Ho Ka Chun Kelvin, Li Ho Hin, Kelvin, Lo Ka Ming Terrence, Sze Chi Chun, Carrie, Wong Ka Yan, Karen HKU CCST9003 FA11

1. Facebook: Technologies and
Societal Impact
Ho Ka Chun Kelvin 2010581038
Li Ho Hin, Kelvin 3035008958
Lo Ka Ming Terrence 2010114641
Sze Chi Chun, Carrie 2010564482
Wong Ka Yan, Karen 2010553299
1

2. Outline
Background of Facebook Technology
Kelvin Li
Positive impact
Economy (Terrence Lo) Social life (Karen Wong)
Negative Impact
Social interaction
Health (Carrie Sze) Privacy (Kelvin Ho)
(Karen Wong) 2

3. Data Management and Server Centres
• To operate Facebook normal operations
• To serve as a data centre to save data
3

4. Open Compute Project
• Oregon data centre
• PUE of average 1.075
• Centralized chillers are removed
• Traditional UPS systems are eliminated
• A 480V to 208V transformation is removed
• Ethernet-powered LED lighting
• Passive cooling infrastructure
4

5. Facebook Website Architecture
• Front End
– operate the Facebook functions
• Back End
– create and provide Facebook functions
5

6. Front End
• Linux and Apache
• Database and My SQL
• PHP and Memcache
6

7. Back End
• Create a service or function to add new
feature in Facebook
• Create a framework or a toolset for ease of
creation of services
• Use the appropriate programming language to
finish the task
7

8. Essential Tools
• Thrift (For Protocol)
• Scribe (For Log Server)
• Cassandra (For Database)
• HipHop for PHP
8

9. Advanced Features
• Face recognition
• Augmented reality
• iPhoto (Apple)
• Goggles (Google)
• Privacy issues
9

10. Economics of Facebook
10

11. Introduction
• Facebook is not just for keeping tables on friends
and filling out quizzes – it can also be used as a
highly effective tool for business.
• Using the Facebook as web business
e.g. applications, games
• Using the Facebook as advertisement of
traditional business
e.g. pages,groups
11

12. Using the Facebook as web business
12

13. 13

14. Pros and Cons of application/games
on Facebook
14

15. Pros
• Lager numbers of ‘customers’ or ‘visitors’
on Facebook
• Web based development
• Only requires simple software skill, hence
large numbers of apps can
be developed within a short period of time
15

16. • The average game costs between $100,000
and $300,000 to produce and the
apps even lower but for games that become
hits, marketing budgets can
skyrocket into the millions as the game grows
over months.
16

17. Cons
• Cannot attract others field of ‘customer’
• Larger numbers of similar apps, difficult to
sustain one apps
• Less boundary of developing apps/games
17

18. Using the Facebook as advertisement
of traditional business
18

19. 19

20. Facebook provides 11 targeting
factors for advertisers
• Location
• Age
• Birthday
• Sex
• Keywords
• Education
• Workplaces
• Relationship
• Interested In
• Languages
• Connections
20

21. Pros and Cons of advertisement
through pages/groups from
traditional business
21

22. Pros
• Direct customer service for enquiries
• High friends network to spread out the
advertisement
• Opportunity to interact directly with that
individual and build a relationship
• Target a specific group of costumers more
efficiency thought the targeting factors
22

23. Cons
• Unforeseeable advertisement outcome
• Need to monitor the advertisement
performance and adjust accordingly
• Long term advertisement when comparing
with traditional one
23

24. Conclusion
• Facebook is not only changing the social
habits of people but it is a revolution of
business on web
• Changing the applications and games
companies into the new business form
• It seems that economics of Facebook will be
more rapidly increasing and last for quite a
long time
24

25. 25

26. Social interaction
SOCIAL INTERACTION
26

27. Social interaction (positive)
• Keep in touch with friends
• Know better about new friends without face-
to-face meetings
• Increase the size of one’s social network
• Know the up-to-date social issues
• Enrich social life
27

28. Time Consuming
• Changes the way people interact with others
• Tends to use Facebook for electronic
interaction instead of face to face interaction
• Between classes and during work
• A self-report from Facebook: users averagely
spend 55 minutes daily on Facebook
• Facebook serve as applications in
smartphones
28

29. Communication Skills
• Reading body language and showing physical
support are undermined
• Some extreme cases develop stammer 
inhibit verbal conversation  build up a
vicious cycle to it
• difficult to socialize in the real world
29

30. Shape how to view social relationships
• Number of general friends they had
• (They would greet to if unexpectedly seen)
• Difficulty in answering
• Number of friends they have in Facebook
• Give a quick and precise answer
• Focus on the quantity instead of quality of friends
• More superficial and less real friends
30

31. Uniformity / Conformity
• Movies/music videos (e.g. You are the apple of
my eye)
• Post, response or click “like” button
• Most “like” = most popular
• Some people may conform with others
• Lack of uniqueness and divergence  no
improvement
31

32. A False Sense of Trust
• Post problems on Facebook rather than
discuss with loved ones and relatives
• Relationships between friends and family
members will be weakened
32

33. Crime
• Threats, intimidation, bullying & harassment
• A suicide pact:
– One student from St. Joan of Arc Catholic
School was to commit suicide every two weeks
– 17 names of students were declared that they
would take their own lives
– Two students really did this and the dates were
exactly two weeks apart
• The influence of cyber crime
33

34. FACEBOOK AND HEALTH ASPECT
34

35. • more visual empathy to their online
1 friends
• introverted teens overcome their
2 shyness and share views with others
•  Good to an individual ‘s growth
3
Many people addicted to Facebook( about 350 million
users, nearly one million children across the world )
35

