Questions and answers on the latest 'New Facebook' (BLOG)

NEW YORK (AP) — Every year or so — and sometimes more often — Facebook manages to miff a vocal percentage of users by changing the look and feel of its site. As it adds new features, it invariably takes away things that people have grown attached to. It's no different with the changes unveiled this week. Some have already gone live while others will be coming to your Facebook page soon.

Here are some questions and answers on Facebook's latest transformation.

Question: Why don't I have the new Facebook yet?

Answer: Facebook rolls out its new features gradually, so not all 800 million users see the updates at once. First, the changes are tested internally Facebook employees. Once they are public, the changes are rolled out geographically. U.S. users will likely see the changes first, but even that could depend on where you live. You also may need to close and reopen your browser or log out and log back in. The just-announced timeline feature won't be available users until later this year — Facebook has not yet said when.

Q: Why does Facebook keep changing things? I liked it the way it was.

A: At its heart, Facebook is a technology company that wants to keep improving its products so that people keep using it and it doesn't grow stale. Sometimes, the changes are things people ask for. Other times, engineers try to anticipate new ways people will want to use Facebook. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. Facebook also tends to change its site so that it encourages users to share and interact more, whether that's with each other or with businesses, public figures and the like. This has often raised concern among privacy advocates

Q: What is the scrolling, Twitter-like list of my Facebook friends' activities doing on the right side of the new layout?

A: Facebook calls this the "ticker" — not to be confused with, but similar to, Twitter. The idea is to show a live feed of everything going on with your Facebook friends and pages you follow as it is happening. There will be information here that doesn't appear on your regular news feed, such as songs your friends are listening to on the music service Spotify, news stories they are reading or, eventually, even movies or TV shows they watched on Netflix.

Q: Does Facebook care about angering its users with the changes?

A: Facebook has said in the past that the percentage of users who complain about its changes is small. But a small percentage of 800 million users is still a big group. And even with angry users taking to social media to complain, the growth of Facebook's user base, not to mention how much people are sharing on the site and beyond, is growing at a staggering pace. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday Facebook passed a milestone recently where it had 500 million of its users logged in at once. So while a lot of users may hate the changes, it is not driving them away. The company is betting it knows what people want.

Q: How do I go back to the "Old Facebook"?

A: You mean other than a time machine? That's tough. But there are some website plugins, such as "Better Facebook" that try to enhance the way your Facebook page looks and feels. Using the mobile application will also give you a more simple Facebook experience.

Q: How does Facebook determine what my "top news" should be?

A: The "top news" feature has already existed on Facebook, it just didn't automatically appear on the top of your news feed every time you logged in. This is the stuff Facebook thinks you will be most interested in. So it's updates from friends you interact with the most, big news stories from media accounts you follow or photos from your friends that got a lot of comments, for example. It's not an exact science, so you can uncheck a top story by clicking on a tiny triangle on its upper left corner. The site will try to remember, and a box will pop up saying "we'll try not to pub more stories like this at the top of your News Feed."

Q: Isn't this all about getting Facebook more advertising money?

A: That will almost certainly be one outcome, though Facebook has never made that its outright goal. It's more of an "if we build it, they will come" type of situation. The company is expected to bring in $3.8 billion in worldwide advertising revenue this year and $5.8 billion in 2012, according to research firm eMarketer. The more time people spend on its site or share and the more information they share about themselves, the better companies can target their ads.

Ashton Kutcher Using Social Media to "Set Record Straight" on New TV Role (BLOG)

Ashton Kutcher officially joins the cast of Two and a Half Men on Monday. The social media savvy actor, investor and activist penned an op-ed for USA Today explaining the reasons he took the role on the hit sitcom.

Notably, it was Kutcher's social media savvy, including his 7.6 million followers on Twitter, that helped convince the actor to take the job.

[More from Mashable: Watch the 2011 Emmys Live with Mashable]

He writes,


"When I really broke down the decision to take the job, there were so many rewards and few risks — except maybe one: I was stepping into a media frenzy. But I figured I could temper that a bit by keeping the lines of communication open with my social media presence. I can always set the record straight."

[More from Mashable: The Charlie Sheen Roast: Comedy Central’s Ambitious Social Media Experiment]

The "media frenzy" that Kutcher is referring to is the fallout from former Two and a Half Men star Charlie Sheen's very public exitfrom the show. In the wake of his suspension and subsequent firing, Sheen took to social media, performed one-man shows in clubs across the country and has coined a number of memes.

The Charlie Sheen media circus is something Kutcher, CBS and the show producers are all going to have to deal with head-on. Fittingly,Comedy Central's Charlie Sheen Roast will air 30 minutes after the season premiere of Two and a Half Men. (We should point out the fortunate timing of this programming decision was not accidental: Viacom and CBS are sister companies.) It will be important for Kutcher to own the messaging behind his own brand, as well as the brand of the show, to keep the attention on the product and not the larger media story.

As Christy Tanner, general manager and executive vice president ofTV Guide Digital told us back in May, "Two and a Half Men won't live or die by social media. The show will continue to be successful if fans continue to find the show funny."

Rumor has it that Charlie Sheen will be attending Sunday's 63rd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards.

What impact do you think Kutcher's presence is going to have onTwo and a Half Men? Do you think his social graph will help get the right message out to audiences? Let us know.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

2 Mexicans deny terrorism, face 30 years for tweet (BLOG)

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Think before you tweet.

