It’s about time Lebanese mainstream media leveraged their power to promote social change in Lebanon. LBC’s Cheyef 7alak is a new initiative that is actively utilizing social media to encourage (well, by first embarrassing) respect among citizens in Lebanon.

One of their categories is about traffic. We’ve all been there. Their video and photo galleries poke fun at our weird attitudes towards driving. I’m not sure if they are aware of it, but they’re also critiquing the link between masculinity and road rage, which is a terrific thing!

Their most popular campaign to date has been about the simple courtesy of standing in line (a rare phenomenon in Lebanon) and their latest is about corruption. Check out the video below and follow them on Facebook and Twitter to engage!

I received this ad in my inbox (i.e. spam) and its weirdness (“archeological” digging AND a make-over?) led me to check out their page on Facebook.

First of all they say on Facebook that this “Just for Boys” workshop also welcomes girls. Well then why call it “just for boys”?

More importantly, they claim to be an “edutainment center for teens and tweens where your brain is pampered from right to left” I don’t see any “brain pampering” in what they actually have in store for girls:

Who paints girls’ faces with half a ton of make-up like that and calls it “pampering”? They also enter them into beauty contests with fake wigs and more make-up:

Even care bear looks like he’s lost his innocence. And look at this little girl – she is painted in even more make-up :-/

Keep your daughters and sisters away from FRIZZY!!

Talk with Sister Jayanti on June 9 at 7pm in Unesco Palace. Free of charge. Click on the flyer above for details.

Muhammad Bouazizi, ignition behind Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution. More cartoons from Carlos Latuff.

Isn’t it weird that the illustration of the woman is used in a serious manner to advertise for the Bic shavers? “For legs that beckon?” I thought we were over these stereotypical depictions of women, Canada? Photo taken on the subway in Toronto and posted via my new iPhone app!

Hmm..

Pay close attention to gender stereotyping around you. To unlearn sexism, you have to notice it first.

http://xkcd.com/

This is how slow the internet in Lebanon is. We rank 165 in download speed and 175 in upload speed among 178 countries. Thanks to Lynn and Poupi for laughing with me about this today! It’s no laughing matter though; it’s pretty pathetic. Test conducted on http://www.speedtest.net. Click on the image to enlarge.

I received an email this morning from “Gmail” account servicemails.account@gmail.com asking me to email them my Login ID, Password, Birthday, and Location. Hilarious. Who would fall for that trick? o_O

In case you would, be careful!

On a similar note, I receive an email or SMS message asking if I’ve requested a new password for my gmail account at least once every 3 months. Hacker, be you friend or stranger, if you get in, please do help out with the 1300 unread emails I’ve been meaning to find time to organize.

Facebook just sent out this email to users who have advertised on it before. I wonder what they mean by vague terms they’ve used, but let’s wait and see. I’m happy at least they responded to the pressures.

Hi Nadine,

Facebook will roll out changes today that will make it easier for our users to understand and control their privacy settings. As this change will have an impact on our users, we wanted to let you, a valued advertising partner, know about it. Please note that this change will not affect your advertising campaigns and there is no action required on your part.

Facebook is a company that moves quickly, constantly innovating and launching new products to improve the user experience. The feedback we heard from users was that in our efforts to innovate, some of our privacy settings h ad become confusing.

We believe in listening to our users and taking their feedback into account whenever possible. We think the following changes address these concerns by providing users with more control over their privacy settings and making them more simple to use.

Starting today, Facebook will:

*	Provide an easy-to-use “master” control that enables users to set who can see the content they share through Facebook.  This enables users to choose, with just one click, the overall privacy level they’re comfortable with for the content they share on Facebook. Of course, users can still use all of the granular controls we’ve always offered, if they wish.
*	Significantly reduce the amount of information that must be visible to everyone on Facebook. Facebook will no longer require that users’ friends and connections are visible to everyone. Only Name, Profile Picture, Networks and Gender must be publicly available. Users can opt to make all other connections private.
*	Make it simple to control whether other applications and websites access any user information. While a majority of our users love Facebook apps and Facebook-enhanced websites, some may prefer not to share their information outside of Facebook. Users can now opt out with just one click.

I encourage you to take a moment to read our CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s blog post and check out the new Facebook Privacy Page.

Thanks,
The Facebook Ads Team