Facebook

The shelf life of this ongoing SSA issue is inordinately long. With each passing day, the release and counter-release of information, documents, and even the involvement of Facebook and Twitter administrations to remove pictures for either copyright infringement or lack of consent points to multiple issues other than National Security.

Facebook recently launched "Facebook Places". Depending on your settings any "friend" can find out where you are when you log in or comment. This is supposed to allow you to 'see' people who are nearby.

In addition, you or ANY friend can TAG you at an event and enayone who is checked in nearby among your "friends" can see your position highlighted

It gives the actual address & map location of where you are as you use Facebook. These days you can never really know who your "friends" are.

As I mentioned in the last site update, anonymous comments are no longer permitted - but since so many people come through Facebook it was necessary to allow Facebook users to login to comment. They may now do so through the 'Connect with Facebook' button that appears in the block on the left where you log in. If you can't see it, you're either not logged in or are blind.

Over last weekend and this week, I've been in discussion with someone who claimed that there was a libelous comment on the site - one which they found potentially damaging. Of course, it was posted anonymously - and I had to take pains to explain the difference between a comment and a blog. Still, it would seem that Trinidad and Tobago is coming up to speed on Internet culture despite itself.

I was doing some house-cleaning of my facebook profile - getting rid of groups and apps that weren't needed - and discovered something funnycurious (as they say in T&T - yes, foreigner, it means strange).  The number of members of the COP, PNM and UNC groups on facebook - 3,400, 2,900 & 880 respectively - is way less, even in total, than the 11,500 folks who joined the group 2 million against $2million flag!! In other wor

Two newspaper articles cover the same thing: 

• Blackberry, Facebook Save Child's Life
• Sleeping child rescued from stolen vehicle

While it is unclear why a mother would leave a child in a running vehicle for any length of time, the word did apparently get out through a Blackberry. How Facebook was specifically involved remains unclear.

While assisting someone with some information, I came across this data regarding Facebook usage in Trinidad and Tobago. Apparently, there are 266,920 Facebook users in Trinidad and Tobago - a figure which puts Trinidad and Tobago at number 77 of the global ranking.

The most visited site from Trinidad and Tobago remains Facebook - and now the first documented Facebook related assault has come:

I'd heard some rumblings beforehand about Criminals Soon To Be Posted On Facebook but didn't write of it because I don't like to write about rumors. But there it is, voiced by Acting Police Commissioner James Philbert on Tuesday. I'd tried to change a few minds on it but didn't get a chance to talk to anyone who was actually making decisions - so I'll outline why I think it is good and bad.

First, the good:

In the heels of my last post about Facebook being a walled garden, I decided to play around a little last night. The muse was Karel McIntosh's post on Caribbean Celebrities on Twitter.