I've often wondered what sort of person would listen to the lines "Every step you take/I'll be watching you" and thought,
"Ahhhh, that's so romantic." Fucking weirdos.
The company’s [Facebook's] flubs in this area [privacy] reveal a fundamental tension in the way sophisticated ad-supported
sites work. Consumers’ time and information are effectively the price they pay for free Web services. Facebook allows its users
to keep up with far-flung friends and family, for instance, in exchange for that information.
Anybody who think that NSA revelations change the nature of Facebook (Facebook = Spyware) or that NSA somehow "intruded" on their
privacy is delusional. Information trusted the third party with very dubious agenda can't be private. So in a way NSA has the legitimate
right to snoop after all people who open Facebook page.
Facebook is also a powerful propaganda venue, which definitely can influence elections. And not the way Russiagate stories suggest,
buying few ads on Facebook changes nothing; being on control of Facebook allow to control the narrative and this election).
Facebook officials have been compared to the Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels by a former investor. Roger McNamee also likened
the company's methods to those of Edward Bernays, the 'father of public' relations who promoted smoking for women. Mr McNamee, who
made a fortune backing the social network in its infancy, has spoken out about his concern about the techniques the tech giants use
to engage users and advertisers. [..] the former investor said everyone was now 'in one degree or another addicted' to the site
while he feared the platform was causing people to swap real relationships for phoney ones.
And he likened the techniques of the company to Mr Bernays and Hitler's public relations minister. 'In order to maintain your
attention they have taken all the techniques of Edward Bernays and Joseph Goebbels, and all of the other people from the world of
persuasion, and all the big ad agencies, and they've mapped it onto an all day product with highly personalised information in order
to addict you,' Mr McNamee told The Telegraph. Mr McNamee said Facebook was creating a culture of 'fear and anger'. 'We have
lowered the civil discourse, people have become less civil to each other..'
He said the tech giant had 'weaponised' the First Amendment to 'essentially absolve themselves of responsibility'. He added: 'I
say this as somebody who was there at the beginning.' Mr McNamee's comments come as a further blow to Facebook as just last month
former employee Justin Rosenstein spoke out about his concerns. Mr Rosenstein, the Facebook engineer who built a prototype of
the network's 'like' button, called the creation the 'bright dings of pseudo-pleasure'. He said he was forced to limit his own
use of the social network because he was worried about the impact it had on him.
... ... ...
As Google, Facebook and the CIA are ever more entwined, these companies become so important to what 'the spooks' consider
the interests of the nation that they will become mutually protective. And once CIA headquarters in Langley, VA, aka the aptly named
"George Bush Center for Intelligence", openly as well as secretly protects you, you're pretty much set for life. A long life.
In Australia any expectations of privacy isn't legally recognized by the Supreme Court once people voluntarily offered data to the
third party. Here is a relevant Slashdot post:
General Counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence Robert S. Litt explained that our expectation of privacy
isn't legally recognized by the Supreme Court once we've offered it to a third party.
Thus, sifting through third party data
doesn't
qualify 'on a constitutional level' as invasive to our personal privacy.This he brought to an interesting point about volunteered
personal data, and social media habits. Our willingness to give our information to companies and social networking websites
is baffling to the ODNI.
'Why is it that people are willing to expose large quantities of information to private parties but don't want the Government
to have the same information?,' he asked."
... ... ...
While Snowden's leaks have provoked Jimmy Carter into labeling this government a sham, and void of a functioning democracy, Litt
presented how these wide data collection programs are in fact valued by our government, have legal justification, and all the necessary
parameters.
Litt, echoing the president and his boss James Clapper, explained thusly:
"We do not use our foreign intelligence collection capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies in order to
give American companies a competitive advantage. We do not indiscriminately sweep up and store the contents of the communications
of Americans, or of the citizenry of any country. We do not use our intelligence collection for the purpose of repressing the
citizens of any country because of their political, religious or other beliefs. We collect metadata—information about communications—more
broadly than we collect the actual content of communications, because it is less intrusive than collecting content and in fact
can provide us information that helps us more narrowly focus our collection of content on appropriate targets. But it simply is
not true that the United States Government is listening to everything said by every citizen of any country."
