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- Restaurateur Maintains Ties with Homeland
  by Sara Lannin on Tuesday, December 29, 2009 at 2:23pm
  The following is part of our series on different ways Facebook is used across the world. You can read previous posts in this series here. If you have a story you'd like to share with us, please submit it here.
  
  Newly married Pellegrino Polo was in his mid-20s when his father decided to move their family from Italy to Netcong, N.J., in search of new opportunities. Eventually, his family saved enough money to start their own Italian restaurant, named after Pellegrino's father, Stefano. Pellegrino later decided to close the original restaurant in... order to open a new one in a better location, and for the past 19 years he's been successfully running Rose's Place, named after his mother.
  
  Pellegrino gets up at 4:30 every morning to open up the restaurant, where he works 7 days a week, 363 days a year. "Only on Christmas and Easter does he close the restaurant," said his son, Stefano. Despite his busy schedule, Pellegrino, now 56, has not forgotten the people he left behind in Italy.
  
  During his limited free time every evening, Pellegrino loves using Facebook to stay in touch with relatives, many of whom he has reconnected with after several decades apart. Every night he habitually checks the profiles of his Italian family and friends to see if they've updated their statuses, posted new notes, or shared links to interesting articles they've found on the Internet.
  Pellegrino Polo at Rose's Place
  He also loves looking at family pictures, some of which he prints out to display or show his mother, who misses life in Italy.
  Pellegrino loves using Facebook to stay in touch with relatives.
  
  Pellegrino's active Facebook presence has even allowed his children to connect with family members and distant relatives they've never met in person, some of whom are fairly distantly related.
  
  In addition to staying in touch with friends and family in Italy, Pellegrino uses a Facebook Page to connect with the patrons of Rose's Place. His customers regularly contribute ideas for menu additions, share memories from their times at the restaurant or write notes to the Polo family on the Facebook Page for Rose's Place. The results of Pellegrino's dedication to his restaurant can be seen in the comments.
  
  "I am a woman in a rush, and every morning the infamous Pellegrino has my breakfast waiting," wrote one customer. "His great service is just a little hint to all of you out there to go to Rose's Place…it's like eating with your family!"
  
  After starting from humble beginnings, Pellegrino Polo has built a successful life for himself and his family in New Jersey. With Facebook as a valuable link between his past and his future, he's able to stay connected to his roots in Italy while also building on the relationships that have made Rose's Place such a success.
  
  Sara, an intern on Facebook's communications team, wants her father to create a Facebook account.
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- Topics: Your Stories, Pages
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- Teaching Holiday Traditions with the Help of Friends
  by Sara Lannin on Tuesday, December 22, 2009 at 2:15pm
  The following is part of our series on different ways Facebook is used across the world. This week, we are featuring stories about how people are connecting for the holidays. You can read previous posts in this series here. If you have a story you'd like to share with us, please submit it here.
  
  In December, when signs of Christmas become apparent everywhere in the U.S., it can be easy to forget about the numerous winter holidays that take place around the world. Amy Bridges, a teacher at an inner-city school in Indianapolis, wanted to change... that for her 7th and 8th grade students. Most had never left the city, let alone the state or country.
  
  Amy wanted to share global traditions with a more personal lesson than could be taught from the generic information in a teaching manual. She hoped to illustrate their importance using real-life stories from a variety of people who had direct experience with winter holidays.
  
  Amy reached out last year to friends and family through Facebook with a simple request. Explaining that she was trying to broaden her students' international horizons, she asked her friends to contribute stories about their experiences with winter celebrations and holidays from other cultures and countries. Their descriptions, she explained, would "provide wonderful, authentic discussion points for 12-to-15-year-old students." In no time, Amy had received several responses, giving her enough material to shape a lesson around their firsthand accounts.
  
  Thanks to her Facebook friends, Amy's class talked about various Jewish Hanukkah traditions, the Muslim celebration of Eid, and the evolution of the Yule holiday. They also learned about celebrations connected to the winter solstice, such as the tradition of Yalda that occurs in Iran, and numerous Japanese winter practices.
  
  Finally, Amy's students were curious to hear about the different ways Christmas was celebrated around the world, with one Facebook friend contributing stories of a snowless "summer Christmas" from New Zealand in the Southern Hemisphere.
  
  According to Amy, it's hard to tell whether she or her students enjoyed the lesson more. Although the kids were intrigued by the celebrations they discussed, Amy was inspired by the support she had received from her friends on Facebook.
  
  "As 'authenticity' becomes an education buzzword," she said, "Facebook is one place to easily gather information, anecdotes, and documented facts from 'experts'—if you're lucky enough to know them."
  
  Sara, an intern on Facebook's communications team, has finished decorating her tree and is learning how to play dreidel.
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- Topics: Your Stories
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- A New Help Center for 2010
  by Jason Min on Monday, December 28, 2009 at 2:10pm
  When you need help using Facebook, we want it to be as easy as a click for you to get it. Our Help Center offers a central resource for you to find answers to common questions and learn more about using Facebook.
  
  Recently, we introduced a more streamlined design and a series of other changes for the Help Center to make it faster for you to find the answers you need. The improvements include:
  ...
  A new search interface that displays related help pages and matches help content for other languages if there are no results in your language, in addition to the regular FAQ results and user-to-user help topics.
  
