Last year, taunts at Natalie Harvey’s curly ginger hair started again after she posted a photograph of her childhood haircut on her Facebook page.

London - As a child, her frizzy ginger hair made her a prime target for playground bullies.

Devastated by taunts of ‘Orphan Annie’, Natalie Harvey dyed and straightened her hair as soon as she was old enough.

At 35, and having spent more than £10,000 (about R120 000) taming her locks, the mother of one thought she had left the abuse behind her for good.

But last year, it all started again after she posted a photograph of her childhood haircut on her Facebook page.

She was immediately targeted by cyber bullies and her Facebook and Twitter accounts were deluged with cruel comments.

One message read: “I can’t wait to pull off your wig and reveal your ginger afro hair to everyone.”

Another added: “Wait until everyone sees your ****ed up afro hair!”

The online hate campaign became so bad that she was forced to call police.

Mrs Harvey said: “I spent years desperately trying to cover my hair up. As a child, I would dread going to school because I would be spat at and called names like Annie.

“The children would laugh and spit at me. I felt like the ugliest kid in the world.

“One of my most common nicknames was microphone. Children used to tap me on my head and shout: ‘Testing, testing, one, two, one, two.’

“But I had learned how to manage it and thought the bullying had stopped. I always hated pictures of myself as a youngster but three years ago I felt confident enough to post them on Facebook.

“Then I started getting this abuse. I couldn’t believe it. It was so personal and nasty, and targeted directly at something that has affected me throughout my life.

“I was so upset that I couldn’t sleep or eat, and lost a stone in weight. I couldn’t believe that I was getting bullied at 35.

“At least at school I could see who was insulting me but this was so faceless. Now, bullies are able to hide behind their keyboards.”

She revealed that her family has also struggled to understand how she could have ended up with such unusual locks.

“People had never seen an afro like mine on a white person before,” she said. “Every single member of my family has straight hair.

“My dad even had doubts as to whether he was my real dad because my hair was so unusual.” Mrs Harvey, who is married to sales manager Ian, 36, said that as soon as she was old enough, she began to try to change her hair.

To date, she has spent more than £10,000 straightening, dying, tonging and chemically treating her orange curls.

After years of practise, she has perfected a two-hour daily hair routine of washing, blow drying and straightening – although she often wears a wig to hide her hair altogether.

Since the abuse began, Mrs Harvey, a teacher for adults with mental health issues, has deleted her Twitter profile and increased the privacy settings on her Facebook page. But she said: “Something has to be done about online security. I am an outwardly confident person but it really affected me.

“Every time I meet someone from school now, they say, ‘Oh, didn’t you have funny hair at school?’”

A spokesman for Nottinghamshire Police said: “A report was made to us on January 8 regarding messages received through Facebook and Twitter. An officer spoke to a person alleged to have sent messages regarding their actions.” - Daily Mail

Google has signed a deal with the London Stock Exchange to become the first major website offering private punters real-time share prices.

London - Google has signed a deal with the London Stock Exchange to become the first major website offering private punters real-time rather than delayed share prices.

Under the deal, Google Finance will publish live prices of any share on the London Stock Exchange and the Borsa Italiana.

Up until now most websites targeting private investors have opted to use 15-minute delayed share prices, which costs considerably less than real-time prices.

Neither Google nor the London Stock Exchange would reveal what the annual licence would cost the search engine.

Jarod Hillman, the head of real-time data at the LSE, said: “This partnership is great news for retail investors across the globe. For the first time Google users will have access to free, real-time last-trade prices, allowing them to make more informed investment decisions.

“LSE is committed to making the group's markets as accessible as possible to the retail investor.”

Maxim Edelman, the head of strategic partnerships at Google, said: “Since the launch of Google Finance in 2006, we have worked hard to provide Google users with the best financial information.

“Real-time quotes from the London Stock Exchange and Borsa Italiana will enable our users to better monitor market changes, manage their portfolios and track developments in Europe.” - The Independent

Iranians faced a second and more extensive disruption of Internet access, just a week after email and social networking sites were blocked.

Tehran - Iranians faced a second and more extensive disruption of Internet access on Monday, just a week after email and social networking sites were blocked, raising concerns about state censorship ahead of parliamentary elections.

