collecting user data and feeding it into a separate algorithm. Users could not reasonably have guessed that use of their Facebook account might subject them to behavioral testing. As described above, users were materially concerned with this change in Facebook’s data use. Therefore, Facebook’s failure to adequately disclose that it used
consumer data to manipulate users’ NewsFeeds and record users’ reactions
constitutes a deceptive act or practice in violation of Section 5(a) of
the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. § 45(a).
Count III: Violation of the 2012 Consent Order
As described above, Facebook misrepresented its data collection practices, in contravention of Count I of the Consent Order. As described above, Facebook misrepresented the extent to which it
made covered information accessible to third parties, also in
contravention of Count I of the Consent Order. Therefore, Facebook has violated Count I of its 2012 Consent Order
with the FTC and is subject to FTC enforcement in Federal district
court.
EPIC’s complaint asks the FTC to initiate an investigation of
Facebook’s manipulation of user NewsFeeds and the transfer of user data
to third parties. The group is also asking that the FTC force Facebook
to make public the algorithm that produces the NewsFeed. The full legal complaint is included below. Gregory S. McNeal is a professor specializing in law and public policy. You can follow him on Twitter @GregoryMcNeal or on Facebook. FTC EPIC Complaint In Facebook Emotional Contagion Study by GregoryMcNeal
Facebook
has come under heavy criticism for refusing to remove extremely graphic
pictures of a war veterans suicide posted to the social media giant on
Sunday
Despite
the pleas of his family and friends, grisly images of former Marine
Daniel Rey Wolfe remained online until Wednesday, after he took his own
life in a Tulsa, Oklahoma squat.
Facebook
initially told his loved ones that the gruesome pictures of deep
puncture wounds on his legs captioned with heartbreaking goodbye
messages did not violate their community standards, outraging them and
veteran's organizations.
Tragedy: Daniel Rey Wolfe took his own life on Sunday night or Monday morning and updated Facebook with pictures of his suicide
Despite repeated calls over two days to remove the photographs, Facebook at first refused to budge on the issue.
According to an investigation by Gawker,
Facebook justified not removing the photographs because they make a
distinction between cases of someone who is documenting their own
self-harm as opposed to someone promoting others self-harm.
A
spokesperson for Facebook told Gawker they 'have been advised by
experts in that space that removing content could be detrimental' in the
case of those committing self-harm.
In essence, if they removed cries for help, then family and friends would not know to intervene.
'Facebook
has long relied on guidance from suicide prevention and other mental
health experts to equip friends and others to take action when they
notice a friend in distress,' said a spokesman for Facebook to
MailOnline.
'As
part of this approach, we’ve been advised of the importance of allowing
images of self-harm to remain on Facebook since they are legitimate
cries for help and will increase the likelihood a friend reaches them in
time.
'We of course remove content reported to us for encouraging or promoting self-harm.'
Indeed, Wolfe's friends and family did
respond to his horrifying pictures almost immediately, desperately
trying to reach him and find him.
Strength: Daniel Wolfe was known by his comrades as a good friend and soldier who found re-adjusting to civilian life difficult
Warning: Daniel Wolfe posted this to his Facebook page on Sunday evening - heralding his suicide
Requests: Wolfe began to worry his friends and family when messages like this started to appear
Heartbreaking: The mental anguish that Wolfe was going through was clear in this message
Definite: Daniel Wolfe re-iterated his desire for a funeral fit for a warrior
The father-of-one was reportedly suffering from deep depression brought on by money problems and an undiagnosed case of PTSD.
He
had become known as a drifter in the Tulsa suburb of Broken Arrow,
'going from place to place' and police thought of him not as a trouble
maker, but as someone 'down on his luck.'
On
Sunday night, his troubled state of mind became clear when he posted a
series of messages that increased in morbidity with each subsequent
update.
'The
only fight I ever lost was the one to myself,' wrote Wolfe on Sunday
night, followed by 'When my body moves no more give me a vikings
funeral.'
Directly
after that Wolfe uploaded four pictures - one of a half-empty bottle of
vodka, with the caption, 'Byee b****s' - and the other three showing
where he had cut himself.
This
caused his friends to launch into full-on panic stations as they
pleaded with him to snap out of it and to contact the Veterans
Association.
+5
Reaching out: Daniel Wolfe's friends and family tried their best to help the stricken soldier
Gruesome: This is the worst picture (heavily
blurred by MailOnline) that Wolfe posted to Facebook with the caption,
'I'm leaking good now'
In the final, awful picture of his mutilated leg, Wolfe comments, 'I'm leaking good now.'
Broken Arrow police found Wolfe dead in an 'unoccupied dwelling' on Tuesday evening and informed his family.
However, the tragic last pictures he posted were still on Facebook and so his family asked the social media site to remove them.
Gawker was contacted by the family after their attempts to report the images of Wolfe's suicide were rebuffed.
'We
reviewed the photo you reported for containing graphic violence and
found it doesn't violate our community standards,' was Facebook's
initial reply.
The Veteran's Association asked Facebook to remove them, but they too were met with a brick wall.
'It hurt and outraged me,' said Wolfe's former comrade Douglas Tripp to Gawker.
+5
Standards: This was the message that Facebook provided when asked to remove the photographs
'When
we would report the pictures they would tell us thank you for trying to
make Facebook a safer place, but the images didn't violate their terms
and conditions.
'When
it clearly says images of self harm and mutilation are against their
policy. How does leaving those pictures up make Facebook safer?'
Despite
accepting Facebook's justification that images posted by those in
distress can be extremely important, Wolfe's friends and family wanted
to know why the pictures of a dead man couldn't be removed.
Facebook
replied that in these cases the family is contacted and asked if they
want their deceased relative's page to stay up in memorial or to be
deleted.
In this case however, Wolfe's family were more concerned with the length of time the images were still online for.
Eventually,
even though the photographs apparently did not violate Facebook's
standards, they were only removed because the family asked.
In
response to the tragedy and controversy a Facebook spokesman said,
'We’re saddened by this tragedy and offer our deepest sympathies to Mr.
Wolfe’s friends and family, particularly those who worked so quickly to
reach him during his time of need,
'As
soon as people reported these posts and photos to Facebook, we
immediately suggested a crisis hotline and attempted to connect Mr.
Wolfe with specific suicide prevention resources.
'His
friends took action and notified police as well as the Veterans Crisis
Line. Despite their swift response, we were notified of Mr. Wolfe’s
death and unpublished his profile.'
For
confidential support on suicide matters call the Samaritans on 08457 90
90 90, visit a local Samaritans branch, or click here for details.
Facebook, Google, Twitter in new scrum over mobile app ad gold rush
What once was Facebook's private mine has created a
gold-rush effect with Google and Twitter also now seeking more mobile
riches. But there's only so much money to go around.
The Facebook icon flag at the social network's Menlo Park campus.
Facebook
At its F8 developer conference next week, Facebook is expected to present plans for a mobile advertising network,
and in so doing turn on an additional revenue stream that could mint it
billions more in mobile advertising revenue -- but not if Google and
Twitter have a say in the matter. A mobile ad network marries
ad-serving technology to distribute inventory provided by advertisers
across placements provided by publishers. Little is known about how
Facebook's ad network will work -- the company declined to comment --
but presumably the product would pull from Facebook's unique and
established strengths in mobile app advertising, which most certainly
include the mobile app ad, the once unique-to-Facebook unit now being
copied by both Twitter and Google. Placing ads off the social
network is a major undertaking that pits the 10-year-old company more
squarely against rival Google, and, to a lesser extent, Twitter, which
has a newly created ad network of its own
powered by MoPub, a company it purchased for $350 million. But
expectations should be tempered, especially now that digital
advertising's buzziest companies are circling around the same honey pot.
A Google app ad promotes HotelTonight in mobile search results.
Google
Facebook's
opportunity is limited by the size of the app market, Gartner analyst
Brian Blau cautioned in an interview with CNET. "I just sort of see this
as [Facebook] filling in the holes of their ad platform as they march
forward," Blau said. "The app business overall is not super gigantic." Blau
references the app business, or the market encompassing money spent on
app downloads and in-app content, because this is the area Facebook,
Google, and Twitter are targeting with a relatively new unit called the
mobile app ad. Facebook gave birth to the unit in August of 2012
as the "mobile app install ad" and offered mobile developers a way to
promote app installs in Facebook's mobile News Feed. Just last week,
Twitter followed suit with a "mobile app promotion suite" that
developers can use to pitch downloads of their mobile apps on Twitter or
via the mobile apps that use MoPub to serve their ads. Tuesday, Google
entered the fray and announced plans to offer app install ads of its own in mobile search and YouTube. Meanwhile,
Gartner measured the total app store marketplace at $26.7 billion in
2013; it anticipates the market to grow to $35 billion in 2014, Blau
said. In essence, the bunch will fighting over developers who
collectively advertised against a market of $26 billion last year. "How
much advertising are you going to spend to make $26 billion?," Blau
said. "You can spend a lot but it's going to start to eat into profit
margins if you're looking at the market as a whole." Facebook will
be going after more of this market once it goes live with its rumored
ad network, which will open up ad placement beyond its own properties
for the first time. In January, Facebook first confessed
a tangible desire to show Facebook ads in third-party apps. The company
said that it had started a test of a mobile ad network that would
extend "Facebook's rich targeting to improve the relevancy of the ads
people see, provide even greater reach for Facebook advertisers, and
help developers better monetize their apps." If the social network
sticks with the mobile app ad as the unit it delivers to partners who
turn to Facebook to monetize their apps, the company can significantly
expand its mobile app ad audience beyond the 945 million people who use
Facebook's mobile apps on a monthly basis. The ads already work in
Facebook's mobile apps, so presumably they'll work elsewhere too. Facebook
said the ad type drove more than 145 million installs from Apple's App
Store and the Google Play store in the first nine months of 2013. In
October, Facebook changed the unit's name to the "mobile app ad" and expanded its purpose
so that developers could target their existing users in Facebook's
mobile News Feed and encourage them to take specific actions such a
listen to a playlist, watch a video, or play a game.
