The following is part of our series on different ways you can use Facebook to connect with public figures and organizations around the world. Read the previous blog post in this series here.


I spend so much time surfing the Web everyday that it feels only natural that I shop online, too, especially with the holiday season approaching. With the increasing number of retail websites, email digests and discount codes, it's hard to keep track of my favorite designers and stores without feeling overwhelmed. Now that all of my favorite fashion brands and retailers are using Facebook to update their fans, I am able to find my trusted sources on everything from couture to casual-wear in one place.

To organize all this information, I created a Friend List of my favorite clothing-related Pages on Facebook. By selecting "Create New List" from the left-hand side of my home page, I was able to easily create a list of my favorite Pages. Whenever I'm in the mood for some retail therapy, I can select the "Shopping" list on my home page and see what's new in the world of fashion. Some of my favorite retailers, like local clothing boutique Pink & Harmony in Menlo Park, Calif., internet retailer Shopbop or internationally renowned designer Diane von Furstenberg frequently update their Pages with photos of their latest inventory and offer deals and exclusives to their Facebook fans.

The following is part of our series on different ways you can use Facebook to connect with public figures and organizations around the world. Read the previous blog post in this series here.


As Thanksgiving approaches in the U.S., I can't help it: Thanksgiving dinner is on my mind — turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie. Yet even as I'm anticipating my favorite holiday foods, I'm reminded of how many people in the U.S. and around the world are unable to enjoy my favorite treats during the holidays, let alone any kind of meal on a daily basis. It seems shortsighted to think of them so often during the holiday season yet so rarely during the rest of the year.

Which is why I make an effort to volunteer for some of my favorite local causes, like the San Francisco Food Bank, Bay Area Girls on the Run and the East Bay AIDS Project year round. Now, it's easier than ever to keep up with these organizations through their updates on Facebook well beyond the traditional season of giving.

Giving Back

As a fan of the San Francisco Food Bank Facebook Page, I can easily keep track of all of their upcoming events. For instance, this past weekend, I RSVP'ed for their food drive, "Scouting for Food" led by the San Francisco Boy Scouts. Attendees are reminded to leave contributions on their doorstep the morning of the event for the Boy Scouts to collect. Each time a new event pops up in my News Feed, I'm provided with another opportunity and a reminder to donate my time.

UPDATE on Tuesday, Nov. 24: This rumor about Facebook using your photos in ads without your consent is spreading again. The rumor was not true earlier this year and it is not true now. For more information on Facebook's advertising policies and how we use photos, please take a look at the blog post below.

Published on Friday, July 24
In the past couple of days, a rumor has begun spreading that claims we have changed our policies for third-party advertisers and the use of your photos. These rumors are false, and we have made no such change in our advertising policies.

If you see a Wall post or receive a message with the following language or something similar, it is this false rumor:

FACEBOOK has agreed to let third party advertisers use your posted pictures WITHOUT your permission.

The advertisements that started these rumors were not from Facebook but placed within applications by third parties. Those ads violated our policies by misusing profile photos, and we already required the removal of those deceptive ads from third-party applications before this rumor began spreading.

We are as concerned as many of you are about any potential threat to your experience on Facebook and the protection of your privacy. That's why we prohibit ads on Facebook Platform that cause a bad user experience, are misleading, or otherwise violate our policies. Along with removing ads, we've recently prohibited two entire advertising networks from providing services to applications on Facebook Platform because they were not compliant with our policies and failed to correct their practices.

We're committed to remaining vigilant in enforcing our policies to prevent bad ads from appearing on Facebook—whether served by us or a third party. But we also need your help. If you ever see a misleading ad or believe it violates our policies, report it to us.

If it's one of our ads, you can simply click the thumbs-down icon that appears above or below the ad to report it. If the ad is from a third-party application, click the "Report" link at the bottom of the page to report it to the developer and us.

The following is part of our series, Facebook Tips, which answers some of the most commonly asked questions about using Facebook. While we hope the tips we share on the blog will be informative, remember that we are unable to answer individual questions here. We'll always direct you to the Help Center for additional information about the topics we cover.


In the same way that profiles on Facebook help you connect with friends, Facebook Pages allow you to interact with and stay up-to-date on your favorite public figures, organizations and businesses. When you become a fan of a Page, you are connecting with that organization or public figure and will begin seeing status updates, photos, videos and other posts from the Page.

