Facebook Groups Hijacking by “Control Your Info” Organization

“Control Your Info” organization makes itself administrator of groups that have been abandoned and warns the site’s members.

An organization that calls itself “Control Your Info” reportedly took control of hundreds of Facebook groups by making themselves the administrator, according to PCWorld.com and CNet.com. Each group that they became administrators of had previously been abandoned by the administrator and the organization managed to edit hundreds of group images and descriptions upon gaining access.

PCWorld.com is reporting that “Control Your Info” specifically targeted groups with a business, entertainment or sports theme. The organization went on to insert a warning message to members of the groups that they became administrators of that reads, "This means we control a certain part of the information about you in Facebook. If we wanted, we could make you appear in a bad way which could damage you severely."

Facebook representatives tried to calm the nerves of those who were concerned about the widespread group hijacking by releasing a statement that reads, "There has been no hijacking and there is no confidential information at risk. The groups in question have been abandoned, which means any member can make themselves an administrator. Group administrators have no access to private user information and members can leave a group at any time.”

Although the message from “Control Your Info” worried many Facebook users who were affected by their actions, representatives from the organization are insisting that they meant no harm or long-term inconvenience and that their ultimate goal is to shed light on the vulnerabilities of social media that have the potential to affect the safety of user privacy.

Facebook experiences 194% of YoY market share growth - Hitwise

Famous online marketing intelligence Hitwise says - Top social networking site Facebook is proving it's no fad as its market share continues to grow at a pace and time spent on the site rises, according to the data available till last week.
At the last commercial year Facebook has grown 194% to capture almost 60% of the market share of US. Back in September 2008 Facebook captured a relatively miniscule 19.9% of the overall U.S. market, way behind rival MySpace and other social networking sites. Nowadays, Facebook's share is almost double that of MySpace.

Twitter also witnessed enormous growth, reported Hitwise, rising 1170% YoY, although the micro-blogging platform only represents 1.84% of the U.S. market.

However, MySpace users spend more time on the site than any other social networking venue averaging 25 minutes and 56 seconds each month. In comparison, Tagged users hang around for 25 minutes 17 seconds and Facebook users 23 minutes.

Man 'asked daughter for sex on Facebook'

A father has been arrested for allegedly approaching his daughter for sex over Facebook.

John Forehand referred to himself as "Bad Daddy" as he made explicit suggestions to his biological daughter on the social networking site, investigators claim.

He allegedly told the child, who has not been identified and from whom he lives apart, that "not many other fathers and daughters are this brave, so not many of them are so lucky to experience all these pleasures."

Forehand. from Lititz in Pennsylvania, was held in a police sting after the girl told her mother about his Facebook messages.

He was tricked into coming to what he believed would be a meeting with his daughter, where he was detained in possession of a camera, tripod and box of condoms.

Tom Corbett, the Pennsylvania attorney general, called on all parents to be vigilant about their children's online activities.

"Predators know that colder weather and shorter days mean that kids are spending more time inside, in front of their computers, and that many may be home alone – either before or after school," he said.

"As we have seen in a number of cases this year, including two of these most recent arrests, predators are reaching out to real families in Pennsylvania – and tips from those families are resulting in arrests."

Forehand faces several charges relating to his alleged approaches to his daughter. He was one of five men held in the sting last week.

Facebook shows when you're happy

Facebook is even more omniscient than you thought: it can now chart the world's collective hopes and dreams and highs and lows--sort of, at least.

The company's data team on Monday launched a trippy new application called the "Gross National Happiness Index." Taking a similar format to its "Lexicon" trend-tracking product, the "GNH" currently displays a graph of data tabulated over the course of the past few years to track the "happiness" of Facebook users based on words picked up in their status messages.

The GNH is currently restricted to United States-based Facebook users--keep in mind, they now represent less than a fourth of the site's 300 million-strong memberships--who have set English as their default language. That will likely change at some undetermined date.

