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Hackers claiming to be working on behalf of Islamic State militants briefly seized control of the Twitter and YouTube sites of the military’s US Central Command. The Pentagon swiftly suspended the sites and said no classified material was breached.

The Twitter site was filled with threats that said “American soldiers, we are coming, watch your back.” Other postings appeared to list names, phone numbers and personal email addresses of military personnel as well as PowerPoint slides and maps.

Most of the material was labeled “FOUO,” which means “For Official Use Only,” but none of it appeared to be classified or sensitive information, suggesting the hackers did not breach classified material.

One of the documents appeared to be slides developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory, a federally funded research and development centre focused on national security. The slides appeared to depict what it called “scenarios” for conflict with North Korea and China.

The tweets came shortly after US Central Command posted its own tweets about the US and partner nations continuing to attack Islamic State terrorists in Iraq and Syria and one repeating a report that said France will deploy an aircraft carrier to the fight.

The hackers titled the Twitter page CyberCaliphate with an underline that said “i love you isis.” And the broader message referred to the ongoing airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria and threatened, “We broke into your networks and personal devices and know everything about you. You’ll see no mercy infidels. ISIS is already here, we are in your PCs, in each military base.”

It added: “US soldiers! We’re watching you!”

The intrusion on the military Twitter account carried the same logo, CyberCaliphate name and photo that appeared on the Albuquerque Journal’s website in late December when one of its stories was hacked.

Some IS militant videos also were posted on the YouTube site, purporting to show military operations and explosions. “This is something we’re obviously looking into, and something we take seriously,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

But he cautioned against comparisons to the broader hack attack against Sony. “There’s a pretty significant difference between what is a large data breach and the hacking of a Twitter account,” he said.

A senior defence official confirmed that the two accounts were compromised and said US Central Command was taking appropriate measures to address the matter. The US military suspended the Central Command Twitter site and terminated the YouTube site.

This is not the first time that US government websites or other accounts have been hacked. It was not clear whether the site was attacked by the insurgent group or by sympathiser [Breaking News].

Internet freedom around the world has declined for the fourth year in a row, as more countries introduce aggressive online censorship measures, according to a new report.

Freedom on the Net 2014, the fifth-annual report released by independent watchdog organization Freedom House last week, found that of the 65 countries assessed, 36 experienced a negative trajectory in online freedom between May 2013 and May 2014. This was due to factors such as blocked social networks, aggressive online surveillance and cyberattacks, and the intimidation and arrests of journalists and digital activists.

The report analyzed three main factors in each country: obstacles to Internet access, limits on content and violations of user rights.

Iran remained the country with the lowest degree of Internet freedom, despite hopes of reform when President Hassan Rouhani took office in August 2013. Although the new administration has embraced social media, Iranian citizens still don't have access to websites the government finds politically sensitive, such as Twitter and Facebook.

The report also pointed to Iranian authorities sentencing people to "lengthy prison terms for promoting Sufism online, among other digital activities." In May 2014, six young Iranians were arrested for recording a viral YouTube video of them dancing to Pharrell's song "Happy." They were subsequently given "suspended sentences" of six months in prison (the director was given one year), and 91 lashes.

Syria, China, Cuba, Ethiopia and Uzbekistan follow Iran in terms of Internet freedom.

In contrast, Iceland ranked first as the nation with the most Internet freedom. The government there doesn't blog social media platforms or content and 97 percent of households are connected to the Internet. Estonia, Canada, Australia, Germany and the United States made the top five in the index, after Iceland.

An extensive study published in November showed that 83% of Internet users around the world believe affordable access to the Internet should be a basic human right.

The following chart, created by statistics portal Statista, shows the five countries with the most Internet freedom and the five countries with the least Internet freedom [Mashbale].

It's not just you. Twitter had problems with what the company said was "an issue with tweeting and a delay in timelines."

The issue, that affected Twitter for mobile, Twitter.com and third-party Twitter clients, was resolved after one and a half hours on Monday.

Some of the issues included delayed mentions, missing retweets or favorites, delayed or nonexistent timeline updates and disjointed direct messages.

Twitter said on its status website that it had experienced issues, noting that engineers were "working on it," before later updating it to say the problem had been fixed. The company did not say what caused the issue.

"Between 16:51 and 18:30 PST today, users experienced a delay in tweets appearing in their timelines. This issue has been fully resolved," Twitter wrote [Mashable].

