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Facebook is considering getting into the gaming business as a publisher, a new report claims.

The social network is currently working with a few mobile-game developers to iron out a deal that would see their titles published under the Facebook brand, TechCrunch is reporting, citing people who claim to have knowledge of the discussions. The mobile games would generate revenue through Facebook's ad platform, and the world's largest social network would share a cut of that revenue with developers.

Developers and publishers are two very different entities in the gaming space. Developers actually create the game, while publishers … Read more

The Saudi Arabian government has sentenced seven men to prison on charges they used Facebook to incite protests and encourage illegal gathering, according to Human Rights Watch. Their sentences range from five to 10 years.

"Sending people off to years in prison for peaceful Facebook posts sends a strong message that there's no safe way to speak out in Saudi Arabia, even on online social networks," Human Rights Watch deputy Middle East director Joe Stork said in a statement.

The seven men were originally arrested in September 2011 and have been in jail ever since. When they … Read more

"He has built a machine," said Andreessen, an investor in the company. "Google is a tightly wired business machine. Microsoft (MSFT) is a tightly wired business machine. Apple (AAPL) is too. Zynga is very much in the mold of those other companies."

That machine got an overhaul on Monday when the company took over the pre-July 4 news cycle by announcing that Pincus would step aside as CEO in favor of former Microsoft exec Don Mattrick. On paper, it's an … Read more

Instagram went bananas Saturday.

A company representative confirmed in an e-mail today that the photo-sharing network had been hit by a spam attack -- an attack, we might add, that was perhaps a bit more colorful than usual.

It seems the photo-sharing network became flooded with photos of fruit, which were accompanied by a link to a marketing page for a fruit-based diet regimen.

Om Malik over at blog Giga Om reported on the smootie-ization of Instagram earlier, saying the link pointed to a bogus BBC News page with the headline "Tropical Fruit Burns 17 Pounds in 22 Days. … Read more

Opponents of Facebook's settlement of a lawsuit involving "Sponsored Stories" -- an ad feature that displays images of users of the social network -- spent Friday morning in a San Francisco court trying to convince a federal judge that the settlement's terms fail to protect the privacy of minors.

Facebook, of course, believes otherwise and if users who are objecting to the settlement don't agree, they should just leave the class-action lawsuit, according to Michael Rhodes, the attorney hired by the social network to handle the case.

"If it's such a terrible action, … Read more

In an effort to appease its advertisers, Facebook plans to more aggressively remove ads from Pages and Groups that host content of a violent, graphic, or sexual nature, the social network said Friday.

The change, which will start as a manual review process and become automated over time, means the social network will actively restrict ads from appearing on the right-hand side of Groups and Pages, such as those selling adult products.

"While we already have rigorous review and removal policies for content against our terms, we recognize we need to do more to prevent situations where ads are … Read more

Facebook launched hashtags earlier this month, but now it's upping the anty. As of Thursday, hashtags will work on the social network's mobile site and the company is also debuting related hashtags, according to TechCrunch.

What this means is that Facebook hashtags could start to be a lot more abundant and easier to integrate.

Facebook describes hashtags as a way to "turn topics and phrases into clickable links in posts on your personal timeline or your Page, and help people find posts about topics they're interested in." For example, Facebook says, write a post along … Read more

In a rare bipartisan effort, the U.S. Senate approved the immigration bill with a 68-32 vote on Thursday. This means the lobbying efforts put forth by Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and other major tech companies most likely made a difference.

The 1,200-page measure, dubbed the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act, which ultimately won the Senate's approval, calls for boosting security on the U.S.-Mexico border, helping immigrants that are currently in the U.S. illegally, and increasing H-1B visas to foreign workers.

It's the bit about H-1B visas that the tech companies were … Read more

Facebook is slowly but surely improving its Home suite of software to better meet the needs of its Android audience. Thursday, the social network released a new beta version of Facebook for Android that finally includes the addition of application folders.

Facebook for Android 3.4, just released to the company's brand-new group of Android beta testers, includes the Home improvement and allows users of the package to organize applications into folders.

To create a folder, users just drag one app on top of another. Folders can be named and added to a person's application drawer for even … Read more