But Dr. Boyd — a senior researcher at Microsoft, an assistant professor at New York University and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard — is a widely respected figure in social media research.

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According to the study,  Facebook is making us sad. Why? It’s all about the kinds of pictures people to post on their pages.

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In a blog post about the new timeline, Facebook engineer Paul McDonald called it “an easy way to rediscover the things you shared, and collect your most important moments.”

The new timeline shows the years of your life (or at least the content you’ve posted) and allows users who you share with the ability to go back and look at highlights, including  pictures and posts that you’ve shared on the service. Visibility of this timeline is subject to your privacy settings and who you chose to share the information with.

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One of the Internet’s latest privacy controversies surrounds the rapidly-growing web site Isanyoneup.com.  The site, which launched in late 2010, is essentially a hybrid of social media and amateur pornography – described by some media outlets as a blog for “Revenge Porn.” The blog features thousands of posts containing extremely explicit photos of naked men and women, submitted by the site’s users.  While self-submit pornography sites aren’t all that uncommon, the real difference with Isanyoneup.com – and the true reason for the firestorm it has caused – is that the majority of the pictures on the site are not submitted by the people in those pictures. Instead, the site serves its purpose as a forum where jilted exes and revenge-seekers may share the most intimate photos of those towards whom they wish to retaliate (perhaps another variant of cyberbullying?). As if that was not enough, the blog has developed over time to include screenshots of the Facebook profiles and Twitter feeds of the people featured on the site.

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A program launching December 13th enables users to instantly connect with a crisis counselor through Facebook’s “chat” messaging system.

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The goal is to build relationships that benefit you and the organization, and to create communications and experiences that inform, engage, position, and—ultimately—foster behavioral change. The goal is not to create and distribute a lot of stuff, or win a bunch of communications awards, although we sometimes lose sight of that. Relationships will always matter most; but how we maintain and strengthen those relationships will vary greatly based on new technologies and communications preferences driven by age, ethnicity, race, gender, wealth, and other demographic factors.

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The Federal Trade Commission and Facebook have reached a settlement on charges that Facebook deceived consumers “by telling them they could keep their information on Facebook private, and then repeatedly allowing it to be shared and made public.”

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“Facebook will soon be on privacy probation, thanks to a proposed settlement with the Federal Trade Commission,” PC World reports. It’s referring to a “consent agreement” about the FTC’s “reason to believe” that Facebook has committed “fraudulent, deceptive, [or] unfair business practices,” as the FTC put it in its press release. After a 30-day comment period, now, the FTC will issue a “consent order” that will carry the force of law. Here are the five privacy changes Facebook users can expect when that happens:

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The National School Boards Association, along with other education groups, has asked the Supreme Court of the United States to hear a much-publicized case involving student off-campus online speech. Citing confusion among federal courts regarding the standard that applies to public schools’ regulation of student speech that originates off campus, and often online, NSBA said, “This Court’s guidance is critical to assisting school officials in understanding how they may regulate the student expression that now pervades social networking forums without contravening the time-honored principles of the First Amendment.”

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