Facebook’s psychological experiments and Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks epitomize a world of increasing information awareness in the social media ecosystem. With over a billion monthly active users, Facebook as a nation is overtaking China as the largest country in the world. President Barack Obama, in his 2011 State of the Union Address, called America “the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers” and “of Google and Facebook.” U.S. Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel opines that America has become a “Facebook nation” that demands increased transparency and interactivity from the federal government. Ubiquitous social networks such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and YouTube are creating the technologies, infrastructures, and big data necessary for Total Information Awareness – a controversial surveillance program proposed by DARPA after the 9/11 attacks. NSA’s secret PRISM program has reinvigorated WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s accusation that “Facebook is the most appalling spying machine that has ever been invented.” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg once said, “We exist at the intersection of technology and social issues.” This book offers discourse and practical advice on the privacy issue in the age of big data, business intelligence in social media, e-government and e-activism, as well as personal total information awareness. This expanded edition also includes insights from Wikipedian Emily Temple-Wood and Facebook ROI experts Dennis Yu and Alex Houg.

This book explores total information awareness empowered by social media. At the FBI Citizens Academy in February 2021, I asked the FBI about the January 6 Capitol riot organized on social media that led to the unprecedented ban of a sitting U.S. President by all major social networks. In March 2021, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey appeared before Congress to face criticism about their handling of misinformation and online extremism that culminated in the storming of Capitol Hill. With more than three billion monthly active users, Facebook family of apps is by far the world's largest social network. Facebook as a nation is bigger than the top three most populous countries in the world: China, India, and the United States. Social media has enabled its users to inform and misinform the public, to appease and disrupt Wall Street, to mitigate and exacerbate the COVID-19 pandemic, and to unite and divide a country. Mark Zuckerberg once said, "We exist at the intersection of technology and social issues." He should have heeded his own words. In October 2021, former Facebook manager-turned-whistleblower Frances Haugen testified at the U.S. Senate that Facebook's products "harm children, stoke division, and weaken our democracy." This book offers discourse and practical advice on information and misinformation, cybersecurity and privacy issues, cryptocurrency and business intelligence, social media marketing and caveats, e-government and e-activism, as well as the pros and cons of total information awareness including the Edward Snowden leaks. "Highly recommended." - T. D. Richardson, Choice Magazine "A great book for social media experts." - Will M., AdWeek "Parents in particular would be well advised to make this book compulsory reading for their teenage children..." - David B. Henderson, ACM Computing Reviews

An inspiring collection of stories and photographs that capture what it means to live, work, love, and resist in America—from the Facebook group with millions of engaged and impassioned members. In October 2016, Maine resident Libby Chamberlain created a “secret” Facebook group encouraging a handful of friends to wear pantsuits to the polls. Overnight, the group of thirty exploded to 24,000 members. By November 8, the group was three million strong. Since Pantsuit Nation’s inception, its members have shared personal stories that illustrate the complexities of living in a vibrant, oftentimes contentious democracy. Members turn to Pantsuit Nation as a place of refuge and inspiration, where marginalized voices are amplified, faces are put to political decisions, resources are shared, and activism is ignited. It is a dynamic, diverse community united by an unwavering commitment to building a more just, inclusive world. Now, hundreds of Pantsuit Nation members have contributed their stories and photographs to form this extraordinary book. An indelible testament to the idea that change comes first from the heart, and that the surest way to move a heart is to tell a story, Pantsuit Nation is a portrait of a moment in history and a rallying cry for our time.

The inspiring true story of Aladdin, an abused pit-bull type dog, who pays it forward with superhero powers of kindness and compassion after he is saved from certain death. His life inspires none other than animal advocate and legendary actress Betty White, award-winning singer and actor Harry Connick Jr, and a host of famed NFL players.

By intelligence officials for intelligent people

It's time to join Social Nation and prosper! This book will show you, as an employee, customer or partner, how to use new social technologies, make yourself heard, and produce better products and services. As a leader and manager, you'll find out how to use these tools to harness social interactions to improve your business and to create your own social nation. The book provides a social assessment for leaders, managers and employees to scientifically evaluate your individual social skills and competencies. This book relies on well-known case studies about businesses that illustrate how social principles and strategies can help organizations to: Integrate social skills into existing managerial and leadership practices Overcome some of the common risks and objections that are often cited as obstacles to becoming a successful social enterprise Adopt new forms of social leadership across the entire organization Attain social intelligence by listening, understanding, and measuring outcomes of your investment in relationships with customers, employees and partners Realize tangible economic benefits and ROI from new product and service offerings Social Nation provides readers with an opportunity to join the Social Nation community and share experiences with other leaders and social individuals.

