The FACEBOOK Thread

[Mee]

This is a tragic amd touching story. A missed opportunity, a quest for lost love.


Good luck to you Mr. Boney Dubz, Godspeed.

 

[Rumpy Bulge Dubz]

Thanks both

but I don't think I'll ever find my soul mate again

 

[Prison Mike]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_facebook_cheating_dispute

On Facebook, wife learns of husband's 2nd wedding

By MEGHAN BARR, Associated Press Writer Meghan Barr, Associated Press Writer 1 hr 20 mins ago

CLEVELAND – Dread of the unknown hung in the air as Lynn France typed two words into the search box on Facebook: the name of the woman with whom she believed her husband was having an affair.
Click. And there it was, the stuff of nightmares for any spouse, cuckolded or not. Wedding photos. At Walt Disney World, no less, featuring her husband literally dressed as Prince Charming. His new wife, a pretty blonde, was a glowing Sleeping Beauty, surrounded by footmen.
"I was numb with shock, to tell you the truth," says France, an occupational therapist from Westlake, a Cleveland suburb. "There was like an album of 200 pictures on there. Their whole wedding."
The husband claimed Thursday that his marriage to Lynn France was never valid. He said she knew earlier about the other marriage and was making the Facebook claim as a publicity ploy.
Affairs were once shadowy matters, illicit encounters whispered about and often difficult to prove. But in the age of Facebook and Twitter and lightning-fast communication, the notion of privacy is fast becoming obsolete. From flirtatious text messages to incriminating e-mails, marital indiscretions are much easier to track — especially if potentially damaging photographic evidence is posted online.
"All of these things are just a trail of cyber breadcrumbs that are easily tracked by good divorce lawyers," says Parry Aftab, an expert on Internet safety and privacy laws.
France, 41, was not completely blindsided by her Facebook discovery, which happened in January 2009. That fall, she had grown suspicious when her husband began taking frequent business trips, even leaving the day the couple's newborn son came home from the hospital. Once, she found his passport at home when he was supposed to be in China for business.
In October, before leaving for another trip, her husband left a hotel website up on the couple's computer screen.
"So I actually went there with a girlfriend, just to see for myself for sure," France says. "He was there with this girlfriend. I said, `Hey, I'm his wife. We've got a baby.'"
The woman told France that she was engaged to France's husband.
"Sure enough, they were registered for a wedding at Target," France says.
A girlfriend recommended checking the woman's Facebook page, which was then open to the public, France says, but has since become private. There, France found evidence of an unfolding relationship that she still couldn't wrap her head around. Overwhelmed with two young children, she confronted her husband. She says he told her he wouldn't actually go through with the wedding.
It wasn't until she saw the wedding photos that she finally began divorce proceedings.
"People who engage in these sorts of behaviors now have the option of trying to keep things private or turning it into a spectacle and becoming their own reality show," says lawyer Andrew Zashin, a child custody expert who is representing Lynn France. "In this case, it seems, the spouse may have crossed the line and gotten married while he was still married."
Aftab, a lawyer who runs the online protection site WiredSafety.org, says the lesson to be learned from the Frances' case is that no form of communication is sacred anymore.
"It's like trying to catch a river in your hand," she says. "It will leak out eventually."
But Aftab doesn't recommend snooping around online. That can backfire in court if used inappropriately — such as when spouses log onto each other's Facebook pages without permission. If your spouse isn't trustworthy, she says, get a divorce and save yourself the trouble.

Lynn's husband, John France, does not deny that he has remarried. Rather, he simply is insisting that he was never married to Lynn in the first place.
"I don't think I was cheating," France said in an interview aired Thursday on NBC's "Today" show. "If you have a marriage that's not right from the beginning, it's not right at the end."
France said Lynn France's claim of finding out about the second wedding on Facebook was "absurd" and said she knew long before. He claimed she was "losing the court battle" for custody of their two sons and was using the Facebook story for attention.
His attorney, Gary Williams, issued a statement Tuesday saying his client is asking a family law court to declare that his marriage to Lynn was "void since its inception."
"While it appears that John and Lynda France were both under the impression, once upon a time, that they were married, the fact of the matter is that their marriage was never legally proper," Williams wrote, "and, therefore, it does not actually exist."
Lynn and John France were married in July 2005 in a seaside wedding on Italy's Amalfi Coast, having organized the event through Regency San Marino, which coordinates weddings for couples looking to get hitched in Italy. On the company's website, Lynn is still the first radiant bride whose portrait appears in a gauzy veil, the brilliant blue sea behind her.
If that wedding was a fraud, it was news to Lynn.
"If that were true, then he's lied to the IRS," Zashin says. "He's lied to insurance companies. Banks."
In June 2009, against the advice of her attorneys, Lynn France dropped divorce proceedings when her husband came home and persuaded her to reconcile.
"I just wanted to believe the good when he came to me and said, `Let's reconcile, I love you,'" she says. "You want to give somebody a second chance."
But three months ago, Lynn says she was cleaning the sink when her husband took the couple's 2-year-old son out of her arms and said he was going to give him some milk. Minutes later, she heard the car running.
"He threw them in, no car seats, no nothing, and took off," she says.
She hasn't seen her sons since. John France had taken them to Tampa, Fla., where he currently lives with his new wife and, according to his attorney, is seeking custody of their children.
Lynn France called 911, but as in most parental custody disputes, little could be done. She is in contact with the Center for Missing and Exploited Children and has a team of attorneys preparing for a court fight. Authorities have told her not to attempt to take back the children forcibly.
For Lynn, the only glimpse of her children now comes, ironically, from the same Facebook page where she found those fairy-tale wedding photos.
Until the day she can see her children again, Lynn France says she continues to text her husband, pleading with him to bring the children back to Ohio.
"The only way I've been able to see my children is on her Facebook page," she says. "It's stranger than fiction to watch this woman living my life."
John France denied he was keeping her from the children, saying during the interview Thursday that he offered to buy her plane tickets to come to Florida. A message left Thursday for Lynn France's attorney was not immediately returned