All of the posts from Pages will appear in your home page just as they would from your friends. You can get access to videos from your favorite band, chat live with your favorite celebrity, or even get a sneak peek of new products being launched by your favorite brand through Facebook Pages.

There are several ways to find and become a fan of your favorite Page:

1. Type the name of the celebrity, artist, brand or organization in the Search box in the upper-right corner of any page on Facebook. From the results page, select the the Pages filter in the left-side menu to show only Page results. Click the "Become a Fan" link next to the Page name and posts from that Page will begin appearing on your home page.


2. If you already know the web address, or URL, of the Page you want, simply type it in the address bar of your web browser. For instance, to find Vin Diesel on Facebook, you can navigate directly to www.facebook.com/VinDiesel. From there, select the "Become a Fan" button next to the Page's name.


3. You also can become a fan of a Page that you discover from your friends' recent connections. For example, if you see a News Feed story about your friend becoming a fan of the iTunes Page, you can connect with it by clicking the "Become a Fan" link within the story or click on the name of the Page to check it out further.

Once you're a fan of a Page, it is listed on your profile and is included in the list of Pages you're a fan of that's viewable to "everyone" unless you have changed your "Search" privacy settings.

Remember that you always have the option to remove yourself as a fan of any Page if you want to stop receiving updates or no longer want to be connected. Go to the Page and click on the link "Remove me from Fans" at the bottom of the left-side menu.

Check out the nearly 1.4 million active Pages on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages to start connecting and interacting with your favorite celebrities, political leaders, media outlets, non-profit organizations, TV shows, musicians, and much more.




Morin, who works on Facebook's user operations team specializing in Pages, just became a fan of Ibiss Boutique.

Yair Landau is the former president of Sony Pictures Digital and the director of a new animated short opening today called "Live Music." We asked Landau to share the story behind Live Music's creation as the first production from Mass Animation, a worldwide crowdsourcing of animation on Facebook done in partnership with Intel, Dell, Autodesk and Reel FX Entertainment.


When moviegoers sit down in select theaters tonight to see the opening of the new animated feature "Planet 51," they first will be greeted with a 5-minute, computer-animated short that resulted from the collaboration on Facebook of 58,000 people from 101 countries. Set in a musical instrument shop, the short "Live Music " tells the story of Riff, a rock 'n' roll guitar, who falls in love to the wrong song but ends up with Vanessa, the classical violin of his dreams.

What makes this short unique is that it is the first result from an ambitious project called Mass Animation to collaboratively create animation on Facebook. Started in August 2008, Mass Animation enabled animators from around the globe to join the creative process from anywhere. They could animate with tools and models provided through Mass Animation, submit and view them through an application on Facebook and vote on the best animated shots. In the end, 51 animators' shots were selected for inclusion in "Live Music."

As someone who's been involved in movie making for 19 years, I was passionate about Mass Animation because I realized it could open the animation process to a wider array of creative people. The premiere of "Live Music" marks a milestone for animated film because it shows that you can have an impact on the creative process no matter where you live in the world. Social media—and specifically Facebook in this project—enabled us to connect with animators we never would have reached before.

As participating animator Cyrus Cords put it, "In the middle of Minnesota opportunities like this don't happen."

The selected animators hailed form 17 different countries—ranging from Australia, Brazil and Russia to India, Kazakhstan and the U.S. —were between the ages of 14 and 48, and were composed of over 20 percent women.

Animator Gregory Naud of Belgium said he found the experience motivating. "It's cool to be part of a big international project," he said. "For those who don't have the chance to work in USA, for example, it was a great opportunity."

I hope you'll be as inspired by the short as we were in creating it through mass collaboration on Facebook. Take your own peak behind-the-scenes of its production by checking out the Mass Animation Facebook Page and watching the video below. Don't forget to download "Live Music" today from iTunes and for your mobile from Myxer to watch the full short.




Yair is stoked about the release of "Live Music" and grateful to all the talented people who made it happen.

On Nov. 5, we wrapped up a week-long notice and comment period for a proposed revision to our privacy policy. This was a continuation of our ongoing effort to run Facebook in an open and transparent way. The goals of the revised policy were to make it more accessible and easier to understand.

We've spent the last week reviewing each and every one of your comments. While a lot of people participated, the total number of people commenting did not reach the threshold of 7,000 that makes a vote necessary according to our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Because of this — and the fact that many of the comments were positive — we've decided to adopt the revised policy. We'll be posting it in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish soon.

