Thread: What Happens to Your Facebook Profile When You Die?

What Happens to Your Facebook Profile When You Die?
By Dan Fletcher
Wed Oct 28, 4:30 pm ET

The company decided to publicize the policy because of a backlash caused by a new version of the site's homepage that was rolled out on Oct. 23, which includes automatically generated "suggestions" of people to "reconnect" with. Within days of the launch, Twitter users and bloggers from across the Web complained that some of these suggestions were for friends who had died. "Would that I could," complained a user on Twitter before ending her tweet with the hash tag #MassiveFacebookFail.

"We understand how difficult it can be for people to be reminded of those who are no longer with them, which is why it's important when someone passes away that their friends or family contact Facebook to request that a profile be memorialized," Kelly said in the post. To discourage pranksters, Facebook does require proof before sending a profile down the digital river Styx. Family or friends must fill out a form, providing a link to an obituary or other information confirming a user's death, before the profile is officially memorialized. Once that is completed, the user will cease showing up in Facebook's suggestions, and information like status updates won't show up in Facebook's news feed, the stream of real-time user updates that is the site's centerpiece. If relatives prefer not to have the profile stand as an online memorial, Facebook says it will remove the account altogether.

Better publicizing memorialized profiles is an attempt by Facebook to answer lingering privacy concerns. Canadian privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart investigated the company in July and issued a report that asked Facebook to explain certain areas of its privacy policy, including policies regarding the profiles of deceased users. In response, the company promised to issue a new privacy policy that better articulates how user information is treated postmortem and offered the commissioner an outline of its memorializing policy, nearly three months before the blog post explained it to users. Spokeswoman Anne-Marie Hayden says the privacy commissioner was "quite pleased" with Facebook's response to the office's concerns and says the commissioner will review the detailed version of the site's new policy, expected in late October.

Facebook's attempt to clearly state its policy is prudent, as other social-networking sites have struggled with the question of users' deaths. MySpace in particular has had a difficult time with digital rubbernecking - during the site's heyday, a handful of well-trafficked blogs specialized in matching MySpace profiles directly to obituaries and posting the pairings online for all to see. By sealing profiles to family and friends and removing profiles from search results, Facebook assuages users' fears that they'll be fodder for online voyeurs in the event of their untimely demise - hopefully putting the issue to rest.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/2009102...08599193280300


Am I the last person on the PLANET to have a Facebook page ?

Honestly, when Sarah passed we left her page up. Some of her friends go and post there still, it gives them a way to stay connected with her.

Posting Pics Online?
What Your Photos Say About You
Jeanna Bryner Senior Writer LiveScience.com
Mon Nov 9, 11:23 am ET

Those photos you post on Facebook could paint an accurate picture of your personality, new research on first impressions suggests.

And perhaps as expected, the more candid a shot the more nuances of your personality show through.

"In an age dominated by social media where personal photographs are ubiquitous, it becomes important to understand the ways personality is communicated via our appearance," said study researcher Laura Naumann of Sonoma State University. "The appearance one portrays in his or her photographs has important implications for their professional and social life."


With this information, there's always the option of tweaking your image, and thus your personality to the outside world. "If you want potential employers or romantic suitors to see you as a warm and friendly individual, you should post pictures where you smile or are standing in a relaxed pose," Naumann said.


Scientists have known physical appearance is important for first impressions and that such initial impressions can be hard to undo, particularly negative ones. Studies have shown judgments made at first glance of a CEO can predict his or her success. But until now little was known about how well people judged personality based on appearance and what physical factors are most important.


In the new study, 12 observers looked at full-body photos of 123 undergraduate students who they had never met before. Six observers viewed the students in a neutral pose and six saw the same students in a spontaneous pose.


The participants rated each photo on 10 personality traits: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, openness (open to experience), likability, self-esteem, loneliness, religiosity and political orientation.


To figure out accuracy of the judgments, the researchers compared the results with the posers' self-ratings and ratings from three close friends.


For the controlled poses, the observers accurately judged extraversion and self-esteem. When participants looked at the naturally expressive shots, which revealed dynamic non-verbal cues, they were nearly spot-on, getting nine out of the 10 traits correct (everything but political orientation).


For instance, both the neutral and expressive photos garnered about a 70 percent success rate.