While scrolling through your Facebook News Feed this holiday season, you probably encountered the typical statuses from friends: photographs of families opening gifts and inevitably, a few "Year in Review" posts, a photo slide of highlights from your Facebook Timeline over the past year.

Unfortunately, Facebook's algorithm for choosing the images wasn't very thoughtful, dishing out good memories along with the bad.

The Year in Review gathers your most-engaged-with posts from 2014, and compiles them into a chronological photo album complete with cheesy clip art. Initially, The Washington Post reported that the feature's default tagline was, "It’s been a great year! Thanks for being a part of it."

Because the algorithm chooses the default photos and moments that had the most interaction, it also includes sad memories. However, users are given the option to customize their Year in Review prior to sharing.

Web design consultant and writer Eric Meyer's Year in Review highlighted the death of his young daughter; he wrote about the negative experience in a post on his website titled "Inadvertent Algorithmic Cruelty."

And I know, of course, that this is not a deliberate assault. This inadvertent algorithmic cruelty is the result of code that works in the overwhelming majority of cases, reminding people of the awesomeness of their years, showing them selfies at a party or whale spouts from sailing boats or the marina outside their vacation house.

But for those of us who lived through the death of loved ones, or spent extended time in the hospital, or were hit by divorce or losing a job or any one of a hundred crises, we might not want another look at this past year.

According to The Post, Facebook's product manager for Year in Review, Jonathan Gheller, reached out to Meyer and personally apologized.

"[The app] was awesome for a lot of people, but clearly in this case we brought him grief rather than joy," Gheller reportedly said. "We can do better — I'm very grateful he took the time in his grief to write the blog post."

In addition to sad memories, users also criticized Year in Review for its overwhelming presence on Facebook. Many are annoyed at how pushy the feature is, constantly reminding users of its existence.

CORRECTION, Dec. 27, 2014: A previous version of this article incorrectly spelled the name of web consultant and writer Eric Meyer as "Eric Weber." It has now been changed to reflect the correct spelling [Mashable].

Apple lovers will finally get their hands on the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus on Friday, and the reviews have been glowing.

But if you preordered one or plan on waiting in massive lines, you should know: There are a few things missing from the new devices.

CollegeHumor took note of the new features, or lack thereof, and made this bittersweet parody expressing how everybody feels about the new phones (you know, the things nobody actually wants to admit).

Apple lovers will finally get their hands on the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus on Friday, and the reviews have been glowing.

But if you preordered one or plan on waiting in massive lines, you should know: There are a few things missing from the new devices.

CollegeHumor took note of the new features, or lack thereof, and made this bittersweet parody expressing how everybody feels about the new phones [Mashable]

Gender inequality in Silicon Valley is no secret. The tech scene is often criticized for its gender gap in pay — research shows that men with graduate or professional degrees earn 73% more than women with the same credentials.

But it extends beyond salary — women are drastically underrepresented in Silicon Valley leadership positions, too.

According to the recent Gender Diversity in Silicon Valley [PDF] report, published by law firm Fenwick & West, women make up a measly 11% of executives within the Silicon Valley 150, the Bay Area's top tech companies. That's compared to 16% in the S&P 100, the leading U.S. companies across various industries.

In Silicon Valley, women also make up only 10% of directors, 10% of committee members and 8% of committee chairs — all less than half of what's seen in the S&P 100. A dismal 9% of women are named executive officers in both the Silicon Valley 150 and the S&P 100.

"We hope this survey of gender diversity in Silicon Valley will stimulate more discussion and serve as a resource for measuring how well women are faring at the senior levels of leadership in the Silicon Valley workplace," the report states.

The following chart, created by statistics portal Statista, compares the percentages of women in leadership positions in Silicon Valley and the leading U.S. companies [Mashable].

Facebook is considering ways users can express their feelings beyond the Like button, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during a Q&A at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park Thursday. "We're thinking about it," Zuckerberg said when asked whether the social network would ever add the long-requested dislike button.

He quickly clarified that such a button likely wouldn't say "dislike" on it. Instead, he said, people often want to react to posts they see on Facebook with sentiments other than "like."

"Everyone feels like they can just push the Like button, and that's an important way to sympathize or empathize with someone," Zuckerberg told the audience. But there are times when you may want the simplicity of a one-click response but a "like" doesn't feel appropriate, he added.

"We need to figure out the right way to do it so it ends up being a force for good, not a force for bad," he said — because a "dislike" or other negative sentiment could easily be used for the wrong reasons. It's worth noting this isn't the first time Zuckerberg has claimed to be "thinking about" a dislike button— he's made similar comments as far back as 2010.

