Fagstein » Facebook

Concordia unblocks Facebook

Fagstein — Fri, 01 May 2009 21:23:47 +0000

Concordia University announced today that it will, effective Monday, unblock access to Facebook from its wired network.

Concordia blocked access to Facebook in September - but intentionally left it open on its wireless network, in residences and in its libraries - out of concerns for "spam, viruses and leaks of confidential information related to use of the social networking site."

This line of reasoning was criticized - even mocked - by Internet experts like Michael Geist, who argued none of these things are specific to Facebook.

It also led to coverage in the media: CBC, Gazette, McGill Daily and others.

So what changed? Officially, it was reopened because of improved security:

After the recent improvement of certain security checks and procedures at Concordia, including the installation of a new firewall, the university made the decision to officially reinstate Facebook.

Again, it's unclear how a "new firewall" will protect Concordia against whatever ills it attributed to Facebook. It used phishing as a prime example, and it's unclear how a firewall will stop those kinds of activities.

But realistically, the growth of Facebook has meant the loss of productivity from its use (my guess for the real reason behind its original blocking) is outweighed by its value as a communications tool - between students and professors, between the university and its alumni, between sports teams and their fans.

Concordia reminds its network users to use best practices for safeguarding personal information and passwords.

Livre de visage, là

Fagstein — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 21:07:54 +0000

Facebook has launched a Canadian French site, about a year after it launched a French French site.

The translation was done with the help of Facebook users in Quebec, I guess because Facebook is too cheap to hire a real translator for a week to make sure they get it right. These crowdsourced translations caused problems last time, but I don't notice any glaring errors so far.

Among the translations:

"Posts" becomes "publications"
"More" becomes "d'avantage"
"Tagged" becomes "identifié"
"Wall" becomes "babillard"
"Edit Options" becomes ... uhh ... "Edit Options" (oops)

Use Facebook to discuss not using Facebook

Fagstein — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 08:48:16 +0000

This is what I love about Facebook: A "Facebook Blackout," which basically translates to "don't use Facebook for a day", is being organized on Facebook. The rationale for such a pointless exercise:

Don't you adminstrator remember that we are the one using facebook ??

Makes Buy Nothing Day look brilliant by comparison.

Dominic Arpin also wants to be your friend

Fagstein — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 07:44:04 +0000

I suppose, to be fair, I should add this one to the previous one.

This one is from a few days ago.

Patrick Lagacé wants to be your friend

Fagstein — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 08:22:20 +0000

Patrick Lagacé's Facebook friends (names blurred to protect the innocent)

Someone's been busy on Facebook.

By-election politicians on Facebook

Fagstein — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 19:46:40 +0000

As a follow-up to my overview of the candidates in the Sept. 8 by-election in Westmount Ville-Marie, here's a quick rundown of the campaigns' Facebook strategies (sorted by number of supporters):

(UPDATE Aug. 19: Mr. Larivée has joined the club, so I've updated the list as of today)

Anne Lagacé-Dowson (NDP)

Fan page: YES
Supporters: 511
Personal page: NO

Marc Garneau (Liberal)

Fan page: YES
Supporters: 370
Personal page: YES
Embarrassing personal information on personal page: NO

Claude William Genest (Green)

Fan page: YES
Supporters: 178
Personal page: YES (Though his profile pic is of a chimp hugging a bird)
Embarrassing personal information on personal page: Open wall, "flirt" box on his profile page, and photos of him dressed as a pimp. Does that count?

Charles Larivée (Bloc Québécois)

Fan page: YES (though it's actually a group, not a fan page)
Supporters: 120
Personal page: YES
Embarrassing personal information on personal page: Nope, it's wiped clean

Judith Vienneau (Rhino)

Fan page: YES (but no photo)
Supporters: 8 (ouch)
Personal page: YES
Embarrassing personal information on personal page: Plenty of TMI boxes on the profile page. Also, apparently wanted to be leader of the Libertarian Party. Maybe Rhino was her second choice?

