Better Searching on Facebook

We’ve written about how to use social networking websites for jury selection and marketing (see right column under Articles) and Facebook has now made it even easier to hunt down its members and their posts.

Conceptually, Facebook has been a “closed circuit” social networking site where users limit who can view their profiles and posts.  The idea is you keep it to a close circle of friends.  On the other hand, Twitter has been an “open circuit” social networking site where your posts go out into the twittersphere for friends, people you don’t know, neighbors, and prying lawyers to read.  Thus, Facebook has become a rock-solid means to communicate among friends while Twitter has become a way to communicate with the world.  Stated differently, and at the risk of overthinking this issue, Facebook makes connections based upon people, Twitter makes connections based upon topics.

Back to the changes at Facebook.  They’ve changed the general search query (top right corner of your facebook page) so that you can run your search term for everything on their site as well as subcategories like people, pages, groups, etc.  The change was announced (and perhaps better described), here on Facebook blog’s August 10 post.  We also came across this Florida-related post on the topic at Examiner.com, which is likewise a good description of the changes.

This does not mean that you now have access to Facebook user’s profiles, walls or other information.  By default, a user’s profile and other information is restricted.  However, this is an easier way to find users in the first place as well as see other Facebook “events” involving your search term.  Arguably, this could be a babystep towards Facebook becoming more open and searchable.  Meanwhile, don’t think lawyers are alone in searching Facebook

Thanks to our friends at TechCrunch for the scoop, here.

1st Amendment
Christopher Hopkins discusses First Amendment & Social Media at University of Miami Law School

A special thanks to professor Jan Jacobowitz for inviting me to speak about the First Amendment and Social Media as part of her Social Media and the Law class at the University of Miami Law School. Some of the cases we covered include: Elonis v US US v Elonis In …

Uncategorized
Meet Christopher Hopkins (YouTube Video)

McDonald Hopkins LLC has produced a short video segment “Meet Christopher Hopkins” which you can view here. The video shares my thoughts on a number of topics, such as the best part of being a lawyer.

Conspiracy
Florida Atlantic University and Other Defendants File Motions to Dismiss Against Conspiracy Professor James Tracy

Readers of this blog will recall the story of former university professor James Tracy, who taught and eschews conspiracy theories and was fired for breach of a Florida Atlantic University’s “Conflict of Interest / Outside Activities” policy which required professors to advise FAU of their outside activities.  He filed a massive …