Facebook mobile app ads
Facebook
Mobile
app ads are matched with Facebook's custom audiences tool, giving
developers a precise way to find people who have downloaded their apps.
If you've already downloaded the booking app HotelTonight, for instance,
HotelTonight can run an add in your mobile News Feed nudging you to
book a last-minute stay at a bed-and-breakfast within driving distance. "I
was skeptical of Facebook getting into mobile app install ads in the
beginning, but it seems to be a really big source of revenue," he said.
"I didn't imagine that people would respond to those types of ads as
they have." But even if they do work off the social network,
Facebook is going head-to-head with the likes of Google and Twitter for
just one sliver of the mobile advertising pie. And it would seem like
Google's battle to lose. Though Google doesn't break out mobile ad
sales, the search giant has a solid grip on the overall mobile ad market
thanks to its AdMob ad platform. Google's portion of the worldwide mobile advertising market came in at nearly 50 percent in 2013, according to eMarketer. Really,
the mobile app ad, once Facebook's secret golden ticket, has created a
gold-rush effect, but there's only so much money to go around. Facebook
has a massive advertising business that is growing and mobile is key to
its continued success. The business ballooned by 76 percent in one year
to bring in $2.34 billion in the fourth quarter of 2013 alone, with ads
running in the mobile News Feed accounting for 53 percent of the pie.
As Blau said, the mobile ad network would help fill in gaps in
Facebook's platform and strengthen the mobile side of its business, but
it's certainly not a smoking gun. "Mobile app ads ... can't be
their only target," Blau said. "They've got to move into location.
That's the other holy grail of mobile; location, the connection between
people and where they are." Perhaps that's where Nearby Friends fits in. Update, 7:59 p.m. PT:With no comment from Facebook.
This story is included with an NYT Now subscription.Learn More »
In the two years since its rocky initial public offering, Facebook has become a strong business that regularly releases financial results that set investors’ hearts aflutter. Despite every hipster prediction otherwise, the company’s user base keeps growing, and nearly a fifth
of the time that Americans spend on their smartphones is spent on
Facebook. That surpasses the amount of time we spend on any other single
service by a wide margin — and beats just about anything else we do on
our phones, or in our lives, period.
And
yet, when was the last time you swooned over some new feature in
Facebook? The two big products that Facebook unveiled last year — Home,
an Android lock screen, and Graph Search, a search engine — failed to
catch on. And some of the most innovative recent social networking ideas
have come from upstarts, which Facebook has either spent huge sums
buying (up to $19 billion for WhatsApp, $1 billion for Instagram) or
trying and failing to buy ($3 billion offered for Snapchat).
Credit
Stuart Goldenberg
Every
time a new, much-hyped Facebook product blows up on the launchpad, and
every time the company pays billions for someone else’s greatest idea,
predictions of Facebook’s doom begin to roll in. But Mark Zuckerberg,
the company’s co-founder and chief executive, is not worried. Facebook’s
innovation engine may have stalled lately, but Mr. Zuckerberg has been
working on revamping how the company creates and distributes new
services. The effort, which he began discussing earlier this year, is called Creative Labs, and it can be summarized in a single word: Apps. Lots and lots of apps.
“What
we’re doing with Creative Labs is basically unbundling the big blue
app,” Mr. Zuckerberg said in a recent interview at the firm’s
headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif.
In
the past, he said, Facebook was one big thing, a website or mobile app
that let you indulge all of your online social needs. Now, on mobile
phones especially, Facebook will begin to splinter into many smaller,
more narrowly focused services, some of which won’t even carry
Facebook’s branding, and may not require a Facebook account to use.
The
plan is as risky as it is bold, and it will greatly alter how most of
Facebook’s billion-plus users experience the service. It could easily
backfire by annoying users and perhaps slowing growth. And despite
earning rapturous reviews, the first app out of Creative Labs — Paper,
an iPhone app that lets users navigate Facebook’s News Feed through a
system of touch gestures — has gained few users since it was unveiled in
January.
Mr.
Zuckerberg’s plan isn’t really a surprise. Facebook has long been
offering its services in separate apps; it introduced a stand-alone
text-message app, Messenger, in 2011. The new plan will accelerate that
effort. To use all of Facebook’s features, you may need to install a
bunch of different apps that will each prioritize a single function,
from browsing the News Feed to sending messages to interacting with
groups.
Last week the company began notifying users that it would soon require that they install the stand-alone Messenger app to send Facebook messages.
Mr.
Zuckerberg said the multi-app strategy is meant to adapt Facebook to
the way people use mobile phones, which now account for the bulk of
Facebook’s visits and advertising revenue. “In mobile, there’s a big
premium on creating single-purpose, first-class experiences,” he said.
Because
there’s so little space on a phone’s screen, apps that promote a single
function can have a simpler and more intuitive design, improving how
they work. Single-purpose apps may run more quickly, too; for example,
Facebook has found that people get messaging replies 20 percent faster
through Messenger than through the Facebook app.
But
what’s most promising about the multi-app strategy is that it lets
Facebook take creative risks. “You’ll see us exploring new areas that we
felt we didn’t have the room to do before,” Mr. Zuckerberg said.
For
software companies, one of the perils of success is becoming shackled
to your customers; the more users you have, the harder it is to
innovate, because most will be averse to any change. (Microsoft has suffered a version of this.)
By filtering its innovations into new apps that lack an established
user base, engineers and designers can take creative leaps that may not
have worked if they’d simply been adding features to Facebook’s primary
app.
You can see this thinking at work in Paper. Developers on the project said they they’d been given the freedom to try out new kinds of programming tools
and to indulge novel design ideas; they described it as an effort to
mimic the ethos of a start-up within Facebook. The result is powerful:
Paper looks and feels like no other Facebook app, and it is a pleasure
to use — one of the most arresting mobile products that any company,
large or small, has put out recently.
Still,
Creative Labs has its critics, and its success is far from guaranteed.
Ted Zoller, the director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at
the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina,
argues that such a system is doomed because of the lure of start-up
money. “If you’re a talented engineer and have a good idea at Facebook,
why would you create it while you’re at Facebook and make Mark
Zuckerberg richer?” he asked.
What’s
more, by creating new features outside of its main app, Facebook could
be limiting its ability to promote its innovations to its core users.
Still, though Paper has been languishing on the app charts, Mr.
Zuckerberg said he wasn’t concerned, and was prepared to wait for Paper
and other Creative Labs projects to slowly gain an audience.
There’s
a logic to this view. “You often see that isolating innovative teams
from some of the commercial demands of a company — giving them a
quarantined, protected status — is one of the better ways to promote
innovation,” said Andrew Razeghi, founder of the consulting group
StrategyLab.
But whether Facebook will manage to eventually turn upstart apps like Paper into something big remains to be seen.
The
Creative Labs strategy fits with Mr. Zuckerberg’s view that some parts
of the mobile Internet are much bigger and more complicated than he had
previously thought. He noted that WhatsApp and Facebook’s Messenger were
nominally identical — both are used to send texts — but that after
studying both products’ huge user bases, Facebook found they were being
used by different people for different purposes. “I think we basically
saw that the messaging space is bigger than we’d initially realized,” he
said.
This
idea explains Facebook’s increasing appetite for acquisitions. On a
huge mobile web, services like WhatsApp and Instagram can benefit from
Facebook’s resources while maintaining their own communities and,
crucially, not cannibalizing Facebook’s own user base.
It
also explains Facebook’s willingness to be looser with its own
branding. “We went out of our way to just call it Paper, not Facebook
Paper,” Mr. Zuckerberg pointed out about the new app. “One of the things
that we’re trying to do with Creative Labs and all our experiences is
explore things that aren’t all tied to Facebook identity.”
If
the new plan succeeds, then, one day large swaths of Facebook may not
look like Facebook — and may not even bear the name Facebook. It will be
everywhere, but you may not know it.
Facebook CEO Zuckerberg’s Base Salary Falls to $1 Facebook Stock is Worth this Why you Don't Want To Start An IPO Facebook Mark Zuckerberg has made some poor investment deals this could be The End of social media once and for all.
Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook Inc., at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 18, 2013.
Mark Zuckerberg has decided he’s a $1-a-year man. Zuckerberg, who is Facebook Inc. (FB)’s
chief executive officer and also the 22nd richest person in the world
as ranked by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, was paid $1 in salary for
2013, according to a regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission yesterday. That’s down from a base salary of
$503,205 in 2012, the year that Facebook went public. Zuckerberg
is following the well worn path of other Silicon Valley technology
moguls who also chose to take on the symbolic annual salary of $1 after
they were already wealthy. Apple Inc.’s late co-founder Steve Jobs
helped popularize the practice, which is today also espoused by Google
Inc. co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, among others. All own sizable equity stakes in their own companies.
