The actor posted a YouTube video to his Twitter account this week, showing what he claims in a genuine UFO. Crowe stated that he and a friend set up a Cannon 5D outside his office in Sydney to capture images of fruit bats “rising from Botanic Gardens. Instead, three photos taken over 4.5 seconds show something brightly lit passing over the scenery very quickly.

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Russell Crowe
@russellcrowe

UFO? Time Lapse Photos Outside RC’s Woolloomooloo Office (THESE ARE REAL!): http://t.co/BhTyoyBKql via @youtube

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19 hours ago via Tweet Button · powered by @socialditto

Crowe is technically accurate in that the object in the photos is unidentified and appears to be flying. However, dressing the video up with sinister music and weird editing to imply an alien presence implies that the actor is simply trolling his Twitter followers.

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Russell Crowe
@russellcrowe

I will grant you at the time the music wasn’t playing, also, yes, we have pushed in on the frame..this is 3 photo’s in order, nothing added

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9 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

The stunt has gained Crowe some attention on Twitter, though. The star has retweeted various stories about his video and has replied to several fan theories with his own explanations. He even showed that he’s in on the joke by retweeting what is clearly the best explanation for the phenomenon:

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Mary
@marys_movies

@russellcrowe I think that this will provide a good explanation as to what the U.F.O is: http://t.co/nX08C0ZLEL

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9 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

Nah, not really, he said. Well, what about responding to others’ tweets? Nah, not really, he said.

Well, duh. That’s the problem. You gotta engage, I told him. And now, a year later, his incessant Twitter use is borderline annoying. It’s all about engagement.

And what better way to utilize the Twitter platform than to engage with strangers by helping them answer their questions. I’m sure you’ve seen some Twitter users use the service as if it were a polling forum, or even Google. So many questions floating around on the Twittersphere – why not take some time and answer some of them?

That’s the thought behind Youasked.it, a new single-serving site that allows you to respond to random people’s questions on Twitter, in real time. A random question will be generated for you, and you then have 30 seconds to respond. If you don’t want to answer the given question, you can skip it and get a different one. You can also narrow down the type of questions you’re likely to receive by telling Youasked.it what string of keywords the tweeted questions must contain.

Yes, you do have to be logged in to your Twitter account to participate – you can’t just send totally anonymous responses to people. But if you’re looking for a funny (and possible conflict-inducing) way to engage with people on Twitter that you may have never had the chance to engage otherwise, this is a pretty interesting little concept.

Feel like trolling the Twittersphere? This tool makes it easy.

[Youasked.it via Maarten Schenk via reddit]

Mean? Absolutely. Hilarious? Absolutely. I, for one, think it’s good to teach your children how crushing disappointment feels at an early age. This way, they are better prepared for life’s curveballs. I know that’s cynical – but hey, it’s Monday.

“Much lighter!” said one person.

“Definitely better, and I have the iPhone 4S” said another.

The only problem was that the people weren’t actually getting a hands-on with the iPhone 5. Kimmel had simply given them an iPhone 4S and told them it was the new iPhone. But they still loved it, nonetheless.

Check out an example of why Apple fanboys are one of the most derided groups on the internet:

Though some are calling the iPhone 5 an uninspired rehash of the iPhone 4S with a bigger screen, there’s a lot to be excited about with the new device. The iPhone 5 comes with a faster A6 processor, and improved camera, a thinner and lighter frame, and yes, a 4-inch display. You can pre-order the device on Friday and it will ship to the U.S. and a half dozen other countries on the 21st.

Subway’s Facebook page has been hijacked by a wave of anime porn. And not just generic images of anime porn, but with images involving Subway’s many five-dollar footlongs. The Daily Dot first spotted the work of the trolls, and they say that Subway is already in the process of removing the images.

They’re fighting a tough battle, however. Although only one or two of the images are currently showing up on the company’s Timeline when you filter by “post from others,” dozens are still visible when you look at the tagged photos of Subway. I don’t even know whether to tag NSFW on these, as they’re suggestive but all genitalia has been obscured by tasty-looking sub sandwiches. Alas, here’s a snapshot of Subway’s tagged photos, porn amidst subs:

Although the photo uploads seem to be coming from various users, many of them originate from a FacePunch forum dedicated to photoshopping subway sandwichs into hentai. One prankster spoke to Daily Dot, saying,

“We all went to websites for original pictures, saved them, opened them up in Photoshop or whatever other editing program we had, and placed the sandwich pic and or logo in there. Subway also banned us from the page afterwards, which isn’t surprising at all.”

Like I said before, this really is a cautionary tale for brands who operate pages on the site. Privacy controls allow you to limit who can tag photos of you, and the admin panel lets you moderate posts to the Timeline.

But also, LULZ.

But it’s when he goes after kids, well, that’s the real gold. He’s already pranked some unfortunate children by asking their parents to wake them up and tell them they’re late for school, pretend like they ate all of their kids Halloween candy, and give them a terrible present for Christmas.

Now, he’s strapped some poor kid to a fake lie detector and made him miserable for a good five minutes. Seriously, the kid looks like he’s about the cry the whole time and it’s great.

Check it out below:

As you probably did as well, I kind of lost it when the kid had to say his favorite bad word. There’s quite the debate raging on reddit and YouTube concerning what the kid actually said. Was it “F*ck, and stuff?” “Go f*ck yourself?” Whatever it was, Kimmel seems to think it’s rather funny.

