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- Facebook Stories: What’s Your Story?
  by Elliot Schrage on Wednesday, July 21, 2010 at 10:16am
  A woman's Facebook status updates from her mobile phone become a lifeline for her and a group of 36 people traveling in Haiti during the earthquake. A recently laid-off man lands a new job by reaching out to his friends on Facebook. After 15 years apart, a father reconnects with his daughter through Facebook.
  
  These are just a few of the hundreds of stories people like you have shared about their experiences on Facebook. Each of the 500 million people using Facebook, though, has a story. We want to hear your story, too, so it can inspire others... to reconnect with long-lost friends, get closer to their friends and family, support those in need, or even start a political movement.
  
  We launched the Facebook Stories application today to celebrate all these types of stories and to help you share your story with people around the world. You can explore stories on a world map, or sort the stories by dozens of themes like "Love," "Family," Reunions," "Sports" and "College." Fill out the short form at the bottom and select a theme, and you're able to share your story in the application and with your friends through News Feed.
  
  As you read the stories of others, be sure to "Like" your favorites—the ones that make you laugh, smile or cry, for example—and also share them with your Facebook friends. The more "Likes" a story receives, the more likely it is to be featured in an upcoming "Most Popular" section for more people to see.
  
  Stories Everywhere
  
  As well as being available at http://stories.facebook.com, Facebook Stories is also highlighted as a tab on the Facebook Pages of 31 partners. The partner Pages chose the default theme to show on their Facebook Stories tab based on the types of stories they want to highlight for their audience. At launch, the following Pages have added tabs with these themes highlighted:
  Causes: Causes, UNICEF and UNICEF USA, and World Wildlife Fund
  
  Celebrities: Cristiano Ronaldo
  
  Education: DonorsChoose.org and National PTA
  
  Government: The White House
  
  Health: LIVESTRONG.COM
  
  Love: The Knot
  
  Military: British Army, U.S. Coast Guard
  
  Movements: (RED) and U.S. President Barack Obama
  
  Music: Justin Bieber, Kerrang! Radio, Linkin Park, Spotify, U2, The X Factor
  
  Natural Disasters: American Red Cross
  
  Peace: Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, N.J.
  
  Pets: PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and The Humane Society of the United States
  
  Politics: Washington Post
  
  Small Business: Kiva
  
  Sports: Cricinfo, ESPN, Major League Baseball, PGA TOUR, United States Golf Association and Wimbledon
  
  Travel: The New York Times
  Facebook Stories was developed using the tools and resources of Facebook Platform, which are available to any developer. Our team worked with developers JESS3, of Washington, D.C., and Involver, of San Francisco, to create the application. JESS3 handled the visual design, while the application was built on Involver's platform. We also integrated Bing Maps to power the location view for stories.
  
  On the Road
  
  While Facebook Stories helps anyone tell their story and see the stories of others, it doesn't replace meeting people in person. Later this summer, we're going to do just that.
  
  A team from Facebook will be hitting the open road in the U.S. to meet the people, towns and organizations behind these stories in our first Facebook Stories road trip. We'll be sharing more details of the trip and initial stops in future posts on this blog and the Facebook Page.
  
  Do you think we should visit your town? Tell us why by sharing your story on Facebook Stories. Submissions are limited to 420 characters, so think about what makes your story unique and about the impact you or a group of people made by using Facebook.
  
  We're looking forward to hearing all of your stories—and being surprised by the ways people are connecting that we've never imagined.
  
  Elliot, Facebook's vice president of communications and public policy, rediscovered many of his high school friends on Facebook.
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- Topics: Facebook Stories
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- Improving Transparency Around Privacy
  by Elliot Schrage on Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 12:24pm
  UPDATE on Thursday, Nov. 5: The comment period for the proposed privacy policy is now complete. While the total number of comments did not reach the threshold to hold a vote, we did receive a lot of good feedback. In the coming days, we'll be reading your comments more closely, and we'll keep you informed on our next steps through status updates from the Facebook Site Governance Page. Thank you all for your participation.
  
