Kuwait Twitter User Sentenced To 2 Years In Prison For Insulting Emir

This article is from Reuters. Read the original article here.

KUWAIT, Jan 6 (Reuters) - A Kuwaiti court sentenced a man to two years in prison for insulting the country's ruler on Twitter, a lawyer following the case said, as the Gulf Arab state cracks down on criticism of the authorities on social media.

According to the verdict on Sunday, published by online newspaper Alaan, a tweet written by Rashid Saleh al-Anzi in October "stabbed the rights and powers of the Emir" Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah.

Anzi, who has 5,700 Twitter followers, was expected to appeal, the lawyer, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

Kuwait, a U.S. ally and major oil producer, has been taking a firmer line on politically sensitive comments aired on the Internet.

In June 2012, a man was sentenced to 10 years in prison after he was convicted of endangering state security by insulting the Prophet Mohammad and the Sunni Muslim rulers of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain on social media.

Two months later, authorities detained Sheikh Meshaal al-Malik Al-Sabah, a member of the ruling family, over remarks on Twitter in which he accused authorities of corruption and called for political reform, a rights activist said.

While public demonstrations about local issues are common in a state that allows the most dissent in the Gulf, Kuwait has avoided Arab Spring-style mass unrest that toppled three veteran Arab dictators last year.

But tensions have intensified between the hand-picked government, in which ruling family members hold the top posts, and the elected parliament and opposition groups.

(Reporting by Mahmoud Harbi; Writing by Mahmoud Habboush; Editing by Jason Webb)

DeAnn Cooks Sues Twitter, Tulsa Public Schools Over Half-Naked Photo Of Daughter Posted Online

This article is from Huffington Post. Read the original article here.

The mother of an Oklahoma teen is suing Tulsa Public Schools, Twitter and others after a half-naked photo of her daughter was posted to the social networking site. The incident, the mother claims, subjected her daughter to severe taunting and physical harassment at school.

DeAnn Cooks says in the lawsuit that her daughter, identified only as S.C., was changing out of her uniform following a basketball game in November 2011 when a teammate grabbed her and restrained her so that a second teammate could take photos of S.C. in her underwear. The students, who attend Booker T. Washington High School, later posted the picture to Twitter, where the image was retweeted "numerous" times, according to the suit.

Cooks says she complained to school officials, who told her there was nothing the school could do about the harassment and urged her not to complain further, for fear of "making the school look bad to the Tulsa Public Schools District administrators," according to court documents. Tulsa Public Schools is not commenting on the case, but Superintendent Keith Ballard told KRMG that the district is investigating the allegations.

Cooks seeks $75,000 in damages from TPS, Twitter and the families of the girls who allegedly took the photos. The two students involved in the incident are accused of intentional infliction of emotional distress, assault, battery and invasion of privacy, and their parents are being accused of negligence. Cooks also accuses TPS of negligence for failing to act on her bullying reports.

The suit alleges that Twitter should have "used reasonable care in the administration of its website so as to prevent the publication of photographs of minors while undressing." While Twitter's terms of service assert that "all content ... is the sole responsibility of the person who originated such content," Cooks' attorney tells FOX 23 that the image was "essentially child porn, a minor in her underwear," and Twitter did nothing to stop its dissemination.

As teens increasingly take to the Internet to share information, more schools are grappling with how to handle sensitive issues on social media, both on and off campus. According to The National Crime Prevention Council, 43 percent of teens are subject to some form of cyberbullying.

Attorneys and experts say that cyberbullying laws being considered or passed by states are not strong enough, and lawsuits like Cooks' will only become more common.

Pro-Anorexia On Twitter: Site Allows 'Thinspiration' Accounts

This article was written by Christina Huffington from Huffington Post. Read the original post here.

Not unlike the the disease it promotes, the online pro-anorexia community has a sneaky way of coming back just when you thought you had it beat. Prolific on Pinterest and Tumblr even as those sites tighten their regulation of self-harm related content, "pro-ana" accounts have become increasingly prevalent on Twitter, Dublin, Ireland radio station 98FM reported.

