Culling Facebook "Trending" Stories is a Good Thing

Facebook workers often omitted conservative political stories from the website's "trending" list, the technology news site Gizmodo said on Monday in a report that sparked widespread comment on social media.

An unnamed former Facebook employee told Gizmodo that workers "routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers," according to Gizmodo, while "artificially" adding other stories into the trending list.

Lets keep in mind this story is on Gizmodo, and is based on ONE anonymous alleged former employee. One. Anonymous.

Digging deeper, it appears that was was actually happening is that the Facebook "curators" would replace stories from sources that are questionable, and replace the story with one from a more mainstream source.  While that might mean that more "conservative political stories" are being removed, it might also mean that there are more wacko and unethical conservative websites out there. They would also remove hoaxes, regardless of how many people reviewed the story.

Remember, we are talking about the "Trending" section, on the top right of your Facebook Page. Your wall is not affected, you will still see all of the hoaxes and nonsense posted by your "friends."

Facebook has denied the reports and reading between the lines, Facebook is doing what most would agree is the right thing.  While claiming that the allegations would be not be “technically feasible," in a statement a Facebook spokesman said '[w]e have in place strict guidelines for our trending topic reviewers as they audit topics surfaced algorithmically....Reviewers are required to accept topics that reflect real world events, and are instructed to disregard junk or duplicate topics, hoaxes or subjects with insufficient sources." 

Isn't that what Facebook should be doing? It appears they are doing their users a service. There are enough hoaxes and lies on the Internet, and on Facebook timelines. I am confident that Facebook, has contributed to the dumbing down of our society. But this means that this portion of Facebook acts like any other news source, with editors culling stories, fact checking, and doing other "editorial" work. 

The reality is that Facebook is its users a favor if it engaged in such conduct, rather than continue to spread some of the absurd stories that come from these unknown websites who pretend to be a news source - conservative or liberal, they are all a danger to our well-being.

Report Claiming Bias in Facebook 'Trending' Topics Sparks Social Media Outcry - NBC News:



Facebook denies censoring conservative stories from trending topics

Court Can Require Social Media Records To Be Produced, But Request Should Be Narrowly Tailored

From Craig McLaughlin's SmartProperty Blog - question before the court was whether a plaintiff could be compelled to produce his entire Facebook account.

Court Can Require Social Media Records To Be Produced, But Request Should Be Narrowly Tailored

FINRA Wants Your Facebook Account

You read that right, just as the SEC is embracing social media, FINRA wants access to brokers' Facebook accounts.

We all know that an employer's demand for access to an employees Facebook account is illegal in many states, and probably illegal in all. It is simply an outrageous overreaching and an invasion of privacy. But such things do not seem to bother FINRA. FINRA is actively seeking to have its member firms exempted from the laws, all in the name of "investor protection."

According to this article on CNN.com, FINRA wants legislatures to exempt broker-dealers from the privacy ban, and allow firms access to the Facebook accounts of all registered representatives, to insure that they are not posting stock tips or other communications related to their business.

While FINRA denies that it does not want firms to conduct routine surveillance of Facebook accounts, it has declined to comment on specifics as to how it proposes such monitoring to work.

Imagine this - your boss has access to your Facebook account, which gives him access to all of your posts, all of your friends' posts, all of your pictures, likes, etc. Given the flagrant abuses by the firms of their access to business related emails, one can only imagine what they will do with Facebook accounts.

And then of course, since the firm has access, FINRA has access, and once FINRA has your Facebook account, so does the SEC.

So, FINRA wants to give your boss access to your Facebook account. Next they want to monitor your cellphone, your home phone, your personal email. After all, you might mention a stock while talking on your cellphone.

Hopefully this will be shot down before it gains any traction. Once again, brokers need that trade organization that they simply refuse to join, but there are other ways to prevent brokers from using Facebook for illicit purposes, the same methods that are currently in use for cellphones and email.

If anyone has run into an issue with their broker-dealer wanting access to their Facebook or other social media account, I would love to hear from you. All information will be kept strictly confidential. Call me at 212-509-6544 or email me at astarita@beamlaw.com.

