a proposal put forth by a French politician, Jean-Louis Masson, that would outlaw anonymous blogging (Google translation from the original French). The law says that anyone who "edits... a non-professional communication service online" must provide full identification information, including first and last names, full location and phone number.

Publishing the full name, location and phone number of a blogger? What a horrible idea!

A group of Islamists have been targeting persons they find offensive and using this method to silence them. Fabrice has been a target a couple of times. See the latest below, where he was blocked automatically. He wrote to Axten after this happen and Facebook acknowledged that, "(i)t's possible there was a mistake." Well, that's one way to put it. If it's a mistake it has a long history now of being consistently made. It may well be that it is a negative effect of Facebook's crowd-sourced block policy. More on the background from ReadWriteWeb and ReadWriteWeb France (in translation from the French).

The Facebook page devoted to targeting people for blocking

Turkey sentences student to year in jail for Facebook. "The 4th Magistrate Criminal Court in Eskişehir in north-western Turkey sentenced 22-year-old Erdem Büyük to imprisonment of 11 months because the university student posted a caricature of Büyükşehir Mayor Yilmaz Büyükerşen on the social networking website Facebook." The U.S. notion of the offended party in a libel suite needing to prove malice, and guilt, is rare globally. The court deferred the sentence for five years. If the student commits a similar crime, the sentence will begin. A pretty clever way to ensure cooperation.

Facebook users in Columbia use the social networking site for violence. Antanas Mockus, a candidate for president in Columbia, and Jerome Uribe, the son of the current president, have both been issued death threats via Facebook. A Facebook page called "I promise to kill Antanas Mockus before the 30th of May" has been shut down and Colombian anti-terror police are investigating.

China to force all internet users to register names before posting. "A report in yesterday's issue of China Daily quotes Wang Chen, the minister of the State Council Information Office, as saying the authorities were 'exploring an identity authentication system' for users of online forums. Internet users are currently required to register before posting comments on these site but they can use a pseudonym to post. Wang said that, after preventing anonymous posting on major news portals and commercial websites, the aim now was to extend the system to online forums and chat websites.

Thailand interrogates U.S. citizen, and the U.S. government allows it. "Anthony Chai, an American citizen from California, was interrogated by Thai officials in Thailand and again later in the U.S. for allegedly insulting the monarchy in 2006. Originally from Thailand, Chai was granted US citizenship in the late 1970s. He faces possible arrest if he returns to Thailand...In 2006, Thai officials also contacted the company who hosted the website where comments about the Thai king were traced to Chai's business computer. It is believed that Chai's IP address was provided by the web hosting company without his knowledge. In response, the U.S.-based hosting company shut down the website." Thailand uses lese majeste laws to harass opponents.

U.S. state of Washington okays library censorship. "A Washington state supreme court issued a decision...supporting a public library's decision to fully filter Internet content, stating that such filtering could be considered 'collection development.'" This could provide a precedent for a library developing a collection that excluded, say, a political party or historical material on slavery.

Chávez's Twitter reaches almost 350,000. After calling it "terrorism," the Venezuelan president's three week-old Twitter account now has just shy of 350K followers. Number one with a bullet in Venezuela. Chávez has never been known as a big fan of conversation - more of making pronunciamientos- so Twitter doesn't seem like it will loosen him up much, especially given he follows only five accounts: a pro-Chávez newspaper, two political allies, his own party and of course Fidel Castro.

Russia arrests Islamic convert blogger. "Ethnic Russian convert to Islam Alexei Dudko was arrested around May 5 and has been kept locked, away from lawyers and relatives. His blog was mainly focusing on the events in Ingushetia in the North Caucasus, but also general events in Russia attracted his attention. He kept his real name in strict secret and, according to some sources, his arrest came days after his name somehow surfaced in the internet. Needless to say, that the person was very critical of the Russian authorities."

Facebook's crowd-sourced block policy needs some human filtering. Automation without humans filtering is a waste of time and brilliance.

Facebook gives websites like Yelp, Pandora and Microsoft Docs access to your profile info.

HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF

On the upper right hand corner of your screen, click Account > Privacy Settings > Applications and Websites.

Click Edit Setting beside Instant Personalization Pilot Program.

The uncheck the box at the bottom of the screen.

Even if you opt out of the Instant Personalization Pilot Program, websites may still access info about you via your friends, unless you block each individual site’s application.

Yikes, these guys are outrageous. Thanks to NY Daily News for the easy guide to disable the information sharing.

Google doesn’t get brand / discovery advertising

Google’s ad business models are based on intent and relevance and not on discovery. The performance based AdWords and AdSense models are easier to measure and appeals to the logical / analytical minds at Google. The power of influence, discovery and brand advertising needs more right-brain thinking than Google’s left brainers are used to.

Also, instead of innovating and exploring new forms of brand advertising, Google’s strategy in that space over the last few years has been to simply buy DoubleClick which is the leader in old-school brand advertising (mostly banner ads). This basically means that there is no fresh thinking in this area at Google compared to Facebook, which understands the power of discovery and recommendation.