It's great that the U.S. government behaves better than corporations on privacy—too bad it trusts/subcontracts corporations to
deal with that privacy—but it's an uncomfortable thing to even be in a position of having to compare the two. This is the point Litt
misses, and it's not a fine one.
In a very profound way Facebook was never a "social site". It was always anti-social site. Facebook exploits people's own
sense of vanity and desire to invade other people's privacy. There is no requirement to plaster your life all over the internet.
In a very profound way Facebook was never a "social site". It was always anti-social site. Facebook exploits
people's own sense of vanity and desire to invade other people's privacy. There is no requirement to plaster your life all over
the internet.
Facebook has been a personal information sucking device since its inception. It is a toxic, faceless suburban
wasteland which actually makes people more lonely (Suburbanization
of Friendships and Solitude)
April 18, 2012
Facebook may
be making us lonely, giving users the information age equivalent of a faceless suburban wasteland, claims the fantastic
cover story of The Atlantic. Key excerpts:
We were promised a global village; instead we inhabit the drab cul-de-sacs and endless freeways of a vast suburb of information.
At the forefront of all this unexpectedly lonely interactivity is Facebook.
Facebook makes real relationships harder:
That one little phrase, Your real friends—so quaint, so charmingly mothering—perfectly encapsulates the anxieties that social
media have produced: the fears that Facebook is interfering with our real friendships, distancing us from each other, making us
lonelier; and that social networking might be spreading the very isolation it seemed designed to conquer.
Here’s why:
Our omnipresent new technologies lure us toward increasingly superficial connections at exactly the same moment that they make
avoiding the mess of human interaction easy. The beauty of Facebook, the source of its power, is that it enables us to be social
while sparing us the embarrassing reality of society—the accidental revelations we make at parties, the awkward pauses, the farting
and the spilled drinks and the general gaucherie of face-to-face contact. Instead, we have the lovely smoothness of a seemingly
social machine. Everything’s so simple: status updates, pictures, your wall.
Finally, FB fosters a retreat into narcissism:
Self-presentation on Facebook is continuous, intensely mediated, and possessed of a phony nonchalance that eliminates even
the potential for spontaneity. (“Look how casually I threw up these three photos from the party at which I took 300 photos!”)
Curating the exhibition of the self has become a 24/7 occupation.
Facebook users retreat from “messy” human interaction and spend too much of their time curating fantasy avatars of themselves
to actually to out and meet real people:
The relentlessness is what is so new, so potentially transformative. Facebook never takes a break. We never take a break. Human
beings have always created elaborate acts of self-presentation. But not all the time, not every morning, before we even pour a
cup of coffee.
The always-on effects are profound:
What Facebook has revealed about human nature—and this is not a minor revelation—is that a connection is not the same thing
as a bond, and that instant and total connection is no salvation, no ticket to a happier, better world or a more liberated version
of humanity. Solitude used to be good for self-reflection and self-reinvention. But now we are left thinking about who we are
all the time, without ever really thinking about who we are. Facebook denies us a pleasure whose profundity we had underestimated:
the chance to forget about ourselves for a while, the chance to disconnect.
One of the deepest and best researched meditations on FB 2012.
On the other hand Facebook gave another meaning to a catch phrase "America. The land of the Free." And this new meaning is: free
as in "free NSA information collection space". That’s information about us, which are FREE to sell by sites like Facebook to government
and other highest bidders. As John Naughton noted (With
friends like Facebook, who needs sociopaths):
The truth is that companies such as Facebook are basically the corporate world's equivalent of sociopaths,
that is to say individuals who are completely lacking in conscience and respect for others.
In her book The
Sociopath Next Door, Martha Stout of Harvard medical school tries to convey what goes on in the mind of such an individual.
"Imagine," she writes,
"not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern
of the wellbeing of strangers, friends, or even family members.
Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral
action you had taken. And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a burden others seem to accept
without question, like gullible fools."
Welcome to the Facebook mindset.