"Extraversion is one of those things that's probably the easiest trait to judge," Naumann told LiveScience. "Even without seeing whether someone is smiling or not people can pick that up."


But when judging likeability, observers got it right on average for 55 percent of the photos with neutral poses and 64 percent of the expressive photos. Similar results were found for agreeableness, with participants judging correctly 45 percent of the time for neutral poses compared with 60 percent in the expressive images.


Beyond pure science, the researchers say the results, which will be detailed in the December issue of the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, have practical implications.


For example, if you want to come off as an extravert, try to smile more, stand in energetic and less tense ways, and gear your overall appearance to look healthy (as opposed to sickly), neat and stylish, the study found. For those interested in seeming open to new experiences, it'd be best to show off a distinctive style of dressing rather than a healthy, neat appearance.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/...tossayaboutyou

Smiling on Facebook costs Canadian her insurance
Sat Nov 21, 2:08 pm ET

MONTREAL (AFP) – Facebook can be a double-edged sword, a Canadian woman learned when an insurance company cut her health benefits, claiming she was healthy after seeing pictures of her smiling in bikini at the beach.

Nathalie Blanchard, 29, took long-term sick leave from her job at IBM in Bromont, Quebec, more than a year ago for severe depression. She was receiving monthly benefits from her insurance company, Manulife.

When Blanchard called Manulife to inquire why the payments dried up, the insurance company said that "I'm available to work, because of Facebook," she told CBC television.

She said that Manulife cited several pictures Blanchard had posted on her social networking website page, including some showing her enjoying herself during a male strip-tease show at a Chippendales bar, celebrating her birthday and bathing in the sun.

Based on these postings, the firm claimed Blanchard was no longer depressed.

Manulife declined to comment on the incident but said in a statement that "we would not deny or terminate a valid claim solely based on information published on websites such as Facebook."

But the company did recognize that it uses such information to learn more about their clients.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091121...ternetfacebook

For stars, high-tech gaffes hard to hide
By Martha Irvine, Ap National Writer
1 hr 17 mins ago

CHICAGO – So, you fail to take a deep breath and to count to 10 — and you post something you probably shouldn't on Twitter or Facebook, or somewhere else online.

Hopefully, it blows over without doing too much damage. But what if you're famous and have thousands, if not millions of virtual followers?

NFL star Larry Johnson was released by the Kansas City Chiefs after questioning his coach and posting gay slurs for all the world to see. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was criticized for pulling out a big knife in a video that was posted as a "thank you" to constituents for suggesting ways to cut the state budget.

Those are but two of the recent controversies that social networking helped ignite — and far from the last in an era when fans and gawkers are just waiting for sports stars, celebrities and politicians to say something embarrassing or naughty. New technology makes it that much easier for stars to do that. "Yes, I get that this is a great promotional tool. It can also be a dagger if not used properly," says Matthew Pace, a New York attorney who works with agencies that manage athletes and who cautions them about the damage social networking can do to a career.

Syracuse University star receiver Mike Williams discovered those pitfalls when he was suspended from the football team this fall, and then quit shortly after saying he hated college on his Facebook page. "I can't see me doing this for long ... hint, hint," Williams also wrote, according to the Syracuse student newspaper.

Those kinds of posts are causing more universities, pro teams and even some movie studios to try to clamp down on the off-the-cuff content their stars put online. Or, at the very least, celebs of all kinds are being encouraged to think before they post.

Sometimes, it's about protecting reputations. In other cases, it's about keeping sensitive information from leaking.

One could argue that some celebrities, athletes and politicians have done a pretty good job of making fools of themselves for a long time without social networking. "But there may be a tendency even for really high-profile people to forget that any content you post online is a public statement — and that it is as public as any television or print interview," says Nancy Flynn, a corporate consultant who heads the Ohio-based ePolicy Institute. "It's in your words, so you can't say, 'Well, I was misquoted.'"

However, while there are obvious dangers, all of this "microblogging," as it's known, can be worth the risk: Fans like having this kind of direct access to public figures and can be quite loyal to those who are good at it.

And even if there's an online stumble, here or there, well, that can just make celebs seem more real. "It's a way to understand that they are human," says April Francis, a 26-year-old Chicagoan who works as an "identity consultant," which includes help with wardrobe, branding and public relations for her clients.

