Author: Josh Wolford

Facebook reportedly lost 1.4 million U.S. users last month. Or, maybe they didn’t. Metrics can be a tricky thing. Even if Facebook lost roughly 1% of their user base, is it even a huge deal? Things like that fluctuate from month to month and Facebook is damn near saturated in the U.S. market anyway.

Whatever the case, the Facebook police know that they need to “convince” defectors to come back. How do they do that? Well, brute force of course.

The last time we saw Jimmy Kimmel’s Facebook police, they were making sure that you accepted your mom’s friend request.

Well, this guy sure has an interesting resume – or CV or whatever you want to call it. Upon first glance, you probably wouldn’t even notice that this Amazon product page is actually a a giant advertisement for Philippe Dubost, and web product manager.

Yet it is. Dubost has refashioned his website, phildub.com, to closely resemble an page on Amazon.com – product pictures, star ratings, dimensions, descriptions, and even a button to “add to cart.”

According to Dubost, there’s only 1 left in stock and it ships directly from Paris, France. In the product details we find the the product is 186 cm and comes in English, French, and Spanish. The average customer review, of course, is five stars.

Below that, Dubost has inserted a product description and “professional experience” disguised as product reviews.

The links are functioning as well. If you click on the author name link, it takes you to his LinkedIn profile. If you click “add to cart” a contact form pops up. All of the links to his various places of education and employment go to the respective sites.

The unique web CV is gaining a lot of attention right now, so I guess it worked. Let’s see if it gets him hired at Amazon or somewhere else that could use a clever web product manager.

[via Business Insider]

About 11 months ago, a severely obese 23-year-old named Robert Gibbs made an impassioned plea for help on his YouTube channel.

“I’m making this video because I don’t know what else to do. I’ve tried losing weight on my own, I’ve tried doing everything possible – been on diets, been hospitalized. And I’ve always done what needed to be done at the time, then i’d always just gain the weight back,” he said in March of 2012.

Soon after posting, the video went viral, racking up over a million views and prompting a Twitter trend. The video made its way to reddit, where it received even more attention.

Well, he’s just posted an update in the form of a live weigh-in. And he says he’s down over 300 pounds.

In his original plea, Robert said that he was somewhere between 600-700 pounds. He must have started at over 700 pounds, as being down 300+ still leaves him at over 460 pounds.

We all know that YouTube commenters can be a cruel lot sometimes, but in Robert’s case the top comments are nothing but encouragement.

Humanity win.

[via reddit]

After a week in App Store limbo, photography app 500px has made its return.

As you may remember, Apple booted the app from its App Store for violation of Apple’s rules on pornography. Apple said that the app was removed after many user complaints regarding the porn.

But apparently, Apple has rethought their decision. It looks like 500px has done enough to assuage Cupertino’s concerns.

Follow @500px

500px is Photography
@500px

We’re happy to announce that our app is now back in the Apple App Store. You can get it here: https://t.co/6IBfZaVH

 Reply  ·  Retweet  ·  Favorite
8 minutes ago via TweetDeck · powered by @socialditto

Upon yanking the app, Apple had this to say:

“The app was removed from the App Store for featuring pornographic images and material, a clear violation of our guidelines. We also received customer complaints about possible child pornography. We’ve asked the developer to put safeguards in place to prevent pornographic images and material in their app.”

It appears that 500px has inserted at least one new “safeguard” into the app – a new “report this photo” button.

They’ve also instituted a new age warning within iTunes. It now says that you must be 17 years or older to download to app due to “frequent/intent sexual content or nudity.”

But nudity is still accessible within the app. And Apple has approved it. Perhaps all of that media attention surrounding Vine and its porn problem (many pointed out that Apple was allowing it to stay in the App Store, alongside Twitter, which also contains frequent nudity) softened Apple up a bit. Or maybe it’s just another hard-to-explain move from a company whose nudity policies are notoriously hard-to-explain.

Foursquare has just unveiled their second app, and this one is targeted at business owners.

Available today, Foursquare for Business is a standalone iOS app that allows business owners who manage a location on Foursquare to post updates, check analytics, and manage specials.