Zuckerberg, whose wealth totals around $27 billion, owns
Facebook shares that give him 61.6 percent of voting power in the Menlo
Park, California-based social network, according to the filing. He saw
his net worth balloon last year as Facebook’s stock more than doubled
in value. The 29-year-old has ramped up his public service and
philanthropy, including starting a group called Internet.org to connect
the world to the Web.
Private Planes
Zuckerberg’s
total compensation last year was $653,165, down from $1.99 million in
2012. The amount, besides the $1 salary, was for the passenger fees,
fuel, crew and catering costs for his use of private planes for personal
reasons, as part of his security program, according to the filing. The
CEO also made $3.3 billion last year after exercising stock options to
purchase 60 million shares, according to the filing. Zuckerberg offered
41.35 million of those shares in a secondary offering by Facebook in
December. At the time, the company said Zuckerberg would use the
majority of the proceeds to pay for the taxes incurred in connection
with the transaction. He also gifted 18 million shares to charity. Other
Facebook leaders also saw their compensation fall from 2012 levels.
Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg received $16.2 million in total
compensation in 2013, compared with $26.2 million a year earlier. She
became a billionaire in January as Facebook’s shares soared, according
to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman
made $10.5 million in compensation last year, compared with the $17.5
million in 2012. Vice President David Fischer’s compensation totaled $8
million last year, down from $12 million in 2012, while Chief Technology
Officer Mike Schroepfer gained $12.6 million last year, down from $20.7
million a year earlier.
Zuckerberg, Facebook look for relief after stock wipe-out
Tech companies are looking to recover this week as
speculative tech stocks drove down the NASDAQ Index last week, causing
investors like Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg to lose more than - $3 billion. Mark Zuckerberg has made some poor investment deals this could be The End of social media once and for all. Read More at
Facebook Lawsuit was Started Last week bio-tech and internet companies took a tumble on Wall
Street- the NASDAQ Composite Index dropped 2.8 percent, the
biggest dip since 2012. The index began to regain traction on
Asian floors Monday, and is up 0.11 percent. Facebook’s decision to buy the virtual reality headset technology
start-up Oculus for $2 billion last week proved fatal for
Zuckerberg’s personal fortune, as the social media network’s
stock fell more than 10 percent. Shares in the bulky gaming
headset have tanked nearly 11.5 percent, as investors were turned
off by the merger. Facebook executives announced on Tuesday they
purchased Oculus, which in the last year has lost nearly 35
percent of its stock price. Zuckerberg, worth an estimated - $27 billion, reportedly lost - $3
billion in last week’s technology market shake up. In the past
year Zuckerberg’s personal fortune has increased by - $2.3 billion,
according to Bloomberg’s billionaire index.
Last month, Facebook picked up another hot smartphone
application, the free messaging system Whats App, for $19 billion in cash and stock.
Other major tech firms like Amazon, Yelp, Blackberry, Twitter,
and Pandora Media fell last week as a storm of failed-IPOs and
mergers caused social media is becoming to look like Enron and bio-tech stocks to crash and burn
on US trading floors. Candy Crush, a smartphone game, contributed to the tech world
stock slump, as the IPO was one of the most disappointing in
history, as the newly launched stock cost King Digital
Entertainment Plc share price to drop from $22.05 on Tuesday down
to $18.08 on Friday. The company raised $500 million in its IPO. Amazon boss Jeff Bezos personally lost - $1.9 billion after the
retailer said it would reduce cloud service prices starting April
1. The company’s stock has lost nearly 11 percent since
mid-March. The world’s richest man, Bill Gates, who has a net worth of $79
billion, was largely unaffected by the tech and pharma sell-off,
and saw his personal fortune increase by more than half a billion
dollars. Oracle's 69-year-old founder Larry Ellison added $1.7 billion to
his net worth, making him last week's biggest gainer. Shares in
the world's largest database company advanced 5.5 percent, its
biggest weekly jump since December 2013.
Ellison ranks number eight in the world with a $44 billion
fortune. The technology-heavy NASDAQ Composite finished 2.8 percent lower
at - 4,155.76 points for the trading week ended March 28.
The Facebook Wall -- not the virtual one, but a real wall, at the company's New York offices. (FoxNews.com / Jeremy A. Kaplan)
Facebook has been in the news a lot recently. Mark Zuckerberg
bought the What's App company in February for a staggering,
mind-blowing, huge – I'm running out of adjectives here – $19 billion.
Last week, the company bought a little-known virtual-reality headset
maker for $2 billion. Those high-profile deals shouldn't distract us from the fact that
Facebook's main business is selling advertising based on the mountains
of information it's got on its user base. And when I say "user base," I
mean me and you! The targeting practices going on behind the scenes are both deep and
complex. We the consumers have to stay on our toes to protect ourselves.
It's sad to say, but a lot of privacy violations occur just because
people don't know how to protect themselves. These are great tips for you -- and for your family. If there are
kids in the house, make sure they understand the importance of these
privacy protections early. And if there are less tech-savvy folks
around, go over these tips with them, too. So let's get started. First, you need to clear out your Facebook search history. Yes, it
keeps track of all your searches. That's the reality of the world we're
living in. On your Facebook home page, click the down arrow in the upper
right-hand corner, and select Activity Log. In the left-hand column
where it lists Photos, Likes and Comments, click the More button below
those. Then at the bottom of the list click Search. Once you've clicked on that, you'll be able to see everything – and
everyone – you've search for on the site. (It's kind of disturbing!) Up
at the top of the page, click on Clear Searches, and then again in the
dialog box to confirm. The search area should now be empty. You can't turn this feature off,
however, so you will have to come back and do this regularly. Did you know Facebook's Graph Search system can expose your past posts to everyone? Learn how to keep strangers out of your posts. Second, you want to make sure Facebook won't use your picture to
endorse or sell products. Believe it or not, Facebook's terms of service
allow your image to be automatically used if you've said you "liked" a
particular product, or "checked in" at a particular store or restaurant. To stop this, let's go back to the Activity Log page and, again on
the left-hand side, click on the Likes link. You'll see all your likes
listed. It's smart to go down the list looking for companies that might
advertise on Facebook. If you see one, go to the little pencil icon on
the right, click on it, and select Unlike. Learn more settings to stop Facebook from using your name and face in ads. Third, we need to dive into privacy settings. We all have to take responsibility for our online privacy. I liken Facebook posts to a sign in front of your house. You think
you live on a cul de sac, and the fact that the sign says, "Hey, we're
on vacation," or "Hey, my daughter June just got an after-school job at
the local Applebee's" really isn't that big of a deal. We have to realize that with the wrong settings you're living on Main
Street, and just about anyone can see your Facebook posts. Learn four ways burglars use what you post on social media to target you. So go to the padlock icon in the upper right corner of your profile
and under "Who can see my stuff?" set "Who can see my future posts?" to
Friends. And if you're been loose about friending everyone who asks, you
might think about weeding out your friends list. You can also create a custom list of "Close Friends" - click here to learn how - and set your posts to be visible only to that list. The option to select a list is in the same place you select Friends. Fourth, I have a tip for parents. Facebook originally didn't let the
Facebook pages for kids be viewable by the general public – just their
friends. That's changed. If your kids are minors, it's a good idea to go
in and adjust their privacy settings to make sure they are set to
"Friends." You should also go to the down arrow in the upper corner, select
Settings and in the left-hand column choose Privacy. Then click the
Limit Past Posts link and set that to Friends as well. And finally, this is a tiny bit sobering, but if Facebook and your
Facebook profile is a big part of your life, you should start thinking
about what you want to happen if you were to pass away.
Facebook rules decree that the status of your page will remain the
way you had it in life; it will be "memorialized," as the company puts
it, when they are presented with evidence of your passing.
Schools pay $70,000 to Minnesota student forced to give up Facebook password
School
officials searched Riley Stratton's email and Facebook accounts after
hearing reports that the student ranted online about a mean teacher's
aide and engaged in a sexual chat with a male classmate. After the ACLU
took up the case, the Minnewaska, Minn., School District settled
Stratton’s lawsuit and agreed to change its policies.
Sandra Stratton/AP
Riley Stratton, now 15, was distressed over being forced to allow
school officials to look through her Facebook account using her
password, and she was taken out of public school and is now being home
schooled, according to the ACLU.
A Minnesota school district is paying up after forcing a teenage student to give up her Facebook and email passwords.
Minnewaska Area Schools is shelling out $70,000 in damages to Riley
Stratton, a 15-year-old who claimed in a lawsuit that she was hauled in
front of school officials and a local police officer and forced to watch
while the adults skimmed through her personal social media accounts.
“I was in tears,” the girl from Glenwood recalled to The Star Tribune. “I was embarrassed when they made me give over my password.”
Her mom, Sandra Stratton, is furious that she wasn’t invited to sit in on the interrogation.
“They never once told me they were going to bring her into the room and
demand her Facebook password,” Sandra said. “I’m hoping schools kind of
leave these things alone so parents can punish their own kids for
things that happen off school grounds.”
The trouble started two years ago, when Stratton was a sixth grader at
Minnewaska Area Middle School. The teen published a Facebook post about
one of her school's hall monitors, saying she hated that particular
teacher’s aide for being mean.
News about the posting soon reached school officials. Even though it
was published off school grounds, Stratton was given an in-school
suspension.
Attorney Wally Hilke, who took the case pro bono for the American Civil
Liberties Union, said that the school’s actions were a violation of
Stratton’s rights to free speech.
