Hollywood Wants You for Its First 'Social Movie'

'Appeasement' measure dumps 5-year shut-down

(NEWSER) - Syrian authorities are lifting a 5-year-old ban on Facebook, YouTube and other Internet sites in a move seen as an attempt to appease the public and stave off the kind unrest rocking Egypt. The country's state-owned ISP is in the process of unblocking sites including Twitter and Blogspot, although Wikipedia is still blocked, the Next Web reports. More»

Fake movies look better than 'The Social Network'

(NEWSER) - The debut of the melodramatic trailer for The Social Network—aka "the Facebook movie"—was basically guaranteed to be followed by parodies. Luckily, the spoofs are pretty darn hilarious. So far Twitter (sample line: "I need to create a way to blog that is as random and incoherent as writing on a bathroom wall") and YouTube (sample line: "Do you like being a joke, Keyboard Cat, do you want to go back to that? You were nothing before me. I made you!") have joined the party. Watch both, and the original, in the gallery. More»

Hate speech up 20% on the Web

(NEWSER) - Hate speech is on the rise online, particularly on social networking sites. A new study registered about 11,500 hate-affiliated web pages, up 20% from last year, along with a growing number of terror-related "how to" sites. "The spike is not in traditional websites in the United States," a rep tells CNN . "It's more global and almost all in the social-networking area." More»

YouTube is like shots of tequila; Gmail is caffeine

(NEWSER) - We all have our favorite Internet time-wasters; now, Patrick Moberg gives us their equivalents in real-world vices:

• Twitter is crack cocaine: “Fucking ANYONE is your friend. Yuppies do it on their iPhone. Cheap. Short. Fruitless.”
• Tumblr is a bottle of wine: “A quiet night in with a couple friends … flipping through photo albums, singing favorite songs. … Emotions flow freely and without thought.”

(NEWSER) - So why did Tweets fall silent for much of today? One leading theory traces the problem to the unlikeliest of places—the conflict between Russia and Georgia, CNET reports. It goes like this: A pro-Georgia blogger with accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and the other sites affected by today's slowdown attracted the ire of foes. "It was a simultaneous attack across a number of properties targeting him to keep his voice from being heard," says Facebook's security chief. More»