Facebook Talk

Yet another case of the YCJA being broken on Facebook (for more info on this, read my previous post) has occurred in Canada recently. This time, four teenagers who are accused of microwaving a cat to death were named in a Facebook group, which led to threats of retaliation and violence against the accused.

The person who originally posted the names wrote, “They will all get their faces smashed in by January 6th.”

Someone on the website wrote, “I think people like that should be shot.” “I would say these monsters should be tortured, let society at them,” another poster wrote on a separate webpage. “As their parents, I would not be sleeping. They would not be welcome back to my home or my life, and I am a parent of a 13- and 15-year-old myself. My motherly love would be gone.”

By publishing the names outside court, the writer on Facebook was breaking the law and potentially jeopardizing the teens’ rights to a fair trial.
One Facebook poster wrote: “You might have just caused them to walk free. … The last thing I want is a mistrial that could have been prevented.”
Arthur Schafer, director of the University of Manitoba’s centre of professional and applied ethics, said, “Publishing of the names together with threats is itself bordering on shameful and is as worrying for society as the original act.

“We know they have been charged, we don’t know whether they’re guilty.”

This is really starting to become a problem here and I don’t see it going away any time soon. Even we here at Facebook Talk have been contacted by authorities recently asking for help in complying with laws that protect the identification of youths. WIth more and more people joining Facebook every day and the rate of violent crimes showing no sign of declining to zero, it won’t be long before we see a major legal case against Facebook. The question of whether or not Facebook should or could be held accountable for allowing such information to be leaked on it’s site is an important one. Because if they are held accountable, then what’s to stop Google or Yahoo from being sued? How about web hosting companies that host a blog that “reports” on a crime. What about the bloggers themselves?

facebook, ycja, crime

If you one day decide to pack things up and hike around the world on a whim (and trust me, it’s a hell of a time), then make sure you don’t try and keep in touch with your friends on Facebook at this one Internet cafe. Because some dude wants to ban it.

AFTER banning customers at his St Kilda coffee shop from chatting about Facebook, Daniel Mrocki considers himself a face-to-face crusader.

Feeling the social networking site was taking over his life and those of his mates and patrons, the 26-year-old owner of Cafe Brewhaha finally snapped three months ago.

“I just heard the word Facebook one too many times and just exploded, turned off the coffee machine, grabbed the liquid chalk and wrote it on the window,” he said. “Everyone wants to chat on Facebook, but what’s wrong with just catching up for a beer?

“The irony of it is, by putting the sign up, Facebook is talked about more than it ever was before.”

I have to say, I think this is all just a big promotional stunt to gain a little news coverage. There’s no way he really hates Facebook and wants to ban it in his cafe, yet he doesn’t put a filter or block on it through the main router quietly. No, instead he goes on a rant about it, puts a goofy sign in his front door, and then basically does a backdoor promotion for Facebook by talking about it in the news. But who cares, it worked and now I’m writing about it halfway around the world. Oh, the wonders of the Internet!

Australia, Facebook, banned

So according to a recent article by Time magazine, Facebook is more popular than porn, which really shouldn’t surpr…wait, what? Facebook is more popular than naked women? Since when?

Perhaps a more interesting — and more accurate — way to figure out where college students are going online is to assess which of the 172 web categories tracked by Hitwise get the most hits from 18- to 24-year-olds. … social networks rank first, followed by search engines, then web-based e-mail — with porn sites lagging behind in fourth.

It’s a leap to say there’s a real correlation there, but if there is one, then I’d bet it has everything to do with Gen Y’s changing habits: they’re too busy chatting with friends to look at online skin. Imagine.

Please allow me to call BS on this story. I’m not saying there are more 18-24 year olds looking at porn than surfing on Facebook, but relying solely on Hitwise to tell you the answer to said question is a bit weak. Where are the bittorrent and P2P download numbers? Where are the straight up warez and download site numbers? And when the hell did I start defending the popularity of porn sites? Ok, this is getting a little weird.

Anyways, the point of this post is to say this: Just wait until porn somehow gets on Facebook. You know it will and while I’m all for naked chicks, I don’t really think we want it on Facebook. Do we? Just look at Myspace. How many spammy profiles are there on there with chicks who just want you to check out their awesome website at www.spampornlink.com?! Yeah, that’s right, way too many.

For all I care, porn can say off Facebook for as long as possible. And I’m pretty sure most people would agree with me on that one, no matter which they like better.

Facebook, Time, Porn

While people may be getting pissed about Beacon’s sneaky data gathering, such practices aren’t really that new, as CNN points out in a new article.