The Facebook CEO also defended the social network's recent controversial real names policy, which requires Facebook users to identify themselves by their legal names, saying it encourages accountability among users.

"It's part of building a safe community," he said. "On Facebook, most people refer to themselves by their real name and that's a very important part of our culture." "On Facebook, most people refer to themselves by their real name and that's a very important part of our culture."

The goal, Zuckerberg added, is to make the social network a "reflection of real world relationships" and that the real name policy "grounds everyone in that reality." He also addressed another recent controversy: Facebook's experiments. Specifically, the highly cited emotional manipulation study that experimented with hiding various posts on users' news feeds to see whether it would affect their mood.

"Testing is a really important part of how Facebook works overall," Zukerberg explained. He initially defended the test saying the company thought it "had a responsibility to the community" to investigate issues that could affect the "emotional or psychological wellbeing" of users. "We could have done it a lot better," he said.

Zuckerberg was also asked about his New Year's resolutions, which included becoming fluent in Mandarin. He revealed his goal for 2014 was to send one thank-you note a day, and said he's still not sure about his 2015 goal [Mashable].

When Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion in April 2012, the price tag came as a shock to many. A little more than two years later, Citigroup said Instagram is worth $35 billion, a number that the bank called "conservative" in a research note on Facebook issued Friday.

It is another piece of good news in what has been a stellar 2014 for Instagram. The photo-sharing app recently hit 300 million active users, putting it ahead of Twitter. At $35 billion, Instagram would also be worth more than Twitter, which currently has a market cap around $23.3 billion.

Citi's analysts added, however, that the valuation is speculative and dependent on efforts to generate more money from the app.

"While Instagram is still early in monetizing its audience and data assets, and its financial contribution to [Facebook] is minimal today, we believe that it is quickly gaining monetization traction, and would contribute more than $2bn in high-margin revenue at current user and engagement levels if fully monetized," Citi analysts wrote in the note.

Facebook has not been in a rush to fully monetize Instagram, rolling out its first ads in late 2013, and recently adding video ads. While Facebook has not disclosed how much money Instagram is generating, Citi's analysts said it could conceivably bring in $2.7 billion in 2015.

A Forrester Research study found that users are far more engaged on Instagram than other social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter. Facebook has become a particularly frustrating platform for marketers, as the site has scaled back how much reach brands can have on the site's News Feed [Mashable].

Hiding photos on Facebook may not actually work as well as you think it does. Picturebook, a browser extension now available in the Chrome web store, claims to allow you to "view hidden photos of anyone on Facebook"— even if you aren't friends with them.

Sounds like a Facebook creeper's dream, right? But though Picturebook's description is technically true, it is also misleading. No app or browser extension — this one included — is able to change the privacy settings of someone else's photo. What Picturebook is really doing: surfacing photos that you could have seen anyway, even if a user tagged in them hid them from their timeline.

Say a friend tags you in an unflattering photo. You can make it go away by selecting "hide from my timeline." But this only prevents people from viewing the photo within your timeline; it doesn't actually remove or block the photo in any way. If the photo's privacy setting was set to "public", anyone could have found it anyway.

Other users will still be able to see the photo by visiting your friend's timeline, or simply by searching for it.Picturebook takes advantage of this loophole and surfaces photos you've been tagged in, regardless of whether you've hidden them.

In short, Picturebook makes it just a little easier to find what you could have found anyway. It's worth pointing out that Facebook reminds users every time they hide a photo that it is still viewable from others' news feed, from search, and from other places on Facebook.

The only way to really hide your hidden photos from this tool is by untagging yourself. First, select "hidden from timeline" from the drop down menu under the photo's date. From there, select "Report/remove tag" from the popup window that appears, then select "remove tag."

This removes the tag, which will prevent photos from appearing on your timeline, or on the Picturebook extension. The photo itself will still appear elsewhere on Facebook; only the person who posted it can remove it.

If you're still worried about old photos showing up, now may be a good time to revisit your privacy settings, to make sure you're only sharing what you want. The social network recently made privacy settings more accessible with a new Privacy Basics page, intended to make this process easier [Mashable].

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This is an example of a Blogger post, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers know where you are coming from. You can create as many posts as you like in order to share with your readers what is on your mind.

This is an example of a Blogger post, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers know where you are coming from. You can create as many posts as you like in order to share with your readers what is on your mind.