The following is part of our series on different ways Facebook is used across the world. This week, we are featuring stories about how people are connecting for the holidays. You can read previous posts in this series here. If you have a story you'd like to share with us, please submit it here.


In December, when signs of Christmas become apparent everywhere in the U.S., it can be easy to forget about the numerous winter holidays that take place around the world. Amy Bridges, a teacher at an inner-city school in Indianapolis, wanted to change that for her 7th and 8th grade students. Most had never left the city, let alone the state or country.

Amy wanted to share global traditions with a more personal lesson than could be taught from the generic information in a teaching manual. She hoped to illustrate their importance using real-life stories from a variety of people who had direct experience with winter holidays.

Amy reached out last year to friends and family through Facebook with a simple request. Explaining that she was trying to broaden her students' international horizons, she asked her friends to contribute stories about their experiences with winter celebrations and holidays from other cultures and countries. Their descriptions, she explained, would "provide wonderful, authentic discussion points for 12-to-15-year-old students." In no time, Amy had received several responses, giving her enough material to shape a lesson around their firsthand accounts.

Thanks to her Facebook friends, Amy's class talked about various Jewish Hanukkah traditions, the Muslim celebration of Eid, and the evolution of the Yule holiday. They also learned about celebrations connected to the winter solstice, such as the tradition of Yalda that occurs in Iran, and numerous Japanese winter practices.

Finally, Amy's students were curious to hear about the different ways Christmas was celebrated around the world, with one Facebook friend contributing stories of a snowless "summer Christmas" from New Zealand in the Southern Hemisphere.

According to Amy, it's hard to tell whether she or her students enjoyed the lesson more. Although the kids were intrigued by the celebrations they discussed, Amy was inspired by the support she had received from her friends on Facebook.

"As 'authenticity' becomes an education buzzword," she said, "Facebook is one place to easily gather information, anecdotes, and documented facts from 'experts'—if you're lucky enough to know them."


Sara, an intern on Facebook's communications team, has finished decorating her tree and is learning how to play dreidel.

Status updates on Facebook help people understand their friends and the people around them--how they're feeling, what they're doing and what they're thinking. In the United States alone, people on Facebook are sharing hundreds of millions of words every day, thousands per second, in status updates. When taken as a whole, these words offer a unique barometer into the issues, world events and thoughts that are connecting people.

In the tradition of year-end lists, we're introducing Facebook Memology. "Memology" refers to the study of how "memes," or new ideas and trends, are spreading on Facebook. For this year's list, the Facebook Data Team mapped the top trending words and phrases in U.S. status updates for 2009.

While significant news events and celebrities made the list, more personal topics like family, religion and even emerging digital slang were as common—no doubt reflecting the way people share their daily lives with friends on Facebook.

To generate the list, we started by looking at how many times each phrase with length from one-to-four words occurred in U.S. Facebook status updates, then we computed the rate at which each phrase occurred in 2009 compared to 2008. Using some data-mining methods detailed here, we analyzed important bursts in activity around words and series of words to find the key trends for the year. All personally identifiable information was removed from the status updates to conduct this analysis, and no one at Facebook read the individual status updates.

Because quite a few words and phrases were related to each other and correlated contextually, we grouped some of them together to form the final list that follows.

As much as I enjoy celebrating my birthday every year with my friends, I often regard the anniversary of my relationship with my significant other to be even more important.

At Facebook, we're always looking to make it easier to share and recognize such milestones. That's why we recently added the ability for you to include the date of your relationship anniversary on your Facebook profile. The new "Anniversary" field appears on profiles under the Relationship section of the Info tab.

Since launching our Translations application two years ago, more than 300,000 people have answered the call to contribute translations and make Facebook available in more than 70 different languages. These translators are helping more people connect in the languages that feel most comfortable to them, no matter how big or small of a community speaks a language or dialect. For all of their efforts, we think that translators deserve some extra recognition.