Based on the weather reports and restaurant listings you check out online, Yahoo Inc. has a good idea where you live. Based on searches you’ve done, the Web portal might also know where you want to go.

Don’t be surprised then to suddenly see an advertisement on flight deals between those two places. It’s what United Airlines did with an ad on Yahoo earlier this year as people browsed for something completely unrelated to travel.

Good points. Yes, Yahoo and United have been doing this as well, so why complain when Facebook does it? In fact, most people love Google and yet they openly admit that the ads you see are based on the search queries you punched in or the text in your e-mail. The fine line that I think must be pointed out here, though, is that having a website pick which ads to show me based on my habits versus having a website that collects my habits and then sells them to others are two huge differences.

I don’t mind seeing relevant ads. In fact, I rather enjoy them (and I use the word “enjoy” loosely.) If I’m in the market to buy a car, I listen to all the car advertisements on TV and the radio. If I’m hungry, then that Arby’s Chicken Sandwich looks freaking delicious. If there were a way to make TV relevant to your mood or desires, I don’t think so many people would own Tivos. But since you aren’t interacting directly with your TV, yet you are with your computer, suddenly websites can give you ads a bit more directed towards you.

But, and this is a huge but, if I don’t want that website collecting information about me, it shouldn’t. End of story. No ifs, ands, or buts.

One of the even bigger problems I see arising out of this is that, for most people, they’ll have no idea they’re information is being collected. If an annoying ad comes on TV, they can mute it. If they search for a business in Myrtle Beach and see ads for hotels in the region, they know the ads are relevant yet they can ignore them. But if the average, everyday computer user is asked if they want to share their information with a website and declines, then they are going to assume that their wishes were respected. The more tech-savy computer users can find ways to detect what’s going on and how to block them, which is why I’m not all that worried about Beacon. But then I think about my mom, brothers, and sister who are all on Facebook and I start to get a little peeved.

This shouldn’t be that hard, Facebook. If a consumer says “don’t remember that I bought these movie tickets just now,” then you shouldn’t. Anything beyond that is just asking for a giant bitch-slap from your community.

Cnn, Facebook, Yahoo, United

Look out world, there are drunk chicks on Facebook. This is shocking news to me. Wait, did I say shocking? I meant sexy. Yes, this is sexy news to me, because drunk chicks are awesome. And they certainly make their parents proud when they have their druggen photos plastered all over the web and in the news.

Basically, there’s a group called “30 Reasons Girls Should Call It A Night” which has over 150,000 members. In it, there are more than 4800 photos uploaded of people passed out in funny positions, many without clothes, while drunk. As if that wasn’t enough already, The Daily Mail decided they wanted to run an article about the group and accompanied the article with almost more pictures than words. Which I’m pretty sure is proof that this was just a bored intern’s way of convincing his boss that he wasn’t wasting time while on the clock, but instead was “researching” and “article” while looking at semi-nude chicks. Smart kid, if you ask me.

Anyways, let this be a lesson to you young girls out there. If you take stupid, drunken, half nude photos of yourself and upload them to Facebook, you’re screwed. There’s no real way around it. Either a newspaper will publish them or you’ll end up featured on FBChicks. Either way, make sure you show enough skin to make it worth my time looking at all these photos!

Sexy Update: After all the different news attention this group got, there is now a website devoted specifically to the group, the girls, and the photos. God Bless America.

Facebook, drunk

Just in case you were a bit more curious about the new Facebook ad system, here’s a good article from the AP that I just read on CNN that might answer a few more of your questions. I’ll write more of an opinion piece on the ads sometime in the near future, but suffice to say: I don’t like them. At all.

NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook has unveiled plans to target advertisements by injecting them into its members’ conversations, and now the popular online hangout must persuade its users to embrace the initiative.

Facebook is giving users some control over whether to share information on their buying habits and other online activities with friends. For the program announced Tuesday to work, enough users must actually say “yes” so advertisers can show users their pitches in the guise of friends’ endorsements.

David Hallerman, a senior analyst at the research group eMarketer, warned that users might not be as receptive to ads when they are communicating with friends on Facebook as they might when they are reading articles elsewhere in a more relaxed, consuming state.

“Facebook is everyone’s darling today,” he said. “If there is a perceptual problem as a safe place for communications, then will it be 2009’s darling?”

Facebook’s announcement follows by two weeks Facebook Inc.’s deal to sell a 1.6 percent stake to Microsoft Corp. for $240 million, valuing Facebook at $15 billion. Microsoft also broadened a marketing relationship that began last year. The ad program announced Tuesday was unrelated to either deal with Microsoft.