On Twitter, she follows everyone from burlesque performer Dita Von Teese to basketball star Shaquille O'Neal — but recently dropped author Margaret Atwood because she thought Atwood was "mind-blowingingly boring."

For a lot of fans, it is that — not controversy — that's the kiss of death these days. "It comes down to the interest factor," says Allen Chen, a 30-year-old university worker from Yonkers, N.Y., who follows several professional athletes and authors on Twitter and thinks it's best when they are "funny, entertaining and snarky." He recently dropped a former New York Knick (Stephon Marbury) and a current one (Nate Robinson) because he says they were none of those things.

Sometimes it's the celebrity who loses interest in social networking. Teen pop star Miley Cyrus recently stopped tweeting because she grew weary of tabloids using material she posted.

More often, though, Hollywood types are more than happy to share what some might consider too much information, evidenced on Wonderwall.com, a site that tracks some of the more questionable or buzz-worthy things celebrities tweet.

Consider this one from singer John Mayer: "If you ever see me out and about and I'm punching myself in the pants, leave me be. Personal lessons are being taught/learned."

Or actress Demi Moore: "grabbing my hubby and putting on my birthday suit.....to snuggle.......goooood night. until tomorrow!"

It's all part of the growing school of thought that controversy, or titillation, actually helps a celebrity's career by getting them noticed, says Richard Laermer, a New York publicist. "The new PR is about fame that starts and stops with everything that people hear about you. So in order to rise above the noise, you have to be outrageous and controversial," says Laermer, who talks about the trend in his book "2011: Trendspotting"

Of course, there are limits, he says, noting that most high-profile people generally don't go "astray from who they want their fans to think they are."

In some instances, a few celebrities and athletes have managed to use social networking to help resurrect their images. Chad Ochocinco, the brassy wide receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals, is one of them and even has his own iPhone application. "It's not that often that I am blown away by a celeb or an athlete, nor am I a fan of the Cincinnati Bengals by any stretch. I am however, now a big fan of Chad Ochocinco," says Natalie Svider, who works for a digital marketing agency in Los Angeles. "His ability to completely transform the public's perception of him in such a short time and the fact that he is one of the few players that really and truly connects with his fans, is what got me hooked."

In the end, some also might argue that the damage players such as Larry Johnson and Mike Williams did to their reputations likely won't be that long-lasting.

Johnson is now playing for the Bengals, a team known for taking on troubled players, though he's a backup running back. And some suspect Williams, who was a junior at Syracuse, will surface in next year's NFL draft.

Schwarzenegger, meanwhile, shrugged when some criticized him for using the knife to make light of the budget-cutting process. He said he doesn't want to be seen as "El Stiffo," insinuating that his predecessors might have been a little boring.

Still, with elections at stake and endorsement and movie deals to be lost, those who track social networking say there's a difference between being controversial and too controversial. "Modern athletes are highly trained on how to handle the local beat reporter, but the ability to speak in real-time in a personal-yet-public space is something that they are clearly learning how to navigate as they go," says Aaron Smith, a research specialist at the Pew Internet & American Life Project. "The norms of what is acceptable in those settings is clearly evolving."

___

On the Net:

Larry Johnson's site: http://www.toonicon.com/

Schwarzenegger video: http://tiny.cc/hCK7R

Ochocinco's Twitter page: http://twitter.com/OGOchoCinco

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091129/...9yc3RhcnNoaWdo

Thursday, Jan. 21, 2010
The Facebook Defense: Social Networking as Alibi
By Sophia Yan

Facebook is great at wasting your time, but could it keep you from doing hard time? So far, the site that connects people with their sixth-grade crushes and lets countless parents keep better tabs on their teenagers has helped at least one Facebook member stay out of jail.

According to several legal experts, a 19-year-old in New York City may be the first person to have successfully used Facebook to provide an alibi. When Rodney Bradford was charged with mugging two males at gunpoint in Brooklyn on a Saturday in October, it didn't help that he was already facing a previous robbery indictment. And although Bradford's father and stepmother backed up his claim that at the time of the alleged mugging, he was in Harlem at his father's apartment, witnesses identified him in a lineup, says his lawyer Robert Reuland.

