Wires Crossed #100 – September 14

Facebook To Pay For Party?

Facebook To Pay For Party?
Facebook is in the firing line in Germany after a series of parties advertised on the site have gotten out of control. Politicians are calling for the social networking site to pay the police and medic bills when they have to clean up the mess left behind. In one case there was a stabbing, a person got alcohol poisoning while a third fell in a bonfire. So German lawmakers want somebody to stump up the cash to pay for the call outs. But the questions have to be asked: What about the person who was stupid enough to advertise it in an open forum? What about personal responsibility? Do they get a free pass?

Taliban Uses Facebook To Get Information
While the Taliban may be the face of ultra conservative Islam, they sure don’t mind being a bit more liberal when it comes to get information out of our defence force members. According to the American Defense Department, the terrorist organisation is using false profiles of beautiful girls to friend soldiers and then try and garner information out of them. Because of this, most defence forces now have a written policy on social media, and personal have been warned to make sure they use features like security settings.

Tweet Threatens Assassination
Drugs and social media do not mix. Just ask 21-year-old Donte James of North Carolina who tweeted that he was going to assassinate US President Barack Obama – not once, but five times. When he was spoken to the Secret Service he readily admitted to owning the account and making the threats, but claimed it was due to him having smoked marijuana. James was promptly arrested by the Secret Service and faces up to five years in jail and up to a $250,000 fine. We’d be surprised if he got any jail time, or a hefty fine. But we wouldn’t be surprised if he did something just as stupid again given he allegedly had other arrest warrants outstanding.

Google Sued Over Search Results
Some believe it doesn’t take much to manipulate results on search engines, which is why there is such a large SEO industry out there. So Bettina Wulff, the wife of former German President Christian, is suing Google over the results that pop up when you type in her name. Words like bordello, prostitute and red-light district pop up when you type in her name, and she believes the company can make it so these words never appear. Whether Google can manipulate the search that much, who knows? However, the good news for her is that now when you type in her name, the first page is full of results are about this legal action. So maybe when it comes to the court case, and she tries to prove her point, she won’t be able to do so.

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