Twitter challenger Threads struggles for traction

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - After a wildly successful first few days, Threads popularity has waned in the weeks since Meta launched its challenge to Twitter, which lives on despite its problems.

The average amount of time people spend on Threads daily has plummeted more than 75 percent since the platform made a rock star debut on July 6, according to data from Sensor Tower, a market analysis firm.

Threads was quickly billed as a potential death knell for Twitter, a platform that has tumbled into chaos under the leadership of mercurial tycoon Elon Musk.

The launch saw sign-ups of more than 100 million users in less than five days, smashing the record of AI tool ChatGPT for fastest-growing consumer app and creating relief and excitement amongst early adopters fleeing Twitter.

"I actually closed down my Twitter account after starting Threads," said Brooklyn resident Lauren Brose, head of marketing at a tech start-up.

"I used to love Twitter. After Elon Musk took over Twitter, I found that the entire environment just changed completely."

But weeks later, Threads has since seen a "material decline in new sign-ups," Sensor Tower said.

Twitter continues to dominate its space as a platform for online comment and news, and Musk "would have to completely destroy it" to drive away its audience for good, according to Silicon Valley investor and analyst Jeremiah Owyang.

"Will Threads kill Twitter? Absolutely not. It's just not equivalent," he said.

Threads went live on Apple and Android app stores in 100 countries at its launch, though it is not available in Europe because parent company Meta is unsure how to navigate the European Union's data privacy legislation.

Twitter is thought to have around 200 million regular users but it has suffered repeated technical failures since Tesla tycoon Musk bought the platform last year and sacked much of its staff.

Musk, also the boss of SpaceX, has alienated users by introducing charges for previously free services and allowing banned right-wing accounts back on the platform.

There is little doubt that Threads had a major leg up compared to other wannabe Twitter alternatives.

Several rivals have emerged but most are niche platforms without the capacity to grow at the necessary scale to dethrone Twitter.

But Meta was able to easily prompt Instagram users to start Threads accounts, tapping into a base of at least a billion users at the image-focused social network.

NOT ABOUT NEWS?

Threads has a lot to prove, and features to add, to become a formidable Twitter alternative, according to Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine Enberg.

It needs to foster creators to engage users, and to find its own identity separate from Instagram and Twitter, Enberg said.

"Given that Twitter is in a state of disarray, the brilliant move that they did was using the existing social graph from Instagram for rapid and seamless adoption," Owyang said of Threads.

The downside is that's not the user base "that you want to have chats with or to do microblogging," he added.

Instagram users typically engage with the service for images or videos, not commentary or controversy, Owyang noted.

"It is a very different crowd on Instagram," Creative Strategies analyst Carolina Milanesi said of a comparison to Threads.

Twitter is known as a forum for news and politics, topics that Threads has no interest in spotlighting, according to a recent post by Threads and Instagram boss Adam Mosseri.

Meanwhile, Twitter is seen as an established home for posts by journalists, celebrities, athletes, politicians and others.

Another roadblock to Threads growth is that Meta is holding it back from the European Union, Milanesi said.

"You are missing a big chunk of the market," she said of Threads being absent from the EU.

TWITTER DIASPORA?

While people frustrated with Musk-owned Twitter are seeking alternatives, no single competitor has established itself as the ideal option.

Twitter quitters have become a "diaspora" of sorts, spread across Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads and other platforms in search of a new social media home, Owyang reasoned.

"Many people have left Twitter, and that will continue," Owyang said.

"But the issue is where are they going? There's no one centralized place to go."

The Threads app has been downloaded more than 184 million times globally since its launch, according to Data.ai Intelligence.

"But, the app hasn’t proved to be materially different from Twitter in terms of features/functionality," said Sensor Tower senior insights analyst Abe Yousef.

"What should dissuade people from remaining on Twitter, assuming they’re comfortable with Twitter's content policies?" Yousef added.

Agence France-Presse

Facebook halting facial recognition system over privacy fears

Facebook is shutting down its facial recognition system and deleting a billion faceprints, its parent company said Tuesday, in response to serious concerns over privacy.

The announcement from the leading social media network was made as it battles one of its worst crises ever, with reams of internal documents leaked to reporters, lawmakers and US regulators.

"There are many concerns about the place of facial recognition technology in society, and regulators are still in the process of providing a clear set of rules governing its use," parent company Meta said in a statement.

"Amid this ongoing uncertainty, we believe that limiting the use of facial recognition to a narrow set of use cases is appropriate," it added.

It was not clear when the changes would take effect, but they will be widely felt with Facebook noting that more than a third of its daily users have opted in to using the facial recognition system.

Shutting down that system "will result in the deletion of more than a billion people's individual facial recognition templates," the statement said.

As the social media giant battles a whistleblower crisis, it has also changed its parent company name to "Meta" in an effort to move past being a scandal-plagued social network to its virtual reality vision for the future.

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp -- which are used by billions around the world -- will keep their names under the rebranding that critics have called an effort to distract from the platform's dysfunction.