So how did Bradford walk free? Facebook. On the day of the crime, which took place around 11:50 a.m., his status on Facebook was updated at 11:49 a.m.: "on the phone with this fat chick...wherer my i hop." He had been talking with his girlfriend and referenced a recent visit to the restaurant chain IHOP. A Brooklyn district attorney subpoenaed Facebook and, with the pulled records, Reuland was able to convince her that Bradford's Facebook update had been posted within a minute of "the time the crime was alleged to have happened, from an IP address registered to [Bradford's] father in Manhattan."

"What we had in hand was irrefutable proof," says Reuland. "And that's really where it turned the trick." Bradford's Facebook alibi "made the day," he says.

The alibi defense is as old as judges and juries. But there are a lot of new ways to back up an alibi now that people are documenting their daily lives with tweets, pokes and photo tags. "Digital information can sometimes be more easily authenticated, because of date and time stamps provided on computer servers," says John Browning, a Dallas-based attorney who studies social networking and the law.

Facebook profiles have helped nab all kinds of people, from unfaithful spouses in divorce settlements to cheaters in insurance-fraud cases. As Browning noted this month at a conference sponsored by the Texas Center for the Judiciary, our online lives are "virtual treasure troves of information" for lawyers and judges.

"Whenever we're on the Internet, we leave behind this very revealing and gigantic trail of information," says Nicholas Bramble, a Yale Law School fellow who has studied digital evidence. And that trail — which can include anything from a post on a Facebook profile to a message to a MySpace contact to an appearance in the background of a stranger's photo — can be a "huge resource" in judicial proceedings, he says.

Erasing your electronic footprints is not easy. It takes a serious geek to do it right. For example, bleaching your Google search history from your computer doesn't mean that it's gone permanently — Google could have that information stored on a server somewhere.

But you don't have to use high-tech maneuvers to pull a Facebook sleight of hand. Couldn't a criminal simply have a buddy log in to his or her Facebook account and generate activity to provide an alibi?

Absolutely, says Bramble. "There are worries that arise based on fabrication and tampering." But for Bradford, the bottom line remains: Facebook got him off the hook.

http://www.time.com/time/business/ar...-biztech-yahoo

Modern Etiquette:How to decline Facebook friends without offence
By Richard Baum – Mon Feb 22, 8:20 am ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A colleague I just met at work has invited me to be their friend on Facebook. I don't want to offend them, but nor do I want to share my candid photos and lousy Scrabble scores with someone I hardly know.

Can I ignore their invite?

"Can I be your friend?" might work as an ice-breaker among small children, but it's not a question you hear often between adults, at least not outside of Las Vegas.

Friendship, it is generally understood, is a relationship that evolves through shared interests, common experiences and a primeval need to share your neighbor's power tools.

Yet for many people, Facebook permits a return to the simplicity of the schoolyard.

Rather than inviting someone to be our Facebook friend only after we've become friends in the real world, many of us are using Facebook as a short-cut around all that time-consuming relationship building.

Why bother asking someone you've just met questions about their family, interests and ability to run a farm or aquarium, when you can simply send them a friend request and read the answers in your Facebook news feed? And so we think little of receiving friend requests after we meet someone for the first time at, say, a dinner party.

If you like the person, perhaps because they brought an excellent bottle of wine to the party, then you can accept the request in the hope of further opportunities to sample the contents of their cellar.

If you didn't get to taste the wine because they accidentally spilled the bottle over your brand new party dress, then etiquette experts would probably agree that you can decline the friend request, send them a dry-cleaning bill and humiliate them in a derisory posting to your real Facebook friends.

In the workplace, however, the dynamic is very different. The consequences of offending someone by ignoring their friend request are greater with a colleague you see every day than with a careless dining companion you may never meet again.

So why are people you work with increasingly offering to share their Facebook output?

Joan Morris DiMicco, an IBM researcher who studies social software in the workplace, said it's partly because some people just don't anticipate the ramifications of sharing their personal life with colleagues.

But it's also a function of the Facebook interface, which recommends other people for you to friend.

"Once you've connected to one person you work with you get recommendations to connect to others that you work with," she said.

Of course, many people don't have a problem with being Facebook friends with colleagues, especially those they know well. But for those who would rather keep their work and private lives separate, there are options other than ignoring an unwanted friend request.

One is to accept the invitation and then use Facebook's privacy settings to limit the flow of information between you and your new "friend." To do this, you can create a "colleagues" list from the Friends menu and then add to it your new friend. Then navigate to the privacy settings and use the "Profile Information" section to control what information people on the "colleagues" list can see.