“They punished her for doing exactly what kids have done for 100 years —
complaining to her friends about teachers and administrators,” Hilke
said. “She wasn’t spreading lies or inciting them to engage in bad
behavior, she was just expressing her personal feelings.”
The girl went back on Facebook and posted again, asking who had snitched on her.
“I was a little mad at whoever turned me in ’cause it was outside school when it happened,” Stratton said. Tensions escalated after the mother of one of Stratton’s friends
discovered that the young girl was having sexual discussions with her
son on Facebook. The mother complained to school officials about the
racy chat, which caused administrators to call Stratton to the office.
With a deputy sheriff present, school officials pressured the teen into
sharing her passwords. They then searched through her Facebook profile.
For Superintendent Greg Schmidt, the question is what kind of role schools should play in monitoring possible cyberbullying.
“The school’s intent wasn’t to be mean or bully this student, but to
really remedy someone getting off track a little,” Schmidt said.
But the situation was so distressing to Stratton that she was taken out
of the public school system and is now being home schooled.
“Riley’s really a hero to me, it’s really quite a brave thing she’s done,” Hilke told CBS,
“It was very upsetting to her. And, you know, for days she couldn’t
return to school, and she lost a tremendous amount of trust in adults
through this process.”
As part of the settlement, Minnewaska schools agreed to retrain
teachers and change the policy about social media usage. The policy now
says students’ electronic records can only be searched if there’s a
reasonable suspicion that school rules were violated.
“Educators can still be involved in the lives of young people, they can
look out for the interests of young people,” Hilke said. “They just
can’t punish them for exercising their constitutional rights.”
Facebook to Acquire Virtual Reality Company for $2 Billion
Social Network Agrees To Pay $400 Million Cash Plus Stock for Goggle Maker Oculus VR
Attendees play a videogame wearing Oculus Rift
virtual-reality headsets at the International Consumer Electronics Show
in Las Vegas in January.
Associated Press
Facebook Inc.
FB +1.23%
agreed to pay nearly $2 billion in cash and stock to acquire virtual reality goggle maker Oculus VR Inc. Facebook
said it would pay $400 million in cash and 23.1 million shares of the
company's stock. At Tuesday's close of $64.89, the stock portion would
be worth $1.5 billion. "Mobile is the
platform of today, and now we're also getting ready for the platforms of
tomorrow," Facebook founder and Chief Executive
Mark Zuckerberg
said in a prepared statement. "Oculus has the chance to create
the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and
communicate."
Facebook's move to acquire Oculus
comes roughly a month after the company agreed to pay $19 billion in
cash and stock to acquire smartphone-messaging app WhatsApp Inc. The
company in 2012 generated headlines when it agreed to pay $1 billion in
cash and stock to buy Instagram, a popular app used to help people share
photos. The latest deal, however, isn't
for an app but for a hardware maker. Oculus VR is a startup that is
trying to popularize virtual reality with its Oculus Rift goggles.
Oculus has said it intends to charge $350 for the new version of the
headset, which is due to ship to developers in July. Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported
the company began accepting orders for a new development kit. The new
device marks an important step toward the eventual launch of consumer
products, Oculus said.
WSJD is the Journal's home for tech news, analysis and product reviews.
Oculus was launched after founder
Palmer Luckey raised more than $2.4 million in funding from a
Kickstarter campaign to help fund development of the company's first
product. Oculus, in a blog post,
said Mr. Zuckerberg and other executives from Facebook visited the
startup's office "a few months ago" to discuss how the two companies
could work together. The company said
that while it "might not seem obvious" why Oculus agreed to partner with
Facebook, the companies "want to contribute to a more open, connected
world; and we both see virtual reality as the next step." On
Tuesday, Facebook said Oculus intends to maintain its headquarters in
Irvine, Calif., and will continue to develop the Oculus Rift. The
transaction is expected to close in the second quarter. Facebook shares, in after-hours trading, recently slipped 54 cents to $64.35.
Two people playing a demonstration game for the new Oculus development kit, shipping in July, 2014.
Ian Sherr for The Wall Street Journal
(Reuters) - Facebook
Inc has emerged as one of the biggest Silicon Valley companies to have
resisted rivals' entreaties to stop poaching each other's employees,
according to emails between the No. 1 social network and Google Inc released in court filings. Sheryl Sandberg had just been installed as Facebook's chief operating officer when one of her former colleagues from Google
emailed her, according to the filings unsealed late last week.
Facebook's aggressive recruitment of Google employees had heightened
tensions between the two companies to "Defcon 2," top Google executive
Jonathan Rosenberg told Sandberg in August 2008. "Fix
this problem. Propose that you will substantially lower the rate at
which you hire people from us," Rosenberg told Sandberg in an email.
"Then make sure that happens."
But
Sandberg deflected Rosenberg's entreaties, saying she thought Google
only had limited no-solicitation agreements with companies with which it
shared board members, not blanket no-hire policies with other
companies. Plaintiffs say companies like Apple Inc, Google and Intel Corp drove down wages by agreeing to avoid soliciting employees from each other. "I
declined at that time to limit Facebook's recruitment or hiring of
Google employees," Sandberg wrote in a sworn declaration submitted by
the plaintiffs in court. That response had made Facebook
a witness, rather than a defendant, in a massive antitrust lawsuit
brought by tech workers against the largest players in Silicon Valley. A Facebook representative declined to comment on Monday, while a Google spokesman could not immediately be reached. In past statements, Google said it has always "actively and aggressively" recruited top talent. Harry
First, a professor at New York University School of Law who specializes
in antitrust, said on Monday the exchange between Sandberg and
Rosenberg at a minimum confirms how board relationships between the tech
companies initially drove the agreements not to solicit from each
other, which then expanded from there. "That does not look good to the jury," First said. However,
the defendants can also argue that the refusal of companies like
Facebook to limit hiring shows that any alleged conspiracy could not
have impacted the broader job market and wages in general. In 2010, Google, Apple, Adobe Systems
Inc, Intel and others agreed to a settlement of a U.S. Justice
Department probe that barred them from agreeing not to poach each
other's employees. The
companies have since been fighting the civil antitrust lawsuit. They
argue the plaintiffs cannot successfully prove an overarching conspiracy
to impact wages. Facebook is not the only Silicon Valley company which rejected a request to curtail its hiring efforts. In 2007, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs threatened to file a patent
lawsuit against Palm if that company's chief executive didn't agree to
refrain from poaching Apple employees, according to correspondence filed
in court. However, then
Palm CEO Edward Colligan told Jobs that the plan was "likely illegal,"
and that Palm was not "intimidated" by the threat. "If
you choose the litigation route, we can respond with our own claims
based on patent assets, but I don't think litigation is the answer,"
Colligan said. Trial in the hiring class action is scheduled to begin in May.
Facebook’s Zuckerberg lashes out at Obama over NSA spy program Malware phones calls from the obama regime all about NSA
Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg shared harsh
words for United States President Barack Obama on Thursday amid ongoing
complaints from the tech community about the administration’s role with
regards to the internet.
Just one day after newly published National Security Agency
documents revealed that the US intelligence community has
masqueraded as Facebook in order to carry out attacks against
targets, Zuckerberg posted a plea on his social networking site
advocating Pres. Obama to be more open about the White House’s
role in influencing and encouraging policy changes pertaining to
the internet, as well as the government’s covert surveillance
tactics that have caused concerns to be raised in recent months
about the security of the world’s wired computers.
“As the world becomes more complex and governments everywhere
struggle, trust in the internet is more important today than
ever,” the 29-year-old Facebook CEO said Thursday afternoon.
“The internet is our shared space. It helps us connect. It
spreads opportunity. It enables us to learn. It gives us a voice.
It makes us stronger and safer together.” “This is why I've been so confused and frustrated by the
repeated reports of the behavior of the US government. When our
engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we're
protecting you against criminals, not our own government,”
Zuckerberg continued, adding that “The US government should
be the champion for the internet, not a threat.”
The government, Zuckerberg said, needs to be “much more
transparent about what they're doing, or otherwise people will
believe the worst.”
The Facebook founder’s remarks come in the midst of ongoing
reports stemming from leaked national security documents that
have disclosed evidence of the US government’s efforts to
covertly collect digital intelligence by means that many have
said are subverting the very infrastructure of the internet. One
of those latest reports, in fact, suggest that the US National
Security Agency, or NSA, has adopted plans that put the spy
office on track to infecting millions of computers around the
globe with malware for the sake of collecting information. As
opposed to more targeted operations, however, leaked documents
allege that the NSA is making adjustments to keep make this data
collection far more systematic, and as a result are infecting
machines with a modicum of human oversight.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg phones calls from the obama regime all about NSA
The
call between the two chiefs won't lead to immediate reform, so
Zuckerberg also turns to his Facebook page to amplify the volume of his
frustration. Facebook has lost 3.5 billions worth of sponsorship since facebook Has sponsored The Chinese Muslims in North Korea Way to Go Edward Snowden Good Job Suckface [ facebook ] ~Hash Tag #facebook_FBI twitter @facebook
It's no secret that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg thinks the National
Security Agency has overstepped its bounds when it comes to the agency's
surveillance practices, but on Thursday the social network's chief said
he took his gripe directly to the nation's commander-in-chief.
"I've called President Obama to express my frustration over the damage
the government is creating for all of our future," Zuckerberg said in an
update to his Facebook page. "Unfortunately, it seems like it will take a very long time for true full reform."