Agence France-Presse

15th Anniversary: Zuckerberg sees ‘positive’ force of Facebook despite firestorm

SAN FRANCISCO–Mark Zuckerberg said Monday he sees Facebook as a largely “positive” force for society as the embattled social network marked its 15th anniversary.

Even as Facebook is facing a wave of criticism over issues of manipulation, misinformation, abuse and other social ills, Zuckerberg said it would be a mistake “to overly emphasize the negative” impacts of social media and the internet.

The Facebook co-founder and chief executive said he sees profound social changes “as networks of people connected via the internet replace traditional hierarchies and reshape institutions from government to business to media.”


In a post on his Facebook page, he argued that “while any rapid social change creates uncertainty, I believe what we’re seeing is people having more power, and a long term trend reshaping society to be more open and accountable over time.”

He said Facebook and other social networks have fundamentally changed how people interact with their communities and institutions.

“I’ll never forget how right after we launched News Feed, we saw millions of people organize marches against violence in Colombia. We saw communities come together to do viral fundraiser,” he wrote.

Zuckerberg added: “If the last 15 years were about people building these new networks and starting to see their impact, then the next 15 years will be about people using their power to remake society in ways that have the potential to be profoundly positive for decades to come.”

Facebook has seen unprecedented success by amassing more than 2.3 billion people worldwide who actively use the social network to share updates, obtain information and connect with new people.

Despite the wave of scandals, Facebook took in a record $22 billion profit for 2018 as revenues surged to $55 billion.

Zuckerberg has acknowledged that Facebook needs to do more to restore trust, and ferret out misinformation and abuse, and on Monday repeated his pledge to spend more “on safety and security.”

His comments come 15 years after he and classmates at Harvard University founded what was known as “the facebook” and began a mission described by Zuckerberg as connecting the world.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Facebook says sorry for bug that exposed private photos of some 6.8 million users

MANILA, Philippines — Social media giant Facebook has apologized for a bug that has exposed private photos of its 6.8 million users.

Tomer Bar, engineering director of Facebook, said in a blog post on Friday night that the company discovered a bug that allowed third-party app developers to access photos of its 6.8 million users.


“Our internal team discovered a photo API bug that may have affected people who used Facebook Login and granted permission to third-party apps to access their photos,” Bar said.

“We’re sorry this happened. Early next week we will be rolling out tools for app developers that will allow them to determine which people using their app might be impacted by this bug,” he added.

According to Bar, the bug may have affected up to 6.8 million users and up to 1,500 apps built by 876 developers.

“We have fixed the issue but, because of this bug, some third-party apps may have had access to a broader set of photos than usual for 12 days between September 13 to September 25, 2018,” he said.

Photos that users have uploaded to their respective social media accounts but did not finish posting could have been accessed by the third party apps, Bar said.

“We will be working with those developers to delete the photos from impacted users,” he added.

Bar said Facebook would notify affected users of the bug via an alert in their accounts.

The notification will direct them to a Help Center where users could see if they have used any third-party apps affected by the bug. /muf

source: technology.inquirer.net

LinkedIn adds voice messaging function

LinkedIn is letting users communicate with contacts by recording and sending voice messages of up to a minute long.

According to LinkedIn, the function has been developed to help people communicate more quickly and easily, as rather than writing out a long text, they can simply record their voice, whether for giving an in-depth explanation or responding while multitasking, for example.

The voice message system could also be used instead of traditional phone calls, which can be more intrusive, since users can listen to messages and reply at their convenience.


The voice messaging system is easy to use. Simply tap the microphone icon in the mobile messaging keyboard, then tap and hold the record button that appears onscreen and release your finger to send. To cancel the message before sending, slide your finger away from the icon while holding it down.

The voice messaging function is available on the LinkedIn mobile app for Android and iOS. Messages can also be received and listened to via the web version. JB

source: technology.inquirer.net

At Senate hearing, Zuckerberg apologizes for Facebook’s privacy failures

WASHINGTON — Under fire for the worst privacy debacle in his company’s history, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg batted away often-aggressive questioning from lawmakers who accused him of failing to protect the personal information of millions of Americans from Russians intent on upsetting the US election.

During some five hours of Senate questioning Tuesday, Zuckerberg apologized several times for Facebook failures, disclosed that his company was “working with” special counsel Robert Mueller in the federal probe of Russian election interference and said it was working hard to change its own operations after the harvesting of users’ private data by a data-mining company affiliated with Donald Trump’s campaign.

Seemingly unimpressed, Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota said Zuckerberg’s company had a 14-year history of apologizing for “ill-advised decisions” related to user privacy. “How is today’s apology different?” Thune asked.

“We have made a lot of mistakes in running the company,” Zuckerberg conceded, and Facebook must work harder at ensuring the tools it creates are used in “good and healthy” ways.

