Hershey’s was recently being pressured by social media buzz about The chocolate giant; a campaign called Raise the Bar: Hershey Coalition is the source of all this buzz. Hershey’s is known as one of the worst offenders in advocating farms that use slave labor including child slaves.

Hershey’s isn’t alone, however, Mars was recently pressured to change their dastardly ways after being a supporter of the same farms and such using child labor.

Since the public outcry of slave labor nearly ten years ago, all major chocolate companies were made to promise that they would help end slave trafficking and child labor in Africa’s Ivory Coast. At the time, Hershey’s had made almost no progress in its attempts to keep their promise.

Raise the Bar decided to attack via Facebook and Change.org and attack they did. The group generated over 50,000 signatures on change.org, which indeed created a buzz about the company. Supporters of the group blitzkrieged Hershey’s Facebook page, flooding it with negative messages and ill will toward the company. Over 100,000 letters were generated and hand delivered to the company by supporters dressed in costume on Halloween.

After all the hard work by the group, Hershey’s has decided to comply to it’s agreement and now will only buy cocoa from slave-free farms.

The more disturbing thing is, when the teens posted the video to their Facebook, more than 25 of their friends “”Liked” the video. The mother of the victim has asked authorities to take action against the boys that acted violently against her son. She said the the posting of the video was a move that “wasn’t smart”.

Apparently, the boy was walking home from school, when he was attacked, unprovoked, by the three thugs. One held a camera while the other two beat him mercilessly, kicking and punching him repeatedly shouting expletives and racial slurs.

The mother of the boy, Trina McNeil told the Flint Journal:

“I want to let other people know that this is not something you can do and get away with it.”

The victim says he had never before even bickered with the assailants and he truly feels the fight was fully unprovoked. Mrs. McNeil feels that, the fact the boys recorded the whole incident indicates the assault was premeditated. The video has been turned over to proper authorities who plan to review it, identify the assailants and bring them to proper justice. The young boy escaped to safety by running and hiding in a nearby car, he then went to hospital to receive treatment for his injuries.

According to a source, American Idol top dog Nigel Lythgoe wants Mr. President to come on the show to perform the full song with the original singer, Mr. Al Green.

Nigel actually recently tweeted about the subject.

@BarackObama we loved your vocal performance so much we’d love to invite you on to #AmericanIdolthis Season for a duet with Al Green.

— Nigel Lythgoe (@dizzyfeet) January 30, 2012

“Facebook asked me to pass this on to you. They require it of all visitors to their facilities. It only applies to things that you might accidentally stumble upon while you are there and covers nothing discussed during our news conference. Please either bring a signed copy or be ready to sign upon arrival.”

Journalists were a little upset needless to say, giving that their journalistic freedom was being, for lack of a better term, stolen. Journalists then got a little pep in their step as two hours later another e-mail was sent to agencies from Sarah Lane, the AG’s Director of New Media, stating.

“I’m writing on behalf of Dan Sytman. You may disregard the nondisclosure agreement that we sent earlier.”

So you may be curious as to what the agreement may have said. Well, partly it entailed:

“You may become aware of non-public information related to Facebook and its products, services, programs, features, data, techniques, technology, code, ideas, inventions, research, testing, methods, procedures, know-how, trade secrets, business and financial information and other activities through disclosure, observation or otherwise in the course of your visit … All Facebook Confidential Information remains the property of Facebook. You agree not to disclose any Facebook Confidential Information to any third party, and to take all reasonable precautions to prevent its unauthorized dissemination …”

The full agreement can be seen below.

If you were a journalist or if you are a journalist, how does this information make you feel? Do you feel it’s right, whether it’s legal or not, to ask journalists and media to pretty much forget what they see? We want to know what you think, leave us comments below.

In the security video released by The Metro Airport Authority, Paul can be seen coming into the airport near 8:00 a.m. then waiting in a transparent cubicle. After the span of an hour, an airport official can be seen escorting him through the airport. TSA officials tell POLITICO that Paul was “not detained at any point”.