A former teacher turned radio commentator and a math tutor who lives with his mother sit in a prison in southern Mexico, facing possible 30-year sentences for terrorism and sabotage in what may be the most serious charges ever brought against anyone using a Twitter social network account.

Prosecutors say the defendants helped cause a chaos of car crashes and panic as parents in the Gulf Coast city of Veracruz rushed to save their children because of false reports that gunmen were attacking schools.

Gerardo Buganza, interior secretary for Veracruz state, compared the panic to that caused by Orson Welles' 1938 radio broadcast of "The War of the Worlds." But he said the fear roused by that account of a Martian invasion of New Jersey "was small compared to what happened here."

"Here, there were 26 car accidents, or people left their cars in the middle of the streets to run and pick up their children, because they thought these things were occurring at their kids' schools," Buganza told local reporters.

The charges say the messages caused such panic that emergency numbers "totally collapsed because people were terrified," damaging service for real emergencies.

Veracruz, the state's largest city, and the neighboring suburb of Boca del Rio were already on edge after weeks of gunbattles involving drug traffickers. One attack occurred on a major boulevard. In another, gunmen tossed a grenade outside the city aquarium, killing an tourist and seriously wounding his wife and their two young children.

On Aug. 25, nerves were further frayed when residents saw armed convoys of marines circulating on the streets, making some think a confrontation with gangs was imminent.

That is when Gilberto Martinez Vera, who works as a low-paid tutor at several private schools, allegedly opened the floodgates of fear with repeated messages that gunmen were taking children from schools.

"My sister-in-law just called me all upset, they just kidnapped five children from the school," Martinez tweeted.

In fact, no such kidnappings occurred that day. Defense lawyer Claribel Guevara said the rumors already had started and that Martinez Vera was just relaying what others told him. She said he never claimed to have firsthand knowledge of the incident.

But in a subsequent tweet about the kidnap rumor, he said, "I don't know what time it happened, but it's true." He also tweeted that three days earlier, "they mowed down six kids between 13 and 15 in the Hidalgo neighborhood." While a similar attack occurred, it didn't involve children.

Prosecutors say the rumors were also sent by Maria de Jesus Bravo Pagola, who has worked as a teacher, a state arts official and a radio commentator. She says she was just relaying such messages to her own Twitter followers.

"How can they possibly do this to me, for re-tweeting a message? I mean, it's 140 characters. It's not logical,'" said Guevara, quoting her client.

Better known on the radio and social networks as "Maruchi," her Facebook site now features the Twitter logo, a little bluebird, blindfolded and standing in front of the scales of justice, with the slogan "I too am a TwitTerrorist."

Online petitions are circulating to demand her release, and the pair's cause has been taken up by human rights groups that call the charges exaggerated. Amnesty International says officials are violating freedom of expression and it blames the panic on the uncertainty many Mexicans feel amid a drug war in which more than 35,000 people have died over the past five years.

"The lack of safety creates an atmosphere of mistrust in which rumors that circulate on social networks are part of people's efforts to protect themselves, since there is very little trustworthy information," Amnesty wrote in a statement on the case.

In violence-wracked cities in the northern state of Tamaulipas, citizens and even authorities have used Twitter and Facebook to warn one another about shootouts.

Anita Vera, Martinez Vera's 71-year-old mother, said her 48-year-old son still lives at her house with his girlfriend. She said he told her that had posted his messages after the panic had already started.

"He told me "Mom, I didn't start any of this, I just transmitted what I was told,'" Vera Martellis said after visiting her son in prison.

"He used the computer, but I swear that my son never wanted to do anybody harm, or start a revolution, like they say he did," said Vera, who ekes out a living selling flowers.

Raul Trejo, an expert on media and violence at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said the terrorism charge is unwarranted, but described the case as "a very incautious use of Twitter."

He noted that in Mexico, "Twitter has been used by drug traffickers to create panic with false warnings." In one case, a wave of messages about impending violence shut down schools, bars and restaurants in the central city of Cuernavaca last year.

Trejo said Twitter users must learn "not to believe everything, and simply take the Twitter messages as an indication that some (report) is making the rounds."

But the real problem appears to be that governments cannot prevent drug cartel violence or even accurately inform citizens about it. Local news media are often so battered by kidnappings and killings of reporters that, in many states, they are loath to report about it.

"These Twitter users had accounts with a few hundred followers," Trejo noted. "If these lies grew, it is not so much because they propagated them, but because in Veracruz as in most of the rest of the country, there is such a lack of public safety that the public is inclined to believe unconfirmed acts of violence ... The government doesn't make clear what is happening."

Defense attorneys also say their clients were held incommunicado for almost three days, unable to see a lawyer.

It appears one of the most serious sets of charges ever brought for sending or resending Twitter messages.

Tweeter Paul Chambers was fined 385 pounds and ordered to pay 2,000 pounds ($3,225) in prosecution costs last year for tweeting that if northern England's Robin Hood Airport didn't reopen in time for his flight, "I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"

Venezuelan authorities last year charged two people with spreading false information about the country's banking system using Twitter and urging people to pull money out of banks. They could serve nine to 11 years in prison if convicted.

In 2009, a Chinese woman was sentenced to a year in a labor camp for posting a satirical Twitter message about the Japan pavilion at the Shanghai Expo.