It would appear Facebook has started another firestorm ... this time over changing members' email address contact without advising them.
Facebook unilaterally changed all user emails displayed on profile pages to a facebook@com address, and hid the user's previous yahoo, gmail, hotmail, etc. email address.
According to an AP account, "By hiding other email addresses Facebook can keep its already-captive audience even more captive. Sending an email to a Facebook.com address will land the email in the messages section of a user's Facebook profile. The more people use Facebook to communicate, the more the company can target ads based on the conversations they have on its platform - just as Google targets ads to Gmail users based on text in their emails."
Not being complete jerks, it would appear Facebook has started another firestorm ... this time over changing members' email address contact without advising them.
Shame on Facebook for making changes without telling users, and thank goodness the AP published articles about the change so users could revert to their previous settings.
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And if anything supports the concept that one cannot believe everything that is on the Internet, this is it.
Rhode Island lawmakers voted in June to repeal a 1989 law that made it a misdemeanor punishable by up to a $500 fine and one year in jail to lie on the Internet.
Duh! How authorities would ever enforce such an idiotic law is completely beyond me, especially since it could make everyone in the state subject to prosecution when they tell Aunt Alice how much they loved the awful Christmas sweater she sent, on how much they enjoyed their time with grouchy Uncle Bill or how cute Cousin Nancy's ugly baby is and what an adorable couple homely Cousin Joe and his new girlfriend are.
Yes, there are those socially-acceptable times when everyone lies to keep from hurting someone's feelings. But, in Rhode Island that would have been a crime.
The law initially was intended to stop fraud, con artists and scammers, but went too far and also outlawed the "transmission of false data" regardless of whether liars stood to profit from the deception.
Rep. Chris Blazejewski, who proposed eliminating the law, said lies may make one a scoundrel, cost relationships and get one fired, but they shouldn't make one a criminal unless a criminal fraud is involved.
"There are a lot of things we don't condone in our society that aren't crimes," Blazejewski said. "We take freedom of speech very seriously in this country and we should be concerned about the real and serious possibility of further erosion to our First Amendment civil liberties."
So, again, just because you read it on the Internet that doesn't mean it isn't a lie. You always have to consider the source's reliability.
Contact Jim Smith at jsmith@newsandsentinel.com
