A majority of U.S. adults now use social media: Pew study

Social media usage among American adults has ballooned in the past decade with about two-thirds now on social networking sites, Pew Research Center said on Thursday. The 65 percent of adults in the United States using social media is up from 46 percent in 2010 and just 7 percent in 2005, the year Pew began tracking usage

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Online advertising shines in sputtering Thai economy

By Khettiya Jittapong BANGKOK, (Reuters) – Unfazed by Thailand’s faltering economy, businesses are penciling in bigger budgets for digital advertising as they target Thai consumers via smartphone apps, social networking forums and video-sharing websites. Digital advertising spending this year is forecast to jump by two-thirds to a record 9.9 billion baht ($277.47 million) in Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy, according to the Digital Advertising Association (Thailand) (DAAT)

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California man, 19, charged with ‘revenge porn’ against girls

A 19-year-old California man accused of posing as a modeling agent to dupe and extort underage girls into sending him naked pictures was charged on Friday with more than 150 criminal counts in what prosecutors called a “revenge porn” case. Cesar Mauricio Estrada-Davila is accused of preying on 21 girls between the ages of 12 and 17 between January and April of this year, Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Jon Hatami said in a written statement. Hatami said Estrada-Davila befriended his victims on a social networking site, telling them he was a modeling agent who could make them famous and asking for pictures in their underwear.

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LinkedIn follows Twitter, shocks social media investors

Shares of LinkedIn Corp, operator of the most popular social network for professionals, fell 20 percent in early trading on Friday, wiping out more than $6 billion of market value, after the company slashed its full-year forecast. LinkedIn reported on Thursday its slowest quarterly revenue growth since it went public four years ago. The surprisingly weak results followed Twitter Inc's on Tuesday.

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U.S., European police break up network of 12,000 computers taken over by criminals

Law enforcement agencies in Europe and the United States have dismantled a network comprising at least 12,000 in computers that had been taken over by criminals, Europol said on Thursday. The software used to infect the computers was “very sophisticated” but the network was relatively small compared to others uncovered in the past, Europol said in a statement. Those behind the network or “botnet” infected computers with the software and may then have sold to others the right to install further malicious programs, said Paul Gillen, the head of operations at Europol’s Cybercrime Centre.

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Austrian student’s lawsuit vs Facebook bogged down in procedure

By Shadia Nasralla and Angelika Gruber VIENNA (Reuters) – Facebook presented a long list of procedural objections to an Austrian court on Thursday trying to halt a class action lawsuit for 25,000 users that accuses the social media giant of violating their privacy. The first day of hearings began with a four-hour session in which Facebook's lawyers tried to convince the judge not to admit the suit brought by law student Max Schrems, 27, who is claiming 500 euros ($538) in damages for each user

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French broadcaster TV5Monde hacked: Yahoo News

(Reuters) – French television network TV5Monde was hacked late on Wednesday by individuals claiming they support Islamic State, Yahoo News reported, citing a report by Agence France-Presse (AFP). The network was not able to broadcast from any of its channels and its social media sites and websites were “displaying claims of responsibility by Islamic State,” TV5Monde’s Director General Yves Bigot told AFP, according to the Yahoo report.

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