Can a county judge tell you what to post on your Facebook page?

That question is at the heart of the interesting case of Mark Byron, a Cincinnati-based photographer who was ordered to post a court-approved apology to his soon to be ex-wife on his Facebook page every day for 30 days — or spend 60 days in jail.

“The idea that a court can say, ‘I order you not to post something or to post something’ seems to me to be a 1st Amendment issue,” free-speech expert Jack Greiner, told the Cincinnati Enquirer.

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A group of teens posts pics showing the results of alcohol consumption and perhaps some “smoking paraphernalia.” Is that an indiscretion that should follow them for the rest of their lives?

All of us do moronic things and some of them end up on the Internet. But should they stay forever, like a time bomb waiting to explode a person’s life maybe decades later?

Twenty-seven European countries say “no” and have introduced laws allowing people to have content about themselves removed on demand. Viviane Reding, Vice President of the European Commission, discussed the proposal in a speech… she gave last month in Munich.

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If you’re thinking about giving up Twitter for Lent, here’s one reason not to….

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The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers has been in the news in the past couple of years, highlighting the use of Facebook as either a cause of infidelity and subsequent divorce or as a way to build a case for divorce. While reports are mixed as to whether social media is playing an increasing role in marital infidelity and divorce, it is clear that this new way of connecting with people can be used for good and for bad.

Whether it’s reconnecting with an ex-boyfriend, private interaction with a co-worker, or making personal info about your life open to an acquaintance, sites like Facebook offer daily opportunities for a downward spiral.

As Christians who seek to follow after God’s own heart and want to protect our marriages and our families, we must determine our personal boundaries when it comes to social networking. Only if we place hedges of protection and accountability around us are we guarded.

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Facebook, YouTube and even texting will be the salvation of many of the world’s endangered languages, scientists believe.

Of the 7,000 or so languages spoken on Earth today, about half are expected to be extinct by the century’s end.

Globalisation is usually blamed, but some elements of the “modern world”, especially digital technology, are pushing back against the tide.

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Two Australians – a “paranormal writer” and a documentary filmmaker – have locked horns over a hoax “woolly mammoth” video that started down under but quickly circled the globe, writes Asher Moses.
It was a mammoth yarn, but as ever with the notorious British tabloid The Sun, there’s more to it than meets the eye – literally.
The red top earlier this month published “shock footage” of a “woolly mammoth” – thought to be extinct for thousands of years – lurching through icy waters in Siberia….

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“The day after Valentine’s Day is one of our biggest days of the year,” says [Noel] Biderman, founder and CEO of Ashley Madison, a 10-year-old site that unapologetically caters to “discreet” encounters for the married or otherwise attached. “People are disappointed by their spouses’ lack of effort, and they feel especially undervalued when there is a societal expectation of romance. Certain days of the year act as litmus tests for many people in relationships.”

Websites designed to facilitate cheating appear to be thriving; some earn tens of millions of dollars a year, and competition is growing. In addition to Toronto-based Ashley Madison, there’s a growing crop of copycats that equate affairs with romance, passion and adventure.

Whether these sites promote cheating or just facilitate it is up for debate….

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Ending months of breathless speculation, the 8-year-old social networking company has submitted registration documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that set preliminary goal of $5 billion.

Facebook had discussed raising as much as $10 billion. Final pricing will not be set for months, and the size of the IPO probably will increase with investor demand.

The filing sets the stage for an IPO in May.

The important stats right off the bat: 845 million users; 483 million daily users; annual revenue of $3.7 billion; $1.8 billion in operating income and $1 billion net income.

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Twitter has promoted itself as a beacon of free speech, and that image was burnished when revolutionaries used the social media service to organize protests during last year’s Arab Spring uprising.

But in what many view as an about-face, Twitter now says it has the power to block tweets in a specific country if the government legally requires it to do so, triggering outrage around the world, especially in Arab countries.

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Pope Benedict XVI praised new communications technologies like Twitter on Tuesday (Jan. 24), saying that even “concise phrases, often no longer than a verse from the Bible,” can convey “profound thoughts.”