Father of Rand Paul, Republican Ron Paul released a statement regarding the “TSA abuses” :

“The police state in this country is growing out of control. One of the ultimate embodiments of this is the TSA that gropes and grabs our children, our seniors, and our loved ones and neighbors with disabilities. The TSA does all of this while doing nothing to keep us safe. That is why my ‘Plan to Restore America,’ in additional to cutting $1 trillion dollars in federal spending in one year, eliminates the TSA. We must restore the freedom and respect for liberty that once made American the greatest nation in human history. I am deeply committed to doing that as President of the United States.”

A majority of the population find TSA pat-downs in violation of their personal space, but security officials feel it’s for a good reason. Opposers like Senator Paul and his father, Ron are significant advocates of anti-TSA pat-downs. With such political backing, do you think it’s time to stop the pat-downs and resort to something else such as body scans or do you feel that the pat-downs are necessary? Let us know how you feel in the comments.

The Poynter Institute, whose mission it is to make sure “communities have access to excellent journalism,” has posted an interesting series of articles pointing out journalism’s failures with regards to former Penn State football head coach Joe Paterno.

Paterno is reportedly in serious condition in a hospital in State College, PA, but is still alive. However, Penn State student news site Onward State reported that Paterno died last night. Once that initial report came out, various other news organizations jumped on the story and started falsely reporting his death too.

While it’s been deleted now, CBS News tweeted that he had died, apparently based on the Onward State report, but without attribution. Poynter shows the embed.

In another of the Poynter articles, Craig Silverman points out how “journalists’ hunger for glory” can get them in trouble. “The tension between speed and accuracy is always highlighted in these cases,” he writes.

“Journalists need to do a better job calculating the risk of being first, rather than focusing on the benefit,” Silverman writes. “How many people would have recalled — or cared — that Onward State broke the news? Aside from some journalists, I’d wager very few people. This kind of breaking news report spreads quickly, and whatever credit that may have gone to Onward State in the early minutes would have disappeared once the information was confirmed and widespread.”

The speed vs. accuracy issue has become more of a challenge for reporters thanks to the realtime nature of today’s web. This seems to be brought to light when false death reports emerge, then are proven wrong. Remember when this happened with Jon Bon Jovi recently?

It does make you wonder how many other falsities are being taken as truths, with stories that don’t demand as much attention as the death of a celebrity.

Onward State’s managing editor has resigned. He posted the following apology:

Earlier this evening, Onward State reported that Joe Paterno had passed away; however, the mountain of evidence stacked opposite that report became too much to ignore. At this time, I would like to issue an official retraction of our earlier tweets.

Devon Edwards

In a statement, Reid said “In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday’s vote on the PROTECT IP Act.”

From the Senator’s Twitter feed:

This comes less than 24 hours after top Republican Senator Mitch McConnell called for the PIPA vote to be delayed. He urged the Senate Majority to shelve the bill until more study can be done.

Support for both PIPA and SOPA has been waning, and it looks like Wednesday’s internet-wide protests have had a major impact on the Congress as a whole. On that day, Republican Senator Marco Rubio (a co-sponsor of the legislation) dropped his support.

According to Forbes, the new channel will be called the Huffington Post Streaming Network and will kick off with a preview held in AOL’s HQ in New York City on February 2nd.

The new network will structure itself like cable news networks and provide real-time news and discussion. This means that Huffington Post reporters and editors will appear on camera to discuss events as they happen throughout the day. The channel is also prepared to feature on-air editorial meetings and social media integration, to give viewers an up close and personal look into how the news passes through HuffPo and out to consumers.

It’s not going to be a 24-hour news network, according to the sources. Live footage will be cut and re-broadcast to fill some time. But apparently the new HPSN will have more live coverage than competitors like the New York Time and the Wall Street Journal have with their streaming web programming.

To advertisers, video content is becoming a key priority, and that’s the big motivation behind this move. Huffington Post’s newsroom sports over 300 members, so the new project is most definitely feasible.

Can Huffington Post leverage this new channel to compete with traditional cable news outlets? Let us know in the comments.