"Earlier this year, data scientists at Facebook started a project to measure the overall mood of people from the United States on Facebook, based on the sentiment expressed in status updates," explained a company blog post by Facebook's Adam Kramer--who is also a Ph.D. student in psychology:

Examples of positive or happy words include "happy," "yay," and "awesome," while negative, or unhappy words, include "sad," "doubt," and "tragic." We also did a brief survey of some Facebook users, which showed that people who use more positive words, relative to the number of negative words, reported higher satisfaction with their lives.

Holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Valentine's Day tend to generate spikes in happiness, as do days of historical significance like the election of President Barack Obama. There are notably "sad" days, too, Kramer pointed out, like the double whammy on January 22, 2008, when the Asian stock market took a dive and young actor Heath Ledger was found dead.

In January, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg chatted with blogger Robert Scoble at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and expressed interest in using the staggering amounts of data on the social network to generate a sort of "sentiment engine."

"He said that already, his teams are able to sense when nasty news, like stock prices are headed down, is under way," Scoble wrote at the time. "He also told me that the sentiment engine notices a lot of 'going out' kinds of messages on Friday afternoon and then notices a lot of 'hungover' messages on Saturday morning. He's not sure where that research will lead."

Sound creepy? Facebook doesn't think so. "To protect your privacy, no one at Facebook actually reads the status updates in the process of doing this research," according to Kramer's post. "Instead, our computers do the word counting after all personally identifiable information has been removed."

Vivox's Facebook Application for Voice Chat

A voice chat application launched on Monday in open beta enables Facebook users to place and receive calls within the social network.

Vivox, which also provides voice services for online virtual words and accommodates more than 15 million users worldwide, is offering the app.

In order to use it, Facebook users first need to add Vivox Voice to their applications list and download a Vivox plug-in. From there, a Vivox channel and phone number are created to accept calls. Users can then place calls to (or receive calls from) Facebook friends also using the app. And because each Vivox channel has a call-in number, non-Facebook users can also participate in the conversation.

In order to invite friends to talk, an invitation is sent via Facebook chat. The recipient can click on the included link and start chatting with the other person.

I had the opportunity to use the app this morning. Overall, I was impressed by it. The installation took just a few minutes, and connecting with others was quick and easy.

The only issue I had with Vivox's Facebook app was its audio quality. At times, the transmission was clear. At other times, I could barely hear my wife, who was on the other end of the call. Luckily, those moments were few and far between.

If you try it out, let us know what you think of the free app in the comments below.

Facebook now has more than 300 million users

Facebook with more than 300 million users, making it the world’s most popular social networking site.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, announced the news in a blog post, and confirmed that the company was now cash-flow positive, generating revenue independently of third-party investment and funding.

“We’re also succeeding at building Facebook in a sustainable way. Earlier this year, we said we expected to be cash flow positive sometime in 2010, and I’m pleased to share that we achieved this milestone last quarter. This is important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a strong, independent service for the long term.”

Facebook has enjoyed a rapid period of growth in the last two months, going from 250 million users in July to 300 million in September. The social networking site is still steadily adding users in major markets, such as Britain and the United States, and is also making inroads in to other territories. The recent launch of Facebook Lite, a stripped-down basic version of the site for users with slow internet connections, hopes to boost membership numbers in areas such as India and South America.

Facebook, which launched five years ago, has attracted more than $700 million of investment during that time. In 2007, Microsoft paid $240 million for a 1.6 per cent stake, valuing the social networking site at around $15 billion.

Zuckerberg pledged to continue investing in new systems and technologies to make Facebook perform faster and grow efficiently, and serve users in “increasingly deep and innovative ways”.

“We face a lot of fun and important challenges that require rethinking the current systems for enabling information flow across the web,” he wrote. “The site we all use every day is built by a relatively small group of the smartest engineers and entrepreneurs.

