Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg put out an "open letter" to the site's massive membership on Tuesday, explaining the site's revised privacy controls that are finally going into effect after being announced this summer, and additionally announcing the milestone that the site has reached 350 million active users around the world.
But CEOs are notoriously deft with spin, and Zuckerberg is a clever fellow. So, luckily, CNET has translated his entire letter for you! In italics are Zuckerberg's words. Below are the ones we found to be an appropriate substitution after extensive research, experimentation, and a little inspiration from a fluffy-white-cat-stroking supervillain.
It begins.
It has been a great year for making the world more open and connected. Thanks to your help, more than 350 million people around the world are using Facebook to share their lives online.
What he means: "We are taking over the freaking world. Eat it, MySpace."
To make this possible, we have focused on giving you the tools you need to share and control your information. Starting with the very first version of Facebook five years ago, we've built tools that help you control what you share with which individuals and groups of people. Our work to improve privacy continues today.
What he means: "I KNOW ALL YOUR SECRETS. But I promise I won't tell that ex-girlfriend of yours whom you chucked onto Limited Profile setting after she dumped you even though I totally know you check up on her profile every three days because I know everything. Have you met my fluffy white cat?" OK, well, maybe that's a little bit fanciful.
Facebook's current privacy model revolves around "networks"--communities for your school, your company or your region. This worked well when Facebook was mostly used by students, since it made sense that a student might want to share content with their fellow students.
Over time people also asked us to add networks for companies and regions as well. Today we even have networks for some entire countries, like India and China.
What he means: "Some of my Harvard classmates wanted to brag that they get to live in Buenos Aires or Sydney. Or that they wanted to find hot girls who lived nearby. That worked for a while."
However, as Facebook has grown, some of these regional networks now have millions of members and we've concluded that this is no longer the best way for you to control your privacy. Almost 50 percent of all Facebook users are members of regional networks, so this is an important issue for us. If we can build a better system, then more than 100 million people will have even more control of their information.
The plan we've come up with is to remove regional networks completely and create a simpler model for privacy control where you can set content to be available to only your friends, friends of your friends, or everyone.
What he means: "I could be deceptively upfront and say that this was just getting messy and that it makes little sense for millions of you with only a passport in common to be grouped under the same label. But let's be honest. I am simply preparing you for the day in the not-so-distant future when you all willfully renounce your national affiliations and become citizens of the Grand Republic of Facebook. And I shall be your Fearless Leader. Did I mention I own a white fluffy cat?"
We're adding something that many of you have asked for--the ability to control who sees each individual piece of content you create or upload. In addition, we'll also be fulfilling a request made by many of you to make the privacy settings page simpler by combining some settings. If you want to read more about this, we began discussing this plan back in July.
What he means: "It's taken a while to get this out of the gates. But you'll dig it. When we launched privacy controls that let you see who sees what on your profile, a lot of you already had big friends lists (because you are totally addicted to my brilliant creation). So we're making it all less messy. And now you'll also be able to be more specific about controls on content, like letting your mom have access to the 'note' where you talk about how much you love her chocolate chip cookies but not the one where you ask for all your friends' phone numbers because you got crunked and dropped your iPhone in the toilet.
More importantly, this means that I can hand-pick which of you get to see each video of my white fluffy cat that I upload. Wait till you see the one where he chases a laser pointer! YouTube would die for it!"
Since this update will remove regional networks and create some new settings, in the next couple of weeks we'll ask you to review and update your privacy settings. You'll see a message that will explain the changes and take you to a page where you can update your settings. When you're finished, we'll show you a confirmation page so you can make sure you chose the right settings for you. As always, once you're done you'll still be able to change your settings whenever you want.
What he means: "We know the indoctrination process can take some time. So we'll be patient with you, minions."
We've worked hard to build controls that we think will be better for you, but we also understand that everyone's needs are different. We'll suggest settings for you based on your current level of privacy, but the best way for you to find the right settings is to read through all your options and customize them for yourself. I encourage you to do this and consider who you're sharing with online."
What he means: "The press loves to write about it when some numb skull puts all his Halloween party photos on Facebook and his boss sees them and sacks him. And that scares everybody and makes Facebook look less like the future of the open and connected social graph and more like an oozing vat of scandal and danger. I don't want that and neither does my white fluffy cat. So, please don't be stupid."
Thanks for being a part of making Facebook what it is today, and for helping to make the world more open and connected.