  Filters on the left-hand side to navigate the available content types: FAQs, user-to-user support, and the new privacy and safety pages.
  
  Separate user-to-user support navigation, for both those who simply want answers from other users, as well as those who want to answer other people's questions.
  
  Unique Web addresses, or URLs, for each FAQ so you can share them with friends and family who are looking for help.
  
  We have a ton of information about every part of the site, and you can find answers by searching or just browsing around. Here are a few common ways to navigate the Help Center:
  If you have a specific question, try searching the Help Center first. For example, you can search for "profile picture" if you want to learn how to change your profile picture.
  
  If you want to browse by topic, click on the most relevant subject on the Help Center's main page and then select the relevant subtopic. For example, if you'd like to learn more about privacy settings, first click "Privacy" and then select the "Privacy settings and fundamentals" link. If you want to report a bug or check if the issue you're experiencing is a bug, click "Troubleshooting" from the main page.
  
  If you'd like to see answers from other users in the Help Center's user-to-user support feature or if you want to contribute answers, select the "Help Discussions" filter on the left-hand side and browse by topic there.
  
  Remember, you can access the Help Center by hovering over your Settings menu in the top navigation on Facebook or by clicking the "Help" link located at the bottom of every page. The Help Center is currently available in Arabic, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish, and we're working to expand the number of available languages as quickly as possible.
  
  Jason manages the Help Center and thinks contributing in the Help Center's user-to-user feature is a great New Year's resolution.
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- Topics: Help Center
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- Facebook Memology: Top Status Trends of 2009
  by Lars Backstrom on Monday, December 21, 2009 at 12:29pm
  Status updates on Facebook help people understand their friends and the people around them--how they're feeling, what they're doing and what they're thinking. In the United States alone, people on Facebook are sharing hundreds of millions of words every day, thousands per second, in status updates. When taken as a whole, these words offer a unique barometer into the issues, world events and thoughts that are connecting people.
  
  In the tradition of year-end lists, we're introducing Facebook Memology. "Memology" refers to the study of how "memes,"... or new ideas and trends, are spreading on Facebook. For this year's list, the Facebook Data Team mapped the top trending words and phrases in U.S. status updates for 2009.
  
  While significant news events and celebrities made the list, more personal topics like family, religion and even emerging digital slang were as common—no doubt reflecting the way people share their daily lives with friends on Facebook.
  
  To generate the list, we started by looking at how many times each phrase with length from one-to-four words occurred in U.S. Facebook status updates, then we computed the rate at which each phrase occurred in 2009 compared to 2008. Using some data-mining methods detailed here, we analyzed important bursts in activity around words and series of words to find the key trends for the year. All personally identifiable information was removed from the status updates to conduct this analysis, and no one at Facebook read the individual status updates.
  
  Because quite a few words and phrases were related to each other and correlated contextually, we grouped some of them together to form the final list that follows.
  
  1 - Facebook Applications
  
  Specific words: Farmville, Farm Town, Social Living
  
  Facebook has provided a platform for developers to create a number of hugely popular applications, and it is no surprise that people are talking about them. You could almost say that 2009 was the year of the farm in status updates. Since its emergence in June 2009, Farmville became the most talked-about application in status updates and now boasts over 72 million monthly active users. It wasn't alone. Farm Town also ranked highly, as did general discussions with the word "farm."
  
  2 - FML
  
  Specific word: FML
  
  This digital slang became the hottest acronym to enter the Facebook lexicon in 2009. It spread from relatively low usage to become a mainstream word in status updates. FML is used almost exclusively online and in text messages, and its meaning, once very specific, has broadened. People now use it simply to express some frustration with an aspect of their lives. We'll leave the "F" open to your interpretation, but the "M" and L" stand for "My Life."
  
  The beginning of May appeared to be a seriously frustrating time for people, when students were busy with finals and the weather was rainy just before summer. We saw a lull in "FML" in the summer months and, as expected, there was strong weekly periodicity to this term with it appearing most often on Mondays and Tuesdays.
  
  3 - Swine Flu
  
  Specific words: Flu, Swine Flu, H1N1
  
  Swine flu, or H1N1, was probably the biggest ongoing news story of the year. Discussion of H1N1 in status updates reached a peak in the spring—long before the flu itself began affecting many people. When flu season began in the fall, people began discussing the term again, though never with the same frequency as when it first appeared. Another interesting trend is that no one called the virus H1N1 when it first appeared, but by September the effort to disassociate the term "swine" from the illness was fairly successful and "H1N1" occurrences now roughly equal "swine." Surprisingly, the use of the word "flu" over the year consistently peaked during the middle of the week and was at its lowest on Sundays. We're not sure why.
  
  4 - Celebrity Deaths
  
  Specific words: Michael Jackson, Patrick Swayze, Billy Mays
  
  No celebrity death had as immediate of an impact on status updates as Michael Jackson's. Mentions of his name were 10,000 times higher on June 25, the day he died, than the previous day, and no other unexpected news event can compare to the burst we saw on that day. Despite the huge impact of this story, mentions of his name lasted only about a week, with a resurgence during his memorial 12 days later. Rather surprisingly, Patrick Swayze's death was almost as large with about two-thirds as many mentions as Michael Jackson's on the peak day of status updates about Swayze.
  