In announcing the initiative, Palo Alto, California-based Facebook has begun transforming itself from an online hangout into an online business district. Companies can now create their own pages on Facebook for free and tailor their pitches to the activities of users’ friends.

For example, if a friend has booked a vacation on Travelocity, the online travel agency will be able to display the friend’s photo as part of a “social ad” to entice the user to buy flights and hotel stays. Advertisers can similarly have their pitches appear when friends review restaurants and buy books or DVDs.

Companies can even embed coding Facebook calls “Beacon” on outside sites such as eBay Inc., enabling a Facebook user who lists an item for auction, for example, to generate alert messages for Facebook friends, who may then check out the item.

“People influence people,” said Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, who founded the company three years ago. “Nothing influences a person more than a recommendation from a trusted friend.”

Although the friend can control what is shared, the user will have fewer choices over whether to receive ads, which would be marked “sponsored.”

As Web companies look to boost advertising revenue by offering to target ads based on users’ hobbies, interests and behavior, Facebook’s move could change the tone of the site and revive privacy complaints it faced last year. Facebook will rely on information in users’ profiles and on friends’ online activity to determine what ads might appeal to users.

Key will be how Facebook tells users about the program. Facebook described the changes in a blog posting, but not prominently when users logged on Wednesday morning.

“Some people may find it creepy,” said Deborah Pierce, executive director of the San Francisco-based group Privacy Activism. “They are trying to find some ways to monetize this and keep the lights on. If the disclosure is up front, yeah, I think this is a reasonable thing for them to do.”

Facebook has long prided itself on guarding its users’ privacy, but the walls have gradually lowered. A feature allowing users to track changes their friends make to profiles backfired when many users denounced it as stalking and threatened protests. Facebook quickly apologized and agreed to let users turn off the feature.

Facebook promises no information that could identify individual will be disclosed to advertisers. And Chris Kelly, the company’s chief privacy officer, said users can complain again if they find the new targeting program intrusive.

Privacy concerns aside, many Facebook members may be reluctant to endorse an advertiser for fear of alienating friends who had bad experiences with the same company, said Chris Winfield, who runs 10e20, an online marketing specialist.

“They are relying a lot on their users to make this happen, and that’s going to be tricky,” Winfield said.

Zuckerberg said marketers must respond to the changing nature of communication.

“Pushing your message out to people is no longer good enough,” Zuckerberg told about 200 advertising-industry executives, many already in New York for the ad:tech conference. “You have to get your message out to the conversations.”

Search companies like Google Inc. have generated a lot of revenue from text-based ads targeted to a user’s search terms. Those have been good at fulfilling demand — users often are already looking for a car or a travel package when searching and seeing those ads.

Zuckerberg said Facebook planned to go after the bigger opportunities in generating demand — something Google and other sites are also trying to do through display and other brand promotions. Seeing a friend buy a product or praise a band, he said, are good ways to generate demand.

Coca-Cola Co., General Motors Corp.’s Saturn and Sony Corp.’s Sony Pictures are among leading brands contributing to the more than 100,000 company pages launching on Facebook.

The key difference between companies’ pages and individuals’ is that businesses won’t have access to individuals’ profiles the same way their friends do, even when users formally declare themselves “fans” of a company.

Facebook’s announcement came a day after MySpace said it would expand its targeting program to include more categories and more advertisers. MySpace lets companies create profile pages but doesn’t have Facebook’s system of alerts and adjacent social ads.

Zuckerberg told reporters he wasn’t worried users would consider Facebook too commercial. He said regular ads would stand out more because targeted ads can be better integrated with conversations users are already having with one another.

Facebook, CNN, Facebook Ads

The Sydney Morning Herald recently ran a short blurb pondering the overzealousness of Facebook to hold their users guilty until proven innocent when it comes to stuff that can get you banned. Which got me thinking and Googling and before I knew it, I’d turned up at least a dozen stories written in the past year or so about users who had their Facebook account disabled for pretty bland violations. To make matters worse, most of the people had trouble getting a straight answer out of Facebook as to why their accounts were deleted in the first place.

Now granted, they did break the rules in some form, but in most case the infractions were ones that are being committed by tens of thousands of others (for instance, using a nickname as your Facebook name instead of your legal name.) But still, there are many good reasons for most of these rule infractions. For instance, some of my friends are almost forced to use their nickname instead of their real name because most people they know don’t even know their real name!

Facebook might want to consider hiring a few more people in their customer relations department, either to police these rule infractions a little more vigorously or to at least speed up the process of letting people know what’s going on when they suddenly can’t log into their account anymore.

Facebook