  UPDATE on Monday, Nov. 2: The proposed privacy policy now includes the TRUSTe certification seal, which reflects TRUSTe's... approval of the policy. Please comment on the proposed policy here by 12:00 p.m. PST on Nov. 5.
  
  Starting today, Facebook's privacy policy is available for your review and comment. This is the next step in our ongoing effort to run Facebook in an open and transparent way. In April, we launched a new system of governance for the Facebook site and became the first company to our knowledge that invites users to both comment and vote on proposed changes to its governing policies.
  
  At the time, we also introduced a new policy document — our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. This document avoids the legal jargon that most sites typically put in their "terms of service." It articulates the mutual relationship and shared obligations between Facebook and its users as clearly and plainly as possible. We received excellent feedback from many of you over the course of a two-week comment period.
  
  We now are doing the same with our privacy policy. Our primary goals remain transparency and readability, which is why we've used plain language and included numerous examples to help illustrate our points. For example, here is how we explain users' options for modifying or deleting information or content in the current privacy policy on the site:
  
  When you update information, we usually keep a backup copy of the prior version for a reasonable period of time to enable reversion to the prior version of that information. ...
  ... Even after removal, copies of User Content may remain viewable in cached and archived pages or if other Users have copied or stored your User
  Content. ...
  Access and control over most personal information on Facebook is readily available through the profile editing tools. Facebook users may modify or delete any of their profile information at any time by logging into their account. Information will be updated immediately. Individuals who wish to deactivate their Facebook account may do so on the My Account page. Removed information may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time but will not be generally available to members of Facebook.
  
  Here is the clearer and more comprehensive version from the new proposed policy:
  
  Viewing and editing your profile. You may change or delete your profile information at any time by going to your profile page and clicking "Edit My Profile." Information will be updated immediately. While you cannot delete your date of birth, you can use the setting on the info tab of your profile information page to hide all or part of it from other users. ...
  
  Deactivating or deleting your account. If you want to stop using your account you may deactivate it or delete it. When you deactivate an account, no user will be able to see it, but it will not be deleted. We save your profile information (friends, photos, interests, etc.) in case you later decide to reactivate your account. Many users deactivate their accounts for temporary reasons and in doing so are asking us to maintain their information until they return to Facebook. You will still have the ability to reactivate your account and restore your profile in its entirety. When you delete an account, it is permanently deleted. You should only delete your account if you are certain you never want to reactivate it. You may deactivate your account on your account settings page or delete your account on this help page.
  
  Limitations on removal. Even after you remove information from your profile or delete your account, copies of that information may remain viewable elsewhere to the extent it has been shared with others, it was otherwise distributed pursuant to your privacy settings, or it was copied or stored by other users. However, your name will no longer be associated with that information on Facebook. (For example, if you post something to another user's profile, and then you delete your account, that post may remain, but be attributed to an "Anonymous Facebook User.") Additionally, we may retain certain information to prevent identity theft and other misconduct even if deletion has been requested.
  
  Backup copies. Removed and deleted information may persist in backup copies for up to 90 days, but will not be available to others.
  
  We also have restructured the document — providing key points and easy links to jump to the different sections. We've added sections further explaining our current practices and introducing a new concept around Facebook Ads that we hope you'll take the time to review.
  
  Clarification of Current Practices
  
  In this revision, we're fulfilling our commitment to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada to update our privacy policy to better describe a number of practices. Specifically, we've included sections that further explain the privacy setting you can choose to make your content viewable by everyone, the difference between deactivating and deleting your account and the process of memorializing an account once we've received a report that the account holder is deceased.
  
  We also have explained in greater detail how Social Ads work on Facebook. Social Ads are sponsored promotions that include relevant information about you and are shown only to your friends. For example, if you become a fan of a Page for your favorite new movie, your friends may see an ad that includes that information.
  