As of now, the most useful aspect of the brand new app is the analytics. Business owners who have already claimed their location on Foursquare can view recent check-ins and tips – so they’ll know if Susan B just told other users that the spicy beef sandwich is to die for or if the thai noodles are cold and icky. Business owners can also see stats for all-time check-ins, likes, and view “recent top customers.”

Businesses can also use the new app to post photo updates, and then easily cross-post them to Twitter and Facebook. When a business posts an update on Foursquare, anyone and everyone who has ever checked-in or even looked at their page will see the update in their stream – no subscription or “follow” necessary.

Lastly, the app lets businesses manage their specials. Note that I said “manage.” Businesses still have to create the special on the web, but once it’s created they can manage it with the app. This is a limitation, but one that we expect Foursquare to deal with in the coming weeks. The app did just launch, of course.

As of now, the app is only available for U.S. businesses.

[h/t The Next Web]

Restaurant reservation powerhouse OpenTable have just announced their intent to acquire food photography-based recommendation app Foodspotting.

According to a release, the deal will be for $10 million

OpenTable and Foodspotting have been partners for some time already – OpenTable reservations on Foodspotting and Foodspotting food photography on OpenTable, so this acquisition doesn’t come as a huge surprise. But according to Foodspotting, this is all about better integration:

“We’ve already been working closely with the OpenTable team as partners: In addition to making restaurant reservations via Foodspotting, you may have seen Foodspotting photos from select restaurants popping up on OpenTable. But we both realized we could create smarter experiences if we could integrate more deeply by, for example, recommending dishes when you make reservations to enabling restaurants to showcase their best dishes. We look forward to augmenting your dining experiences with Foodspotting’s recommendations to forge the shortest path between you and great food,” says Foodspotting co-founder Alexa Andrzejewski.

Foodspotting users shouldn’t worry – the app will remain a standalone product. Foodspotting says that the only thing that will change is that users will have access to better recommendations and restaurant information.

“We’re proud to welcome the talented Foodspotting team to the OpenTable family,” said Matt Roberts , Chief Executive Officer of OpenTable. “The Foodspotting team is as passionate about dining as we are, and we’re looking forward to leveraging their unique expertise in the areas of imagery and social sharing to enrich the OpenTable experience for diners and restaurants in new and exciting ways. By adding more visually compelling content to help people decide where to dine and discover dishes they’ll love, we hope to make it even easier to find the perfect table for any occasion.”

Pinterest, which hasn’t seen a significant redesign in quite some time, has announced that they will be testing a fresh look in the coming weeks.

Pinterest says that the changes stem from user feedback.

First up, Pinterest wants to makes it easier to find content across different categories on the site. The test makes navigation “faster and more intuitive,” and puts a new button which drops down to contain tons of options – both categories and more broad sets of content like “popular pins.”

Next up, Pinterest’s test make individual pins bigger, and more full of content.

“Pins are bigger and we’ve added more information related to pins, so it’s easier to find things you’re interested in. For example, on each pin, you’ll see pins from the same board, other boards this pin was pinned to, and a whole slew of related pins,” says Pinterest.

The result is less whitespace and more relevant info to spring off from when you’re done looking at the particular pin. Related pins could be a huge deal to get people to delve deeper into the content offered on the site.

Pinterest also says they’ve made the whole site experience faster.

Not everyone will wake up to the new Pinterest design test. They say that it will only be previewed to a “small group of people over the coming weeks.” After that (and after some more user feedback), Pinterest will roll it out to additional users.

Facebook has just rolled out an update to its iOS app that brings features that previously launched on Facebook Messenger for both iOS and Android.

Starting today, you can now send voice messages from within the Facebook app.

Earlier this month, Facebook added voice messaging to its Facebook Messenger app. That was later bolstered with free VoIP calling in the U.S. and Canada from within the app.

Users now also have the ability to record and share videos from inside the app as well.

The last update to Facebook for iOS was a speed boost back in mid-December.

You can grab the updated app from the App Store right now.

In a move that’s hard to say wasn’t expected, Twitter’s new six-second video sharing app Vine has begun to filter out some porn-related searches.

No longer can you search for the tags #porn, #boobs, #dick, #sex and many other NSFW tags.

Oddly enough, you can still search for the #NSFW tag.