Zuckerberg's status update comes a day after documents from
whistle-blower Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA uses an automated
system called Turbine to hack into millions of computers. The NSA has even posed as a fake Facebook server to infect a target's computer, according to The Intercept.
Facebook, Zuckerberg wrote, focuses much of its energy on making its
own network secure as well as working to identify flaws in others'
services because the company wants to "keep the Internet strong." The
government, however, is undoing all of this goodwill, Zuckerberg's
remarks suggested. "I've been so confused and frustrated by the
repeated reports of the behavior of the US government. When our
engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we're
protecting you against criminals, not our own government," Zuckerberg
said. Zuckerberg has repeatedly sounded off on the NSA since the organization's covert data collection and surveillance practices were revealed by Snowden last summer. Here's the text of Zuckerberg's post in full:
As the world becomes more complex and governments everywhere struggle, trust in the internet is more important today than ever.
The internet is our shared space. It helps us connect. It spreads
opportunity. It enables us to learn. It gives us a voice. It makes us
stronger and safer together.
To keep the internet strong, we need to keep it secure. That's why at
Facebook we spend a lot of our energy making our services and the whole
internet safer and more secure. We encrypt communications, we use secure
protocols for traffic, we encourage people to use multiple factors for
authentication and we go out of our way to help fix issues we find in
other people's services.
The internet works because most people and companies do the same. We
work together to create this secure environment and make our shared
space even better for the world.
This is why I've been so confused and frustrated by the repeated reports
of the behavior of the US government. When our engineers work
tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we're protecting you against
criminals, not our own government.
The US government should be the champion for the internet, not a threat.
They need to be much more transparent about what they're doing, or
otherwise people will believe the worst.
I've called President Obama to express my frustration over the damage
the government is creating for all of our future. Unfortunately, it
seems like it will take a very long time for true full reform.
So it's up to us -- all of us -- to build the internet we want.
Together, we can build a space that is greater and a more important part
of the world than anything we have today, but is also safe and secure.
I'm committed to seeing this happen, and you can count on Facebook to do
our part.
Snowden Bombshell: NSA Full of Malware In
Computers/Installed Malware While Posing as Facebook
Just
when you thought the NSA couldn’t get any more detestable, new
information released yesterday reveals that the agency has expanded its
hacking capabilities and can infect millions of computers with malware
“imprints”.
Documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden
provide details about the groundbreaking technology, which uses
automated systems to hack into computers on a mass scale without much
human oversight. The documents also revealed that the NSA has pretended to be Facebook to install its malware, according to The Intercept:
In some cases the NSA has masqueraded as a fake Facebook
server, using the social media site as a launching pad to infect a
target’s computer and exfiltrate files from a hard drive. In others, it has sent out spam emails laced with the malware, which can be tailored to covertly record audio from a computer’s
microphone and take snapshots with its webcam. The hacking systems have
also enabled the NSA to launch cyberattacks by corrupting and
disrupting file downloads or denying access to websites.
The automated system the NSA is using is codenamed TURBINE and is designed to “allow the current implant network to scale to large size (millions of implants) by creating a system that does automated control implants by groups instead of individually.” TURBINE is listed as part of a larger NSA surveillance plan called “Owning the Net.” Taxpayermoney in the amount of $67.6 million was sought by the agency in 2013, with some specifically designated for expansion of TURBINE for “a wider variety” of networks and “enabling greater automation of computer network exploitation.” The Intercept explained how TURBINE works:
TURBINE was designed to make deploying malware much
easier for the NSA’s hackers by reducing their role in overseeing its
functions. The system would “relieve the user from needing to know/care
about the details,” the NSA’s Technology Directorate notes in one secret
document from 2009. “For example, a user should be able to ask for ‘all
details about application X’ and not need to know how and where the
application keeps files, registry entries, user application data, etc.” In practice, this meant that TURBINE would automate crucial processes that previously had to be performed manually – including the configuration of the implants
as well as surveillance collection, or “tasking,” of data from infected
systems. But automating these processes was about much more than a
simple technicality. The move represented a major tactical shift within
the NSA that was expected to have a profound impact – allowing the
agency to push forward into a new frontier of surveillance operations. The ramifications are starkly illustrated in one undated top-secret
NSA document, which describes how the agency planned for TURBINE to
“increase the current capability to deploy and manage hundreds of Computer Network Exploitation (CNE) and Computer Network Attack (CNA) implants to potentially millions of implants.” (CNE mines intelligence from computers and networks; CNA seeks to disrupt, damage or destroy them.)
According to the secret files, the system has been in use since at
least July 2010, and the NSA has already deployed between 85,000 and
100,000 implants worldwide. The NSA has employed the use of spam emails that trick users into clicking on malicious links. This “back-door implant”, codenamed WILLOWVIXEN, infects computers within 8 seconds. This method
isn’t working as well as it used to, according to documents, because
people have become more careful about clicking links in emails. Enter QUANTUMHAND, the system the NSA uses to pose as Facebook:
In one man-on-the-side technique, codenamed QUANTUMHAND,
the agency disguises itself as a fake Facebook server. When a target
attempts to log in to the social media site, the NSA transmits malicious data packets that trick the target’s computer
into thinking they are being sent from the real Facebook. By concealing
its malware within what looks like an ordinary Facebook page, the NSA
is able to hack into the targeted computer and covertly siphon out data from its hard drive.
Facebook has denied any knowledge of the program, and told the National Journal that the site is now protected from such attacks:
“We have no evidence of this alleged activity. In any case, this method of network level disruption does not work for traffic carried over HTTPS, which Facebook finished integrating by default last year.
“If government agencies indeed
have privileged access to network service providers, any site running
only HTTP could conceivably have its traffic misdirected.”
Matt Blaze, a surveillance and cryptography expert at the University of Pennsylvania, told The Intercept he has concerns about the NSA using TURBINE and QUANTUMHAND together:
“As soon as you put this capability in the backbone
infrastructure, the software and security engineer in me says that’s
terrifying. “Forget about how the NSA is intending to use it. How do we know it
is working correctly and only targeting who the NSA wants? And even if
it does work correctly, which is itself a really dubious assumption, how
is it controlled?”
Malware installed by the NSA is capable of performing different tasks on infected computers, as this list compiled by the LA Times outlines:
Record login details and passwords use for Web services
Log users’ keystrokes
Extract data from flash drives when they are plugged into infected computers
Block users from accessing certain websites
Corrupt files that computers attempt to download
In response to the story, the NSA provided the following statement:
“Signals intelligence shall be collected exclusively where there is a foreign intelligence or counterintelligence purpose.”
Do they really expect us to believe that? Lily Dane is a staff writer for The Daily Sheeple. Her goal is to help people to “Wake the Flock Up!”
Don't forget to follow the D.C. Clothesline on Facebook and Twitter. PLEASE help spread the word by sharing our articles on your favorite social networks.
(Reuters) - Facebook
Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg blasted the U.S. government's
electronic surveillance practices on Thursday, saying he'd personally
called President Barack Obama to voice his displeasure. "When our engineers
work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we're protecting you
against criminals, not our own government," Zuckerberg said in a post on
his personal Facebook page.
"I've called President Obama to express
my frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of
our future. Unfortunately, it seems like it will take a very long time
for true full reform," the 29-year-old Zuckerberg continued.
The
phone call and Zuckerberg's 300-word missive on Thursday come amid a
series of revelations about controversial government surveillance
practices that were leaked by former National Security Agency contractor
Edward Snowden.
"The
president spoke last night with Mark Zuckerberg about recent reports in
the press about alleged activities by the U.S. intelligence community," a
White House official said.
The
official declined further comment and referred to the National Security
Agency's statement released earlier on Thursday saying recent media
reports that allege the NSA has infected million of computers around the world malware and that the NSA is impersonating U.S. social media or other websites are inaccurate.
Facebook,
which operates the world's No. 1 Internet social network with 1.2
billion users, declined to comment beyond Zuckerberg's post.
Secret
documents published on news website The Intercept on Wednesday showed
that the NSA impersonated Facebook web pages in order to gather
information from targets. When those people thought they were logging
into Facebook, they were actually communicating with the NSA. The agency
then used malicious code on the fake page to break into the targets' computers and remove data from them.
Last year, Facebook moved to encrypt all its pages, making such impersonation more difficult.
Previous
media reports based on leaked Snowden documents detail how the
government may have tapped into communications cables that link data
centers owned by Google Inc and Yahoo Inc, intercepting user data without the companies' knowledge or cooperation.
"The
US government should be the champion for the internet, not a threat.
They need to be much more transparent about what they're doing, or
otherwise people will believe the worst," Zuckerberg said in his post.
(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; additional reporting by Mark Felsenthal in Washington, D.C.; Editing by Leslie Adler)
Jennifer
Van Grove covers the social beat for CNET. She loves Boo the dog,
CrossFit, and eating vegan. Her jokes are often in poor taste, but her
articles are not.
Police respond to threat at Facebook headquarters, find it noncredible
By Tina Burnside and Ben Brumfield, CNN
updated 2:17 AM EDT, Wed March 12, 2014 |
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Report: Police closed off the entrance to Facebook's headquarters
After searching the campus, they found nothing suspicious
Police later allowed employees to go home as planned
(CNN) -- Police responded to Facebook's headquarters
in Northern California to check on a threat Tuesday night. The threat
was deemed noncredible.
It was made at around 7
p.m. local time (10 p.m. ET), said police spokesman Dave Bertini. He did
not specify the nature of the threat or how it was made.
