Electronic tagging – the Facebook way

Facebook has done it again. Imposed new technology without asking you. This time it’s software which automatically identifies faces in your photographs starting with all your “friends”. And you can only untag them after they have been published online. Another example of reducing your privacy by default but that’s par for the course for Zuckerberg. He [...]

On-line bullying persists

The internet and mobile technology generally has been a boon to bullies. As well as Facebook, sites such as Little Gossip – recently shut down because of pressure from schools – provide anonymity to cyber-bullies who can make life hell for their victims. And now there is another such site, Formspring. The comments that are [...]

Facebook puts the boot in

We’ve already seen the Israeli army using Facebook to suss out people claiming to be orthodox so they can dodge conscription. Now the Jewish football league has suspended the London Holy Mount Zion team from the Maccabi Southern Football League after discovering – via Facebook – that they were fielding non-jewish players under false names. [...]

Facebook – no global domination just yet

Megalomaniac Mark Zuckerberg must have been really annoyed when he read in the Independent that his creation is not the most popular social networking site everywhere in the world (assuming he ever reads an actual newspaper). Rhodri Marsden’s Cyberclinic column spelled it out: Facebook hasn’t yet “connected the world”. An Italian blogger has pulled together data [...]

Those you have read – top 10 in 2010

When you first sit down to write a blog you hope people are going to want to read it – unless you plan it as a private journal where you can unburden yourself or have a rant at the world (OK so occasionally I have a rant too). So it’s great for me that so [...]

Facebook in the firing line – again

I’ve taken a few potshots at Facebook in the past but now the military is getting involved. The US military is concerned that the new location features in social networking sites could endanger the lives of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Air Force has warned on its internal web-site that the geo-location application “Places” in [...]

So much social networking, so little time

Malaysians have the most “friends” on their social networks, according to a study in 46 countries, with an average of 233 followed closely by Brazil with 231 and Norway with 217. In Japan the average is only 29, perhaps reflecting cultural differences about what friendship really means, and 68 in China (no surprise perhaps given [...]

1 new partner = 2 fewer friends

Get a date but lose a mate? Well two actually according to Robin Dunbar’s research. He’s a social anthropologist at Oxford and I’ve quoted him before back in May in my post “So many friends but still lonely”. He argues that when you start dating or get married you lose 2 of your friends because you [...]

Facebook vigilantes cop traffic offenders in Delhi

In India Delhi traffic police set up a page in Facebook two months ago with the intention of informing the public about traffic snarl-ups. What they actually got was “crowd sourced” photographs of people breaking the traffic laws. The Facebook vigilantes have posted 3,000 images which have resulted in 700 tickets being issued including 50 [...]

Shoot yourself in the foot – join Facebook

Actually any social networking site will do it according to an article in The Times (2/7/2010). The American Academy of Divorce Lawyers says 80% of its members have used or been faced with evidence from social networking sites. The biggest source is Facebook (66%), then MySpace (15%) and Twitter (5%). From pot-smoking denials to claims [...]