Everyone’s got one — the movie that makes you who you are, the one that turned on all the lights in your brain and opened your mind to a new reality, one that can only exist upon viewing that particular film. So when your best friend/boyfriend/wife/second cousin Thurman admits to have never seeing The One Movie Essential To Your Being, you insist they must watch it and be enlightened. And now Netflix wants you to put that pressure on your Facebook friends with a new social recommendation feature. [More]
Data & Privacy
After Denial, Dairy Queen Admits It Was Victim Of Hack
By 8.28.14
After initially denying reports of data breaches at a number of its stores, soft-serve royalty Dairy Queen has finally admitted data breaches at a currently undisclosed number of locations. [More]
JPMorgan Chase, At Least Four Other Banks Hit By Hackers In Coordinated Attacks
By 8.28.14
No one is too big to get hacked — and that includes JPMorgan Chase and at least four other banks that were hit by hackers earlier this month. The FBI is investigating the blitzes, which seem to be sophisticated, coordinated cyberattacks that grabbed gigagbytes of data. [More]
Your Facebook Newsfeed Was Flooded With Clickbait Garbage. Then This Happened
By 8.25.14
If you’ve used the Internet for more than a few minutes, you know what clickbait is: headlines written to entice you to click on a link, boosting its traffic and its visibility on Facebook. Now Facebook is fighting back…and you’ll never believe how they’re doing it! [More]
PlayStation Network Crashes, Hackers Make Bomb Threat Against Plane Carrying Sony Exec
By 8.25.14
After claiming responsibility for a denial-of-service attack that took down the Sony PlayStation network, a group of hackers tweeted that there was a bomb onboard an American Airlines flight carrying the president of Sony Online Entertainment, John Smedley. That plane was diverted, and all passengers on it safely removed. [More]
UPS: Hackers Hit Computer Systems At 51 Retail Stores, Possibly Exposing Customer Info
By 8.21.14
Did I bump my head and wake up in late 2013? Because it sure feels like deja vu with a slew of recent data breaches: Joining P.F. Chang’s, a group of supermarket chains and Community Health Systems in this month’s data breach roll call is United Parcel Service, which says 51 of its retail store locations had their computer systems hacked. [More]
The Onion Reacts To Facebook’s Hand-Holding Of Your Idiot Friends
By 8.18.14
Earlier today, Facebook confirmed it was rolling out a system that labels links from The Onion and others as “satire,” so that your idiot friend from high school would (hopefully) realize that the President didn’t run over Jimmy Carter with his car, or that Dick Van Dyke may not have been the Zodiac killer. Oddly enough, the esteemed news source’s response to the Facebook announcement is much closer to truth than it is to satire. [More]
Facebook To Point Out To Your Idiot Friends That The Onion Is Not Real News
By 8.18.14
It’s both hilarious and depressing when I go onto Facebook and see that someone I know is expressing outrage — OUTRAGE!! — in response to a shocking news story they came across online on a little-known news site called The Onion. Just this morning, I awoke to find that several of my idiot friends on Facebook had shared this Daily Currant story as if it were true, and one continued to insist it was authentic even after others pointed out in the comments that it’s a satire site. In order to cut down on the humiliation suffered by its users, Facebook is now testing a “satire” tag… that people will probably still ignore. [More]
Restaurant Owner: Drinking Tap Water And Sharing Dessert Isn’t Exactly Helping To Pay The Staff
By 8.13.14
Sharing is caring, right? Wrong if you’re a diner at a certain Australian restaurant that is now asking patrons who are part of large parties order their own drinks, meals and desserts, because taking up space and not ordering doesn’t exactly help the restaurant’s bottom-line. [More]
Facebook-Shaming Gets Another Dine-And-Dash Artist To Pay Up
By 8.5.14
Even though it’s no different than other forms of theft, it can sometimes be difficult to get the authorities worked up about a restaurant customer who skips out on a meal without paying. But some restaurant owners are having success with getting these dine-and-dash scofflaws to pay up by publicly shaming them on social media. [More]
The Police Do Not Care That Facebook Is Down: Stop Calling
By 8.4.14
Maybe we need to stop writing about the instances where you are not supposed to call emergency services, and instead we should make a list of the times when you are supposed to dial 9-1-1. For example, if you are in imminent danger. If your house is on fire. If someone nearby is having a life-threatening health problem. When you should not dial 9-1-1: Facebook is down. [More]
Facebook Experiences Intermittent Outages, Internet Can’t Even Deal
By 8.1.14
As the clock struck approximately lunchtime on the east coast of the United States, the unthinkable happened: Facebook outages. Oh, no! How could the Internet cope? On a Friday, no less? Let’s all band together and try to get through this terrible time. …Wait, it’s back up? NEVER MIND. Those five minutes of real life were arduous. [More]
The Time Has Come: Facebook Forcing Smartphone Users To Download Separate Messaging App
By 7.29.14
Have the urge to send a Facebook message to your ex at goodness knows what time in the morning saying Zeus only knows what? If you want to make that mistake on your phone, soon you’ll have to download the social network’s entirely separate Messenger app, or forever keep your peace. Until the next time you hang out with your pal tequila, at least. [More]
Facebook Creates Save Feature, Because You Really Do Want To Read That Article Later – Right?
By 7.21.14
Have you ever happened across your high school bestie’s highly anticipated new baby-filled photo album on Facebook, but didn’t have time to scan through 200 photos? But, alas, when you went back to peruse the site later you forgot all about that album, essentially depriving yourself. Apparently, that’s a problem (if you can call it that) the engineers at Facebook have found a solution to. [More]
Beware Scammy Facebook Pages And Fake Charities Taking Advantage Of Flight MH17 Tragedy
By 7.21.14
It is a disgusting reality that when tragedy strikes, there’s always going to be someone out there trying to take advantage of it for personal gain. That’s what’s happening in the wake of downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was reportedly shot down over Ukraine Thursday on its way to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam. All 298 people aboard the Boeing 777 were killed. [More]
Now Facebook Is Testing A “Buy” Button In Its Ads
By 7.17.14
Because you should apparently never, ever have to even consider leaving Facebook to do anything, the online baby photo depository and place where recently divorced singles go to try to reignite high school romances has begun testing a “Buy” button that allows you to purchase crap you could buy elsewhere. [More]
Waitress Claims She Was Fired After Facebook Friend Printed Out Her Complaint About Bad Tippers
By 7.2.14
It’s always tricky when it comes to dealing with work woes and social media — sure, you want to complain about a rough day on the job, but whatever you post on Facebook or Twitter can always come back to haunt you. In the case of one Ohio waitress, one of her Facebook friends happened to be one of her customers, who then happened to read her complaint against bad tippers. [More]
Contempt Threat Gets Facebook To Turn Over Full Info For 381 Users
By 6.27.14
While Facebook loves sharing incredibly detailed information about users’ interests and web-browsing habits with marketers, the social media network isn’t so keen on making massive amounts of user info available to prosecutors, presumably because the district attorney’s office isn’t looking to buy ads. Facebook announced last night that it’s currently fighting warrants from authorities in New York who are looking to get data on a group of 381 users. [More]
