Facebook boosts privacy controls amid criticism

(Reuters) – Facebook is beefing up privacy protections on the world’s most popular online social network, addressing mounting pressure to better secure personal data exchanged among its nearly 500 million members.

The issue has come to a head in recent months amid concern that Facebook makes it possible for people to gain a wealth of information about its users without their knowledge thanks to a confusing system for setting privacy safeguards.

Wednesday Facebook said the company would roll out changes over the coming weeks that would give users more powerful tools to prevent personal information from being accessed by others.

Still, Facebook’s default settings will continue to make it relatively easy for users to obtain information about each other as the company walks a delicate line between protecting privacy rights and promoting social networking.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64N3T820100526?feedType=nl&feedName=ustechnology

Twitter power; Learning from ourselves, in real time

Celebrities were among the first to recognize Twitter’s connective power: Former American Idol Judge Paula Abdul abdicated her seat in a tweet to fans, and singer Erykah Badu tweeted right through her youngest daughter’s birth.

Now devotees range from CEOs to average Joes, all chatting in a digital town square with the power to aid Haiti with an avalanche of donation pledges or make 16-year-old pop phenom Justin Bieber a global sensation.

But too many, Twitter is also becoming a real-time barometer of people’s reactions to events and products, and as such it is causing all manner of folks to pay close attention.

Whether it’s Idol contestants “trending” among the most-tweeted topics after their performances (an indicator of their subsequent popularity with voters) or Procter & Gamble monitoring tweets after its “Thanks, Mom” ad campaign during the Winter Olympics (comments lamented the lack of Dad kudos), the power of Twitter to provide instant insight into the national psyche is unprecedented.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2010-05-25-1Atwitter25_CV_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip