90% of Icelanders Are Facebook Users

According to the SocialBakers’ (a company studying the social networks’ statistics) recent data, in Iceland there are as many as 278 480 registered Facebook users. This amounts to 90% of the whole Iceland population. Only 8% of Icelanders with Internet do not have a FB account. The most - 25% - Fecebook users are young adults, i.e. people aged 18-24. Other statistics are the following: 25-34 years old – 24% of Facebook users, 35-44 years of age – 15% of FB users, 45-54 years old – 11% of Faceboook users, and age groups 16-17 and 55-64 – 7% of Facebook users.  

As far as the gender is concerned, 53% of Facebook users in Iceland constitute men and 47% women.

Is a Facebook invitation a good way to ask your friends to come to your birthday party?

It was not for Łukasz K. (29 years old) from Pełczyce, Poland. “Flying” flowerpots, broken beds, and painted with markers walls were only a drop in a bucket of damages after Łukasz’s birthday party to which he invited his 150 FB friends. The party was interrupted by the police who were called by his neighbours. After the party Łukasz packed his clothes and food and headed for a foot trip to Polish mountains.

It all started with Łukasz posting an invitation on Facebook. He wrote his address, the time when the party begins and stressed that places are limited.  Łukasz’s neighbours claim that they have never seen so many people in one place. Later on, when more guests arrived, street fights began. The noise was heard in the whole town of Pełczyce. Łukasz attended the party only in the beginning. Later he went out of his house to line skate with his friend.

As he returned and saw the destroyed house, he packed his clothes and food and left his parents a letter that he went for a foot trip. In his last Fecebook status he wrote he had spent the night in the woods near Leszno.

How Facebook Influences Our Lives?

There is no doubt that Facebook influences our lives and our relations with others. But is this influence good or bad?

As many as 24% of people are addicted to Facebook and did not fully participate in their lives’ important events because they were busy sharing them on FB. Everyday Facebook users spend approximately 10.5 billion minutes (mobile Facebook users are not counted here) on this social network website. It is almost 20 thousand years!!! Americans spend more time on FB using mobile phones than computers. Singapore inhabitants spend the most time on Fecebook.

Most people use Faceboook to maintain contacts with their real life friends. 62% of them shares with their FB friends the good news, like engagement or pregnancy. Others, especially younger people, plan their free time on Facebook. 84% of Fecebook users contact with their friends or family, who live or went abroad or to another town. 39% of this social network users spend more time online than in the real life and 33% of them are more willing to tell something to somebody online than in a face-to-face conversation.

Undoubtedly, social media have their advantages. They help shy and lonely people to find friends and feel better. But do not let FB ruin your real life.

Popular Facebook Users Are More Prone to Stress

Do you think that having a lot of Facebook friends is a good idea? On the contrary. Scientists claim that the more Fecebook friends you have, the worse you will feel. How is this even possible?

A group of scientists from the University of Edinburgh Napier conducted a research on 175 students and asked them questions related to FB. Dr Kathy Charles, one of the scientists, claims that people with many Faceboook friends are more stressed. It is because our behavior and look are judged by a greater number of people.  

As many as 12% of respondents admitted that they feel uneasy about this fact and these were persons who had on average 117 Facebook friends. Interestingly, people with approximately 75 FB friends did not feel this way.

The problem might be the communication with our friends. These are different sorts of people to whom we must adjust our posts and it is not easy. We also should not invite our boss to our friends on Facebook, because we would have to be careful what we write. There were cases when somebody was fired because of a comment about their jobs or bosses.  

 These days we have a lot of causes of stress and therefore we should not stress about our Facebook friends. Maybe it’s high time to „clean” our Facebook friends list.

Facebook does not distinguish bust from elbow

It is not worth trusting the AI. The Facebook case proves it is too early for that.

The algorithms that check FB photos deleted a picture of a woman in her bathtub because of its alleged porn content, which is forbidden by Fecebook.  However, we could only see the women’s face and elbows in the picture. The machine most probably took the elbows for bust and erased the woman’s Facebook photo.  

Faceboook admitted they made a mistake, posted the photo back and apologised to the woman. This case, however, proves that  the AI cannot replace human. Not yet at least.

Another party gone wild because of the Facebook invitation

An invitation posted on FB attracted hundreds of people. A 14-year-old Sandra from a tiny town of Tomaszów Lubelski, Poland posted an open invitation for her birthday on her Fecebook page. Guests from as far as Gdańsk (northern Poland) and Krakow (southern Poland) came to that party.