Benedict did not explicitly refer to Twitter in his yearly message for World Communications Day, but Monsignor Claudio Maria Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, told reporters that “it’s safe to say that a reference to ‘tweets’ is there.”

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Twitter has complained about changes made by Google to integrate its social network Google+ into search results.

The new feature, called Search plus Your World, will automatically push results from Google+ up the search rankings.

Tweeting on the news, Twitter’s lawyer Alex Macgillivray described it as a “bad day for the internet”.

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Facebook users will enjoy tighter privacy controls after the social networking giant was ordered by the Republic of Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner to change how it handles personal data.

The company was issued with a raft of recommendations including deleting personal information sooner and allowing users better control on the use of data.

The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner yesterday published the outcome of its audit of Facebook Ireland, which was carried out over the last three months.

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Everything’s going digital these days ”” including cheating….

“There’s an epidemic of cheating,” says Robert Bramucci, vice chancellor for technology and learning services at South Orange Community College District in Mission Viejo, Calif. “We’re not catching them. We’re not even sure it’s going on.”

Several security-related companies, such as Spycheatstuff.com, will even overnight-mail a kit that turns a cellphone or iPod into a hands-free personal cheating device, featuring tiny wireless earbuds, that allows a test-taker to discreetly “phone a friend” during a test and get answers remotely without putting down the pencil.

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Christians are using the social-media site Twitter to re-tell the Christmas story in novel ways this year.

In Germany, a Twitter-user called Joseph von Nazareth is journalling the nativity story from the perspec­tive of Joseph. Describing himself as a “35-year-old third-generation car­penter from Nazareth”, he regularly updates the site with short descrip­tions from the Christmas story.

Read it all and check out the winning tweets in the Bishop of Bradford’s competition.

“Massive and effective street protest” was a global oxymoron until ”” suddenly, shockingly ”” starting exactly a year ago, it became the defining trope of our times. And the protester once again became a maker of history.

It began in Tunisia, where the dictator’s power grabbing and high living crossed a line of shamelessness, and a commonplace bit of government callousness against an ordinary citizen ”” a 26-year-old street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi ”” became the final straw. Bouazizi lived in the charmless Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, 125 miles south of Tunis. On a Friday morning almost exactly a year ago, he set out for work, selling produce from a cart. Police had hassled Bouazizi routinely for years, his family says, fining him, making him jump through bureaucratic hoops. On Dec. 17, 2010, a cop started giving him grief yet again. She confiscated his scale and allegedly slapped him. He walked straight to the provincial-capital building to complain and got no response. At the gate, he drenched himself in paint thinner and lit a match.

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The other day I heard of someone whose funeral service was “streamed” to absent friends on the internet….what is the world coming to?

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Mark Zuckerberg’s “law of sharing” is to social media what Moore’s law is to computing power. Coined a few years back, the Facebook founder’s law asserts that the amount of information shared digitally will double every year. This will never be more evident than in 2012. Around the globe, people will share more and more of their lives online, transforming relationships on every level””personal, commercial and institutional.

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Facial recognition technology is a staple of sci-fi thrillers like “Minority Report.”

But of bars in Chicago?

SceneTap, a new app for smart phones, uses cameras with facial detection software to scout bar scenes. Without identifying specific bar patrons, it posts information like the average age of a crowd and the ratio of men to women, helping bar-hoppers decide where to go. More than 50 bars in Chicago participate.

As SceneTap suggests, techniques like facial detection, which perceives human faces but does not identify specific individuals, and facial recognition, which does identify individuals, are poised to become the next big thing for personalized marketing and smart phones. That is great news for companies that want to tailor services to customers, and not so great news for people who cherish their privacy. The spread of such technology ”” essentially, the democratization of surveillance ”” may herald the end of anonymity.

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According to one of my students at Yale, where I taught English in the last decade, a colleague of mine would tell his students that they belonged to a “post-emotional” generation. No anger, no edge, no ego.

