Facebook Syndrome: Hate It or Leave It

It is not going to be long before young people begin migrating away from Facebook in droves, if they aren't already.  From Slate:

A new report released this week from the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that Facebook remains the leading social network among American teenagers. It’s also the most reviled. While some teenagers interviewed by Pew claimed they “enjoyed using it,” the majority complained of “an increasing adult presence, high-pressure or otherwise negative social interactions (‘drama’), or feeling overwhelmed by others who share too much.”

In other words, Facebook—as any adult with a profile knows—feels a lot like high school. “I think Facebook can be fun, but also it's drama central,” one 14-year-old girl said. “On Facebook, people imply things and say things, even just by a ‘like,’ that they wouldn't say in real life." Said another, “It's so competitive to get the most likes [on a Facebook picture]. It's like your social position.” Ninety-four percent of American teenagers maintain a Facebook profile, but that doesn’t mean they have to like it. “Honestly,” one 15-year-old girl told Pew, “I'm on it constantly but I hate it so much.” [Emphasis added.]

Perhaps it is time to start up Facebookers anonymous. 

Flickr Redesign Adds 1 Terabyte of Free Space

From the Verge:

Yahoo has just announced a complete redesign of Flickr at its New York City event — the new site is live now and it comes with one terabyte of free photo space. Yahoo SVP Adam Cahan just made the announcement and said that "Flickr had become about words, little images, blue links. It was not about the photo anymore." But the new photostream changes that, will full-resolution images and a clean homepage with all the emphasis on images — it looks a lot like the Instagram web profile header.

From the Flickr Blog:

In the beginning, Flickr innovated the way people share and discover photos. Today, we are shifting the photo-sharing landscape again. We’re releasing a Flickr that’s more spectacular, much bigger, and one you can take anywhere.

Biggr. A free terabyte of space

At Flickr, we believe you should share all your images in full resolution, so life’s moments can be relived in their original quality. No limited pixels, no cramped formats, no memories that fall flat. We’re giving your photos room to breathe, and you the space to upload a dizzying number of photos and videos, for free. Just how big is a terabyte? Well, you could take a photo every hour for forty years without filling one.

And yep, you heard us. It’s free. 

Spectaculr. A new, beautiful experience for your photos

We want Flickr to be the most amazing community and place for you to share your photos. So, we’re also revealing a beautiful new design that puts photos at the heart of your Flickr experience, where they should always be. Whether it’s a sweeping landscape or a family portrait, we want every photo to be at its most spectacular . . .

Are Americans Leaving Facebook in Droves?

It is likely only a matter of time before Facebook goes the way of Friendster and Myspace.  If you are wondering what Friendster and Myspace are, others may be doing the same about Facebook in a few short years.  The Guardian reports that users are beginning to leave Facebook in droves.  Excerpt:

Facebook has lost 10 million users in the US and seen no growth in monthly visitors in the UK over the past year, according to data from market research firm Nielsen.

Research shows that the number of unique visitors to the Facebook website from computers, smartphones and tablets has fallen from 153m in March 2012 to 142m in March this year, having peaked at 158m last August.

The news came as Facebook announced its latest quarterly results, saying it had 1.11 billion monthly active users around the world, up 23% from a year ago. Mobile monthly active users were 751 million, up 54%. But much of the growth is coming from poorer nations, where advertising revenues are lower.

The article speculates that the drop in web traffic may not indicate an equally large drop off in actual use, as many people may simply be using Facebook's smartphone app instead of visiting the website.  But it is also quite likely that many people have begun to leave Facebook over privacy concerns. 

Fake Tweet Causes Stock Market Plunge

The professional hysterics and security fetishists are a threat to the financial stability of the United States.  A fake tweet from a hacker who had obtained control of the Associated Press's Twitter feed caused stock markets to lose billions of dollars in value in a matter of minutes yesterday.  From USA Today:

A hacked Twitter account of a major news organization Tuesday dispelled any lingering notion that tweets are mere 140-character missives that harmlessly fly off into the ether.

The FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating the security breach that momentarily sent stocks into free fall Tuesday, erasing some $200 billion from the market's value.