An alternative, says workplace etiquette expert Barbara Pachter, is to suggest to the colleague that you connect instead on LinkedIn, a social network for professional relationships.

"You can just go ahead and ask them to join you on LinkedIn and hope they forget they sent you a Facebook friend request," said Pachter, the author of New Rules @ Work.

"Or you can say, Thanks for asking me. I'm keeping Facebook for my family and friends. I'm asking you to join me on my professional network instead.'"

Pachter said that whatever you do, it's important not to offend your colleague -- and that's not just because politeness is good etiquette.

"The person you offend might end up being your boss next year," she said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100222/...Rlcm5ldGlxdWU-

Facebook unveils revamped online safety site
Tue Apr 13, 7:12 pm ET

PALO ALTO, Calif. – Facebook has launched a revamped internal site designed to help people stay safe and report threats while on the popular online hangout.

Facebook's "Safety Center," which features new tools for parents, teachers, teens and law enforcement, is the first major endeavor from the social networking site and its four-month-old global safety advisory board.

The company unveiled its Safety Center a day after meeting with child advocacy officials in the U.K., who had been pushing the company to install a so-called "panic button" on the site for some time, following the kidnapping and murder there of a teenager by a man she encountered on Facebook.

Britain's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center, or CEOP, had wanted Facebook to install a prominent link on U.K. users' profile pages that would take them to CEOP's own safety site designed to help children deal with online threats.

In a statement Tuesday, the center called Facebook's move "long overdue," and "nothing more than we would expect from any responsible social network provider."

But it added that "critical issues remain unresolved" since Facebook did not actually install a "panic button."

"We believe that without the deterrence provided by direct visible access to the CEOP button on each and every page children will not be appropriately empowered, parents cannot be reassured and the offender will not be deterred," the center said on its Web site.

Facebook's board is composed of Internet safety groups Common Sense Media, ConnectSafely, WiredSafety, Childnet International and The Family Online Safety Institute.

Some new features of the safety center include more content on staying safe, such as dealing with bullying online, an interactive portal and a simpler design.

The presence of sexual predators is a problem for social networking sites and their users. Facebook, based in Palo Alto, Calif., has helped identify, and has disabled accounts of, registered sex offenders. In 2008, Facebook said it agreed to assist 49 Attorneys General to protect kids against Internet predators.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100413/...NlYm9va3VudmU-

Facebook generation: clicking 'like' won't solve America's problems
By Nathan Fisk Fri Apr 16, 10:00 am ET

Colorado Springs, Colo. – To defeat totalitarian dictators, the greatest generation rationed goods, tended victory gardens, paid higher taxes, bought war bonds, and sent 16 million young men and women to war.

To confront rogue nations, terrorists, energy issues, soaring debt, and other urgent problems that threaten America’s security, the Facebook generation has made... virtually no sacrifice at all.

This must change. And it can. Just as the consumerism of the 1920s and isolationism of the 1930s gave way to the thrift and global engagement of the 1940s, so, too, can today’s young adults mature to take on severe challenges.

It won’t be simple, though.

No progress is made without sacrifice, and this generation (my generation) is loath to sacrifice. We see this everywhere: from the water-cooler conversations that focus on “American Idol” to the adoration of women like Paris Hilton and their false pedestals of achievement to the television and mediacentric addiction that drives our choices of what we buy and what we wear. Apparently, we want every luxury and every hope; we want to play, but never to pay.

My generation doesn’t understand the backbreaking labor of an agrarian society, the ruthlessness of a Wild West, or, as in World War II, the sacrifice and motivation to fight a war in which literally thousands are lost in a single day. Compare that with the roughly 5,400 US soldiers killed so far after eight years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Harsh news and wretched tears of war spared few families across America through April and May 1944. Allied Air Forces lost almost 12,000 men and 2,000 aircraft as they cleared the way for a ground invasion. On D-Day, the “bravest generation” lost at least 2,500 American servicemen in a single day defending the world against a tyrant. By the end of the war, more than 400,000 of our military had made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

Critically, it wasn’t just a herculean effort by our armed forces. All Americans contributed because they understood that our future and our values were at stake.

Today, our future is again under threat, but too few young Americans are taking up the call to action.

