Swedish Govt May See All Data in New Servers – Sweden’s 2008 law, FRA, allows the government to see any Internet data passing its borders without a warrant. Since the company is set to build a data center there, this potentially means Facebook users’ data could become a target of this law, according to a report.

Cogenra Solar to be Installed at Facebook’s CA HQ – Cogenra Solar is set to install a renewable energy project at Facebook’s new headquarters in Menlo Park, California. According to a statement, the project will provide on site electricity production, hot water, and be integrated into the top of the building’s fitness center to power gym equipment, light and water for the showers.

Most Expect Candidates to be on Social Media – Digitas released a study this week noting that 61% of social media users expect to see candidates on social media platforms like Facebook.

Facebook Seattle Changes Offices - Facebook Seattle is changing office location. There are currently 60 employees but room for up to 200.

Facebook Not Worried About Messages Threat – CDW consultant Nathan Power found a way to send a malicious attachment to other Facebook users. Facebook responded that this threat is no different than the ones faced by other email providers, and requires “an additional layer of social engineering.“ Plus, there are easier ways to get malware to users.

Ceglia Ordered to Return to the U.S. – Paul Ceglia, who claims to own half of Facebook, had fled to Ireland but was ordered by a federal judge to return to New York in order to search for a missing flash drive which may contain pertinent evidence. Ceglia claims the flash drive was lost.

Facebook is showing new signs of maturity and a willingness to tackle tough, unsexy problems. In the last few days it’s made four announcements around hardware efficiency and cybersecurity: the opening of a self-cooling server farm in the Arctic, the launch of its Open Compute foundation for infrastructure open sourcing, details on its Facebook Immune System for thwarting hackers and spammers, and the release of new login security features for users.

Even though Facebook is a fail fast-style startup run by a young CEO, it’s concentrating on stability. This means reducing both server costs and the vulnerability of the user experience to malicious parties trying to exploit it. As the company heads towards an IPO, these long term efforts could bolster confidence in potential investors.

Facebook stepped up efforts to create cheap, environmentally friendly data centers today with the announcement of plans to build a new server farm in Luleå, Sweden. Just south of the Arctic Circle, the area is cold enough that no air conditioning will be required to cool the 11 football fields-worth of servers, reports The Telegraph. The site was specifically chosen because of its proximity to hydroelectric dams on the Lule River and the prevalence of fibre optic cable in the region

With no cooling costs, low-cost energy to power the servers, and high data transfer speeds means that the Luleå Data Center will be even more efficient than Facebook’s stateside Prineville, OR and Rutherford, NC centers. Facebook’s willingness to scout so far from home for a location shows its global orientation.

Facebook launched the Open Compute Project in April to open source server and data center designs in hopes of improving efficiency for itself and all other data-heavy companies. It could also be designed to reduce the competitive advantage of companies such as Google that don’t reveal their designs. Now Facebook has formed a non-profit foundation to run the project. Partners include Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, Intel, Baidu, and Mozilla.

By spearheading the open source project, Facebook intends to cull innovation from around the world to make sure its hardware is efficient as possible without tackling the research and associated costs all on its own. This will allow it to focus resources elsewhere so it can retain its efficiency and small headcount.

Less than 0.5% of Facebook users experience spam each day in part thanks the the Facebook Immune System. The defense system, run by a 30- person security team, is designed to weed out spam and malicious links. It analyzes up to 650,000 user actions per second and 2 trillion link clicks per day, the company recently revealed to New Scientist. Though it may temporarily annoy users, new stats show that Facebook blocks 220 million malicious actions and 250,000 to 600,000 accounts a day to keep threats from spreading.

In case a user’s account is hacked, Facebook is providing more ways for them to regain access. These include Social Authentication that lets users identify friends in photos to prove they’re an account owner, and the Trusted Friends feature announced this week, that sends an access code to a locked out user’s closest friends who can share it with them so they can login again.

These security features on the front and back end keep users from having the terrible experience of a sustained loss of access to their account that can push them and the friends they complain to away from Facebook. In the future, the combination of security precautions and Facebook’s 300-person security and safety team could help it fend off massive attacks that could disrupt service and shake faith in its reliability as a communication medium.

