Social Media, Social Networking | featured news

Facebook’s attorneys squared off Wednesday with the legal team of Paul Ceglia, a New York man who says that a 2003 contract proves he should own at least half of Facebook. Ceglia, for whom Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg did some work while at Harvard University, says he has a contract granting him at least half the ownership of Facebook. Facebook has denied the claim, saying that the contract and several other documents Ceglia provided are faked. The company subsequently filed to dismiss the suit last month.

Some universities are monitoring the activities of athletes on social media sites, raising privacy concerns.

Trayvon Martin's death illustrates the growing numbers of black and Hispanic Americans harnassing the power of social networking sites.

If you’re reading this, chances are you got here from some social media site. The growing industry has changed the way that people communicate on a daily basis. It’s changed how we consume our news, share with friends, and go about our lives in general. The biggest social media sites in the world are larger than many countries and have an infrastructure similar in many ways to an odd form of government.

Anyone worried about an erosion of America's global status might consider this modest fact: Facebook is the dominant social network in Mongolia. Along with its pervasive social media, the United States leads in myriad other ways - from the allure of its movies and music to the reach of its military. It's tough to match a nation that deploys troops to Australia and central Africa, propels Beyonce to global stardom, and produced the Twitter-style technologies that abetted the Arab Spring.

Facebook has weighed in on a practice by some businesses asking employees or job applicants for their passwords to the popular social-media site.

A Democratic senator from Connecticut is writing a bill that would stop the practice of employers asking job applicants for their Facebook or other social media passwords, he told The Associated Press on Thursday. U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said that such a practice is an "unreasonable invasion of privacy for people seeking work."

“OMG! A big Zynga group hug to OMGPOP, talented creators of Draw Something,” tweeted social games titan Zynga Wednesday. Apparently, in this universe, a “big Zynga group hug” translates to $180 million, the price that All Things D claims Zynga paid to acquire the makers of the most popular mobile Facebook app.

Today marks the sixth year since founder Jack Dorsey and Twitter’s first members started using the communications platform. And for its birthday, the company has posted a number of stats about its growth in usage.

Remember the good old days when all you had to worry about was what potential employers might find in a Google search? Now, some employers are asking for the keys to job applicants’ virtual clubhouse so they can click around and get a better look.