Guy Dufort (Conservative)

Fan page: NO
Personal page: YES (private)

Many politicians have fake "personal" profiles setup, which I think is largely irrelevant since Facebook invented the fan page. So I won't take any marks away from Lagacé Dowson for that. But Dufort and Larivée not having any Facebook exposure at all? That's just not right.

Facebook destroys privacy, eats babies

Fagstein — Sat, 31 May 2008 18:12:47 +0000

So apparently some intern law students have filed a complaint against Facebook for having the audacity to allow people to share their personal information with others.

Facebook certainly has privacy issues, as I've previously explored, and there's no doubt that they're trying to exploit this information for all it's worth.

But the fact remains that, as Facebook points out, all this information is shared voluntarily. If you don't want people to know your religion, don't publicize it online.

The Facebook problem is a problem of user education, not Big Evil Corporations. People need to learn that as the Internet becomes more efficient at connecting and compiling information, they can't rely on privacy through obscurity anymore. We must assume that anything we type into our computer and send over the Internet will eventually be plastered on a billboard for our parents, employers and ex-girlfriends to see and mock. And we must be vigilant about keeping our private information private. No matter how fun it might seem to break that rule just once.

Who got the Facebook scoop?

Fagstein — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 19:35:13 +0000

I was all excited when I saw a post from TQS's Jean-Michel Vanasse praising a rival network's coverage. Finally, I thought, we're starting to see the pointless war between networks start to mellow.

Unfortunately, he was being sarcastic. Pointing out that a recent EXCLUSIVE SPECIAL REPORT OMG from another network (he doesn't name it~~, and a quick search doesn't find it online~~ it's TVA's J.E., and the video is online) copies one he did in October.

The amazingly important issue? That lots of Facebook users will accept people they don't know as friends.

I know. Get that Pulitzer engraving pen ready, folks.

What's hilarious about all this is that Vanasse himself was scooped by Jean-René Dufort's Infoman, who set up a profile for a wanted murderer and got politicians and celebrities to befriend him a month earlier.

Not only did the Infoman report come out before the others, it's a whole lot funnier and more interesting.

Facebook watches you poop

Fagstein — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 07:45:37 +0000

This morning's paper features a big story by yours truly on the issue of privacy on Facebook.

Specifically, it talks about Montrealer Steven Mansour, who last summer found out that in order to delete his Facebook account he would have to first delete every wall post, comment, photo, note, everything he had ever done since he first registered his account. One at a time. It took him 2,504 steps. He's not crazy about having to go through all that effort.

The same issue annoyed UK blogger Alan Burlison and others, but Facebook wouldn't budge until the New York Times took it up last month. That led to the company proclaiming it would be easier, without making clear exactly what it was changing about the process.

Currently, on Facebook, you can "deactivate" accounts, which makes them inaccessible (though reports of fragments being left behind are common). But deleting them completely requires an outside-the-box email exchange with Facebook staff.

Not unexpectedly, Facebook didn't respond to my request for a clarification about their policy.

~~Neither did Canada's Privacy Commissioner's Office, when I asked whether it had received a complaint from Mansour and/or were investigating Facebook.~~ The office's PR contact got back to me finally, and says he's looking into whether there are any investigations concerning Facebook.

Mansour has a roundup on his blog of reaction to his story and other Facebook privacy issues. Only some involve conspiracy theories about links to the CIA and stuff.

The article also touches on TRUSTe, an organization that counts Facebook as a member and seems to do nothing to rein them in; Facebook's draconian terms of use; and what Mansour thinks needs to be done to safeguard privacy rights online.

Habs on Facebook

Fagstein — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 07:05:28 +0000

There are a lot of famous people on Facebook. There are also a lot of non-famous people there who for some reason get kicks out of pretending to be famous people.

Among the victims of this non-financial identity theft are members of our Montreal Canadiens, very few of whom actually have legitimate Facebook accounts. There are dozens of fake Saku Koivus, Alex Kovalevs and Andrei Kostitsyns around.

So it's hard to say whether the following fan pages are official or not. They probably aren't. But at least there's one per player, so we can consolidate.