  5 - Family
  
  Specific words: Family, Mom, Dad, Son, Daughter, Kids
  
  As Facebook becomes more prevalent across demographics, people talk more about "mom," "dad," "son" and "daughter". We saw significant increases in all sorts of family-related words during 2009. Perhaps the most dramatic increase was "kids," a word whose occurrence went up by a factor of five.
  
  6 - Movies
  
  Specific words: New Moon, Transformers, Star Trek, The Hangover, Paranormal Activity and Harry Potter
  
  Whenever a new movie comes out, it creates a big spike in discussion in Facebook status updates. The most-discussed of 2009 was "New Moon." It narrowly edged out the big summer movies "Harry Potter" and "Transformers." Other big movies on Facebook were "Star Trek," "The Hangover" and "Paranormal Activity".
  
  7 - Sports
  
  Specific words: Steelers, Yankees
  
  In February of 2009, the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl, and in October the New York Yankees won the World Series. The Steelers reached a higher peak in mentions, but largely because they only played a single football game to garner the top prize. The Yankees were discussed a bit less per day, but the discussion occurred over a longer period of time throughout the multiple games of baseball's World Series. We'll call this one a tie to avoid playing favorites or sparking sports-supremacy debates.
  
  8 - Health Care
  
  Specific words: Health Care, No one should have to…
  
  Since President Barack Obama took office, the discussion of "health care" has risen steadily in status updates. This reached a peak in early September when millions of pro-reform users updated their status with the following message: "No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day." For two days, millions of people posted this to their profiles in support of health care reform. The meme continued to circulate, gradually declining over the weeks that followed. Even aside from that meme, health care mentions are up 10 times since a year ago.
  
  9 - FB
  
  Specific words: FB, FB Friends, News Feed
  
  Whenever we make a change to the site a lot of people chime in with their opinions. For instance, we see spikes in mentions of "News Feed" on the order of 100-times increases whenever there is a change to the way that feature works or how the home page is laid out. "FB" and "FB Friends," on the other hand, have nothing to do with product changes, but as Facebook has become more prevalent people are shortening our name for convenience. Usage of the word "FB" has increased about 7 fold since the beginning of 2009 and "FB Friends" increased about 10 times over the same period.
  
  10 - Twitter
  
  Specific words: Twitter, RT
  
  Talk about Twitter took off at the beginning of the year. April showed a peak of activity and momentum, though mentions of the word "Twitter" decreased over the past few months. The acronym "RT," standing for "retweet," entered the lexicon along with the word "Twitter" in September of 2008 and has become a common acronym to describe reposting activity.
  
  11 - Years
  
  Specific words: 2008, 2009, 2010
  
  Many status updates are about what people are going to do or have just done, so naturally they often contain dates. While the number of posts containing a date didn't go up dramatically in 2009, the date itself changed to reflect the current and upcoming year.
  
  12 - Lady Gaga
  
  Specific words: Gaga, Poker Face
  
  Lady Gaga was the biggest new performer of 2009 based on status updates from people in the U.S. She was virtually unmentioned until November of 2008 and spiked in mentions of her name in September of 2009 during the MTV Video Music Awards. At the end of September, Christopher Walken's performance of the song "Poker Face" caused a spike in that term, but didn't noticeably impact occurrences of "Lady Gaga."
  
  13 - Yard
  
  Specific word: Yard
  
  This is a trend that nobody would have guessed. The word "yard" seems fairly uncommon, and indeed it barely breaches a rate of five mentions in every 10,000 status updates. When we compare 2009 to 2008, however, we see a huge increase. Have all the hipsters turned to yard work as the latest fad? Probably not. A more likely explanation is that hipsters' moms and dads are also on Facebook, and these folks have yards that require some tending.
  
  14 - Religion
  
  Specific words: Easter, Lord, God
  
  Religious terms increased a significant amount in the last year. In the last 6 months, there was a noticeable upward trend in occurrences of "Lord" and "God." While "Easter" occurs infrequently most of the time, the Easter Sunday spike from 2009 is about 30 percent higher than it was in 2008.
  
  15 - I
  
  Specific words: I, is
  
  Until March of 2009, people updated their status in a box that appeared next to their name on the home page and, consequently, many updates started with the word "is." Once that box no longer was shown next to people's name, the usage of "is" dropped off dramatically and usage of "I" doubled almost overnight. Prior to March of 2009, "is" represented about 9 percent of all words in status updates. With the change in interface, it remained high in absolute terms, but dropped all the way to about 1.5 percent recently while "I" increased from 1 percent to about 2.5 percent.
  
  Lars Backstrom, a data scientist at Facebook, is heading to Iowa to investigate some farms.
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- Topics: Memology, Status Updates
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- New Tools to Control Your Experience
  by Ruchi Sanghvi on Wednesday, December 9, 2009 at 7:04am
  UPDATE on Thursday, Dec. 10: We've been providing updates about our new privacy controls and answering your most common questions here on the blog. In addition to the video explaining the transition process for privacy settings, we've posted tutorials about using the new Privacy Settings page here and the Publisher privacy controls here.
  
