Facebook News

Building out its search feature, Facebook on Thursday declared that it is removing a setting that controls whether users could be found when people type their name into the website's search bar. It said that only a single-digit percent of 1.2 billion people were using the setting.

Facebook has removed restriction for users under 18, allowing teenagers to manually alter the setting and share information with public. Until now, Facebook settings restricted viewability of a teenager's postings only to their friends, and to the friends of their friends. A special notice would appear the first couple of times they attempt to post information to the public.

Google and Facebook have collaborated enabling the Google-owned ad-placing service DoubleClick to place ads on the world's leading social network. DoubleClick Bid Manager is a way for marketers to buy online ad space on websites across the internet. Since the launch of Facebook's ad platform last year, Google was not allowed to participate in it.

Social networking giant Facebook on Monday suffered major disruption globally, with users unable to update their statuses, post comments, like posts or pages, or even access the site. The service disruption affected not just the website but also its mobile app. Facebook confirmed the problem was due to network maintenance, and that things were fixed.

A day after public outcry over Facebook reportedly lifting temporary ban on images of graphic violence, the social networking giant on Tuesday removed a video of a woman being beheaded in Mexico from its website. Moreover, Facebook said that it had decided to "strengthen" its enforcement of the policy that permits violent content on its website.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was the highest paid CEO in 2012 with a corporate compensation package worth more than $2.278 billion, according to a survey by GMI Ratings. This was the first time in the survey's 10-year history that any CEO earned over $1 billion in a year. Energy giant Kinder Morgan's chief Richard Kinder followed Zuckerberg at $1.1 billion.

A study by Pew Research Center found 64% of US adults use Facebook, and nearly half of those get some news from the service. Pew director Amy Mitchell said that Facebook represents a different way of consuming news. An adult who responded to the survey said, "Facebook is a good way to find out news without actually looking for it."

With a current growth rate of 37.4%, India will have the world's largest Facebook population by 2016, research firm eMarketer said. At present, US has the greatest number of Facebook users, at 146.8 million, and India comes in a distant second. Also, the world's largest social network Facebook, will reach a worldwide monthly user base of 1.026 billion this year.

Though Facebook didn't came to India for campus recruitment this year, it has offered seven PPO, 4 of them non-IIT students, with a package of $100,000. Notably, the company had rejected IIIT-H's invitation to participate in campus recruitment last year, but 3 out of the 4 non-IITians are from IIIT-H. The rest are from NIT-T, IIT-B, IIT-M, and IIT-R.

In its annual Compassion Research Day on Friday, Facebook revealed that Indian Facebook users are among the angriest in the world. The study categorized people in the US and Australia on the top of Facebook's anger scale. Indians were also found to be very inexpressive about their love or affection on the social media platform.

A Huffington Post report says that Facebook is pondering to introduce a Sympathize button in their news feed, in near future. Notaby, the Sympathize button was created by an employee during Facebook hackathon held some time back, and reportedly became an instant hit. This button would appear in place of 'Like,' when users post a gloomy update.

The American financial services company, Standard & Poor's on Wednesday said Facebook Inc will join its S&P 500 stock index after the close of trading on Dec-20. This move will cement the social network's rise into one of the biggest, most powerful US companies. Facebook shares rose 4.3% to $51.51 following S&P's announcement after regular market hours.

In order to keep pace with other websites offering short online commercials, Facebook is testing video advertisements that automatically play in users' news feeds. The new service, which plans 15-second video ads, would reportedly let marketers buy their way directly into a person's feed. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly delayed the service to ensure that ads don't taint user experience.

The photo of a gay Sikh, Kanwat Anit singh Saini, kissing another man during a protest against the ruling that upheld Section 377, went viral within hours of it being posted on his Facebook page 'Sikh Knowledge'. Saini, despite being blocked by Facebook for 12 hours and photo taken down, is busy promoting the same via Twitter, Instagram, and Tumbler.

After years of wait, Facebook has finally introduced the 'dislike' button, though only in its Messenger app. The dislike button is not available for the newsfeed and cannot be used in statuses and other posts. Facebook is also said to be mulling launching a 'sympathize' button.

Facebook Inc's Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg will sell 41.4 million of his Facebook shares (worth about $2.3 billion), the company said in a filing on Thursday. The move is part of an offering of 70 million Class A common shares of the social network. After the trade, Zuckerberg's voting power will reduce to 56.1% from 58.8%.

A study by University College London says that 16-18 year olds in UK are adopting other social networks, like Snapchat and WhatsApp, instead of Facebook as their parents are signing up for the site. It says, "Facebook is not just on the slide, it is basically dead and buried." This is similar to what teens in US think about Facebook.

Indian mobile operator, Bharti Airtel, has announced that it would offer free Facebook access to its prepaid customers in nine regional languages across India. However, the regional language support is compatible with feature phones, Java, Android, iPhone and Windows devices. Notably, free access is being extended to users as part of a limited period offer.

Social networking giant Facebook has reportedly been sued for allegedly snooping on user's private messages without their prior consent in order to mine the data for its own profit. The lawsuit was filed by two plaintiffs, Matthew Campbell and Michael Hurley, who have accused Facebook of scanning private messages with URLs in them. However, Facebook has refuted the allegations.