  Advertising on Facebook
  
  Over 300 million people around the world now use Facebook. More join every day. To support this growth and continue providing a free service that connects people and lets them share with whomever they choose, we've built a business that allows advertisers to selectively share their messages. Our goal is to make the ads you see on Facebook relevant and interesting. Period. We're constantly working to improve our systems to make sponsored material compatible with people's needs and curiosity.
  
  As we do this, we remain committed to protecting your privacy. The information we provide to advertisers is "anonymized," meaning that it can't be traced back to you as an individual in any way. For example, we won't tell an advertiser that you clicked on an ad, but we might report that, of the 100 people who clicked on the ad, 63 percent were female.
  
  Improving the Quality of Facebook's Ads
  
  In this update, we also have explained how we might use information from other sites to improve the quality of our ads. This information allows advertisers to do what is commonly called "conversion tracking," which helps them measure the effectiveness of their ads and make them more relevant. Most advertisers already do this in other places on the web. Should Facebook provide this, we'll continue to respect your privacy by not sharing your information with advertisers, and we'll anonymize any information we receive.
  
  In the past, we've provided a redline version of the new policy document we're proposing to make clear what's new. Unfortunately, in this case, the revision is so different from the current policy that this wasn't possible. You can read the proposed update in its entirety and post comments to the Facebook Site Governance Page before the comment period ends at 12:00 p.m. PST on Nov. 5. After the comment period is over, we'll review your feedback and update you on our next steps. We appreciate and strongly encourage your participation in this process.
  
  Elliot, Facebook's vice president of communications and public policy, thanks all of the privacy experts who informed the drafting of Facebook's proposed privacy policy.
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- Topics: Advertising, Site governance, Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (SRR), Privacy
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- The Spirit of 2008
  by Elliot Schrage on Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 1:08pm
  Being on Facebook is serious fun. It's a fantastic way to catch up with old friends as well as make new ones. It's about self-expression and building community. Facebook is a platform, a medium and a killer app. It's contagious, infectious and viral—but in the best meaning of those words.
  
  As 2008 comes to an end, we salute the energy, warmth and incredibly diverse interests of Facebook's 140 million active users. You rock. Your postings, photos, applications and friendships make Facebook the extraordinary place it's become for people all over... the world to share and connect.
  
  No matter where you are in the world, you wanted to discover more about Facebook. From Australia to Chile to Germany to Finland to France to Italy to Malaysia, to Mexico to Switzerland to South Africa, "Facebook" became one of the five fastest-rising search terms in popularity. In Belgium, Canada and the United Kingdom, "Facebook" was the most popular search term of all.
  
  You got involved; you get involved: The number of people actively using Facebook more than doubled in 2008. Participation and sharing grew even faster—in a typical hour in December, people posted a total of 900,000 status updates, wrote 1.5 million wall posts and uploaded more than 1.6 million photos.
  
  You explored an ever-broadening range of interests. On our Lexicon service—which lets you look up how often various terms occur in people's postings—five of the 10 most common phrases involved the 2008 U.S. presidential race ("Obama," "Palin" and the like). But other terms in the top 50 included "iPhone," "Batman," "pirate," "Radiohead," "bailout," sports teams and TV shows.
  
  You connected with each other and with causes that matter. There are now more than 52,000 applications available on Facebook. Some of the most popular—such as iLike and Causes—provide innovative ways for you to interact with friends. Whether you're sharing a joke or helping rally people to fight injustice or assisting those in need, you are making Facebook a way to bring out the best in yourselves and your friends.
  
  Here's one statistic that both humbles and inspires us—in 2008, a record 6.6 billion friend requests were approved on Facebook. Most of them deepened connections among people who already have dozens or even hundreds of friends on Facebook. We want to do even better for you in 2009, offer even more powerful tools to share and make the world more open and connected.
  
  Elliot Schrage is wishing everyone a happy new year.
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