Facebook: a Social Network

Facebook is a website or a social network that connects you with your friends, family members, your colleagues, or other people who either know you or want to get to know you. Facebook allows you to share information and create an open and connected environment in the world. This social network was created in February 4, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, in the goal of gathering and connecting people who may know each other or not. Thanks to Facebook, one could find his/her classmates during the pre-school, the crèche or the kindergarten just by typing his/her name in the search box. In addition, users utilize this website to share photos, videos, and messages with their friends. Facebook proposes also to its users a bunch of applications and quizzes that the user could use after inviting a certain number of people. Moreover, this social network offered to subscribers a chat function in April 2008 that allows users to show their online status to their friends and discuss various topics in a private platform. Facebook announced 100 million users in last august 25, and was ranked the fifth most visited website across the planet.
However, the personal information delivered by the users could be used by Facebook to send targeted ads in terms of the different characteristics of the profile as the age, sex, nationality, and level of education. Furthermore, according to Le Figaro in 2008, Facebook was used by some companies to select candidates or to control their current employees and know more about their activities and personal lives. Also, it was stated by the same French newspaper that Facebook was used by some parents to monitor their children’s lives.

What is going on with French Newspaper Industry?

Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France, is working on the launch of meetings and consultations in order to alleviate the crisis that knows the France’s newspaper industry. In fact, the circulation and distribution of newspapers are facing problems as well as its edition. This could be explained by the censorship and restrictions imposed to the French press as stated clearly in the article “it is routine for politicians’ offices to change copy and write their own question-and-answer interviews for publication”. Therefore, the content of French newspapers is biased and controlled closely by political parties and politicians and consequently this prevents readers from buying newspapers. Another problem is the cost of printing in France which is high comparing to the one in other European countries as UK or Germany. Furthermore, the control over the newspapers kiosks by Labyrinthine state is also considered as a simulator of the crisis. Another crucial point is the competition that French newspapers are dealing with either from free papers or from internet. People nowadays get more used to internet and all its functions including reading news online. Thus, internet becomes a substitute for newspapers as a source of information. One of the solutions to the French newspaper industry crisis could be decreasing the cost of newspapers and make them more attractive by offering interesting sections to be read by different segments and therefore push them to shift from internet to national newspapers. Moreover, readers should no longer feel this dependency of journalists on political parties in writing articles. This will emphasize the freedom of French press and encourage more people to buy more newspapers. Newspapers are a mass medium reaching a large audience; hence, newspapers should be improved and supported to convey and communicate free thoughts and authentic news.