Michele Bachmann takes to Facebook to write a stunningly spiteful Obama rant. Commenters fire back.

Two days ago, Michele Bachmann—once presidential candidate and elected official for eight years—posted this abominable status update on Facebook:

Luckily her commenters weren't having it. They took her to town. Here's a sampling of the response—taken from the top of the list down.

You just couldn't resist the comparison to capitalize on using those lost lives as a cheap shot at Obama could you....using the deceased of such an atrocity for such a totally inappropriate and cheap political snide is just totally disgraceful and disrespectful, too much so to endorse you as a political candidate

(BTW, that was the top comment and was liked over a thousand times.) READ MORE

Will Mark Zuckerberg Ever Pay Taxes Again?

Mark Zuckerberg

Published: Thursday, 2 Feb 2012 | 10:56 AM ET 

Next year Mark Zuckerberg’s base salary will receive a dramatic pay cut—going from a base salary of $600,000 to just one dollar.

Which raises the question: will he ever pay taxes again?

Zuckerberg’s salary cut is being compared to similar moves by other tech titans. Google’s Eric Schmidt and Larry Page are paid just $1 annual salaries. Steve Jobs took just $1 in salary from 1997 until his death last year. Other members of the one-percent/one-dollar club include Oracle’s Larry Ellison and Hewlett-Packard’s Meg Whitman.

Zuckerberg was paid a base salary of $500,000 in 2011 and is set to be paid a base of $600,000 this year. He got a cash bonus of $250,000 for the first half of 2011 and will likely receive a similar bonus for the second half.

Interestingly, he was alone among the top executives at Facebook who got no stock awards for 2011. The board—which is controlled by Zuckerberg himself—decided that he had enough stock to align his interests with the other shareholders. With 28.2 percent of the company, you would hope so.

Zuckerberg’s pay cut could reduce his income tax burden to nothing.

It’s possible that he might even be eligible for certain types of government aid for those with low-income—although it’s unlikely that he would collect them.  READ MORE

Low-wage Facebook contractor leaks secret censorship list

By Stephen C. Webster
Wednesday, February 22, 2012 14:40 EST

A secret list curated by social network giant Facebook was published online recently after an employee for one of the company’s third-world contractors, upset at his poor working conditions and meager wage, decided to fight back.

The document reveals exactly what Facebook’s censorship brigade looks for on the social network, which boasts over 850 million users spanning the globe.

Referred to internally as the “bible,” the list prioritizes deletion of materials pertaining to Holocaust denial, graphic nudity, depictions of any sexual fetish, racial slurs and bullying — all of which are unsurprising — but a few of the other entries are raising eyebrows.

Namely, female nipples or even the impressions of nipples under clothing are unacceptable to Facebook censors, whereas male nipples are fine. Images of breast feeding, too, are forbidden if they show an exposed nipple. “Crushed heads” and mutilated limbs are also fine, so long as the person posting such images does not express delight and no internal organs are visible. The list specifically says that on this point, no exceptions would be made for news media.

Also verboten: images of bodily fluids, including ear wax and pus; dead animals; advocacy of violence; advocacy of eating disorders; racial jokes where “the humor is not evident”; and “any photoshopped images of people, whether negative, positive or neutral”; “pixelated or black-barred content showing nudity or sexual activity”; “digital/cartoon nudity”; and images of drunk or sleeping people with “things drawn on their faces.”

All that aside, images depicting marijuana use are fine, unless an individual appears to be growing, buying or selling the drug. “Art nudity” is okay, and so are videos of schoolyard fights — unless the video was posted with the intent to humiliate another user.

The list’s disclosure by gossip blog Gawker marks the first time that the public has been given a glimpse at the inner-workings of the planet’s largest social network.   READ MORE

7 Privacy Threats the Constitution Can't Protect You Against

When it comes to a spate of new technologies, our privacy protections are wildly outdated.

February 4, 2012

The week before last, the Roberts Supreme Court uncharacteristically handed down a decision that doesn't radically infringe on civil liberties. The justices unanimously ruled that police overshot their authority by planting a GPS device on suspected drug dealer Antoine Jones' car without a warrant, tracking his movements for over a month. For now, Americans can rest assured that police can't secretly tag them -- at least without a warrant.

