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Facebook, MySpace and Bebo are in the firing line from Cyber Safety Committee deputy chair, Alex Hawke, for allowing Australian children younger than 13 to use their websites despite a 13+ age restriction.

Hawke said that unless social networking websites show more responsibility, Parliament may be forced to impose regulations so there are effective measures taken to protect children and deal with online bullying.

He told Computerworld Australia that the options it is considering would include age verification laws which require social networking websites to verify the age of their users.

There has also been the question of an internet ombudsman as an option for people to have the ability to raise these problems with a central portal, he said. Were also encouraging social networking sites to open offices in Australia or at least have an arm which can be dealt with by Australians as a way of preventing regulatory response.

According to Hawke, Facebook is the only company to have appointed a representative in Australia.

He added that Parliamentary committees have heard the farcical suggestions from social networking companies that there are no children under 13 years of age on their websites.

The problem is these social networking companies continue to say `were offshore and there is nothing you can do about it when were dealing with profoundly young children using these sites and these companies really need to engage better with regulators in Australia, he said.

Hawke, who is also a Coalition MP, said that the Coalitions Online Safety Working Group is actively looking at the proposed regulations.

If we are returned to government, we will put in place policy in this area, he said.

Computerworld Australia has contacted Facebook Australia and is awaiting comment.

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Social networking websites may face government regulation

15-03-2012 09:47 Video presented by NearlyFreeLance.com (nearlyfreelance.com). This video shows you a powerful way to use twitter to help your business locally. When I show people this trick, usually they are blown away, because usually we're looking at the Twitter stream, and we're overwhelmed by the huge volume of random tweets and we don't know where to begin. I'm going to show you one simple tool today that will blow your mind and give you all kinds of creative ideas for how to use Twitter to represent your business in a geographic area. To start, go to hootsuite.com. There's a free permanent plan. Sign up for that. Once you log in, look at the search field in the upper right hand corner. You can enter a term like "flowers" or whatever your search term is, and then instead of clicking the search button, click the little target icon. That will bring back a live result of all tweets with that topic in your geographic area. The cool part is that you can click "Save As Stream" and now every time you log in to HootSuite, your geographic search is available immediately. http

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Use Twitter For Local Social Marketing - One Tip That Works For Local Social Media - Video

There are more than 17 million Facebook users in Iran, but the site is banned throughout the country. Iran also bans its citizens from accessing Twitter and YouTube.

[More from Mashable: Foursquare on Facebook: Hands on With the New Timeline Integration]

Even so, people are finding a way around the censorship with the help of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and online proxies that work around the system.

"People in Iran can use a VPN or proxy to pass the country's filter," an Iranian food critic who goes by the name of Mr. Taster told Mashable. "Iranians can access Facebook this way without a penalty -- if you don't write anything political or against Iran's rules, you will be fine."

[More from Mashable: Tech Industry Scorns Yahoo Over Facebook Patent Suit]

Mr. Taster -- who has a large Facebook following -- discussed how he is excelling at building a personal brand on Facebook, despite the country's restrictions to keep people off social media sites during the 2012 Reykjavik Internet Marketing Conference in Iceland.

"We actually think the proxy is being controlled by the government itself," Mr. Taster said. "The VPN goes dead before an election or important thing, so they can still control the servers."

He is one of the many Iranian citizens accessing Facebook and other banned sites. Despite the limitations, he is embracing social media to reach a target audience and grow his brand like many small businesses are doing worldwide.

The Mr. Taster Facebook page, which is an extension of MrTaster.com, is a destination for Iranians to look at pictures he's taken of food from his world travels, talk about cuisine and share stories of his adventures.

"I try to make the Facebook page fun and interactive," Mr. Taster told attendees. "I post pictures and videos from restaurants I love and make the site a place that people want to keep visiting."

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Iranian Food Critic Beats Internet Censorship to Build Social Following

14-03-2012 05:51 Journalism is not restricted to just writing or blogging. It has become an integral part of our existence. But sometimes information on the media get out of control and that's when governments try to shut it down.

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The Faisal Qureshi Show - Pakistan mein media ka kirdaar - Video

One of the biggest modular synthesizers on the planet lurks in the halls of MIT.

Photo: Brian Mayton

Now, anyone can play one of the biggest modular synthesizers in the world, thanks to a new project, code-named PatchWerk. With PatchWerks simple web interface, users around the world can control the colossal rig in real time, from its current home at the MIT Museum.

This is the Paradiso Synthesizer, named for its creator, Joe Paradiso an associate professor at the MIT Media Lab, who built and fine-tuned the synth over the course of nearly four decades. The massive analog synth, which contains nearly 200 homemade modules, looks like something out of a vintage sci-fi film. Custom-built cabinets encase dozens of custom-designed circuits; a riot of red and blue patch cables conceals row upon row of mysterious knobs, switches, and buttons.

The synth might look intimidating, but the sounds that come out of it can be positively peaceful. Listeners can follow the synth on Twitter for poetic updates on its latest sounds, which make reference to legendary composer Terry Riley, Japanese bliss-rockers Boredoms, and 70s French band Heldon. The synthesizer burbles with new music 24 hours a day (you can listen to the synth at any time, day or night.)

By manipulating various toggles on the web interface, users around the world can turn on a sweeping oscillator sound, activate the chaotic sequencer, turn on drum machines and a growling speech synthesizer sound, control frequency and tempo, and much more. Letting anyone play the synth in real time could potentially lead to chaos, but the current design of PatchWerk which has a small group of users experiment with sounds while other users wait a queue is meant to help control for that. I tend to think about the synth as running in its own space, where I adjust everything meticulously to give the effect and balance that I want, said Paradiso in an e-mail exchange with Wired. All of the previous patches that I have posted off the site are of this ilk. My students Gershon Dublon, Brian Mayton, and Nick Joliat, the designers of the PatchWerk module, convinced me to try letting people over the net interact.

In the era of glossy iPad apps and slick soft synths, there is something strangely romantic about being able to work remotely with a hulking mass of analog hardware, which weighs hundreds of pounds and fills up an entire room. People have been finding some beautiful spots in it, and also many garish ones but its never boring now, because theres always somebody somewhere in the world trying something different on it, said Paradiso.

With PatchWerk named, of course, in homage to Kraftwerk everyone can fulfill the dream that Paradiso had as an undergraduate at Tufts University in the 1970s. I always wanted [a synthesizer] as long as I can remember and they were too expensive, so I needed to build one, said Paradiso. As a kid motivated by electronics, science, and music growing up in the 60s and early 70s, the modular synths had a strong allure. They still do.

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Control a Giant Modular Synthesizer From the Comfort of Your Home