‘Facebook’

Anonymous Facebook Attack Video can be a Hoax or Internet Meme in the Making

The Anonymous group according to videos posted at YouTube plans a Facebook attack on 28 January 2012. Although it has been proven to be a hoax with members of the group denying any involvement, one has to consider the possibility of 60 000 servers of the Social Media Network to be down because of a hack or ping attack.

The narrator in the YouTube video stated that a war is looming between Anonymous and the USA government because of SOPA, PIPA and regulations that threaten the existence of the Internet in its current form.

How Did Anonymous According to the Video Plan to Attack Facebook?

The alleged Anonymous threat to Facebook took the form of a video, requesting viewers supporting their stand to also participate in the protest. Accordingly, the attack already commenced with attacks on other sites including some FBI sites. Supporters of the online protest were asked to download a program that would help them attack Facebook at 12 AM, 28 January 2012. The idea would be to attack Facebook servers forcing them to shut down.

The YouTube Anonymous video narrator stated that participation in the Facebook attack would be safe and that nobody had to fear prosecution, as accordingly, prosecution of such a large number of people throughout the world could not be done.

Is Anonymous Behind the Facebook Attack?

According to Anonymous they are not behind the videos for a Facebook attack, but since Anonymous is not a single group of people with a leader, it is difficult to substantiate their statement. Posts from various accounts were made to YouTube. Not too long ago a similar message was broadcasted on YouTube stating a Facebook attack on November 5, which never occurred. So whether it is a hoax or not will only really show on 28 January 2012.

Why a Facebook Attack?

Since Facebook did not come out strong against PIPA and SOPA they could be a target for an Anonymous attack and with the video showing through the protest that Facebook, according to them is with the US government on SOPA and PIPA, it could explain the protest. One can expect various claims to arise before the 28^th of January will have passed.

Facebook Announces Protest – SOPA and PIPA

Meanwhile, Facebook has given a statement to indicate that they do not support PIPA or SOPA and maybe it will help to prevent an Anonymous Facebook attack if it ever would have taken place.

AnonOps Twitter Tweet

A tweet showed that the members of Anonymous are not involved in any such attack messages and according to the tweeter, the mass media has lied about the issue.

Is Facebook Ready?

According to Facebook, they are ready for any Internet-based attacks with numerous precautions and security measures in place, whether the attack comes from Anonymous or any other source. Staunch FB users thus don’t have to fear no status updates and life is expected to go on as normal. FB users also don’t have to fear invasion of privacy in case of a server attack as according to the company, they value the privacy of users and have taken every step to protect such and the integrity of the social media network.
Mark Zuckerberg in a tweet came out against PIPA ad SOPA and the case should thus be settled once and for all about Facebook’s stance on the issue.

Who Is Anonymous and Why the Fear of a Facebook Attack?

To establish whether the group is indeed a real threat one must look at their past behaviour. Pro-Nazi sites have come under attack as have child pornography sites. The group does have teeth and they have brought servers down in the past. With that then any such threats are not taken too lightly by Internet communities.

The word Anonymous has developed as an Internet meme as long ago as 2003 to indicate groups of users who exist without a clear leader or coordinator. All members act as a group, but also individually. It has become a blanket term to describe the way people operate in the online environment where their identities are hidden.

Originally the term referred to people with a similar goal focusing on the entertainment industries, but a collective has developed where protest actions have taken place to promote specific actions and to denounce others. The group of users have for instance, promoted piracy and hacking seems to be a means to an end. With not a single group to be identified, but rather users labelling their attributions as Anonymous, prosecution does seem a bit difficult.

Websites that affiliate with the term do exist. Imageboards, some wikis and forums clearly associate with Anonymous including 4chan. Attacks in the form of distributed denial of service attacks have been done during 2008. Users who support the actions share some form of identity in the hiding of their identities, labelling their actions accordingly and in some way acting as if there is a real person or clear group behind it all.