The latest Internet blockade affected the most common form of secure connections, including all encrypted international websites outside of Iran that depend on the Secure Sockets Layer protocol, which display addresses beginning with “https”.

“Email, proxies and all the secure channels that start with 'https' are not available,” said a Tehran-based technology expert who declined to be identified.

“The situation regarding accessing these websites is even worse than last week because the VPNs are not working.”

Many Iranians use virtual private network, or VPN, software to get around the extensive government Internet filter which aims to prevent access to a wide range of websites including many foreign news sites and social networks like Facebook.

Last week, millions of Iranians suffered serious disruption in accessing email and social networking sites amid concerns the government is extending its surveillance on ordinary citizens.

Iranians have grappled with increased obstacles to using the Internet since opposition supporters used social networking to organise protests after the disputed 2009 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The government denied any fraud in the vote which ignited large-scale street protests that were crushed by security services after eight months.

Iran is preparing to hold parliamentary elections on March 2, the first national election since 2009. - Reuters

While the number of traditional TV watchers has levelled off in recent years, more and more people are watching video on mobile phones, tablets and computers.

Culver City, California - YouTube is enlisting Hollywood's help to reach a generation of viewers more familiar with smartphones than TV remotes.

The online video giant is aiming to create 25 hours of programming per day with the help of some of the top names in traditional TV. The Google-owned site is spreading its wealth among producers, directors, and other filmmakers, using a $100 million pot of seed money it committed last fall. The fund represents YouTube's largest spending on original content so far.

YouTube believes it is laying groundwork for the future. While the number of traditional TV watchers has levelled off in recent years, more and more people are watching video on mobile phones, tablets and computers, especially the 18- to 34-year-old age demographic that advertisers covet.

The idea is to create 96 additional YouTube channels, which are essentially artists' home pages, where viewers can see existing video clips and click “subscribe” to be notified when new content goes up.

Well-funded videos by a select roster of stars are likely to be more watchable than the average YouTube fare of cute cats and webcam monologues. YouTube is betting that a solid stream of good content will attract more revenue from advertisers, bring viewers back frequently and bolster its parent company's fledgling Web-connected-TV platform, Google TV.

The cash has enticed some of TV's biggest stars, including “Fast Five” director Justin Lin, who directs episodes of Community, CSI creator Anthony Zuiker and Nancy Tellem, the former president of CBS entertainment.

Zuiker is teaming up on a horror series for YouTube after observing his own family's behaviour. His three pre-teen sons spend more time on phones, iPads and computers than watching TV these days.

“We want to jointly take the risk with YouTube and roll the dice on the future,” Zuiker says. “The old regime is going to falter because everybody thinks the TV is the only device that really counts, and that's just not the case.”

For producers, it's a chance to create shows that are completely free of meddling from major studios. They can also stay relevant with a younger crowd whose viewing is moving increasingly online.

Several new channels such as the extreme sports-focused Network A and Spanish-language Tutele have launched already. YouTube hopes to have them all up and running by this summer.

“This was really about galvanising the ecosystem at large,” says Alex Carloss, global head of original programming for YouTube. “We see the portfolio (of funded channels) really representing the best of TV meeting the best of the Web.”

YouTube isn't the only Web video service that has started to pay for original content. Netflix Inc. recently launched the original series “Lilyhammer,” while Hulu premiered “Battleground.” But YouTube videos tend to be under 10 minutes, instead of fitting into traditional half-hour or hour-long TV slots. And aside from a few guidelines, ultimate control is given over to the artist, including what is uploaded and when new episodes appear.

YouTubers also get away with far edgier stuff than the middle finger that rapper M.I.A. flashed during the Super Bowl halftime show.

Although YouTube's entire investment is less than half of what some studios spend on one blockbuster movie, about a third of the new channels were awarded to scrappy YouTube veterans who already know how to make it big online while keeping production costs low.

YouTube expects to recoup what it spends on the grants by sharing ad revenue the new videos generate.

At Maker Studios, which received money for three new channels, the funds have turbo-charged an already teeming operation that has about 160 full-time staff spread across several buildings crammed with props and computers in west Los Angeles.

On a recent visit, two scenes were being shot in an alley. One was for a parody of a Christmas movie trailer. The other was for a new series about a crime-fighting van called Si, Es I, Pepe.