There are some obvious missing ones (the Kostitsyns, Markov, Tom the Bomb Nonstopoulos), but it's enough to validate your existence by expressing your fandom electronically, the way fandom is meant to be expressed.

Online survey shows people are online

Fagstein — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:14:15 +0000

I just got alerted to this OMG EXCLUSIVE OMG story at Branchez-Vous, which claims that 1 in 4 francophone Quebecers over 18 is on Facebook, and that number goes up to 54% when you limit it to adults 18-24.

Those numbers seemed suspiciously high to me, especially since before this week Facebook was an English website and therefore its reach in Quebec was lower than the rest of Canada.

Then I came across this:

Ce sondage a été effectué en ligne auprès de 1257 répondants du 11 au 15 février 2008. Sa marge d'erreur est de 2,8%.

So this was an online survey. Not only does that outright dismiss the non-trivial (albeit dwindling) portion of Quebecers without regular Internet access, but online surveys are notoriously unreliable. More importantly, it wouldn't take a rocket scientist to conclude that those willing to take online surveys are more likely to have the kind of free time to waste online that would make them more likely to be members of Facebook in the first place.

So take those results with a grain of salt.

Livre de visage

Fagstein — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 00:08:44 +0000

Facebook est en français.

Happy now?

Montrealers for More Facebook Groups!

Fagstein — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 06:36:06 +0000

Everyone knows that real change doesn't come from letter-writing campaigns, action groups, hired lobbyists or complaints to the media. Real change comes from joining Facebook groups. Because when you've joined a Facebook group advocating something, politicians notice.

Or maybe it's just journalists, with column inches to fill, who take notice. And their editors, desperate to show that they're hip to this Internet thing, encourage them.

So in that spirit, here are some local-interest Facebook outrage groups. Look for stories about them in your local newspaper soon:

No to Bill C-10! Governments shouldn't get to decide what they fund! (Background)
Ban plastic grocery bags in Montreal! Let's cut down more trees and use paper!
For free Wi-Fi hotspots in Montreal! Because we shouldn't pay for our Internet access!
Save the McGill Daily! Because a vote to keep funding is a vote to stop funding.
Rename Lionel-Groulx after Oscar Peterson! Because ... well we already know because.
Cut gas prices to 79.9 cents in Canada! Because consumption of greenhouse-emitting fuels on a massive scale is our God-given right! And lower prices will lead to less consumption!
Run the metro all night! Because those three people need to get home, and track maintenance is for wussies!
Make Park Ave. officially Greek! Because racial ghettos bring happiness to all!
No "Dix 30" in Griffintown! Because someone has seriously suggested turning the neighbourhood into a strip mall.
Extend the metro to the West Island! Because wasting billions of dollars on something that sounds cool but makes no practical sense is how Montreal does things.
Change Berri-UQAM back to Berri-de-Montigny! Because streets that no longer exist should still be attached to the names of metro stations they no longer intersect.

Oscar Peterson metro won’t be easy to accomplish

Fagstein — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:19:34 +0000

The local media have been all over ~~plagiarizing The Gazette~~ reporting on a Facebook group that advocates renaming the Lionel-Groulx metro station after Oscar Peterson. Groulx was a racist, the suggestion goes, and Peterson would be much more befitting of a metro station name.

The group has exploded in popularity, due to both the media coverage and regular word-of-mouth. It has over 1,000 members now.

The idea isn't new, actually. It's been going around for quite some time. Other proposed new names for Lionel-Groulx include Yitzhak-Rabin and Gabrielle-Roy.

Unfortunately, it's somewhat of a non-starter for two reasons:

The Lionel-Groulx metro, like most metro stations, is actually named after a street nearby, namely Lionel-Groulx Ave.
The STM currently has a moratorium in place against station renaming, thanks to the rather unpopular Longueuil-Université-de-Sherbrooke mess.

And that doesn't get into the whole mess about renaming something from a francophone name to an anglophone one.

Personally, I think it should be renamed The-Jackal.

UPDATE (Feb. 28): The inevitable backlash group has already been formed.

