Quit Facebook Day

Most people thought of Monday May 31st as Memorial Day and nothing else. But it was also designated by some as “Quit Facebook Day.”

Lately, the widely popular social networking site has come under fire for its policies concerning privacy, that it’ discloses information about users without their consent, and that it makes efforts to block such disclosures very difficult. Comments earlier in the year by Facebook’s creator Mark Zuckerman that “some aspects of privacy are a thing of the past,” did not help matters. In the past, it changed it’s terms of service to appear that once a user shared content on it, it had total control over it. But when faced with a formal complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission, it backed down. But only months later it was once again getting accusations.

So it was probably inevitable that some people would respond by pulling the plug on Facebook. But two people, Joseph Dee and Matthew Milan, took it a step further by asking people to do so all at once on one single day, May 31.

“Sick of Facebook’s lack of respect for your data?” the site www.quitfacebookday.com/ asked viewers, “Add your name and commit to quit! Why are we quitting? For us it comes down to two things: fair choices and best intentions. In our view, Facebook doesn't do a good job in either department. Facebook gives you choices about how to manage your data, but they aren't fair choices, and while the onus is on the individual to manage these choices, Facebook makes it damn difficult for the average user to understand or manage this. We also don't think Facebook has much respect for you or your data, especially in the context of the future.”

It was brought up that for those quitting to preserve their privacy, it might already be too late. They would still have peoples’ information, and mine it. And there were those who thought the website was a waste of time to begin with , and people should get off privacy issues or no. Ironically enough, some “Quit Facebook” pages sprang up on the social networking site itself. The main one was tagged by several thousand users. A few pro-Facebook pages sprang up, but they were outnumbered and heavily outmanned.

Response to the call to quit was small. A poll taken on the day showed only about 11 percent of the users surveyed had even heard of “Quit Facebook Day,” and only two percent committed themselves to quitting. One user commented that he couldn't quit because his job depended on use of the site.

Despite it’s problems, Facebook was listed by Google as the world’s most popular site. But it still faces trouble. With the legal questions continuing to dog it, a survey made by an IT security firm suggested 60% of users polled had considered quitting.

Sources: PC Magazine, PC World, Facebook

Bixyl Shuftan

“Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” on Facebook

Thursday May 20 was unofficially “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” on Facebook. On a page with the same name, a number of cartoons and pictures supposedly of the prophet of Islam were posted. Some were simple pictures, others were of a more humorous or mocking nature.

The page and event began as a protest. When Comedy Central censored a show due to a death threat against it’s creators, people complained that the network had surrendered to intimidation. A cartoonist then posted a drawing on April 20th, suggesting everyone draw a cartoon of Mohammed on May 20th as a form of protests against those who would try to limit freedom of speech by threats of violence.

“In light of the recent veiled (ha!) threats aimed at the creators of the television show South Park ... by bloggers on Revolution Muslim's website, we hereby deem May 20, 2010 as the first annual 'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!' Do your part to both water down the pool of targets and, oh yeah, defend a little something our country is famous for (but maybe not for long? Comedy Central cooperated with terrorists and pulled the episode) the first amendment.—Molly Norris (April 20, 2010)”

Word of Norris’ protest quickly spread, and within a week had been taken up by numerous bloggers. It was around this time the “Everyone Draw Mohammed Day” page was created on Facebook. It quickly had thousands of guests. At this time, Norris began to have second thoughts about her protest, saying she had never intended for it to grow so big so fast, saying she had “struck a gigantic nerve, something I was totally unprepared for.” And she soon began to distance herself from it. The creator of the Facebook page soon withdrew as well, citing some were posting clearly insulting images aimed at Islam in general rather than the fanatics. Others helped lead the protest, “If we cannot or will not defend that principle ... then we deserve to choke on whatever jihadists of all stripes can force down our throats."

The protest did not go unchallenged. An “AGAINST Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” page sprung up on Facebook, plus other pages protesting the protest. In Pakistan, the government ordered Facebook blocked from access by it’s public for May 20th, as well as Youtube.

Late in the evening of May 20th, the “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” page on Facebook was unavailable. Someone then created another, “Facebook seems to have deleted the original,” and accused them of censoring his cause while leaving the counter-protest site “filled with anti-semitism, Jesus bashing, gay-bashing, atheist bashing.”

“Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” has come to an end, but the debate over censorship, as well as a number of cartoons on the Internet, remain.

Bixyl Shuftan


Source: Wikipedia

Cartoons from michellemalkin.com and www.examiner.com

Farmville and other Facebook Games

Lately, Facebook and the games one can play on there, such as Farmville, have been getting some attention. So what exactly are these little games that are (usually) free to play? Here, we take a look at the craze that’s hit the Internet.

For the story, go to Extra Extra.

BREAKING NEWS: Second Life Sold by Linden Labs to Chinese Corporation

(**Update** - April Fool ;-) )

Today in a stunning development, Linden Lab announced they had sold Second Life to China’s Baidu Corporation. In a brief printed statement released to the press, CEO Mark Kingdom stated the deal was reached after several weeks of secret negotiations.

Baidu Inc. is a major communications company in China, owning the top search engine there. It made a profit of over $600 million in 2007. It made the news recently as the company most likely to profit from Google’s troubles with the Chinese government.

On it’s blog, Mark Linden stated, “Letting Second Life go was not an easy decision. But Linden Labs has always prided itself on being on the forefront on the development of the technologies of virtual worlds. With Second Life becoming increasingly complex, we came to the conclusion we could not continue to both continue to be so and run our grand experiment. While we shall continue to improve Second Life, it will be through business deals with Baidu as new technologies become available.”

Baidu also had a statement on the Linden blog, “We welcome Second Life into Baidu ... As we have helped bring the Internet to China, so we hope to guide the virtual residents into a righteous harmonious band. ... We should remind that our company operates under a set of rules that require reverence and respect to the wise and honored statesmen of our government. Those whom run about in virtual reality in their boxers using their words as fists with no regard for the respect of their betters are asked to cease such behavior so we will not need to take actions all will regret.”

One of the Lindens supposedly stated that following the sale, Linden Lab will be cooperating with Facebook to make a sequel to the "Farmvile" game, but this is unconfirmed.

Details are still coming in about what is clearly a turning point in Second Life.

To go to the Linden blog post and comments, Click Here.