Kuwait to try two over Twitter posts: official

Kuwait will put on trial two citizens for criticizing Gulf Arab ruling families on social media site Twitter, a security official said on Monday.

Nasser Abul, a Kuwaiti Shi'ite Muslim, was arrested for posting criticisms of the Sunni Muslim ruling families in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and Lawrence al-Rashidi posted defamatory comments of Kuwait's emir, he said.

He said both would remain in detention for two more weeks before a hearing is scheduled, where they will likely face charges of harming the Gulf Arab state's interests and defaming the country's ruler after being arrested earlier in June.

Democracy activists have used social media such as Facebook and Twitter to debate, organize and share information in Bahrain, where the kingdom's Sunni rulers crushed a protest movement in March led mostly by the country's Shi'ite majority.

Bahrain called in troops from Sunni-led neighbors such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to enforce its crackdown. OPEC member Kuwait, which has a Shi'ite minority, sent naval forces.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/27/us-kuwait-twitter-idUSTRE75Q1UH20110627

Facebook denies losing users

Facebook has denied that it is losing customers, saying it is "pleased" with growth.

Figures from Faceboook monitoring site Inside Facebook suggested that during May, Facebook lost six million users in the US and 100,000 in the UK.

But the social network, which does not usually comment on third party statistics, questioned how it arrived at this figure.

Other net measurement firms said they had seen growth over the same period.

"From time to time, we see stories about Facebook losing users in some regions. Some of these reports use data extracted from our advertising tool, which provides broad estimates on the reach of Facebook ads and isn't designed to be a source for tracking the overall growth of Facebook," the firm said in a statement.

"We are very pleased with our growth and with the way people are engaged with Facebook. More than 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day," it added.

The figures from Inside Facebook claimed that 1.5 million Canadian users left the social network in May.

But overall it showed that Facebook was growing, to a total of 687 million users worldwide with many new customers coming from countries such as India, the Philippines and Indonesia.

Its figures on customer leakage do not appear to tally with those from net measurement firm comScore.

It told the BBC it had seen a 21% growth for US users on Facebook during May, while the UK gained 368,000 new recruits between February and May.

According to comScore, the average amount of time spent on the site was also up, from 21 minutes per day in December 2009 to 25 minutes per day by December 2010.

Measurement firm Nielsen said its figures also showed growth.

"There are months when figures dip but I'd be very cautious on calling a trend based on two months," said Nielsen spokesman Neil Beston.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13760244

Facebook Party Gets Out Of Control After German Girl Forgets Privacy Setting

A German girl who forgot to set her birthday party as a private Facebook event greeted 1,500 guests and about 100 police officers on Friday.


BERLIN -- Better check your Facebook settings before posting a party invitation online.

A teenage girl in Germany who forgot to mark her birthday invitation as private on Facebook fled her own party when more than 1,500 guests showed up and around 100 police officers, some on horses, were needed to keep the crowd under control.

Eleven people were temporarily detained, one police officer was injured, dozens of girls wearing flip-flops cut their feet on broken glass and firefighters had to extinguish two small fires at the 16th birthday party in Hamburg, police spokesman Mirko Streiber said Sunday.

The birthday girl, identified only as Thessa, went into hiding, Streiber said, but "nonetheless the party was a hit."

Thessa had initially only wanted to ask some friends over to her home in Hamburg-Bramfeld when she posted her invitation on Facebook, but mistakenly she published it so that everyone on Facebook could see it.

The invitation quickly went viral, and some 15,000 people confirmed online they would come to the party – without even knowing the girl, weekly paper Bild am Sonntag reported.

When Thessa's parents found out, they made their daughter cancel the party, informed police and hired a private security service to protect their home on Friday night.

Despite public announcements in Hamburg that the party had been canceled, some 1,500 teenagers and young adults showed up on the street in front of Thessa's home, Streiber told The Associated Press.

"We had cordoned off the house, some 100 police were on the ground, four of them on horses – but that did not keep the kids from celebrating," Streiber said.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/05/facebook-party-out-of-control_n_871473.html

Suicide girl’s dad slams web sickos

Natasha MacBryde, 15: Died under the wheels of a train

THE devastated dad of a bullied public schoolgirl who killed herself blasted internet ghouls yesterday.

