Yes, Bad People Use Facebook Too

from the in-case-you-didn't-know dept

Reader Tina alerts us to an article about how some students in Venezuela have been arrested for using Facebook to monitor other students' activities, and then rob them while they were out. Of course, it appears the plan wasn't that foolproof, considering they were caught. The rest of the article discusses Facebook and Twitter usage in Venezuela, and how the police and the government are trying to use those tools to crack down not just on crime, but also on dissent... at the same time that government protesters are using the tools to make themselves more widely heard (and organized). There isn't that much surprising -- and it seems that the role of social networks is merely to amplify what is going on already in the country, which is about what you'd expect. Still, it is interesting to see this sense of wonder that some people have over the fact that not everyone who uses Facebook uses it for "good" reasons.

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Facebook As Your Alibi

from the when-your-status-suddenly-becomes-important dept

There have been stories here and there about Facebook statuses implicating people in a crime, but how about one that helped get someone cleared from a crime? Apparently, a guy who was accused of being involved in a burglary used the fact that he had updated his Facebook status at around the time of the crime, and had supposedly done so from his father's apartment, as evidence that he wasn't present at the burglary. The police subpoenaed Facebook to get the actual location where the update came from (and said it corroborated some additional alibis), but it seems to be one of the first (if not the first) case of a social networking status update being useful as an alibi.

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Well Duh: People Who Use Social Networking Tend To Have Larger Social Circles

from the we-needed-research-for-that? dept

While I guess there are still some people who think that sitting around on your computer isn't "interacting" with other people, I would have thought that the myth that computer users are loners died off a long time ago. However, apparently we still need studies to debunk that. The latest, from Annenberg and Pew found that people who use social networks have a larger social circle than those who don't. And, no, the study didn't just count how many friends you have on Facebook, but found out from people the number of people with whom they felt comfortable talking over important issues. That number was noticeably higher for those who used modern technology more frequently. So again, even though I had thought the stereotype died off ages ago, here's a bit more evidence that being an internet geek doesn't mean you're a loner.

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Smart Use Of Facebook By College Helps Students

from the it's-a-tool dept

Earlier this year, a study claiming that students who used Facebook had lower grades got a lot of attention, with the typical fear mongering and moral panics coming out of the woodwork. But, of course, correlation does not mean causation, and Facebook is just a tool. For schools that use it in a smart way, perhaps it could do good. Reader Ben Ketteridge points us to the news of how Gloucestershire College has embraced Facebook to help students do better. It's kept the staff and faculty better in touch with students and reduced drop out rates, so far. It's also helped students work together in virtual study groups, something that other colleges have complained was a form of cheating. It's nice to see at least some higher education institutions looking at ways to use tools to improve the overall experience, rather than just complaining about such online services.

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If You're A Fugitive, You Probably Shouldn't Update Your Facebook Status With Location... Or Friend A Fed

from the some-suggestions dept

No one ever said criminals were particularly intelligent. With all the stories we've seen of various people revealing things they shouldn't on social networking systems, you knew that stories like this one were going to become more common. Apparently a fugitive on the run for bank fraud not only updated his Facebook status with his whereabouts (a resort in Cancun, Mexico), but also "friended" a former Justice Department official, who helped hand over the fugitive's info to officials who tracked down and arrested the guy.

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On The Uselessness Of Blocking Social Networks At Work

from the did-you-block-the-telephone? dept

When this new-fangled invention called "the telephone" first became popular, there were some offices that refused to allow them on office workers' desks, for fear that they would be a waste of time and a distraction that took away from work. I sort of feel the same way when I hear about companies banning Facebook or Twitter, these days. As we've said before, it's obvious that there are people who abuse such tools, and you deal with that by recognizing that they're not being productive and either telling them to shape up or firing them. Blocking a very useful communications tool just because some people might abuse it doesn't seem particularly smart. And yet... it's happening more and more. Yet another study shows how common it is for IT staff to block access to such sites.