What he means: "My work here is complete. Now, Elliot, have you located the map of all the air vents in Twitter's new headquarters that are large enough to accommodate a mutant panther-raccoon hybrid?"
Disclaimer: CNET is unable to confirm whether Mark Zuckerblofeld, uh, I mean Mark Zuckerberg, actually owns a white fluffy cat.
Also, this post is not intended to be taken seriously.
Jack Thompson, one of the best-known and most controversial foes of video games and the culture surrounding them, might be in need of a few extra grains of salt.
On Monday, satirical news site News Groper posted an expletive-filled rant in the guise of its "Fake Samuel L. Jackson" blogger about the tragic Northern Illinois University shootings and Thompson's willingness to connect it to violent video games. Most of the News Groper post by the faux-Snakes on a Plane star is far too foul to post here, but basically, it described Thompson's reaction to the campus shootings as "a laugh-riot."
From what it looks like, Thompson may have thought that it was a real blog post from the real Samuel L. Jackson. Within hours of the post appearing, an apparent response from Thompson showed up in the comments. "Mr. Jackson, I enjoyed your post about NIU and about me. Unfortunately, you could fit what you know about school shootings and their causes in a sleeve of Titleist golf balls. I'm a six handicap, and would love to play you a match anywhere anytime," the notably less profane comment read. "Here's a proposal: Why don't you debate me on this issue of whether violent video games cause real world violence. I'll do it anywhere, anytime. You name it." Jack Thompson, if it really was Jack Thompson, signed the comment with a phone number and e-mail address.
Shortly thereafter, Thompson appeared to do a bit of damage control, adding "Although your 'badass' post was not real, mine is." But was it actually Thompson in the first place, or a clever imposter? It is a fake news site, after all, and I wouldn't put it past News Groper to kick off a "Fake Jack Thompson" blog by having the blogger comment elsewhere on the site. It would be clever.
News Groper's editorial team claims it's likely very real. "No one's heard from a Jack Thompson claiming there's a fake Jack Thompson," founder Greg Galant told CNET News.com, noting that video game blog Kotaku had exchanged correspondence with Thompson about the matter. "So, being experts on the matter of realness/fakeness, we'd say 99 percent chance that (it's) the real Jack Thompson."
And Thompson wouldn't be the first person to fall for News Groper, which contains "Fake Hollywood Celebrity Blogs" and "Funny Satire" in the title of every page. Several months ago, an MSNBC writer quoted News Groper's Al Sharpton blog in a story about the Michael Vick dog-fighting scandal, thinking it was real.
The New York Observer reported Monday that Greg Atwan and Evan Lushing, two recent Harvard graduates living in New York, have reportedly earned a five-figure book deal for a satirical take on social-networking phenomenon Facebook. The book pitch, called The Facebook Book, sold to Harry N. Abrams, Inc. for somewhere around $50,000, according to The Observer.
Facebook famously started in a Harvard dorm in 2004, with founder (and eventual dropout) Mark Zuckerberg and several friends creating the social network as an alternative to the school's physical "facebook" with photographs and contact information for the student body.
Thanks to my membership in the sprawling "New York, N.Y." network on Facebook, I did the appropriate Reporting 2.0 thing and promptly did a search for both young satirists; it appears that Lushing, a 2004 graduate of Harvard, also attended Zuckerberg's boarding school alma mater, the elite Phillips Exeter Academy. Atwan, who earned his Crimson cred in 2005, has locked up his profile to non-friends.
The Observer article relates that the Chelsea-based roommates have both quit their jobs in anticipation of the book, which should see print in the spring. Lushing, who had been on staff at the Harvard Lampoon satire magazine while in school, had been working in an online-video comedy troupe in Los Angeles and has relocated to New York; Atwan was an editor at the news aggregation start-up Newser.
Let's hope The Facebook Book is a better read than Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs.
(I, for the record, thought that my colleague Tom Krazit was much too nice to Fake Steve Jobs scribe Daniel Lyons in his review of the book.)
When News Groper, an entire site full of "fake celebrity" blogs in the vein of Fake Steve Jobs, launched earlier this summer, some people (myself included) thought it would have a rough time making a name for itself on the Web. There's so much online comedy already out there, and after the rise and fall of Fake Steve, I thought the blog community would've had enough of celebrity satire (celebritire?)