UPDATE: Elsewhere in the blogosphere:

Kicking the bigots off the metro (slushblog)
Rename Place St. Henri (CTV News Postscript)

Should journalists start checking ID?

Fagstein — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 19:37:30 +0000

The Agence France-Presse news agency has banned its journalists from using Wikipedia and Facebook as sources in news stories. This comes after it was caught with its pants down quoting liberally from a fake Facebook profile setup in the name of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the son of slain former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

On one hand, many non-journalists might argue that it's obvious such user-generated sites should not be considered authoritative.

But this story exposes one of journalism's Achilles heels: In general, we take people at their word that they are who they say they are. Unless there is something suspicious that would lead us to believe otherwise (like someone giving their name as Hugh Jass), we ask people for their names and we trust that they're not fooling us.

Is this wrong? No matter how good we get at our jobs, journalists will always be vulnerable to pranksters and others who intentionally try to mislead us. (Insert Iraq war comparison here.)

Should we just accept that as an occupational hazard, or should we start checking ID whenever we want to quote someone by name?

Blogging for a better tomorrow

Fagstein — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 09:51:17 +0000

Today's paper features an article by yours truly about Ryan Costello Jr., a playwright who's using blogging (specifically, Facebook's excuse for blogging) to focus his energies on fixing those little things about himself that he wants to improve.

Though he admits it's not for everyone, it seems to have worked well for him. He's healthier, stronger (as you can tell from the photo, he has the frame of a football player, so this is all relative) and he feels better about himself.

The website has a posted excerpt from his blog so you can see how he does it. There's also a link to the Facebook group he setup for self-help blogging.

Who knew peer pressure could be used for good things too?

UPDATE: Ryan points out one of the many things that could have used more expansion in the article, the source of the idea:

The article says I got the idea from someone’s MySpace blog. This wasn’t just a random blog I happened upon. That someone is David T. Oliveri McGovern. He started a blog called 40 in 40, where he tried to improve 40 things in his life over a 40 day period. He seemed pessimistic at the end, but within a year of making such a run at self-improvement, he launched the Man Of The House (MOTH) virtual mentorship charity. http://www.mothboys.org/ Since I started my Obligations blog, I’ve produced my third play, my first variety show, and executive produced my first short film. Just making an effort to be better has made the two of us more productive and improved our lives.

Bilingualism isn’t a threat to Quebec

Fagstein — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 00:03:45 +0000

Chris DeWolf emailed me about this blog post on the two solitudes from Voir's François Parenteau. In it, he argues that anglos are zombies (then he argues that we're not zombies) and that we're coming to get francophones so we can enslave them, or other such nonsense:

Et c'est vrai aussi que, d'un point de vue strictement francophone, les anglophones sont des morts-vivants. Ils sont vivants, en ce sens qu'ils marchent, travaillent, mangent, dorment, votent et font des enfants. Mais comme ils font tout ça en anglais, ils sont morts au regard de la communauté francophone. Ils ne créeront jamais rien en français. Ils ne consommeront aucun produit culturel en français. Ils ne retireront rien et n'amèneront rien à la sphère culturelle francophone. Ils la "compétitionnent" même avec la leur propre, indépendante, nourrie à même la culture majoritaire de ce zombie-land qu'est l'Amérique du Nord. Et pire encore, on le sait, ils transforment automatiquement en zombie les francophones avec qui ils entrent en contact. Il n'y a qu'à voir les communautés francophones hors-Québec pour s'en rendre compte.

My problem isn't that he's paranoid, or that he spews vitriolic hatred and xenophobia, painting hundreds of millions of people with one gigantic brush. My problem is how familiar this kind of language is, leading people to believe that such opinions are valid.

I wonder if I should even point out that the entire premise for the post is wrong. He says census data shows that French is the mother tongue of less than 50% of Montrealers (which is true), and that this is because of an increase in the number of English speakers. A quick look at the census data shows that almost all the change in percentages comes because of an increase in immigration and the number of allophones (who speak neither language at home). What's more, a majority of these immigrants to Quebec are choosing French over English for the first time.