36. Dr. Aric Sigman (Biologist) warned that lack of
face to face interaction would have biological
adverse effect
• Alter gene action
1
• Depress immune response and hormone level
2
• Affect mental function
3
• Risk of health problem increase
4
36

37. Overuse of Facebook
leads to psychological
problems, such as
narcissism, aggressive
behaviors, anxiety
Dr. Larry Rosen (professor of psychology at California
State University)
37

38. Facebook depression
• coined by Dr. Gwenn O’Keeffe
• may demonstrate classic
symptoms of depression
• status updates and photos of
happy-looking people having great
times
 inadequacy, jealousy, and low
self-esteem
38

39. • Real world boredom
(Dr Himanshu Tyagi )
– Users can delete what they don’t
like and can blink eyes in order to
swap an unacceptable identity
find the real world boring and
unstimulating
put less value /effort on
their real world identities
39

40. • Attention deficit disorder
Lady Greenfield, professor of synaptic
pharmacology at Lincoln college, Oxford
rewrite the young’s brain
-harder to concentrate in class
-permanently distracted
-shorter attention spans
40

41. Facebook game
• affect negatively to moral
development of young
• deliver unhealthy
message
• examples: Texas Holdem
Poker and Happy Farm
41

42. PRIVACY ISSUES OF FACEBOOK
42

43. Survey (by Jones & Soltren in 2005)
91% had not read the Terms of Service
89% had never read the Privacy Policy
47% believed Facebook could not share
their information with other companies
43

44. Survey (cont’d)
63.45% never friend strangers
28.72% friend strangers on occasion
7.83% claim to friend strangers
44

45. Results of the survey
more personal data and information available
on Facebook
higher risk of privacy leakage to the third
parties
Good Facebook security strategy:
only add people whom you
know in real life to access to
their profile information
45

46. The New York Times (Bilton, 2011)
• Facebook had changed the users’ privacy
settings to automatically
enable facial recognition
• Detect a user’s face in an image
• Help user add tags of friends in photos
• Changed without user’s knowledge or consent
46

47. The NYT (cont’d)
users can disable the feature by going
to the account privacy settings and
clicking “customize settings”
This suggested multi-step
procedure is confusing and
troublesome
47

48. What should Facebook actually do?
notify the users of the release of new
features
ask users formally if they would like to
change their privacy settings to
activate the new features
48

49. Are you snooped by Facebook Apps?
• A couple hundred million apps, made by
tens of thousands of software
developers
• How to separate the good from the bad?
• How to know if the apps you’ve installed
are OK?
49

50. 50

51. Tools to protect your privacy on FB
• Social Monitor • uProtect.it
51

52. Social Monitor
• From Unsubscribe.com
• Works on Firefox, Chrome, Safari
• Offers app developer’s reputation
• Issues recommendations about whether you
should remove an app
52

53. • From Reputation.com
• Works on Firefox, Chrome
• Offers privacy ratings that consider a certain
app is likely to need certain data
• Lets users disable certain permissions
requested by a given app & delete it
altogether
53

54. Social Monitor, uProtect.it
• Both are browser plug-ins
• scan the FB account to see
what application the user uses
• score the user’s privacy levels
• help the user delete any apps you don’t want
to keep
54

55. Conclusion
• Good
• Bad
• Advice:
– Users should be aware of
drawbacks
– parents should guide their children
on how to play Facebook properly
– only add friends whom you know
in real life
55

56. References
Bilton, N. (2011, June 7). Facebook changes privacy settings to enable facial
recognition. The New York Times. Retrieved from
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/07/facebook-changes-privacy-
settings-to-enable-facial-
recognition/?scp=3&sq=facebook%20privacy&st=cse
Evans, M. K. (2009). 32 ways to use facebook for business. Retrieved from
http://gigaom.com/collaboration/32-ways-to-use-facebook-for-business/
Hindustan Times. (2011.). A Million Kids Adducted to Facebook. Retrieve from
http://www.hindustantimes.com/HTNext/KidsZone/A-million-kids-
addicted-to-Facebook/Article1-764666.aspx
Jones, H., & Soltren, J. H. (2005). Facebook: threats to privacy. Retrieved from
http://www.google.com.hk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=facebook%2Bprivacy&sourc
e=web&cd=4&ved=0CEIQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fciteseerx.ist.psu.edu
%2Fviewdoc%2Fdownload%3Fdoi%3D10.1.1.112.3154%26rep%3Drep1%2
6type%3Dpdf&ei=b4K_TrCpFqGjiAfTu_DxBA&usg=AFQjCNHAc7KfTPs6kpD
EmXEtWFhwW2WrHA
56

57. References (cont’d)
Lockton J. (2011). THE HALS REPORT, The social impact of Facebook in 2011.
Retrieved from http://www.thehalsreport.com/2011/01/the-social-
impact-of-facebook-in-2011/
Mail Online. (2009). How Using Facebook Could Raise Your Risk of Cancer.
Retrieve from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1149207/How-
using-Facebook-raise-risk-cancer.html#ixzz1dxwerSOi
O’Neill, N. (2009). 10 rules for advertising on facebook. Retrieved from
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2009-07-
16/tech/30073056_1_facebook-advertising-target-market
Richmond, R. (2011.) How to see if your facebook apps are snooping on you.
The New York Times. Retrieved from
http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/how-to-see-if-your-
facebook-apps-are-snooping-on-
you/?scp=20&sq=facebook%20privacy&st=cse
Snead J. (2011) Parish Adam, Understanding the web, The Social Impact of
Facebook. Retrieved from
http://socialimpact.wikispaces.com/The+Social+Impact+of+Facebook
57