The unnamed masses supporting specific concepts and have adopted some form of Internet identity of not being inhibited can be grouped in the collective. Users associating with the concept have described themselves as Anonymous, a non-forgiving group that takes action against perpetrators.

Where Do The Users Come From?

Most of the users can be found at imageboards and forums as well as social networks, chat networks and wikis. It is thus a very loose collection of Internet users who have the usage of some sites and IRC channels and social network tools in common who mobilize without a clear leader in protests.

With not a single leader, the individuals participate willingly and in their own way to benefit the group of people known as Anonymous.

What is an Internet Meme?

It can be described as any idea that is spread through the usage of the Internet. It can take the form of a video, chat, website, link, image, phrase or a misspelling of a word. It is spread from one user to another through the usage of email, blogs, tweets, forums and Facebook posts.

How Real is the Anonymous Facebook Attack Threat?

It remains to be seen, but since any user sharing the common goal of protesting against a site, action, government policy or anything that affects the Internet, can label their action as part of the Anonymous group, the collective common goal of a real Facebook attack can still be realized or the idea can just become another Internet meme.

Twitter has taken the bold step to say what everyone is thinking – Google promotes it own social network Google+ at the expense of other social networks.

Twitter has not been tactful about it as well. The company outright complained that users and news organizations will all be disadvantaged if there are no tweets in the Google search results. Since news of important events often appear first on Twitter, then the news networks, and finally in search results, it goes without saying that the tweets are the most relevant when it comes to up to date reports on events.

The Google+ centred approach has been criticized widely, with Twitter being the most prominent of the complainers.  The company loves the traffic from the search giant, but with no direct advantage for Google to send traffic to tweets, one can understand the shift in focus to promote their own struggling social network.

Twitter’s Perspective on Google+

Google can still index the tweets which are public and most of them are. Twitter feels that people rely on the search giant to deliver accurate search results including breaking news and events. With Twitter being a major source of information fitting the profile, it goes without saying that the results should include searches in their 250 million or so daily tweets covering just about any given topic.

Twitter boasts about a 100 million users and as such their input should not be ignored. With the changes in Google’s focus and subsequent search results, the users and publishers definitely are at a disadvantage and the results cannot be given as the most accurate or relevant to the user.

Google hasn’t included any public Facebook content in its search results up to now and Twitter has thus just joined the low search results ranks together with other social networks.

Google’s Perspective on Social Networks

Google’s response is that they don’t have access to crawl the content of certain sites including social networks. They can thus only provide results on information not hidden behind password protection and pay-walls.

Google has also announced that they are surprised by Twitter’s outrage since the company chose not to renew the pay agreement and since then the search giant has simply observed the no follow instructions.

Review of the Twitter versus Google+ War

If one has to be completely objective then Google certainly has the right to promote Google+ more than any of the other social networks and if Twitter has not renewed their agreement, there is certainly no reason for the search engine giant to send traffic their way. Google also has the right to get others to play nice and open up their networks for crawling, but look closer and you will be able to see that the exclusion of such results and pushing sites down the rank, influence the accuracy and relevancy of results.

Even though a user with a Google+ account now has a more relevant search experience when taken into consideration that search results are adapted to the user’s past searches and profile, essential results don’t show up. For Google, it may seem relevant, but the user is suffering because of their policies. With that then the giant engine shouldn’t proclaim the best results when indeed they are self-promoting and then demoting others at the same time.

Google+ is struggling and with all its excellent privacy features, little circles and clean lay-out, it cannot compete with Facebook and Twitter following. The search engine wants access to Twitter and Facebook to crawl, but then one also has to look even deeper. Google doesn’t make ad revenue from Facebook accounts and being excluded from revenue on Twitter, it seems like another ploy to downsize competition.