“In fact, the ratio of Facebook users to Facebook engineers makes it so that every engineer here is responsible for more than one million users. It’s hard to have an impact like that anywhere else.”

Industry analysts believe the milestone could mark a new push by Facebook to dominate the social-networking space, and rival sites, such as the microblogging service Twitter, could be caught up in its wake.

“If Facebook continues to open up its platform and adopt Twitter’s best features, it could spell trouble for the Twitterverse,” Ben Parr, associate editor at social media blog Mashable, told the BBC. “The world’s largest social network is on the warpath.”

Facebook in challenge to Google

Speculation that Facebook is on its way to becoming a full-fledged search engine is, well, odd. Merely buying four former top Google engineers when acquiring FriendFeed does not a new search engine make. And it's a bad idea, besides.

What's more, Facebook has too much work to do on its core social networking platform to also build a next-generation search engine. Better to cut a deal with Bing, I think, if a general-purpose search engine is what Facebook wants.

The new search features on Facebook, allowing you to see in real-time what at least some users are posting on their FB pages, don't much interest me, but succeeds in making the service all the more Twitter-like. That seems to have been an important goal at Facebook and I hope they now will move on.

Purchasing FriendFeed, which seemed to be going nowhere, seems like an enlightened act of charity. The four previously mentioned former Google stars that founded the company get a graceful exit from FriendFeed and an excuse when the service eventually shuts down.

Facebook might benefit from some of Friendfeed's functionality, which was essentially as an aggregator of a user's various social network feeds. I have a FriendFeed account but never used it because I had better things to do than approve the same friends a second time and interact with another service.

Adding FriendFeed to Facebook would solve that problem and make the service easier to use, sitting as it would on many people's primary social network. It demonstrates that just because a company has created something more akin to a product feature than a full-fledged product doesn't means it won't eventually find a good home.

The real value of the new FB search tool will blossom only once the service's 250 million users start using the service's new privacy features to make their status updates viewable and searchable by everyone.

Most people, consider Facebook's ability to limit the reach of their postings to be more of a benefit than a hassle. That works against the value of a systemwide Facebook search capability.

Circling back, the only value of adding a Google-like total Internet search to Facebook would be its ability to generate revenue in amounts that have eluded FB thus far. But, as I said, this can be done quite effectively though a search partnership that avoids FB having to create an entirely new technology platform.

Facebook Facing Image Problem by Third Party Ads

Facebook is facing down an image problem, and it's all by third party ads.

An untold number of Facebook's more than 200 million users have been feverishly forwarding instructions in the past week on how to opt out of being the social networking Web site's corporate pitchman, following warnings that third-party advertisers were creating advertisements with users' profile photos without permission. The warning, which is still being passed around from friend to friend throughout the site.

"FACEBOOK has agreed to let third party advertisers use your posted pictures without your permission. Click on setting up at the top where you see the Log out link. Select Privacy. Then select newsfeeds and wall. Next select the tab that reads FACEBOOK ADS. There is a drop down box, select no one. Then SAVE your changes. (REPOST to let your friends know!)"

While some third-party Facebook applications recently displayed ads with user photos without permission, officials at the Web site say they've "dealt with" those rogue networks, that the company has not changed its policies and that it continues not to sell "user information or content" to advertisers.

The announcement comes on the heels of Canada's privacy commissioner calling for better protections of Facebook users.

"The ads that spooked people were from rogue networks that have been dealt with (the ads were removed, some ad networks were banned from Facebook, and developers were warned)," Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt wrote to FOXNews.com.

"It is possible that your photo could have appeared next to an ad, if you had taken an action to associate yourself with the product — like become a fan of their page. Then, the ad would say something like, '5 of your friends have become a fan of product x.'"

One such ad used the picture of Cheryl Smith, of Lynchburg, Va., to hawk its dating service. Smith's husband recently spotted the advertisement touting "hot singles" in the area.