Also available are more specific tags that contain plenty of nudity such as #pornvine, #dicks, and more. It appears that Vine is just beginning the process of censoring these types of tags. Before it’s said and done, it’s unlikely that any of these kinds of porn-related tags will remain. And Vine will probably censor any new porn tags as soon as they pop up.

What users can do, however, is tag their Vine videos with these tags. Users can still access the tag pages by clicking on the tags under videos they do find. So there’s a workaround – for now. Still, many popular NSFW tags no longer appear when users try to explore them.

It appears that there had already been a small change in Apple’s promotion of Vine inside the App Store which was conspicuously timed with this porn controversy.

For more on the Vine-porn controversy, check out our in-depth writeup.

It looks like Apple may have decided to back away from Twitter’s new Vine video-sharing app, just a little bit.

It appears that Apple has stopped promoting the app as an “Editor’s Choice” selection. Vine isn’t even highlighted in the App Store’s social networking section. It’s not a “new and noteworthy” app either. That’s odd, considering that Vine is the number one free social networking app and the number four overall free app in the entire App Store.

As you may have heard, Vine finds itself in the middle of a porn controversy. Just days after launch, we told you that Vine has become a pretty hot destination for six-second porn clips.

Although we don’t think that the porn is that huge of a problem for the Vine app in and of itself (it’s not really that visible and is often hidden behind a click-through warning screen), we noted that it could be a problem for Vine’s chances of survival within the App Store.

Apple has always held a pretty strict no nudity policy for its approved apps, even banning photo-sharing apps like 500px because Apple thought the app made it too easy to find pornographic images.

It’s important to note that Apple has yet to ban Vine, even though it clearly contains its fair share of porn. Apple has also let the Twitter app hang around for years, even though Twitter also allows nudity in its posts. Apple and Twitter are partners, as Twitter is fully integrated into iOS. Maybe Apple won’t be as drastic as to ban Vine altogether, but it sure looks like the’ve reduced its visibility in the App Store.

[Business Insider via The Verge]

Back in December, we told you that Google had made a change to its SafeSearch feature in the U.S. that made it impossible for users to entirely disable SafeSearch when searching for Images on the site.

Now, that modified SafeSearch is making its way to other countries.

Long story short, Google has prevented users from disabling SafeSearch altogether in Image search. It’s important to note that this is different from Google censoring NSFW content. That’s all still there, in fact, it’s just that users must now be very specific in their queries in order to access it.

For example, a Google Image search for “boobs” will now yield SFW results, by default. In order to find NSFW results for that query, you must now add a modifier – let’s say “boobs porn” or “boobs nude” for instance.

Users used to be able to turn SafeSearch off, completely. There a little box at the top right of SafeSearch that used to allow users to pick their level of SafeSearch: “STRICT,” “MODERATE,” and “OFF” completely. But now, Google only allows users to filter all explicit results.

What’s more, Google users are no longer given the option to turn off all types of SafeSearch filtering within the Search Settings.

If all of this sounds a little confusing – that’s because it is. Google has fragmented their Image search in an attempt to keep NSFW materials from popping up without and explicit search.

But here’s the gist of it, in plain English: A search for ‘boobs” in the U.S. now yields SFW results, as Google Image Search is now defaulted to “MODERATE” level. Users are not allowed to fully turn off SafeSearch. In order to see those NSFW results, users have to be more specific with their searches.

And now, that SafeSearch functionality has spread to other English-speaking countries.

Here are your SafeSearch options for Google.co.uk, Google Australia, Google South Africa, and Google New Zealand:

And here are the options in Germany:

Note the difference? We’ve tested this for other non-English-speaking countries like France and the Netherlands and have seen the same results. I’ve reached out to Google for confirmation and will update this article accordingly.

“We are not censoring any adult content, and want to show users exactly what they are looking for — but we aim not to show sexually-explicit results unless a user is specifically searching for them. We use algorithms to select the most relevant results for a given query. If you’re looking for adult content, you can find it without having to change the default setting — you just may need to be more explicit in your query if your search terms are potentially ambiguous. The image search settings work the same way as in web search,” Google told me back in December when we first reported on the changes to SafeSearch.

Still, Google has fragmented Image search and ultimately made it worse. Here’s what I said in regards to that last month:

Ok, so the point here is that users need to be specific with their searches. Got it. Apologies for the frankness, but if I want to find blowjob images, I now have to search “blowjob porn.” There is now no way that I can edit my own personal settings to make a search for just “blowjob” yield all results, both NSFW and otherwise.

