Free Republic

The illusion social media presents of streamlining friendships may have something to it — allowing us to pare down on rote announcements, invites or shares — but it hasn’t increased our capacity to connect meaningfully on a larger scale, new research out of Oxford indicates. Social media has often been analyzed in regards to its potential to increase our connectivity in terms of binary units of “closeness.” That is to say, before social media, we physically lacked the capability to have hundreds of friends. So now that there is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Vine, can we do more friend stuff?...

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued a fatwa (religious edict) banning online chatting between unrelated men and women, Iranian media reported on Monday, according to Al Arabiya. Ironically, Khamenei’s ruling came a day after Iran’s Foreign Minister touted his country as a “model for democracy” in the region. “Given the immorality that often applies to this, it is not permitted,” the Supreme Leader responded to a question posted to his website on the issue. The ruling came days after Iranian authorities blocked WeChat, a popular messaging application that enables smart phone users to access online social networks. …

A study of how older teenagers use social media has found that Facebook is “not just on the slide, it is basically dead and buried” and is being replaced by simpler social networks such as Twitter and Snapchat, an expert has claimed. Young people now see the site as “uncool” and keep their profiles live purely to stay in touch with older relations, among whom it remains popular. Prof Daniel Miller of University College London, an anthropologist who worked on the European Union-funded research, wrote in an article for the academic news website The Conversation: “Mostly they feel embarrassed even...

A New Jersey waitress who raked in thousands in donations after claiming a couple didn’t tip her because she’s gay was fired from her job on Saturday. Dayna Morales, 22, was finally canned from Gallop Asian Bistro in Bridgewater—nearly a month after she made national headlines over what’s likely a hoax. … Acquaintances say Morales—who was dishonorably discharged from the military—has a history of fibbing and at one point pretended she had terminal cancer. …

"Character is what you do when no one is watching." It's a bit of a trite saying, attributed to coaches, motivational speakers and fortune cookie writers (by the way, whose idea was it to replace fortune cookie predictions with treacly aphorisms from the "Successories" reject pile?). Still, the expression's popularity illustrates the power of the idea behind it. Character is what you do when the only controlling authority is your conscience. Because young people do not yet have fully formed characters, they often need incentives beyond exhortations to do the right thing. That's one reason most parents reward good behavior...

Don't take it from conservatives. The co-founder of a "very, very major social-media site" has said the criticism of the Obamacare website is fair because the "technology sucks." So reported Willie Geist on today's Morning Joe, telling panelists that the person he interviewed was co-founder of a site so major that they would all know it and might have it open on their computers as he spoke. View the video here.

IRGC and the spiritual vacuum of Latin American leftists The following is a glimpse of the kind of thing I often see while researching the activities of the IRGC (writ large) in Latin America. Communism fails to provide for the spiritual needs of leftwing political activists, and the Islamic Republic of Iran seems to have done a pretty good job of inserting themselves and the Khomeinist version of Shiism into that void. (Either that or the IRI is throwing lots of money around and the leftists are whores, which is certainly possible, but for the moment I'll take the more...

Facebook has defended its decision to make the posts of its teenage users more visible claiming that “teenagers are expert at controlling who they share things with”. The social networking site says that it has tightened privacy settings for users aged between 13 to 17, restricting sharing of posts to friends only by default. The previous default included friends of friends which might not be directly known by the user. The company has also introduced “additional tools to help educate teens on the implications of sharing a post with a public audience, with reminders as they post,” explained a Facebook...

ORLANDO, Fla. — As if it's not hard enough applying for jobs, some businesses are now asking potential hires to hand over their Facebook and Twitter passwords so they can look through them before they're hired. But Sen. Jeff Clemens of Lake Worth wants to stop that, and Channel 9's Racquel Asa learned how the proposed bill could help job candidates. Tammy McCary is back in the job market after losing her job eight months ago. She said she's all for a law that prevents a potential employer from asking her for her Facebook information. "It's my personal life and...