The controversy has brought a flood of bad publicity and sent the company’s stock value plunging, but Zuckerberg seemed to achieve a measure of success in countering that: Facebook shares surged 4.5 percent for the day, the biggest gain in two years.

In all, he skated largely unharmed through his first day of congressional testimony. He’ll face House questioners Wednesday.

The 33-year-old founder of the world’s best-known social media giant appeared in a suit and tie, a departure from the T-shirt he’s famous for wearing in public as well as in private. Even so, his youth cast a sharp contrast with his often-elderly, gray-haired Senate inquisitors. And the enormous complexity of the social network he created at times defeated the attempts of legislators to hammer him on Facebook’s specific failures and how to fix them.

The stakes are high for both Zuckerberg and his company. Facebook has been reeling from its worst-ever privacy failure following revelations last month that the political data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica, which was affiliated with Trump’s 2016 campaign, improperly scooped up data on some 87 million users. Zuckerberg has been on an apology tour for most of the past two weeks, culminating in his congressional appearance Tuesday.

Although shaky at times, Zuckerberg seemed to gain confidence as the day progressed. An iconic figure as a billionaire entrepreneur who changed the way people around the world relate to each other, he made a point of repeatedly referring back to the Harvard dorm room where he said Facebook was brought to life.

At times, he showed plenty of steel. After aggressive questioning about Facebook’s alleged political bias from Sen. Ted Cruz, for instance, Zuckerberg was asked if he was ready to take a break.

No need. “That was pretty good,” he said of the exchange with Cruz.

For the most part, his careful but generally straightforward answers, steeped in the sometimes arcane details of Facebook’s underlying functions, often deflected aggressive questioning.

When the going got tough, Zuckerberg was able to fall back on: “Our team should follow up with you on that, Senator.”

As a result, he found it relatively easy to return to familiar talking points: Facebook made mistakes, he and his executives are very sorry, and they’re working very hard to correct the problems and safeguard the users’ data.

As for the federal Russia probe that has occupied much of Washington’s attention for months, he said he had not been interviewed by special counsel Mueller’s team, but “I know we’re working with them.” He offered no details, citing a concern about confidentiality rules of the investigation.

Earlier this year Mueller charged 13 Russian individuals and three Russian companies in a plot to interfere in the 2016 presidential election through a social media propaganda effort that included online ad purchases using U.S. aliases and politicking on US soil. A number of the Russian ads were on Facebook.

Much of the effort was aimed at denigrating Democrat Hillary Clinton and thereby helping Republican Trump, or simply encouraging divisiveness and undercutting faith in the US system.

Zuckerberg said Facebook had been led to believe Cambridge Analytica had deleted the user data it had harvested and that had been “clearly a mistake.” He said Facebook had considered the data collection “a closed case” and had not alerted the Federal Trade Commission. He assured senators the company would handle the situation differently today.

Separately, the company began alerting some of its users that their data was gathered by Cambridge Analytica. A notification that appeared on Facebook for some users Tuesday told them that “one of your friends” used Facebook to log into a now-banned personality quiz app called “This Is Your Digital Life.” The notice says the app misused the information, including public profiles, page likes, birthdays and current cities, by sharing it with Cambridge Analytica.

In the hearings, Zuckerberg is trying to both restore public trust in his company and stave off federal regulations that some lawmakers have floated.
Democrat Bill Nelson of Florida said he believes Zuckerberg was taking the congressional hearings seriously “because he knows there is going to be a hard look at regulation.”

Republicans have yet to get behind any legislation, but that could change.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., asked Zuckerberg if he would be willing to work with lawmakers to examine what “regulations you think are necessary in your industry.”

Absolutely, Zuckerberg responded, saying later in an exchange with Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, that “I’m not the type of person who thinks that all regulation is bad.”

Ahead of the hearing, John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, said, “This is a serious matter, and I think people expect us to take action.”

At the hearing, Zuckerberg said: “We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake. It was my mistake, and I’m sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here.”

He outlined steps the company has taken to restrict outsiders’ access to people’s personal information. He also said the company is investigating every app that had access to a large amount of information before the company moved to prevent such access in 2014 – actions that came too late in the Cambridge Analytica case.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Twitter blocks ‘bisexual’ search results, draws flak from netizens

Social media site Twitter faced a blunder as it accidentally blocked the word “bisexual,” irking LGBT activists for the mishap.

Netizens first noticed that no search results yielded upon typing the word, unlike “gay” and “lesbian.”

This led to the social media site to tweet saying it was working to fix the problem.

The move caused a backlash from netizens, with one UK-based BiPride saying it was a “bi-erasure” to filter-block results relating to the word “bisexual.”

The Bisexual Index campaign manager, Kate Harrad, told BBC Newsbeat that Twitter should be careful in filtering bisexual content.

“Every bi-activist knows the problems of trying to search for bi-content on the web and some public wifi systems block it altogether, even when it’s nothing to do with sex, because bisexual is seen as a dodgy word in itself,” Harred said in the report.