The birthday party did not take place but Polish police had to intervene for 600 guests were blocking local roads.

In her Facebook invitation, Sandra wrote that everyone can come to her birthday party. One of her neighbours said that it had been written that the richest girl in Tomaszow was throwing a party and everyone could come.

There were as many as 21.000 Likes and approximately 3.000 declarations of participation in the event. It was a huge case in such a small town as Tomaszów. Sandra claims that someone hacked her Faceboook  page and posted this invitation. Local police is in the process of investigation.

Sandra’s neighbours say they have never experienced something like that. People came and went, sang Happy Birthday and wanted Sandra to go out and party with them. The junkies had a great fun and the local pizza house granted discounts for Sandra’s party guests.  

Facebook’s naked fashion

Not so long ago friends of Norwegian skier Marit Bjørgen, i.e. Vibeke Skofterud and Kristin Stoermer Steira undressed to show that they have always been doping-free and have nothing to hide. Now we can admire nude pictures of Czech women’s biathlon team on FB.

Their Fecebook photos have become extremely popular. Although the biathlon team are not as famous as their Norwegian friends, they look equally attractive topless. This is a very interesting way to show one’s attitude to doping in sport.

Facebook lawsuit: Paul Ceglia arrested

Paul Ceglia, who two years ago sued Mark Zuckerberg, has been arrested. He is accused of fraud. Ceglia claimed he owned 50% stake in Facebook; the stake was supposed to be a remuneration for some programming work.  

In 2010, Paul Ceglia filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg demanding his promised 50% interest in FB. Lately, the US court has announced that Ceglia falsified the first page of the agreement between him and the Fecebook owner.  Moreover, it claimed that emails from July 2003 and July 2004 in which both men allegedly discussed thefacebook.com and ideas on how to make money on the website were fabricated as well.

Each of Paul Ceglia’s frauds (mail fraud and wire fraud) carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

Facebook and Yahoo to beat Google?

Two women who made Google the most popular search engine now declare war against the company. Together with Facebook and Yahoo  they want to create a better browser than Google’s.  

These women are Sheryl Sandberg and Marissa Mayer. They both used to work for Google, but now would like, together with Fecebook and Yahoo, to create a search engine that would be the best in the market. Currently, the unquestionable leader in this field is Google. Google website is visited by 620 million people daily and 97% of the company’s income comes from ads.

This market domination cannot be accepted by FB and Yahoo. Therefore, they hired two former Google managers, Sandberg and Mayer. These two women are the ones to be praised for the success of Google.

The decision on hiring these two influential businesswomen by Facebook and Yahoo should not be surprising. The FB owner, Mark Zuckerberg, has always been dreaming of replacing Google on the first place in the ranking of search engines.  

Polish Priest Announces on his Facebook Page that Halloween is Harmful and Should Be Abolished

Polish priest Pawel Zawada has recently posted on his FB page that Halloween is a Satan’s night and those who would be celebrating it on 31 October are going to be doomed.  He also claims that in Poland it is on Halloween that Satanists provide sacrifices during their black masses.  The priest has as many as 934 Fecebook friends.

In Poland he is not the only one who thinks like that. Poland is predominantly a Catholic country and many have a similar point of view. Warsaw Archbishop Kazimierz Nycz, for example, claims that Halloween promotes “occult and magic” and therefore is against the teaching of the Catholic Church.   

In Poland Halloween is a new tradition. Since 1989, i.e. the Fall of the Iron Curtain, Poles have been celebrating All Saints’ Day (on 1 November).

Max Schrems vs. Facebook

Although Facebook has many proponents, a great number of them find at least something annoying about this social network.  A 24-year-old student from Austria, Max Schrems, finds the whole idea of Facebook not only annoying, but against the law.  According to Schrems FB makes illegal use of its users’ private data.

Max Schrems got interested by this dark side of Facebook last year, when he came for a one-semester student exchange to Santa Clara University, US. Then, his professor invited Facebook privacy lawyer Ed Palmieri to give a speech to the class. Schrems was shocked that the lawyer had little idea about how severe data protection laws are in Europe. He decided to write his thesis about Fecebook not understanding Europe’s privacy law. While making research for his paper, Max found out that Faceboook  owns hundreds-of-pages-long acts about one user and keeps data even about those who signed out from FB. After his come back to Austria, he publicized his findings online. Now this is a case for Congress.