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  By SAMANTHA M. SHAPIRO  Published: January 22, 2009  Only a few hours after      Israel       ’s first air strike against       Hamas      <span style="font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">  <span style="font-size: 120%; color: rgb(255, 0, 85);"> positions in the    <span class="wiki_link_ext">  <span style="font-size: 120%; color: rgb(255, 0, 85);">Gaza Strip      <span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">  <span style="font-size: 120%; color: rgb(255, 0, 85);"> late last month, more than 2,000 protesters marched through the streets of downtown Cairo, carrying Palestinian      <span style="font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 120%; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">  <span style="font-size: 120%; color: rgb(255, 0, 85);"> flags. This began what would become weeks of protests, in which thousands of Egyptians of all different political leanings gathered in   <span class="wiki_link_ext">  <span style="font-size: 120%; color: rgb(255, 0, 85);">Egypt       <span style="font-size: 120%; color: rgb(255, 0, 85);">’s main cities, in public squares and at mosques and universities. Hundreds were arrested. In every city, the biggest presence at the protests was the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist political organization, active in many countries throughout the Middle East, that seeks to govern according to Islamic law. Other, smaller demonstrations were put together, sometimes spontaneously, by leftist groups and student organizations. Cairo) says he was beaten by the police for a Facebook password.     <span style="font-size: 120%; color: rgb(255, 0, 85);">   <span style="font-size: 120%; color: rgb(255, 0, 85);">   <span style="font-size: 120%; color: rgb(255, 0, 85);">    <span style="font-size: 120%; color: rgb(255, 0, 85);">     <span style="font-size: 120%; color: rgb(255, 0, 85);">   <span style="font-size: 120%; color: rgb(255, 0, 85);">   <span style="font-size: 120%; color: rgb(255, 0, 85);">   <span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">  <span style="font-size: 120%; color: rgb(255, 0, 85);">Anti-Israel demonstrations in Arab capitals are nothing new. From Amman to Riyadh, governments have long viewed protests against Israel as a useful safety valve to allow citizens to let off steam without addressing grievances closer to home. But in Egypt, this time, the protests were different: some of the anger was aimed directly at the government of President    <span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span class="wiki_link_ext">  <span style="font-size: 120%; color: rgb(255, 0, 85);">Hosni Mubarak     <span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">  <span style="font-size: 120%; color: rgb(255, 0, 85);">. In defiance of threats from the police, and in contravention of a national taboo, some demonstrators chanted slogans against Mubarak, condemning his government for maintaining diplomatic relations with Israel, for exporting natural gas to the country and for restricting movement through Egypt’s border with Gaza. As the street protests went on, young Egyptians also were mobilizing and venting their anger over Gaza on what would, until recently, have seemed an unlikely venue:   <span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span class="wiki_link_ext">  <span style="font-size: 120%; color: rgb(255, 0, 85);">Facebook      <span style="font-size: 120%; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">  <span style="font-size: 120%; color: rgb(255, 0, 85);">, the social-networking site. In most countries in the Arab world, Facebook is now one of the 10 most-visited Web sites, and in Egypt it ranks third, after Google and Yahoo. About one in nine Egyptians has Internet access, and around 9 percent of that group are on Facebook — a total of almost 800,000 members. This month, hundreds of Egyptian Facebook members, in private homes and at Internet cafes, have set up Gaza-related “groups.” Most expressed hatred for Israel and the United States, but each one had its own focus. Some sought to coordinate humanitarian aid to Gaza, some criticized the Egyptian government, some criticized other Arab countries for blaming Egypt for the conflict and still others railed against Hamas. When I sat down in the middle of January with an Arabic-language translator to look through Facebook, we found one new group with almost 2,000 members called “I’m sure I can find 1,000,000 members who hate Israel!!!” and another called “With all due respect, Gaza, I don’t support you,” which blamed Palestinian suffering on Hamas and lamented the recent shooting of two Egyptian border guards, which had been attributed to Hamas fire. Another group implored God to “destroy and burn the hearts of the Zionists.” Some Egyptian Facebook users had joined all three groups. Freedom of speech and the right to assemble are limited in Egypt, which since 1981 has been ruled by Mubarak’s National Democratic Party under a permanent state-of-emergency law. An estimated 18,000 Egyptians are imprisoned under the law, which allows the police to arrest people without charges, allows the government to ban political organizations and makes it illegal for more than five people to gather without a license from the government. Newspapers are monitored by the Ministry of Information and generally refrain from directly criticizing Mubarak. And so for young people in Egypt, Facebook, which allows users to speak freely to one another and encourages them to form groups, is irresistible as a platform not only for social interaction but also for dissent. Although there are countless political Facebook groups in Egypt, many of which flare up and fall into disuse in a matter of days, the one with the most dynamic debates is that of the April 6 Youth Movement, a group of 70,000 mostly young and educated Egyptians, most of whom had never been involved with politics before joining the group. The movement is less than a year old; it formed more or less spontaneously on Facebook last spring around an effort to stage a general nationwide strike. Members coalesce around a few issues — free speech, economic stagnation and government nepotism — and they share their ideas for improving Egypt. But they do more than just chat: they have tried to organize street protests to free jailed journalists, and this month, hundreds of young people from the April 6 group participated in demonstrations about Gaza, some of which were coordinated on Facebook, and at least eight members of the group were detained by police. As with any group on Facebook, members can post comments or share news articles, videos or notes on the group’s communal “wall.” The wall of the April 6 group is constantly being updated with new posts, and the talk is often heated and intense. On a recent afternoon, members were discussing photographs that had just been posted on the Muslim Brotherhood Web site of a mass protest in Alexandria against Israel’s actions in Gaza, in which thousands of members of the brotherhood took to the streets. <span style="font-size: 120%; color: rgb(255, 0, 85);">