What is this about? A rejection of culture-war strife? A principled desire to live more lightly on the planet? A matter of how they were raised ”” everybody’s special and everybody’s point of view is valid and everybody’s feelings should be taken care of?

Perhaps a bit of each, but mainly, I think, something else….

Today’s ideal social form is not the commune or the movement or even the individual creator as such; it’s the small business. Every artistic or moral aspiration ”” music, food, good works, what have you ”” is expressed in those terms.

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Some Boston parents might be in for a rude awakening: 13 percent of area high school students say they’ve received “sext” messages and one in 10 has either forwarded, sent or posted sexually suggestive, explicit or nude photos or videos of people they know by cellphone or online.

So found a study of more than 23,000 students, with the results scheduled to be presented Wednesday at the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

Sexting can include overtones of bullying and coercion, and teens who are involved were more likely to report being psychologically distressed, depressed or even suicidal, according to the 2010 survey of 24 (of 26) high schools in Boston’s metro-west region.

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Some New York City children take after-school classes in dance, pottery or softball. Once a week, Gillian and Hunter Randall add an unusual activity to the list: lessons on how to shake hands.

It’s a class taught by SocialSklz:-), a company founded in 2009 to address deteriorating social skills in the age of iPhones, Twitter and Facebook friends.

“It’s hard to have a real conversation anymore. And you know what? I’m guilty of it too,” said the Randalls’ mother, Lisa LaBarbera, noting that her 10-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son both have iPod touches and handheld videogame devices. “You get carpal tunnel, but you’re not building those communication skills.”

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In developing countries, the Internet is making a difference and giving many a better future, from educating rural communities to enabling the remote monitoring of HIV patients and predicting outbreaks of disease.

But the rise of the networked world has also produced significant challenges that undermine these benefits and pose a serious threat to reaping the full potential of a cyber world.

Progress has been made in recent years to enhance global connectivity. Yet, the digital divide remains substantial: 95 per cent of Icelanders have Internet access, compared with just 0.1 per cent of Liberians. Two-thirds of the world’s population is still unable to log on.

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For more than 200 years, Andover Newton Theological School (ANTS) has trained future pastors to have expertise in biblical studies, pastoral care and preaching.
But in today’s world, the nation’s oldest school of theology has decided that’s no longer enough, and other schools are starting to agree.

Under a recent curriculum overhaul, ANTS students must prove competency in key skills for the 21st-century church, including high-tech communication and interfaith collaboration. They still study theology, but unless they can use it to help others find meaning, they don’t graduate.

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In January 2009, a mathematician at Cambridge University named Tim Gowers decided to use his blog to run an unusual social experiment. He picked out a difficult mathematical problem and tried to solve it completely in the open, using his blog to post ideas and partial progress. He issued an open invitation for others to contribute their own ideas, hoping that many minds would be more powerful than one. He dubbed the experiment the Polymath Project.

Several hours after Mr. Gowers opened up his blog for discussion, a Canadian-Hungarian mathematician posted a comment. Fifteen minutes later, an Arizona high-school math teacher chimed in. Three minutes after that, the UCLA mathematician Terence Tao commented. The discussion ignited, and in just six weeks, the mathematical problem had been solved.

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A Muslim organization is working to counter radicalization by providing the work of progressive Islam scholars online in simple, youth-friendly language.

Muslims for Progressive Values (MPV), a nonprofit group that has established liberal Muslim communities in the U.S. and Canada, created the “Literary Zikr” website to provide an alternative to the fundamentalist versions of Islam that pervade the Internet.

“We take the scholarship and present it to the people,” said Yarehk Hernandez, a board member of MPV.

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Max Schrems wasn’t sure what he would get when he asked Facebook to send him a record of his personal data from three years of using the site.

What the 24-year-old Austrian law student didn’t expect, though, was 1222 pages of data on a CD. It included chats he had deleted more than a year ago, “pokes” dating back to 2008, invitations to which he had never responded, let alone attended, and hundreds of other details.

Time for an “aha” moment.

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