In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about a company that can predict the future, why Facebook may not be as social as we think, and how Bill Cosby feels about Twitter death rumors.

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Does Facebook Divide Us or Unite Us?

Ethan Zuckerman, a Senior Researcher at Harvard University’s Berkman Center, recently gave a TED talk on social media and whether websites like Facebook are uniting us or dividing us as a society. Zuckerman believes that while Facebook presents the opportunity to connect across a broad spectrum of cultures, it more frequently reinforces existing local relationships, turning users into “imaginary cosmopolitans.” It’s an interesting perspective.

Fair Political Practices Commission Wants Harder Rules on Internet Endorsements

The Fair Political Practices Commission of California is taking a hard look at social media endorsements. According to the LA Times, the group recently issued a report that calls for Internet-based campaign material to be regulated in the same way that traditional mailers and other forms of advertising are regulated. One particularly important issue is determining a way to see if someone online has been paid to post messages on Twitter or on Facebook on behalf of the politician’s campaign.

Google and CIA Invest in Company That Predicts Future

Can Google predict the future? Maybe not, but they are investing in a company that is working on it. According to ABC News, Google, along with the CIA, are investing in a company called Recorded Future. Recorded Future uses what it calls a “temporal analytics engine ” to look “at the ‘invisible links’ between documents that talk about the same, or related, entities and events.” They then use that information to predict when the event will happen based on the “momentum” of the discussion.

Both Google and the CIA have good reason to be interested in this small company, but the fact that the pair are investing at the same time has some privacy advocates nervous. In light of Google’s recent Wi-Fi snooping scandal, the company’s credibility is not as strong as it once was.

Bill Cosby Victim of Fourth Twitter Death Hoax

Bill Cosby is not dead. He said so himself on Twitter and Larry King Live. The 73 year-old comedian is a popular target for Internet death rumors, this was his fourth, and he’s getting tired of it. Echoing a complaint shared by many celebs who have been claimed dead, Cosby asked the person behind the rumor to stop and said “To the people behind the foolishness, I’m not sure you see how upsetting this is.”

Understanding Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 Privacy Decision

Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal published an exhaustive report detailing how Microsoft intentionally minimized privacy protections in Internet Explorer 8 to ease concerns among Internet advertisers. If you haven’t caught up on the original Journal story, Ars Technica has a concise recap that explains just how the decision was made internally at Microsoft.