Our soldiers are certainly an exception. In the past decade, they’ve deposed dictators, enabled free elections, liberated minorities and women, built schools, and invested billions in everything from hospitals to power plants. The struggle to prevail against the enemies of freedom is ongoing, but by almost every objective measure, Americans should be awash with pride at what the sacrifice of our military has nobly accomplished.

The rest of my generation must now step up.

We must view current events through the clarifying prism of history instead of the fun-house mirrors of postmodern culture.

Through a milieu of never-ceasing, nerve-ending satisfaction, we fail to see the screen for the pixels. This generation seems blind to one poor decision after another at the hands of power brokers who are mortgaging our future. In the face of this, it is essential that we cease our shirking, embrace our future, and, without hesitation, exert our influence in a manner heretofore not imagined.

The “bill” coming due is not merely the scourge of national debt. Twenty-five years from now, which countries will threaten peace with nuclear devices? Which terrorist groups will exert power?

Will capitalism exist in the United States? Which entity will control Wall Street? Why is my generation apparently satisfied with the status quo? We must radically shift our expectations: pursuing deep space exploration, inventing weapons to make nuclear devices obsolete, eliminating genetic maladies, and harvesting energy from sources we have yet to imagine.

Our most eminent young engineers, writers, bankers, and intellectuals have an opportunity to apply their energy toward the challenges of a new world. This is not a fanciful whimsy; Google, possibly the most notable technology of the last 15 years, was created by Larry Page and Sergey Brin before they reached the ripe old age of 26.

One hundred seventy-five years ago, Manifest Destiny was the clarion call for westward expansion and was the trigger for a mind-set of exploration, risk, and the hope for a better America. In the 20th century, World War II set the stage for American world dominance, the nose-to-nose confrontations with Communism, and the intellectual groundwork that would create a technological explosion of information in the latter half of the century.

Our firm grasp on information technologies and the power we wield with that weapon could be the cornerstone of this generation’s legacy. As the challenges of the 21st century become clearer, it’s time my generation stopped asking “When?” or “Who?” and started answering “Now” and “Me.”

Motivation is rooted in presentation. We tend to ignore abstract problems, but we do respond quickly to matters of survival and to big opportunities. Many of today’s most pressing challenges – terrorism, energy security, climate change, uncontrolled debt – fall into both categories, so today’s generation could be stimulated to action.

One looming challenge is the bankrupt legacy of Social Security. Just this year, the program started taking in less revenue in taxes than it pays out in benefits. Its unfunded liability now stands at $7.7 trillion. Our parents’ generation has passed the buck to us. What if we immediately discontinued the program for everyone under the age of 70? Would such an idea cause short-term suffering? Yes, but more critically, would it spur long-term innovation? Would it compel us to relearn the art of savings, the definition of community compassion, and the concepts of capitalism anew?

This is just one idea. We require a host of initiatives across all fields if we are to break the status quo.

My generation can either choose to wrench the mantle of responsibility from the shoulders of the lawmakers and power brokers in control, or we will reap the consequences of another generation’s actions for years to come.

A world that desperately needs courageous, ingenious, long-term thinking is counting on us. Will you step up?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100416...NlYm9va2dlbmU-

Comments

WHAT??? Sacrifice?? Are you MAD?? Where's my Grey Poupon??

Yeah, but let's face it, our generation is too busy with frivolity and glamor. Our parents didn't discipline us enough, didn't teach us self-control, respect OR responsibility. Our education is abysmal at best.

Our great-grandparents save the free world, our grandparents and parents destroyed our backbone and we're satisfied to become techno-zombies and couch potatoes. You have to force most of our generation to grow a spine first, and some balls while we're at it!

hate that "world owes me a livin attitude." Making babies without even the intent to pay for them, expect cradle to grave free health-care, free food, free everything. And complain "I'm a victim" too. There's too much of it all over this country. When I had low income years- that was that- the govt did not hand me a lump of money at tax time. Global problems- they don't even know they exist- they are too buried in their ipods. Work on problems- save the earth- not this generation- too spoiled- by the government.

This has been said about every generation going back to when the Greeks were ruling the world, and probably before that. Nathan fisk is just some liberal trying to justify more taxes is my guess. I could be wrong as I know nothing about him. The reason for this lack of sacrifice as he suggests is because of all the sacrifices of the previous generations. They made this country great, they made it a super power above all, and this is why we can just click LIKE in facebook. There are those, mostly liberals who want to tear our country down and make it less of a super power. By doing this, there will come a time when we will all have to sacrifice again.