From family trees written in early American bibles to birther conspiracy theories, genealogy has always mattered in the United States, whether for taking stock of kin when organizing a family reunion or drawing on membership—by blood or other means—to claim rights to land, inheritances, and more. And since the advent of DNA kits that purportedly trace genealogical relations through genetics, millions of people have used them to learn about their medical histories, biological parentage, and ethnic background. A Nation of Descendants traces Americans' fascination with tracking family lineage through three centuries. Francesca Morgan examines how specific groups throughout history grappled with finding and recording their forebears, focusing on Anglo-American white, Mormon, African American, Jewish, and Native American people. Morgan also describes how individuals and researchers use genealogy for personal and scholarly purposes, and she explores how local businesspeople, companies like Ancestry.com, and Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s Finding Your Roots series powered the commercialization and commodification of genealogy.

How much data does Facebook really have on me? What is a cookie on the Internet? Is my Amazon Alexa listening to me? Why can’t I seem to stop scrolling endlessly down my Instagram feed? Did social media really help cause an attempted coup in the United States? How did we go from short, 140-character tweets to attempted coups in less than two decades? How much data does Facebook really have on me? Is my Amazon Alexa listening to me? The Little Black Book of Data and Democracy demystifies these seemingly complex topics to help you understand how our very way of life is under threat and what you can do about it before it’s too late. Powered by your personal data, social media has transformed our way of life, from how we get information, meet people and create increasingly siloed communities. This has had a profound impact on democratic society. Our shared reality – the way we collectively understand the world – has rapidly been replaced by conflicting micro-realities that are often fueled by conspiracy theories, lies and “fake news.” This has been driven by a business model that supposedly gives us everything for free. All we have to do is give up our personal data and privacy. If you aren’t paying for the product, then you are the product.

A DIY guide to planning, shooting, and sharing great video from USA Today Talking Tech host All kinds of people are creating video for the web: bloggers, small business owners, web show hosts, and corporate marketing departments, to name just a few. How do the best videos get made and go viral? What secrets lie behind them? In Video Nation you’ll learn everything you need to make great-looking video for YouTube, Facebook or your blog—from one of the top experts around! Jefferson Graham, host of USA Today’s Talking Tech and Talking Your Tech, takes you skillfully through the art of video creation and distribution. And you’ll have a lot of fun along the way. You’ll learn what equipment you need to get started--from bare bones to wish list state-of-the-art great. You’ll get the skinny on sound and lighting. You’ll learn how to properly set up for and shoot an interview. You’ll even get to take your video to the next level by using multiple cameras as they do on TV. You’ll also find 30 downloadable video lessons so you see the concepts from the book in action, including how to make a great video on an iPhone, lighting techniques, simple editing techniques, and much more. To access the videos go to www.peachpit.com/videonation and click "register your product." Here are just a few things you’ll find in Video Nation: tips on developing fresh new ways to promote your business or yourself a guide to the tools available for a “one-man band” production, including advice on shooting with DSLRs, point-and-shoot cameras, and iPhones best techniques for setting up, preparing questions for, and interviewing a subject from a video producer who has interviewed everyone from comedian Jeff Dunham and the late Steve Jobs to Kermit the Frog detailed descriptions of working with sound and lighting for a variety of indoor and outdoor scenarios step-by-step coverage of using editing programs such as Apple iMovie, Adobe Premiere Elements, and Final Cut Pro X a guide to uploading your video to YouTube, create a channel, market your video with Twitter and Facebook, and earn thousands of dollars a year from your efforts via the YouTube Partner program and much more!

From New York Times bestseller and Hugo Award-winner John Scalzi, an extraordinary retelling of the SF classic Little Fuzzy ZaraCorp holds the right to extract unlimited resources from the verdant planet Zarathustra—as long as the planet is certifiably free of native sentients. So when an outback prospector discovers a species of small, appealing bipeds who might well turn out to be intelligent, language-using beings, it's a race to stop the corporation from "eliminating the problem," which is to say, eliminating the Fuzzies—wide-eyed and ridiculously cute small, and furry—who are as much people as we are. Other Tor Books The Android’s Dream Agent to the Stars Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded Fuzzy Nation Redshirts 1. Lock In 2. Head On The Interdepency Sequence 1. The Collapsing Empire 2. The Consuming Fire Old Man's War Series 1. Old Man’s War 2. The Ghost Brigades 3. The Last Colony 4. Zoe’s Tale 5. The Human Division 6. The End of All Things At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.