  Today, we're launching new tools to give you even greater control over the information you share. Mark Zuckerberg, our founder and CEO, talked about these changes in his post last week. They include a... simpler privacy settings page and a tool to control the audience for each and every post you create. We're also taking this opportunity to require all 350 million people who use Facebook to review and update their settings.
  
  Developing privacy controls that work for 350 million people who all use the site in unique ways is a difficult challenge. We've put a lot of work into today's new features, using your suggestions to guide us, and we're proud of what we've accomplished. However, we're by no means done, and we look forward to your feedback, which will help us develop the next innovation in user control.
  
  Here's a rundown of what to expect for now:
  
  Helping You Choose Settings
  
  Starting very soon, when you log in to Facebook, you'll be presented with a quick and easy three-step process for reviewing and updating your settings.
  
  The first step explains the changes we're making. If you want a more in-depth explanation of how privacy works on Facebook, you can visit our new Privacy Center, a comprehensive privacy guide with information on how to control your experience. Once you're ready to continue, click "Continue to Next Step."
  
  On the next page, you'll be asked to make choices about who can see the various parts of your profile and the posts you create. If you've ever chosen to restrict access to parts of your profile, we'll be recommending that you keep those more restrictive settings. If you've never done this, we'll be making recommendations based on how lots of people are sharing information today.
  
  For example, we'll be recommending that you make available to everyone a limited set of information that helps people find and connect with you, information like "About Me" and where you work or go to school. For more sensitive information, like photos and videos in which you've been tagged and your phone number, we'll be recommending a more restrictive setting.
  
  Once you've made choices based on your comfort level, click "Save Settings." You'll see a confirmation step that lists the settings you've selected and includes a link to the Privacy Settings page, where you can customize further. As always, you have control over your information and can revisit your settings at any time.
  
  Watch the following tutorial to learn more about how to update your settings:
  
  Simpler Settings
  
  Facebook has always provided extensive and granular settings that allow you to control access to your information as you see fit. Over time, however, as the site has evolved and new features have been added, these settings have become increasingly complicated. That's why today we're launching a new, simpler Privacy Settings page.
  
  After completing the transition tool, you'll be able to access this new page any time and the same way you access your privacy settings today—from the "Settings" link at the top right of every Facebook page. The new Privacy Settings page will include sections for profile information, contact information, applications and websites, and search. As always, you can block specific users, which prevents them from seeing any of your information or contacting you on Facebook.
  
  No matter what section you choose, you'll see an identical setting selector with three basic levels of privacy: Friends, Friends of Friends and Everyone. If you're in a verified network, such as a network for your school or workplace, you'll continue to have a "Friends and Networks" option. You'll also be able to customize your settings based on certain friends and friend lists. As an added layer of protection, we'll be requiring that you first enter your Facebook username and password before changing any settings.
  
  Adding Control for Each Post
  
  We're introducing a completely new privacy tool for the Publisher, the box at the top of the profile where you post content like status updates, links, photos and videos. Once you've completed the transition tool, you'll be able to choose an audience for each piece of content you post at the time that you post it. Just look for the standard privacy lock icon at the bottom right of the Publisher. When you click it, you'll see our standard setting selector with the same basic levels of privacy. The first time you post with this new control, you'll get a message that explains how to use the control.
  
  A Few Important Points
  
  As we stated back in July, these new tools in no way alter our policies or practices around advertising. Facebook never shares personal information with advertisers except under your direction and control.
  
  In addition, settings for minors will continue to be more restrictive than those for adults. If you're a minor and you share a piece of content with "Everyone," you will be sharing it at most with friends of friends and members of any school or work networks you've joined. Similarly, minors are opted out of sharing information with public search engines for indexing.
  
  With these changes, a limited set of basic information that helps your friends find you will be made publicly available. This information is name, profile picture, gender, current city, networks, friend list, and Pages. The overwhelming majority of people who use Facebook already make most or all of this information available to everyone. We've found that most people who do limit access just want to avoid being found in searches or prevent contact from strangers. For this reason, we'll be preserving the settings that allow you to exclude yourself from search results on Facebook and public search engines. You'll also be able to limit who can send you messages and friend requests to only friends and friends of friends.
  
  We're happy to be offering you simpler tools to control your experience on Facebook. We encourage you to take the time to explore them and consider what settings are right for you.
  
  Ruchi Sanghvi, Facebook's product manager for privacy, is in control.
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- Topics: Publisher, Privacy
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- Celebrating Anniversaries on Facebook
  by Jackie Kong on Wednesday, December 16, 2009 at 3:38pm
  As much as I enjoy celebrating my birthday every year with my friends, I often regard the anniversary of my relationship with my significant other to be even more important.
  
  At Facebook, we're always looking to make it easier to share and recognize such milestones. That's why we recently added the ability for you to include the date of your relationship anniversary on your Facebook profile. The new "Anniversary" field appears on profiles under the Relationship section of the Info tab.
  
  ...
  Once added, your anniversary date will be reflected on your profile and the profile of your significant other. The display of your anniversary date will follow the same privacy settings as those that you've set for your relationship status.
  