However, an article at The Globe & Mail points out how silly this is. The people who are really obsessed with using such sites will simply find ways around such blocks, whether its via some sort of proxy site -- or just by accessing the sites via a smartphone, outside the control of the corporate IT staff. On top of that -- especially with younger staff -- it sets up a workplace where management says, right upfront: we don't trust you. Why not hire more trustworthy staff and deal individually with those who abuse the system, rather than putting forth an outright ban that throws out the potential good uses along with the misuses?

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Sucks Site Lawsuits Move To Include Facebook As Well

from the really? dept

We've covered how it's a dumb idea for companies to sue so-called "sucks sites," (sites that complain about a company). First, plaintiffs in such lawsuits almost never win. The trademark claims almost always fail. No one is confusing the sucks site with the company they complain about. Second, just bringing such a lawsuit tends to call significantly more attention to the complaints against the company (the ever popular "Streisand Effect"). And yet... they still keep on coming. The latest one has a bit of a twist, though. Rather than suing the owner of a website, the organization is suing the guy who set up a complaint group on Facebook. Other than that, though, the scenarios are basically the same. In this case, a beauty school student set up a Facebook group to complain about things happening at the school, and the school sued for both the use of the logo (trademark infringement) and on claims that many of the posts to the group were defamatory.

The trademark claim hopefully gets tossed aside quickly. No one's going to confuse the group for being a part of the school, and it's difficult to see how they'll make a claim that the use was "in commerce." The defamation claim really depends on what was said... but if it was said by other students, then it's difficult to see how the student who started the group can be held liable for them. Besides, some courts at least have noted that online forums are the equivalent of a bunch of friends talking over drinks, and the speech should naturally be taken less seriously. One hopes that the judge in this case recognizes the nature of basic online conversations as well.

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Facebook Sued Over Patent On Distributing Personal Info On A Network

from the no,-really dept

As you probably know by now, as a company gets bigger and more successful it means that they will certainly be sued for patent infringement. This isn't because they somehow "took" or "copied" someone else's ideas. But because there are so many ridiculous and overly broad patents out there that some jealous patent holder will seek to make some easy money with a lawsuit against a much more successful company. Facebook is already facing a few such lawsuits, including one where it's been ordered to reveal its entire source code.

The latest such lawsuit involves a tiny company, WhoGlue, who holds a patent 7,246,164 on "Distributed personal relationship information management system and methods." And, of course, WhoGlue has decided that Facebook infringes and needs to pay up. There are all sorts of problems with this kind of lawsuit. You have a patent on an obvious concept, that Facebook clearly developed independently (as have many others). And now Facebook will need to go spend on a legal defense. What a waste of resources.

Once again, we see that those who can't compete, sue.

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No, Technology Doesn't Replace Reporting... But Who Said It Did?

from the tools-vs.-activity dept

A bunch of folks have been sending in Roger Cohen's NY Times Op-Ed basically mocking those who claim that Twitter is replacing journalism. The only problem? It's not clear anyone is actually doing that. I actually agree with much of Cohen's op-ed, but it seems to be setting itself up against a strawman that doesn't exist. No one's saying that Twitter replaces journalism. Just that it (and blogs and social networks and a variety of other new tools) help change the overall landscape that is journalism. So, when Cohen writes:

For journalism is distillation. It is a choice of material, whether in words or image, made in pursuit of presenting the truest and fairest, most vivid and complete representation of a situation.

It comes into being only through an organizing intelligence, an organizing sensibility. It depends on form, an unfashionable little word, without which significance is lost to chaos. As Aristotle suggested more than two millennia ago, form requires a beginning and middle and end. It demands unity of theme. Journalism cuts through the atwitter state to thematic coherence.

I agree. But I don't see how that says anything bad about Twitter or participatory journalism at all. In fact, it just reminds me of why the larger ecosystem allows more wonderful things to happen thanks to these new tools. Of course there's still an important role for distilling all of the info. Of course there's still a huge role for professional journalists. I don't think anyone denies that. But that's not a condemnation of Twitter or the fact that it's being used by many as a part of the journalism process. It just highlights how there's a bigger ecosystem of data and information for the professional journalists to distill. And it would be great if they did that instead of spending so much time fretting about the rise of these tools instead.

