Zuckerberg 'likes' lower salary

NEW YORK - Facebook CEO and cofounder Mark Zuckerberg's salary was down last year, but don't cry for him. He'll be OK.

In fact, the megawealthy Facebook boss was just following the CEO salary downsizing trend for some industry heavyweights, such as Google.

The social networking site paid him a salary of $1 last year, stock market documents showed Monday.

The same documents, released ahead of the company annual meeting, showed Zuckerberg's full compensation last year hit $653,165, down from $1.99 million in 2012.

Most of that was from personal trips in private jets paid for by the company because they are seen as justified for safety reasons.

And Zuckerberg did not net a bonus or stock options last year.

But don't fret about that lonely dollar. Zuckerberg reaped $3.3 billion just last year from exercising stock options.

He is still the leading shareholder in the business he started in his college dorm room, with a fortune of $26.7 billion, according to Forbes.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Facebook throws in towel on email

SAN FRANCISCO - Facebook, after unsuccessfully trying to get its users on its own email system, has thrown in the towel.

The social networking giant told AFP by email that it was giving up on email "because most people haven't been using their Facebook email address, and we can focus on improving our mobile messaging experience for everyone."

The company launched its email service in 2010, and in 2012 prompted an outcry by changing the default address for messages to users' Facebook addresses.

The project was seen as an attempt to be a "Gmail Killer," by getting members of the biggest social network to switch email accounts, but Facebook now admits it did not work.

"We're notifying people who use their @facebook.com email that the feature is changing," the company spokesman said.

"When someone sends you an email to your @facebook.com address, it will no longer go to your Messages on Facebook. Instead, the email will be forwarded to the primary email address on your account. (People have the option to turn forwarding off.)"

The news comes just days after Facebook announced a huge deal worth up to $19 billion in cash and stock for mobile messaging service WhatsApp.

The deal bolsters the world's biggest social network -- which has more than 1.2 billion members -- with the 450-million-strong WhatsApp, which will be operated independently with its own board.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Male, female or custom? Facebook's new gender options

SAN FRANCISCO - Facebook on Thursday freed members from the bonds of being either male or female, letting people opt for custom genders such as transsexual or "intersex" at the social network.

Along with adding scores of "custom gender" options on profile pages, Facebook is letting members select which pronouns they wish used when referring to them in posts or messages.

Facebook users could opt to be refered to as "he/him" or "she/her," or by a neutral "they/their" choice.

"While to many this change may not mean much, for those it affects it means a great deal," Facebook said in a post at its Diversity page that included a picture of a rainbow flag on display on the company's campus in the Silicon Valley city of Menlo Park.

Facebook said it worked with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender activist groups to create a thorough list of gender options, which can be found in an "other" category on profile About pages.

Custom genders are only available to those who use Facebook in US English but the company planned to expand the range in the future.

Feedback in a forum at Facebook's Diversity page was mostly positive, with some suggesting a need for even more description options and others insisting that biology limits the choices to male or female.

Facebook's move will make "great strides" in supporting young people whose sexual identities don't conform to traditional societal norms, according to US-based gay advocacy group Human Rights Campaign Foundation.

"Over the past few years, a person's Facebook profile truly has become their online identity, and now Facebook has taken a milestone step to allow countless people to more honestly and accurately represent themselves," said HRC president Chad Griffin.

A survey of 10,000 lesbian, gay, bi-sexual or transgender youth published on Thursday by HRC revealed that nearly 10 percent of them put themselves in a "gender-expansive" group that could benefit from Facebook's move.

Two thirds of the surveyed people in that group wrote in genders such as queer, gender-fluid, and "non-binary," which means they feel they are neither male nor female or some combination of both.

The survey also indicated that "gender-expansive" youth were less likely to say they were happy, fit into their communities, or had an adult at home they could turn to.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Facebook joins NYU in artificial intelligence lab

WASHINGTON - Facebook unveiled plans Monday on a partnership with New York University for a new center for artificial intelligence, aimed at harnessing the huge social network's massive trove of data.

The California-based tech giant named professor Yann LeCun of NYU's Center for Data Science to head up the project.

"As one of the most respected thinkers in this field, Yann has done groundbreaking research in deep learning and computer vision," said Mike Schroepfer, Facebook's chief technology officer. "We're thrilled to welcome him to Facebook."

Facebook, the world's biggest social network with more than a billion members, is building the team across three locations -- New York, London and its headquarters in Menlo Park, California.

The lab will work on "machine learning," -- a branch of artificial intelligence that involves computers "learning" to extract knowledge from giant data sets.

LeCun, a French-born mathematician and computer scientist, said in a blog post that he was pleased to head up the project with "the ambitious, long-term goal of bringing about major advances in artificial intelligence."