  Besides being able to view anniversaries, you'll also be reminded of your own anniversary from the Events section on your home page so you can better prepare that romantic dinner or celebration you have always envisioned.
  
  Over time, we hope to surface the anniversaries of your friends as well, so you can congratulate them too.
  
  Jackie, an engineering intern at Facebook from the University of Waterloo, is excited to share the love with everyone on Facebook.
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- Topics: Relationships
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- The Award Goes to...Translators
  by Eric Kwan on Tuesday, December 15, 2009 at 2:52pm
  Since launching our Translations application two years ago, more than 300,000 people have answered the call to contribute translations and make Facebook available in more than 70 different languages. These translators are helping more people connect in the languages that feel most comfortable to them, no matter how big or small of a community speaks a language or dialect. For all of their efforts, we think that translators deserve some extra recognition.
  
  Today, we're launching an award system for translators where they'll receive special icons... as they reach various milestones in the Translations application. The awards are grouped into the following three categories, and their levels vary based on the frequency and accuracy of translators' contributions in such activities as translating words and voting on the best translations:
  Voting Participation
  
  Words Published
  
  Translations Published
  
  We are starting with nine possible awards, but we will consider adding more depending on the feedback we receive. These new awards complement the leaderboard we previously put in place in the application to publicly spotlight top translators.
  
  We would have never accomplished so much so quickly without the help of all of you who have contributed to translating Facebook. Since the first translation, we've grown to more than 350 million users on Facebook, with 70 percent of them now outside of the United States. We appreciate the hard work from all of you who've taken part, and we hope you'll enjoy translating even more with the new award system.
  
  If you know multiple languages and haven't yet tried the Translations application, we encourage you to give it a try here. Your contributions make a big difference.
  
  Eric Kwan, a Facebook engineer on Internationalization and a part-time pack rat, is collecting translation awards.
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- Topics: Language, Translation
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- Updates on Your New Privacy Tools
  by Ana Muller on Wednesday, December 9, 2009 at 3:19pm
  UPDATE on Thursday, Dec. 10: In response to your feedback, we've improved the Friend List visibility option described below. Now when you uncheck the "Show my friends on my profile" option in the Friends box on your profile, your Friend List won't appear on your profile regardless of whether people are viewing it while logged into Facebook or logged out. This information is still publicly available, however, and can be accessed by applications. Thanks again for your comments and suggestions.
  
  We've also posted a third tutorial about the new... privacy controls here. This video explains how to use the privacy control in the Publisher, the box where you publish status content such as updates, photos, videos and links.
  
  Thank you for all of your feedback so far on the new privacy tools we began rolling out today. We'll be providing updates and listing the most common questions we're receiving in this post. Be sure to read our full blog post on the new privacy tools, if you haven't already.
  
  Why don't I have the new settings?
  
  If you haven't yet seen the three-step transition tool for reviewing and updating your privacy settings, you will shortly. We're asking all 350 million people who use Facebook to go through this process and are rolling out the changes incrementally to make sure it goes smoothly. Keep in mind that you also won't see the new Privacy Settings page until you've gone through the transition process.
  
  Can I limit access to my Friend List?
  
  Many of you have mentioned that you want a way to hide your list of friends. In response to your feedback, we've removed the "View Friends" link from search results, making your Friend List less visible on the site.
  
  In addition, you can further limit the visibility of your Friend List to other people on Facebook if you want. After you've completed the transition to the new privacy settings, you'll be able to click on the pencil icon in the top-right corner of the "Friends" box on your profile. Unchecking "Show my friends on my profile" will prevent your Friend List from appearing in your profile. when it is viewed by people who are logged in to Facebook. Keep in mind, however, that because Friend List is publicly available, it will be visible to people who are viewing your profile while not logged in. Again, you will only have this option once you've completed the transition to the new privacy settings.
  
  Remember, you can also limit who can find you in searches on Facebook and control whether your information can be indexed by public search engines under "Search" on the Privacy Settings page.
  
  Can I limit access to my Wall?
  
  There's been some confusion about whether you can still limit access to Wall posts from friends and applications. The answer is yes. Just as before, you have complete control over who has access to posts your friends have made through the "Posts by Friends" setting under "Profile Information" on the Privacy Settings page. For example, if you choose Friends of Friends, only your friends and friends of those friends will be able to see posts others have made on your Wall.
  
  You can also control whether applications you use can post stories to your Wall on the Application Settings page. Just click "Edit Settings" next to an application's name and choose the settings that are right for you.
  
  Is there a tutorial on using the new Privacy Settings page?
  
  To give you as much information as possible about how to control your experience on Facebook, we've created a short video that walks you through the new Privacy Settings page. The video shows you what you'll find on this page, guides you through the basic levels of privacy, and explains how to customize your privacy settings. You can check it out here.
  
  Where can I provide feedback?
  
  Once you've gone through the three-step process to update your settings, please visit the new Privacy Center, our comprehensive resource for information on how to control your experience. You'll be able to access this page at any time from the "Privacy" link at the bottom of any Facebook page.
  
  If you haven't gone through the transition, please provide your feedback here. While we unfortunately cannot respond to your emails individually, we're listening to all of your feedback.
  