The past few years have seen Facebook grow its user base to 800 million, producing a network effect that protects it from competitors. It has relentlessly evolved its product, even when users were resistant to change, allowing it to incorporate ideas that could have disrupted it had it remained stagnant. It’s created a lucrative Platform developers want to build on. Finally, its turned its Pages and advertising products into central components of brand and local marketing, giving it the money to fund innovation elsewhere. All the core pieces of its business are in place.

These latest improvements to efficiency and security might not be as flashy as a redesign or product launch, but they strengthen the service in ways it was moving too fast to focus on when it was younger. While only seven years old, Facebook is looking more and more like an established, sophisticated company ready to deliver value for a long time into the future — in time for the initial public offering that it is said to be planning for next year.

[Image credit: Fast Company]

As part of National Cyber Security Awareness Month, Facebook has begun the rollout of two new security features to help users regain access to their accounts if they’re locked out and let them access third-party applications safely. Trusted Friends lets locked out users have an access code sent to their close friends. App Passwords lets users bypass the Login Approvals security feature that doesn’t work with some apps by using a unique app-specific password.

Facebook users can sometimes be locked out of their accounts by Facebook’s automated security systems that occasionally produce false positives, as well as by hackers. Users who know about these new features and take the time to enable them will benefit from a reduced chance of being blocked from their account. This will help Facebook reduce the number of horror stories about users losing access to their account for days or weeks, which can permanently hurt users’ perception of the service and lead people to rail against Facebook to their friends.

Trusted Friends builds on Facebook’s Social Authentication security feature that lets users regain access to their accounts by identifying friends in photos — something very difficult for a hacker to do. Facebook likens Trusted Friends to “giving a house key to your friends when you go on vacation”. If users lose their own key (password) as well access to their email account to which a forgotten or lost password could be sent, a friend can unlock their account for them.

To enable Trusted Friends, users will select three to five of their closest friends who’d be willing to help and wouldn’t abuse the ability to access their account. If a user is then locked out, they can then have an access code sent to these friends, who then share it with them in person, or via an electronic means other than Facebook. The locked out user can submit the code to unlock their account.

In some cases Social Authentication can prove to difficult for users to complete, especially if the photos shown are of a friend when they were younger, or of a weak acquaintance such as someone met through social games. Facebook has improved the feature over time to only ask users to identify photos that clearly display a face of a friend they frequently interact with. Still, false positives have occurred and legitimate account owners have been be denied access. Now if this happens, Facebook can use Trusted Friends, if enabled, to prevent sustained account lockout.

Facebook implemented a security feature earlier this year called Login Approvals that when enabled requires users to enter a security code texted to their phone whenever they login to Facebook or a third-party app. However, some types of apps using atypical interfaces, such as Xbox, Spotify, and Skype don’t properly generate the code entry dialog. This can cause users with Login Approvals enabled to be denied access to these third-party apps.

To solve this problem, Facebook has created App Passwords. Rather than entering their primary Facebook password alongside their email address, they can enter a unique App Password instead to effectively turn off Login Approvals for that app. Users can visit the Account Settings -> Security tab and enter the name of an app generate a unique password for it.

While App Passwords are only necessary for a the small percentage of people who both use Login Approvals and some special apps, Trusted Friends can help all users. Facebook should run an awareness campaign for the feature finishes being rolled out. That way it can continue aggressively protecting the site from hackers but reduce the risk of users enduring the nightmare of being blocked from the social network that’s one of their core communication mediums.

Sparapani Leaves Facebook – Tim Sparapani, one of Facebook’s initial Washington, D.C. hires, unexpectedly left as director of public policy this week.

Mail.ru Stock Could Be Down for a While - Mail.ru stock has taken a beating in the stock market and some speculate that this could be a permanent move.

BranchOut, CareerBuilder Partner Up – BranchOut, a professional networking app on Facebook, announced this week the company partnered with the job site CareerBuilder.

AdParlor Reaches Agreement with Getty Images – This week Getty Images and AdParlor agreed to provide access to 1.2 million images directly to AdParlor customers purchasing ads on Facebook. This will relieve advertisers using AdParlor’s Pulse Ads API tool for agencies from having to create their own image or pay to license stock images.

Facebook, Websense Team Up – Web security firm Websense and Facebook teamed up this week to protect users against malicious sites and malware.

Complications with Michael Jackson Livestream – AllThingsD reported this week complications emerged when a Michael Jackson concert that was supposed to be livestreamed on Facebook was cancelled.

