Facing up to Facebook scams

[Jolie Rouge]

Dave Budge, Calgary Herald April 4, 2013

"Anyone else getting sick of these daft posts?" my "friend" Chardon asked. This was on Facebook a while back. That's why I put "friend" in quotation marks. She was talking about an annoying trend: posts showing up on Facebook news feeds, saying something like, "Name a city without an 'R' in it. It's harder than it looks!"

It's not hard, of course. Ouagadougou, Vilnius, Montevideo all leap to mind. And Budge Budge in India. I'm sure there are others.

So what's the deal? Why go to the trouble of posting such an easy puzzle on Facebook?

Another "friend" replied, "Maybe someone is testing to see how many posts this rubbish can get."

And he was partly right. The rest of the explanation turns out to be creepy and may affect you even if you're among the dwindling minority of Canadians not on Facebook.

It gets especially creepy when the post is less benign and strikes an emotional chord: "'Like' if you hate cancer." "'Like' if you hate bullying." "If I get enough 'likes,' my dad will quit drugs."

I can slam the door in almost anyone's face, but there are enough softies out there that posts like these will draw a response - a big response. The people who respond probably put some effort into minimizing the junk mail at their door. They get on the do-not-call registry. They uncheck the website boxes for promotional spam from companies. But if they click "like" on a Facebook post because they're against famine or they think that kitten video is cute, they may have just volunteered for something they didn't expect. And if that person is a "friend" of yours, they could rope you in too.

Daylan Pearce, a self-described "search nerd" with Australia's Next Digital, recently exposed how this works. It's called "like farming." A Facebook page is created, with an appeal for readers to like, comment or share. The creators, who are working together to build these pages, share it among themselves. They all have big networks, so the pages instantly get into thousands of other people's news feeds. When those people respond with a "like" or a share, then it reaches their friends. Suddenly, the thing has spread faster than a high school rumour.

Then what? Then the people who started it, having quickly acquired tens of thousands of followers, sell the page. Now an advertiser has all those names and Facebook addresses. And that advertiser, who isn't allowed to phone you and whose flyers go straight to your recycling box, is sending you commercial messages on Facebook.

Annoying, but harmless, you might think. Unless you're Terri Johnson. She's a mother of five in the U.S., who was surprised to find a picture of her daughter Katie on a viral Facebook post. Someone had taken a picture of Katie from Terri's Facebook account and renamed her in a post that read, "This is my sister Mallory. She has Down syndrome and doesn't think she's beautiful. Please like this photo so I can show her later that she truly is beautiful."

By the time Terri was alerted to this, 3.5 million sympathetic, well-meaning people's emotional buttons had been pushed, all so they would push the "like" button. Imagine your privacy being violated and your family innocently embroiled in a cold-hearted lie to make a buck. You might feel even more sick and angry than the Johnsons.

Facebook long ago redefined the word "friend," removing much of its meaning. Now its exploitation by "like farmers" erodes a bit more of our humanity.

People are starting to wise up to these scams - they will be wary of the obvious ones and become leery of posts that tug at their heartstrings. But the bad guys find the angles faster than the rest of us figure out how to protect ourselves. They're already becoming more subtle and sophisticated, and any popular cause or pop culture phenomenon is at risk of being exploited. And each new scam creates more cynicism as the rest of us slowly clue in.

More than 18 million Canadians are on Facebook, wanting it to be a safe place to catch up with people we like, not a place to be distrustful of anything popular, or suspicious of our friends.


Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/technology/Budge+Facing+Facebook+scams/8176929/story.html#ixzz2PtLKPdfr

[Jolie Rouge]

I think this would be an example


https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/s480x480/537226_10200975540256114_517349808_n.jpg

A MUST READ..!!!

This is a vital information - literally of life and death - Be sure to read it and send it to those who appreciate it.

WATER AND SOAP IN ARMPIT
BEFORE BEDTIME
We spend the night with clean and underarm deodorant, to be a free breathing time the armpit.
Some time ago, I went to a seminar on Breast Cancer, led by Terry Birk with support from Dan Sullivan.

During the discussion, asked why the most common reason for developing breast cancer tumors is near the armpit.
My question could not be answered at that time.
This information was sent to me recently, and I'm glad it has been answered.
I informed a friend who is undergoing chemotherapy and she said that I had this information, obtained in a support group that frequents ...
Now I want to share information with you.!The main cause of Breast Cancer
is the use of anti-perspirant!

Most products on the market are a combination of anti-perspirant/deodorants.
Look at the labels!
Deodorant is fine,
ANTI-PERSPIRANT, NO.
The concentration of toxins causes
cell mutation:
CANCER. Here's why:

The human body is just a few areas where it can eliminate toxins: behind the knees, behind the ears, the English area and armpits.
Toxins are eliminated through perspiration.
The anti-perspirant, as the name says, prevents you from perspiring, thereby inhibiting the body to eliminate toxins through the armpits.
These toxins do not magically disappear.