Facebook strange story of mediocre site that had risen to prominence against significant odds (and now, in retrospect, we can
see invisible hand of US government in Facebook success; see nice Onion parody which was create BEFORE snowden revelations) reveals
a fundamental tension in the way sophisticated ad-supported sites work. It is information about you, that you pay for free Web services.
Why (else) do you think that such a mediocre coded site went from “0-to-’Everywhere' ” in such a short time? For example AddThis
button tracks users across all sites that use their button to generate profile data that they sell to advertisers (and probably not
only advertisers ;-) so they can better target their ads. Generally, when browsing the web, you are continuously being tracked by facebook,
even if you are not a Facebook usr. Not only by the websites you are visiting, but also by major companies that embed their ‘content’
into other websites through ads and analytics. As a result, companies like Google, Twitter and Facebook that has this "likes infrastructure"
have an almost complete picture of your online activity.
Information that you put in your Facebook page has implications for you that few people understand. Even reveling just your circle
of on-line friends provides far more information about you then you might expect (The
Social Graph Knows No Secrets):
A scientific study into
the implications of the social graph. It’s not the information you “share”, it’s the graph that reveals everything about you. Key
quotes:
The increasing amount of personal information that can be gleaned by computer programs that track how people use Facebook has
been revealed by an extensive academic study.
Such programs can discern undisclosed private information such as Facebook users’ sexuality, drug-use habits and even
whether their parents separated when they were young, according to the study by the University of Cambridge academics.
In one of the biggest studies of its kind, scientists from the university’s psychometrics team and a Microsoft-funded research
centre analyzed data from 58,000 Facebook users to predict traits and other information that were not provided in their profiles.
The algorithms were 88 per cent accurate in predicting male sexual orientation, 95 per cent
for race and 80 per cent for religion and political leanings. Personality types and emotional stability were
also predicted with accuracy ranging from 62-75 per cent.
Facebook declined to comment.
The study highlights growing concerns about social networks and how data trails can be mined for sensitive information, even
when people attempt to keep information about themselves private. Less than 5 per cent of users predicted to be gay, for
example, were connected with explicitly gay groups.
Michal Kosinksi, one of the report’s authors, told the Financial Times that the university’s techniques could easily be replicated
by companies to infer personal attributes a person did not wish to share, such as sexual orientation or political views:
“We used very simple and generic methods. Marketing companies and internet companies could spend much more time and resources,
and hence get much higher accuracy than we did.”
The key problem with social sites is that many, probably most Facebook users overshare -- voluntarily post reams of personal
data about themselves, including keeping their photo archives online, etc (It’s
the Dopamine, Stupid):
Oversharing on social media may be a
quasi-sexual experience with intrinsic value and commensurate reward-system stimulation, just like a delicious meal or a sexual
contact.
The reward given by a person’s brain when a Facebook posting of theirs is viewed, liked and commented on has proven to
be comparable in pleasure to the response from food and sex, according to a recent Harvard University study.
So now you know that someone obsessively using their smartphone for “sharing” is actually quasi-masturbating.
So while East Germany analog of the Department of Homeland Security called Ministry for State Security (Stasi)
needed to recruit people to spy about you, now you yourself serves as a informer voluntarily providing large multinationals like Facebook,
Yahoo, Google and Microsoft and allied with them governments all the tracking information about your activities ;-).
Scientella palo alto
...Facebook always had a very low opinion of peoples intelligence - and rightly so!
I can tell you Silicon Valley is scared. Facebook's very existence depends upon trusting young persons, their celebrity wannabee
parents and other inconsequential people being prepared to give up their private information to Facebook.
Google, now that SOCIAL IS DEAD, at least has their day job also, of paid referral advertising where someone can without divulging
their "social" identity, and not linking their accounts, can look for a product on line and see next to it some useful ads.
But Facebook has nothing without people silly enough to exchange privacy for photosharing.
... ... ...
Steve Fankuchen Oakland CA
Cook, Brin, Gates, Zuckerberg, et al most certainly have lawyers and public relations hacks that have taught them the role
of "plausible deniability."
Just as in the government, eventually some low or mid-level flunkie will likely be hung out to dry, when it becomes evident
that the institution knew exactly what was going on and did nothing to oppose it. To believe any of these companies care about
their users as anything other than cash cows is to believe in the tooth fairy.