Natasha MacBryde, 15, died after being hit by a train.

But just a week after the tragedy a sick hoaxer posted vile comments on a Facebook tribute page - and branded her "a whore".

A internet user, calling herself Pro Fesser, posted a picture of Natasha with a banner saying: "I committed suicide for the Lulz" (amusement).

Another poster wrote: "Natasha wasn't bullied, she was just a whore", while one declared: "I caught the train to heaven LOL."

A macabre video entitled Tasha The Tank Engine was removed from YouTube after her brother James complained to the website.

Natasha was killed near her home in Upton Warren, Bromsgrove, Worcs, on Valentine's Day.

Yesterday her dad Andrew, 47, demanded Facebook and other social networking sites do more to combat sick messages.

He said: "I am disgusted at these comments made by some seriously sick individuals. I am shocked that Facebook don't monitor these sites more closely."

A pal said: "It isn't enough that Tasha is dead, these evil bullies can't leave her in peace."

Facebook has removed the comments and disabled Pro Fesser's profile.

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http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3427677/Suicide-girl-Natasha-MacBrydes-dad-slams-web-sickos.html

Tweets are not private, rules watchdog in landmark case

A civil servant who claimed invasion of privacy when her Twitter messages were reprinted in newspapers has had her complaint rejected by the press regulator.

Sarah Baskerville, a Department for Transport manager, last year published a series of tweets critical of the coalition's cuts, attacking Downing Street "spin" and telling her 700 followers that the leader of a training course she attended was "mental". The comments were published in the Daily Mail and The Independent on Sunday in November. Ms Baskerville said this information was only meant to be seen by her followers. Deciding in the newspapers' favour today, the PCC said the fact that tweets are publicly accessible on the web was key.

"It was quite clear that the potential audience for the information was actually much larger than the 700 people who followed the complainant directly, not least because any message could easily be retweeted to a wider audience," the regulator said. The decision also took into account civil service rules on political impartiality, which the newspapers said justified highlighting Ms Baskerville's views.

"The commission is increasingly being asked to make judgments about what can legitimately be described as private information," said PCC director Stephen Abell.

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tweets-are-not-private-rules-watchdog-in-landmark-case-2208724.html

Facebook overtakes Google as most-visited in 2010

Facebook Inc.'s social networking site passed Google Inc.'s main site and Yahoo Inc.'s e-mail site as the most visited site on the Web in the U.S. in 2010.

Experian Hitwise published a report that said Facebook was the destination of 8.93 percent of all U.S. visits between January and November 2010. Google.com (Nasdaq: GOOG), which was ranked No. 1 the year before, was No. 2 this year with 7.19 percent of visits, followed by last year's No. 2, Yahoo Mail (Nasdaq: YHOO), with 3.52 percent of visits.

Google's YouTube video site moved up from No. 5 in 2009 to No. 3 this year with 2.65 percent of visits.

When you combine sites owned by companies, Google remained on top with 9.85 percent of all U.S. visits. Facebook's combined sites accounted for 8.93 percent, and Yahoo properties accounted for 8.12 percent.

Experian Hitwise estimated that the top 10 websites accounted for 33 percent of all U.S. visits between January and November 2010, up by 12 percent versus 2009.

The report also said that for the second year in a row, Facebook was the most-searched-for term on the Web in the U.S.


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http://www.bizjournals.com/dayton/news/2011/01/02/facebook-overtakes-google-in-2010-visits.html

Facebook Scam: 'See Who Has Viewed Your Profile'

Curious to see who views your Facebook profile page?

You're out of luck. Status updates, Facebook groups, and pages claiming to let users see who has viewed their Facebook profile pages are scams, often linking users to ad-filled sites.

In recent days, for instance, you may have seen your Facebook friends speaking in bizarrely adolescent chatroom vernacular:

"OMG OMG OMG... I cant believe this actually works! Now you really can see who viewed your profile! on [LINK]."

"If you're tempted to click on the link, you're taken to a webpage that encourages you to go a little deeper and permit an application to have access to your Facebook profile," wrote Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at Sophos, in a blog post.

According to Sophos, over 60,000 people clicked into the claim in a few hours.