Sucks to be the first wife.

 

[kane9321]

Wow...I feel bad for the wife..just wow

 

[THE MR. TERRIFIC]

What an IDIOT!!

 

[Harls]

Jeez, that's a sticky situation to be in for everyone involved. I feel so bad for the first wife's kids.

 

[Prison Mike]

Getting married to a second woman is bad enough but I can't believe he took his kids from their mother and now the 2nd wife is raising them.

 

[scifiwolf]

This guy needs to be smote.

 

[Kane52630]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/social.media/08/05/pets.facebook.networks/index.html

(CNN) -- There's nothing too unusual about the way Shiva Lingham starts her day. After a quick breakfast, she goes upstairs and crawls into her mom's unmade bed.

An hour or so later, a well-rested Shiva visits the family laptop to log on to Facebook and update her status. Only Shiva can't use the laptop alone -- she doesn't have opposable thumbs.

But then, most cats don't.

Shiva's owner, self-proclaimed "crazy cat lady" Kirsty Worrall, created Shiva's Facebook account in September to keep her friends and family up to date on the kitten's progress.

"Everybody seemed to be more interested in the cat than what me or my partner were doing," said Worrall, who doesn't have her own Facebook account. "I come from a family of huge cat lovers. They're fascinated with Shiva ... and they've been able to watch her grow through the Facebook page."

Worrall keeps Shiva's Facebook friends in the loop by posting photos of Shiva and updating her status in the third person to reflect what she's doing at that point in time. One recent status update reads: "Shiva Lingham is very upset that Mummy and Daddy have only been eating vegetarian food! ... Where's the Beef!"

Although exact numbers are hard to come by, Worrall is one of a growing number of pet owners who pose as their animals on social networks. A quick scan of Facebook yields at least a few thousand profile pages for dogs and cats along with less common pets such as birds, hamsters, ferrets, turtles, fish and rabbits.

Many of the profiles feature status updates from the animal's perspective, like this one posted by parrot Fruit Loop: "Fankyou everyone muchly for my wonderful Birthday msgs. Mumma ran out of Internet so I couldn't thankyou sooner.. My mumma made me some birdie muffins, yum yum. And I got a new toy! STOKED."

Or this update by a rabbit named Nestle: "Eat, poop, groom, sleep, repeat!!!"

These pet owners say it's all in good fun. But some may not realize they are violating Facebook's terms and conditions.

"People on Facebook want to interact with their real friends and the people they know in the real world," Facebook spokesperson Winnie Ko wrote in an e-mail to CNN. "Since accounts that impersonate anyone or anything can damage the integrity of this environment, Facebook doesn't allow fake profiles for pets."

Justin Smith, founder of the blog Inside Facebook, says it's not so much about the pets but the practice of assuming a false identity that "hurts the quality of communication" on the popular site, which has more than 500 million users.

"There are many places online where people assume identities of either people or, in some cases, pets. ... It's something we've seen with a lot of the first-generation social networks on the web," Smith said.

Instead of joining Facebook, pet owners might consider joining a social network specifically for pets, he said. Among them are Critterscorner.ning.com, Catster.com, Dogster.com and myDogspace.com.

There's even one for rabbits: BunSpace.

Jessica Frey, who operates a Facebook page on behalf of her rabbit Nestle, is aware of pet-centric networking sites such as BunSpace. But she says it's hard to make the switch after investing so much time in one social network and notes that Nestle has more than 1,000 friends on Facebook -- most of them furry.

Frey says some of Nestle's rabbit friends have had their accounts shut down by the site.

"It's really silly because we all know it's really not the pets that are doing it," she said. "It's the people behind them that are making friends with other people. It's pretty harmless."

Facebook did not respond to a question about whether the site removes pets' profile pages.