  Ana, a Facebook product marketing manager, is keeping you updated.
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- Facebook Connect: Celebrating Year One
  by Ethan Beard on Wednesday, December 9, 2009 at 2:25pm
  Over the past year, Facebook Connect has brought an end to lengthy registration processes on many websites, provided a new way to interact with your News Feed on sites like Yahoo!, MSN and iGoogle, and empowered you to take your Facebook identity and friends to technologies such as Nintendo DSi, Xbox and iPhone apps.
  
  Today, we are celebrating the first anniversary of Facebook Connect from the LeWeb conference in France. Facebook Connect is now available on more than 80,000 websites, and more than 60 million people are using the service to... connect with their friends everywhere.
  
  To start using Facebook Connect yourself, simply click the blue "Facebook Connect" button when you see it on websites or devices. Rather than entering registration information again, you'll instead connect your Facebook account to the other website or service and it will recognize your real identity, current profile picture and friends. From there, you can start commenting on blogs, interacting with Facebook friends and sharing content with all of your friends back on Facebook.
  
  Facebook was developed with the idea that friends make every experience better, and with Facebook Connect that same concept is extended off of Facebook so that you can view your News Feed and updates where and when you want. With just a few clicks on an external website, your Facebook content, privacy settings and friends follow you to make your experience on that website more social and meaningful. For example, you can sign into the Huffington Post with your Facebook account, view recent news read by your friends and share news back to Facebook.
  
  When websites add your friends to the experience, everyday activities are enhanced. For example, you can see the latest restaurants your friends reviewed on Citysearch or on the go with the Urbanspoon iPhone app. You can shop with your friends on Etsy, and watch TV with your favorite people wherever they are, on sites like NBC.com, ABC.com and CBS.com.
  
  You can see more examples of websites with Facebook Connect here:
  
  Facebook Connect is opening the door for communication and cross-platform interaction that hasn't been available before, but we're only at the beginning. You can now start a game, like Scrabble, with your mom from home on your computer and continue that same game later in the day from your iPhone. You can also connect and share with your Facebook friends in your living room from your TV on Xbox or via Boxee. Soon, connected experiences will extend to even more platforms, all with Facebook as the underlying technology.
  
  We can't wait to see where Facebook Connect goes next.
  
  Ethan, director of the Facebook Developer Network, is using Facebook Connect on his iPhone to find Paris restaurant recommendations from friends while attending LeWeb.
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- Topics: Facebook Connect
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- Working Together for Online Safety
  by Richard Allan on Sunday, December 6, 2009 at 10:51pm
  Improving safety online is a group effort. It requires diligence from everyone who's online or on Facebook—whether by reporting abusive behavior or making sure your account and passwords are secure. At Facebook, we think about our role the same way. We must work with a diverse set of experts and organizations devoted to online safety in order to bring you the best safety resources on Facebook.
  
  We've been following this collaborative approach to safety for years, and today we took another step by launching a global Safety Advisory Board. This... group of five leading Internet safety organizations from North America and Europe will consult with us on online safety issues. One of our first projects together will be to overhaul the safety information that's available to you from the Facebook Help Center so that the resources are more comprehensive and include content that's specifically tailored to the needs of parents, teachers and teens.
  
  We're grateful for the support of such a well-respected group of organizations in our latest effort. The initial members of the Safety Advisory Board are Childnet International, The Family Online Safety Institute, Common Sense Media, ConnectSafely and WiredSafety. Over time, we will consider adding additional members to the Safety Advisory Board as we identify good candidates and seek to broaden its international representation.
  
  You can learn more about these organizations and our Safety Advisory Board by reading today's announcement here.
  
  The Safety Advisory Board is just one step we've taken—and will continue to take—to promote a safer environment on Facebook. Just last week, we partnered with MTV on the A Thin Line campaign to educate people about digital abuse. A few weeks ago, the New York Attorney General's office cited Facebook's help in identifying and disabling the accounts of registered sex offenders. We worked with the BBC in November on their Bullyproof campaign in the UK. We also regularly invite organizations like the National Crime Prevention Council to share safety tips with you on this blog, and we provide updates on new safety approaches we're taking on the site to make reporting abuse easier.
  
  As we now work with the Safety Advisory Board, you can expect to see more safety resources on this blog and in our Help Center in the months to come. Only by working together can all of us stay safe online.
  
  Richard, Facebook's director of European public policy, is doing his part for online safety.
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- Finding Support in Tough Economic Times
  by Nikki M. Staubli on Friday, December 4, 2009 at 12:30pm
  The following is part of our series on different ways Facebook is used across the world. Read the previous blog post in this series here. If you have a story you'd like to share with us, please submit it here.
  
  Marie* was expecting a typical day when she arrived at her advertising job one January day earlier this year. By the end, she was among the 15 percent of her company who had been laid off as part of a downsizing at the New York company. She was so devastated that she didn't have time to say goodbye to co-workers with whom she had shared so... many memories.
  
  Like millions of people, Marie faced the harsh reality of the current economic recession that has led to double-digit unemployment in the United States and many other countries. She looked to support from her friends, family and former co-workers — and she found it by logging onto Facebook.
  
