Free Speech on Facebook?

In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it states that:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

There's always an issue with free speech, especially since facebook is a social networking site, where people of all ages, races and religion are present.

Recently, the buzz(1,2,3,4) is on the "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" facebook page and group. Basically, Muslims, especially in Pakistan, are outraged about the group and that facebook allowed it on its site. Hence, there were many protests which eventually led to the banning of facebook in Pakistan.

This is a view of a Muslim, and a non-Muslim against the idea.

Regarding this, i find that it is a difficult battle of ideas seeing that it involves religion. There should be more tolerance though, since the creators of South Park didn't mean for it to be insulting even though they really shouldn't go too far with making jokes of religion. The threats are too extreme. However, the creator of the group wasn't being sensitive either, as he did it in an act of defiance, to protest against the threats made towards South Park's creators. Everything has limits. We can say what we want, but we need to be more understanding of one another to avoid possible conflict.

Heres an article on hate speech to think about.

And The Problem Is?

This time, i'll be talking about what i dislike.

First off, a new and current annoyance i just noticed in these few days: groups with longs names. It goes on to repeat a short sentence so many times that i have to scroll down for a while just to get past it. For example, the "I'm Awesome" group. Why would facebook allow such a long group title? Shouldn't any detailed information be in the group itself? It appears that these are external websites that has facebook's like button. However there are groups who have quite long names and do show specific/useful/interesting information, like those of OMG Facts.
In the midst of writing this though, facebook has apparently fixed the issue by shortening what is being shown. Also, the "I'm Awesome" group has been reported as abusive. (: Unfortunately, users have come up with another way of spamming pages.

Secondly, the bookmarks. It used to be in a toolbar in all facebook pages that a user opens. Now it is only found in the homepage, which i find is quite limiting considering that bookmarks are for convenience. Having constant access would surely be better though it might slow loading speed.

Lastly, facebook is kind of boring. There isn't really much to do, yet it still takes up my time. I start facebook, play my games, check my notifications, read some friends' walls and check my newsfeed for what my friends have been doing or for interesting links/photos. Then i refresh my homepage, and check again. After a while, i do the same. And again. No idea why, guess its a habit. Which is why i'm starting to dislike facebook.
Now that i started my assignments with facebook as my topic, at least it isn't all that useless.

To end this, here's an interesting article to read, about why this guy hates facebook.

How It Is So Far

I'm guessing everybody knows what fb is.

Truthfully, i only joined because it was where the people were heading. But i've come to like how i can discover things about people i know, and having a platform to interact. I started out with adding friends, playing games and doing quizzes which got boring after a while. Then people started making notes(which is like posting more personal information and preferences or experiences) and spreading them; i followed suit. After that, the trend was "become a fan" which is now the "like" function. Ironic, considering how many users wanted a dislike button.

Facebook is getting itself integrated with the world, as mentioned by Steve Rubel. I agree with him that the potential is there, its up to the developers and such to make it happen. There is though quite an issue about privacy now. However, many others who shared their opinions on this matter do have a point as well; facebook might just be a stepping stone to the creation of a better Web. For now though, it's here and we might as well use it best we can.

As a social media, users are likely to pose personal information. Hence, it is necessary for facebook to protect this data and not let other parties have access to it, unless the user agrees. Issues regarding privacy, like this recent software glitch is something facebook has to handle well. However, us as users also have the responsibility to make sure that sensitive information are not put up so readily, and that we make good use of the privacy features. I find it quite simple and handy with the options to customize individual sections, though i would like to be able to set who can view my comments as well.