"I'm not joking," Smith wrote on her blog. "Not too long ago, my husband Peter had this ad appear on his Facebook page. Good thing we both have a sense of humor!"

Schnitt first addressed the controversy on Friday in a blog post titled, "Debunking Rumors about Advertising and Photos."

"If you see a Wall post or receive a message with the following language or something similar, it is this false rumor: FACEBOOK has agreed to let third party advertisers use your posted pictures WITHOUT your permission," Schnitt wrote.

The advertisements, which have been used by the site since 2007, had already been removed at the time of Schnitt's blog, which garnered at least 538 comments and more than 4,400 users who "liked" the post.

Facebook's ads, according to Schnitt's post, "always require" that users take an "express action" to link themselves with a product or service and that no data be shared with the third-party.

Schnitt referenced a "Celebs on Facebook" ad as an example of what may appear on your profile should a friend of yours becomes associated to such a product or service.

But that hasn't stopped some of Facebook users from complaining that the site needs work on its privacy settings.

"I believe they need to take a much more serious look at how they're approaching this," said Traci Knoppe, a blogger in St. Louis, Mo., who teaches amateurs how to create their own blogs. "They need to do a much better job dealing with this."

Knoppe provided instructions to opt out of the "auto-generated ads" and suggested that Facebook users forward the four-click procedure to "every single person" they know.

"It's a big concern considering how many millions of people are on Facebook posting family pictures and whatnot," Knoppe said. "The problem is that most people don't the terms of service."

According to Facebook's privacy settings, the site "occasionally pairs advertisements with relevant social actions from a user's friends to create Facebook Ads."

Users can select to appear in ads of "no one" or just their friends by making the appropriate selection under News Feed and Wall privacy settings.

"These respect all privacy rules," the site reads. "You may opt out of appearing in your friends' Facebook Ads below."

While Facebook says it has addressed the problem, Schnitt called on users to be on the lookout for misleading advertisements.

"We're committed to remaining vigilant in enforcing our policies to prevent bad ads from appearing on Facebook — whether served by us or a third party," Schnitt wrote on Friday. "But we also need your help. If you ever see a misleading ad or believe it violates our policies, report it to us."

Facebook May Be Friending Android

Android Users may soon have a way to poke and message their Facebook friends on the go, as an official application is expected to soon hit the Android Market, according to a report from TechCrunch.

The Google-backed mobile platform has drawn more than 5,000 apps, but Facebook has been conspicuously missing. The social network has long had popular mobile applications for Apple's iPhone and Research In Motion's BlackBerry lineup, it recently released a version for Microsoft's Windows Mobile, and it has strong integration with Palm's webOS platform. Google and Facebook have not officially commented on the status of an app as of press time.

The Android version will take advantage of the Open Stream API to display friends' updates and messages, but the report said this version won't be as robust as on other platforms. For example, the BlackBerry program can integrate Facebook friends' information with the handset's contact book, and this likely won't be in the Android version.

Facebook has never given an official reason for the lack of Android support, but the platform may soon become too big to ignore. Google said it expects there to be up to 20 handsets released before the end of the year, including devices from Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Samsung, and HTC. Mobile operators appear to be on board as well, as T-Mobile is making a big Android push, and Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless said they will soon have Android-powered smartphones.

For Facebook, the mobile space enables the company to keep users engaged on the go, as well as provide a growth avenue in regions without desktop computers. Rival MySpace said nearly 20 million users access their site through a cell phone, and that is expected to grow at a rapid pace.

Same Name Couple to Wed, Meet on Facebook

A couple with the same name who found each other through social networking website Facebook are to tie the knot.
Kelly Katrina Hildebrandt, 20, was bored one evening last year when she put her name into the site and came across Kelly Carl Hildebrandt, 24.

She sent the only other Kelly Hildebrandt, of Lubbock, Texas, a message and they became friends.

Ms Hildebrandt, a student from Miami, Florida, said she believed the chain of events was "all God's timing".

