In a somewhat surprising release, Facebook launched a new feature called Place Tips for New York City users this week. If your location services are turned on, the Facebook mobile app will bring tips, photos and posts that pertain to your location to your News Feed. “News Feed today is a pretty good tool at…

According to a survey of legal firms’ caseloads by the UK paper Mirror, Facebook is now citied in one-third of all divorce cases. The evidence gathered on the site ranges from messages that prove infidelity to geo-tagging records and photographic evidence. “Social media provides an ongoing log of our lives,” said Lyn Ayrton, managing partner…

For about 45 minutes on Tuesday this week, both Facebook and Instagram suffered an outage. This immediately sparked rumors that the site had been attacked by hackers, and indeed, a hacker group called Lizard Squad claimed responsibility for the site crash. However, Facebook denied an attack had taken place and instead said the outage occurred…

According to a recent story in The New York Times, colleges are combing through alumni Facebook and LinkedIn profiles to figure out who — and how — they should ask for money. These schools often use third-party companies to gather their information and create custom pitches to appeal to alumni for donations. One such company,…

A woman sued federal agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) last year over a bizarre case in which the agents created a fake Facebook account for her to try and catch drug dealers. After arresting her for intent to distribute cocaine in 2010, the DEA agents pulled salacious photos of the woman, Sondra Arquiett,…

A new law went into effect in Illinois on January 1 that allows schools to demand students’ Facebook passwords as part of school discipline. The law was made with good intentions, designed to catch cyberbullies, but with most issues of online privacy, it could have big unintended consequences. According to a letter sent out to…

Facebook announced in a blog post this week that it is stepping up its efforts to reduce hoaxes and fake stories in users’ News Feeds. According to the site, the new update will reduce the distribution of posts that have been reported as hoaxes, and warnings will be added to these posts to discourage other…

A 30-year-old man in Tallahassee, Florida  has been arrested for hacking into multiple people’s email and Facebook accounts, stealing photos and wreaking general havoc in their online lives. The suspect, Michael Rubens, hacked one woman’s email and sent messages to her sister and boyfriend asking for “sexy pictures.” He also posted nude or sexual photos…

British Prime Minister David Cameron slammed Facebook last year after it was revealed that extremists had discussed their plot to kill a soldier within the United Kingdom on the site, plans that ultimately led to the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby. Cameron called Facebook a “safe haven” for terrorists, and said the site could have…

Graphic and violent videos have long been a controversial part of Facebook News Feeds. Even though the site takes down some explicit content, it often allow these posts to remain up either on free speech grounds or because they don’t violate Facebook’s often-confusing Community Standards. However, the site took a big step toward protecting users…