In the coming weeks and months, we plan to build on the progress we've already made in making the document more accessible by also adding definitions of key terms, screen shots of important pages and informational "learn more" videos. We think these visual resources will make it even easier to understand how privacy works on Facebook.

We received excellent feedback from many of you over the course of the week, and the number of fans for the Facebook Site Governance Page more than doubled. Overall, you supported the proposed changes. For example:

• Most of you liked that we removed more complicated technical and legal terms and replaced them with simpler language that everyone can understand.


• You preferred the structure of the new document, which provides key points at the beginning and easy links to jump to the different sections.


• A few of you asked for a redline version so you could compare the proposed revision to our current policy and see exactly what's changed. We weren't able to provide one this time because the policy was completely rewritten, but we think it's a great idea and are committed to doing it for future proposed changes to our governing documents.

As always, thanks for taking part in this important process. We're glad to have so many interested and engaged people using Facebook. Stay tuned for future updates by becoming a fan of the Facebook Site Governance Page.


Michael, Facebook's deputy general counsel for intellectual property, product and regulatory affairs, is grateful for your feedback.

Games are more fun when played with friends, which is why they are among the most popular activities on Facebook. We're excited that beginning today the social game experience is coming to Xbox Live, so now you can play Xbox games with your Facebook friends.

In October, we called attention to National Crime Prevention Month in the United States to raise awareness about cyberbullying. This week is National Anti-Bullying Week in the United Kingdom, and we've teamed up with media outlets BBC Radio 1, BBC 1Xtra, and other sites like Bebo, Habbo, MSN, MySpace and YouTube to address this important issue again. While only a small fraction of people will ever experience abusive behavior on Facebook, we're committed to promoting an environment where everyone can connect and share comfortably.

For more information on how to handle bullies, check out the BBC's new Facebook Page and website. You can show your support for the "bullyproof" movement and receive a free badge to post on your Wall or send to a friend.

We want to ensure that people understand how to address cyberbullying if it occurs on Facebook, so here are some useful tips from our Help Center:

Accept Friend Requests from People You Know
In order to prevent harassment from strangers, be careful to accept friend requests only from people you know in real life and remember to report any messages or profiles that look suspicious. Facebook is based on a real-name culture, and fake profiles are regularly disabled when they're reported to us. Only confirmed friends can post to your Wall or contact you via Facebook Chat, so if you're worried that someone will make inappropriate posts or send offensive messages, just ignore that person's friend request.

Use the Block Feature
A block prevents specific people from viewing your profile. When you use this feature, any ties you currently have with them will be broken, and they won't be able to contact you through Facebook. You can block another user by listing his or her name in the "Block People" box at the bottom of your Privacy Settings page.

Report Abusive Behavior
The most efficient way to report abuse is to do it in the same place it occurs on Facebook. For example, if you receive a harassing message in your Inbox from someone who is not your Facebook friend, you can report it by clicking on the "Report" link next to the sender's name as you are reading the message. If you receive an harassing message from a Facebook friend, you should remove that person as a friend and report the message. Reporting a message will automatically add the sender to your Block list. You can also use the "Report/Block person" link that appears at the bottom of the abusive user's profile. Reports are confidential and the user being reported does not know about the report. After a report is submitted, we will investigate the issue and make a determination as to whether or not the content should remain on the site based on our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.

Customize Your Privacy Settings
Facebook offers granular privacy settings that allow you to customize what information you share and with whom. By customizing the settings on the Privacy Settings page, you can control who views your information, dictate who can find you in searches, and see your Wall, profile and photos, among other things.

Respond to Abusers in the Right Way
Cyberbullies often seek a reaction from the people they harass. When they fail to get one, they often will give up. Rather than respond to a bully via an Inbox message, a Wall post or Facebook Chat, you can delete offensive posts from your Wall or messages from your Inbox and then use the Block or Report functions to resolve the issue. To delete an offensive Wall post, select the "Remove" button that appears in the upper right-hand corner. To delete a message from Inbox, simply click the "Delete" button at the top of the message. Only confirmed friends can post to your Wall or send you a message through Chat. If you are receiving posts and Chat messages you don't like, you should consider removing the sender from your friends list.