Her fiance described her first message to him, in April last year, as reading: "Hi. We had the same name. Thought it was cool," reports the Associated Press news agency.

He said: "I thought she was pretty cute."

Mr Hildebrandt admitted, however, that he had worried they might be related.

Nevertheless, the two were soon in daily contact by phone and e-mail and he "fell head over heels" after visiting her in Florida.

In December, she found a diamond engagement ring he had hidden in a treasure box on a beach.

"I thought it was fun. I had no idea it would lead to this," Mr Hildebrandt said.

The couple plan to tie the knot in October and have confirmed that they do not plan to pass their first names on to any future offspring.

Facebook passes Yahoo in surfers' time

Facebook Inc. takes up more of the average U.S. Internet surfer's time than any other Web site, according to a new report from Neilson Online.

The Palo Alto-based social networking site took up an average of four hours, 39 minutes and 33 seconds of Web users' time in June.

That passed May's leader, Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO), which took up three hours, fifteen minutes and 55 seconds.

AOL was No. 3 with two hours, 43 minutes and 10 seconds, while Google Inc.'s (NASDAQ:GOOG) was No. 4 with two hours, 31 minutes and 8 seconds.

Microsoft Corp. took fourth spot in stickiness with two hours, 12 minutes and 20 seconds.

Back at No. 5 was Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) with one hour, 19 minutes and 33 seconds and at No. 6 was eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) with one hour, 17 minutes and 59 seconds.

In terms of overall users, Google remained No. 1 with 155.6 million users, compared to No. 2 Microsoft (139.1 million) and No. 3 Yahoo (134.3 million).

Facebook revenue to top $500 million in 2009

Facebook board member Marc Andreessen, who just launched a new venture fund, said in an interview with Reuters (published Monday) that he expects the company's revenue to be in excess of $500 million in 2009, and that in five years it'll be well into the billions.

"Generally speaking, people who are selling their stock in Facebook now are making a mistake," he told Reuters regarding the fact that since an initial public offering is still a ways off, Facebook is permitting some employee stock sales to Digital Sky Technologies, the Russian firm that invested $200 million in the site in May. Andreessen himself is not a personal investor in Facebook, and said that "I probably could have if I had tried hard but I didn't."

If Facebook worked the ad-sales front a bit harder, Andreessen added in the interview, revenue could already be over a billion.

But Facebook has never taken kindly to traditional display advertisements, choosing instead to experiment with "engagement ads" integrated into the social-networking experience--a product it may potentially extend into Facebook Connect's participating sites, which now number over 10,000.

Additionally, Facebook has been working toward an alternative revenue stream with its "credits" system, a virtual currency that for now is restricted to the company's in-house "Gifts" application. Sometime in the not-so-distant future, the Facebook currency system will be made available to developers using the social network's API, which could produce a significant new source of revenue for Facebook as it takes a cut of transactions.

Andreessen--the Netscape founder and Silicon Valley mainstay whose current projects include social-network builder Ning--has been on Facebook's board for just over a year. He joined at the personal request of CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who said at the time that "Marc is an industry leader, and we're fortunate to have him join our board."

Facebook Trying To Launch Online Payment Method For Mobile In Future

There is no doubt that Facebook is developing a Web payment platform rival those of Google, Amazon and eBay (PayPal). But Facebook can also be looking to break one of the biggest nuts in the online payment world, which is mobile. Facebook spokesperson Kathleen Loughlin confirmed reports that the social networking site has hired Prashant Fuloria, a former Google employee who worked on Google Checkout; given Facebook's clear focus on mobile web applications, Fuloria's direction is clear.

