The creepiness that is Facebook

[IanEye]

Project Willow is no goon.

Indeed.

why the goon jacket, freemason?

[Peregrine]

whoa, i just realized that you're a goon

[Jeff]

freemason9, personal attacks aren't welcome here.

[82_28]

DOOD, FM9. I just met Project Willow a couple of weeks ago. She's no goon holmes. If she's a goon then so are we all. It's saturday, go grab a beer and chill out.

[Sweejak]

i see no purpose in facebook, aside from announcing party invitations and spreading the word about your favorite type of cake

Facebook is a "killer app". They've killed lists and damped some groups and forums.
I'd pay money to have a privacy enhanced, open source, craigslist kind of FB. It's a great application.

[jam.fuse]

Creepy or not, its not going away anytime soon.

Facebook is expected to say this week that it has reached 500 million users, making it the biggest information network on the Internet in a meteoric rise that has connected the world into an online statehood of status updates, fan pages and picture exchanges.

In its six-year history, the site has become ritualized in our daily lives. It has even attracted the unwilling who join for fear of being cut out of the social fabric. It has connected old friends and family. It has helped make and break political campaigns and careers. It has turned many of us into daily communicators of one-line missives on the profound and mundane. And it has tested the limits of what we care to share and keep private.

The sheer impact and sized of the Facebook universe has captured the attention of federal regulators and lawmakers who are struggling to protect consumers and their privacy as they flock to this and other sites like Twitter. The privately held company that still thinks of itself as a startup is also learning how to handle the new responsibilities that its massive trove of information about its half billion users brings.

=snip=

The half-billion-member-mark can’t be understated. To put the number into perspective, the population inhabiting Facebook now equals that of the United States, Japan and Germany combined. Or, two Mexicos and a Brazil. The universe of Facebook membership is less than half the population of India, but in the last year the social networking Internet site has doubled in size

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/posttech/2010/07/facebook_hits_500_million_user.html

[brekin]

The half-billion-member-mark can’t be understated. To put the number into perspective, the population inhabiting Facebook now equals that of the United States, Japan and Germany combined. Or, two Mexicos and a Brazil. The universe of Facebook membership is less than half the population of India, but in the last year the social networking Internet site has doubled in size

Its boggling to think what would happen if some hacker used FB for some Orson Welles War of the Worlds scenario. Even getting a percentage of the total FB users to do something or believe something unawares could rickroll civilization.

[justdrew]

500 million?

I'd guess half of them are fake accounts setup to use for peeking

[barracuda]

On Facebook: Israeli soldier posed with bound Arab

A former Israeli soldier posted photos on Facebook of herself in uniform smiling beside bound and blindfolded Palestinian prisoners, drawing sharp criticism Monday from the Israeli military and Palestinian officials.

Israeli news websites and blogs showed two photographs of the woman. In one, she is sitting legs crossed beside a blindfolded Palestinian man who is slumped against a concrete barrier. His face is turned downwards, while she leans toward him with her face upturned. Another shows her smiling at the camera with three Palestinian men with bound hands and blindfolds behind her.

The incident was a reminder of the fraught relations between Israeli soldiers and the West Bank Palestinians under their control.

Israeli soldiers have run into trouble on the social media sites like Facebook and YouTube before. Most recently a group of combat soldiers were reprimanded for breaking into choreographed dance moves while on patrol in the West Bank town of Hebron. The dance featured prominently on YouTube.

Palestinian Authority spokesman Ghassan Khatib condemned the photos and said they pointed to a deeper malaise — how Israel's 43-year-old occupation of Palestinians has affected the Israelis who enforce it.

"This shows the mentality of the occupier," Khatib said, "to be proud of humiliating Palestinians. The occupation is unjust, immoral and, as these pictures show, corrupting."

The Israeli military also criticized the young woman, who Israeli news media and bloggers identified from her Facebook page as Eden Aberjil of the southern Israeli port town of Ashdod. No official confirmed her identity.

"These are disgraceful photos," said Capt. Barak Raz, an Israeli military spokesman. "Aside from matters of information security, we are talking about a serious violation of our morals and our ethical code and should this soldier be serving in active duty today, I would imagine that no doubt she would be court-martialed immediately," he told Associated Press Television News.

It was not clear whether the army could punish the woman, because she has finished her compulsory military service.

[MinM]

rigorousintuition.ca - View topic - Play "Six Degrees of Hank Paulson"!

rigorousintuition.ca - View topic - Facebook and the CIA

[Avalon]

Project Willow and others who are taking care of the seriously ill should check out CaringBridge at http://www.caringbridge.org/.
It's run by a non-profit, and offers free, private websites which include options for a guestbook and email updates to those on a patients list of family and friends. I'm getting regular updates about a friend who's currently looking to get on a transplant list, and found it really helped in terms of getting news about a friend who was dying a couple of years ago.

[Avalon]

I recently drove 100 miles on a day with heat index over 100 degrees, to go to a picnic in my old home town, for all alumni of the high school. About a thousand people attended. It was very decentralized and Facebook driven, from organizing logistics to sharing old and recent photos and high school memorabilia. Not at all like those sterile, formulaic reunions handed over to professional reunion companies.