Yesterday, Facebook announced updates to the Requests 2.0 including the introduction of frictionless requests that don’t require users to complete a Requests dialog. This could get users to send more Requests, helping apps gain new users and reengage existing users. However, some users might opt in to frictionless requests without fully understanding the feature’s implications, and later be surprised to find out their in-app actions have been sending Requests to their friends

It also set the deprecation schedule for FBML. Support will be discontinued on January 1st, 2012, and apps using FBML will cease to work on June 1st, 2012. Last week’s Platform Update also noted additions to the Graph API, a change to setAutoResize, and a new way for developers to have their apps indexed. Finally, tomorrow is the migration deadline for OAuth 2.0 and HTTPS.

Requests 2.0 Updates

Previously, developers had to force users through a Requests dialog every time they want to send a Request. Developers can now enable frictionless requests, which allows them to automatically send Requests on behalf of its users when a user opts to send a Request to a friend they’ve already sent one to.

If enabled, when users go to send their first request to a specific friend, they’ll see a checkbox for “Don’t ask again before sending Requests to [this friend] from this app.” Next time they opt to send a Request to that same friend from that same app, the Request will be automatically sent without interrupting usage of the app.

As Requests are an important driver of growth and retention for apps, making it easier for users to send Requests should help apps increase their user counts. Frictionless Requests may also be compatible with Facebook’s forthcoming HTML5 mobile app platform, which will allow users to send Requests that are delivered as notifications.

Facebook is also implementing a new breaking change to Requests 2.0 that will improve its performance. A new migration setting called “Requests 2.0 Efficient” is now available in the Developer app. When activated this “changes the format for request IDs in the JavaScript requests callback method.” Developers should make the change to their JavaScript and then enable the migration.

In 90 days on January 1st, 2012, all apps will be opted into both Requests 2.0 Efficient and Upgrade to Requests 2.0. Developers should make sure they’re ready to prevent breakage. New apps are now opted into both these migrations and cannot opt out. Apps are also now responsible for deleting old Requests. Details for making the migration are available in the Requests documentation.

FBML Deprecation

Facebook announced over a year ago its plans to deprecate FBML. In March 2011, it ceased to allow new FBML apps to be created. Now it has scheduled the final two steps of the deprecation.

On January 1st, 2012 Facebook will stop supporting FBML and cease to fix bugs except for those related to privacy and security. On June 1st, 2012, Facebook will remove all FBML endpoints and any apps built on the language will stop functioning. The deprecation will make Facebook app development more accessible as programmers won’t have to use a proprietary language.

The two main parts of FBML that remain useful to developers are Requests and Static FBML. Requests can now be handled with Requests 2.0, and Static FBML can be replaced with iframe apps. Several Facebook Preferred Developer Consultants offer free iframe app builders, including Wildfire Interactive. Facebook has also worked with Wildfire to offer a FBML to iframe migration tutorial. XFBML will not be deprecated.

Platform Updates

As detailed in a Platform Update, problems with FB.Canvas.setAutoResize have forced Facebook to rename the call for controlling how an app is displayed on the Canvas page. The function is now named FB.Canvas.setAutoGrow and only works for increasing the size of an app. To shrink an app, Facebook recommends using “FB.Canvas.setSize with a height parameter to set the iframe height explicitly.” FB.Canvas.setAutoResize will be deprecated on January 1st, 2012.

Mutual friends between two users can now be retrieved from the Graph API with the call: https://graph.facebook.com/me/mutualfriends/FRIEND_ID

The following information about an application can now be pulled from the Graph API:

• canvas_name
• logo_url
• icon_url
• company
• daily_active_users
• weekly_active_users
• monthly_active_users

To do so, developers can use the call https://graph.facebook.com/ANY_APP_ID

To simplify how apps are indexed by Facebook’s internal search engine, now when apps reach 10 month active users they are queued to be indexed in the next index rebuild which happens ever two to four weeks. Developers no long need use the setting page’s Submit to Search link. This will make sure apps that are gaining users aren’t accidentally left out of search.

OAuth 2.0 and HTTPS Migration Deadline Tomorrow

In May, Facebook announced that developers would eventually need to migrate to a more secure way to pass access tokens and allow users to browse their apps over a secure HTTPS connection. This followed a security issue where apps were found to be leaking permissions tokens that could give third-parties unauthorized access to user data. The migration becomes mandatory tomorrow, October 1st, 2011.

