New Arizona Bill Could Outlaw Parody Twitter Accounts

Arizona is considering a bill that could penalize the creators of parody Twitter or Facebook accounts with jail time if they have “malicious intent.” More »

This Girl Has the Best Facebook Cover Photos

Maybe you change your Facebook cover photo according to the season. Maybe you hacked the Facebook cover photo to look seamless. Maybe you pranked people with your photo. But no matter what you did, it probably wasn’t as pop culturally aware as Libby Cooper. She inserted her head into famous scenes from movies and paintings and other pictures and the result is hilariously adorable. More »

California and Illinois pass laws preventing employers from demanding social media passwords

In this day and age of social media, one wrong move could result in you losing your job. Employers who demand their potential employees’ passwords to their social media accounts don’t make things any easier, but thankfully two states have just imposed laws that prevent employers from doing just that. If you live in California or Illinois, you’ll be pleased to know that it’s now illegal for employers to demand your Facebook, Twitter, or other social media passwords to gain access to your private information.

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California and Illinois are joining Michigan, Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey as that fifth and sixth states that prohibit such demands. The laws in the other four went on the books throughout 2012, while California and Illinois’ new laws went into effect yesterday. These state laws come after congress failed to pass the Password Protection Act of 2012.

You might not think that this is a common issue, but apparently it’s a complaint lawmakers and social media companies hear often. A business might demand a potential employee’s social media passwords during an interview, something which many consider to be inappropriate. If you’re living in one of the six states listed above, you’re now protected from such demands, but those looking for work in the other 44 states may not be so lucky.

It should be noted that these new laws don’t prevent potential employers from viewing the public information you have on your social profiles, so watch out for that. Then again, these social networks have been around long enough that most of us should know not to post incriminating things for the whole world to see. That’s the hope, anyway. In any case, we’ll likely see more states passing laws like this as time goes on, so stay tuned.

[via Wired]


California and Illinois pass laws preventing employers from demanding social media passwords is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

California, Illinois Employers Cannot Request For Employee Facebook Passwords

fb password law California, Illinois Employers Cannot Request For Employee Facebook PasswordsI am not quite sure just how the law allows employers to know an employee’s Facebook password in the first place, but I am glad that the courts have ruled that employers in California and Illinois no longer have the authority or rule of power to request for Facebook passwords from their employees. This particular law took effect as the clock struck 12:01 am in both the states of California and Illinois. Basically, employers can no longer request for social networking passwords as well as non-public account information from current or potential employees, and that would mean your social network shenanigans are safe, at least for the time being.

Just for context, Michigan passed a similar law last month. Employees should bear in mind that employers are still able to view any public posts, tweets or photos on the social networks, so make sure you have all of your privacy settings set right unless you want to run into trouble with a wayward comment or an awkward photo.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Samsung Chromebox Gets A New Look, ASUS And Acer Bow Out Of Netbook Market,

Michigan Passes Law To Protect Social Network Accounts Of Employees From Employers

 Michigan Passes Law To Protect Social Network Accounts Of Employees From EmployersEarlier this year you might recall that there was an incident where a teacher’s aide had been fired because she refused to hand over her Facebook login credentials to her employers. This lead to the state of Maryland banning employers from asking employees access to their social network accounts, and it looks like other states such as Delaware, Illinois and California have since followed suit. Now it looks like hopping aboard the bandwagon would be the state of Michigan where Governor Rick Snyder signed the House Bill 5523, stating that “potential employees and students should be judged on their skills and abilities, not private online activity.” The bill also states that those who breach this new law can be fined $1,000 and even face up to 93 days in jail.

There has been some debate in the past as to what sort of photos and information should go up on a social network. Some companies like to maintain a certain image and are pretty strict at the sort of content their employees post on their social network accounts, even requesting access to a potential employee’s Facebook account to “check them out”, but it’s good to see that the government is taking action in the protection of the rights and privacy of employees and students on social networks.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Microsoft Alerts Internet Explorer Users Of ‘Zero Day’ Security Hole, Instagram Launches New Year’s Eve Site Showcasing Users’ Celebration Photos,

Facebook works to fix confirmed privacy flaw with New Year’s message service

Social network Facebook has confirmed that there is a privacy flaw with its New Year’s messaging service called the Midnight Delivery feature. This feature was billed as a way to allow users to send messages automatically to all their friends at the stroke of midnight. Since some the messages could be private in nature, the service was supposed to allow messages to be read by the intended recipients. UPDATE: A spokesperson for Facebook has reached out to us to assure the world that this situation has been rectified – rest easy!