One must appreciate Google’s effort to get all information accessible under one umbrella. Currently you will search your Facebook page, do a Twitter search and a Google one if you want to get up to date and really relevant results. But, Google has also been accused of bullying Android and Motorola has complained that they don’t have freedom of decision. It does seem that Google pressures every other network, platform, mobile provider and site into submission to fit their own agenda.

Does this Tug of War Hurt the User or the Company the Most?

Undoubtedly the ongoing monopoly tugging does hurt the Internet user. One should, however, ask whether another social network is needed. Does anyone have the time to login at Facebook and Google+, make your way to Twitter for some tweeting, chat at Skype and then move onto searching? Indeed, Google surely doesn’t have in mind to just add another social network, it is more an issue of taking down the one network where it doesn’t get an income from and then if they succeed in pushing tweets down the results far enough, they may even take the market there as well.

The search giant, cannot however, be criticized for being so large and marketing itself since they do give a lot of free stuff. If many of their competitors would have done the same, they may also have flooded the market. They certainly also have the right to put pressure on companies to use their products.

Twitter’s complaint against Google is somewhat legitimate and resembles how many of the smaller companies also feel. With the constant changes made by Google, several thousands of little AdSense publishers have seen their income dwindle and their sites pushed down far on the search results.

One must ask whether Google has become so big that they have lost touch with their users in the quest to promote their Google+ and other products. One must also ask whether ad income from the large companies have become more important than accurate information as search results have become focused on the large sites recently. The Twitter versus Google+ war is far from over and one can expect to see more complaints surface in future.

Back to the question of whether Twitter’s complaint against Google for promoting their own social network while pushing others down should be supported – it depends on whether you still benefit from Google’s traffic and whether you want your searches and social network to be an integrated experience.

The web strike against SOPA and PIPA is to go ahead on Wednesday 18 January, 2012. The web is to be a dark and silent place with many of the major sites going on a black-out. The occasion – SOPA and PIPA. One the 18^th of January 2012, the unprecedented will occur. Never in the history of the Internet have so many sites protested censorship at once. Wikipedia will also strike in protest against SOPA and PIPA as will thousands of other sites.

Do Your Homework Today

If you have research to do, it will be best to get to work today as for tomorrow, you will find the web on strike against SOPA, PIPA and web censorship. The protest across the web is against the Internet censorship bills to be voted on in the USA Congress on 24 January 2012. The idea behind the blackout, including the Wikipedia strike, is to create enough public opposition against SOPA in the USA House and PIPA in the Senate.

Core Protest

Protesting sites state that web censorship attacks the very core of the Internet. It takes away freedom of speech, creativity, and privacy. Should a government not like what is said about it on a website, it will be easy to ban the site and block access to it, pretending that it has violated copyright through file sharing facilitation or the likes. The Internet belongs to the users and not the governments of the world. If the USA is allowed to enact SOPA and PIPA, they will in effect exert control over the information flow on the web.

Wikipedia Will Not Be Available

Sites such as Wikipedia and Reddit are at the forefront of the all-out strike against SOPA, PIPA, and web censorship. If you are using Mozilla Firefox as your browser, you may very well find it offline tomorrow. DowntownMiamiNews.com will also join the SOPA Blackout. According to them, the MPAA and RIAA, as driving forces behind the bill are the only ones to benefit whilst thousands to millions of users will be negatively affected by the regulations.

Even if you haven’t paid any attention to the information war between large corporations, including the likes of Google, Wikipedia and Facebook and the USA government hoping to push through legislation to censor the web and to prevent online piracy, you will be affected by the all-out one day blackout strike.

Wikipedia is a popular research source on the Internet, used by students, writers, and the general public to get a background on any topic before conducting more in-depth research. Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, announced that the site will not be available for a full 24 hours in support of protest against the shutting down of sites such as The Piracy Bay and other file sharing sites and the proposed bills.

Entertainment Companies Support SOPA and PIPA

At the other end of the spectrum, the movie and entertainment companies fight hard to get SOPA and PIPA through because they lose money according to them, because of piracy, file sharing, and illegal downloading of movies and music on the Internet. Wikipedia has warned students to do their work early because the site will be off for the whole of Wednesday.