Developers must use OAuth 2.0 for authentication, encrypt access tokens, and have an SSL certificate and provide a secure browsing URL. To assist developers, Facebook has released admin.setAppProperties which allows the necessary settings changes to be made programmatically. FBML apps must also have SSL certificates and secure browsing URLs.

Facebook offers users the Download Your Information tool to let them get a copy of all their content and connections, but we’ve now learned that the site is storing additional data about users not available in this export. This data includes deleted content, rejected friend requests, removed friends, a list of all of a user’s logins with timestamps and IP addresses, and several unfilled data fields that could pertain to unreleased products.

European citizens can request for Facebook to send the a CD loaded with a .PDF of this data plus much of what’s available in Download Your Information independently or through a privacy organization called Europe vs. Facebook, as Silicon Filter reports. However, Facebook makes users fill out a complicated form and reports indicate it doesn’t always comply with requests right away.

Still, the knowledge that Facebook is storing so much data, meta-data, and deleted data on users may impact how they use the site and view the company. Facebook should consider making more of the data it holds available to each user regardless of their citizenship. Most of the data wouldn’t be valuable to competitors, but just knowing they could retrieve it might quiet the privacy and data portability concerns of some.

Critics and security researches often complain about how Facebook handles user data. Just this week, Facebook came under some partially misguided criticism about the cookies it stores on a user’s device after they log out. Nik Cubrilovic thought Facebook was using some cookies for ad targeting when they were actually to improve site security. However, Facebook did confirm a bug discovered by Cubrilovic was causing User ID numbers to be stored in cookies in some cases, and has pledged to fix this today. More transparency could reduce the frequency of these complaints.

Highlights from the Facebook Privacy Data CDs

European users who succeed in leveraging their right to access personal data about themselves receive a CD containing the following data fields:

Here we’ll look closer at some of the more interesting data fields and discuss why users might be concerned that Facebook is holding this information:

Removed Friends and Friend Requests

Last week, a guide surfaced explaining how to use a complicated process and the new Timeline profile to determine who you are no longer friends with but once were. This data is readily available in the Facebook data CD.

User     Peter Freund (2266770044)
Time     2008-06-05 23:54:03 UTC
Removed By     2266770044

Also available is the date, sender, recipient, and status of all the friend requests a user has sent or received. Users might be surprised to find out even their rejected friend requests are being stored.

Sender     Peter Unfreundlich (1122334455)
Recipient     Max Mustermann (123456789)
Rejected      true
Time      2008-08-25 06:50:56 UTC

Logins and Account Status History

The Facebook data CD includes a record of the time, IP address, and site of every time a user has ever logged in to Facebook. This data may be deleted by Facebook after some time. As there is no record of visits or time-on-site, this is the closest users can get to finding out how frequently they’ve checked Facebook. Also available is a record of all the account activations and deactivations, which could be used to identify those especially concerned with privacy.

Ip     178.190.001.001
Time     2011-06-27 17:41:16 UTC
Site     WWW

Photos, Shares, and Wall Posts

While users can find some of this data in Download Your Information, these fields also included content users had deleted as well as lots of meta data. Shared links and wall posts that users had deleted appeared in the data CD.

It appears that when a user deletes a tag of themselves from a photo, that tag is actually only “deactivated” and may still be present in Facebook’s records. All the meta data about a photo’s location, when it was taken, with what device, and many of the device’s photo settings are also available in the data CD but not Download Your Information.

Album    Mobile Uploads
Image    [Fofo-Datei]
Titel    Picture of Max, Perta and Kurt
Photo   http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/123_123_123_123_123_n.jpg
Link     http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=123456789&set=a.123.123.123&type=1
Upload Ip     123.123.123.123
Uploaded     2009-04-10  13:06:43 UTC
Tags               Subject Id     123456789
                      Subject Name     Max Mustermann
                      Creator Id     123456789
                      Created     2009-04-10 17:25:23
                      X      51
                      Y      23
Comments     User     Max Mustermann (123456789)
                     Text      I love this pic!
                     Time     2009-04-10 17:28:10 UTC
Taken     2009-04-10  11:03:46 UTC
Modified     1234567890
Camera Make     Apple
Camera Model     iPhone 3GS
Orientation    1
Original Width    0
Original Height     0
Exposure    
Fstop  
Iso Speed     0
Focal Lenght    
Latitude     48.123456789012
Longitude     16.3655