Maker cranks out about 300 YouTube videos each month at a bare-bones cost of about $1,000 (about R8 000) each.

The studio's videos generate a whopping 500 million views each month, thanks largely to established hits that include Ray William Johnson's roundup of crazy videos and such viral giants as Epic Rap Battles Of History.

Advertisers pay up to $10 per thousand views for video ads that precede the featured content, according to TubeMogul, a major buyer of YouTube ads for the nation's biggest advertisers including Proctor & Gamble Co. and News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox movie studio.

Established YouTube partners share roughly half of their revenue with the site. So if Maker videos generate $1 or $2 in ad revenue per thousand views, it would just be scraping by.

Maker co-founder Danny Zappin, who quit film school to buy a high-end camera to start a career on YouTube, says it's a “tricky balance” to keep the studio's share of ad revenue higher than the cost of video-making. The undisclosed amount it got from YouTube, on top of the $4 million venture capital it received about a year ago, lets Maker put up more videos without waiting for the views and cash to roll in.

“It gives us resources and runway that we wouldn't otherwise have,” Zappin said.

For other less-established players in online video, the money has given them an added reason to get involved.

Former CBS executive Tellem teamed up with TV entrepreneur Brian Bedol to create Bedrocket Media Ventures, an upstart production company behind several new YouTube channels, including Network A. The funding “allowed us, or caused us, to focus on YouTube ahead of other platforms,” Bedol says.

Analysts believe YouTube has made a wise investment at a time ad rates for online video are rising.

YouTube can be successful with just a few big hits - think of Rebecca Black's Friday - even if thousands of videos fall flat. It's similar to the hit-or-miss approach to traditional TV and movies.

“The investor community does not look at this as money wasted,” Macquarie analyst Ben Schachter says.

Since promising to share ad revenue with its most popular uploaders in 2007, YouTube has invested in original content mainly by paying for equipment and training new artists, but it was never as big as this.

Backing up its new strategy, YouTube also revamped its homepage to prioritise channels and recommendations above just the most-viewed videos. The revamp allows advertisers to target popular channels or categories of content more easily.

YouTube's funding plan takes a page from Apple Inc.'s playbook. When the iPhone maker launched its App Store in 2008, a $100 million seed fund created by Silicon Valley investor John Doerr spawned hundreds of thousands of new apps.

“Our developers are not software engineers,” YouTube's vice president of global content partnerships, Robert Kyncl, told a convention in January. “Our developers are Hollywood stars, are online stars, are regular folks like you and I.”

If nothing else, the injection of funds will spawn content never before been seen on any screen, large or small.

Fast Five director Lin, who is teaming up with YouTube stars Ryan Higa and Kevin KevJumba Wu on the YOMYOMF channel, said his focus is not to try to find audiences with stereotypical Asian-American content. Rather, the idea is to give a platform to people who have unique voices but haven't been heard yet.

He says Higa and Wu didn't follow any set rules when they jumped to popularity with a mix of oddball humour, brutal honesty and rap.

“They just did what they loved, and people came,” Lin said. “If we're going to fail, I would rather go out with that philosophy.” - Sapa-AP

A 13-year-old schoolboy was among 15 people arrested in Hong Kong over a bogus internet auction site that allegedly conned buyers out of nearly $50,000, say police.

Hong Kong - A 13-year-old schoolboy was among 15 people arrested in Hong Kong over a bogus internet auction site that allegedly conned buyers out of nearly 50,000 US dollars, police said on Tuesday.

The group was accused of running the site offering items ranging from iPhones to luxury handbags and diamonds but failing to deliver the goods after buyers paid up.

A police spokesman said the schoolboy allegedly offered an iPhone for the equivalent of 515 US dollars and used his parents' bank account to collect the payment. He was accused of using the money to buy clothes and a laptop computer.

Two of the arrested suspects were under 18. The second was a 16-year-old girl accused of cheating online buyers out of more than 600 US dollars by offering two luxury handbags.

Children over the age of 10 can be held criminally responsible in Hong Kong and can face trial in an adult court from 16.

The suspects allegedly cut off all communication with buyers after payments were made, the spokesman said.