"I am thrilled to announce that I have accepted the position of director of this new lab," LeCun wrote. "I will remain a professor at New York University on a part-time basis, and will maintain research and teaching activities at NYU."

Facebook chief and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg spoke of the plans during a call in October to discuss the company's quarterly earnings.

Zuckerberg said a working group was formed in September "to do world-class artificial intelligence research using all of the knowledge that people have shared on Facebook."

"The goal here is to use new approaches in AI to help make sense of all the content that people share so we can generate new insights about the world to answer people's questions," Zuckerberg said at the time.

He added that one of the goals was "to build services that are much more natural to interact with and can help solve many more problems than any existing technology today."

LeCun is a professor at NYU's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and is the founding director of the university's Center for Data Science.

He is known for creating an early version of a pattern-recognition algorithm which mimics, in part, the visual cortex of animals and humans.

The algorithm helped allow AT&T's Bell Labs to deploy a check-reading system that by the late 1990s was reading about 20 percent of all the checks written in the US, according to NYU.

LeCun's recent research projects include the application of "deep learning" methods for visual scene understanding and navigation autonomous ground robots, driverless cars, and small flying robots, as well as speech recognition, and applications in biology and medicine.

LeCun is set to start the job in January.

Facebook joins other Internet firms like Google and Microsoft in researching artificial intelligence, which could help in delivering improved search results and in new products ranging from video games to driverless vehicles.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Facebook phases in 'Unfollow' button

Facebook Inc has replaced its "Hide All" button with the more succinct "Unfollow," letting users block all messages and posts from selected friends.

As with the previous button, it gives users the option of blocking content from certain people without offending them, say through de-friending. The latter alternative severs ties with that person on the social network, without notifying them.

"This means you are still friends, but updates from that person won't appear in your News Feed. The goal of this change is to help people curate their newsfeed and see more of the content that they care about," Facebook said in an email.

The world's largest social network is constantly tweaking its newsfeed - the main page users look at on the network - often by reducing clutter, especially from advertising, and bringing to the surface or revealing the posts deemed most relevant to any particular user.

Facebook began rolling out the "Unfollow" button and a related change to its users on Monday. It added a "Following" button next to the usual "Like" button on a page or next to the "Friends" button on a personal timeline, which will also enable users to block posts.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Facebook becoming a key player in news

WASHINGTON - Facebook is becoming a key source of news for users of the huge social network, even if people discover articles mostly by happenstance, a study showed Thursday.

The study by the Pew Research Center, in collaboration with the Knight Foundation, found 64 percent of US adults use Facebook, and nearly half of those get some news from the service.

That amounts to 30 percent of the overall US population who are "Facebook news consumers," Pew said.

But the survey found 78 percent of this group get news mainly when they are on Facebook for other reasons, such as checking on friends or sharing photos.

"People go to Facebook to share personal moments -- and they discover the news almost incidentally," said Amy Mitchell, Pew Research Center's director of journalism research.

"The serendipitous nature of news on Facebook may actually increase its importance as a source of news and information, especially among those who do not follow the news closely."

Most heavy news consumers do not describe Facebook as their main source of information on current affairs:

Some 38 percent of Facebook news consumers who say they follow the news "all" or "most of the time" describe the social network as an important way they get news. But that number rises to 47 percent among those who say they follow news just "some of the time" or less.

Those in the 18- to 29- year-old age bracket account for about a third of Facebook news consumers. These younger adults often turn to the social network for breaking news and see the site as important a source of news.

The study authors write that Facebook "exposes some people to news who otherwise might not get it" by delivering news through shared links from friends.

"This study adds to our understanding of the way social media is transforming how news is shared and consumed," said Mayur Patel, Knight Foundation vice president.

"The implications for media organizations are significant -- through the data they can gain insights on the behavior and preferences of the people they are trying to reach, and identify new engagement opportunities."

Roughly two-thirds of Facebook news consumers say they at least sometimes click on news links, and 60 percent at least sometimes "like" or comment on stories, the researchers found.

About four in 10 post or share links themselves at least sometimes, and 32 percent discuss issues in the news with other people on Facebook, the survey found.

The study found Facebook users click on a news link most often because of their interest in the topic or a friend's recommendation, and just 20 percent said they did so because of the news organization.

About a third of Facebook news consumers have news organizations or individual journalists in their feeds, Pew found.

The researchers also found that Facebook users are also consuming news on other platforms. Some 42 percent of Facebook news consumers often watch local television news, compared with 46 percent of all US adults. But just 21 percent often read print newspapers, compared with 27 percent of the population overall, Pew found.

The researchers interviewed 5,173 US adults including 3,268 Facebook users from August 21 to September 2, 2013.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Facebook removes beheading video after public outcry

SAN FRANCISCO - Facebook Inc removed a video of a woman being beheaded from its website on Tuesday and said it would use a broader set of criteria to determine when gory videos are permitted on the site.