  Facebook allowed her to reconnect with many of her former colleagues who had similarly lost their jobs, and they were able to support each other through a difficult time. Marie expected her first day without a job to be filled with sadness and isolation. Instead, she said she was greeted with well wishes and even job leads from previous co-workers and others who had been in similar situations.
  
  "This gave me a great sense of support and connection," Marie said, "As I gladly received wonderful messages and followed up on leads, I realized that this would not be possible without Facebook."
  
  One of those leads was for a marketing position, and Marie diligently followed up. Months later, on another day she thought would be typical, she received a job offer. Now she's working full-time and grateful for the support and advice of her friends. As Marie said, "Facebook really helped me stay connected, receive kind words, and indirectly secure employment."
  
  Nikki, a specialist on Facebook's user operations team, is grateful to have found her job through Facebook, too.
  
  *Marie is a pseudonym we used at the request of the Facebook user to protect her identity.
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- Topics: Your Stories
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- How to Break the Cycle of Digital Abuse
  by Casi Lumbra on Thursday, December 3, 2009 at 8:30am
  Casi Lumbra, 17, is an advisory board member for MTV's A Thin Line campaign, which launched today to help teens stop the spread of digital abuse. She's also a member of WiredSafety.org's Teenangels, a group of teens trained in all aspects of online safety, privacy and security. While people on Facebook may never encounter digital abuse, they still need to be able to spot it and stop it. We asked Casi to share her perspective as a teenager and expert about the causes of digital abuse and ways that teens can avoid it.
  
  Have you ever snooped on a... friend's text messages, posted nasty messages about a classmate or colleague on Facebook or posted an embarrassing picture of someone to get even? Have any of these things ever happened to you?
  
  Let's face it: For many teens the answer to at least one of those questions is likely "yes." We use technology 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from connected devices in our backpacks, pockets and purses. This creates a digital side to every part of our lives. Even our relationships are wired. We interact with friends, boyfriends, girlfriends and acquaintances online just as we do offline, and sometimes it's hard to remember that our online behavior has boundaries.
  
  If you also answered "yes" to any of the questions I asked above, you've experienced "digital abuse." Digital abuse is the use of digital technologies—such as cell phones, social networks, instant messaging and e-mail—to hurt someone, even when you didn't "mean" it. It even includes certain high-risk digital activities that can hurt us, like "sexting"—the act of sending sexually explicit images. It's also digital abuse if you:
  Harass people with constant text messages
  Demand that they be available at all times and even sleep with their cell phones
  Send nasty or threatening messages, post mean pictures or create groups to gang up on someone online
  Hack into people's accounts to hurt them
  Spy on people with keystroke loggers or take over their profiles by changing their passwords
  
  Even though it involves the virtual world, digital abuse has serious real-world consequences. Things may start out as a joke, but end up badly. Curiosity can become criminal privacy intrusions. Sometimes it's hard to tell where our actions fall.
  
  There's a thin line between what's harmless and what's harmful, and that line can be difficult to spot. There's a thin line between one person's sarcastic message, and another person's wounded feelings. When sexts are being spread around, there's a thin line between a choice made in one instant, and consequences that can last a lifetime.
  
  So, how do we stay on the right side of this thin line?
  
  In the end, it all comes down to choices. And those choices are yours. You have to draw your own line. You decide what kind of person you are, and you decide what kind of digital citizen you want to be. You decide what values are important. It's not always easy, and the rules change all the time. The best time to make these choices is before you have to and when you are sober, calm and your brain is engaged. There are no "Cliffs Notes" or cheats. Look deep.
  
  While this isn't easy, there are a few ways to avoid becoming a digital abuser or victim:
  Keep your passwords private, and don't ask anyone for his or her password. There's a thin line between sharing and snooping. You're entitled to privacy, and password abuse is the root of much cyber-evil.
  
  Hit "delete" instead of "forward." You have the power to break the cycle of sexting and harassment simply by choosing not to spread such messages.
  
  Think twice. Before you post that picture or send that message, think about the consequences it might have – today, next week or years from now.
  
  Report abuse on Facebook if you see or are a victim of abusive behavior. Since Facebook is based on a real-name culture, it's important to stop people who are abusing others. Look for "Report" links throughout the site, such as the "Report This Photo" link underneath photos and the "Report" links in Inbox messages from people who aren't confirmed friends.
  
  The power to take a stand against digital abuse is in your hands. Now decide where you want to draw your lines. Share it. Get your friends involved. If they're safer, you're safer. For more information about digital abuse and ways to protect yourself and your loved ones, become a fan of A Thin Line on Facebook or visit www.AThinLine.org.
  
  Casi is supporting the Redraw the Line Challenge awarding $10,000 to the best digital innovation for battling digital abuse.
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- Topics: Guest blog, Safety, Abuse
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- Turn Facebook (RED) on World AIDS Day
  by Susan Smith Ellis on Tuesday, December 1, 2009 at 2:49pm
  Susan Smith Ellis is the CEO of (RED), a brand that helps raise awareness and money for the fight against AIDS in Africa. The organization works with some of the world's largest brands like American Express, Apple, Starbucks and Nike to produce (RED)-branded products, where a portion of the profits go directly to the Global Fund to invest in AIDS programs in Africa. In honor of today being World AIDS Day, we've asked Susan to share her thoughts on how the growth of social media has helped spread (RED)'s message in the fight against AIDS.
  