All the suspects arrested Monday were friends or related to each other, and the oldest was 45.

At least 30 people fell victim to the bogus auction site with total losses equivalent to 47,700 US dollars, police said. - Sapa-dpa

A recent survey found that 70 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds say they bought, copied or downloaded unauthorised music, TV shows or movies.

Chicago - Young people want their music, TV and movies now - even if it means they get these things illegally.

A recent Columbia University survey found, in fact, that 70 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds said they had bought, copied or downloaded unauthorised music, TV shows or movies, compared with 46 percent of all adults who'd done the same.

With such an entrenched attitude, what can be done about widespread online piracy?

Certainly law enforcement has gone after scofflaws like these, hitting them with fines and, in some cases, even jail time. Congress is considering controversial anti-piracy bills that would, among other things, forbid search engines from linking to foreign websites accused of copyright infringement. And there are lawsuits pitting media heavyweights against Internet firms - notably Viacom's billion-dollar litigation against YouTube.

But here's a radical notion to consider: What if young people who steal content weren't viewed as the problem?

What if they and advocates for maximum online access could persuade the entertainment industry to loosen its tight grip on its coveted, copyrighted material - quite the opposite of what the industry is trying to do right now?

“The real problem is not pirates downloading illegally, but a failure to innovate on the part of the content providers,” says Steven Budd, a law student at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

Like it or not, that's how a lot of people of his generation view the situation. And some experts think they're gaining clout, as they insist on easy access to music and other content while the Internet world loudly protests anti-piracy legislation that it says unfairly puts the responsibility of policing piracy sites on search engines and other sites.

“We've seen the emergence of a real social movement around these issues,” says Joe Karaganis, vice president of The American Assembly, a public policy institute at Columbia University, which oversaw the recent survey, funded by a grant from Google.

He's talking, in part, about “blackouts” staged by popular Internet sites that included Wikipedia, the user-generated online encyclopedia, and Reddit, the social news website. With support from Google, Facebook and Twitter, they were protesting the proposed federal anti-piracy bills.

But here's the surprising part - a lot of young people don't necessarily expect to get movies, TV shows and music for free.

“I do think people would pay for this content if it's reasonably priced and it's available when they want to watch it,” says Srikant Mikkilineni, a law student at Drake University in Des Moines.

Not wanting to mar his law school record, Mikkilineni pays for the songs, movies and TV shows he downloads. But he does so grudgingly. “Right now, they want us to pay multiple times for the same content,” he says, complaining that that's not reasonable.

If he buys a DVD, for instance, it's $15. He can watch it on his laptop - but it's illegal for him to copy it in order to watch it on his iPod or smart phone.

Many young people point to Apple's iTunes service as a model that could be replicated by other entertainment companies.

“iTunes changed the landscape for music because it made it far too convenient and much easier than downloading music through alternative methods (even illegal ones),” says Matt Gardner, an information technology student at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.

But even more than convenience, a recent study at Duke University found that cost was the major factor that drives college students to copy entertainment content illegally. Researchers there found that the lower the students' income, including their parents' income, the more likely they were to search for free, illegal options.

To address the issue of cost, the study's authors suggested that universities consider making licensing agreements with services that sell entertainment content so that students could get a discount.

Cornell University is one institution that has experimented with this. From 2004 to 2006, an anonymous donor paid for two years' worth of Napster service for Cornell students, but students ultimately declined to have their student activity fees raised to continue the service because the music couldn't be played on all devices, according to the Duke study.

There are those who doubt that students would pay for content they can pirate, especially when the habit has become so ingrained.

“Nobody's going to pay you for something they can get for free,” says Glenn MacDonald, an economics professor at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis.

So he asks: What if you gave music and movies to consumers for free, or asked them to pay what they thought the content was worth?

Some bands such as Radiohead are already doing that - in essence, using their songs to build a following and entice people to pay to see them in concert and, once there, to buy their merchandise.

The song becomes the ad, MacDonald says. Or a movie on the small screen becomes the driving force for a line of merchandise or drives the wish to see it again on a big screen in 3D or at a special theater event. A free clip from a TV show seen online draws viewers to the show.

“It's like a bar. They give you the peanuts so you buy the beer,” MacDonald says.

