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Facebook Is Coming For Your Children
Lauren Ashburn | June 5th, 2012
Socialmediaseo
The more I think about Facebook throwing open its virtual doors to kids under 13, the more I think it’s a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad idea.
It’s troubling enough that kids are sneaking on by lying about their age, sometimes with their parents’ help. Do we want to invite them into the world of flirting and flaunting?
Here’s the lead of my Daily Beast piece on the subject:
My son’s friend “Sally” joined Facebook two years ago. She has 298 friends, posts pictures in her bikini, and broadcasts her location for all to see. Her profile says she’s 32. She’s really 12—a year below the legal limit required to join.
When she was 10 and her other friends had joined, her mom helped her sign up and fake her birthday. Neither parent knows all of those friends who have access to her very personal information.
You can read the rest here.
The Donald, Al and the Clown Show
Lauren Ashburn | June 1st, 2012
It seems a nasty battle is brewing between USA Today’s founder, Al Neuharth, and The Donald.
“Clown,” says Neuharth. “Angry,” pathetic man, retorts Trump. Them there’s fighting words. But it’s a typical “he said, he said” political boxing match – especially for the hair-challenged Donald.
All one has to do it look up “Trump feud” in Google to find a dazzling panoply of epithets. On Rosie O’Donnell’s criticism of Trump allowing a woman with a drinking problem to win his Miss America contest: “I’ve always felt she’s a degenerate,” Trump said. On Cher who this week criticized Mitt Romney on Twitter, then deleted her tweet: “@Cher attacked @MittRomney. She is an average talent who is out of touch with reality,” Trump said. “Like @Rosie O’Donnell, a total loser!”
Down With Chris Hayes (In This Case)
Lauren Ashburn | May 30th, 2012
At Wilton Willis Ashburn's gravesite
One of my most prized possessions is a photo is of my then three-year-old daughter bending down at a plain white marble gravestone at Arlington National Cemetery. It belongs to her great-grandfather.
Wilton Willis Ashburn was born in 1898 and fought in World War I in the Navy. For his exemplary service, he was awarded a spot of hallowed ground a stone’s throw from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, in the cemetery where thousands of veterans have been laid to rest.
These are not just men, not just women, but heroes…
It’s Not Complicated: Keeping Zuckerberg In Line
Lauren Ashburn | May 26th, 2012
I snapped to attention upon learning that Mark Zuckerberg’s girlfriend draw up a set of rules to make sure she didn’t take a back seat to Facebook.
Clearly, Priscilla Chan is one tough cookie. Maybe she even got it in writing that he’d tie the knot a day after the IPO.
But now that Zuckerberg is a big-shot CEO of a public corporation, Priscilla needs to make sure their marriage doesn’t sink faster than Facebook stock in the first two days.
Check out my Daily Beast piece on 8 new rules for Zuck to live by–or else.
Facebook’s Marriage Deal Points
Lauren Ashburn | May 22nd, 2012
ABC News
When my fiancé got down on his knees in the pounding surf off the coast of Spain and asked me to marry him, I replied, “As long as I don’t have to move to Minnesota.” The tundra, as I refer to it, is his birthplace and my greatest fear: A landlocked, below-freezing, ice-fishing, bear-hunting, anti-palm tree mecca.
So you can see how I read with glee the terms that Priscilla Chan laid down to teenage Mark Zuckerberg when she started dating the budding entrepreneur. No way she was going to move to Palo Alto to be with her man without hammering out some deal points. And those apparently remained in place through last Friday, the day that Zuck took Facebook public—after all, they tied the knot the very next day.
Our partner Sarah Lacy of PandoDaily.com reports that Zuckerberg and Chan held a “series of negotiations” to govern the terms of her move. Lacy writes that the final contract included how often the lovebirds would see each other:
Stop the Press
Lauren Ashburn | May 17th, 2012
Parick Hoffman
If there’s one thing Mitt Romney and President Obama can agree on, it’s how much they can’t stand the press.
I watched in amazement on Wednesday as Romney’s press wranglers tried to physically stop reporters from asking questions at a rope line in St. Petersburg. Even a Secret Service agent jumped in, telling them to “come off” the line.
Since when did covering a meet-and-greet become a federal offense?
Were campaign officials afraid that the candidate would say something off-message that they would then have to defend for the next news cycle? The words “Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order” – Romney’s dismissal of the mission that killed Osama bin Laden — are probably still ringing in the ears of campaign staffers.
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The Disconnected World
June 5th, 2012It was an all too familiar scene. I looked around the table at my lunch companions and realized that I was actually eating alone. Every one of them was enthralled by whatever was happening on their cell phone screens, ignoring the people at the table. Was the online world of Tweets and posts that fascinating, or was present company so uninteresting that they felt the need to escape to the virtual world?
I began to think about how we got to this point. How did we become a society of people alone in a crowded room — perhaps even alone in a crowded world? Where would it lead us? Where had it already led us?
The online community loves to champion itself as engaged and connected, but I wondered if living online was actually contributing to our increasingly frayed society.
Fast Chat: Warren Buffett Is Still Buying Newspapers. Is That Nuts?
June 5th, 2012The Oracle of Omaha told Howard Kurtz that newspapers can still be profitable and he plans to buy more if they’re in tight-knit communities. Kurtz and Lauren Ashburn on whether that’s smart business or the emotional approach of an 81-year-old investor.
Facebook Is Coming For Your Children
June 5th, 2012The more I think about Facebook throwing open its virtual doors to kids under 13, the more I think it’s a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad idea.
It’s troubling enough that kids are sneaking on by lying about their age, sometimes with their parents’ help. Do we want to invite them into the world of flirting and flaunting?
Here’s the lead of my Daily Beast piece on the subject:
My son’s friend “Sally” joined Facebook two years ago. She has 298 friends, posts pictures in her bikini, and broadcasts her location for all to see. Her profile says she’s 32. She’s really 12—a year below the legal limit required to join.
When she was 10 and her other friends had joined, her mom helped her sign up and fake her birthday. Neither parent knows all of those friends who have access to her very personal information.
You can read the rest here.
Inside Poop: The Enduring Importance of Toilets
June 5th, 2012It’s time to take toilets seriously. Some 2.6 billion people around the world don’t have access to toilets and it’s a dangerous problem. In fact, diarrhea, a leading cause of death in children under 5 according to NPR, stems from unsanitary conditions. On the flip side, toilets are said to add 20 years to our lives.
Top 5 Getting-to-Work Innovations
June 5th, 2012The New York Times released a list of 32 innovations that will change your tomorrow. The list ranges from underwear that collects data on how hard you’re working those glutes to an automatic cat-petter (is that really necessary?). We selected five inventions from the list that will help you on the way to work:
- Shower: Automatic 15-minute shampoo regiment that cleans, massages and even blow dries your hair. (Read more on the jump)