From the very beginning Facebook was not about users; the key to commercial success is that Facebook has what any spy agency wants:
vast amounts of private data stored on the servers outside of any user control that have sophisticated software installed with the specific
purpose to analyze all the data stored in the database. So Facebook is not just social site, this is just a fake façade for a provider
of data analytics about its customers. And to get their hands on those data and related technologies United States intelligence agencies
invest in Silicon Valley start-ups, award classified contracts and recruit technology experts. (SiliconValley
and SpyAgency Bound by Strengthening
Web, NYT, Jun 20, 2013). As we now know, Prism program provided direct access to all user data to the NSA.
In a way, Facebook, a very primitive site with the frontend written PHP is the greatest intelligence tool ever made by man ;-). Most
people don't understand that and put way too much personal information into it. Which of course is mined, sold to advertisers, transferred
to three letter agencies, etc.
When Max Kelly, the chief security officer for Facebook, left the social media company in 2010, he did not go to Google, Twitter
or a similar Silicon Valley concern. Instead the man who was responsible for protecting the personal information of Facebook’s
more than one billion users from outside attacks went to work for another giant institution that manages and analyzes large pools
of data: the National Security Agency.
Mr. Kelly’s move to the spy agency, which has not previously been reported, underscores the increasingly deep connections between
Silicon Valley and the agency and the degree to which they are now in the same business. Both hunt for ways to collect, analyze and
exploit large pools of data about millions of Americans.
The only difference is that the N.S.A. does it for intelligence, and Silicon Valley does it to make money.
Also some people just are incapable to understand consequences of their own actions. If you sign up to Facebook, there's should be
no any expectations of privacy, as you’re putting yourself “out there”. And you can close your Facebook account if you start to worry
what nonsense you put into it :-). But the cat is out of the bag. Honestly.
As the “single most powerful tool for population control,” the CIA’s “Facebook program” has dramatically reduced the agency’s
costs — at least according to the latest “report” from the satirical mag The Onion.
Perhaps inspired by a recent interview
with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who called Facebook “the most appalling spy machine that has ever been invented,”
The Onion‘s
video fires
a number of arrows in Facebook’s direction — with hilarious results.
In the video, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is dubbed “The Overlord” and is shown receiving a “medal of intelligence commendation”
for his work with the CIA’s Facebook program.
The Onion also takes a jab at FarmVille (which is responsible for “pacifying” as much as 85 million people after
unemployment rates rose), Twitter (which is called useless as far as data gathering goes), and Foursquare (which is said to have
been created by Al Qaeda).
Check out the video below and tell us in the comments what you think.
In view of existence of Prizm program Onion video looks in quite different light now. And it is not funny.
The key to Facebook success is the simple fact that there is definitely strength in numbers (and here I mean the number of lemmings
;-):
Further, around 9.2 million people joined Facebook in a single month--for just these
top 10 nations--bringing these countries membership tally to over 232 million (nearly
3.5% of the world's population by current estimates).
The global membership figure swelled to 411 million, which is 6% of the people in the world. Facebook, stuffed with personal data
on each member, is becoming the world's phone book. The implications for social change are potentially huge.
And given Facebook's usual shall we say,avant garde,
approach to Net privacy...it's also kinda scary.
At the same time people lived and survived and even managed to undermine attempts in total surveillance in the past. Let's take email
as an example. For example, as soon that you understand that all your emails are stored you start thinking of fooling the system just
because people resent the total surveillance not because they are doing something unlawful.
The key problem here is that it is difficult, almost impossible to distinguish signal from noise by algorithmic means (and in case
of email junk mail from a "informative" mail). Especially if useful signal is artificially injected into junk mail frame. Using slang
-- an informal nonstandard vocabulary composed typically of coinages, arbitrarily changed words, and extravagant, forced, or facetious
figures of speech -- is another difficult to solve algorithmically problem. Another problem is signal/noise ratio. Large amount non-informative
mails are cloggering the filters and generating such flow artificially might be a feasible counter push for mass email surveillance.