As not come with sweat, the organism ta deposited in the lymph glands found under the arms.
Most breast cancers occur in the upper outside quadrant of the breast area.
Precisely where are the glands in men seems to occur to a lesser extent, but are not exempt from
Breast Cancer develop because of the anti-perspirant used instead of soap and water.
The difference lies in the fact that when men use anti-perspirant, not applied directly to the skin, they do so in large part on the hair of the armpits.

Women who apply antiperspirant or aftershave shaving the underarms, increase the risk due to tiny injuries and skin irritations which make harmful chemical components to penetrate more quickly into the body,

Please pass this infornación everyone ...
Breast Cancer is becoming frighteningly common and this warning may save some lives.
If somehow doubt this information, they can make their own investigations
They'll probably come to the same conclusion.

Lots of poor grammar from an "educated source"
Source Profile is based in Manila

[Jolie Rouge]

https://sphotos-b-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/p320x320/1003844_659650767397722_1044176955_n.jpg

[Jolie Rouge]

New gender options for Facebook users


By MARTHA MENDOZA

AP National Writer

February 13, 2014

0 Comments


MENLO PARK, Calif. (AP) — You don’t have to be just male or female on Facebook anymore. The social media giant is adding a customizable option with about 50 different terms people can use to identify their gender as well as three preferred pronoun choices: him, her or them.

Facebook said the changes, shared with The Associated Press before the launch on Thursday, initially cover the company’s 159 million monthly users in the U.S. and are aimed at giving people more choices in how they describe themselves, such as androgynous, bi-gender, intersex, gender fluid or transsexual.

“There’s going to be a lot of people for whom this is going to mean nothing, but for the few it does impact, it means the world,” said Facebook software engineer Brielle Harrison, who worked on the project and is herself undergoing gender transformation, from male to female. On Thursday, while watchdogging the software for any problems, she said she was also changing her Facebook identity from Female to TransWoman.

“All too often transgender people like myself and other gender nonconforming people are given this binary option, do you want to be male or female? What is your gender? And it’s kind of disheartening because none of those let us tell others who we really are,” she said. “This really changes that, and for the first time I get to go to the site and specify to all the people I know what my gender is.”

Facebook, which has 1.15 billion active monthly users around the world, also allows them to keep their gender identity private and will continue to do so.

The change to the gender selection option is seen as a major step toward acceptance for people who don’t self-identify as male or female, but the high-profile development seemed senseless to those who believe in two genders, no more.

“Of course Facebook is entitled to manage its wildly popular site as it sees fit, but here is the bottom line: It’s impossible to deny the biological reality that humanity is divided into two halves - male and female,” said Jeff Johnston, an issues analyst for Focus on the Family, an influential national religious organization based in Denver. “Those petitioning for the change insist that there are an infinite number of genders, but just saying it doesn’t make it so. That said, we have a great deal of compassion for those who reject their biological sex and believe they are the opposite sex.”

Masen Davis, executive director of the San Francisco-based Transgender Law Center, said it may be hard for some people to understand the importance of having the ability to select from multiple genders online. But he said many transgender people will be thrilled with the change.

“We applaud Facebook for making it possible for people to be their authentic selves online,” he said.

In the past decade, the transgender movement has become much more organized and outspoken, demanding the kind of civil rights and respect already sought by gay activists. During this time, the transgender umbrella has been growing well beyond transsexuals to encompass a wide variety of gender identities.

The move by Facebook came after years of lobbying from users, some who started Facebook pages to petition for the change. Google+ offers male, female and “other” as choices, but transgender advocates said Facebook’s many specific options puts the platform well ahead of any other online community. About 1 percent of Google+ users identify as other.

The idea of expanding gender choices percolated at Facebook for about a year and started to come to fruition during an in-house brainstorming four months ago, project manager Lexi Ross said.

Transgender activist Nori Herras-Castaneda, a spokeswoman for the Billy DeFrank LGBT Community Center in San Jose, said her community has been waiting for this to happen for a long time.

“We always talk about how gender is a spectrum,” she said. “I can see a lot of people being extremely happy about this.”

At this point, Facebook targets advertising according to male or female genders. For those who change to something neutral, ads will be targeted based on the pronoun they select for themselves. Unlike getting engaged or married, changing gender is not registered as a “life event” on the site and won’t post on timelines. Therefore, Facebook said advertisers cannot target ads to those who declare themselves transgender or recently changed their gender.

Users also can separately indicate whether they want to be referred to as he, she or they.

Facebook came up with its range of terms after consulting with leading gay and transgender activists, and the company plans to continue working with them. Facebook started the options in the U.S. and plans to take it global after working with activists abroad to come up with terms appropriate in other countries.

Herras-Castaneda said she did expect some anger.

“Any time the transgender community makes advances, there is backlash, and this is a very big advance, so yes, we’ll face some problems, no doubt,” she said.

At Facebook, staffers said the expanded options were never questioned, from CEO Mark Zuckerberg on down.

“Really, there was no debate within Facebook about the social implications at all,” said Alex Schultz, director of growth. “It was simple: Not allowing people to express something so fundamental is not really cool so we did something. Hopefully a more open and connected world will, by extension, make this a more understanding and tolerant world.”

http://theadvocate.com/home/8370236-125/new-gender-options-for-facebook