The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) has indicated that such laws will help to fight piracy and general intellectual property theft. According to them, the protest in the form of a web strike or black-out distracts from the real issue of ongoing piracy. They feel that foreigners, that is users outside the USA, are stealing from the USA by means of downloads; facilitating downloads, and file sharing.

Large Sites Join Opposition to Legislation

Notably, rather useful sites and resources on the Internet are against the proposed SOPA and PIPA including WordPress and TwitPic. WordPress provides free content management blog templates, plugins and resources and with such has the right to oppose such bills. As a free resource with contributions from developers around the world, willing to share their knowledge, it is understandable that they will oppose legislation.

Online Piracy is a Problem

Online piracy is definitely a huge problem for the entertainment industry, but although the large companies complain that file sharing costs them millions in revenue, research reports have indicated that book, music and film sales have increased rather than decreased because of or despite file sharing practices.

Information Flow at Risk

The dynamic nature of the Internet is in jeopardy should the USA be allowed to control web access to so-called pirate sites or file sharing sites considered as facilitators of intellectual property theft. It does, however, ring alarm bells even with free information contribution sites such as Wikipedia since legislation will open the doors for more web censorship. It creates the risk of a completely USA controlled Internet.

Google has indicated that they support such a web strike because SOPA would allow for governments and companies to take action against so-called perpetrators without a proper trial or investigation. The free flow of information is at risk with such legislation.

Internet companies joining the web strike said the proposed legislation — SOPA in the House and the Protect Intellectual Property Act in the Senate — would allow operators no real chance before government actions could be taken against them. The web strike also including the Wikipedia blackout is a desperate cry-out by the public against web censorship and control over the information flow and freedom of expression that will come about with SOPA and PIPA.

Voting to Go Ahead

The USA Chamber of Commerce has reacted to the proposed web strike with an announcement by Steven Tepp (Chief Intellectual Property Counsel) that concerns about the bills have already been addressed including the wholesale blockage of infringing sites. Accordingly, the criminal activity of intellectual property theft is robbing companies of their rightful income.

The web strike against SOPA and PIPA will reach far and wide with many Facebook pages also joining. It is expected that as many as 5000 websites could join the black-out. There are even sites promoting the black-out in protest with the inclusion of an HTML code or JavaScript in the site’s theme. People are encouraged to Tweet about the blackout and to join the strike effort by adding their sites to the protest sites such as ProtestSOPA.org and Sopastrike.com.

The reports on the latest social networking growth stats indicate that Facebook is the leader of the pack with Twitter second and LinkedIn trailing in third place. More significant is continues growth of the networks with Facebook, showing tremendous increase in usage. With over 1.1 billion users globally and attracting more than 81% of the Internet users, Facebook is by far the biggest gun in the social network industry.

Globally, social networking growth stats show that citizens in Israel spend the most time at social networking with more than 11 hours a month per user. The people of Argentina are not far behind with over 10.6 hours a month per user and then Russians with their more than 10.3 hours monthly. Turkey, Chile, The Philippines and Colombia are not far behind. Trailing the top ten are Peru, Venezuela and Canada. Surprisingly, the US citizens spend less time on social networks than the citizens in the above countries, with South Africans not yet coming close.

Gender Profiles

Reports further indicate that women use the social media sites for comparison with their female peers whilst the men use such for finding friends. Men love the idea of body photos whilst women tend to add facial photos.  Men use the platforms for finding information about people whilst females tend to use such for personal engagement.

Social Networking in South Africa Compared To the USA and Europe

Studies indicate that more than 75% of Americans use social networks with European users slightly behind them, but when it comes to South Africa, the picture looks different. Reports show that Twitter has grown its market tremendously to now include more than a million users with estimates indicating that more than 39% of the users are active. With the majority of users in South Africa, only joining during 2010-2011, it is definitely the hottest new thing on the social media scene when it comes to South Africa.