"political consultant"
Read: overpaid hack.

Dear Mr Fisk, most people are not making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to squirrel away in hopes that they can beat inflation for thirty-forty years after they retire. Obviously his plan is to have everyone work until they are physically or mentally incapable. Except for himself. He will be busy living off the largesse he "earned" whispering in politicians' ears to enact that requirement.

I could have written this op ed. I've been saying the same things for years now. When you grow up hearing the first hand accounts of life during the Great Depression and WWII it makes a big impression.

You crazy kids (anybody under 30) really can't imagine what people had to do during the '20s, '30s and '40s. Whenever I catch myself b'tching about high prices I remember that my Grandma had 3 kids, a sick husband and NO social programs to lean on, yet she managed to feed any 'hobo' who showed up at her door asking to work for food. It's humbling to recall that my Mom dropped from exhaustion while working in the tail section of a B17 at a defense plant. My Dad fought in the South Pacific when he was only 23. Dad's cousin came out of a POW camp with TB and died at the age of 27.

They lived with food & gas rations. Nobody could buy a new car. Women shortened their skirts and stained their legs; no silk stockings, the troops needed parachutes. Kids salvaged anything of use for the war effort, and that probably helped them cope with having Dad away at war.

They bought War Bonds, endured curfews and black out orders.

Most importantly, they kept constant watch for spies, and kept their mouths shut~loose lips sink ships.

Every effort was made to support our troops, keep their moral up and show the world that America was one united people. Dissenters were considered the scum of the earth and Tokyo Rose was worse than Hitler.

By compaison, Americans today are a bunch of spoiled rotten brats.

When these kids get older, and their parents are sick, they've lost a few more loved ones, they've raised children of their own, and see the same mistakes being made by them, there is no inheritance, and they have no other choice but stand on their own, they'll do like we did. We grew up. We had more than our parents, and they more than their parents did. Our kids are no different. It's still a world where you have to do something tangible to survive, and always will be, so although more technologically advanced, you still have to eat. If their minds and bodies are able, they will be fine when we're gone. My kids are getting to the point they want to make it on their own, and just now seeing that looking at LCD screens aren't paying the bills. They'll figure it out pretty soon, because any caring parent has to cut the strings at some point for their own good if they want their children to be strong and independent. That's what any teenager is asking for right? Please leave me alone!!!! Well, when you hear that enough times, you know it's just a handfull of years left with them under your roof.

By the way, when one of them comes back, they won't be there nearly as long, after they've had a little taste of freedom hopefully! One came back, and now she's got a better understanding losing what she craved for so long. Lessons are hard learned for some of them, So don't be easy on them, they can hate you now, and love you later.

On Facebook, 'opt in' or 'opt out' for privacy changes?
By Frank Michael Russell
Posted: 04/27/2010 01:43:25 PM PDT
Updated: 04/27/2010 01:43:37 PM PDT

Four Democratic U.S. senators are telling Palo Alto social networking upstart Facebook that a recent change to its privacy procedures "raises new concerns for users who want to maintain control over their information."

In a letter to Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Sens. Charles Schumer of New York, Michael Bennett of Colorado, Mark Begich of Alaska and Al Franken of Minnesota said Facebook members should have the chance to "opt in" to privacy changes on the site.

"We hope that Facebook will stand by its goal of creating open and transparent communities," the senators said in their letter. "Providing opt-in mechanisms for information sharing instead of expecting users to go through long and complicated opt-out processes is a critical step toward maintaining clarity and transparency."

According to The Associated Press, Facebook Vice President Elliot Schrage responded in writing to Schumer, saying the company welcomes "a continued dialogue with you and others because we agree that scrutiny over the handling of personal data is needed as Internet users seek a more social and interactive experience."

Last week, Facebook made several changes to its site, including an "instant personalization" feature on partner sites including Pandora and Yelp. Members who don't want the other sites to pull in their personal data can go to "Applications and Websites" under their Facebook privacy settings to opt out of instant personalization.

The senators also objected to a move by Facebook to expand the sharing of members' profile information to a wider group of people on Facebook and to allow third-party advertisers to store that information for more than 24 hours.

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