In essence, Google is fragmenting their image search. A “no filter” search is a true search of the most popular images across the web. U.S. users no longer have this option. We’re now only given the choice between filtered results for “blowjob” or the most popular results for “blowjob porn.” That smattering of all results, both NSFW and SFW for the query “blowjob,” cannot be achieved anymore.

Plus, is there really a question about what I’m looking for when I search “blowjob?” Do I really need to provide any more detail?

It seems like a big gripe about a small change, and it is in a way. But one could make the argument that this actually is a form of censorship. If I go to Google images and search “blowjob,” I want to see the best of what the web has to offer – all of it. Not what Google thinks I should see based on their desire to prevent adult results unless users are super specific.

Go ahead and try a search for “blowjob” on Google Images right now. Those aren’t really very relevant results, are they? Users should see the most relevant results for their searches, no matter what. And they should have the option to simply turn off the SafeSearch filter, which they all had just a couple of days ago.

Google’s SafeSearch support page gives us steps for disabling SafeSearch, but it really only tells us how to turn off SafeSearch Filtering. That still leaves us with a “MODERATE” level SafeSearch and no true way to see all web results, both NSFW and SFW at once.

Is your country’s SafeSearch been changed recently? Let us know.

Last week, we heard that Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is set to hold his first-ever political fundraiser at his Palo Alto home. The lucky recipient of the funds? Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

But not everyone credited with co-founding the biggest social network in the world is completely on board the Chris Christie endorsement.

Chris Hughes think that Christie’s stance on gay marriage (current opposition) is cause to “raise serious concerns about supporting someone like him.”

Here’s what Hughes told ABC News:

“I, for one, have a lot of questions about Chris Christie, particularly because less than a year ago he vetoed a marriage equality bill in the New Jersey state legislature. Which for me personally, I got married to my husband last June, [it] was just really personally frustrating. I mean, there are tens of thousands of couples in New Jersey that can’t share their love and be recognized under the law because of that decision. I’m not a single issue voter, and I think most people aren’t either, but for me personally, it would raise serious concerns about supporting someone like him.”

Hughes married his longtime boyfriend Sean Eldridge last July. His wedding was attended by Mark Zuckerberg, Sean Parker, and some other notables including House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi.

Hughes, along with Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, and Eduardo Saverin launched Facebook from a Harvard dorm room nearly nine years ago. Hughes is currently the publisher and editor-in-chief of The New Republic.

Until now, Mark Zuckerberg hasn’t really thrown his weight behind any particular politician. He’s attended dinners with President Obama, and has been linked to Newark, New Jersey’s Democratic mayor Cory Booker. Some Democrats are upset with Zuckerberg over his choice to host the Christie Fundraiser.

Facebook, as an organization, spreads the money around pretty evenly across both parties when it comes to how they utilize their political action committee, Facebook Inc, PAC. They are also one of the most outspoken pro-LGBT companies around.

On Friday, the Ashton Kutcher-led Steve Jobs biopic jOBS had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. The film, which is directed by Joshua Michael Stern and co-stars Josh Gad as Steve Wozniak, will open to the public on April 19th.

Here’s a look at some of the early reviews, which are mixed.

CNET calls the film “saccharine” and says that viewers will spend two hours “watching cardboard cutouts lose arguments to Ashton Kutcher”:

My primary disappointment was in how shallow the film felt, given the extensive historical record. In the early days Jobs’ co-workers had to wrestle with a man who smelled bad, who cried often, who yelled constantly, who missed deadlines, who overspent his budget by millions. He did it in service of products we love and use daily, and yet his obsessions took a toll on those around him. He also inspired others to do the best work of their lives, pushing themselves further than they ever imagined they could go. There is great drama to be found in all that, but it is not to be found in the saccharine “jOBS.”

The Guardian gives the film two out of a possible five stars, calling Ashton Kutcher’s portrayal of Steve Jobs as a “surprisingly effective turn.” Still, The Guardian laments that it’s everything else that falls short:

The results, then, are mixed. This is far from the bomb some would have envisaged, but neither is it the character illumination one would wish for. Jobs appears so consumed by his work here that little else mattered in his life. That may be true, but we’re left none the wiser as to what made the man tick, beyond what we already know. Apple will no doubt feel satisfied, even relieved. Those wanting a sharper, more incisive view will have to wait for Sorkin.