Today, we're launching an award system for translators where they'll receive special icons as they reach various milestones in the Translations application. The awards are grouped into the following three categories, and their levels vary based on the frequency and accuracy of translators' contributions in such activities as translating words and voting on the best translations:

• Voting Participation


• Words Published


• Translations Published

We are starting with nine possible awards, but we will consider adding more depending on the feedback we receive. These new awards complement the leaderboard we previously put in place in the application to publicly spotlight top translators.

UPDATE on Thursday, Dec. 10: In response to your feedback, we've improved the Friend List visibility option described below. Now when you uncheck the "Show my friends on my profile" option in the Friends box on your profile, your Friend List won't appear on your profile regardless of whether people are viewing it while logged into Facebook or logged out. This information is still publicly available, however, and can be accessed by applications. Thanks again for your comments and suggestions.

We've also posted a third tutorial about the new privacy controls here. This video explains how to use the privacy control in the Publisher, the box where you publish status content such as updates, photos, videos and links.


Thank you for all of your feedback so far on the new privacy tools we began rolling out today. We'll be providing updates and listing the most common questions we're receiving in this post. Be sure to read our full blog post on the new privacy tools, if you haven't already.

Why don't I have the new settings?

If you haven't yet seen the three-step transition tool for reviewing and updating your privacy settings, you will shortly. We're asking all 350 million people who use Facebook to go through this process and are rolling out the changes incrementally to make sure it goes smoothly. Keep in mind that you also won't see the new Privacy Settings page until you've gone through the transition process.

Can I limit access to my Friend List?

Many of you have mentioned that you want a way to hide your list of friends. In response to your feedback, we've removed the "View Friends" link from search results, making your Friend List less visible on the site.

Over the past year, Facebook Connect has brought an end to lengthy registration processes on many websites, provided a new way to interact with your News Feed on sites like Yahoo!, MSN and iGoogle, and empowered you to take your Facebook identity and friends to technologies such as Nintendo DSi, Xbox and iPhone apps.

Today, we are celebrating the first anniversary of Facebook Connect from the LeWeb conference in France. Facebook Connect is now available on more than 80,000 websites, and more than 60 million people are using the service to connect with their friends everywhere.

UPDATE on Thursday, Dec. 10: We've been providing updates about our new privacy controls and answering your most common questions here on the blog. In addition to the video explaining the transition process for privacy settings, we've posted tutorials about using the new Privacy Settings page here and the Publisher privacy controls here.


Today, we're launching new tools to give you even greater control over the information you share. Mark Zuckerberg, our founder and CEO, talked about these changes in his post last week. They include a simpler privacy settings page and a tool to control the audience for each and every post you create. We're also taking this opportunity to require all 350 million people who use Facebook to review and update their settings.

Developing privacy controls that work for 350 million people who all use the site in unique ways is a difficult challenge. We've put a lot of work into today's new features, using your suggestions to guide us, and we're proud of what we've accomplished. However, we're by no means done, and we look forward to your feedback, which will help us develop the next innovation in user control.

Here's a rundown of what to expect for now:

Helping You Choose Settings

Starting very soon, when you log in to Facebook, you'll be presented with a quick and easy three-step process for reviewing and updating your settings.

The first step explains the changes we're making. If you want a more in-depth explanation of how privacy works on Facebook, you can visit our new Privacy Center, a comprehensive privacy guide with information on how to control your experience. Once you're ready to continue, click "Continue to Next Step."

On the next page, you'll be asked to make choices about who can see the various parts of your profile and the posts you create. If you've ever chosen to restrict access to parts of your profile, we'll be recommending that you keep those more restrictive settings. If you've never done this, we'll be making recommendations based on how lots of people are sharing information today.

For example, we'll be recommending that you make available to everyone a limited set of information that helps people find and connect with you, information like "About Me" and where you work or go to school. For more sensitive information, like photos and videos in which you've been tagged and your phone number, we'll be recommending a more restrictive setting.

