Facebook revolt gets its Jon of Arc

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Status: grounded? Eighth-grader leads Facebook revolt

Nearly a million and a half angry Facebook users are protesting recent changes to the Web site. The leader of the furious online mob? A smiling eighth-grader from Apex who wears his baseball cap backwards and likes to play FarmVille.

His parents were not aware of this.

"He's doing what on Facebook?" asked Jonathan Woodlief's father when the Observer called their home near Raleigh on Tuesday night. Then David Woodlief and his wife, Claire, got Jonathan, 14, out of bed. He came downstairs and explained just how he happened to become the leader of one of the fastest-growing viral movements online. The group was booming by more than 100 new members a minute on Wednesday.

Facebook breeds political battlefield

Thousands of Facebook users have strong opinions on state bills being considered this session.

But somebody forgot to tell the legislature.

Since January, users of the popular social networking site have created at least 16 groups to support or oppose specific legislation in North Carolina. The groups total about 20,000 members.

Use of Twitter, Facebook rising among gang members

When a gang member was released from jail soon after his arrest for selling methamphetamine, friends and associates assumed he had cut a deal with authorities and become a police informant.

They sent a warning on Twitter that went like this: We have a snitch in our midst.

Unbeknownst to them, that tweet and the traffic it generated were being closely followed by investigators, who had been tracking the San Francisco Bay Area gang for months. Officials sat back and watched as others joined the conversation and left behind incriminating information.

Social sites not just for young

John Blake's Facebook profile lists a single, favorite quotation: "If you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you always got."

The Raleigh resident is 71 and just one of the swelling numbers of older people on the social media network. Some like Blake or Jonathan Murray, also of Raleigh, log on for the first time themselves. Murray, 57, created his account about a year ago after using Facebook as part of his church's Web team, which looks into options for outreach, such as Facebook and MySpace.

Many older people who use Facebook find their way there with a little help, though.

NCSU stops John Wall Web site

The frenzied pursuit of high school star John Wall of Raleigh has galvanized college basketball fans to get involved in an interactive way via Facebook and other social networking Web sites. That has schools concerned about running afoul of NCAA rules.

Thursday morning, N.C. State asked Taylor Moseley, a freshman, to shut down "John Wall PLEASE come to NC STATE!!!", a Facebook group that drew more than 700 members. By Thursday night, it was gone. Moseley started a new group -- "Bring a National Title back to NC STATE!" -- that makes no mention of Wall but includes a photograph of the senior at Raleigh Word of God, who is widely considered the nation's best point guard prospect.

The Wall craze points to the immense challenge facing the NCAA and individual schools, which are trying to regulate contact with recruits when the means of communicating electronically seem to be changing every day.