The Hollywood Reporter says that the film is “a biopic that’s perhaps too respectful of the tech icon’s innovations still remains frequently engaging.”

Playing somewhat like a two-hour commercial covering the first 20 tumultuous years of Apple’s development, Joshua Michael Stern’s biopic of Steve Jobs is a passably entertaining account of the career of one of the 20th century’s great innovators that doesn’t break any stylistic ground, hewing closely to public perception of the tech giant.

Writing for Gizmodo, reader Seth Kinkaid gives a fan’s review. He says that despite some clear inaccuracies and exaggerations, “it was the experience [he] wanted.”

I wasn’t sure exactly what I would get, but it turned out to be surprisingly nice. It was… satisfying. It also proved that I could enjoy Ashton Kutcher’s acting as Silicon Valley’s most prized CEO. Although his performance wasn’t perfect, it felt right. The rest of the movie was just as good.

The Next Web’s Matthew Panzarino calls the film “entertaining, if impressionistic,” but adds that “this isn’t going to be the canonical Steve Jobs biography movie.”

[O]verall, jOBS works. The lead actors are likable and appear to have put serious effort into getting the spirit of the characters right. The film looks (mostly) good aside from some of what could likely be ascribed to budgetary constraints. And though the director is a tad indulgent here and there, it doesn’t take away from the overall feeling of ‘decent’ that I came away with.

Film School Rejects gives it an upside…

An often-solid performance by Kutcher; a very solid series of supporting performances (particularly by Gad); surprisingly well-paced and quite entertaining.

..and a downside:

Relies on basic and unimaginative filmmaking tricks, particularly a score calibrated to make audiences think “something triumphant and bold is happening!” and long-winded montage sequences; “tells” rather than “shows” large swathes of character development and exposition; leaves many unanswered questions (you know, like, why computers?).

Check here for more coverage of jOBS.

It’s good advice for anyone to check their sharing settings on any app before they use it – unless people want every high score, game achievement, or check-in to appear on their connected Twitter and Facebook feeds.

This advice is is paramount to public officials who already face accusations of ineffectiveness.

Move over, cop eating a donut joke. Say hello to the cop who can’t stop playing Fruit Ninja joke.

Early Sunday morning, the official Twitter account for the Dallas Police Department tweeted that someone in the department had just sliced 38 fruit in Fruit Ninja! Congrats?

The tweet was quickly deleted, but plenty of users retweeted it (with additional commentary):

Follow @rjrusak

Ryan J. Rusak
@rjrusak

I feel so much safer. RT @DallasPD: I just sliced 38 fruit in Classic Mode on Fruit Ninja for iPhone! http://t.co/pQOKQcDs (h/t @MikeDrago)

 Reply  ·  Retweet  ·  Favorite
1 day ago via Echofon · powered by @socialditto

Dallas PD later tweeted an apology, blaming in all on the kids:

Follow @DallasPD

Dallas Police Depart
@DallasPD

Our apologies for the fruit Ninja tweet sent earlier. One of our kids played the game on our iPhone and unknowingly tweeted their score.

 Reply  ·  Retweet  ·  Favorite
1 day ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto

Protect and slice, Dallas PD.

[via BuzzFeed]

We’ve all seen Ashton Kutcher’s uncanny resemblance to a young Steve Jobs, with his tall frame, medium-length brown hair, and beard. Though we don’t know how all of the other parts of the performance will fall into place (we’ve only seen one short clip), we can all agree that we won’t have to suspend our disbelief that much when it comes to looks.

Now, thanks to a tweet from Kutcher himself, we finally know that made-up old Ashton Kutcher also looks like older Steve Jobs.

Check out the side-by-side:

jOBS premiered at Sundance last Friday. It will be released to a worldwide audience on April 19th.

Hey everyone, can you believe that people are using a new video-sharing app to share porn videos? An app that makes it easy to record quick clips and share them on Twitter? People? The internet? Porn? Crazy.

Sarcasm aside, Twitter’s new 6-second video app Vine is already full of porn. And that’s potentially a huge problem for Twitter and Vine.