Principal roadblock to facilitate mobile payments, mobile operators themselves. In order to charge customers for Web sites to choose between two equally deadly poison: allow customers to charge products or services to their wireless bill, which is transparent and simple, but cost provider for almost 30 percent of the transaction price or other they have to ask customers to select a payment method as a credit card or PayPal or Google Checkout account. Mark Curtis, CEO of dating and social networking site Flirtomatic, said that the size of the transaction fees collected by the carriers means that he can not sell genuine goods unless the customer does not know what the price should be. Men may be willing to pay 30 percent above market prices for sending flowers to a new boyfriend, but it is there. The other poison - using a payment system - stops transaction cold, unless customers have already used it on their mobile devices in this area.

Her Facebook payment cycle platform comes in. Facebook has over 200 million active users (people who have visited at least once in the last 30 days), which means that the odds are pretty good that a mobile user already has an account. And Facebook has established a close relationship to its base - a relative heat-treated by the heat of what can only be described as a lovers' quarrel over the fundamental issues of trust and privacy. I have absolutely no problem to think that members should rely on Facebook with a payment platform that they can use to pay for the goods sold by retailers over the Internet using Facebook Connect, which is used by members to "combine their Facebook experience with all participating Web, desktop or mobile device. "

Note that even back in December, Facebook's release emphasized the mobile aspect of this feature. Despite the many road blocks, customers have shown a greater willingness to pay for products and services through mobile devices than traditional web-surfing devices, Curtis of Flirtomatic told me. And where Facebook is concerned, he agreed that "mobility is a critical part of what they see."

One indication of the importance Facebook places on the mobile: the fourth person in the company's organizational chart, after chief executive Mark Zucker Berg, and in front of COO Sheryl Sandberg, are Chamath Palihapitiya, the company's Vice President for growth, mobile and international.

Despite the size, or perhaps because of it - and how it came to be so big - Google has not come close to establish the kind of stranglehold on the payment that it has on search; PayPal is painful for both suppliers and customers that explains why the was not taken in spite of being the only obvious choice for so many years, and Amazon has not given someone a convincing reason to register unless they purchase directly from Amazon. Facebook has a huge user base and a convincing reason to sign up, that it has not rushed a payment system to the market shows how important it believes this to his future. And unlike Beacon or design, this is not something that members will forgive and forget if the area is it wrong the first time.

The launch of the virtual currency for Facebook? Not too excited

On Tuesday night, Los Angeles Times blog noted that a Facebook Soundbite guru of gambling "Gareth Davis GamesBeat place in the conference in San Francisco that the company is" looking "offering a virtual currency for developers. The industry of virtual goods, the article notes, is a giant $ 1.5 million.

This would mean that games and other applications with a presence in Facebook could use universal "Facebook currency" that would not only be interoperable applications, but Facebook could line their pockets with more cash. But Davis language ( "looking") is as ambiguous as it gets, so my advice to potential developers would be excited "does not hold your breath."

What this reminds me of the once-hyped "Facebook Wallet." Remember that? A few months after the social network launched its developer platform in May 2007, began to spread the word that also works as a PayPal payment system. Executives hinted at the conference panels. In a high-profile move, Facebook hired Benjamin Ling, the Google engineer who was instrumental in developing the Google Checkout product. Ling but left after less than a year in the company and returned to Google. Began to spread rumors that Facebook has scrapped the plan entirely.

Once home, I spoke with earlier this month in the virtual currency wallet Facebook said that it was never so close to success, as some seem to think there was. "It's not like that Ditch, which is never off the ground," the source said, adding that some developers are wary of the idea first, because of the extra work with little obvious benefit of not "easier".

I'd assume would be similar to a Facebook for its own currency. He had a lot of development for the developers of a product that does not necessarily want. However, one back: Facebook has offered its own virtual property in the form of "Facebook gifts that members can buy each other for the profiles, since 2007. Late last year, Facebook has changed the payment system for Facebook Gifts U.S. $ a "credits", making it easier for the site to load more or less than their previous standard $ 1 for virtual items.

Obviously, one should be very easy for Facebook to make these funds available to developers. Facebook of the road map, but in these days has shown that its focus is on the Facebook Connect platform component of the strengthening of functions of the applications for incorporável. It is also unclear whether the developers who want to alter products ripe for a new institute's virtual currency - or if we all had to be interoperable with competitors.