It is unclear if this is in line with updating Twitter’s Terms and Services, which enforces stricter protocol against content showing self-harm, violence, abusive behavior and the like.  Katrina Hallare /ra

source: technology.inquirer.net

YouTube establishes own social network through the Community

It was previously known that YouTube planned to add a social network feature to its core service. The company has finally made it official with its announcement of the YouTube Community.

The new feature is said to allow creators to better engage their audience through text, GIFs and images, among others. The goal is to keep creators from moving to competing platforms by providing them more tools to connect with the audience apart from video content, reports TechCrunch.

Apparently YouTube had been testing the new service for the past months with several creators to get their feedback. The service is now being launched in public beta with the group of early testers.

The new feature can be accessed by way of the Community on a creator’s channel. From here the creators can share images, test posts and other contents that would allow them to build their community of followers within YouTube itself.

Essentially, the Community page is a kind of mini-social network inside the channel’s page. But for the time being, the Community feature will remain in testing and YouTube will be listening to feedback regarding features and functionality. Alfred Bayle

source: technology.inquirer.net

Facebook ramps paid leave time for new dads

SAN FRANCISCO, United States—With Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg about to become a dad, the social network boosted the amount of time fathers can take off to bond with their new babies.

Beginning with the new year, dads working full-time for Facebook anywhere in the world will have the option of taking four months’ paid leave.

All new dads working for Facebook outside the US currently get a minimum of four weeks’ paternity leave, with more time offered in locations where required by local law, according to Facebook.

Same-sex partners who are not primary caregivers for babies get the same paid leave time as dads, the social network said.

The change, effective January 1, essentially raises parental leave time for dads and non-custodial same-sex partners from four weeks to four months.

The change puts paternity leave outside the US on par with maternity leave at Facebook workplaces around the world, and extends the benefit to same-sex couples.

“In reviewing our parental leave policies, we have decided to make this change because it’s the right thing to do for our people and their families,” human resources boss Lori Matloff Goler said in a post on her Facebook page.

“This expanded benefit primarily affects new fathers and people in same-sex relationships outside the US.”

The paid time off can be taken any time during the year after a baby is born and includes adopted babies.

Maternity leave offered to Facebook employees around the world is already four months, and the benefit was available to both moms and dads in the United States.

Baby bonus

Facebook also gives a $4,000 bonus for parents to help meet the needs of new babies.

Zuckerberg, who heads the company, announced last week that he will take two months’ paternity leave after his wife gives birth to their first child.


“This is a very personal decision, and I’ve decided to take two months of paternity leave when our daughter arrives,” Zuckerberg said in a post on his Facebook page.

“Studies show that when working parents take time to be with their newborns, outcomes are better for the children and families.”

California-based Facebook gives US employees the option of taking as long as four months paid maternity or paternity leave, letting them divide the time as they wish over the course of a year.

Zuckerberg and his doctor wife, Priscilla, revealed in July that they were expecting their first child, a girl, after a series of miscarriages.

Leading streaming music service Spotify last week announced that all full-time employees will have the option to take as long as six months’ parental leave at full pay during the first three years after having children.

Internet giants ramping leave time for parents could put pressure on other firms to do the same to attract talent in a competitive industry.

source: lifestyle.inquirer.net

Facebook preparing new website for office use – FT

LONDON – Facebook is preparing a new office version of its social networking site to compete with other sites like LinkedIn, the Financial Times reported on Monday citing sources familiar with the matter.

“Facebook is secretly working on a new website called ‘Facebook at Work'” that would allow users to “chat with colleagues, connect with professional contacts and collaborate over documents,” it said.

Facebook last month reported its quarterly profit nearly doubled to $802 million (640 million euros) but saw its stock pounded after outlining a plan to invest heavily in the future instead of reveling in short-term riches.

“We are going to continue preparing for the future by investing aggressively, connecting everyone, understanding the world, and building the next-generation in computing platforms,” Facebook founder and chief Mark Zuckerberg said then.

“We have a long journey ahead,” he said.

Facebook, which has 1.35 billion monthly active users worldwide, was set up in 2004 by Zuckerberg with fellow students at Harvard University who wanted to set it up as a college networking site.

The site has been seeking to broaden its offerings, unveiling an application that lets people chat anonymously in virtual “rooms,” evoking the chat rooms from the early days of the Internet.

It is also testing a feature that lets users of the leading social network make purchases by simply pressing an on-screen “Buy” button.

Facebook completed its multibillion-dollar deal for mobile messaging application WhatsApp last month.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Facebook seeks to get smarter with big data

WASHINGTON— Facebook is working to become your new best friend, getting to know you better by infusing the billion-member social network’s software with artificial intelligence.

The California-based social network giant is hiring professor Yann LeCun of NYU’s Center for Data Science to head up a new artificial intelligence lab, aiming to use cutting-edge science to make Facebook more interesting and relevant.

For now, Facebook feeds may seem like a random jumble, but LeCun argues these “can be improved by intelligent systems.”