Officers closed off the entrance to Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park and asked its employees to stay where they were, the San Jose Mercury News reported. They searched the campus and found nothing suspicious.
Police gave the all-clear, and Facebook's staff departed normally for the night, Bertini told CNN.
The city recently allowed
Facebook to pay it $200,000 a year to make a police officer closely
accessible to its campus, the San Jose Mercury News reported.
Facebook was founded in
2004, according to its website. Its services have been available to the
public since 2006, and it moved into its current Menlo Park headquarters
in 2011. The company employed over 6,000 people as of December.
Girl costs father $80,000 with 'SUCK IT' Facebook post
By Matthew Stucker, CNN
updated 7:55 AM EST, Mon March 3, 2014
Probably
not the best idea: "Mama and Papa Snay won the case against Gulliver.
Gulliver is now officially paying for my vacation to Europe this summer.
SUCK IT."
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Patrick Snay filed an age complaint when his work contract wasn't renewed
He and his employer came to an agreement in which Snay would get an $80,000 settlement
His daughter posted about the deal, which was meant to be confidential, on Facebook
(CNN) -- The former head of a private preparatory
school in Miami, Florida is out an $80,000 discrimination settlement
after his daughter boasted about it on Facebook.
Patrick Snay, 69 -- the
former head of Guillver Preparatory School -- filed an age
discrimination complaint when his 2010-11 contract wasn't renewed.
In November 2011, the
school and Snay came to an agreement in which Snay would be paid $10,000
in back pay, and an $80,000 settlement. Gulliver Schools also agreed to
cut Snay's attorneys a check for $60,000.
But before the ink could
dry on the deal, Snay's daughter took to Facebook, boasting, "Mama and
Papa Snay won the case against Gulliver. Gulliver is now officially
paying for my vacation to Europe this summer. SUCK IT."
Mom scolds daughter via Facebook post
Facebook buys app from guy they rejected
Snay's daughter blasted
the message to her 1,200 Facebook followers, which included many current
and former Gulliver students. Word of the post spread like wildfire
back to school officials.
Within a few days,
Gulliver Schools sent a letter to Snay's attorneys stating that Snay had
broken a confidentiality agreement and that he would not be receiving
the $80,000 settlement.
The agreement stated that
neither Snay nor his wife could speak about the settlement to anyone
except for his attorneys and other professional advisers.
Snay filed a motion to enforce the settlement and won in a Circuit Court ruling. The school appealed.
A hearing was held to
determine if his daughter's knowledge of the settlement and her Facebook
post had violated the confidentiality agreement.
"What happened is that
after settlement, my wife and I went in the parking lot, and we had to
make some decisions on what we were going to tell my daughter. Because
it's very important to understand that she was an intricate part of what
was happening.
"She was retaliated
against at Gulliver. So she knew we were going to some sort of
mediation. She was very concerned about it. Because of what happened at
Gulliver, she had quite a few psychological scars which forced me to put
her into therapy.
"So there was a period
of time that there was an unresolved enclosure for my wife and me. It
was very important with her. We understood the confidentiality. So we
knew what the restrictions were, yet we needed to tell her something,"
Snay explained in court documents.
Last week, the Third
District Court of Appeal for the State of Florida agreed that Snay had,
in fact, violated confidentiality and reversed the Circuit Court ruling.
It wrote: "Snay violated
the agreement by doing exactly what he had promised not to do. His
daughter then did precisely what the confidentiality agreement was
designed to prevent, advertising to the Gulliver community that Snay had
been successful in his age discrimination and retaliation case against
the school.
"Based on the clear and
unambiguous language of the parties' agreement and Snay's testimony
confirming his breach of its terms, we reverse the order entered below
granting the Snays' motion to enforce the agreement."
Snay is now the headmaster at Riviera Preparatory School in Coral Gables, Florida.
Facebook Shuts Down Its Email Service Since No One Used It
by
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg at
the 2010 event announcing Facebook's new email messaging system. This
week, the company shuttered the service.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Facebook's foray into email ended Monday, when the social media
giant quietly retired the email service that many users didn't even know
existed. Users received a notice saying the @facebook.com email
addresses they deployed are going away. "We're making this
change because most people haven't been using their Facebook email
addresses, and we wanted to make it easier to view all your emails in
one place," the message read.
The company had touted the service before its launch in 2010.
Facebook Messages was first conceived as a tool to subsume email, text
messages and chat on Facebook. , "All of those communications would be threaded into one single communication strand, dubbed Facebook Messenger." In an effort to win wider adoption for the service last year, Facebook on Facebook user profiles to Facebook.com email addresses. Having
admitted defeat, Facebook will be redirecting any user email sent to
@facebook.com addresses to the primary email addresses associated with
their accounts.
Facebook Hit With Lawsuit That Could End Of The Social Giant?
Politics
White House considers executive order, leaves Internet takeover a possibility
Facebook Hit With Lawsuit: Could Mistrust Spell The End Of The Social Giant?
Facebook,
the popular social network with over a billion users world wide, has
just been hit with a class-action lawsuit. The allegations, revealed in
the FT,
are that Facebook systematically scans the content of private messages
so it can sell the data to third parties such as advertisers. Facebook’s
entire business model is based on the fact that it monitors what users
write, like and up-load in order to sell this information on to others. I
have covered some of the concerns about this in my articles ‘How Facebook Exploits Your Private Information’ and ‘How Facebook Likes Reveal Your Intimate Secrets’.
In principle, there is nothing wrong with Facebook using our data to
make commercial gains. In the end, the service is free and Facebook has
to make money somehow. However, my biggest concern is that the data
mining activities are not as transparent as they should be. Facebook
has been criticized for this lack of transparency on many occasions,
but two Facebook users now believe Facebook has gone too far. Users
Matthew Campbell from Arkansas and Michael Hurley from Oregon have filed
a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the over 166m Facebook users in the
US. The accusation is that Facebook is violating the Electronic
Communications Privacy Act by scanning and exploiting the content of
private messages sent via the Facebook platform without prior consent by
users. The issue here is that ‘private’ messages are seen by most
users as exactly that: private! The accusation is that Facebook
identifies website links (URLs) contained in private messages and then
searches these websites in order to profile users. In their accusation
Campbell and Hurley argue: "Representing to users that the content of
Facebook messages is 'private' creates an especially profitable
opportunity for Facebook, because users who believe they are
communicating on a service free from surveillance are likely to reveal
facts about themselves that they would not reveal had they known the
content was being monitored." A Facebook spokesperson told Bloomberg
that the allegations are without merit and that Facebook will defend
itself vigorously. Of course they would say that. The trouble for
Facebook is to strike the right balance between offering a customer
service in form of a free social networking platform and shareholder
returns, especially profits from selling data and advertising. To
answer my own question from the headline: No, I don’t think that this
lawsuit will be the end of Facebook. However, I do feel very strongly
about the need for better transparency about how our data is used and
believe it can lead to a loss of trust that could seriously threaten
companies like Facebook. To me, it feels like Facebook (as well as many
other companies including Google, Yahoo! etc.) are trying to hide the
data mining and analytics activities in their very long Terms and
Conditions, to which most people sign up but rarely fully read or
understand. Maybe a simple opt out with an alternative “paid for”
service would be a good option. What do you think? What is your
view on Facebook exploiting your private data? Would you consider a
“paid for” service if your privacy was guaranteed? Please share your
views… ------------------- I really appreciate you reading
my post. Here, at LinkedIn, I regularly write about management and
technology issues and trends. If you would like to read my regular posts
then please click 'Follow' (at the top of the page) and feel free to
also connect via Twitter, Facebook and The Advanced Performance Institute. Here are some other recent and related posts I have written:
Facebook said on Wednesday that it would acquire WhatsApp, a messaging start-up, for $16 billion in cash and stock.
The eye-popping price is Facebook’s largest
acquisition by far and represents a new height in the frenzy to acquire
popular technology start-ups.
Facebook will pay $4 billion in cash and $12
billion worth of Facebook shares for WhatsApp. An additional $3 billion
in restricted stock units will be granted to WhatsApp employees and
founders. These units will vest over the next four years.
By any measure, Facebook is paying a steep
price for a mobile application that is widely used internationally but
less known in the United States. Including the restricted stock units,
the acquisition total amounts to $345 million for every one of the
company’s 55 employees.
WhatsApp has more than 450 million monthly
users, with 70 percent of those active on a given day. By that measure,
Facebook is paying about $40 per user.
“WhatsApp is on a path to connect one billion people. The services that reach that milestone are all incredibly valuable,” Mark Zuckerberg,
Facebook’s founder and chief executive, said in a statement. “I’ve
known Jan for a long time and I’m excited to partner with him and his
team to make the world more open and connected,” he added, referring to
Jan Koum, WhatsApp’s chief executive.
Mr. Koum and Brian Acton, two former Yahoo executives, founded WhatsApp in 2009.
Unlike traditional business leaders, the two
founders spent most of their time throughout the day keeping the service
running smoothly. Mr. Acton focused on the servers, while Mr. Koum
looked at the overall product and made sure it looked and acted the same
consistently across different devices.
Mr. Koum and Mr. Acton have said they want to
make messaging accessible to anyone, regardless of what phone they own,
where they live or how much money they make. They have also been
adamant about refusing to sell advertising — they say that ads detract
from intimate conversations.
WhatsApp received about $10 million in funding two years after the company was founded. It quickly became profitable.