The South African Social Media Landscape 2011 released by World Wide Worx and Fuseware indicated that the SA media is mostly responsible for the tremendous growth in Twitter usage. Accordingly, many use the platform for retrieval and for following of news.

When it comes to Facebook, the social network growth stats indicate that many of the users didn’t even log in during 2010-2011. With more than 4.1 million users and only around 3.1 million plus, who logged in during the period, it seems as if the obsession with Facebook in South Africa has subsided a bit.

Numerous users now utilize BBM and MXit as well as Twitter instead, whilst some, and only some, have begun to use Google+.  Many of the Facebook users have accounts, but only occasionally visit their profile pages to upload new pictures or to play a game or two.

Surprisingly, LinkedIn has also passed the million user mark with reports indicating 1.1 million users. It shows tremendous growth with active usage also on the increase. It has indeed shown more than 86% growth in one year. Only a tenth of the users are businesses.

MXit, though certainly not forming part of the international social networking growth stats, is still the largest mobile social media platform for the country. Its user profile shows that more than 74% of the users are teens and younger kids. It is thus, apart from BBM, the preferred platform for social networking when it comes to the youth of the country.

USA Usage

When it comes to the USA, Facebook is definitely the most important of the social networks with reports indicating that more than 57% for the users use the platform on a daily basis. LinkedIn has a smaller market penetration with just over a fifth of the user profile and Twitter in the same region.

European Usage

The Europeans are surprisingly conservative in social media usage with about half the profile logging into one social platform only. Around two thirds of Europeans use at least one of the social media networks with over 60% logging in at Facebook on a regular basis and around 15-17% on Twitter. Another social network called Vkontakte that takes around 11-13% of the user profile.

New Networks

Apart from BBM that has made its mark, reports indicate that users don’t easily migrate to other networks or add them to their profiles.  It may explain the low usage level of Google+, although it certainly has enough subscribers, just not active users. Smaller social media networks will have an even harder time in penetrating the market. It can be ascribed to persons already having all their contacts at Facebook or LinkedIn and with them already following tweets they don’t seem to have more time or willingness to add another platform to their schedule. People, according to experts in the field, tend to ignore smaller social networks because of the low level of interactivity.

 Social Networking and Branding Growth

According to the various reports, globally the USA and European users follow brands, although international figures suggest that only half the number of users from other countries, including South Africa, actively follows brands on the social networks.

Other reports indicate that MySpace usage is on the fast track downwards with Tumblr surprisingly showing growth. Accordingly, the average time spent at Facebook has increased to more than six hours a month for the USA profile. Market dominance of the big players in social networking will continue, and currently only around five networks show massive growth while the thousands of other networks have indeed shown a decrease in activity.

Social Networking Growth Stats in Japan

The Japanese, according to reports, love Facebook and Twitter just about the same, but when it comes to usage, Facebook leads with more than 52% of the sharing whilst Twitter is only used for just under 14%. Twitter has, however, shown tremendous growth in 2011 with more than 576% growth in one year. Google has shown a drop in usage of around 7-8%. Reports indicate that more than 11 million of social networking users globally are in Japan.

Social networking growth stats clearly indicate Facebook as the leader. Twitter and LinkedIn are the two other big players, but usage trends differ from country to country. In South Africa, as shown, MXit and BBM are also big, with Google+ not really a threat to any network. What is important is to take note of the tremendous growth in social media and networking. Any business hoping to reach their target audience must make use of the social platforms where their users are in addition to offline marketing and their websites.

Facebook introduced sponsored ads in the ticker. Many users complained about the ticker, but when the sponsored ads came along, they were already familiar with the constant feed and some didn’t even realise that they now also receive ad updates. For others the whole experience has been just one long annoying ad.