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New Lawsuit Against Facebook From People Who Just Don't Like Facebook

from the what's-your-cause-of-action? dept

Another day, another bizarre lawsuit. Eric Goldman points us to a lawsuit against Facebook that is best summarized as "we don't like Facebook, and we're sure it's doing something bad." It involves a few different plaintiffs who all have very different complaints, combined with some weird claims about Facebook violating their privacy, and that it's really a data mining company in disguise. But, of course, there's an easy way to avoid any such issue. It's called not using Facebook. The lawsuit also seems to rely on the fact that lots of people don't like the terms of service that Facebook has used, but not liking the terms don't necessarily make them against the law. There's also a poorly explained copyright claim -- but it's so unclear that I can't tell if the complaint is that Facebook is violating copyrights by showing the photos that one of the plaintiffs themselves uploaded (which would be flat out ridiculous), or that the issue is other users uploading photos (which would be pre-empted by the DMCA's safe harbors). The whole thing seems like a group of people suing Facebook for the hell of it and hoping to get some cash out of it.

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Home Burglar Returns To Taunt Couple Via Facebook?

from the remote-logout-time? dept

Over in the UK, there's a story about a home burglar, who stole a laptop among other things, and then used the fact that the latpop was logged into a Facebook account to taunt the victims via one family member's own Facebook account, noting that he was happy with his take (especially the laptop and a Nintendo DS) and that he'd left the TV because it was "rubbish," before noting that he was off to the pawn shop (he wrote "porn shop" but he probably meant the former). He then signed it, "regards, your nighttime burglar." Of course, it makes you wonder if this only makes him easier to catch, as now police have an IP address to look up as well...

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Illinois Says Sex Offenders Can't Use Social Networks

from the ok,-but... dept

Mark alerts us to the news that Illinois has approved a new law that bans registered sex offenders from social networking sites. Now, I have no sympathy for anyone who uses a social networking site to approach kids for such nefarious purposes, but this seems like a rather broad brush for a variety of reasons. First, considering how many sites have added "social networking" features lately, this could block out a rather large portion of the internet. Hell, just recently Google announced new social features for its iGoogle homepage. Second, the vast majority of registered sex offenders weren't convicted of trying to entice a kid via a social network. Completely blocking all of those people from social networks seems rather pointless. Finally, the whole idea that social networks are some sort of breeding ground for predators is a moral panic made up by the press. Studies have shown that the common story of a predator getting online, pretending to be a kid, and befriending "targets" and "grooming" them is mostly a myth. That's not to say it hasn't happened, but it's quite rare, and the best way to deal with it is simply to educate kids on how to deal with strangers. Most are smart enough to deal with the issue on their own. But, of course, that doesn't make for good headlines for politicians who want to make sure everyone knows they're "protecting the children."

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Facing Five Years In Prison For Posting A Photo On MySpace Wearing Gang Colors

from the seems-a-bit-harsh dept

Dealing with gang activity is certainly a priority in areas beset by gang violence, but does that mean we throw out certain First Amendment rights? Last year, Florida passed a new anti-gang law that banned using electronic communications "for the purpose of benefiting, promoting, or furthering the interests of a criminal gang" and that included "advertis[ing] his or her presence in the community" via an online image or video. Apparently, authorities in Florida have now arrested 15 people under this law based on their MySpace profiles, including one 14-year-old who "posted pictures of himself dressed in gang colors and displaying gang hand signals." For this, all of those arrested now face up to 5 years in prison. Some are already protesting the constitutionality of this law. It certainly seems like a limit on free expression.

Even recognizing the problems with gang violence, it seems a bit extreme to arrest people and threaten them with jailtime just for posting such photos on their profiles. Why not use that information to track and monitor certain gang members to try to stop actual illegal gang activity? Here are kids advertising to anyone (including the police) that they're in a gang, which should make it easier for the police to follow them and use that info to deal with real gang activity.

