Did Facebook Suppress Conservative News?

[Update as of May 12]. Facebook has published this 28-page document summarizing its policies and procedures for reviewing and posting trending topics. I'll be looking at this document in more depth but here it is in its entirety.]


Yesterday, Gizmodo ran an explosive story alleging that Facebook routinely suppresses conservative news, according to a former journalist who worked for the company. The journalist, who remains unnamed, said that:

…workers prevented stories about the right-wing CPAC gathering, Mitt Romney, Rand Paul, and other conservative topics from appearing in the highly-influential section, even though they were organically trending among the site’s users."

Other former Facebook “news curators” reportedly told Gizmodo that they “were instructed to artificially ‘inject’ selected stories into the trending news module, even if they weren’t popular enough to warrant inclusion.”

Since the story broke, the news has trended widely, prompting RNC Chairman Reince Preibus to demand that Facebook answer these allegations.

Snopes, a site dedicated to researching rumors and urban legends, posted an update yesterday reminding readers that the allegations are still unproven.

And this morning, Facebook’s Tom Stocky, who leads the Trending Topics group, posted an update on Facebook stating categorically that:

“We do not insert stories artificially into trending topics, and do not instruct our reviewers to do so.”

To read the entire article, click here

The Deep Web

Facebook has created the ability for users to connect directly to the social network via the  "dark web" (sometimes referred to as deep web) service Tor.

While it was already possible to access Facebook via Tor, the new set-up means all data is encrypted and Tor users are not mistaken for hacked accounts.

Users could access the site "without losing the cryptographic protections" of Tor, Facebook said.

It may appeal to people in places where the network is blocked.

Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security.

Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location.

China, Iran, North Korea and Cuba are among countries that have attempted to prevent access to the site.

So too have such countries attempted to block access to Tor itself. China in particular has attempted to implement measures to disrupt the network.

The creators of Tor have been engaged in a cat-and-mouse game with governments to keep the service accessible.

Facebook is the first Silicon Valley giant to provide official support for Tor, a network built to allow people to visit web pages without being tracked and to publish sites whose contents would not show up in search engines.

Facebook's move would prove popular among those who wanted to stop their location and browsing habits from being tracked, said Dr Steven Murdoch, from University College London, who was consulted by Facebook for the project.

He explained users would still need to log-in, using real-name credentials, to access the site.

He told the BBC: "It's quite hard to use a social network completely anonymously, it somewhat defeats the point, unless you're just reading information.

"But just because you want to tell Facebook your name, doesn't mean they should be able to find out your location and your browsing habits."

The crucial change is the new Tor service means all communication remains in the anonymous Tor network. Previously, some traffic would leave the closed network and access the open internet, potentially exposing a user's location and other information.

Dr Murdoch dismissed suggestions the move could anger governments who regularly approached Facebook with requests to hand over user information.

"It's not so much protecting people from governments," said Dr Murdoch, "but protecting from people who are spying on communications - that could be anyone from criminals to marketers."

Jihadi on Facebook

Pop stars, sports teams and Hollywood actors aren’t the only ones with global followings on Facebook. Jihadis, too, have lots of rabid fans from around the world.

Where in the West are the biggest pockets of radical Islam fans?

To find out, search for outspoken jihadis on Facebook.  There are a total of seven main groups, covering a range of different countries.  Then explore where the people who follow those groups’ Facebook pages said they live.

As more jihadi groups use social networks to proselytize and even communicate with one another, governments and law-enforcement agencies halfway around the world are eager to know where the receptive audiences are located.

Turns out, Europe houses many more jihadi fans than the U.S. does.

Of the total 49,631 members in the groups we selected, 1,463 identify themselves as coming from European countries, while about 325 say they’re in the United States.

In Europe, the U.K. boasts 548 fans of the same pages—and London, with 260 fans, is far and away the most, well-represented city in the data.

The city of Paris came in a distant second.

Three of the four most, well-represented cities in Europe are in the United Kingdom, with Birmingham and Manchester joining the capital on the list.

The U.S. numbers are much smaller, with New York City topping the city scales, and California taking the title for the state where most people are active on the jihadi Facebook pages.

Of those Facebook jihadi fans, many express a strong religious affiliation, citing the likes of Al Qaeda or Allah as their employer. 

But despite a growing concern for privacy, and a near-ubiquitous trend for Western employers using social media profiles to screen employees, a large percentage of people who had liked extreme jihadi groups on Facebook did so side-by-side with listings for their actual places of work and study in Western countries.

They list themselves as attending well-to-do high schools, Ivy League universities and military academies in the U.K., U.S. and elsewhere.

They work at Google, Microsoft, Pizza Hut, JCPenney, Aeropostale and other globally recognized businesses.

SOCIAL MEDIA

What is Facebook?

Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, owned and operated by Facebook, Inc.  As of May 2012^[update], Facebook has over 900 million active users, more than half of them using mobile devices.  Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organized by workplace, school or college, or other characteristics, and categorize their friends into lists such as "People From Work" or "Close Friends". The name of the service stems from the colloquial name for the book given to students at the start of the academic year by some university administrations in the United States to help students get to know each other.