Of course, facts are irrelevant. What matters is what's in his gut. And the irrational fear is there. Just like Americans think they're going to get swarmed by illegal Mexican immigrants and have to speak Spanish, people like Parenteau think there's an organized anglo conspiracy to rid Quebec of the French language, and that the percentage of francophones, now around 80% province-wide, will drop to zero.

I'm not suggesting that being surrounded by a population 50 times your size doesn't put a melting pot pressure. It does, though nowhere near as big as alarmists make it out to be. And the shrinking population of francophones outside Quebec should be of concern as well to anyone who wants this country to promote bilingualism.

But it's not equivalent to South African apartheid, as one commenter (who wants everyone to know he has a bachelor's degree) suggested.

Facebook and YouTube have to change

Parenteau points to the English-only Facebook as an example of the assimilation of francophones into anglophonia. I think it's annoying that Facebook is only now considering creating versions of itself in other languages. YouTube, which launched an English-only Canadian site despite already having translated versions, is even moreso.

But the blame for this should rest on Facebook and YouTube, not anglophones in general. And the suggestion that francophones should boycott these sites (yeah, good luck with that) is exactly how it should be dealt with.

Blaming anglos doesn't solve anything

Even if we ignore all of that, the fact remains that Parenteau and company don't put forward any serious solutions for the problem of "zombies" eating their brains. Some suggest sovereignty, which wouldn't stop Quebecers from using Facebook, nor would it make French more common elsewhere in Canada. Restrictive legislation like Bill 101 just makes companies look for loopholes, which is why Momma's Pizza House is now Maison de Pizza Maman but Burger King is still Burger King. Boycotts and popular campaigns don't work.

And most importantly, blaming all us anglos for the problem and calling us names won't do a thing for the cause. It's not going to make us all run away to Toronto or start speaking French. It's just going to get us riled up and start writing blog posts.

But I'm not going to stoop to François Parenteau's level. I'm not going to pretend like he represents the majority of francophones. I know better than to suggest that 80% of Quebec's population are ignorant xenophobes who want to rid the world of everyone who isn't like them.

Why aren't we happy with bilingualism?

Montreal is the most bilingual city in North America. It's a place where it's not uncommon to find people switching languages in mid-sentence. But rather than embrace that, the two solitudes are at each other's throats. Yes, that means we have some unilingual anglophones, but they represent less than 5% of the population. Is this really the end of the world? The alien invasion? The apocalypse?

We should be celebrating the fact that we can speak two languages here. We should be promoting it as an economic strength. Instead, we have people like François Parenteau who believe refusing to speak another language makes him a better person.

Fagstein is This is news?

Fagstein — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 21:33:55 +0000

In case you hadn't heard, Facebook has decided to drop the mandatory "is" from status updates, so people can say things like "Steve wants more ice cream."

It's a very minor thing, and an annoyance for many Facebook users, but hardly important news right?

Well, so far the mainstream media hasn't been pushing it too much, but it's still being treated as if we should have journalists writing about it. The Telegraph has a story, as does Wired. Some blogs are mocking the newsworthiness of the decision.

The Gazette, meanwhile, got quite a few negative comments when it posted a story as a leading news headline yesterday, questioning their choice of coverage.

Remember: Just because it's Facebook doesn't mean it's news.

Of course, I'll fully retract these comments if the local media covers design changes in my blog.

TWIM: Facebook Beacon – threat or menace?

Fagstein — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 00:18:18 +0000

This week's bluffer's guide, courtesy of yours truly, is about Facebook Beacon, the outside-website-integration idea that provoked a lot of ruckus among techies because it wasn't as clearly opt-in as it should have been. That, in turn, prompted a petition from MoveOn.org, media coverage, "block beacon" instruction sites and, eventually, a backtrack and apology from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Some privacy advocates are still concerned that Facebook is receiving the information even if it's not publicizing it anymore without explicit permission.

Facebook can’t be TRUSTe’d?

Fagstein — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 23:47:46 +0000

Looks like a complaint about the insane loops people have to jump through to delete Facebook accounts has prompted independent privacy certifier TRUSTe to investigate.

Fagstein » Facebook

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