<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; background-color: rgb(242, 151, 216);"><span style="color: rgb(25, 104, 3);">This article explains a conflict within todays Egyption society being inlfluenced by Facebook, a communicator. It proves that facebook is no longer a simple teenage communication system. Facebook unites people with different beliefs in a way that is simple to express themselves and discuss issues. In this instance Facebook provided a system that allowed about 800,000 people from Egypt to come together and adjust the issues within the country by expresssing their opinion. These groups organized protests that were successful in proving their point. Yet, in this country the freedoms of speech are limited making this use of communication unwanted by the government. Faceboook being one of the 10 most visited website influenced this country by organizing groups that expressed their ideas. People attempted addressing issues and were willing to be imprisoned by using this social connecting site to vent their anger and share their feelings. This site made by Mark Zuckerberg revolutionizes the way people communicate and unite. This one man, making a social utility site, made much more than that. He created an international site creating a new form of communication used by millions of people throughout the world. This change affects our society as Americans as well as other nations throughout the world. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; background-color: rgb(242, 151, 216);"><span style="color: rgb(9, 3, 104);"> ~Nicole Jablon <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: left;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif;"> <span style="background-color: rgb(142, 242, 245);">[|Thousands Of MySpace Sex Offender Refugees Found On Facebook] <span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif;">by Erick Schonfeld on February 3, 2009 <span style="display: block; color: rgb(87, 172, 17); text-align: left;"> MySpace is in the spotlight today because it revealed that 90,000 registered sex-offendershave been kicked off its site in the past two years. But where did all of those sex offenders go? Some evidence suggests that a portion of them are now on Facebook. John Cardillo is a former New York City police officer and the CEO of Sentinel, a security technology firm based in Miami which helps MySpace, Bebo, MyYearbook, WePlay, and other social networks identify sex offenders. He goes so far as to call Facebook a “safe haven” for sex offenders. Needless to say, Facebook is not a client, and MySpace is his biggest one. But he shared some data with me that is hard to overlook. Sentinel’s technology is the foundation for Sentinel SAFE, the software MySpace uses to identify sex offenders on its site. Sentinel SAFE is a database of more than 700,000 registered sex offenders in the U.S., complete with names, photos, dates of birth, email and IM addresses (when available), and more than a hundred other data points. Cardillo took the 90,000 sex offenders who were removed from MySpace and started looking for them on Facebook. He says:

//<span style="display: block; color: rgb(87, 172, 17); text-align: left;">We found over 8,000 offenders on their site without much effort. My professional opinion is that the real number is 15 to 20 times that. //<span style="display: block; color: rgb(87, 172, 17); text-align: left;">

The actual number of matches he found was 8,487. Rather than take his word for it, I have in my possession Cardillo’s spreadsheet with all the names. (//**Update**: Only 4,679 of them, however, are matched to a Facebook user ID//). I also have about 100 mugshots of sex offenders along with their corresponding Facebook profile names and pictures. (I’ve reproduced four of the mugshots above). A spot check of the mugshots, which are publicly available, matched names and photos in the National Sex Offender Registry. Once I had the names, it was pretty easy to find them on Facebook as well.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; color: rgb(255, 0, 112);">Although it was not intended for Facebook to become a dangerous site, it has become a potential hazard for it's users. Zuckerberg created Facebook for communication, but what he did not realize was the dangers that anyone on Facebook could come across. Although it is encouraged to set your profile and information to "private" on Facebook, many people do not listen to the suggestion and could potentially face the consequences for it. ~ Lauren Crupnick