Pro-ana Twitter users post photos and quotes, often with the hashtag #ProAna or #ProMia (pro-bulimia). Below are some examples. Warning: The following may be triggering to those who struggle with disordered eating.

Pro-anorexia sites and accounts -- whose users and audiences sometimes refer to their content as "thinspiration" -- encourage readers to lose unhealthy amounts of weight and discourage them from seeking treatment for their eating disorders. The sites post photos of underweight girls (Kate Moss in an "I Beat Obesity" t-shirt, for example), ideal measurements and "thinspirational" quotes ("nothing tastes as good as skinny feels"). Some of the most disturbing images are of readers themselves -- often teenage girls -- who photograph their increasingly thin frames over time and despair that they will never be thin enough. The back-and-forth between readers creates a sense of camaraderie that can lead to devastating behaviors, like extreme dieting competitions and sharing of 'tricks of the trade' -- tips for starving or purging that result in greater or faster weight loss and/or for hiding those behaviors and their effects."

While to the outsider these communities seem wholly destructive, there is some concern that to disband them -- or attempt to -- is to remove any form of support for those suffering from a disease that is traditionally rooted in secrecy and isolation. In an Indiana University study published in August, interviews with pro-ana bloggers revealed that they felt the thinspo community aided their recovery. Writing about that study, Blisstree's Elizabeth Nolan Brown reported that she once frequented pro-ana sites herself and argued, "Is part of this about swapping eating disorder tips? Of course. But in addition ... it’s about building friendships, building community, building a support system. It’s about realizing that you are not the only one who feels and behaves this way.

Still, sites designed to offer support to those in recovery make sure to distinguish themselves from pro-ana sites. "Pro-ana, ana buddy systems & similar topics, are not permitted here. Our community provides support for those struggling with an eating disorder, never to advocate for them," emphasizes one website.

One of the primary reasons that pro-ana content can thrive on Twitter is that, unlike Pinterest and Tumblr, the social micro-publishing site is not moderated. When asked by 98FM News whether it would ban the use of these hashtags, Twitter said it doesn't comment on "specific terms or accounts."

'Facebook Dead' Prank: New Memorialization Page Can Lock Living Friend's Account

This article is from Huffington Post. Read the original article here.

A new Facebook prank can leave a living friend's account very much "dead."

The "Facebook death" prank is a bizarre new trend spreading across the social network, WGHP notes. A new "Memorialization Request" form makes it simple to convince Facebook that anyone -- dead or not -- is deceased.

Buzzfeed displayed just how easy it is to declare a friend dead on Facebook.Buzzfeed's Katie Notopoulos filled out the Memorialization Request for one of her living co-workers. The only "proof of death" needed was an obituary or news article.

Notopoulos included a link to an obituary from a 74-year-old man with a similar, but different name. "The details of this obituary don't match up at all - this guy is way older, and lives in Nebraska instead of New York," she writes. "Even worse, the names aren't even spelled the same."

The writer's co-worker was effectively locked out of his account. (Click to read what happened next.)

User Rusty Foster fell victim to the Facebook death hoax and had his account locked, according to ABC News. His account was turned into a "memorial page" after someone reported him as deceased. He said he didn't receive notice his account was going to be locked.

"There ought to be an email sent to the account's email address informing it that the account has been reported dead and providing a link or something to dispute the report before any action is taken," he told the network.

Facebook sent a statement to ABC News, explaining the memorialization is designed to protect the privacy of the deceased and his or her family.

"We have designed the memorialization process to be effective for grieving families and friends, while still providing precautions to protect against either erroneous or malicious efforts to memorialize the account of someone who is not deceased," the statement reads. "We also provide an appeals process for the rare instances in which accounts are mistakenly reported or inadvertently memorialized."

A deceased person's digital legacy can be difficult to control, according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal. Passwords are not readily available to surviving family members who want to preserve memories of their loved ones. Facebook's memorialization page was created in 2009 to protect the user's privacy, the Journal notes.