First off, let’s make it clear that having NSFW content on Vine isn’t really a problem on its own. Besides the slip up of showing a girl using a sex toy as an “Editor’s pick” earlier today, Vine makes it fairly difficult to simply stumble upon a giant cache of 6-second porn.

The home feed of editor picks is (usually) SFW, and the explore feature doesn’t consists of any hand-picked NSFW categories. On the Vine app, they suggest hashtags like #pets, #food, #fashion – but no #penis #porn or #ass. Sure, you can search for those latter hashtags within the app – and you’ll definitely find what you’re looking for. But then again, you’re actively looking for it at that point.

And Vine even has a mechanism for putting another layer between your eyes and some random person’s junk. If a video is tagged as inappropriate, Vine will throw up a warning screen that users must tap through to access the NSFW content. “WARNING: This post may contain sensitive content,” reads the message.

Also, if you want to see just how much of a non-issue the porn thing is on Vine right now, check out Vinepeek. That single-purpose site provides an unmoderated stream of the latest Vine videos. I watched it for quite some time and I saw no porn. Literally, zero NSFW videos. Plenty of dogs, babies, more dogs, and food – but no penises, no vaginas, no boobs, no butts.

Plus, there’s no ban on nudity in Vine’s ToS. There are bans on impersonation, spam, abuse, harassment, copyright infringement – but no porn ban. Being that Vine is a Twitter product, this should come as no surprise.

And as far as Vine porn existing outside the app’s walls (let’s say on Twitter), the fact remains that you’re probably only going to see Vine porn if you’re looking for it (for the most part). At least no more than you’re likely to see porn on Twitter anyway, seeing as to how Twitter is one of the few social networks that doesn’t ban nudity in posts.

If you follow people who like to post 6-second porn, you’re going to see 6-second porn. If you search “vine #nsfw” or “wine #porn” on Twitter, you’re going to find what you’re looking for. It’s a simple as that.

But though porn shouldn’t be considered a “problem” for Vine on that level – it could be a problem in another way. A really, really, huge problem.

Last week, Apple yanked photo-sharing app 500px from its App Store.

“The app was removed from the App Store for featuring pornographic images and material, a clear violation of our guidelines. We also received customer complaints about possible child pornography. We’ve asked the developer to put safeguards in place to prevent pornographic images and material in their app,” said Apple.

As you’re probably well aware, Apple is really serious on the no porn thing among apps it approves for its App Store. Yeah, it’s ludicrous at times. They essentially just banned an app for letting users search for adult content. It’s a good thing that an app like Google Chrome or even Apple’s Safari doesn’t allow people to find porn.

For Vine, this should be a bit troubling. Maybe the content safeguard screen will be enough to assuage Apple’s concerns. Maybe not. You can find images of boobs all over Twitter, but not only has the Twitter app remained in Apple’s good graces for years, but Twitter has been integrated into iOS.

It’s possible that Apple will leave Vine alone, at least for the time being. But if Vine becomes an app that primarily caters to 6-second porn (as in it becomes to majority, not the exception), it’s going to have a hard time hanging around the App Store.

Prior to mid-December of last year, Facebook ran a program that asked users to vote on any prospective changes to the site’s policies, mainly the Statement of Right and Responsibilities and the Data Use policy. It was called the Site Governance vote, and allowed any users to vote on whether they thought Facebook should adopt the new privacy policies that they were proposing, or if they should just leave things as is.

Facebook required a 30% turnout on each Site Governance vote in order to act on the will of the user base. Anything short of that, Facebook logged the user base’s decision as “advisory” and simply went about their business. No Site Governance vote saw even 1% turnout.

With the last site Governance Vote, Facebook allowed users to vote on whether or not they wanted to retain the ability to vote. Only about 700K users voted through the app out of a required 30 million (give or take). So, as of December of 2012, Facebook users no longer get to vote on any changes to Facebook policy.

When Facebook eliminated the vote, they announced that instead, users would be able to participate in a new program designed to bring privacy concerns to the table and make Facebook policy more transparent.

It’s called “Ask Our Chief Privacy Officer” and Facebook just launched it.

“Ask Our CPO” lets users submit privacy-related questions to Facebook’s Chief Privacy Officer, Erin Egan. Then every so often, Egan will publish her responses to some of the questions.