On May 18, 2012 Facebook started selling stock on the NASDAQ at a price of $38/share making it the third largest IPO in history, behind VISA (#1) and ENEL SpA (#2) but ahead of General Motors, AT &T Wireless, Kraft Foods, France Telecom, and Swisscom just to name a few; however, Facebook is the only one to be listed on NASDAQ, as all the rest were listed on NYSE. 

Facebook could not hold its original IPO price and it has fallen 32% in its price per share, reducing its original market capitalization from $104 Billion down to a little over $17 Billion.  Some say that Facebook

stock is only worth $7.50 not at 100 times earnings as it was originally priced by Morgan Stanely.  Apple and Google priced their IPOs at 15 times earnings and today they are trading at 13 and 18 times earnings respectively.

What is the future for Facebook? 

Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, at 26 years old says,

“our goal is to make everything social.”  Continuing, “If you look five years out, every industry is going to be rethought in a social way. . .  You can remake whole industries. That’s the big thing.”  Read entire article

On the other side of the coin there is a concern:

As social marketers, real estate professionals walk a tightrope of personal/professional transparency. Many have used their personal Facebook accounts to cast a wide net in building their sphere of influence. This is not the way Facebook envisions the best use of their platform. Facebook wants personal profiles to be more and more personal.

And this:

Well aware of the revenue not coming in from Facebook’s mobile app, the company recently revealed that mobile advertising would, in fact, be part of its long-term money-making strategy. The problem with mobile advertising is two-fold. First, Facebook has to find a way not to annoy those, roughly, 422 million users who currently access the network’s mobile app. Second, Facebook must manage to entice advertisers in order to gain mobile advertising dollars.

At the very least, Facebook’s IPO has created a bevy of new millionaires and college dropouts dreaming of becoming one.

WATCHING FACEBOOK STOCK GO DOWN THE DRAIN

Facebook Stock is Confusing

By Victor M Adamus

I don’t do stock purchases anymore.  Not since my entire portfolio hit the wall on a black Friday just before the noble George W left office.  In fact I kept telling my Broker to sell when I saw the stock pummel.  I actually had a stock that was worth $33 a share drop to thirteen cents.  The Broker, holding out for a big comeback, no longer represented me.  I cashed out the rest in a panic.  But Facebook?  Even if you followed it recently nothing makes any sense.

Facebook stock opened at $38 a share about a week ago.  It reached a high of $44 a share its’ first day of trading and has gone down ever since.  The drastic drop has cost investors an estimated $25 billion.  How’s that for having money to lose?  Of course those that lost, one investor alone lost $100 million, is suing on the basis of insider trading and whatever else will work to try to get their investment back.  Wealthy people can do that when they lose at the casino table.  And this was a huge bet for a company with no product that has as its claim to fame the largest social-networking service.  All that means is 900 million people worldwide access Facebook daily to talk to each other and put up pictures.  Hardly a stock for future growth, I think.

If you’re a Facebook fan, you may have seen the stock drop under $30 yesterday.  Not a good sign at all.  On the German stock market it was trading at $28.41 and retail experts in the U.S. say it could even go lower.  “It could fall quite significantly because it was priced at a significant premium”, said analyst Sameet Sinha.  Too bad you can’t get this type of information before the stock goes public.

I’m beginning to feel that everything on Wall Street is rigged.  Certainly the Facebook saga will be talked about for a long time.  People, experts, offering the whys as to the stock going down instead of climbing as predicted.  I’m glad I just sit on the stock sidelines now.  It’s much better for my blood pressure.  But along with Chase losing $3 billion in a crap shoot that skirted regulations, also a week ago, there is nothing on the horizon that tells me the stock market is stable.

BOYCOTT FACEBOOK!!

So he renounces his citizenship to avoid to pay U.S. taxes.  He's a creep and should be held accountable.  Start the boycott of Facebook now.

Article by Hogue at The Nation

When it was revealed last week that Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin renounced his US citizenship, even notorious bad-boy billionaire Mark Cuban took to Twitter to express his disgust. The move allows the 30-year old Saverin to avoid paying a significant chunk of the taxes he will owe on the windfall coming his way with the impending Facebook IPO. In making this decision, the Brazilian native did more than expose his blind disregard for all that his adopted country has done for him. He has made himself the poster child for the callous class of 1 percenters who are all too happy to use national resources to enrich themselves, and then skate, or cry foul, when asked to pay their fair share. The story evokes the image of the marauding aliens from the movie Independence Day, who come to Earth to take what they can get before moving on to another planet.

Saverin, who stands to make billions from his 4 percent share in Facebook, hastily moved here at the age of 13 when his name turned up on a list of potential kidnap victims targeted by criminal gangs in Brazil. His father was a wealthy businessman, with a high profile in their home country, and so his family relocated to Miami to protect the youngster. Eduardo thrived in his new country, eventually attending Harvard University, where he had a stroke of life-changing luck when he was assigned future Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as a roommate. Their subsequent struggle over the company has been immortalized in the blockbuster Academy Award–winning film, The Social Network, which portrayed Eduardo as an outsider within the close-knit circle of friends, who eventually only won his stake in the company through a lawsuit based on an early investment in the company.

READ THE REST