The move came a day after a public outcry over news reports that Facebook, the world's No. 1 social network with 1.15 billion members, had lifted a temporary ban on images of graphic violence.

Facebook said on Monday that gory videos, such as a video of a masked man beheading a woman in Mexico, are permitted on its site so long as the content is posted in a manner intended for its users to "condemn" the acts rather than celebrate them.

But Facebook said on Tuesday that it had decided to "strengthen" its enforcement of the policy.

"When we review content that is reported to us, we will take a more holistic look at the context surrounding a violent image or video," Facebook said in a statement.

"Second, we will consider whether the person posting the content is sharing it responsibly, such as accompanying the video or image with a warning and sharing it with an age-appropriate audience," Facebook said.

The change underscores a challenge for Facebook as it seeks to position itself as the go-to online destination where people share up-to-the-minute images and discuss breaking news events.

While Facebook polices its site to remove pornography, hate speech and other forbidden content, the company must also make a judgment about when certain grizzly images, such as video of a terrorist attack, are in the public interest versus being shared for "sadistic pleasure."

Facebook acknowledged on Tuesday that its previous approach, which permitted the video of the woman's killing in Mexico to remain on its site, was flawed.

"Based on these enhanced standards, we have re-examined recent reports of graphic content and have concluded that this content improperly and irresponsibly glorifies violence. For this reason, we have removed it," the company said.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Undisclosed 'issue' foils Facebook updates

Facebook suffered an undisclosed "issue" Monday that prevented some of its 1.15 billion worldwide members from posting status updates and other material on the social media website.

"Earlier this morning, while performing some network maintenance, we experienced an issue that prevented some users from posting to Facebook for a brief period of time," a Facebook spokesman told AFP by email.

"We resolved the issue quickly, and we are now back to 100 percent. We're sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused."

Users who tried to post on Facebook had been met with an error message that stated: "There was a problem updating your status. Please try again in a few minutes."

Tech website Mashable.com reported: "Facebook status update issues are not uncommon, but this one seems global - we've tested it from several IPs and received the same message."

Downrightnow.com, which monitors service outages on major websites, said Facebook had encountered a "likely service disruption." It also said user reports of difficulties were still coming in three hours after the problem emerged.

The issue was sufficiently widespread for #facebookdown to become a trending hashtag on Twitter.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Facebook ends 'invisibility cloak' for users

SAN FRANCISCO - Facebook is ending a feature that allowed users to hide from the social network's billion-plus members.

The feature, akin to Harry Potter's invisibility cloak, will be removed, meaning that someone looking for another Facebook user can more easily find that person.

"The setting was created when Facebook was a simple directory of profiles and it was very limited," said Facebook's chief privacy officer, Michael Richter.

The setting made Facebook search "feel broken at times," Richter added in a company blog Thursday.

"For example, people told us that they found it confusing when they tried looking for someone who they knew personally and couldn't find them in search results, or when two people were in a Facebook Group and then couldn't find each other through search."
Facebook announced last year that it was ending this feature for new users, but allowed a transition for a "small percentage" of users who had that feature enabled.

Richter said the change should not have an impact on overall privacy.

"Whether you've been using the setting or not, the best way to control what people can find about you on Facebook is to choose who can see the individual things you share," he said.

Facebook, which has been under scrutiny by privacy advocates, recently revamped its search functions to include a so-called "graph search" that allows users to search through a wide range of posts on the world's biggest social network.

In a separate development, Google announced that it was following Facebook's lead for users' pictures and endorsements to appear in product ads.

The change will take effect November 11, Google said in its updated terms of service.

"We want to give you -- and your friends and connections -- the most useful information," the document said.

"Recommendations from people you know can really help. So your friends, family and others may see your profile name and photo, and content like the reviews you share or the ads you (liked)."

Google said users can opt out of this feature, however, and added that it will not use endorsements from users under 18.

But the Electronic Privacy Information Center said Google's shift may violate a 2011 agreement with the Federal Trade Commission because it would employ photos without user consent.

A statement from the group said the order "prohibits Google from making misrepresentations and requires the company to obtain user consent before disclosing information to third parties."

Greg Sterling, analyst with Sterling Market Intelligence, warned that the shift may backfire on Google.

"Shared endorsements could boost display ad performance but might have the unintended consequence of discouraging reviews," Sterling said.

Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land said Google users' pictures had already appeared in ads, but that the new policy expands the practice by allowing endorsements from "social actions" in addition to Google's +1, the equivalent of Facebook's "like" button.

"Obviously, look closely at any type of social activity you do," Sullivan said in a blog post.

"If it's tagged as public, then what you do is fodder for shared endorsements within ads, unless you opt out of ad use and also do limited sharing for non-ad use, if allowed."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com