"Koobface" Worm Resurfaces on Facebook, MySpace

Security experts are warning users of Facebook, MySpace and other social networking communities to be on guard against a new strain of the "Koobface" worm, which spreads by tricking users into responding to a message apparently sent from one of their friends.

The latest version of Koobface arrives as an invitation from a user's friend or contact, inviting the recipient to click on a link and view a video at a counterfeit YouTube site. Visitors are told they need need to install an Adobe Flash plug-in to view the video.

The bogus plug-in instead installs a Trojan horse program that gives Koobface author(s) control over the infected user's computer, according to security firm Trend Micro, which documented the new strain on its blog.

In addition, the worm also hijacks the victim's social networking account, by sending out additional invites in order to spread the worm to the victim's friends and contacts. The worm currently is spreading across multiple networks, including hi5.com, friendster.com, myyearbook.com, bebo.com and livejournal.com.

Trend also reports at least two different bogus Facebook apps being used to harvest users' personal data. Last week, a rogue Facebook app called "The Error Check System" quickly spread among Facebook users, arriving in a notification that told users that one of their friends "has faced some errors when checking your profile." Hours later, Trend spotted another rogue Facebook app, which urged recipients to click a link to find out why they had supposedly been reported to Facebook for violating the site's terms of service.

It's important to note that practicing basic online street smarts can save you from falling for these types of attacks, regardless of the medium. As always, be extremely cautious about clicking on links in unsolicited messages, even if they appear to have been sent by a friend or acquaintance. Also, don't install applications or programs if you didn't go looking for them. Before you install anything, take a few minutes to research the program and its vendor first. If you decide to install the application, make sure to download it directly from the vendor's Web site, if possible.

Facebook Now Remark Teenager To Fired Out

A 16-year-old girl from Essex was fired after she described her office job as "boring" on her Facebook page.

Kimberley Swann, 16, of Clacton, had been working at Ivell Marketing & Logistics, in Clacton, for three weeks before being fired on Monday.

"I think they've stooped quite low," she said.

The firm's Steve Ivell said of the decision: "Her display of disrespect and dissatisfaction undermined the relationship and made it untenable."

Miss Swann said: "You shouldn't really be hassled outside work. It was only a throw-away comment.

"I came home from work one day, sat on the computer and said something about my job being boring."

Details were passed to her employers after she allowed colleagues access to her page, Miss Swann said, adding that she was not given the chance to explain.

Her mother, Janette, 41, said: "I think she's been treated totally unfairly. She didn't mention the company's name.

"This is a 16-year-old child we're talking about. She says Clacton is boring but we're not going to throw her out of the house for it."

Mr Ivell said: "Ivell Marketing is a small, close-knit family company and it is very important that all the staff work together in harmony.

"Had Miss Swann put up a poster on the staff notice board making the same comments and invited other staff to read it there would have been the same result."

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said employers needed "thicker skins" in relation to social networking websites.

He said: "Most employers wouldn't dream of following their staff down the pub to see if they were sounding off about work to their friends."

New study: Media exposure harms kids

You should think twice before you park your tot in front of the tube--or buy your teen a Play Station for the holidays. A new study commissioned by Common Sense Media, a San Francisco-based nonprofit advocacy group, reveals that heavy media exposure leads to negative health effects in children and increases the risk of obesity, sexual activity, attention deficit disorder, and more.

Researchers from Yale University School of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, and California Pacific Medical Center reviewed 173 of the strongest studies from the past 28 years that examined the relationship between media exposure and seven health outcomes: childhood obesity, tobacco use, drug use, alcohol use, low academic achievement, sexual behavior, and attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity. The reviewers looked at studies on all types of media but most of the quality ones found involved television, movies, and music. There were fewer studies available that examined the impact of Internet and video games, and no studies on the impact of cell phones.

