In an end-of-the workday surprise, Facebook just announced that it bought messaging service WhatsApp in a $19 billion deal. Yes, $19 billion. For those of you WhatsApp users already freaking out that you’ll be forced to use Facebook messenger, shhh, now. It sounds like everything could be just fine. [More]
Child Protection Advocacy Group Rejects Facebook Privacy Lawsuit Settlement, Asks Court To Reconsider
By 2.13.14
Facebook is notorious at this stage for playing fast and loose with users’ privacy. In 2013, the social sharing behemoth faced and settled a class-action lawsuit regarding its privacy practices. Today, one of the advocacy groups awarded a share of the settlement has reversed their stance, refused the payment, and is asking the court to reconsider the deal. [More]
Facebook Now Allows Users To Customize Gender Description
By 2.13.14
In a response to requests from users whose gender identity may not fall within the traditional male/female mold, Facebook announced this afternoon that users will now have the ability to list a customized gender on their Facebook profiles. [More]
Knowing Your Facebook Number Might Be Pointless, But Here’s How To Find It Anyway
By 2.6.14
In a world where people will post anything from “What Weather Phenomenon Are You?” (I’m a cirrus cloud!) to “Which Journey Song (From The Steve Perry Years, Of Course) Are You?” on Facebook, there’s no doubt that you’ve seen posts touting your so-called “Facebook Number,” ostensibly, the number that designates when you became a user. But what’s the point? [More]
Feds To Allow Tech Companies To Provide More Transparent Info On Data Requests
By 1.27.14
While a number of the largest websites and telecom companies have recently published transparency data detailing the number of data requests made about consumers, these companies have been very limited with regard to what they could say about federal requests that fall under the header of national security. In response to a call for more transparency from several major Internet businesses, the government is changing its restrictions. [More]
Researchers Claim The Disease That Is Facebook Will Fade Out In A Matter Of Years
By 1.23.14
While we’ve all been sitting here worried about the coming zombie apocalypse, the truth is we’ve already been infected. But instead of rotting flesh and vacant eyes, we’ve been infected by Facebook (which also is known to cause vacant eyes and drooling if you stare at it too long). Researchers say the cure is coming, or at least this infectious disease will fade out in the coming years. [More]
Facebook Sued For Allegedly Selling Private Message Info To Marketers
By 1.3.14
Facebook, never exactly a paragon of privacy, has once again been sued by users over allegations of profiting off users’ personal data. This time, the plaintiffs claim that the website is turning links shared in private messages into public “likes,” from which Facebook earns ad revenue. [More]
Facebook: Again, It Is Impossible For Old Messages To Be Republished As Wall Posts
By 12.13.13
At first upon reading the account of a blogger who believed that old, private messages between her and her Facebook friends were showing up publicly on her timeline, there was that same icky, familiar feeling many Facebook users had last year: Were our most private exchanges suddenly being aired out in a crazy, awful security breach? [More]
Easy Public Displays Of Support For Charities Lead To Slacktivism
By 12.10.13
Scroll through your Facebook timeline and you’ll no doubt see any number of people passing on links, photos, stories, invites to groups… all for allegedly good causes. It’s become increasingly simple to say you support things like ending world hunger or providing shelter to victims of natural disaster, while at the same time doing absolutely nothing that actually helps to solve those problems. Such behavior has earned the name “slacktivism,” and a new study aims to show how many people can trick themselves into thinking they have done enough by simply putting on a ribbon or liking a Facebook page. [More]
This Christmas, Fend Off Bad Guys Disguised As Santa With Your New TASER
By 12.6.13
If we posted every ridiculous or terrible ad that popped up on Facebook, we’d have no pixels left to post anything else. But Patrick encountered this ad for TASER flashlights that is simultaneously strange and scaremongering, and features a balaclava-clad man in a Santa hat meant to scare Facebookers into ordering a handy stun gun flashlight. [More]
Ginormous Hack Targets 2 Million Accounts Spread Over 93,000 Websites Worldwide
By 12.5.13
About two million people should be checking your social media accounts and anything else one might have a login and password for: Hackers have snagged usernames and passwords for millions of Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo and other sites accounts, according to a new report. [More]
Google Mocks Opacity Of National Security Requests While Feds Try To Hide Court Action From Public
By 11.14.13
For quite some time, Google and other Internet biggies have argued that they should be able to reveal relatively detailed data to the public about user-information requests from federal law enforcement agencies, and specifically those that fall under that black umbrella of national security. In its latest transparency report, Google uses a visual to show its distaste for this opacity. Meanwhile, the federal government is attempting to argue its case for the lack of transparency behind doors closed so tight that even the others involved in the request won’t be privy to what’s said. [More]
Facebook Wants To Track Where You Move Your Cursor While You Ignore Your Friends’ Posts
By 10.30.13
Because there is nothing that can’t be tracked, quantified, and turned into rad-looking chart/diagram/map, Facebook is now testing its ability to track where users move their cursors while browsing the site, presumably so it can visualize how frequently you click “hide” on all those game invites that never stop. [More]
Facebook Advertisers Rubbing Hands With Glee Now That Teens Can Post Publicly
By 10.17.13
While Facebook’s announcement yesterday that teens 13-17 will now be able to join the adult masses in sharing their posts publicly is touted by the company as a way to give youngsters more choices, it probably has a lot more to do with money. When advertisers see teens, after all, they’re basically seeing piles and piles of cash futzing around on social media all day with their pals, just waiting to be marketed to. [More]
You’ll Need To Change Your Settings To Avoid Showing Up In Facebook Search
By 10.11.13
Back when Facebook introduced its Graph Search functionality, it took away the old “Who can look up your Timeline by name?” setting for people who weren’t using it, but kept it on for users who still wanted to avoid showing up in search results. Now, that grandfathered option is going away for everyone. [More]
Google Gives Itself The Right To Make Money Off Users’ Names & Photos
By 10.11.13
If you’re a Google user, be prepared to possibly have your name, photos, and any comments you might have made using that account used in ads that Google will make money from. The company quietly announced a change to its Terms of Service this morning, giving itself the ability to exploits user profiles in “Shared Endorsements.” [More]
Who Is To Blame For Creating Hashtags?
By 10.4.13
Full disclosure: I despise hashtags. They’re visually distracting and over-deployed, to the point where many Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook posts now look like someone got drunk and passed out on his keyboard’s number pad. Even worse, the jerks in marketing have grabbed hold of the hashtag, desperately slapping a “#” before their brand names, all for the purpose of tracking public sentiment and creating really neat-looking graphs and charts to justify spending more money on hashtag-based marketing. To misappropriate a quote from The Thin Red Line, “This great evil. Where does it come from? How’d it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from?” [More]
Court: Facebook “Likes” Are Protected Speech, Shouldn’t Get You Fired From Your Job
By 9.18.13
If your boss doesn’t like that you “like” a competitor on Facebook, can you be fired from your job? According to a federal appeals court, the answer is no, as hitting a “like” button on Facebook is Constitutionally protected speech under the First Amendment. [More]