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Zuckerberg Sold, Investors Sued

A new lawsuit claims Mark Zuckerberg pulled a billion dollar fast one on Facebook. The class action lawsuit -- filed by disgruntled Facebook shareholders -- claims the 28-year-old CEO had inside info that the stock was grossly overvalued, and he protected his own financial hide by quickly unloading a ton of Facebook stock.

The suit alleges that the sale might have contributed to the weak performance of Facebook shares, which sank on Monday and Tuesday - their second and third days of trading - to end more than 18 percent below the IPO price. The $38-per-share IPO price valued Facebook at $104 billion. Institutions and major clients generally enjoy quick access to investment bank research, while retail clients in many cases only get it later. It is unclear whether Morgan Stanley only told its top clients about the revised view or spread the word more broadly. The company declined to comment when asked who was told about the research.

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Morgan Stanley Cut Facebook Estimates Just Before IPO?

When I posted last week that the Facebook IPO was an opportunity for fraud, and quoted Jim Sallah, the well-known Boca Raton securities attorney, I was talking about stock scammers, not major brokerage firms.
Reuters is reporting, under a headline Morgan Stanley Cut Facebook Estimates Just Before IPO that in the run-up to Facebook's $16 billion IPO, Morgan Stanley the lead underwriter on the deal, unexpectedly  told some of its clients that the firm was reducing its revenue forecasts for the company.

It remains to be seen whether that was fraudulent conduct, but that information, if true, is certainly going to attract the interest of regulators and customer attorneys. The impact of such a statement, in particular coming from the lead underwriter might have contributed to the weak performance of Facebook shares, which sank on Monday and Tuesday - their second and third days of trading - to end more than 18 percent below the IPO price.

Institutions and major clients generally enjoy quick access to investment bank research, while retail clients in many cases only get it later. According to the article, it is unclear whether Morgan Stanley only told its top clients about the revised view or spread the word more broadly. The company declined to comment when asked who was told about the research.

Beam & Astarita Reviewing Claims For Facebook Trading Disaster

The world's largest IPO has turned into an unmitigated disaster for NASDAQ, which was unable to handle the volume of trading on Friday, the first day of trading in Facebook shares. According to press reports, NASDAQ has admitted that it bungled Facebook's offering, and acknowledge that technology problems affected trading in millions of shares.
Thus far it is estimated that the losses will be in the tens of millions of dollars for brokerage firms, traders and investors. Beam & Astarita is reviewing potential claims by brokerage firms and investors for losses that were occasioned on Friday and again today.
Thus far it appears that brokers and traders who entered orders on behalf of institutions and retail investors did not receive confirmation of executions until hours after the fact, and even then, the reports were not correct. That forced brokers to go back to their customers, who thought their trades were executed earier in the day, and to attempt to fix the trade discrepencies for those customers.
The issue clearly goes back to NASDAQ but brokers will have to deal with the issue with their customers, and customers are getting ready to file claims against their firms, and NASDAQ for their losses.
That put the onus on brokers to determine whether or not to make customers good on trades they thought had been completed hours earlier. Wholesale market makers, the major electronic order-handling operations that handle the trading of individual investors, were seen among the worst-hit by Nasdaq's glitches due to the large number of orders that needed to be fixed for customers eager to trade in Facebook's debut.
 Nasdaq OMX officials claim that clients would have to seek "accommodation" through the exchange's rules for handling disputed transactions, but a more direct route, through arbitration or traditional lawsuits, may be the ultimate dispute resolution.
If you have been damaged by the trading in Facebook IPO shares, give us a call at 212-509-6544 or 973-559-5566, or email our team at facebookipo@beamlaw.com.

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Facebook IPO Opportunity for Fraudsters?

From the Sun-Sentinel, as the Facebook IPO arrives, not only are investors lining up for what they hope will be a golden opportunity, but so are scammers. The combination of heavy hype, potentially lucrative returns and starry-eyed novice players in the equities market have created ripe conditions for con artists to operate, according to financial regulators and securities attorneys. People are being warned to be especially careful about offers to purchase private shares of Facebook before the initial public offering (IPO) of stock expected later this week.

'It's the hottest IPO in years and anything that is hot will be exploited by scammers," said Jim Sallah, a Boca Raton securities attorney. "If you want to raise a quick $5 million, the quickest thing to do is start marketing Facebook pre-IPO shares."

Facebook's looming IPO a juicy opportunity for South Florida fraudsters, authorities say - South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com