  In... 2006, two events occurred, which at first glance couldn't have been more unrelated. Frustrated by a lack of engagement from business in the fight against AIDS in Africa and trying to push companies to contribute more to the Global Fund to help fight HIV/AIDS—one of the most devastating yet preventable and treatable diseases in Africa—(RED)'s founders launched a new model of creative capitalism. It was a very new idea and a very different concept.
  
  In September of the same year, Facebook expanded registration so anyone with an email address could join the site. The hope was that with more and more people sharing with each other online, the world would be more open and connected.
  
  Both concepts have proven to be successful beyond what people could have ever imagined. And as far as (RED) is concerned, our success is very much owed to the emerging world of social media that exploded, just when we needed it. Like social media itself, with (RED) the power is not so much in the act of one individual but in the incredible power of the collective acts of individuals. In just over three years, over 1.5 million people have joined (RED) via a range of social media.
  
  Today, on World AIDS Day, we're asking these people to come together to show their support in the fight against AIDS in Africa. Let's turn Facebook (RED) — you can change your profile picture to any of the (RED) images at our Facebook Page. Shop for (PRODUCT) RED items like a (PRODUCT) RED Apple iPod Nano or (PRODUCT) RED sunglasses from Emporio Armani. For more information on how you can help, join us at www.facebook.com/joinred.
  
  Over the last three years, in order to build (RED) and in order to channel a new flow of money to The Global Fund to support this fight, we have had to build a brand, not through traditional channels but one person at a time, virtually.
  
  Unlike other brands, (RED) exists and grows and lives not only on a shelf, or in a store, but in people. (RED) is an idea we can all share, a concept we can all believe in that says there is a better way to help. (RED) means choosing the (PRODUCT) RED Converse sneakers or using your Starbucks (PRODUCT) RED card for your morning cup of coffee, and knowing by doing so, you are helping someone who is, in one sense, a world away, but in another is as close to you as your computer.
  
  Those 1.5 million people have also given us the power to reach out to more and more companies. Companies see that our virtual brand has a powerful group of advocates and committed supporters so we see more and more companies joining us in our mission, by becoming (RED).
  
  So, in three years, what have we done together? Collectively, people's choices have resulted in $140 million being contributed to the Global Fund, with 100 percent of that money going directly to helping fight AIDS in Africa. Millions of people, like you, together have created this impact. But it's bigger than dollars. This money flows directly to AIDS grants that have already reached more than four million people with testing, counseling, AIDS treatment and services—programs that truly change lives.
  
  For this remarkable achievement, I would like to thank all of you who've played a part.
  
  (RED) is a color that unites us. (RED) is a color that makes a difference. And today, (RED) is the color of hope—and of a new way to help make real change through small choices.
  
  Together, virtually, we will do more than anyone thought possible. In fact, we already have.
  
  Susan hopes you'll go (RED) on Facebook today.
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- Topics: Guest blog
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- An Open Letter from Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg
  by Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday, December 1, 2009 at 6:23pm
  It has been a great year for making the world more open and connected. Thanks to your help, more than 350 million people around the world are using Facebook to share their lives online.
  
  To make this possible, we have focused on giving you the tools you need to share and control your information. Starting with the very first version of Facebook five years ago, we've built tools that help you control what you share with which individuals and groups of people. Our work to improve privacy continues today.
  
  Facebook's current privacy model revolves... around "networks" — communities for your school, your company or your region. This worked well when Facebook was mostly used by students, since it made sense that a student might want to share content with their fellow students.
  
  Over time people also asked us to add networks for companies and regions as well. Today we even have networks for some entire countries, like India and China.
  
  However, as Facebook has grown, some of these regional networks now have millions of members and we've concluded that this is no longer the best way for you to control your privacy. Almost 50 percent of all Facebook users are members of regional networks, so this is an important issue for us. If we can build a better system, then more than 100 million people will have even more control of their information.
  
  The plan we've come up with is to remove regional networks completely and create a simpler model for privacy control where you can set content to be available to only your friends, friends of your friends, or everyone.
  
  We're adding something that many of you have asked for — the ability to control who sees each individual piece of content you create or upload. In addition, we'll also be fulfilling a request made by many of you to make the privacy settings page simpler by combining some settings. If you want to read more about this, we began discussing this plan back in July.
  
  Since this update will remove regional networks and create some new settings, in the next couple of weeks we'll ask you to review and update your privacy settings. You'll see a message that will explain the changes and take you to a page where you can update your settings. When you're finished, we'll show you a confirmation page so you can make sure you chose the right settings for you. As always, once you're done you'll still be able to change your settings whenever you want.
  
  We've worked hard to build controls that we think will be better for you, but we also understand that everyone's needs are different. We'll suggest settings for you based on your current level of privacy, but the best way for you to find the right settings is to read through all your options and customize them for yourself. I encourage you to do this and consider who you're sharing with online.
  
  Thanks for being a part of making Facebook what it is today, and for helping to make the world more open and connected.
  
  Mark Zuckerberg
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- Topics: Privacy, Growth
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