He notes that music companies already take a cut of money made from concerts, merchandise and endorsements. So he thinks that should, at the very least, offset the cost of the recorded music to consumers, who've been increasingly willing to pay big prices to see artists live.

“Music companies would be better served by increasing their focus on how to make artists' music, and especially their concerts, even better,” MacDonald says.

Nice thought, but not realistic, says Thomas Carpenter, general counsel for legislative affairs for the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, a union that represents people working in the entertainment industry.

As it stands, he says 90 percent of the earnings that a musician currently makes under a recording contract is tied directly to royalties from sales, including lawful downloads. For actors, he says, it's about 50 percent.

“There's a lot at stake - much more than most people realise,” Carpenter says.

And he adds, “You have to be paid in order to be good. You have to use the funds from your projects to fund your future creativity.”

Still even some people who've spent their careers defending copyrights say it's time to find some middle ground.

“It really is a failure to come up with practical, reasonable models for sales and distribution,” says Michael R. Graham, a Chicago attorney who specialises in trademark and copyright law. “There's a real disconnect.”

Like many, he thinks iTunes has set the standard for the future.

Another possible approach: licensing agreements - with online services, for instance, paying a fee to content creators so they can provide it to consumers for free or for a monthly subscription fee.

Popular options, so far, include online music streaming services such as Spotify and Pandora. Others point to movie and TV services such as Netflix, though some complain that content on Netflix's online streaming service is still too limited. Hundreds of thousands of people also quit Netflix last year after it started charging more to those who wanted both the streaming service and DVDs sent to them in the mail - another indication of just how much impact the public can have in these matters.

A major lawsuit now before a federal appeals court has put a spotlight on these issues.

Viacom is appealing a lower court ruling that found YouTube, Google's popular video sharing service, is protected from copyright infringement claims. Viacom claims that YouTube is making millions when people post copyrighted videos -including some shows Viacom owns. YouTube says it forces people to remove the content when discovered, as the law allows.

During October proceedings before the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, Judge Roger Miner asked, “How in the world can damages be computed here?”

“The number could be quite large,” said Viacom attorney Paul Smith.

Miner responded: “Maybe what you're really looking for is a license agreement.”

Smith said that was possible - an outcome that some would consider a win for those who want greater access to content on the Internet.

Whatever happens, college student Omar Ahmad says the entertainment industry has to realise that people his age aren't likely to change their piracy habits, even with the threat of more serious punishments that Congress is considering.

“They're going to continue doing it - that's the truth,” says Ahmad, a senior at Seton Hall University who's also manager of the New Jersey school's radio station.

Karaganis at Columbia agrees that young people and the Internet community in general have proven they can influence the entertainment industry, whether it likes it or not.

“Change is inevitable,” he says. “The question is how quickly will it happen - and how much of a fortress will be built around intellectual property in the meantime.

“Now, I think all bets are off.” - Sapa-AP

Psychiatrists warn of the dangers of children being exposed to porn on the internet.

Anyone who has ever caught a teenager looking at porn on the internet knows the feeling of shock and disbelief.

Anita (not her real name) woke up to the dangers of internet porn when by chance she checked “history” to find a website she had visited a week earlier, only to discover a plethora of porn sites.

“I nearly died. I clicked through to see exactly what my teenage boy had been watching. It was just disgusting. Threesomes. Oral sex. Masturbation. Videos. Hard core pictures. I was horrified.”

Anita thought she was a savvy parent. She and her husband, a teacher, were determined to control the internet. At an early stage, they tied up the children’s computer.

When their eldest daughter got her own PC, they took over the administrator level and installed security software so she would not be able to access or download adult content without their consent. She complained: “It’s my computer!” They parried: “It’s our internet!”

Their two boys, aged 14 and 12, were into different things: one, sport; the other, stock car racing on YouTube. Soon competition over the shared computer became a major issue.

“Can I use your computer to check homework on the internet?” her elder son asked Anita one evening. She agreed.

“I forgot something very important. There were no parental controls on my machine. I had purposely taken them off so it would work faster,” said Anita.

It became a habit for her son to use her computer, first for his homework, and then after a while for checking his Facebook account. At Christmas time, as Anita looked at the list of XXX sites on the history, she realised that wasn’t all he had been accessing.