In 80 percent of the studies, greater media exposure is associated with negative health outcomes for children and adolescents. The strongest relationship was found between media and obesity. Of the 73 studies that examined the relationship between screen time and childhood obesity, 86 percent revealed a strong relationship between increased screen time and obesity. Of the 14 articles evaluating media and sexual behavior, 93 percent found that children with greater media exposure have sex earlier.

"The average parent doesn't understand that if you plop your kids down in front of the TV or the computer for five hours a day, it can change their brain development, it can make them fat, and it can lead them to get involved in risky sexual activity at a young age," says Jim Steyer, the chief executive of Common Sense Media, which helped finance the study.

Most kids today spend nearly 45 hours per week with media, compared with 17 hours with parents and 30 hours in school. The study authors say parents need to monitor their children's media use and explain to their kids why too much time in front of the screen is harmful.

Common Sense Media offers these tips to help parents manage their kids' screen time:

1. Keep an eye on how long kids spend online, in front of the TV, watching movies, playing video games. The secret to healthy media use is to establish time limits and stick to them--before your kids turn it on and tune in. That means keeping TV, computers, and other media out of kids' bedrooms. You're not there to monitor their behavior, and it's hard to enforce limits.

2. Use media together and talk about what you see, hear, and read. Whenever you can, watch, play, listen, and surf with your kids. Talk about the content of TV shows and video games. Help kids connect what they learn in the media to events and other activities in which they're involved, like playing sports and creating art, in order to broaden their understanding of the world.

3. Be a role model. When kids are around, set an example by using media the way you want them to use it. Don't bring cell phones and Blackberries to the dinner table and turn the TV off when it's not actively being watched.

4. Make smart media choices, like active games that get your kids moving as much as possible. And of course, encourage your kids to get outside and play as many real games as they do virtual ones.

Will Facebook turn our kids into social cowards?

I'll never forget walking in on two girls screaming and hissing at each other in the bathroom at my elementary school. When they started to reach for each other's hair, I threw myself in between them and they stopped fighting--probably because they were so surprised that the shy, meek girl stepped in. Oddly, I have drawn great confidence from that mere moment--probably because it's the only time I have ever been a superhero. Whenever my natural timid self sets in, I think back on that incident. If you can stop girls from cat fighting, you can do anything, right?

I know confrontations occur between girls in today's schools but if you were in the fifth grade with a computer at home, wouldn't you deal with your social problems on Facebook? (I would!) Well, maybe parents don't let fifth graders use Facebook, but any clash among friends in high school would be dealt with more easily this way. Another girl asks your crush to the Sadie Hawkins? Post a nasty note on her "wall" saying that she has a highly contagious foot fungus. You would never have to confront the enemy face-to-face. Yes, technology seems like a more comfortable way to deal with a confrontational situation. But is it good that today's children are learning to navigate the complicated social web through Facebook?

The answer is no, according to an article in yesterday's London Guardian. The story is primarily based on a statement by Lady Greenfield, professor of synaptic pharmacology at Lincoln college, Oxford, and director of the Royal Institution, who said:

"Real conversation in real time may eventually give way to these sanitized and easier screen dialogs, in much the same way as killing, skinning and butchering an animal to eat has been replaced by the convenience of packages of meat on the supermarket shelf. Perhaps future generations will recoil with similar horror at the messiness, unpredictability and immediate personal involvement of a three-dimensional, real-time interaction."

What I encountered in my elementary school bathroom was certainly messy and I assume all three of us remember that day and learned a lesson from the experience (if I remember correctly, the two fighting girls went on to be friends). Imagine how it might have gone down on Facebook. Two friends start writing mean stuff on each other's walls and then I step in with some "What are you doing right now?" statement: "Amy thinks 'so and so' and 'so and so' should stop writing mean comments on each other's walls." And with that, I would have lost out on my one-and-only superhero moment.