Facebook just reported a massive data breach. Nearly 50 million accounts were affected by the breach, though it remains unclear whether the accounts were misused or if personal data was accessed. My account might be one of those affected. I know this, because when I went to check, Facebook had logged me off. At which…
“People You May Know.” “Suggested Friends.” “Suggestions for you.” No matter what it’s called, most of the social networks have it: a feature that recommends other users for you to connect with.
Gun violence moves through a city the way a virus moves the body: predictably, but with uncanny precision. New research suggests “virus” patterns can be spotted and possibly help predict and even prevent shootings. But questions remain of whether this can be done ethically, and, most crucially, who can be trusted with…
Whether someone’s stolen your credentials or you really can’t remember your password, if you’re ever locked out of your Facebook account, there are a number of routes you can take to get back in. One of the most effective needs to be set up in advance: telling Facebook who you trust the most.
You can’t complain about Facebook News Feed serving you up stuff you’re not interested in if you haven’t taken the time to customize all of the options and tweaks available. There are more than you might think. From prioritizing the friends you like the most to controlling the sponsored links you see, here’s how to…
If you haven’t yet heard, the chatbots are coming—ready to take your pizza order, answer your technical support questions, and even help you respond to your friends’ pictures in the most predictable way. We’re still in the very early days of the bot revolution on Facebook Messenger, but we’ve found a handful that are…
If you’ve got a suspicion someone else has gained access to your social media accounts, it’s not difficult to check—and it could mean you’re able to apply a password change before any real damage happens. In fact, it’s worth checking these options regularly just to be sure your Facebook and Twitter accounts are…
It was a big deal for the people of Vietnam when the President of the United States visited their country earlier this week. But sadly, posting about the event on Facebook proved rather difficult.
People aren’t sharing as much about their personal lives on Facebook as they used to, and so the company is reportedly hoping the launch of a new camera app will help solve that problem.
Everybody lies. We can’t help it. We exaggerate details to seem more fun, we highlight specifics to get more sympathy, and we fish for other people’s reactions to make us feel better. And with the social media handcuff we lock onto ourselves everyday with our phone addiction, we lie even more on the Internet to cull…
An intrepid team of postdocs at the Santa Fe Institute pulled off a hell of a feat last week. They gleaned some useful insights into how fads, technology, and new words spread rapidly throughout the population—even faster than a deadly virus. And they did it all in just 72 hours.
You have to stay on Facebook to see photos of the nieces and nephews and stay in the loop about Friday drinks—but you don’t want to offer up too much of your personal data to Zuckerberg’s all-seeing network. So what do you do? These five tips will help you grab a little bit of your privacy back.
Despite its recent problems, Twitter remains a powerful source for real-time thoughts, moods, trends, and news—and third-party developers are still eager to tap into Twitter for the benefit of us the users. These are five free, slick apps that sit on top of Twitter and pump out all kinds of useful features.
A New York judge has ruled that tagging someone in a Facebook post—and the subsequent notification that it generates— is enough to constitute a violation of a restraining order.
Despite Twitter owning Periscope, the service’s live feeds only ever showed up in timelines as links that you had to click through to. Now that’s changed, with Periscope feeds appearing and playing with Twitter itself.
Of course you want to wish all of your social media followers a merry Christmas and a happy New Year, but what happens if you’re stuck in a snow drift? Or playing charades with your cousins? Or on a seasonal walk far from any kind of data connectivity? Here’s how to get your holiday greetings lined up ahead of time.
With close to one-and-a-half billion people currently on Facebook, keeping a low profile can be tricky. It’s in the site’s best interest to make it easy for you to make connections with family, friends, and acquaintances. However, if you want to make it more difficult for people to track you down, there are ways to do…
Facebook uses a whole host of algorithms to work out which ads are most relevant to you, but you can take some control over the process by delving into your account settings and checking up on what the social network thinks it knows about you. It’s possible to add and remove topics to get at least a bearable…
By learning everything there is to know about you and your online habits, social network ETER9 promises a kind of digital immortality wherein an artificially intelligent agent continues to post on your behalf long after you’re dead. The future is creepier than we ever imagined.
Evangelical Christians in Brazil are going louco for Faceglória, a new, “sin-free” Facebook knockoff for the very religious. Since launching a month ago, Faceglória has over 100,000 users pressing “Amen” instead of “like.” It also has strict posting policies: No swear words, no violence, no gay content or erotica,…