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However, Facebook has now confirmed that there is a privacy flaw that allows anyone with the URL syntax to read messages left using the service. The messages were supposed to go directly to the recipient’s inbox on Facebook. The flaw also will allow users to delete the messages before they arrive at their intended recipients. You may be thinking that it would be difficult for a stranger or someone else you know to get the exact URL syntax for messages.

The problem is that when you enter a message to be delivered at midnight tonight, message users are given a confirmation screen displaying a URL. That URL is the same for everyone who enters a message using the service except for at approximately six digit long code on the end. Users who want to create mischief could simply change that six digit code and access messages left by the users that they could read or delete.

Facebook has confirmed that they have taken the Midnight Delivery feature off-line to fix the security flaw. At least all the security problem allowed was for people to read and delete your messages. If the flaw allowed people to edit those messages, things could’ve been very embarrassing.

[via TheNextWeb]


Facebook works to fix confirmed privacy flaw with New Year’s message service is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Watch Out: Your New Year’s Midnight Delivery Messages on Facebook Aren’t Private (Updated)

You know how Facebook added that Facebook Stories feature that lets you automatically spam all your “friends” with automatic “Happy New Year” inanities? Well, beware because they aren’t private, thanks to a security cock-up. More »

Facebook’s Midnight Message Delivery Lets You Usher in a Spammy New Year

Be the first to greet your friends and spam the heck out of their inboxes on New Year’s day! If greeting the people closest to you when the ball drops is something you’ve always done every year, then you might find Facebook Stories’ new Midnight Message Delivery service useful.

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The service lets you send a special message to your chosen recipients at 12:00am on January 1st, 2013 in their local timezone. No need to send mass SMS or be at your laptop on New Year’s ever because you can draft up your messages right here, right now so you can spend the last hours of 2012 actually celebrating it instead of fussing over greetings.

Just pin the Facebook Stories app to your wall, create lists of people you want to send New Year greetings to, and bang out your message.

In other words, Facebook has made it easy for you to spam your friends and annoy countless others with automated and scheduled deliveries. But hey, it’s the New Year – you probably won’t be on Facebook anyway!

[via Ubergizmo]

Watch Randi Zuckerberg Have a Facebook Freakout Over Her Photo Going Viral

You probably already read about Randi Zuckerberg’s faux-privacy violation on Facebook this week. But odds are you’re not part of her inner circle. Lucky for you, a tipster who’s “Friends” with RZ gave up the goods directly from her wall. More »

Facebook tops list of most-viewed Wikipedia articles in 2012

We turned to our old pal Wikipedia a lot this year, but judging from a list of the most-viewed Wikipedia articles in 2012 put together by Johan Gunnarsson, some of the pages we visited most might surprise you. Wikipedia doesn’t rank its pages at the end of the year like so many other sites do, so Gunnarsson put the 100-entry list together by looking at the service’s log files. The page users visited most in 2012? Facebook, by a pretty significant amount.

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Wikipedia’s Facebook page received 32,647,942 views throughout the year, three million more than its closest competitor – the page for “Wiki” only had 29,613,759 views to boast about. Some of the years biggest franchises got some major attention on Wikipedia, with The Hunger Games, The Dark Knight Rises, and yes, 50 Shades of Grey all ranking in the top ten. Here’s the full top ten list, racy adult novels and all:

1. Facebook – 32,647,942 views
2. Wiki – 29,613,759 views
3. Deaths in 2012 – 25,418,587 views
4. One Direction – 22,351,637 views
5. The Avengers (2012 film) – 22,268,644 views
6. Fifty Shades of Grey – 21,779,423 views
7. 2012 phenomenon – 20,619,920 views
8. The Dark Knight Rises – 18,882,885 views
9. Google – 18,508,719 views
10. The Hunger Games – 18,431,626 views

Gunnarsson and Wikimedia spokesperson Jay Walsh both told All Things D that Facebook landing at the top of the list could be a case of users searching for Facebook with browser-integrated search engines and ending up on the Wikipedia page instead (which would also explain why “Wiki” took home second place). Either that, or there’s simply a lot of interest in how the world’s biggest websites made it to the top.

Gunnarsson’s list isn’t just a top ten list though, as it actually ranks the 100 most-viewed Wikipedia pages for 2012. Notable entries include YouTube at number 12, Sex at number 18, and the Illuminati at number 33. Both World Wars ranked on the list, as did the Android operating system and, perhaps unsurprisingly, “Human penis size.”

It gets even better though, as Gunnarsson has also produced top 100 lists for a ton of other languages. If you have some free time, be sure to head over to his site and take a look at everything. Just be warned: it’s very easy to waste a lot of time browsing through those lists, so it may not be the best idea to head there if you have any pressing appointments that need your attention.


Facebook tops list of most-viewed Wikipedia articles in 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.