Last Location

This shows the geographic location of a user’s last login to Facebook, including latitude, longitude, altitude, accuracy, altitude accuracy, heading, and speed. This data could be based on IP address, mobile phone sensors, checkins, listed current city, and more. It could be used to personalize the site’s content. It could also help Facebook identify suspicious logins that may have come from hackers, such as if a user logged in from California then soon after logged in from Russia.

Time     2011-04-16 18:51:27 UTC
Latitude     37.34688913
Longitude     121.94080227
Altitude     0
Accuracy     675
Altitude Accuracy    -1
Heading     -1
Speed    -1

Name Changes

Users are able to change their name on Facebook a small number of times. The record of different names used is not available to a user or their friends through the site, but can be found on the data CD. The information could be used to help law enforcement identify someone by a previously used alias.

Time 2010-03-19 11:48:50 UTC
Old Name Max Mustermann
New Name Max NonOfFacebooksBusiness

Credit Cards

Users who have purchased Facebook Credits will have their credit card information included in an encrypted format on their data CD. The inclusion of this data may contribute to the thorough verification process Facebook makes users undertake to attain the CD.

Profile Blurb

This field came up blank for those who posted excerpts of their data to Europe vs. Facebook. It could possibly be an old “About” section of the profile, or could indicate a forthcoming profile info section that would display introduction on the new Timeline profile design.

Physical Tokens

This field also came up blank. It could be used to list an ID number or something similar for Facebook employees who use a physical key card or security device such as RSA to enter Facebook offices. Alternatively, there’s a chance it could point to a future location product that uses near field communication-enabled devices to let users swipe to check in to Places.

More Info on Facebook’s Spartan – TechCrunch reported more information about BoltJS, a UI framework designed by Facebook and written in JavaScript that runs in the browser. Apparently it’s part of Facebook’s Project Spartan, which may not be fully revealed until f8.

Facebook Settles With Lamebook – Lamebook, a humor site publishing funny Facebook posts, and Facebook settled this week. The judge refused to move the suit to California, and thus, some speculate that Facebook settled to avoid jury sympathy for the Austin-based company.

Facebook Extends Comment Period – Facebook extended the comment period for its new privacy policy to 5 p.m. Pacific on September 7. Comments may be left at Facebook’s Site Governance Page.

Facebook Testing Comment Ordering? – AllFacebook reported that Facebook seems to be testing a way for Page admins to order comments based on social ranking, chronology or reverse chronology. [Image via AllFacebook]

Facebook Pays $40,000 in Bounty Program – Facebook’s Bug Bounty program has, thus far, paid out $40,000 to people around the world who have reported issues to the company. Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan wrote a blog about the program this week with more information.

Interesting Insights on Facebook Ads – SocialCode reported some interesting trends about Facebook ads, including: women are 11% more likely to click, older women are more likely to click through and men are slightly more likely to Like an ad.

HTML5 Mobile App Allows for Connect – Nitobi, creators of PhoneGap, launched a new plugin, PhoneGap Facebook Connect. Essentially it allows users to login to HTML and JavaScript apps with their Facebook login.

Social Networks and Patents – Business Week published an interesting story examining the lack of a “patent war” when it comes to social media companies like Facebook and Twitter. One reason the magazine speculated, is that Facebook (for example) only holds 12 patents, which is to say, there aren’t as many patents to fight over.

Facebook Developer Blog: Fluid Canvas – Facebook’s Developer blog posted this week about how to build an app on Facebook with Fluid Canvas, to expand the size of apps, depending on a user’s screen resolution.

Other Announcements:

Appbistro Announces PPI Ads for Page Apps – Appbistro announced that the company now installs apps for Page admins, thus the company has seen a 190% increase in installs, recently hitting 100,000 registered Page admins.

Vitrue Releases SaaS 3.0 – Vitrue released version 3.0 of its social media platform, which includes new localization features, analytics and metrics.

Hootsuite Deepens Facebook Integration – AllFacebook reports that HootSuite has deepened its Facebook integration, specifically adding events, photos, groups, and geo-tool updates.