“This could include things like ranking (the items in) news feeds, or determining the ads that are shown to users, to be more relevant,” LeCun told AFP after his appointment on December 9.

“Then there are things that are less directly connected, like analyzing content, understanding natural language and being able to model users… to allow them to learn new things, entertain them and help them achieve their goals.”

Facebook is the world’s biggest social network, but it faces the challenge of maintaining growth, keeping users engaged and delivering enough advertising to generate revenue growth without turning members off.

LeCun said the new artificial intelligence lab would be the largest research facility of its kind in the world, though he declined to provide numbers.

“We’re limited only by how many smart people there are in the world that we can hire,” the French-born mathematician and computer scientist said.

The lab will be based in three locations — New York, London and Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California.

But it will also be part of the broader artificial intelligence research community, according to LeCun, who starts his new job in January while keeping his NYU post.

Facebook’s move follows Google’s forays into artificial intelligence, and notably its acquisition earlier this year of DNNresearch, a startup created by University of Toronto professor Geoffrey Hinton and two of his graduate students, known for computer models of brain functions, which includes pattern and speech recognition.

Getting computers to ‘think’

Artificial intelligence can help computers “think” in ways similar to humans and help solve problems. In one famous example, IBM’s Watson computer beat human contestants in the TV trivia game “Jeopardy.”

Big tech companies are all working on artificial intelligence to varying degrees, said Greg Sterling, analyst at Opus Research.

It’s a somewhat “loaded and elusive term,” he said, but it could “power a range of consumer and enterprise-facing applications” — even if Facebook doesn’t quite know what those applications are yet.

LeCun, the founding director of NYU’s Center for Data Science, is known for creating an early version of a pattern-recognition algorithm that mimics in part the visual cortex of animals and humans.

LeCun’s recent research projects include the application of “deep learning” methods for visual scene understanding, driverless cars and small flying robots, as well as speech recognition, and applications in biology and medicine.

James Hendler, who heads the Rensselaer Institute for Data Exploration and Applications, said Facebook already uses some artificial intelligence algorithms for its “social network graph,” but that applying these to photos, videos and other “multimedia” data requires a boost in power.

“As they move into their own search and more of these new multimedia data types, they need more,” Hendler said.

“I expect that it will in the short term mainly focus on improving existing algorithms, for example better selection of what shows up in a user’s Web feed.

“In the long run, we should see a lot more capabilities such as searching for photos of things one might be interested in, and more information in Facebook that results from your activities on other websites.”

Facebook has acknowledged in recent weeks it has been tweaking user news feeds and the new investment signals more changes are coming.

“There’s been a lot of speculation that people have been leaving Facebook because they are upset that the newsfeed filtering doesn’t let them see a lot of the things they’d like to see from their friends,” Hendler said.

“The community has speculated for a while that Facebook would need to hire some AI researchers to help them solve this problem.”

source: technology.inquirer.net

Instagram starts showing ads

SAN FRANCISCO—Instagram began displaying ads Friday, as Facebook moved to start making money from the smartphone photo sharing service it bought in a billion-dollar deal last year.

The first ad to pop up was a sponsored photo of a Michael Kors ladies’ watch, artfully displayed on a table set elegantly for coffee and biscuits.

The caption read “Pampered in Paris.”

“Michael Kors ran the first ad on Instagram this morning, targeting women in the US in a certain age range,” Instagram said in reply to an AFP inquiry.

The image had garnered more than 181,000 “likes” by late Friday, along with some bitter remarks from Instagram users.

US Instagram users will see the ad even if they aren’t followers of the Michael Kors brand at the service.

Instagram has about 150 million active users, Facebook executives said in a conference call on Wednesday to discuss earnings in the recently-ended quarter.

Facebook is carefully adding magazine-quality photo ads to Instagram as it hopes to bring in revenue from the service without alienating users.

Instagram said its opening roster of advertisers included Adidas, Lexus, PayPal, Burberry and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.

Facebook on Wednesday reported stellar quarterly earnings results, but told analysts that internal metrics indicated that teenagers may be falling out of love with the social network.

The world’s leading online social network reported profit of $425 million in the quarter that ended on September 30, compared with a loss a year earlier.

The earnings figures showed soaring advertising revenue, nearly half of it from smartphones or tablet computers.

The third quarter results for the California-based firm were well ahead of most forecasts, with revenues rising sharply to $2.016 billion.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Facebook in fresh privacy row with new policy

WASHINGTON – Facebook is drawing fire from privacy activists again, after unveiling a new policy which could turn users’ data and pictures into advertising.

The new plan would “dramatically expand the use of personal information for advertising purposes,” said a letter this week to the US Federal Trade Commission by six privacy organizations.

The letter said the changes violate a 2011 consent order with the US watchdog agency and urged the FTC to “act to enforce its order.”

If the changes take effect, the letter said, “Facebook users who reasonably believed that their images and content would not be used for commercial purposes without their consent will now find their pictures showing up on the pages of their friends endorsing the products of Facebook’s advertisers.”