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Are Parents Making Facebook Uncool?

from the it's-always-something dept

My parents recently joined Facebook (a few months after joining Twitter), and I actually thought that was pretty cool -- but I'm no longer at the age where everything my parents do embarrasses me. For kids who are at that point in their lives, having parents join Facebook is quite a conundrum. The latest study out of the UK is suggesting that, with parents suddenly joining Facebook en masse, it's becoming uncool for kids to be there. I have no idea how accurate the study is, but if it's true, it raises an interesting question: is there a way to avoid such an "uncoolness" factor as a site like Facebook expands? I would think that you'd need to build in certain features to separate out groups easily, so that you could quickly dunk parents into a certain bucket, and friends into a different one, to make sure that lives are "kept separate."

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What Would Happen If Social Networking Sites Charged

from the a-thought-experiment dept

JohnForDummies alerts us to a suggestion from Dan Lyons over at Newsweek, saying that sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube should just start charging for their basic service. He brushes off those who think it's a bad idea as "the prevailing wisdom in Silicon Valley today is that everything on the Internet must be free." Except, that's not true. No one (NO ONE) is saying "everything on the internet must be free." This is just a silly strawman put forth by folks with little understanding of the business models people are actually discussing. Lyons also fails in recognizing that his "example" isn't even a very good one. He talks about PalTalk, who has built a business by offering premium features at a fee. That's the typical "freemium" model, but that's not what he then suggests for Facebook and Twitter, who he says should just start charging. Amazingly, he suggests that Facebook would only lose 50% of its users if it started charging (in fact, he seems to suggest that this is a conservative estimate: "Even if half of Facebook's members were to leave rather than pay...")

Well, there's a problem with both Lyons' math and his crystal ball. In cases where companies have gone from free to charging, the numbers I've seen (and, yes, it does range slightly, depending on the service) the rate of uptake is usually somewhere between 0 and 1% at best. Even if we grant Facebook some credit as being a "necessity" for students, I'd be shocked if they could get 5% of people to pay up to use the service -- and they'd find that number dwindle really fast. With only 5% of people using the service, it certainly becomes a lot less useful. Rather than communicating with all your friends, you can now only communicate with the 5% who ponied up. Or, you jump ship to someone else that doesn't charge.

And that's the real issue. The second that Facebook even hinted at charging users for basic service is the second users would start moving en masse to another (very, very happy competitors would be quick to offer themselves as an alternative). I recognize that it was still back in the days when Dan Lyons hated social media and thought social networking and blogs were evil, but he might want to familiarize himself with the history of Friendster. For a while, there were all sorts of rumors that Friendster was about to start charging, and MySpace kicked off a very well coordinated "grassroots" rumor campaign about how Friendster was about to charge, and everyone should switch to MySpace before Friendster put up a paywall.

In other words, not only will a lot less than 50% of people sign up for a pure fee-based Facebook, but everyone will move elsewhere, making that the place to be (for free). That's not to say that Facebook couldn't come up with some additional offerings of value that it could charge for, but the idea of charging for the basic service is really short-sighted and easily debunked if you think through it.

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Student Files Lawsuit After Teacher Demands Facebook Password, Logs Into Account & Distributes Private Messages

from the wow dept

Remember the story recently about how Bozeman, Montana was asking all applicants for city jobs to hand over their social networking passwords so city officials could log into their accounts? After some widespread complaints, the city smartly backed down, but apparently they're not the only ones demanding passwords. CitMediaLaw points us to a lawsuit filed in Mississippi, concerning a high school student who turned over her Facebook password at the demand of a teacher at the school. The teacher proceeded to log into her account, read her private messages and then send them around to others at the school, causing a lot of problems for the girl.