Protecting our users is a top priority for Facebook, and we're proud to be a part of this year's Anti-Bullying Week efforts in the UK.


Richard, Facebook's European Director of Public Policy, is a fan of the BBC bullyproof Page on Facebook.

Liz Perle is the Editor-in-Chief of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to improving the media and entertainment lives of kids and families. The organization believes that parents should have a choice and a voice about the media their kids consume. We've asked Liz to share some common sense tips for parents as they navigate technology and the web with their kids.


Where do kids learn about good online behavior? From each other, perhaps. Maybe from a teacher. But parents have a big role to play in making sure their kids use the incredible technologies at their fingertips in responsible ways. For parents, that means not only talking the talk, but walking the walk.

It's really up to parents to explain the basics of online safety and stress the importance of guarding privacy in a world where something shared with one friend online can quickly spread to a vast audience of many others. Parents should be sure their kids understand that anything and everything that people post online can be altered, copied, pasted and sent around to a gazillion friends of friends in an instant.

It's a parent's job to make sure kids understand that everything they do online leaves a "digital footprint" — the idea that once something is shared online, it's really almost impossible to take it back. Just ask my son about the Halloween photo of him that he thought was so funny in 8th grade. Two years later, it's resurfaced. Let's just say it's not doing much for his dating life.

But what about the parent's side of the equation? Kids learn from their parents, not just from what their parents say but also from what they do. It turns out that parents have as much to do with their kids' online behaviors as their kids do.

At Common Sense Media, we're dedicated to helping kids and families get the most out the powerful digital technologies that run through the center of our lives. Some of this involves helping kids learn responsible behavior, but kids are only half the story. Parents also have some "Rules of the Road" they should be following:

1. Model good behavior. If you're on your phones at dinner or during family events, why should your kids listen to you when you tell them to turn their phones off?


2. Pay attention. Know what your kids are doing online. For instance, talk to your kids about whether or not they're comfortable letting you "friend" them on social networks — many will be.


3. Impart your values. Right and wrong extends to all areas of life, whether it's online or through a mobile device. Cheating, lying, being cruel — they're all non-starters, no matter where you are.


4. Establish limits. There's really a right time and place for everything. Set guidelines for when it's acceptable to use the phone, download videos and surf the web.


5. Encourage balance. The Internet opens doors to new worlds. Encourage your kids to explore their own offline world as well, particularly when there is no cell phone or Internet service available.


6. Make kids accountable. Let your kids know that having access to technology is a privilege. Let's make sure they earn it.


7. Explain what's at stake. Let them know that what might seem acceptable today can be embarrassing tomorrow.


8. Do your homework. Get familiar with the websites and services your kids use and the type of content they're downloading. Armed with knowledge, you can find ways to use technology to say "yes" more often.


9. Don't be techno-phobic. Don't be afraid of technology. Learn to text, send a mobile photo, set up a Facebook profile, upload a video. Or have your kids show you how. It's impossible to guide what you don't understand. Not only that, but think of all the anxiety you can avoid by knowing how things work.


10. Lighten up, embrace their world and enjoy the possibilities together. No parents want a digital divide in their relationships with their kids. It's up to you to join the fun and help your kids seize the potential.

Liz wants to help parents create positive experiences for their kids with the articles and topics available on Common Sense Media's website.

The following is part of our series on different ways you can use Facebook to connect with public figures and organizations around the world. Read the previous blog post in this series here.


From reality television to prime-time dramas, I admit it, I can be a bit television-obsessed. I often find myself spending an evening after a long day's work catching up on my favorite television shows. Unfortunately, a busy schedule can prevent even the most devoted fan from catching key plot lines and dramatic twists. Luckily, I can keep up to date on my favorite shows with my friends on Facebook, so I never miss a beat.

Watching Online

Every September, there are a dozen new television shows that I want to check out, but I only have so much time to tune in each night. One of my favorite websites, Hulu, streams TV shows directly on its Facebook Page using the application Watch Now. This way, I can watch full episodes of the hottest fall shows whenever I want, including "House," one of my favorite medical dramas on Fox. My friends can see how far along I am in the current season of diagnostic mysteries when I share the episode to my Facebook profile.

I also am discovering funny clips that I've missed thanks to my friends. I first heard of the popular joke from NBC's workplace comedy "The Office" about a social networking site called "Book Face" because a colleague shared the Hulu clip on his profile.