“Remarkably, their images could even be used by Facebook to endorse products that the user does not like or even use,” added the letter from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Watchdog and three other groups.

Facebook unveiled the changes as part of a settlement of a class action suit over the use of user names and images in so-called “sponsored stories.”

According to the letter, Facebook’s existing policy allowed its users to limit how their name and profile picture may be associated with advertising.

Under the newly proposed policy, Facebook says, “You give us permission to use your name, profile picture, content, and information in connection with commercial, sponsored, or related content.”

Activists said this allowed Facebook to turn virtually all user data into advertising.

“Facebook has long played fast and loose with users’ data and relied on complex privacy settings to confuse its users, but these proposed changes go well beyond that,” said John Simpson, Consumer Watchdog’s privacy director.

“Facebook’s overreach violates the FTC consent order that was put in place after the last major privacy violation; if the commission is to retain any of its credibility, it must act immediately to enforce that order.”

Also endorsing the letter were the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, US PIRG and Patient Privacy Rights.

Facebook officials pointed out that its policies were not changed, but clarified under the new language.

“As part of this proposed update, we revised our explanation of how things like your name, profile picture and content may be used in connection with ads or commercial content to make it clear that you are granting Facebook permission for this use when you use our services,” a company spokesperson said.

“We have not changed our ads practices or policies – we only made things clearer for people who use our service.”

source: technology.inquirer.net

Facebook shareholders vent ire over sagging stock

SAN FRANCISCO—Facebook shareholders on Tuesday grilled leaders of the social network regarding how they planned to revive the company’s stock and protect user privacy from snoops including US spy agencies.

Facebook’s famed co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg fielded a barrage of questions fired by investors who attended the first annual meeting of shareholders since the stock market debut last year.

“We understand that a lot of people are disappointed in the performance of the stock, and we are too,” Zuckerberg said before the start of a question-and-answer session that followed election of the Facebook board.

“It is our job here to build a great company,” he continued. “We think that, over time, we are building an asset and a network continually valuable in the world and we will continue to do that.”

Zuckerberg, who was elected to the board along with Sandberg and six others, urged stockholders to be patient but declined to predict how long it would take to build up shares that sank in a dismal initial public offering on the Nasdaq.

The IPO on May 18 last year sparked a series of crises for Facebook, with the shares plunging from $38 to as low as $17.73 in September.

Shares closed slightly down Thursday at $24.03.

“What the hell is your forecast for revenue and income for the next year?” one shareholder asked gruffly.

Chief financial officer David Ebersman told the investor that Facebook hasn’t made earnings forecasts the way other publicly traded companies typically do because it is young and in “a difficult business to predict right now.”

“My family is a big fan of yours, and because of that I invested blindly,” another stockholder told Zuckerberg and his team. “And now I am under water.”

A woman who said she bought more than 8,000 shares of Facebook at its debut asked the executives whether the stock was a smart buy at $24 a share only to be told the company wouldn’t give individual investment advice.

Another shareholder referred to the IPO as a disaster.

“Our strategy is to build great mobile apps, get more people to be able to connect through them, and build a network people can use and monetize that by building a strong advertising engine,” Zuckerberg said.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have control over the share price, particularly in the short term.”

Facebook priorities for building value over the long term included following its more than 1.1 billion members onto mobile devices; letting other Internet services plug into its social network, and making money with ads.

More people visit Facebook on any given day using mobile applications than do using desktop computers, according to Zuckerberg.

Facebook said its membership continues to grow rapidly and that it is working on a version of the service better suited to use by people in emerging markets where Internet connections be slow or low-capacity.

Zuckerberg dismissed competition from the Google Plus social network, saying the overall market is growing quickly and none of the trends he saw indicated rivals would interfere with the company’s success.

Shareholders were also keen to learn whether Facebook was protecting user data against hackers and a US online surveillance program revealed in the past week.

Zuckerberg said Facebook spends a lot of time making sure “bad hackers” can’t get into its computers and repeated assurances he gave on Friday that the social network doesn’t work directly with US spies.

“No agency has direct access to our servers and no one has approached us,” Zuckerberg said. “The truth is that anyone can go to our website and get access that way, which is why we didn’t say no indirect access.”—Glenn Chapman

source: technology.inquirer.net

US man, sister reunite thanks to Facebook, boy

DAVENPORT, Iowa – A man has been reunited with his sister 65 years after the siblings were separated in foster care thanks to a 7-year-old friend who searched Facebook.

Clifford Boyson, of Davenport, Iowa, met his sister, Betty Billadeau, in person on Saturday.

Billadeau drove up from her home in Florissant, Missouri, with her daughter and granddaughter for the reunion at a hotel in Davenport.

Boyson, 66, and Billadeau, 70, both tried to find each other for years without success. They were placed in different foster homes in Chicago when they were children.

Then 7-year-old Eddie Hanzelin, who is the son of Boyson’s landlord, got involved.