"Gunman who took hostages at Louisiana bank posted chilling Facebook messages" SNIPPET: "The gunman who took three hostages at a Louisiana bank Tuesday -- killing one of them before being shot and killed by police -- recently posted chilling messages on Facebook, including a cartoon strip about hostages.   In a post on Sunday, 20-year-old Fuaed Abdo Ahmed displays a cartoon strip that focuses on an apparent hostage situation." SNIPPET: "Ahmed's final post, made Tuesday just hours before the hostage standoff began, is of a photo of a man with a sword attacking a tank.Under the photo is a quote...

As the baseball playoffs approach, beware: As some fans in Boston found out the hard way, snapping too many cell phone photos may be bad for your camera. Or at least your beer. Still, despite the chance of losing your phone or your beverage, we love to snap and share. Everything. It was that noted wine drinker Socrates who opined that the unexamined life is not worth living. But how many friends would he have had on Facebook, anyway? Americans don’t have Socratic problems. Our lives are over-examined. Few of us go anywhere without a smart phone these days. Whether...

In the immediate wake of the initial Snowden revelations about the NSA demanding and receiving millions of phone records of Americans from the telcos, the agency officials and their apologists in Congress reflexively countered the public outcry with the narrative that domestic spying saved us from terror plots and that numerous such plots were thwarted by NSA breaches of privacy. NSA Chief, General Keith Alexander, in testimony before a Senate committee in June, made this statement - “It’s dozens of terrorist events that these (programs)have helped prevent, from my perspective.” Alexander also appeared before a House committee as seen in...

California Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed a bill outlawing so-called revenge porn and levying possible jail time for people who post naked photos of their exes after bitter breakups. Senate Bill 255, which takes effect immediately, makes it a misdemeanor to post identifiable nude pictures of someone else online without permission with the intent to cause emotional distress or humiliation. The penalty is up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. "Until now, there was no tool for law enforcement to protect victims," the bill's author, Sen. Anthony Cannella, said in a statement. "Too many have had...

Friends Without Benefits (Vanity Fair can only be linked to.)

I'm not terribly well versed in social media in general or in Twitter in particular. I do have a twitter account, though, to keep up with local news events. I just tweeted the following, however to my two democrat senators.@MarkUdall @SenBennetCO You read the bill? You either didn't read it, or you voted for a trainwreck. #RedeemYourVote. Defund Obamacare I hope I did it right, and I hope that others with Senators that voted for obamacare, and that have access to twitter will send the same hashtag (#RedeemYourVote) to your liberal senators.

Kenyan police and soldiers have pinned down the remaining gunmen who opened fire at a shopping centre earlier today, killing 30 and leaving at least 50 others injured. A security source at the scene in the capital Nairobi confirmed moments ago the attackers have been isolated. The source said: 'The attackers have been isolated and are pinned down in an area on one of the floors - the rest of the mall seems to be secure.' No-one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but it is looking increasingly likely the Somalia terrorist group al-Shabaab may be responsible. A statement released...

A suburban Los Angeles school district is now looking at the public postings on social media by middle and high school students, searching for possible violence, drug use, bullying, truancy and suicidal threats. The district in Glendale, California, is paying $40,500 to a firm to monitor and report on 14,000 middle and high school students' posts on Twitter, Facebook and other social media for one year. Though critics liken the monitoring to government stalking, school officials and their contractor say the purpose is student safety. As classes began this fall, the district awarded the contract after it earlier paid the...

Live! Secretary Kerry answers questions on Syria. Today via Hangout at 2pm ET.

Who would have thought that in this day of women striding boastfully while exhibiting their breasts or tushies, a university would decide that an aging news commenter would go too far while exhibiting his pumped up naked aging body?

Starting on Sunday, the more than 30 million Vietnamese who use the Internet risk punishment if they use their Facebook or Twitter accounts to share news articles. The posting online of any material that “opposes” the Socialist Republic of Vietnam or “harms national security” will also be outlawed under vague new Internet regulations that are causing dismay at home and abroad. The introduction of the law known as “Decree 72” comes a month after President Obama hosted Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang at the White House, and less than two months before Vietnam will almost certainly be elected onto the...