15% of Posts are Likejacked – Norton’s analysis of 3.5 million video posts in August found that 15% were scams, or like jacking. Norton Safe Web for Facebook is an app that may guard against this type of attack.

Facebook users can currently see the usually hidden list of which friends they interact with most by running a line of JavaScript through a bookmarklet created by developer Jeremy Keeshin. When the bookmarklet is clicked while one browses Facebook, an overlay called “Facebook Friend Rankings” appears in which the lower the number next to a friend’s name, the more a user communicates with, views the profile of, and searches for that friend or other Facebook user.

The information exposed by the JavaScript might alarm some users, as they might not expect that Facebook had been quantifying their behavior so exactly to power products such as the relevancy-filtered Top News feed, search results, and who appears at the top of their Chat buddy list. It could raise privacy concerns as friend rankings indicate who users “Facebook stalk” the most and could be embarrassing if leaked to the public by a hacker or bug.

Facebook calculates the friend ranking scores by analyzing all of a user’s on-site behavior and connections. Other signals in addition to those listed above that likely contribute to these scores include who a user is tagged in photos with, how many mutual friends they, if they Like the same Pages or are members of the same Group, if they check in together, and if they have matching biographical characteristics such as current city, hometown, employers, or education history. The score evolves and becomes more accurate over time.

Facebook uses the friend ranking score to increase the relevancy of its products by making sure users see news feed stories about the people they’re most interested in, can quickly find them in search and Chat, and receive push notifications about them on their mobile devices. Facebook engineer Keith Adams confirms that a user’s browsing behavior only impacts what they themselves see, and that viewing tons of photos of a certain friend won’t make a user appear in that friend’s news feed any more frequently. Users have long been interested in finding out who browses their profile though this information is not available, leading the rise of fake “profile spy” applications that are actually scams.

These scores have been built from years of data and thousands of actions, and the ability to customize the site for relevance is one of Facebook’s greatest strengths. The lack of this data would hamper the functionality of competing social networks such as Google+, even if they had your friend list.

At the top of the friend rankings list users will see their closest friends, people they’ve interacted with a lot recently, and those they frequently visit the profiles of. At the bottom they may see non-friends who they’re connected to through mutual friends or who they used to be friends with.

By using the right-click option “Inspect Element” in Google Chrome or Firebug in Firefox, users can view the file “first_degree.php” which includes the friend ranking data. Facebook pre-loads this file to speed up typeahead search results. In it, users will notice “tokens” associated with some friends. These are alternate names that can be used to initiate a friend tag in a status update or photo or find these friends in Facebook search, and include long and short forms of common names, familial relation types, and old names of users who’ve since changed their Facebook name. For example, a friend named Richard would have the tokens “rick” and “dick”, while a friend that a user has confirmed as their brother would have the token “brother”.

Users who want to view their friend rankings should do so now as Facebook may modify its code to prevent users from seeing this data. This is because knowledge that such a list even exists could scare users into avoiding any embarrassing browsing behavior. It’s these extended viewing sessions of an ex-lover’s photos or the wall of an admired peer that help drive the social network’s massive average time-on-site, so Facebook probably doesn’t want users to think these friend rankings could ever see the light of day.

UK Officials Meet With Facebook to Stem Riots – United Kingdom officials are set to meet with Facebook, Twitter and BlackBerry regarding their corporate responsibility to not fuel riots, such as those recently plaguing London. One possible outcome: to suspend social networks when governments deem it an emergency.

NYPD Forms Social Media Tracking Unit – The New York Police Department has recently formed a unit specifically to track activity on Facebook and Twitter. Specifically information about parties, gang activity and other problems will be the focus. [Image via Facebook]

Facebook is Not Posting Phone Numbers – Facebook is responding to a viral warning that the company is “stealing” or posting users’ phone numbers for everyone to see. It says phone numbers of friends are kept private.

European Social Network Netlog Banned From Facebook – Netlog, a European social network with roughly 80 million user has been banned from the Facebook Platform after it tried to “access internal Facebook APIs and deliberately compromised intended limitations of our platform acebook has banned the European,” Facebook said.

Facebook, Ceglia, Continue to Duel – Last week Facebook announced that it had “smoking gun” evidence against would-be Facebook owner Paul Ceglia to prove that his lawsuit is frivolous. Then, it turns out, Ceglia is in Ireland and saying he’s being harassed by Facebook.