Eddie managed to find Billadeau by searching his mom’s Facebook account with Billadeau’s maiden name. He recognized the family resemblance when he saw her picture.

“Oh, my God,” Boyson said when he saw and hugged Billadeau.

“You do have a sister,” Billadeau said.

“You’re about the same height Mom was,” Boyson said.

Billadeau’s daughter, Sarah Billadeau, 42, and granddaughter, Megan Billadeau, 27, both wiped away tears and smiled during the reunion.

“He didn’t have any women in his life,” Sarah said. “We’re going to get that straightened out real fast.”

Boyson said he’s looking forward to visiting Billadeau near St. Louis and meeting more family.

“I’m hoping I can go and spend a week or two,” he said. “I want to meet the whole congregation. I never knew I had a big family.”

Eddie, who enjoys messing around with his family’s iPad, said he’s glad he was able to assist in making the reunion happen and that he learned about helping others at school.

“Clifford did not have any family, and family’s important,” the boy said.

Near the end of their tearful reunion Boyson and Billadeau presented Eddie with a $125 check in appreciation of his detective work.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Feel the relief of a Facebook purge

(CNN) -- Last week, we clued you in to all the annoying things that couples must cease doing on Facebook.

This week, we're taking a look at the other side of the coin. What should you do about all the digital remnants of a relationship when you're no longer flitting through fields, holding hands and weaving flowers Lady Chatterley's Lover-like into one another's various expanses of hair? (i.e., after you've broken up.)

A quick story that's not specifically true but is likely true for many a person: Suzie has a new beau, Johnny, and they are, oh, so in love. Like, two straws, one milkshake in love. And Suzie detests sharing because she's an only child, so you know that's big.

Naturally, the two become Facebook friends, because, well, the site has 900 million users and based on Lord Zuckerberg's official decree, you don't actually KNOW anyone until you click "friend." Suzie is happily clicking through Johnny's pictures and scrolling through his timeline when she notices a girl named Sally has commented on quite a few snaps and left wall posts with some quite explicit descriptions of what she wants to do to his sloped-shoulder physique.

Suzie is thrown into a rage that only the most only of only children can make manifest, then she realizes that the posts are from two years back.

The next time she and Johnny are slurping some frozen milk she asks for the story, and Johnny reveals that Sally was his old flame, a college sweetheart who has long since lost the sweetness and acquired a whip (the accessory of choice for anyone in her rather dominating profession).

Suzie heaves a sigh of relief, but still finds herself haunted by Sally's vinyl-swaddled ghost, wondering what Sal had that she lacks and what macabre moves Johnny might be into. The couple splits over (banana) splits just weeks later.

It's a science-proven fact (or, at least, there's a study supporting it): Social networks like Facebook increase jealousy, partly because information is much more accessible, and that information can often be ambiguous. Our lives are now on display for all the world to see, but often we're not there to explain ourselves when our most loved of loved ones are perusing.

That's why we're suggesting this week that our readers do a little bit of a purge. You likely have years' worth of romantic failure riddled throughout your Facebook profile -- old pictures, wall posts, comments, messages -- and it's not really a good look.

It's basically the digital equivalent of having a box of your ex's stuff, but instead of hiding it in your closet, you're displaying it in your living room for all visitors and cable men to see. And see it they will -- a recent study by Seventeen magazine shows that 60% of respondents look at romantic interests' Facebook profiles daily.

We get that you might want to hold onto some of these memories. We wouldn't ask you to throw away every old love letter or snapshot in your closet, but there's a more discrete way to do so. Download your Facebook profile for safekeeping. That way you'll have a record of all photos, messages, wall posts and comments you may have received from a former beau. Once you have done so, it's time to wipe that slate clean once and for all.

Here's how:

1). Put your status in stealth

Don't go down the winding road that is "making it Facebook official" in the first place, even though most couples reportedly do.

Not only is changing your status back after the breakup horrible and humiliating, Facebook Timeline makes it way too easy to scroll back and see activity like relationship reduxes. When it comes to what the sitcoms whimsically call "The Ex Files," let your mouth do the talking, not some post from June 4, 2011.

Note: It's totally fine to change your status to "married," since that's likely not changing any time soon (we hope). However, apparently close to 50% of brides (of those surveyed) do so BEFORE the wedding, which we wouldn't recommend. Cold feet, anyone?

2). Untag, untag, untag

After you take any and all pictures of you and your former off of Facebook (this is kind of a given, why would anyone keep public pics of long-dead lip locks on public display?), untag pictures where the two of you look cozy from friends' galleries.

You might even want to ask pals to take them down wholesale. As we said, you don't have to get rid of said pics (download your profile or particular pictures), but no one wants to see their new hand-holder holding hands with someone old.

3). Silence old comments

We're not suggesting that you go through every picture and post and purge your ex's exclamations, but perhaps deep six any lengthy epistles or outpourings of love.