Once you've made choices based on your comfort level, click "Save Settings." You'll see a confirmation step that lists the settings you've selected and includes a link to the Privacy Settings page, where you can customize further. As always, you have control over your information and can revisit your settings at any time.

Watch the following tutorial to learn more about how to update your settings:



Simpler Settings

Facebook has always provided extensive and granular settings that allow you to control access to your information as you see fit. Over time, however, as the site has evolved and new features have been added, these settings have become increasingly complicated. That's why today we're launching a new, simpler Privacy Settings page.

After completing the transition tool, you'll be able to access this new page any time and the same way you access your privacy settings today—from the "Settings" link at the top right of every Facebook page. The new Privacy Settings page will include sections for profile information, contact information, applications and websites, and search. As always, you can block specific users, which prevents them from seeing any of your information or contacting you on Facebook.

No matter what section you choose, you'll see an identical setting selector with three basic levels of privacy: Friends, Friends of Friends and Everyone. If you're in a verified network, such as a network for your school or workplace, you'll continue to have a "Friends and Networks" option. You'll also be able to customize your settings based on certain friends and friend lists. As an added layer of protection, we'll be requiring that you first enter your Facebook username and password before changing any settings.

Adding Control for Each Post

We're introducing a completely new privacy tool for the Publisher, the box at the top of the profile where you post content like status updates, links, photos and videos. Once you've completed the transition tool, you'll be able to choose an audience for each piece of content you post at the time that you post it. Just look for the standard privacy lock icon at the bottom right of the Publisher. When you click it, you'll see our standard setting selector with the same basic levels of privacy. The first time you post with this new control, you'll get a message that explains how to use the control.

A Few Important Points

As we stated back in July, these new tools in no way alter our policies or practices around advertising. Facebook never shares personal information with advertisers except under your direction and control.

In addition, settings for minors will continue to be more restrictive than those for adults. If you're a minor and you share a piece of content with "Everyone," you will be sharing it at most with friends of friends and members of any school or work networks you've joined. Similarly, minors are opted out of sharing information with public search engines for indexing.

With these changes, a limited set of basic information that helps your friends find you will be made publicly available. This information is name, profile picture, gender, current city, networks, friend list, and Pages. The overwhelming majority of people who use Facebook already make most or all of this information available to everyone. We've found that most people who do limit access just want to avoid being found in searches or prevent contact from strangers. For this reason, we'll be preserving the settings that allow you to exclude yourself from search results on Facebook and public search engines. You'll also be able to limit who can send you messages and friend requests to only friends and friends of friends.

We're happy to be offering you simpler tools to control your experience on Facebook. We encourage you to take the time to explore them and consider what settings are right for you.


Ruchi Sanghvi, Facebook's product manager for privacy, is in control.

Improving safety online is a group effort. It requires diligence from everyone who's online or on Facebook—whether by reporting abusive behavior or making sure your account and passwords are secure. At Facebook, we think about our role the same way. We must work with a diverse set of experts and organizations devoted to online safety in order to bring you the best safety resources on Facebook.

We've been following this collaborative approach to safety for years, and today we took another step by launching a global Safety Advisory Board. This group of five leading Internet safety organizations from North America and Europe will consult with us on online safety issues. One of our first projects together will be to overhaul the safety information that's available to you from the Facebook Help Center so that the resources are more comprehensive and include content that's specifically tailored to the needs of parents, teachers and teens.

We're grateful for the support of such a well-respected group of organizations in our latest effort. The initial members of the Safety Advisory Board are Childnet International, The Family Online Safety Institute, Common Sense Media, ConnectSafely and WiredSafety. Over time, we will consider adding additional members to the Safety Advisory Board as we identify good candidates and seek to broaden its international representation.

You can learn more about these organizations and our Safety Advisory Board by reading today's announcement here.