Former Facebook head of security Max Kelly explained the memorialization page in a 2009 blog post:

By memorializing the account of someone who has passed away, people will no longer see that person appear in their Suggestions. When an account is memorialized, we also set privacy so that only confirmed friends can see the profile or locate it in search. We try to protect the deceased's privacy by removing sensitive information such as contact information and status updates. Memorializing an account also prevents anyone from logging into it in the future, while still enabling friends and family to leave posts on the profile Wall in remembrance.

Facebook’s Questionable Policy on Violent Content Toward Women

This article was written by Lara Hudson from Wired.com. Read the original article here.

"Women are like grass, they need to be cut regularly."

Update: 1/7/12 5:30 p.m. EST: Facebook reversed its position on the acceptability of the offending image.

Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities offers numerous guidelines regarding appropriate speech and user safety, including an admonition that “you will not bully, intimidate, or harass any user” and that “you will not post content that: is hate speech, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.”

But that hasn’t stopped countless users on the social media site from making comments, posting images and starting pages that promote the rape and abuse of women. And in many cases, it doesn’t mean that Facebook has any intention of stopping them, either.

Around Christmastime, an Icelandic woman named Thorlaug Agustsdottir came across a Facebook page titled “controversial humor – men are better than women,” and after bantering back and forth with a user whom she describes as a “troll,” she soon found herself staring back at a photo of herself posted on the wall. Her user image had been Photoshopped to look like she had been beaten, with a caption in Icelandic stating, “women are like grass, they need to be beaten/cut regularly.”

“You just need to be raped,” the commenter told Agustsdottir.

Agustsdottir reported the image to Facebook, tagging it as “graphic violence.” A few hours later she received a notice that the image did not meet the criteria for removal.

She reported the image several more times over a period of 24 hours, along with numerous other users, and all received the same response: “This photo wasn’t removed.” Finally, on New Year’s Eve — more than two days after her initial report — Agustsdottir contacted an Icelandic media outlet, DV.is, that broke the story, and it was soon picked up by other Icelandic news sources.

“To my great relief my countrymen responded swiftly and jumped on the Icelandic ‘report train’ – fortunately, there is no stopping the report train once it leaves the station,” Agustsdottir explained in anonline account of the incident.

The next day, says Agustsdottir, the image disappeared — removed either by Facebook or by the user — and not long afterwards the page itself was gone. Hours after the page was removed, Agustsdottir received yet another response to a report saying Facebook did not see anything actionable in its content.

The response from Facebook bothered Agustsdottir, who felt it reflected a lack of a clear policy regarding the promotion of violence toward women.

“I have to admit that I don’t understand the ways of Facebook,” Agustsdottir told Wired. “This is the Twilight Zone…. They need to start explaining what the heck is going on and why material that clearly crosses any moral line would come back gold-stamped ‘A-OK’ when reported.”

Nor is this the first time that the social media giant has been criticized for failing to remove content that threatened women with physical or sexual assault. In late 2011, Facebook took heat for failing to remove “joke” groups that advocated rape – like the charmingly named “You know she’s playing hard to get when your [sic] chasing her down an alley” page – despite petitions and media headlines like “Facebook is fine with hate speech, as long as it’s directed at women.”

Facebook’s response to the backlash indicated that they saw the pro-rape content of the pages as simple opinions: “It is very important to point out that what one person finds offensive another can find entertaining — just as telling a rude joke won’t get you thrown out of your local pub, it won’t get you thrown off Facebook,” a representative of the social media site told the BBC. “Groups or pages that express an opinion on a state, institution, or set of beliefs – even if that opinion is outrageous or offensive to some – do not by themselves violate our policies.”

After a Change.org petition collected over 200,000 signatures and the issue appeared in mainstream media outlets, some of the pages promoting the rape and assault of women were removed. Others were allowed to remain on the site if they were categorized as “humor” sites.