More Facebook Means More Narcissism – Facebook can lead to mental health issues for teens according to one psychology professor’s research. The American Psychological Association conference presentation included information that heavy Facebook users suffering anxiety and depression, and are more likely to be narcissistic.

Facebook Helps College Newspapers – Facebook has created a guide for college media on how to use Facebook in different ways in the newsroom. [Image via Facebook]

Our Eyes Perceive Facebook, Google+ Similarly – A study found that Google+ has a setup that allows users to perceive it almost identically to Facebook. The study from EyeTrackShop tracked the order of visual fixation for 54 users, finding high correlation between the two networks.

Google+ Set to Surpass Twitter – A study from the UK found that Google+ is set to become the second-largest social network after Facebook.

Other Announcements:

Vitrue, Clear Channel Radio Partner – Vitrue and Clear Channel Radio have announced a partnership in which all of the company’s 850 radio stations will implement Vitrue’s SRM platform.

Buckaroo Unveils Social Media Promotions – Buckaroo has announced a new way that businesses can combine social deals with email marketing, Facebook and Twitter. The technology is designed for small businesses.

Career Notify Leverages Facebook in Job Hunt – Career Notify is a recruitment and head hunting service that sends email notifications to Facebook friends and contacts whenever anyone gets a new job, promotion, or resigns.

Facebook has ported a security feature and anti-cyberbullying tool to m.facebook.com from its web interface. The enhanced password reset feature allows mobile users to have a new password sent to an email address or phone number if they can verify their identity. Social reporting lets users contact the owner of objectionable content, such as an embarrassing photo of them, and ask them to delete it. Facebook is slowly rolling out the features to m.facebook.com, and plans to add them to its native mobile apps such as Facebook for iPhone and Android soon.

With a sizable percentage of users primarily accessing the site via mobile devices, especially in the developing world, Facebook has been making an effort to bring security, safety, and privacy controls of its website to its mobile interfaces. These features will allow users to regain access to their account and protect themselves from defamation without having to find a wired internet connection.

Mobile Password Reset

Currently, mobile users who forget their password can have it emailed or SMS’d to the address or phone number associated with their account. The new enhancements to this interface will help users that may have also lost access to their email address or phone number. When they go to log in on their mobile interface, they’ll have the option to initiate a password reset. They’ll then be able to use social authentication — identifying friends from photos — or other security data to verify they’re the actual owner of the account, and have a new password sent to an email address or phone number of their choice.

A year ago, Facebook began testing social authentication on its web interface to screen suspicious logins. At first, the system ended up locking out some legitimate owners of accounts because they couldn’t identify friends who didn’t show their face in their profile photo, or that they only new from social games. With time, social authentication has been improved such that only photos that clearly show a face are used.  Users already have mobile access to many of Facebook’s other account security features, including the ability to remotely end an active session, and require a two-factor authentication to login.

Mobile Social Reporting

Sometimes Facebook users post content that doesn’t necessarily violate the site’s terms of service, but may offend another user. For instance, a friend could upload a photo of another user in a compromising situation that could get them in trouble with their family or employer. Previously users had to either report the issue to Facebook, costing the site support time in cases where they don’t have the grounds to take action against the offending user, or clumsily message that friend or talk to them in person about removing the content.

To solve this issue, Facebook added a social reporting feature to its web interface in March. This allowed users to click a link on an offensive photo, wall post, or other content and send a pre-formatted message to its owner that links to the content and asked them to remove it. Facebook says this has been a success, with 70% of friend-to-friend requests for content to be removed being honored. Now it’s extending social reporting to its mobile interfaces.

Cyberbullying of this nature is big issue for teens who are also some of the most frequent Facebook mobile users, so mobile social reporting has great potential to protect users. This is the latest effort by Facebook to reduce intimidation on its site, having previously formed a child safety advisory board, and launched a family safety center in its Help Center.

Users who stick to the web interface or that use web and mobile in conjunction might not need these new mobile features. However, if their only internet-connected device is their phone, being able to regain access to a hacked account or get a photo taken down that might have gotten them in trouble using the mobile interface could keep them engaged with the site. Otherwise, a phished account or bully could be the end of their time on Facebook.