Apparently, the teacher had originally demanded usernames and passwords to Facebook from a bunch of students to see if they were doing anything illegal (drugs, drinking, etc.), which is already pretty questionable from a privacy standpoint (and violates Facebooks' terms of service). But to then use the contents of private communication to publicly humiliate the girl and punish her for her private messages seems to go way beyond what is both right and legal. Other students at the school had quickly deleted their Facebook profiles when the teacher demanded their passwords, but this girl chose not to, but certainly never expected what followed. It's amazing that any teacher would think that they have a right to demand access to private social networking accounts and then to make use of the content of private messages in that manner.

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Associated Press's Continued Delusion: Social Networking Guidelines Require Employees To Delete Other People's Content

from the hello,-let-me-explain-to-you-the-web dept

It's no secret that the Associated Press has had a rather difficult time figuring out its place in the online world, often resorting back to weak attempts to re-enact the old walls and scarcities that simply don't exist in the internet world. Lately, it's been having a lot of trouble figuring out how to have its own employees interact on social networks -- first reprimanding an employee for stating his personal opinion about an AP-member newspaper in his Facebook account. Now, however, the AP has released "staff guidelines" for how to use social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, and there are some highly questionable rules there. The one getting the most attention -- for good reason -- is the bizarre and troubling demand that those who use Facebook not only have to watch their own language, but the language of any friend that posts a comment on their Facebook "wall." Seriously. They want AP employees to comb through any comments that friends/family/etc. post on their wall -- and if they "violate AP standards: any such material should be deleted." It's difficult to fathom how this could possibly make sense and isn't a huge burden for AP employees as well as obnoxious to their friends and family. Does the AP also tell its employees that when out to dinner with friends, they must "shush" them if their friends say anything not up to "AP standards"?

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Bozeman Drops Requirement For Social Networking Passwords

from the wonder-what-made-that-happen? dept

Last week, we were among a bunch of blogs and news organizations who questioned the fact that the city of Bozeman, Montana was making job applicants hand over not just info on their social networking activities, but usernames and passwords to all accounts. This certainly got a lot of attention, and, not surprisingly it's caused the city to drop the requirement and to say that it had made a mistake (found via Slashdot). Still, it makes you wonder why it took a press onslaught for the city to recognize the potential problems with such a privacy violation.

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City Requires Job Applicants To Hand Over All Online Usernames And Passwords

from the privacy,-much? dept

Slashdot points us to the incredible story that the city of Bozeman, Montana, as part of its hiring screening process requires applicants to not just list out what social networks and online sites they are "members" of, but to provide full login info, including passwords to all of those sites. What's even more incredible, is how the city defends it:

"So, we have positions ranging from fire and police, which require people of high integrity for those positions, all the way down to the lifeguards and the folks that work in city hall here. So we do those types of investigations to make sure the people that we hire have the highest moral character and are a good fit for the City,"

Apparently, having "the highest moral character" doesn't include knowing better than to violate prospective employees' privacy -- and the privacy of people they communicate with via social networks. When the newspaper reporter writing the story asked why the city didn't just create, say, a page on Facebook and ask applicants to "friend" it in order to see their profile, the city attorney seemed surprised that this was even possible, noting that he would explore that option.

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MySpace: That Great Club Everyone Used To Go To

from the what-will-open-in-its-space? dept

With the news that MySpace is laying off a big chunk of staff and trying to refocus and start to win back some buzz from Facebook and Twitter, our own Derek Kerton made a useful observation that social networks appear to be similar to nightclubs: "Launch, get hot, go bust in 2-3 years, and then another sets up in the same place." Indeed. How quickly people forget. In the 90s, you could argue that GeoCities and SixDegrees were the "social networks" everyone used. And then there was Friendster which begat MySpace which begat Facebook which begat Twitter.

So, the question is... is this inevitable? Should we consider social networks the equivalent of a hip night club with a clear and inherent half-life of "coolness" before it certainly goes bust only to be replaced by something else? If so, what are the signs of trouble? When big media takes over? When Hollywood stars sign up? When your parents sign up? If not, what's the difference? Who can break the cycle?

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