Bindu Reddy makes some interesting points in this great piece on Techcrunch. Google owns publishers, but unfortunately Facebook owns a large number of the users.

Considering she oversaw product management at Google. She knows her stuff.

The only thing that can hopefully slow Facebook's domination is the revolt building up due to Mark Zuckerberg's tendency to show his disregard for user privacy.

2. Make the private piece much easier to understand and setup. The New York Times actually exposed something gone very wrong at Facebook: you have too many privacy settings and too many choices. Boil them down to a few choices.

You’re Zucked!
=================
Yes, that’s the new catch phrase for when someone either steals your
business idea or screws you as a business partner.

Who’s been Zucked and how? Let’s take a look back:

1. FourSquare was Zucked when Facebook stole their check-in feature.
2. Twitter was Zucked when Facebook stole their public facing profiles.
3. Facebook users got Zucked when the site flipped their privacy
setting–three different times!
4. The co-founder of Facebook was allegedly Zucked when he was kicked
out of the company he helped found.
5. The founders of ConnectU got Zucked when he allegedly screwed them
over by not delivering their social network and then launching
Facebook at the same time–and joked about it!
6. Harvard reporters reportedly got Zucked when Mark hacked their
accounts to try and stop a negative story/investigation about him.

You can only screw people for so long before it catches up to you. The
entire industry went from rooting for Zuckerberg to hating him and
Facebook–in under 18 months.

Peter Rojas and Matt Cutts have turned off their Facebook pages, and
more intelligent people everywhere are talking about doing so.

Zuckerberg represents the best and worst aspects of entrepreneurship.
His drive, skill and fearlessness are only matched by his long
record–recorded in lawsuit after lawsuit–of backstabbing, stealing
and cheating.

This is just a small piece of an excellent article. Go read every word twice.

It is amazing that Zuckerberg has gotten away with so much. I am happy that the truth is out and he is exposed for what he is.

Facebook's behavior makes Twitter's look angelic. That is no easy feat.

We've all been Zucked!

"Stop Facebook and save the world" indeed!

P.S- I suppose it is OK to curate. Jason did post it himself. :)

The recent headlines full of how Facebook is playing fast and loose with out information should help to open eyes across social network platforms. Just assume there is no privacy.

Mistrust of the intentions of social sites appears to be pervasive. In its telephone survey of 1,000 people, the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology at the University of California found that 88 percent of the 18- to 24-year-olds it surveyed last July said there should be a law that requires Web sites to delete stored information. And 62 percent said they wanted a law that gave people the right to know everything a Web site knows about them.

That mistrust is translating into action. In the Pew study, to be released shortly, researchers interviewed 2,253 adults late last summer and found that people ages 18 to 29 were more apt to monitor privacy settings than older adults are, and they more often delete comments or remove their names from photos so they cannot be identified. Younger teenagers were not included in these studies, and they may not have the same privacy concerns. But anecdotal evidence suggests that many of them have not had enough experience to understand the downside to oversharing.

That man considered quitting Facebook because it was having an adverse emotional impact on him and I'll spare him and his contacts from posting the screenshot he shared with me. I have posted below though a shot of the screen I saw when I clicked that button myself. Check it out. I bet you haven't seen this screen before, have you?

Can you believe that? How incredibly manipulative! And what claims to make. Facebook has undoubtedly made it easier to keep in touch with people than almost any other technology on the planet, but to say that leaving Facebook means your friends "will no longer be able to keep in touch with you" is just wrong. Facebook often says little things like this that read like it thinks it has a monopoly on human connection.

Facebook shows users who want to deactivate their account a super manipulative screen, which I understand, from a business perspective. However the ease of which Facebook tries to toy with people's emotions while at the same time showing a complete lack of concern for users is absurd.

I also find the humor in the Facebook "Like" button beneath the post.

A necessary evil indeed.

Twitter is becoming a more robust and extensible platform, but they seem married to their limitations in terms of content. Facebook has added many FriendFeed-like features, but they have also acted in a way that makes me uncomfortable in terms of changing the rules of privacy in the middle of the game, while also locking away other pieces of content that should, in my mind, be public. In my position as somebody who manages Facebook pages for multiple clients, I could never delete my account (and leave them rudderless), but simply expect that all my data there will be discoverable and public and searchable, despite their promises to the contrary.

 

The world of social networking is not a zero-sum game. For Buzz to succeed does not mean that either of the other networks have to fail. In fact, it doesn't even mean that Buzz has to be the biggest network on the planet. But it does mean that it should have the potential to be the best. I need a powerful aggregation tool that watches my activity on Google Reader and native blogs, but also offers the option to share photos and videos in a public way. Buzz does that. I need a powerful tool that lets me find friends' updates from around the Web and engage with them in a central location. Buzz does that.

 

Louis makes great points as usual. He explains why Twitter is a fantastic tool, Facebook is a necessary evil (I agree) and how it is such a shame that Facebook bought Friendfeed and let it wither.

What if we had to deal with our high school lives (classmates, boyfriends, girlfriends) on Facebook? Teens don't know better than to air dirty laundry, but adults...you should know better. You can be authentic without sharing every humiliating detail.