That night, she and her husband confronted their son and he admitted he’d been looking at porn for months.

“I just went with a gut reaction, and said to him: ‘Would you like to see me doing those kind of things, or your sister? They are real people.’ I was very cross and upset. I heard that you shouldn’t get emotional. I’m afraid I did.”

There is an infinity of porn on the internet, and more and more children are viewing it.

A Unicef online survey of 509 young people showed that more than half (54 percent) had watched porn on the internet, with a significant percentage (36 percent) believing that what they saw was “accurate and/or educational”.

Most people will admit that at some stage in their life they have looked at porn. Is it really harmful or just a natural stage in growing up?

Dr Martin O’Sullivan specialises in adolescent psychiatry. He says viewing pornography is a hidden issue.

“While adolescent males were always exposed to porn, there is a different order of exposure now and we don’t know what impact that will have in the long run.”

O’Sullivan says pornography is “highly addictive” and through it, he fears, many men will retreat into a “virtual world”.

“Far from helping them to form relationships, excessive porn use is likely to deaden the impulse to form meaningful relationships which require patience, consideration and growth.”

Professor of psychiatry Patricia Casey says the danger of looking at porn is that it can initiate teenagers into early sexual behaviour. “It also gives them a distorted image of women as sexual objects.”

While the area of sex addiction is “controversial and unclear”, for children who do not have other “healthy outlets” the lure of porn can be “compelling”. It can also be an indicator of early sexualisation and abuse.

When it comes to the internet, parents must be vigilant. It is part of their parental responsibility, says Stephen Cardy from Focus on the Family, a Christian marriage and parenting service.

“We have good reason to protect our children from getting into danger. When they are adults and want to have children of their own, we don’t want them to have regrets and reasons why they can’t connect and have proper relationships.” – Irish IndependentWhat to do:

l Have a united approach as parents. Lead by example.

l Have a calm chat at a later stage (not in the heat of the moment).

l Explain that it is normal to be curious about sex.

l Identify women as people rather than sexual objects.

l Explore links between porn and criminal activity.

l Explain sexuality in the context of a loving relationship.

l Explain the damage that viewing pornography can cause.

l Establish firm boundaries in relation to internet use.

l Be ready to experience and face up to periods of conflict.

l Urge them to develop other healthy hobbies.

The Twitter overhaul includes new Timeline that brings together all Twitter chatter or content related to a particular “tweet.”

San Francisco - Twitter on Thursday announced it has finished rolling out overhauled pages crafted to boost the appeal of the message-sharing service to users around the world.

“At the very core there are fewer places you have to click and less you have to learn,” Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey said as he and other executives unveiled the changes at the startup's San Francisco headquarters in December.

“We've done a lot of user testing and it has proven to be much simpler,” Dorsey added.

Overhauled navigation features take advantage of the fact that Twitter symbols such as (at) and # are making their way into common culture, showing up anywhere from text messages to advertising billboards and television.

Twitter designed Connect navigation tools that essentially turn those symbols into new age URLs, or web addresses, to let people find all posts or other information being fired off about topics.

Twitter also expanded profile pages, letting users tell more about themselves or, in the case of companies, their brands.

Dorsey said revenue from “promoted tweet” style ads has been steadily growing and the startup is easing out a self-service advertising system.

Advertising revenues at Twitter grew 213 percent to $139.5 million in 2011, up from $45 million in 2010, according to eMarketer.

The market tracking firm predicted that Twitter will bring in $259.9 million in advertising revenue this year and that the global revenue would hit $540 million by the year 2014.

The Twitter overhaul completed on Thursday includes new Timeline that brings together all Twitter chatter or content related to a particular “tweet.”

“There is a universe within every tweet,” Twitter chief executive Dick Costolo said at the unveiling. “The 140 characters are a caption associated with a rich canvas that could be a song, a video, a photo or more.”

The new Twitter design was described as a platform on which the service will build to reinforce its effort to “reach every person on the planet.”

“Of course tweeting is still front and centre,” Dorsey said. “Any time you have something to tell the world you can do it instantly.” - Sapa-AFP

US lawmakers have expressed concern over the monitoring of social networking sites by the Department of Homeland Security.