Now, however, it looks like News Groper may have had its big break--MSNBC reporter Alex Johnson mistook one of its blogs for real, and quoted it in an article. A soundbite from News Groper's Al Sharpton blog originally appeared in Johnson's story about African American leaders' reactions to the Michael Vick dogfighting case.
The faux Rev. Al blog post used an over-the-top analogy to explain that Vick, who is African American, was a victim of racist justice. "Consider this: If the police caught Brett Favre running a dolphin-fighting ring out of his pool, where dolphins with spears attached to their foreheads fought each other to the death, would they bust him? Of course not," the satirical piece read, as quoted by Mashable's Pete Cashmore. "They would get his autograph, commend him on his tightly-spiraled forward passes, then bet on one of his dolphins."
The fake quotation is no longer there, but some suspiciously small fine print explains the situation: "An earlier version of this article quoted from a blog entry purportedly by the Rev. Al Sharpton. MSNBC.com has determined that the blog is a hoax." Considering the title of every News Groper page contains the terms "Fake parody blogs, Political humor, Celebrity Satire, Funny Commentary," this is quite the little screw-up.
Oops.
Fake Al Sharpton, naturally, wouldn't remain silent. "Excuse me, Mr. Alex 'Investigative Reporter' Johnson of MSNBC, but before you go calling people a hoax, maybe you should take a long look in the mirror," the shadowy satirist behind the blog wrote. "When I said that Brett Favre was probably fighting dolphins against each other to the death with swords crudely attached by duct tape, it obviously wasn't real; it was a METAPHOR. First of all, the adhesive in the tape wouldn't hold up in salt water, and also, how many backyard saline pools have you ever swam in?"
NB: The original title of this post, "Google To Acquire Controlling Stake in Microsoft," never made it past the draft stages.
Expect an onslaught of emo jokes: Satire publication The Onion will be providing audio, video, and print content to social-networking site MySpace through a partnership announced on Tuesday night. There is now a branded Onion page on MySpace, with article and blog content as well as audio podcasts; additionally, content from the publication's online video hub, the Onion News Network, is now available on the MySpaceTV portal.
The press release issued by the New York-based Onion (a full version is posted at the Silicon Alley Insider) is naturally tongue-in-cheek. "The news business is like the tobacco business: you want to reach new readers at as young and impressionable an age as possible," Sean Mills, president of The Onion, is quoted as saying. "MySpace was, of course, a natural partner in that regard."
"The Wall Street Journal is all well and good, but the Onion News Network represents the best in hard-hitting investigative journalism (at least on MySpace)," Jeff Berman, general manager of MySpace TV, added facetiously. "Also, we lost a bet."
The press release also gave some statistics that presumably are not a joke: The Onion boasts 4 million online readers and 3 million print readers per month. It's not yet clear how much of the Onion content on MySpace will be exclusive to the new branded page other than a new "Staff Blog," but we have pinged MySpace representatives and will provide more detail on Wednesday.
The photo of the real Steve Jobs preferred by the fake Steve Jobs
(Credit: Fake Steve Jobs)Like many of you, I have my own theory as to Fake Steve Jobs' real-life identity. But I'm not going to discuss it here. At this point, bloggers' rabid attempts to lay bare the face behind the anonymous writer have grown a bit tiresome, and for all we know, The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs will turn out to be a corporate travail staffed by a team of six writers nabbed from The Office. But that's not to say that Fake Steve isn't newsworthy. The blog, I'm willing to argue, has more to say about the state of the media today than a thousand "purple cows," noisy disruptors, viral-buzz ecosystems, and whatever other business clichés you'd like me to throw in your face.
More than a few people would agree that the blogger behind Fake Steve, underneath his exaggerated Jobsian obnoxiousness, ranks right up there with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert as one of the most spot-on social critics we have. But because nobody knows who he is, he can get away with more: Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman is a " sociopathic nouveau riche lady-killer," Gawker Media founder Nick Denton is almost never mentioned without the epithet "macrocephalic," and his Valleywag successor Owen Thomas is constantly referred to as "Mr. Bigglesworth." Former vice president and current global warming figurehead Al Gore is depicted as emotionally fragile and tormented by marriage problems that lead him to frequently call up the faux Jobs and ask for a couch to crash on (which tends to infuriate Mrs. Jobs). Rockers turned social crusaders Bono and The Edge, according to Fake Steve, are prone to bar fights. ("Bono says it's an Irish thing," the satirist asserts flippantly.)
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