Given the seemingly inconsistent application of the site’s own guidelines regarding violent and threatening images and speech, it’s hard not to wonder: What is Facebook’s actual policy regarding content that advocates rape and violence toward women – or does one exist?

Wired reached out to Facebook for a comment, and a representative clarified the site’s position:

“We take our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities very seriously and react quickly to remove reported content that violates our policies. In general, attempts at humor, even disgusting and distasteful ones, do not violate our policies. When real threats or statements of hate are made, however, we will remove them. We encourage people to report anything they feel violates our policies using the report links located throughout the site.”

The online promotion of violence towards women also became a major issue in the videogame community last year when a female blogger named Anita Sarkeesian launched a Kickstarter to raise money for a video series exploring gender issues in videogames, and found herself on the receiving end of an online harassment campaign that included death and rape threats.

It also inspired an online game that allowed players to “beat” the young research student by clicking on a picture of her face until it become progressively blackened and bloodied – not unlike Agustsdottir’s face.

If the picture of Agustsdottir with a caption advocating violence against women wasn’t considered intimidation, harassment or hateful speech on Facebook for over 48 hours (or indefinitely), one wonders how the game starring Sarkeesian would have fared. Given Facebook’s track record and stated policies regarding this type of content, it would probably be categorized as “humor.”

Facebook Reunites Sisters Tanija Delic And Hedija Talic In Bosnia After 72 Years Apart

This article was written by Sarah Gates from Huffington Post. Read the original article here.

Two sisters from Bosnia, 88-year-old Tanija Delic and Hedija Talic, 82, found each other after spending 72 years apart.

Facebook reunited the sisters who were separated from each other in 1941 during World War II, daily newspaper Nezavisne Novine reported, according to the AFP.

The family was fleeing their hometown of Budimlic Japra in northwestern Bosnia at the time, when then 11-year-old Talic became lost and was taken in by an orphanage.

It wasn't until decades later, when Talic's son began searching for his family roots online, that she became close to finding the location of her long-lost older sister -- someone who, as it turns out, was living about 130 miles away, NDJ World News notes.

While they're happy to have found each other, Talic and Delic are planning tocontinue their search for family members, hoping to locate their brother, who may be in the United States, the AFP reports.

This is hardly the first time Facebook has reunited family members. In July, a Florida woman, Joan Courchene Wehrmeyer, used Facebook to reconnect with her daughter, who she had not seen in 48 years.

Jacob Cox-Brown, Oregon Teen, Posts Facebook Status About Drunk Driving, Gets Arrested

This article was written by Katherine Bingley from Huffington Post. Read the original article here.

If there's a surefire way to get caught for committing an offense these days, it's airing the details on social media.

Jacob Cox-Brown, an 18-year-old from Oregon, learned that lesson on New Year's Day when police showed up at his door after they were alerted to a Facebook post he wrote about driving drunk, KGW.com reports.

"Drivin drunk... classsic ;) but to whoever's vehicle i hit i am sorry. :P," the status update read, according to the news outlet.

Police said the teen's apparent Facebook confession wasn't sufficient evidence for a drunk driving charge. Instead, Cox-Brown was charged with "two counts of failing to perform the duties of a driver," KGW.com reports.

Despite the potential of leaving a very obvious trail, a surprising number of people use Facebook in the aftermath of committing various infractions.

In September, a woman posted an "LOL" status update in reference to her alleged involvement in a drunk driving accident, according to ABC. A judge, who was reportedly not too happy about the post, sentenced her to two days in jail.

In May, two men robbed an Internet cafe, but one of them made themistake of logging into Facebook and forgetting to log out. The flub led police right to him, Gizmodo notes.

Similarly, in 2011, a man who reportedly stole items from Washington Post journalist Marc Fisher posted a picture of himself on Facebook wearing one of the missing items and holding up cash. The suspect had used Fisher's son's laptop to take the picture and posted the image to the teen's Facebook account, advertising his actions to 400 teenagers.

"I've seen a lot, but this is the most stupid criminal I've ever seen," Officer Kyle Roe told Fisher at the time.