I think we can all rejoice in the fact that they uploaded this video as “Jimmy Kimmel Lie Detective #1,” which hints at the fact that there’s a #2, #3 and maybe even more to come. If there’s one thing we remember about Jimmy Kimmel Live in 100 years, I sure want it to be his undeniable skill at the craft of kid trolling.

[via reddit]

But there are plenty of people out there online that work just as hard will much less recognition. In fact, few if any respect the dedication that it takes to scour the YouTubes and the Facebooks and the reddits hour by hour, day by day in a frantic search to find hot-headed, gullible people to piss off.

Of course, I’m talking about the trolls – God bless ‘em.

Courtesy of Clever Pie comes this delightful tribute to all the sexually aggressive, racist, homophobe, misogynistic, cowardly, illitterate, wastes of human skin out there. It’s called “Thank You Hater!”

And it’s a stanza like this that makes this one of our favorite virals we’ve seen in a while:

You wished me cancer and misspelled “cancer”
But I know that it’s a metaphor. You hope that I will grow,
Just like the tumour you hoped would kill me
Inside the tits on which you said you’d also like a go.

Check it out below (NSFW, obviously):

[h/t The Next Web]

We told you Ms. Brookes’ story a few weeks ago, when she first began to pursue legal action to have Facebook identify her trollers. According to Brookes, a comment she made on the Facebook page of an X Factor contestant sparked a deluge of harassment in the form of hundreds of lewd messages.

According to her, she was branded a pedophile and received death threats as well. The harassment became a little more serious when someone set up a fake profile in her name and used the account to send explicit materials to underage girls – some as young as nine.

She went to court to force Facebook to give up info on those who set up the fake account.

And now, it looks like she has won. Per court order, Facebook must now give up the names, email addresses, IP addresses and more of those associated with the bullying.

According to the Guardian:

It is understood Facebook has not yet received the court order, known as a Norwich Pharmacal order, but will comply when it does. The order was given backing at the high court on 30 May and must now be physically served on Facebook in the US, where the social network is based.

In their Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, Facebook says that they must notify users if they are to share your information. But they also say that “nothing in [the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities] shall prevent us from complying with the law.

In terms of this particular case, Facebook says,

“There is no place for harassment on Facebook, but unfortunately a small minority of malicious individuals exist online, just as they do offline. We respect our legal obligations and work with law enforcement to ensure that such people are brought to justice.”

Apparently, anonymity only goes so far.

Now, one woman wants to force the hand of one of the internet’s biggest facilitators of communication (both good and bad), Facebook. Nicola Brookes wants to force Facebook to reveal the identities of those who trolled her on the social network, so that she can pursue legal action against them.

According to the Telegraph, it all started when Brookes made a comment on the Facebook page of an X Factor contestant. Apparently, she went against the deluge of negativity and then became a target herself.

According to Brookes, she received hundreds of lewd messages and threats within a few hours. “Facebook users began deliberately targeting me, writing under my comment that I was a pedophile and hoping that I would die,” Ms Brookes told the Telegraph.

As the messages got more personal, Ms. Brookes found that someone had also set up a fake account in her name, complete with photos and all. That account was reportedly used to send explicit materials to young girls on Facebook – some as young as nine.

Now, Brookes wants Facebook to reveal who set up that fake account. If that happens, lawyers want to use that information to begin prosecution.

For their part, Facebook says that they “respond aggressively to reports of potential abuse.” They are clear about this kind of stuff in their Rights and Responsibilities statement.

Section 4.1 clearly states:

You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission.

Other clauses say that users “will not bully, intimidate, or harass any user,” and “will not use Facebook to do anything unlawful, misleading, malicious, or discriminatory.”

But for Facebook, removing the fake accounts is one thing, but turning over the identities of the perpetrators is a different animal altogether. While Facebook states that they will only share your information after they have received your permission or given you notice (in a change of privacy policy), they also state that nothing in the terms of service prevents them from complying with the law.

That’s not to say that Sharapova is any slouch on the court. She’s won Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, and the Australian Open – 24 WTA singles titles in all. At one point in her career, she held the number one world ranking. But she’s also embraced her popularity with modeling and endorsement deals for companies like Samsung.

Because of this, you can understand why her legion of fans flipped out when she posted some pics to her Facebook account showing that she’d chopped off her glorious locks.

Or did she?

Monday, Sharapova posted a couple of images with the captions “So what do you guys think?? I kind of love it!” Check them out below:

This set off a firestorm of comments – some of them positive, but a large handful negative. In short, people were concerned (over 13,000 comments). “I am in shock! It’s too short!” wrote one fan.

Apparently, it was just a wig. She quotes her email inbox’s “stressful 24 hours” of messages from fans “going bananza” in clarifying that she never really said she had cut it:

Wow, when I posted those photos with the short hair I had no idea everyone would all go bananza….( my dear friends, I never actually said I cut my hair!) so for the sake of my email inbox and it’s stressful 24 hours, I would like to show you the below pictures…my hair is still long…and blonde…and well it’s pretty much the same! We did a shoot a few days ago and I sported all types of hair styles…long and yes short (a wig!!!).

She posted another pic to prove it:

Kids, don’t believe everything you see on Facebook, and if you do – don’t freak out. Maria Sharapova can hardly turn herself into a beast with a short haircut.