Sponsored Stories Appear In Your Home Page And The Ticker Feed

Facebook considers the sponsored ads as part of the News Feed and as such doesn’t consider it to be annoying when the ads also form part of the ticker. The ticker feature first appeared a couple of months ago and displays on the right side of the page, listing comments, updates, and likes of friends and contacts. If the feeds are not important enough to appear on your home page, they will only appear in the feed.

The main feed on the home page features status updates and comments on your updates as well as some sponsored ads. The idea is to clean up the home page of the user without the user losing out on feeds.  In addition, the user receives notifications of actions such as User X uploaded a photo while the friends now friends with so and so are displayed in the ticker feed on the right side of the page.

One can now automatically share what you like or listen to via the ticker feed. Some Facebook users have responded in anger while others have simply taken steps to reduce the amount of spam appearing in their home page. Users have shown that they don’t like the bar on the right side, never mind all the sponsored stories also now featuring.

Why Has Facebook Added The Ticker?

Facebook obviously needed space for more sponsored ads and with the ticker feed, they get the additional space. Taking into consideration that Facebook is a free social network platform, users don’t really have grounds to complain. The service provider needs to make money and must thus think of innovative ways to do so.

One cannot opt out of seeing sponsored stories, but can hide a specific update, all updates from the sponsor or report the story as spam. Guess Facebook gets many spam reports. Be careful what you like in your profile such as movies and music as well as any likes at sponsored pages since the more you LIKE the more sponsored ads you are likely to see in your ticker feeds and at your home page.

Not So Unfamiliar Concept

If you are already a Twitter or Digg user, you will be familiar with the sponsored feeds, but for the average Facebook user, getting used to it may take some time. One will need to get use to it if you plan on using any type of social media now and in future. Users may want to see the sponsored posts separate from the other updates, but then the ads will be less effective and Facebook will lose ad revenue as sponsors pay to get their ads viewed by as many users as possible and as many times as can be stomached by the users. Most of the social media services mark the sponsored ads as such. Facebook is thus no different to any of the other service providers.

What Is So Annoying About The Newsfeed?

The constant feed features any minute detail. As such it is live and ticking. If you are concerned about bandwidth usage, it will be freak you out, but considering how easy we as humans adapt, it will not be annoying for long. Once the human eye gets used to the ticker on the right side, the feeds can be ignored. Just as you don’t register an ad that has been displayed for more than three weeks, the feeds become part of the page lay-out.

Positives

Although the sponsored stories in the ticker can be annoying, the top news is better organised in the home page. Everything is there to see if you want and as such the user doesn’t have to take any actions. Facebook has become the ideal place for the person with lazy fingers.

Privacy Issues

Users have complained that they can now see conversations between friends and as such must be even more careful when commenting on a post. Considering that a typical user can have several groups of friends which do not normally share the same language, social structure and ideas, it may become difficult to separate work, religion, and social life. For people who want to stay up to date with everything their friends do and chat about, the feature of course, is excellent.

What is less impressive is that you can also see what a complete stranger has said if that person commented at a friend’s post. With possible identity theft and lurking criminals one will want a bit more control. If your friends, however, pay attention to the privacy settings, you will be less inclined to see all their conversations.

Whenever you post, you have the option of displaying the post as public, for friends only or for a custom group of friends. The smart user will thus post updates for friends or a custom list only. If the setting is public all threads on the post will also be displayed in the ticker feed. Simple consideration can help prevent the world from knowing private conversations. For the more private chats use the live chat or the messaging option.

How To Get Rid Of Sponsored Ads In The Ticker

First, be careful of what you LIKE and then also what you SHARE. Then if an ad appears in your home page that you don’t want to see, hide and if you don’t want any of it, hide all. If it is exceptionally annoying, report it as spam.

Consider Others

Take time to set up lists and start using such for posting updates. This will help to limit what your friends and then some strangers see in the ticker feed. Only play games and use apps that are really worth it to limit the amount of feeds your friends will get. Encourage others to also move away from the PUPLIC settings.