Nestle's Facebook page has enabled Frey to make friends with pet owners from around the world, she says. Her children's friends have all added Nestle as a friend on Facebook.

One person, however, remains immune to Nestle's social-networking charms.

"My fiance thinks I'm crazy," she said. "He doesn't like it at all. Every once in a while, I'll have Nestle say something to him on Facebook, and he'll just delete it."

Frey believes that for uncommon house pets, Facebook can be a lifesaver -- literally.

When Nestle began suffering from gastrointestinal stasis, a potentially fatal condition, Frey turned to her social network for help because "a lot of vets don't know too much about rabbits."

One Facebook friend answered her query, suggesting she medicate Nestle with gas-relief drops for infants. The bunny has been in good health ever since.

Worrall, who lives in Birmingham, England, agrees that Facebook can be a helpful tool. But she's much more interested in making new friends for Shiva. Possibly even a boyfriend.

"[Shiva's] got a lot of cat friends in America, but, at the moment, she's still looking for a kitty friend in the U.K.," Worrall said. "She tried to get herself a transatlantic kitty boyfriend, but he was already taken ... she couldn't tempt him away," she said with a laugh.

There's nothing wrong with giving your pet a voice, says Mike Pena and Anton Shepherd, co-founders of Petzume, a social networking site for pets and pet owners. Both at one point or another have spoken for their pets online, they say.

"We see a lot of people who create profiles for their pets ... and talk through the character of their pet to describe the day's activities, [their] likes and dislikes," Pena said.

Pena says it can be funny to explain, from the pet's perspective, why he or she chewed up your favorite hat. He speaks from experience.

Mary Loud Randour, a psychologist with the Humane Society of America, has no problem with people creating online profiles for pets.

"It probably feels like by doing this, that you're honoring your pet," she says. "You can have other people meet your pet and get to know them like you would with other members of the family. You can share the pet's personality as you experience it."

"Sometimes with other social networks, people feel pressure. They want to try and have important updates and make sure their image is protected," Shepherd said. "But with a pet social network, you don't have to worry about that. You can just be yourself."

Worrall, however, is perfectly comfortable being herself as Shiva on a broader network like Facebook. In fact, she prefers it. Worrall enjoys interacting through Shiva's profile with friends and family -- and, she says, with "other crazy cat ladies just like me."

 

[Manic]

1. The cat's owner is named Worrall, but the cat is Shiva Lingham. Do people normally give their cats last names different from their own?
2. Shiva is a boy's name.
3. Update your pet's status on your own flipping Facebook account, weirdos.

 

[Blitzkrieg Bop]

My dog likes this thread.

 

[Scourge2099]

My cat loves this thread so much he brought a dead mouse to the op.

 

[Harls]

who doesn't have her own Facebook account

It's kinda sad that her cat has a Facebook page before she does.

 

[Kane52630]

all I can say is that I had my Parakeet for 2 years and I loved it soo much but this is ridiculous

 

[Scourge2099]

I would never make a Facebook account for my cat.

 

[SuperFerret]

I've made both a Facebook and a MySpace for a plastic skull I had in an attempt to parody things like this. I abandoned them though.

 

[Jennifer Walters]

I actually am friends with a cat on Facebook.

 

[ObakeTora]

When I first saw this title I was thinking what a cool idea maybe I'll make one for my cat, but after hearing some of your responses I quickly came to the conclusion that I need to get out more. (sigh!) I need a girlfriend..

 

[Spidey-Bat]

1. The cat's owner is named Worrall, but the cat is Shiva Lingham. Do people normally give their cats last names different from their own?
2. Shiva is a boy's name.
3. Update your pet's status on your own flipping Facebook account, weirdos.

Tell that to Lady Shiva

 

[Go Web Go!]

I have a girl who constantly uploads photos of her dogs with stupid little comments like "I'm so cute" and every now and then, a more descriptive one like the following: "It sure is hot out. Going to the pool with my master."

Oh yeah, her dogs were also the ringbearers/groomsmen at her wedding.

 

[Suirou]

I have a girl who constantly uploads photos of her dogs with stupid little comments like "I'm so cute" and every now and then, a more descriptive one like the following: "It sure is hot out. Going to the pool with my master."

Oh yeah, her dogs were also the ringbearers/groomsmen at her wedding.

((just did the same thing two weeks ago ))
(about the dog with 1st person captions)

 

[Spider-Nerd]

Some people just have far too much free time....I envy them.

 

[NightmareRLSH]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/social.media/08/05/pets.facebook.networks/index.html

Yeah that is totally messed up....what if the person making the cat's profile messed up on the cats favourite foods,movies,books,things to **** on ect ect. poor kitty would have no hope correcting the error.

 

[Manic]

Tell that to Lady Shiva

That's why she calls herself Lady Shiva instead of just Shiva. Shakti would've been a better name, though.

 

[terry78]

That's why she calls herself Lady Shiva instead of just Shiva. Shakti would've been a better name, though.

And this is why black nerds rule the webz.