Chinese Chat App Exposes Kids to Prostitutes

Today in international tech news: Surveys show that a Chinese messaging app is exposing children to prostitutes. Also: Venezuela asks for Twitter's help in the nation's crusade against black-market dollar exchange; Google China reportedly tried to purchase the "Chinese Yelp" back in 2007; Ericsson strikes a massive deal with China Mobile; Alibaba gives away smartphones to bolster m-commerce; and Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia's handset division is OK'd by shareholders.

China's massively popular WeChat messaging app has exposed school students to prostitutes through its "People Nearby" feature, which is sometimes used by prostitutes as a form of, shall we say, mobile advertising.

A survey among students, conducted in a handful of major Chinese cities, found that the kids had indeed come across prostitutes' accounts when firing up the People Nearby function, according to state television channel CCTV.
CCTV journalists said they reported six of the scandalous accounts to Tencent, the maker of WeChat, but that the accounts remained active when the program ran.

Venezuela Asks Twitter to Help Curb Black Market for Dollars

Having already asked Internet service providers to block websites publishing the black market exchange rate for dollars, Venezuela on Tuesday asked Twitter to block accounts that are linked to such websites.
Following the ISP block, some Twitter accounts have been shooting out links to alternative, thus-far-unblocked sites. The nation's telecommunications agency told Twitter that the company was enabling "a situation that is seriously damaging to the Venezuelan economy." Twitter had no immediate comment.
The black market rate for dollars is more than nine times higher than the official rate.

Ericsson Strikes Deal With China Mobile

Sweden-based telecommunications company Ericsson has reportedly inked a deal with China Mobile to deploy LTE TDD, a variant of the LTE standard currently used widely in China, in 15 Chinese provinces.
Ericsson will provide radio access network technology as well as Evolved Packet Core technology. Ericsson will also expand China Mobile's core networks.
The 15 provinces covered in the deal house 63 percent of China's population. China Mobile is the world's largest mobile operator.

'Chinese Yelp' Turned Down Google China

Sometimes called the "Yelp of China," restaurant review platform Dianping reportedly turned down an acquisition offer from Google China in 2007.
The attempted acquisition, apparently announced for the first time at the recent TechCrunch/Technode event in Shanghai, was for less than US$100 million.
Google pulled its search engine from China in 2010. Nowadays, Baidu holds a 60-plus percent share of the search market -- although competitors are lurking.

Alibaba Giving Away Smartphones

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has launched an investment program that includes giving away smartphones.
In an effort to shore up the mobile market, e-tailers are being courted with data analysis tools; guides on how to set up online stores for mobile devices; and, yes, a free smartphone for every subscriber running Alibaba's mobile operating system.
So-called "m-commerce" is booming in China. For example, during the nation's annual online shopping orgy, held on November 11, about 21 percent of transactions were completed on mobile devices; in 2012, that number was just 5 percent.

Nokia Shareholders OK Microsoft Purchase

Nokia shareholders on Tuesday formally (and overwhelmingly) approved the sale of the company's handset business to Microsoft for a cool $7.2 billion.
Microsoft is expected to take control of the Finnish company's cellphone division -- which sold nearly 65 million phones in the third quarter of this year -- in early 2014.

 

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Facebook Releases 'Dislike' Button That Will Satisfy No One

Facebook just released a "dislike" button -- of sorts.
Now if you're using Facebook Messenger, the social network's chat feature, you can let the person you're talking to know how much you totally hate what they're saying via a blue thumbs down.
The "thumbs down" icon for Messenger comes in a newly-released pack of "stickers" available for free in Facebook's Sticker Store and was pointed out by the The Daily Dot on Wednesday. To get the stickers:



1. Go to the chat feature while browsing Facebook on the web or mobile.
2. Click the smiley logo in the bottom right of a chat window.
3. From there, click the shopping cart to open the "Sticker Store."
4. In the "Sticker Store," download the "Likes" pack of stickers.
5. Dislike away!
Check out "stickers" in the "Like" pack below.

Though long demanded by Facebook users as alternative to the "like," the dislike button has been shot down again and again by Facebook. "Actions on Facebook tend to focus on positive social interactions," Facebook engineer Bob Baldwin said during a Reddit AMA in April. "Like is the lightest-weight way to express positive sentiment. I don't think adding a light-weight way to express negative sentiment would be that valuable."
There's also the potential horror show (for Facebook) of users "disliking" all the ads Facebook is now pushing to its users.
Though a fully functional dislike button -- that works outside of Messenger -- remains a fantasy for now, earlier this month Facebook engineers indicated that they had experimented with a "sympathize" button. The button would be more appropriate than "like" for when someone posts about a breakup, a death or even just a bad day.

 

• Clickjacking

  Clickjackers on Facebook entice users to copy and paste text into their browser bar by posting too-good-to-be-true offers and eye-catching headlines. Once the user infects his own computer with the malicious code, the clickjackers can take control of his account, spam his friends and further spread their scam. For example, clickjacking schemes hit Facebook soon after bin Laden's death and spread like wildfire by purporting to offer users a glimpse at <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/04/bin-laden-death-video-hoax_n_857730.html" target="_hplink">video or photos of bin Laden's death</a>.