Facebook, meanwhile, has struggled to gain traction in messaging.
Mr. Zuckeberg tried to acquire SnapChat last year for a reported $3 billion, but SnapChat turned down the offer.
While Facebook Messenger, the company’s chat
platform, is popular with users, recent attempts to create its own
direct messaging service have failed.
Facebook Poke, which was developed to try and
compete with SnapChat, the ephemeral messaging platform where messages
vanish after being viewed for up to 10 seconds, has seen little
attention after users didn’t engage with the app.
Another new feature added to Instagram last
year, called Instagram Direct, allows people to message each other on
the service but this seems to have gained little traction with users,
too.
With WhatsApp, that Facebook will now own a huge platform.
The two companies have been in talks for two
years. In the spring of 2012, Mr. Zuckerberg first reached out to Mr.
Koum. The two men met at a coffee shop in Los Altos, Calif. and spoke
for an hour, then took a walk for another hour and a half, said people
briefed on the matter.
Later that year, they began a series of
dinners, and continued to discuss messaging and communication services
during meals and walks in the rolling hills of Silicon Valley, these
people said.
On Feb. 9, Mr. Zuckerberg asked Mr. Koum
over to dinner at his home, where he formally proposed a deal. Mr. Koum
thought about it for a few days, and the two men met again last Friday.
Mr. Koum came over to Mr. Zuckerberg’s home,
crashing the dinner Mr. Zuckerberg was sharing with his wife, Priscilla
Chan. The two men entered into negotiations, eating a plate of chocolate
covered strawberries intended for Ms. Chan, the people briefed on the
matter said.
By last weekend’s end, the two men had struck a deal.
Corporate advisers played some role as well.
Michael Grimes, the Morgan Stanley banker who orchestrated Facebook’s
flawed initial public offering in 2012, was this time on the other side
of the table, advising WhatsApp on its sale.
Facebook was advised by Allen & Company
and received legal advice from Weil Gotshal & Manges, while WhatsApp
was advised by Morgan Stanley and received legal advice from Fenwick & West.
If the merger is not completed, Facebook will pay WhatsApp $1 billion in cash and $1 billion in shares.
In after-hours trading, shares of Facebook were down more than 4 percent.
I joined Facebook in 2006. I was sixteen. My dodgy haircut alone
is enough of a reason to never, ever look back with nostalgia at those
dark and long-buried days. But Facebook insisted on creating a special ‘Look Back’ video just
for me, in honour of its tenth birthday, and now I have to be reminded. These videos are just as awful as a real ten-year-old’s attempt to
piece your life together would be (despite the fact that over 200
million people have now watched their Look Back videos). Here are some
reasons why: 1. How we looked back in 2006 It doesn’t seem like such a long time ago, does it? 2006 is the year
Twitter was launched and James Blunt sang ‘You’re Beautiful’. But we
definitely weren’t beautiful. I live in fear of someone seeing my
driving license with that haircut, so I certainly don’t need Facebook’s fond memories of it all over my newsfeed. 2. The photography skills Nowadays, it’s all Instagram filters, careful photoshopping and
intricate editing before anything makes it onto the site. But back in
those days, it was anything goes – pictures from the first ever
smartphones and clumsily scanned Polaroids. I don’t need reminding of
when I first discovered Mac’s Photo Booth and found it hilarious to
distort my eyes so much I looked like a Furby. 3. Most liked posts While I might find it nostalgic to see how many people cared to click
a button when I mundanely posted about finishing my degree, I’m sure
most people don’t really care about how disappointed my
nineteen-year-old self felt after watching the Lost finale. 4. Photos of exes How were we supposed to know we wouldn’t always be together? Beaming
photos of smooching, long-finished couples pop up on everyone’s Look
Back videos – which is a part of our lives we most definitely don’t want
to Look Back on. 5. The regret It just makes you think, doesn’t it? Lost touch with her, haven’t
spoken to him for about six years, oh, I remember fitting into that
lovely dress which has been at the bottom of my wardrobe for years. We
already cracked open the Dairy Milk when we got home from work, we don’t
need to feel any additional guilt. 6. The older you get in the video, the more you look like you should join AA Yes, we went to university, we went out quite a lot and we happen to
be holding drinks in a lot of our photos. That doesn’t mean we need to
go to rehab. We were just holding other people’s Jaegerbombs, OK? 7. The randomness of it When I watched my Look Back video, it was littered with photos of
people I spoke to about twice at school, rather than many of my actual
friends. It would make for some pretty awkward questions should I
actually dare to post it on my profile. 8. The language For whatever reason, when Facebook launched, we thought it was
acceptable to use phrases like ‘lol cye l8r xx’. No memory of this is
required, Facebook. 9. The music The soft, sad music of the Look Back video makes our lives sound as
poignant and meaningful as Forrest Gump’s, when in fact all we’ve really
achieved in the last ten years is passing our GCSEs and getting to the
next level on Candy Crush.
facebook and twitter are calling me by there
telemarketing Unwanted solicitations asking me to go back to college and
spend money on school phone numbers that facebook will call you from 585-636-0010 412-351-2888 unavailable Unknown Anonymous
facebook has block there own advertisers if your an advertisers on facbeook and you have been block by facebook please call this Law Office they can help built your case by calling
Male, female or 'custom'? Facebook announces 50 ways to define gender
Associated Press
I Since there is no love for the American People in DC And the regime has no love for America
MENLO PARK, Calif. – You don't
have to be just male or female on Facebook anymore. The social media
giant is adding a customizable option with about 50 different terms
people can use to identify their gender as well as three preferred
pronoun choices: him, her or them. Facebook said the changes, shared with The Associated Press before
the launch on Thursday, initially cover the company's 159 million
monthly users in the U.S. and are aimed at giving people more choices in
how they describe themselves, such as androgynous, bi-gender, intersex,
gender fluid or transsexual. "There's going to be a lot of people for whom this is going to mean
nothing, but for the few it does impact, it means the world," said
Facebook software engineer Brielle Harrison, who worked on the project
and is herself undergoing gender transformation, from male to female. On
Thursday, while watchdogging the software for any problems, she said
she was also changing her Facebook identity from Female to TransWoman.
Facebook's new gender options
Here is a list of new gender options Facebook is making available (for U.S. users only): Agender
Androgyne
Androgynous
Bigender
Cis
Cis Female
Cis Male
Cis Man
Cis Woman
Cisgender
Cisgender Female
Cisgender Male
Cisgender Man
Cisgender Woman
Female to Male
FTM
Gender Fluid
Gender Nonconforming
Gender Questioning
Gender Variant
Genderqueer
Intersex
Male to Female
MTF
Neither
Neutrois
Non-binary
Other
Pangender
Trans
Trans Female
Trans Male
Trans Man
Trans Person
Trans*Female
Trans*Male
Trans*Man
Trans*Person
Trans*Woman
Transexual
Transexual Female
Transexual Male
Transexual Man
Transexual Person
Transexual Woman
Transgender Female
Transgender Person
Transmasculine
Two-spirit
"All too often transgender people like myself and other gender
nonconforming people are given this binary option, do you want to be
male or female? What is your gender? And it's kind of disheartening
because none of those let us tell others who we really are," she said.
"This really changes that, and for the first time I get to go to the
site and specify to all the people I know what my gender is." Facebook, which has 1.23 billion active monthly users around the
world, also allows them to keep their gender identity private and will
continue to do so. The Williams Institute, a think tank based at the University of
California, Los Angeles, estimate that there are at least 700,000
individuals in the U.S. who identify as transgender, an umbrella term
that includes people who live as a gender different from the one
assigned to them at birth. The move by Facebook represents a basic and a yet significant form of
recognition of the nation's growing transgender rights movement, which
has been spurred by veteran activists and young people who identify as
transgender at younger and younger ages. The Human Rights Campaign last
year found that 10 percent of the 10,000 lesbian, gay, bisexual
transgender youths it surveyed used "other" or wrote in their own gender
terms. "Over the past few years, a person's Facebook profile truly has
become their online identity, and now Facebook has taken a milestone
step to allow countless people to more honestly and accurately represent
themselves," HRC President Chad Griffin said. "Facebook's action is one
that I hope others heed in supporting individuals' multifaceted
identities." The change to the gender selection option is seen as a major step
toward acceptance for people who don't self-identify as male or female,
but the high-profile development seemed senseless to those who believe
in two genders, no more. "Of course Facebook is entitled to manage its wildly popular site as
it sees fit, but here is the bottom line: It's impossible to deny the
biological reality that humanity is divided into two halves - male and
female," said Jeff Johnston, an issues analyst for Focus on the Family,
an influential national religious organization based in Denver. "Those
petitioning for the change insist that there are an infinite number of
genders, but just saying it doesn't make it so. That said, we have a
great deal of compassion for those who reject their biological sex and
believe they are the opposite sex."
'There's
going to be a lot of people for whom this is going to mean nothing, but
for the few it does impact, it means the world.'