At the same time, privacy advocates pointed out -- and some of the justices admitted -- that the court's majority opinion in US vs. Jones completely skirted more pressing privacy issues. The problem, the majority argued, was that police had trespassed on Jones' private property by planting a GPS device on his car. The majority opinion did not address whether or not it's okay for law enforcement to use a sophisticated surveillance technology to log someone's movements for a whole month without a warrant. 

In separate, concurring opinions Justices Alito and Sotomayor both warned of the multitude of surveillance technologies that do not require intrusion onto private property to trample privacy rights. Here's a (non-comprehensive) breakdown of existing or impending technologies that make our privacy protections wildly outdated. 

1. Everything you use, all the time.

READ MORE

Facebook Set to Turn Users Into Corporate Sponsors

Facebook users could soon find themselves becoming unwitting corporate sponsors under a new advertising scheme unveiled by the social network, 12/28/11. (photo: Daily Mail UK)

 

 

By Damien Gayle, Daily Mail UK

28 Decemeber 11

Facebook users could become unwitting corporate ambassadors under plans by the company to allow the site's main news feed to carry sponsorship messages carrying their mugshots.

Beginning in the New Year, so-called 'sponsored stories' appear in the main news feed that Facebook users' friends see. At present, if you click to 'like' a product, it does not always appear in the main feed.

The new update will show friends your profile picture and the product you have 'endorsed' in much larger form in the main news feed - a move that the site admits is designed to bring in advertising revenue.

Facebook say the scheme is a vital revenue booster, which will help it claw back some of the $1 billion a year it spends on developing the site.

The site claims that because the stories are labelled 'Sponsored', they will be less intrusive.

If a user decides to 'like' a product, the endorsement will also remain on their new, open 'timeline' profile, enabling companies to pay Facebook to feature their adverts more visibly.

But the announcement will infuriate users who feel that the social network is taking too much ownership over its 800 million members' personal information.

Facebook users in the U.S. have now launched a legal action against the company to contest the commercial use of the 'Like' button.

A judge in San Jose, California, has allowed plaintiffs to bring a case against Facebook in which they argue that the company is using their names and likenesses without their authorization. 

READ MORE

Attract Government Spies by Tweeting These Words

Homeland Security announced plans to monitor social media sites in February 2011. (photo: Johann Helgason/Shutterstock)

By Nick McCann, Courthouse News Service

28 December 11

Homeland Security spies on Facebook and Twitter users, recording the activity of people who search for terms like "human to animal," "collapse" and "infection," according to an online privacy advocacy group that has sued to peruse the agency's data.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) says Homeland Security announced plans to monitor social media sites in February.

"The initiatives were designed to gather information from 'online forums, blogs, public websites, and message boards,' to store and analyze the information gathered, and then to 'disseminate relevant and appropriate de-identified information to federal, state, local, and foreign governments and private sector partners,'" according to the federal complaint filed in Washington, D.C.

"Previously, DHS had developed surveillance initiatives of public chats and other online forums concerning specific events, such as the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the 2010 Winter Olympics, and the April 2010 BP oil spill," EPIC also claims.

As part of the initiative, the agency would "establish [fictitious] usernames and passwords" to spy on users and record their activities based on a number of search terms, including "human to animal," "collapse," "outbreak," and "illegal immigrants," the complaint says.

Homeland Security regularly plans to report their findings to "federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, foreign, or international government partners," the privacy group says.

READ MORE

Furious at Facebook Again!

When a man tried to return my lost laptop, Facebook hid his messages from me. How come?

By Elizabeth Weingarten|Posted Friday, Dec. 9, 2011, at 11:22 AM ET

Where is Facebook storing all those messages?

On Nov. 15 at approximately 11:45 p.m., I left my 1-month-old MacBook Air in the back of a New York City cab. Quickly realizing my error, I freaked out: Hands shaking, I dialed the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission, reported the cab’s medallion number (I had a receipt) and jotted down the phone number of city precincts where my cargo could end up (if a good Samaritan turned it in). Then, I slumped against the side of a building and sobbed.

Of course, it was only a computer. But this superficial, expensive thing contained a completed story that I was supposed to send an editor at this magazine the following morning. And all of my notes for said story, which I had come to New York to write. No, I didn’t save my files to an external hard drive and no I did not have insurance on the computer. The next morning, I chugged coffee and rewrote the story. I tracked down the cab driver; he claimed he never found it. A week later, I reluctantly purchased a new laptop. And that was that.

Until today, when a colleague at Slate sent an email around about the messages Facebook hides in an obscure folder labeled “Other.” Haven’t heard of it? READ MORE