• Fake Polls Or Questionnaires

  If you click on an ad or a link that takes you to questionnaire on a site outside Facebook, it's best to close the page. When you complete a fake quiz, you help a scammer earn commission. Sometimes the quiz may ask you to enter your mobile number before you can view your results. If the scammers get your number, they could run up charges on your account.

• Phishing Schemes

  Phishers go after your credentials (username, password and sometimes more), then take over your profile, and may attempt to gain access to your other online accounts. Phishing schemes can be difficult to spot, especially if the scammers have set up a page that resembles Facebook's login portal.

• Phony Email Or Message

  <a href="http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=1187" target="_hplink">Facebook warns</a> users to be on the lookout for emails or messages from scammers masquerading as "The Facebook Team" or "Facebook." These messages often suggest "urgent action" and may ask the user to update his account. They frequently contain links to malware sites or virus-ridden attachments. They may even ask for your username and password. The best advice Facebook offers is to report the sender and delete the messages without clicking anything.

• Money Transfer Scam

  If a friend sent you a desperate-sounding Facebook chat message or wall post asking for an emergency money transfer, you'd want to help, right? Naturally. That's what makes this scam so awful. The point is to get you to wire money to scammers via Western Union or another transfer service.

• Fake Friend Request

  Not all <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/10/facebook-friend-request-spam_n_821584.html?page=1" target="_hplink">friend requests</a> come from real people, despite Facebook's safeguards against bots. Some Facebook accounts exist purely to establish broad connections for spamming or extracting personal data from users, so watch out whose friend requests you accept.

• Fake Page Spam

  Malicious pages, groups or event invitations aim to trick the user into performing actions that Facebook considers "abusive." For instance, a fake invite might offer a prize if you forward it to all your friends or post spammy content on their walls. Sometimes a scammer will set up fake pages as a front for a clickjacking or phishing scheme.

• Rogue Apps

  Malicious apps are pretty common on Facebook these days. They can be a cover for phishing, malware, clickjacking or money transfer schemes. Oftentimes, the apps look convincingly real enough for users to click "Allow," as they would do with a normal Facebook app. However, rogue apps use this permission to spread spam through your network of friends. For example, the recent "<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/08/facebook-closing-accounts-scam-app_n_846737.html" target="_hplink">Facebook Shutdown</a>" scam spread by claiming that Facebook would delete all inactive accounts except those that confirmed via app installation.

• The Koobface Worm

  The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koobface" target="_hplink">Koobface worm</a> is getting on in years (it first appeared in late 2008) and has been mostly scrubbed from the site, but Facebook still warns users to look out for it. Koobface spreads across social networks like Facebook via posts containing a link that claims to be an Adobe Flash Player update. Really, the link downloads malware that will infect your computer, hijack your Facebook profile and spam all your friends with its malicious download link. This worm affects mostly Windows users.

 

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Facebook: Here's How Your News Feed Works

                                 Your Facebook News Feed is a hodgepodge of information: some of it you love, some of it you hate, and some of it may just make you scratch your head. The average user's News Feed has around 1,500 possible stories filtered through per day, according to Lars Backstrom, engineering manager for Facebook's News Feed ranking. But only 20% of them actually make your feed.

So how does Facebook determine which 20% you see?

See also: This Is How Facebook Came Up With News Feed Redesign
 

The social network attempted to answer that question at a special event at its Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters on Tuesday, explaining how the system has moved from manual knob-turning during the feed's early days (they used to increase or decrease the number of photos or status updates you'd see based on anecdotal feedback from users) to the systematic algorithm that determines what you see today.

Facebook reiterated its oft-stated goal: to give users a "customized newspaper" highlighting the stories it assumes users will find most interesting. The process assigns each new story a score, placing the highest scoring stories at the top of the feed.

Scores are determined using a number of factors, such as the relationship you have with the user who posted it, the number of comments, the number of shares, and the number of likes that the story has accumulated.

Previously, each time a user refreshed their feed, new stories automatically moved to the top of the feed — even if they had a lower score than stories previously displayed. A change in the ranking process now enables older stories (stories that may have been posted earlier in the day but the user never actually scrolled through) to join the "new" stories at the top of your feed.

The hope is that relevant posts that may not have been at the top of your feed during your first scan, can still resurface and won't be buried by new, less relevant content.

The change has been implemented on Facebook's web version, but it's still being rolled out on mobile devices, says Backstrom. This new strategy has created an uptick in user engagement, he adds. A recent study by Facebook found that this new ranking system led to a 13% increase in stories read, and a 5% increase in interactions (Likes, shares, comments).

Another change to the algorithm looks at a user’s last 50 interactions, putting a higher priority on the friends or pages they’ve interacted with most recently. This change is not yet rolled out over all devices, says Backstrom.

Backstrom says the new “story bumping” feature does not affect ads on News Feed, confirming the ad system is completely different than the one determining News Feed’s user-created content. It is still common for ads to show up on your news feed over multiple days if they are relevant.

 

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