You can access the Ask Our CPO app here. You’ll be required to submit your name, email, and country along with your privacy question.

And don’t bother submitting any privacy queries specific to your personal account – that’s not what this is for.

At Facebook, we work hard to build and maintain your trust. We understand that you’ll want to share on Facebook only if you trust us to protect the privacy and security of your information. We also understand that issues about privacy can be complex given the fast-moving nature of technology and that you have questions about privacy…

To help continue this conversation, we created this Ask Our CPO feature, which will enable you to send us your questions, concerns, and feedback about privacy — and give us the opportunity to share with you how we think about privacy. We hope this feature will serve as a regular forum where we can have a direct conversation about privacy.

In the first Ask Our CPO note, Egan talks about some common privacy-related questions that she receives on a daily basis (in lieu of any actual questions from users yet).

It’s good to see Facebook launch a new privacy resource, although it’s unclear how many users will take the time to further the dialogue. If you said “Facebook and Privacy” in a crowded room, everyone would most likely have their opinion on the issue. But as the failed Site Governance voting program proves, there’s not a ton of interest in utilizing the Facebook-sponsored channels to address privacy on the network.

50-year-old Mary Kay Beckman has filed a $10 million lawsuit against dating site Match.com, placing blame on them for a 2011 incident that left her nearly dead.

In September of 2010, Beckman met her “match” on the site, 53-year-old Wade Ridley. But after just eight days, she decided to break it off. Four months later, he broke into her house and stabbed her 10 times with a butcher knife. So hard that according to reports, the knife broke.

Ridley later committed suicide in jail awaiting trial.

Beckman is suing, claiming that Match.com doesn’t do enough to warn people of the risks they take when pursuing an online “match.”

Match.com has responded to the lawsuit, calling the situation “horrible” but the lawsuit itself “absurd”:

What happened to Mary Kay Beckman is horrible but this lawsuit is absurd. The many millions of people who have found love on Match.com and other online dating sites know how fulfilling it is. And while that doesn’t make what happened in this case any less awful, this is about a sick, twisted individual with no prior criminal record, not an entire community of men and women looking to meet each other.

Match.com’s terms of use does tackle the issue of “interactions with other members,” saying that they are not responsible for them, and that they currently don’t conduct criminal background checks. “Match.com makes no representations or warranties as to the conduct of members or their compatibility with any current of future member,” they state.

“IN NO EVENT SHALL MATCH.COM BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER, WHETHER DIRECT, INDIRECT, GENERAL, SPECIAL, COMPENSATORY, CONSEQUENTIAL, AND/OR INCIDENTAL, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE CONDUCT OF YOU OR ANYONE ELSE IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OF THE SERVICE,” says the site in big, bold, capital letters.

But it’s not as if terms of use are always airtight and courts can’t rule against a company in spite of them. What do you think? Is match.com in any way liable for violence that occurred based on one of their suggestions? Or is this lawsuit, like they put it, absurd?

[Fox 4 via Mashable]

Shock! Horror! Impending lawsuits!

Parents of children who attend one of the many schools in the Chicago Public Schools system were inadvertently directed to a soft-core adult site, after the school system sent out a mass email containing one slightly altered link.

The point of the email was to notify parents that CPS was raising their standards when it comes to the Illinois Standards Achievement Test, or ISAT. The new standards for the ISAT are being implemented by the Illinois State Board of Education, or ISBE.

A link at the conclusion of the email wanted to direct parents to the ISBE site more more information. Instead, the addition of one extra letter wound up directing parents to ISBEL.com, which happens to be a “private invite only community” with the goal of “enriching the modern woman’s sex life and sensuality.”

Luckily (or unluckily, depending on who you ask), the site’s home page only features an artistic photo of an open Kama Sutra book, placed on a bed. No real hardcore porn stuff or anything.

But of course, CPS had to make a public apology.

“As soon as it was brought to our attention, we sent out an updated letter with a corrected link and apologized for any inconvenience it may have caused,” said a spokeswoman for the Chicago Public Schools system.

Let’s just see how many parents come out and say they were scarred by CPS’ carelessness. Maybe their kids even saw the landing page. THE CHILDREN! THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

[CBS Chicago via CNET]