Free Talk Live

The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.

he Federal Reserve wants to know what you are saying about it. In fact, the Federal Reserve has announced plans to identify "key bloggers" and to monitor "billions of conversations" about the Fed on Facebook, Twitter, forums and blogs.

"Social media is ill-suited to promoting real social change, argues Malcolm Gladwell in this article from The New Yorker magazine. He deftly debunks conventional wisdom surrounding the impact of Twitter, Facebook and other social media in driving systemic social change, comparing them to the organizational strategies of the 1960s civil rights movement.

Social Media Policies At GM, Target, DISH Network Deemed Unlawful By Labor Official - WASHINGTON -- In an effort to control employees' activities on Facebook and Twitter, some U.S. companies have instituted social media policies that run afoul of labor law and infringe on workers' rights, according to a memo issued Wednesday by the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board.

Government agencies may be creeping on their own employees by demanding usernames and passwords to social networking sites such as Facebook. Interestingly, this violates Facebook's own terms of service, as Facebook "prohibit(s) anyone from soliciting the login information or accessing an account belonging to someone else" In this writer's opinion, these government agencies would seem to be also violating the federal governments own proposed laws that would prohibit anybody from misrepresenting themselves on the internet.

IRS to monitor Facebook, Twitter for tax cheats

Is the IRS about to get too close for comfort? New reports brought to light by one privacy and data security expert suggest that this tax filing season the Internal Revenue Service may be monitoring social media for any clues of tax cheats.

According to Kristen Mathews, a partner attorney at law firm Proskauer Rose LLP who specializes in privacy and data security, there are reports that the IRS will be checking into individual Facebook and Twitter accounts for improprieties.

Facebook Is Making Us Miserable

When Facebook was founded in 2004, it began with a seemingly innocuous mission: to connect friends. Some seven years and 800 million users later, the social network has taken over most aspects of our personal and professional lives, and is fast becoming the dominant communication platform of the future.

A piece on Mashables.com that details how the social media industry has changed us permanently and irrevocably.

"The documents show that the DHS established a unit called the Social Network Monitoring Center (SNMC) last year to scour social sites for signs of potential security threats during the presidential inauguration.

The sites targeted by the SNMC included predictable ones such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, in addition to more demographically focused sites such as MiGente and BlackPlanet."