The Safety Advisory Board is just one step we've taken—and will continue to take—to promote a safer environment on Facebook. Just last week, we partnered with MTV on the A Thin Line campaign to educate people about digital abuse. A few weeks ago, the New York Attorney General's office cited Facebook's help in identifying and disabling the accounts of registered sex offenders. We worked with the BBC in November on their Bullyproof campaign in the UK. We also regularly invite organizations like the National Crime Prevention Council to share safety tips with you on this blog, and we provide updates on new safety approaches we're taking on the site to make reporting abuse easier.

As we now work with the Safety Advisory Board, you can expect to see more safety resources on this blog and in our Help Center in the months to come. Only by working together can all of us stay safe online.


Richard, Facebook's director of European public policy, is doing his part for online safety.

The following is part of our series on different ways Facebook is used across the world. Read the previous blog post in this series here. If you have a story you'd like to share with us, please submit it here.


Marie* was expecting a typical day when she arrived at her advertising job one January day earlier this year. By the end, she was among the 15 percent of her company who had been laid off as part of a downsizing at the New York company. She was so devastated that she didn't have time to say goodbye to co-workers with whom she had shared so many memories.

Like millions of people, Marie faced the harsh reality of the current economic recession that has led to double-digit unemployment in the United States and many other countries. She looked to support from her friends, family and former co-workers — and she found it by logging onto Facebook.

Facebook allowed her to reconnect with many of her former colleagues who had similarly lost their jobs, and they were able to support each other through a difficult time. Marie expected her first day without a job to be filled with sadness and isolation. Instead, she said she was greeted with well wishes and even job leads from previous co-workers and others who had been in similar situations.

"This gave me a great sense of support and connection," Marie said, "As I gladly received wonderful messages and followed up on leads, I realized that this would not be possible without Facebook."

One of those leads was for a marketing position, and Marie diligently followed up. Months later, on another day she thought would be typical, she received a job offer. Now she's working full-time and grateful for the support and advice of her friends. As Marie said, "Facebook really helped me stay connected, receive kind words, and indirectly secure employment."


Nikki, a specialist on Facebook's user operations team, is grateful to have found her job through Facebook, too.

*Marie is a pseudonym we used at the request of the Facebook user to protect her identity.

Casi Lumbra, 17, is an advisory board member for MTV's A Thin Line campaign, which launched today to help teens stop the spread of digital abuse. She's also a member of WiredSafety.org's Teenangels, a group of teens trained in all aspects of online safety, privacy and security. While people on Facebook may never encounter digital abuse, they still need to be able to spot it and stop it. We asked Casi to share her perspective as a teenager and expert about the causes of digital abuse and ways that teens can avoid it.


Have you ever snooped on a friend's text messages, posted nasty messages about a classmate or colleague on Facebook or posted an embarrassing picture of someone to get even? Have any of these things ever happened to you?

Let's face it: For many teens the answer to at least one of those questions is likely "yes." We use technology 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from connected devices in our backpacks, pockets and purses. This creates a digital side to every part of our lives. Even our relationships are wired. We interact with friends, boyfriends, girlfriends and acquaintances online just as we do offline, and sometimes it's hard to remember that our online behavior has boundaries.

If you also answered "yes" to any of the questions I asked above, you've experienced "digital abuse." Digital abuse is the use of digital technologies—such as cell phones, social networks, instant messaging and e-mail—to hurt someone, even when you didn't "mean" it. It even includes certain high-risk digital activities that can hurt us, like "sexting"—the act of sending sexually explicit images. It's also digital abuse if you:

• Harass people with constant text messages
• Demand that they be available at all times and even sleep with their cell phones
• Send nasty or threatening messages, post mean pictures or create groups to gang up on someone online
• Hack into people's accounts to hurt them
• Spy on people with keystroke loggers or take over their profiles by changing their passwords

Even though it involves the virtual world, digital abuse has serious real-world consequences. Things may start out as a joke, but end up badly. Curiosity can become criminal privacy intrusions. Sometimes it's hard to tell where our actions fall.

There's a thin line between what's harmless and what's harmful, and that line can be difficult to spot.