The companies involved blame the consumers for not utilizing the tools that are in place. Consumers, on the other hand, think that companies need to be clearer on what they’re collecting and how they can opt-out if they want.

Should consumers or companies be blamed for online privacy concerns? Is one side at fault, or is it both, or neither? What do you think?

The debate over these areas is heating up again with the Commerce Department and the FTC expected to release reports on how to improve online privacy in the next couple of weeks. WebProNews spoke with Jules Polonetsky, the Director of the Future of Privacy Forum, who told us that the Commerce Department’s report was worth noting since it would outline where the Obama administration stands on the issue. Interestingly, no acting President or administration has ever before introduced or endorsed a federal privacy law.

Polonetsky told us that it was “highly unlikely” the U.S. would see privacy legislation this year but said that it would happen in the future.

“I think it’s clear that we are going eventually going to have a privacy law,” he said. “The question is, whether it’s gonna be a good one.”

“If we are able to craft privacy law that supports innovation [and] gives users more protection, we’ll win,” he added.

According to Polonetsky, the goal of the Commerce Department and President is to create a framework, in which companies and advocates develop rules for their own industries. If the FTC thinks these rules are adequate, they can create a safe harbor and make them enforceable.

There are, however, questions that remain since the administration may target certain companies and topics. In addition, there is the question of whether companies and consumer advocacy groups will agree to work together.

Up to this point, many of the people and groups that have spoken out against privacy legislation have said that tools already exist that allow consumers to take control. While Polonetsky said that consumers should be more proactive when it comes to sharing data and using online tools, he also said that companies should make it easy for consumers.

“If companies really got serious about delivering first for users, we wouldn’t need some of the proposals that are out there,” he said.

Through his experience as Chief Privacy Officer for both AOL and DoubleClick, Polonetsky told us that some companies understand privacy concerns and some don’t. There are also companies that want to “push the envelope” in a way that encourages others to do so as well.

Some companies believe that a self-regulatory approach would be much better than federal legislation, but according to the FTC’s first draft, the self-regulatory measures in place at that time were inadequate. Polonetsky said that, if companies really are against a national law, they need to prove that they are self-regulating.

“Any company that wants to avoid legislation ought to be really pushing to show how it is self-regulating,” he said.

On the consumer side, some don’t mind the tracking when it benefits them. For instance, many Amazon users like that the company sends them deals for items they want to buy.

“Let the users in, and guess what, they may be more than happy for you to know them well, if what you’re doing is making money serving them well,” Polonetsky pointed out.

Another angle to this saga is the fact that the European Commission is reportedly going to change its privacy directive as well. Polonetsky told us that the White House and Commerce Department pay attention to what Europe is doing because, over there, privacy is considered a human right. Historically, whatever Europe puts into law, the other countries follow suit. For this reason, the U.S. wants to show Europe that it is serious about privacy.

Although Polonetsky does not expect a privacy law during 2012, he did tell us that the year would bring lots of scrutiny for companies and lots of hearings.

“I’ve never seen as much scrutiny,” he said.

Even though the debate is nowhere near being over, the FTC and Commerce Department reports should shed some light into what we can expect going forward.

Are you in favor of privacy legislation, or would you prefer self-regulation in industries? Let us know.

He’s 71 years old.

He’s #23 on Forbes list of powerful people.

He’s #1 on their Billionaires list.

He has a fortune of $74 Billion.

His wealth is roughly 5% of Mexico’s annual economic output,

And, if the rumor mill is correct, he’s about to hook up with Larry King for an online venture.

Larry King, whose CNN show “Larry King Live” ran for 25 years from 1985 to 2010. He signed off on December 16, 2010 and handed the reins to Piers Morgan.

Given the high-profile personalities attached to this project, everyone is staying mum about it. King’s attorney did say: “I can confirm that there have been discussions in which I participated.”

Larry King spent his entire career in broadcasting, so an online venture would be a departure for him. But, with the kind of name recognition he has, it’s easy to see why a moneybags like Carlos Saks would court him.