Winklevoss twins drop legal action against Facebook

By Andrew Couts June 23, 2011

Mark Zuckerberg can breath a sigh of relief: Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the twins famously depicted in the Academy Award-winning film The Social Network, said this week that they would not appeal the Supreme Court ruling that upheld their settlement with Facbook and its co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, reports Reuters. The decision to throw in the towel comes after seven years of ongoing lawsuits.

The settlement terms were originally agreed upon in 2008, following an extensive legal battle over whether Zuckerberg had stolen the idea for Facebook from them while they were all still students at Harvard University. The court ruled that the Winklevosses would receive $65 million worth of cash and stock in Facebook. After the agreement, however, the Winkevosses said they planned to appeal the settlement, and fight for more money, because they believed Facebook withheld crucial evidence.

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With the stock they received now worth far more than it was in 2008, the twins on Wednesday told the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco that, after “careful consideration,” they have decided to let the 2008 settlement stand.

Upon hearing the news that its struggles with the pesky Winklevii were over, Facebook released a statement saying, “We’ve considered this case closed for a long time, and we’re pleased to see the other party now agrees.”

The legal woes are far from over for Facebook, however. With the number of users quickly approaching 700 million, the social network remains in a tussle with Paul Ceglia, a wood pellet salesman from upstate New York who claims to own 50 percent of Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook shares. Facebook has repeatedly said that Ceglia is nothing more than “scam artist” whose claims are entirely fabricated.

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Can’t quit Facebook? You can protect yourself without deleting your account

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Facebook started out as a great way to connect the world, find old friends, and upgrade this whole "face-to-face" talking thing we've been stuck with. It ended up as a way for marketers to Hoover up our information and sell stuff to us. The recent fiasco with Cambridge Analytica is a perfect example of everything that's wrong with the social network.

But maybe, just maybe, there's still some good left in Facebook. Maybe you don't want to leave -- how else would you stay in touch with Cousin Margo and that friend who moved to Australia? There are a variety of ways you can protect your private data, ensure your confidentiality, and in general prevent all those bad actors from latching onto your data. Follow the steps below to protect yourself without deleting Facebook entirely -- or just go whole hog and delete your Facebook account completely.
Alternative No. 1: Remove Facebook from apps
This first alternative removes Facebook from connected apps. You're essentially turning the platform off so third-party apps don't have access to your account and its information. Here's how to block them:

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Here are five tips to keep your data private on Facebook

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After the revelation that a data company called Cambridge Analytica acquired data from millions of Facebook users without their knowledge, many have raised concerns about just how private the information people put on Facebook is. If you’re worried that data about you might be circulating among companies without your knowledge, here are some steps you can take to maintain your privacy on Facebook.
1. Download your Facebook data
If you’re worried about what data you have floating around out there, Facebook gives users the ability to download a copy of their Facebook data (all of it). Go to your Settings, then, under General Account Settings, select Download a copy of your Facebook data. Click Start My Archive to begin the process. This will give you an archive of all your activity on Facebook, including information you’ve posted, messages you’ve sent, even which ads you’ve clicked on.
2. Change your privacy settings

In your settings, select Privacy. Here, you can control who can see your posts (making them public, or viewable only to friends, for example), as well as who can send you friend requests, look at your friends list, and perhaps most importantly, whether search engines can link to your profile.
3. Change your timeline and tagging settings
In a similar vein, you can determine whether or not people can post on your timeline, tag you in posts, and more. Go to Settings, then click Timeline and Tagging. From here, you can select who should be able to post on your timeline, and who can see those posts. You can also give yourself the option to review posts that people tag you in, so you can choose whether or not that post appears on your timeline.
4. Check/delete apps
According to the New York Times story on how Cambridge Analytica acquired all that user data, the source was an app. Specifically, it was a personality quiz that collected data on users and their friends. The person who built the app then gave that data to the analytics company.

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HTC Vive owners can now get social with Oculus Rift friends in Facebook Spaces

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Facebook’s Rachel Rubin Franklin said on Tuesday, December 19, that Facebook Spaces is now available for the HTC Vive VR headset. Formerly available only on the rival Oculus Rift model, Vive owners can now get on Facebook’s VR social bandwagon to experience the popular network in a whole new, up-close-and-personal way.

“Vive owners will find all the same fun features as the Rift version — you can create your own avatar, view Facebook photos and 360 videos, play games, draw with markers, go Live, make Messenger video calls, and (my favorite) take awesome selfies,” Franklin says. “Plus, it's cross-platform compatible, so Vive users can also hang out in Spaces with friends who use Rift.”