December 2008 Archives

By Agence France-Presse WASHINGTON -- Facebook is facing an online protest after removing pictures of b reastfeeding mothers found to be overly revealing from the pages of members of the social network. A Facebook group entitled "Hey, Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!" has at tracted nearly 85,000 members as of Tuesday and a handful of activists held a r ally outside its California headquarters over the weekend. The organizers of the page, which is hosting a lively debate, receiving more th an 10,000 comments, said they launched their "Official Petition to Facebook" af ter Facebook pulled profile pictures showing women nursing their babies. "The pictures have been reported as 'obscene' and have been removed -- their po sters warned not to repost or fear being kicked off of Facebook," the group's o rganizers said. "We're wondering: what about a baby breastfeeding is obscene? Especi ally in comparison to MANY other pictures posted all over Facebook that really are obscene." Facebook, which has more than 120 million members, said there was no ban on bre astfeeding pictures but it did have a policy on how much of a woman's breast ca n be revealed similar to that of US newspapers and other media outlets. "We agree that breastfeeding is natural and beautiful and weâre very glad to kn ow that it is so important to some mothers to share this experience with others on Facebook," said Barry Schnitt, a Facebook spokesman. "We take no action on the vast majority of breastfeeding photos because they fo llow the siteâs Terms of Use," Schnitt said in a statement. "Photos containing a fully exposed breast (as defined by showing the nipple or areola) do violate those Terms and may be removed," he said. "These policies are designed to ensure Facebook remains a safe, secure and trus ted environment for all users, including the many children (over the age of 13) who use the site," Schnitt said. "The photos we act upon are almost exclusively brought to our attention by othe r users who complain," he added. Saturday, the Facebook breastfeeding group staged a virtual protest online, cal led the Mothers International Lactation Campaign, which attracted more than 11, 000 followers. Real-life mothers also held a "nurse-in" outside Facebook's Palo Alto, Californ ia, headquarters the same day, the Palo Alto Daily News reported. The local newspaper said a handful of activists attended the protest, signing s ongs, displaying signs and breastfeeding their children outside Facebook headqu arters.

JUST a day after a golf c lub mauling incident was reported, dozens of blogs are denouncing alleged perpetrators who happen to be high-ranking government officials. Masui, Lanao del Sur Mayor Nasser Pangandaman, Jr. and several of his golf comp anions and bodyguards figured in an altercation last December 26 with Delfin de la Paz and his 14-year old son Bino at the Valley Golf and Country Club in Ant ipolo City. It was later found out that Department of Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pang andaman Sr. was also present at the golf club but was said to have not been par t of the alleged mauling. The incident was later blogged by Bambee de la Pazand was reported by several news organizations. Bloggers also picked up the story and have since been calling for an investigation over the incident wh ile a few others called for both Pangandaman's resignations. Bambee de la Paz's blog was reposted on theFilipinoVoices.com and received dozens of comments. Comic book artis t Gerry Alanguilan also posted hisopinion on the matter, while Juned Sonido also had his take on the issue. Blogger Tonyo Cruz listed several messages from other bloggers in Global Voices. Filipina Mom Bloggerlisted down other blogs that are showing outrage for the alleged mauling. Manuel Quezon III wrote a scathing commentary where he relates the incident to the warlo rd culture in the provinces. Â

By Associated Press HANOI, Vietnam -- Vietnam has approved new regulations banning bloggers from di scussing subjects the government deems sensitive or inappropriate and requiring them to limit their writings to personal issues. The rules ban any posts that undermine national security, incite violence or cr ime, disclose state secrets, or include inaccurate information that could damag e the reputation of individuals and organizations, according to a copy of the r egulations obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press. The rules, which were approved Dec. 18, attempt to rein in Vietnam's booming bl ogosphere. It has become an alternative source of news for many in the communis t country, where the media is state-controlled. The new rules require Internet companies that provide blogging platforms to rep ort to the government every six months and provide information about bloggers o n request. The companies are also required to prevent and remove content the go vernment deems harmful. The regulations, written by the Ministry of Information and Communications, enc ourage bloggers to use "clean, healthy Vietnamese language." They clarify earli er Internet regulations that were introduced in August. Ministry official Luu Vu Hai would not say whether the new regulations will app ly to international companies like Google or Yahoo or would only restrict the o peration of Vietnamese firms. Currently, the vast majority of Vietnamese bloggers post their writings on Yaho o! 360.

By Glenn Chapman Agence France-Presse SAN FRANCISCO -- Yahoo on Monday began weaving trendy social-networking feature s into its popular free email service as it vies to be the preferred launching point for Internet surfers. Yahoo says it is providing tools that lets people use its email service to buil d interactive communities based on friends and interests. "Mail is the largest dormant social graph," Yahoo Mail vice president John Krem er said while outlining enhancements to the service used by 275 million people worldwide every month. "This is the first time we are exposing that in a significant way." A "smarter inbox" puts messages from friends or family in a separate, tabbed fi le so they don't get buried under mountains of spam or work email. The inbox for the the first time lets people install third-party app lications such as movie-recommendation service Flixster and blogging tools from WordPress. Technology from startup Xoopit (pronounced swoop-it) will fetch all pictures bu ried in stored emails, even retrieving images from website links found in messa ges. "Email is a place where a lot of people live," said Xoopit co-founder Bijan Mar ashi. "Yahoo users have years of gems in old emails. There are hundreds of millions o f people not on social networks, but with years of data in their email." Marashi pulled up his three-year-old email account as an example, revealing it held 7,745 pictures. Yahoo Mail is being infused with a "social dimension" that builds on similar fe atures being added to the California firm's other Internet properties, accordin g to Open Strategy director of product development Cody Simms. Mirroring a winning move by social-networking star Facebook, Yahoo opened up it s platform this year to let third-party developers create fun, hip, or function al applications adapted to its online offerings. Yahoo wants to enhance the social aspects of its website in order to attract ne w people to its online services and get existing users to spend more time on it s advertising-supported pages. Yahoo claims more than 500 million users worldwide but has been struggling to c ash-in on its popularity. Yahoo isn't trying to be a MySpace or Facebook, but wants to add "the right bit s of social that make sense to our audience," said Yahoo Audience Product Divis ion vice president Ash Patel. "There are maybe 150 to 250 million users on those networks," Patel said of the top two social-networking services. "With the billion people on the web, that means some 800 million don't use those services." Yahoo is aiming to give its half a billion users tools that let them better con nect as a community while using its Web pages, according to Patel. "To be a starting point in this day and age you have to add the best of the web -- social elements," Patel said, referring to Yahoo's stated goal of being the preferred launch point for web surfers. "Yahoo started off linking people to the rest of the Web. It is part of our cul ture. It is part of our heritage." Yahoo's move is the latest salvo in an escalating war to become the preferred b ase of operations for people's increasingly immersive and diverse online activi ties, according to Flixster co-founder Joe Greenstein. Facebook Connect lets people link profiles to outside websites so they can flit about the Internet without straying from the social networking website. Internet search firms treasure their slots as "default" pages set to automatica lly open in Web browsers. "It is going to be a really interesting war to see where the user bases end up, " Greenstein said. "My guess is we will see multiple winners by demographics. Y ahoo has one of the clearest visions as a starting point."