- Facebook software engineer Brielle Harrison
Masen Davis, executive director of the San Francisco-based
Transgender Law Center, said it may be hard for some people to
understand the importance of having the ability to select from multiple
genders online. But he said many transgender people will be thrilled
with the change. "We applaud Facebook for making it possible for people to be their authentic selves online," he said. In the past decade, the transgender movement has become much more
organized and outspoken, demanding the kind of civil rights and respect
already sought by gay activists. During this time, the transgender
umbrella has been growing well beyond transsexuals to encompass a wide
variety of gender identities. The move by Facebook came after years of lobbying from users, some
who started Facebook pages to petition for the change. Google+ offers
male, female and "other" as choices, but transgender advocates said
Facebook's many specific options puts the platform well ahead of any
other online community. About 1 percent of Google+ users identify as
other. The idea of expanding gender choices percolated at Facebook for about
a year and started to come to fruition during an in-house brainstorming
four months ago, project manager Lexi Ross said. Transgender activist Nori Herras-Castaneda, a spokeswoman for the
Billy DeFrank LGBT Community Center in San Jose, said her community has
been waiting for this to happen for a long time. "We always talk about how gender is a spectrum," she said. "I can see a lot of people being extremely happy about this." At this point, Facebook targets advertising according to male or
female genders. For those who change to something neutral, ads will be
targeted based on the pronoun they select for themselves. Unlike getting
engaged or married, changing gender is not registered as a "life event"
on the site and won't post on timelines. Therefore, Facebook said
advertisers cannot target ads to those who declare themselves
transgender or recently changed their gender. Users also can select "neither" or "other" and separately indicate whether they want to be referred to as he, she or they. Facebook came up with its range of terms after consulting with
leading gay and transgender activists, and the company plans to continue
working with them. Facebook started the options in the U.S. and plans
to take it global after working with activists abroad to come up with
terms appropriate in other countries. Herras-Castaneda said she did expect some anger. "Any time the transgender community makes advances, there is
backlash, and this is a very big advance, so yes, we'll face some
problems, no doubt," she said. At Facebook, staffers said the expanded options were never questioned, from CEO Mark Zuckerberg on down. "Really, there was no debate within Facebook about the social
implications at all," said Alex Schultz, director of growth. "It was
simple: Not allowing people to express something so fundamental is not
really cool so we did something. Hopefully a more open and connected
world will, by extension, make this a more understanding and tolerant
world."
Facebook faces 140 million lawsuit over private messages
By Charles Riley@CRrileyCNNJanuary 3, 2014: 6:45 AM ET
Facebook is facing a class action over its private messaging function.
854
TOTAL SHARES
758
96
HONG KONG (CNNMoney)
Two
Facebook users are taking the company to court over claims it mines
private messages for data that is then sold to third parties.
The lawsuit filed earlier this week alleges that Facebook (FB, Fortune 500)
scans messages between users labeled "private" for links and other
information that can be sold to advertisers, marketers and data
aggregators.
According to the suit, this is done without proper disclosure or the consent of users.
The suit was filed by Matthew Campbell and Michael Hurley in a U.S.
district court in Northern California. They want the suit to be made a
class action, and suggest that as many as 166 million Facebook users in
the U.S. would be eligible to join. Campbell and Hurley claim
that intercepting and using links included in private messages violates
the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, as well as California privacy
and unfair competition laws. Facebook did not immediately
respond to a request for comment on Friday. Other media reported that
Facebook believes the allegations to be "without merit." Related story: Online privacy is dead
The social network's business model depends in large part on its
ability to pinpoint and target individuals sought by advertisers.
Facebook ads are getting eerily personal
The suit argues Facebook has overstepped the mark.
"Facebook's desire to harness the myriad data points of its users has
led to overreach and intrusion ... as it mines its account holders'
private communications for monetary gain," the plaintiffs allege. Other tech firms, including Google (GOOG, Fortune 500),
have faced lawsuits over the collection of user information. Facebook
previously settled a class action over targeted advertising for $20
million. Frequent changes to Facebook's privacy settings
have also angered some users. In addition, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made
controversial statements about how people shouldn't be doing the things
they want to keep secret in the first place.
Imagine
you're a motivated college senior interviewing for your dream job. Your
resume is plump, your answers are impressive and your interviewer seems
engaged. Then you're asked to hand over your Facebook username and password. Oregon joined 11 other states in banning such practices this week, when a law passed last May went into effect. But
without federal legislation, employers — as well as colleges and
universities — are continuing to pry into the personal lives of their
employees and students through the sparsely legislated realm of the
Internet. "If you have certain privacy protections in your own
home … then my feeling is that you should have the same type of
protections online as you do offline," says Bradley Shear, a lawyer who
has worked with state and federal lawmakers to draft legislation on the
issue. Shear says the law is often slow to adapt to changes in technology. In
2012, six states passed legislation preventing employers, schools or
both from demanding access or passwords to social media accounts, according to information compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures. In
2013, seven more states joined their ranks, while lawmakers in 25
states without laws in place considered similar legislation. Those
who oppose employers gaining access to the social media profiles of
prospective or current employees argue that such practices are too
invasive and often put the privacy of third parties — such as an
applicant's Facebook friends — at risk. "When an employer asks for
access to their social media, it's essentially the same as if an
employer asked for full access to their house … poking through their
mail, looking in their drawers, sitting in on conversations at the
dinner table," says Dave Maass, a spokesperson for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Emory
University junior Stanton Huang has been asked for his username and
password several times when applying to internships in marketing and
management — though the requests were mostly labeled optional. "I've
never given access and do not feel comfortable giving private
information during a job interview outside of contact information and
background checks," Huang says. As part of its background check,
the Virginia State Police asks applicants hoping to become troopers to
sign into their social media accounts while an investigator looks on. "The
social media aspect is just one small part of a very complex process
that takes place, and when you're entrusting an individual with the
powers to enforce the law, we are going to make sure that we have vetted
this person thoroughly," says spokesperson Corinne Geller. Geller
added that this part of the background check is optional (although
nobody has ever refused), and denying access is "not an automatic
disqualifier." When it comes to colleges and universities, ACLU
advocacy and policy strategist Allie Bohm says schools most often
monitor the social media accounts of student-athletes. Some schools require student-athletes to Facebook friend a coach, while others make them install software like Varsity Monitor or UDiligence. Bohm
admits that laws protecting social media accounts need to avoid
blocking employers and schools from carrying out some necessary
oversights. Bohm says laws need to allow self-regulating companies
to fulfill their legal obligations — such as a financial institution
monitoring insider trading, for example, as well as some legitimate
cases of bullying that schools must investigate. "We try to make
sure there is language in there that doesn't allow fishing expeditions
but does allow folks to get at very real accusations of bullying," Bohm
says. Social media monitoring is more widespread than people
understand, Shear says. But since most affected by it would rather stay
quiet than miss out on employment or educational opportunities, privacy
advocates struggle to sustain the attention needed to impart change. "If
we don't stand up and say, 'this is not how we want our society to be' …
then it is going to continue and get worse," he says. Jonathan Dame is a senior at Boston College.
Liberal 'trolls' post list of conservative Facebook pages marked for takeover
It seems that more and more, Facebook is becoming a battlefield
of political ideologies with stories that sound like something written
by Tom Clancy. Early Friday morning, Examiner.com was given a long list
of approximately 80 conservative Facebook pages targeted by liberal
"trolls" for infiltration and takeover by someone who only wished to be
identified as "AJ," an administrator of a targeted page. "AJ" said the list was posted to the new "Citizens' Post" page, apparently by accident. "AJ" added: "When they figured out what they did, they deleted their one facebook page where they all had been gathering." The pro-Sarah Palin "Barracuda Brigade" and the pro-Phil Robertson "I Stand with Phil" pages were among those listed as targets. Several pro-gun pages were listed along with a Facebook page supporting the South Carolina Tea Party. This writer's Facebook page was also listed. The message concluded with the phrase "Moar Gotes," an apparent
reference to a technique used by Facebook liberals as "goating," where
pages are infiltrated and taken over by users posting multiple pictures
and memes involving goats.
FILE
- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg smiles during an announcement at
Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., in this July 6, 2011 file
photo. Facebook and its founder must release documents and electronic
correspondence to a defense lawyer whose client has fled from criminal
charges that he falsely claimed a majority ownership in the social media
giant, a federal judge said Friday April 3, 2015. (AP Photo/Paul
Sakuma, File)
© AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File
FILE - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg smiles during an announcement at
Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., in this July 6, 2011 file
photo. Facebook and its founder must release documents and…
NEW YORK — Facebook and its founder must release
documents and electronic correspondence to a defense lawyer whose client
has fled from criminal charges that he falsely claimed a majority
ownership in the social media giant, a federal judge said Friday.
"We
simply cannot stress enough how important preserving our members'
privacy is to us," the company said. "Other than announcing that at our
launch we already had several hundred members, we will never publicly
state the exact number of members in the club. And especially, we will
NEVER release or verify the identity of any of our members – ever.
Gregory S. McNeal
Contributor
Raymond James Contributor
Raymond James 
.
Sandra Stratton/AP
Riley Stratton, now 15, was distressed over being forced to allow
school officials to look through her Facebook account using her
password, and she was taken out of public school and is now being home
schooled, according to the ACLU.
(Credit:
James Martin/CNET)
Just
when you thought the NSA couldn’t get any more detestable, new
information released yesterday reveals that the agency has expanded its
hacking capabilities and can infect millions of computers with malware
“imprints”.
Mom scolds daughter via Facebook post
Facebook buys app from guy they rejected
Created by two former Yahoo engineers in 2009, WhatsApp is consistently ranked highly in various app stores.
Facebook is facing a class action over its private messaging function.
I’ve read similar studies before and every one has demonstrated that buying likes is less than worthless.
It amazes me that it’s even considered as an option when trying to grow a Facebook audience or online presence.
Ciao for now!
Stuart