The dozen or so who were there from my class had mostly been acquaintances, some I'd never exchanged a word with back then, or even encountered. Yet it was very warm and friendly, and it's been fascinating to see how supportive and egalitarian the connections are now. We may have come from very different high school crowds, but those old divisions have melted down. There's nothing quite like being recognized and hugged by one of the very popular girls even before I have my nametag on, a girl who I didn't think had even known who I was back then, to bring out that old Sally Field, "You like me! You really like me!" And oddly enough, despite my cynicism about such things both back then and now, for the first time ever (and it's been over 35 years since I graduated) I felt "school spirit." You can laugh and roll your eyes at how dorky that is, but anything that brings warmth and connectedness like that in these times is a good thing.

[Project Willow]

Project Willow and others who are taking care of the seriously ill should check out CaringBridge at http://www.caringbridge.org/.
It's run by a non-profit, and offers free, private websites which include options for a guestbook and email updates to those on a patients list of family and friends. I'm getting regular updates about a friend who's currently looking to get on a transplant list, and found it really helped in terms of getting news about a friend who was dying a couple of years ago.

Oh, thank you so much Avalon. We did have a Caring Bridge page for my friend at the time, and she had her own complicated reaction to it, and understandably so, but it was very helpful for many of her carers then.

I hope your friend fares well.

[beeline]

Link

3 Colombian teens on Facebook hit list killed in past 10 days
By Arthur Brice, CNN
August 24, 2010 -- Updated 2138 GMT (0538 HKT)

(CNN) -- Three teens who were on a 69-name hit list posted on Facebook have been killed in the past 10 days in a southwestern Colombian town, officials say.

Police say they do not know who posted the list or why the names are on it.

"It is still not clear," Colombian national police spokesman Wilson Baquero told CNN. "This is part of the investigation."

But officials note that a criminal gang known as Los Rastrojos and a Marxist guerrilla group called the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia operate in the area.

The hit list on Facebook, which was posted August 17, gave the people named three days to leave the town of Puerto Asis or be executed, said Volmar Perez Ortiz, a federal official whose title is defender of the public.

Police at first thought the posting was a joke, Perez said in a statement issued Saturday. But the publication of a second list with 31 additional names led authorities to convene a special security meeting Friday, Perez said.

The posting of the lists and the meetings occurred after the first two killings, which took place August 15, Perez said.

On that day, officials say, 16-year-old student Diego Ferney Jaramillo and 17-year-old CD retailer Eibart Alejandro Ruiz Munoz were shot and killed while riding a motorcycle on the road between Puerto Asis and the town of Puerto Caicedo.

Both their names were later found on the first published hit list.

Also on the list was Norbey Alexander Vargas, 19, who was killed August 20, Perez said. Another young man, 16-year-old student Juan Pablo Zambrano Anacona, was wounded in the same incident when he gave chase to the assassins, Perez said.

Colombian media said Monday the number of those threatened has grown and panic has overtaken Puerto Asis, with some parents sending their children out of town because their names are on the Facebook notice.

The names of 31 women were posted on the other list, said Radio RCN, semana.com and other news outlets.

Residents have been overcome with "panic and anxiety," several news outlets quoted Putumayo state official Andres Gerardo Verdugo as saying.

Several of those residents posted their concerns on Twitter, an online messaging site.

"Panic in Puerto Asis, Putumayo, because of threats against young people," wrote a user who goes by JuanSepulvedah. "Our youth must be protected."

Someone who posted under the name JulianEco brought up the Facebook connection.

"The situation in Puerto Asis is tenacious, that a social site be used to add fire to the Colombian conflict," the post said.

Twitter user hugoparragomez likened the situation to the drug-fueled crime waves in other Colombian cities.

"What is happening in Puerto Asis, Putumayo, is grave, the same as in Medellin," the tweet said. "Authorities should take control of the situation. Who is investigating?"

Still others inflated the death count.

"In Puerto Asis they have killed 20 young people threatened on Facebook and the authorities have not said anything," wrote jesusmhenriquez "That is Colombia."

Federal officials say they are taking the threats seriously and have sent investigators from Bogota, the nation's capital, to Puerto Asis. Internet experts are among the investigators assigned to the case.

Authorities also are offering a reward of 5 million pesos (around $2,750) for information on the killings.

Perez, the federal defender of the public, noted that the Los Rastrojos criminal gang is active in Puerto Asis, "executing violent actions, resolving community conflicts, imposing living and conduct norms, intimidating and meting punishment against ... drug sellers and consumers, sex workers, people with criminal and unlawful histories and threatening social leaders, business people, taxi drivers and motorcycle taxi drivers."

Perez said the Marxist guerrillas, commonly known as the FARC, also are active in the remote area, which borders Ecuador.

Two Facebook representatives did not return a message Tuesday asking for comment.

[Penguin]

i see no purpose in facebook, aside from announcing party invitations and spreading the word about your favorite type of cake

Facebook is a "killer app". They've killed lists and damped some groups and forums.
I'd pay money to have a privacy enhanced, open source, craigslist kind of FB. It's a great application.

This seems promising in a way, even though the approach is different in some ways, but something I could like - Diaspora:
http://www.joindiaspora.com/project.html

However, a 500 million userbase is a lot of inertia. Its like Microsoft on the software market to compete against Facebook as a new entry to the social media...