But as Facebook noted in July, there is no way anyone can see who has viewed their profile, and no way others can create such a function.

"We're working hard to block and remove websites, Pages, and applications that claim to do this. If you see one, don't be fooled, and report it to us immediately," the company wrote on its security page.

Clicking into these links usually directs people to ad-filled pages. Others might promise to exchange a profile-viewing feature if a user can generate enough likes and linkshares.

"If you've been hit by a scam like this, remove references to it from your newsfeed, and revoke the right of rogue applications to access your profile via Account/ Privacy Settings/ Applications and Websites," Cluley suggests.

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http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2373574,00.asp

Government agencies navigate the promises and pitfalls of social media

As law enforcement, transportation agencies and other departments rush to interact with the public through Twitter accounts and Facebook pages, guidelines for using social media have been slow to follow.

When the Orange County Sheriff's Department launched its blog three years ago, the first entry hinted at the department's motivation for venturing into social media.

"The Media's Rush to Judgment," penned by then-Sheriff Michael S. Carona, who was in the midst of a corruption scandal, addressed public perceptions surrounding a police shooting and an inmate's death at a county jail.

With his blog, Carona had made an end-run around the print and electronic media that he felt had sabotaged his career, overlooked the good things his department had done and overreacted to events such as the beating death of an accused sex offender at Theo Lacy jail.

But the ex-sheriff's blog also pointed toward the pitfalls and problems in social media that have left cities and counties across California scrambling.

Fearing liability from posted comments, Redondo Beach put the city's Facebook page on hold in August. Yolo County in Northern California adopted a social media policy in April, and San Francisco abandoned its effort to archive posts on its Facebook page.

"Everybody sees the benefit and there's an early rush and then you begin seeing the problems that come up," said Redondo Beach City Atty. Michael Webb. "Law by its very nature progresses much slower than technology … we need to let the law catch up with the technology."

In a National Assn. of Counties survey of member counties, 41% said they used Twitter and 36% said they had a Facebook page. Yet almost 80% said they had no social media policies. But that may be changing.

In Orange County, where Carona's reign ended with an indictment and the jail beating resulted in a damning grand jury report, officials have adopted a social media policy that discourages hyperlinking, warns against attacking specific groups and asks each department to name a social media coordinator.

The policy, one of the few adopted by a county in California, also directs each department to weigh the use of social media and says it should be a "risk-based decision" that takes into account goals, legal perils, technical capabilities and potential benefits.

What the policy doesn't do is regulate content or distinguish between opinion and fact.

Just a few years ago, municipalities were rushing to get into social media — the talk at conferences was often about which city had started tweeting or joined Facebook. But now, some are beginning to take a more measured look.

In February, California unveiled a Social Media Standard directing that only authorized state employees can use departments' official accounts and that some features, such as instant messaging, should be disabled.

When Orange County began looking into a policy last year, the chief executive's technology office asked other California counties whether they had policies. The overwhelming response was: " 'We don't, but we'd like to see yours when you're finished,' " said Orange County spokesman Howard Sutter.

Just as e-mails can be subject to California's Public Records Act, Facebook status updates, tweets and blog posts can be too, as Orange County's policy repeatedly reminds users.

Webb, Redondo Beach's city attorney, pointed to how San Francisco struggled with this issue — the county began archiving all Facebook posts and comments before finding it prohibitively expensive.

At a League of California Cities conference earlier this year, two presentations illustrated the conflict: one was on the benefits of Facebook, and the other was a blunt reminder that the site falls under the Public Records Act.

Webb had expected that during the conference the league might issue a request to Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown for direction on using social media. That didn't happen, he said, and now cities and counties may have to figure things out on their own.

Like other public information officers around the state, Ted Nguyen of the Orange County Transportation Authority uses Twitter to send out practical, ready-to-use information — in his case, details on bus and Metrolink delays, road detours and freeway construction projects.

Nguyen also spends some of his time giving out information about social media. Several times a day, he is contacted by government agencies from across the country with questions like: Do you need permission to tweet someone's photo?

"I think there's obviously a fear factor, they don't necessarily want to be the first one out the gate," he said. "There is this effort to help each other."

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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-social-media-20101129,0,6793833.story