If your new squeeze is turned off by an errant comment on an early college snap in which you're sporting flared jeans and pigtails, s/he's probably too jealous anyway. And blind, apparently, because that rhinestone top you're wearing is the real mood killer.

4). Unfriend exes

Now this is a tough one. A lot of you out there purport to be friends with your ex. We believe you. This is totally possible. We've seen such cases with our own jaded eyes. But you are not, my friend, pals with each and every person you've ever dated, so why are they still hanging around on Facebook, liking your snaps and writing "haha" on your most witty of witty posts?

Here's a good litmus test: Do you refer to these "friends" as "my ex so and so" or "my friend so and so?" If it's the former -- and you never actually hang with this person IRL -- it's time to kill this digital sham of a friendship.

source: CNN

Mark Zuckerberg Gets Married

A day after Mark Zuckerberg took his company, Facebook, public, the CEO updated his relationship status to "married."

Zuckerberg, 28, and his longtime girlfriend Priscilla Chan exchanged vows at a small ceremony in their backyard attended by less than 100 guests in Palo Alto, Calif., on Saturday.

Guests thought they were coming over for a surprise party to celebrate Chan's graduation from UCSF medical school, where on May 14 she received her degree in pediatrics. However, Zuckerberg and Chan had been planning the wedding for more than four months, according to a source authorized by the couple.

Zuckerberg designed Chan's wedding ring, a simple ruby sparkler, himself.




Guests dined family-style on food from the couple's favorite restaurants, Palo Alto Sol and Fuki Sushi. For dessert, they had Burdick Chocolate "mice" – whimsical chocolate treats made in the shape of mice – which the couple had on their first date.

The couple, who met while attending Harvard before Zuckerberg – who is now worth more than $19 billion – started Facebook, have been dating for nine years.

Zuckerberg, the subject of the movie The Social Network, had been in the news all week for the highly-anticipated stock offering of his company.

source: people.com

New York Jewish school tells students to get off Facebook or be expelled

NEW YORK – For Facebook users at a Hasidic all-girls high school in New York it's either Exodus -- or expulsion.

Students at the Orthodox Beth Rivkah High School have been ordered to immediately delete their accounts on the popular social-networking site and pay a $100 fine, or be kicked out of the school.

"Girls are getting killed on the internet -- that's the reason for it," Benzion Stock, administrator of the Crown Heights school, said.

Stock said Facebook is also off-limits because it encourages girls to violate the Orthodox code of modesty.

"The internet is a good way to ruin marriages and families," Stock said. "We don't want them there, period. It's the wrong place for a Jewish girl to be. Facebook is not a modest thing to do. Socializing on Facebook could lead to the wrong things."

source: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/03/29/new-york-jewish-school-tells-students-to-get-off-facebook-or-be-expelled/#ixzz1qUDGBAyf?test=latestnews

Tweet Angel Will Give You A Phone Call If Someone Bad-Mouths You On Twitter

In this day and age, your presence on a social network can be of the utmost importance, especially when you’re running a small (or not so small) business. Although it may seem superfluous, and social networking may not be your personal cup of tea as a fancy-pants entrepreneur, you and your company can live and die by social media, especially Twitter. If you don’t want to immerse yourself in that particular culture’s habits and practices, but you don’t want to become a social media laughing stock, there’s a Rube Goldbergian solution you can try. Tweet Angel will keep an eye on Twitter for you and notify you — by the old-fashioned method of telephonery — if anyone is talkin’ smack.

The concept is foreign to me, but apparently there are people out there who have a surplus of money and a deficit of time. These kind of people, I suppose, would be the ones willing to pay a monthly fee for the luxury of not having to keep up with the social media Joneses. For the low, low price of $19.95 to $29.95 per month (with a special $9.99 introductory offer), Tweet Angel will perform a number of services for you, all of which basically amount to “acting as a phone to Twitter interface.”

The main service Tweet Angel provides is as mentioned above; they’ll keep an eye on your feed, read your mentions and give busy-old-you a call if someone complains and uses your Twitter handle (or maybe #Screw[YourName] as a hashtag) while doing it. At that point, depending on what services you’re paying for ($19.95 vs $29.95), you can either go take care of it yourself or dictate a response right to that fellow on the phone.

The downside is that while Twitter never sleeps, the folks at Tweet Angel do. As such, you can only expect prompt (within the hour) notifications of negative tweets during their standard office hours, 8:00 a.m EST to 10 p.m EST. That could be an issue if someone with a lot of followers gets particularly miffed late at night, or in a different time zone. They do, however, work 365 days a year. Also, they max out at 30 complaint notifications per month, so don’t have too many enemies.

It’s an interesting idea, sure, but a questionably applicable service. Sure, I may not be the best judge because I happen to love Twitter and also don’t own a business but if I did own a business and was informed that I’d have to keep a really close eye on Pinterest, however, I might consider such a service. In any event, it sure is amusing because really, who talks on the phone? People who don’t understand or bother with Twitter, I guess.

source: http://www.geekosystem.com/tweet-angel-phone-calls/