The U.K. suicide hotline Samaritans has teamed up with Facebook to better help people in the U.K. and Ireland who may be feeling suicidal or severely depressed.
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Yesterday the Prime Minister’s office posted a video of a conversation between Mark Zuckerberg and the David Cameron, the new U.K. prime minister, discussing a new initiative to engage citizens for ideas on reducing the country’s deficit. While it’s interesting to see the country engage its citizens I can only imagine the types of comments that will show up on the page. Despite the challenges, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a custom application that lets people vote or submit ideas in a more formal manner.
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In the runup to the April 20 voter registration deadline, Facebook is helping to get U.K. voters registered. Via the Democracy UK Page, there is a tab with an application that enables voters to register directly from Facebook. The new page, which was built in cooperation with the Electoral Commission and Techlightenment (a UK-based social media agency), still requires users to print and mail in their registration form.
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Facebook has threatened to sue the Daily Mail UK for inaccurately publishing a piece about Facebook on Wednesday, according to the Guardian. Daily Mail’s article claimed that whenever a “14 year old girl” joins Facebook she is approached by older men within seconds, who want to perform a “sex act in front of them”.
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Christmas Day happens to be great for online social networks, with millions of users sitting around the house playing with new gifts, showing online photos to family members and friends, or just surfing the net because there aren’t as many businesses open during this national holiday. Whatever the case may be, Facebook traffic in the UK peaked at an all time high on Christmas, 2008, just as it did last year.
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