Washington - US lawmakers expressed concern on Thursday over the monitoring of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter by the Department of Homeland Security.

Department officials defended the practice, meanwhile, at a congressional hearing, saying they monitor social media mostly for “situational awareness” about breaking news events and adhere to strict privacy guidelines.

Representative Patrick Meehan, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, said he backs “intelligence collection within the rules of law” but has free speech concerns.

“In my view, collecting, analysing, and disseminating private citizens' comments could have a chilling effect on individual's privacy rights and people's freedom of speech and dissent against their government,” Meehan said.

“I fully recognise that if an individual willingly uses Facebook, Twitter, or the comments section of a newspaper website, they in effect forfeit their right to an expectation of privacy,” the Republican from Pennsylvania said.

“However, other private individuals reading your Facebook status updates is different than the Department of Homeland Security reading them, analysing them and possibly disseminating and collecting them for future purposes,” he said.

Representative Jackie Speier, a Democrat from California, said she was disturbed by monitoring of social media for reaction to government policies or programs and that it should not be a “political operation.”

Richard Chavez, the director of Homeland Security's Office of Operations Coordination and Planning, told the committee that the monitoring program was not being used for that purpose.

“I am not aware of any information we have gathered on government proposals,” he said.

The monitoring of social media by Homeland Security came to light following a lawsuit filed in December by the Electronic Privacy Information Center. It is being carried out under an $11 million contract with General Dynamics.

Mary Ellen Callahan, Homeland Security's chief privacy officer, told the committee that strict protections for privacy and civil liberties have been built into the program.

“If you can't do it offline, you can't do it online,” Callahan said.

“We don't collect information on individuals,” she said. “We do not monitor them.

“But individuals may be the first person at the scene,” she said. “They may go and report there's been a train derailment in Michigan.”

Chavez said the monitoring was of “keywords associated with events” such as natural disasters and potential security threats but not of individuals.

The Department of Homeland Security is not the only US government agency interested in mining social media.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation asked information technology contractors last month about the feasibility of building a similar monitoring tool.

The FBI said it is seeking an “open source and social media alert, mapping and analysis application solution” for its Strategic Information and Operations Center (SIOC).

“Social media has become a primary source of intelligence because it has become the premier first response to key events and the primal alert to possible developing situations,” the January 19 request from the FBI said.

The FBI said the tool “must have the ability to rapidly assemble critical open source information and intelligence that will allow SIOC to quickly vet, identity, and geo-locate breaking events, incidents and emerging threats.” - Sapa-AFP

The website said it copied lists of email addresses and phone numbers from those who used its smartphone application.

London - Twitter has admitted harvesting contact lists from its customers’ mobile phone address books without telling them.

The website said it copied lists of email addresses and phone numbers from those who used its smartphone application, amid claims it kept them on its database for 18 months.

Its management on Thursday agreed to change guidance to users about what it does with their personal information, after a storm of protest from privacy campaigners in the US.

The breach occurs when users of the micro-blogging site click the “Find Friends” option to see if any of their contacts are also on it.

Many of them did not know this meant the site then uploaded their entire address book and stored it afterwards.

Twitter spokesman Carolyn Penner said it would now offer users the option to “upload your address book” or “import your contacts” to make it clearer.

She said: “We want to be clear and transparent in our communications with users. Along those lines, in our next app updates, which are coming soon, we are updating the language associated with Find Friends – to be more explicit.”

The practice by a giant such as Twitter raises more concerns about the privacy implications posed by social networking sites which are used by an estimated 37 million Britons.

There is no suggestion the San Francisco-based firm was using the data – which it said was securely encrypted – for anything other than finding contacts for its customers.

But critics say the lack of “informed consent” raises questions about other less reputable sites which could harvest details to sell on, or potentially leave customers open to identity fraud. The admission also raises difficult questions for Apple, makers of the iPhone, as to why it had been allowed to happen, after the firm said such harvesting was a violation of its policy.

Two American congressman wrote to Apple about the practice, prompting it to toughen measures to make sure applications did not harvest data without “explicit user approval”.

Twitter is the latest social networking site to face a scandal over harvesting contact details, after Facebook came under fire for “synchronising” users’ email address books to its site. This has since been changed. - Daily Mail