At 1:07 p.m. ET, a tweet from the Associated Press exclaimed: "Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured." Within seconds, Wall Street was in panic mode and the Dow Jones industrial average and other benchmark indexes plummeted.

The Associated Press quickly revealed its Twitter account was a hacked fake, and the White House issued assurances that the president was safe. "The president is fine," spokesman Jay Carney said. "I was just with him."

Do Wall Street types actually believe everything they read on the internet?  lol

Beware of Government's Sock Puppet Propagandists

We're all well aware of the fact that governments and corporations routinely employ individuals to spread propaganda messages online.  But the military may soon be automating the process. From The Guardian:

The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.

A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an "online persona management service" that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world.

The project has been likened by web experts to China's attempts to control and restrict free speech on the internet. Critics are likely to complain that it will allow the US military to create a false consensus in online conversations, crowd out unwelcome opinions and smother commentaries or reports that do not correspond with its own objectives.

The discovery that the US military is developing false online personalities – known to users of social media as "sock puppets" – could also encourage other governments, private companies and non-government organisations to do the same.

Twitter: Beware the App Bug

From The Daily Dot:

Direct messages are supposed to be private, but thanks to a Twitter bug, some apps can bust open your account and start accessing them anyway.  Cesar Cerrudo, a security researcher, discovered a bug that allowed third-party applications to access his DMs. Unfortunately, he didn't give the name of the app and blacked out a screenshot proving his privacy was violated.  Cerrudo, chief technical officer for IOActive, wrote that he is usually reluctant to sign in to applications using his Twitter or Facebook accounts due to "security implications," but needed to in order to test the software . . .

New Mega Site Launch Hits 1 Million Users on Day One

From The Next Web:

Mega, the new file sharing service from Kim Dotcom, has passed 1 million users, according to Kim Dotcom who spoke at the launch of the service at his mansion in New Zealand today.

We’re here on the ground , where the larger than life internet mogul is set to launch his latest venture officially. Mega is now open to the public, but Dotcom doesn’t do anything without some style so we’re here to see what he’s got up his sleeves.

Facebook Graph and the Problem of Discoverability

From EFF:

Facebook's Graph Search presents the problem of discoverability. One can have a good balance of privacy and openness if information is available, but not easily discoverable. You might not mind if people specifically interested in you look at your Likes, but you may not want to have a market researcher pull the list and add it to an ad targeting profile. You might be okay if a new person you met at a conference looks you up on Facebook, but you may not want a creepy guy searching through Facebook's loose networks to find someone to stalk. All of a sudden, what people once thought was shared only to their Facebook audience—whether friends, friends of friends, or member of the public with a specific reason to look you up—is now readily available via Graph Search. This feature has rolled everyone, by default, into a dating service ("Single females in San Francisco who like Radiohead") and a marketing database ("People under 25 who like Coca-Cola").

You Are Being Monetized

From Forbes:

With Tuesday’s announcement of Graph Search, Facebook has confirmed what we’ve known all along: we users aren’t there to enjoy content as much as we are the content. That means we’re the products it intends to monetize. . . .

We are the product on Facebook, and the platform’s very premise depends on our willingness to share our lives openly (there’s lots of theology on why we should reveal everything about ourselves online, though it’s usually written by people who do no such thing). Graph Search will eventually provide more pages for advertising, perhaps ever-better keyed to whatever it is we’re searching for. Maybe brands will be given a way to crap out the results with sponsored links, so it could get even worse than all those recommendations you get now from friends who made the mistake of clicking on something. I’d bet on ads running down the sides of every page, too. . . .

Faceless on Facebook

From Tech Crunch:

A Northern German state’s data protection commissioner has threatened to fine Mark Zuckerberg $26,000 for Facebook allegedly violating the country’s law stating citizens may use media services anonymously. Facebook plans to “fight [the threat] vigorously”. That’s wise, as altering its real-name policy could jeopardize Facebook’s future. Prohibiting pseudonyms lets Facebook remove spammers and serve as an identity provider for the web.

The Guardian reports that Thilo Weichert, the data protection commissioner of northern German state Schleswig-Holstein has informed Facebook Ireland and Zuckerberg that the CEO may be fined €20,000 for breaking German privacy law unless Facebook provides an option for Germans to use the service anonymously.