As a joke, try to experiment by sending yourself from Facebook address to another addresses (you can recruit your relatives for the
experiment) emails that fake your passion to cars or cats and see how your advertisements change.
If you are using Fakebook you are part of the problem. I am pretty tired of people who use
these antisocial media platforms complaining when these platforms do what they do by their very
nature.
Notable quotes:
"... The "reality police" have infiltrated down to the lowest levels now to look for "new normal" violators anywhere. ..."
"... I am pretty tired of people who use these antisocial media platforms complaining when these platforms do what they do by their very nature. ..."
"... Remember when Eric Schmidt got his panties in a twist because some enterprising soul had done some digital digging into his private life? ..."
"... All social media Big Tech platforms are SARPA surveillance programs that added some cool logo, a young captured jew type as Boss and some marketing to morons and lemmings. ..."
"... The sheer narcissism and desperation on these platforms is disgusting and disturbing. Big data and pedophiles love Facebook. ..."
Last week I did a web search for a quote by Goebbels concerning truth and found one
regarding TheState and TheBigLie on TheJewishVirtualLibrary. After posting it to Fakebook, I
was notified that the quote violated "community standards" and wouldn't be seen by anyone
else (except the FBI, or local LEOs perhaps).
Being who I am, I posted the same quote with a link to where I found it
[TheJewishVirtualLibrary] and was notified no one would see any of my posts for a week.
Again, being who I am, I posted a video from TheBabylonBee that illustrated the danger of
likening everything to Nazis, and was notified of a month-long ban.
I then downloaded my data in two formats and deleted the account.
Living life stupid might be inclusive and entertaining, but there's too many options
available to make ignorance enjoyable.
...It is partially Brave New World with a dash of 1984 and a healthy helping of Mordor,
all of which is brightened and made more alluring and addicting with Sexual Revolution.
The "reality police" have infiltrated down to the lowest levels now to look for "new
normal" violators anywhere. If CJ thinks he's a nobody, then I am a sub-sub-sub-nobody, yet I
have had my user account suspended twice now at an obscure news aggregation website,
Fark.com , for making comments that
apparently constitute "Covid misinformation."
Once was when I commented on a story that
stated that there is a need to vaccinate even those that have recovered from actually having
Covid. I said something like, "Why would you need to vaccinate someone whose immune system is
functioning properly and already did the job naturally?" Apparently, even mentioning that
humans have an immune system is now verboten, and thus my comment was deleted and my account
was suspended for 24 hours. The next time I was suspended was just over this past weekend
when I commented on a story about someone ignoring covid rules.
I stated something to the
effect that we should ALL be ignoring the public health "experts" who are petty tyrants.
Well, they have now suspended my account for 72 hours again for "covid misinformation."
Despite being amused that my opinions are somehow "misinformation," it's certainly
enraging that speaking plain common truth is becoming more and more difficult.
I am pretty tired of people who use these antisocial media platforms complaining when
these platforms do what they do by their very nature. They weren't set up to help us they
were set up to enslave us. Get a clue, Farcebook and Twatter et al are not your friends!
All social media Big Tech platforms are SARPA surveillance programs that added some cool
logo, a young captured jew type as Boss and some marketing to morons and lemmings. Absolute
joke. The sheer narcissism and desperation on these platforms is disgusting and disturbing.
Big data and pedophiles love Facebook.
Based on Facebook's 'community standards' (see above), it has banned all posts praising
the US in written or pictorial form for the following reasons –
1. Has created and/or funded terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, paramilitary groups like
Blackwater, death squads in El Salvador, Nicaragua, etc.;
2. Creates, trains and funds a vast military system to threaten and/or bomb countries and
overthrow governments;
3. Has conducted and prosecuted wars and military actions around the world every single day
for the past twenty years;
4. Kidnaps and abducts private citizens in foreign countries and imprisons them in secret
bases like Guantanamo;
5. Employs corporate institutions to impose financial embargoes destroying nations' economic
infrastructure and citizens' livelihood.
The point is, apparently, the Corporatocracy feel sufficiently threatened by random
people on Facebook that they are conducting these COINTELPRO-type ops.
This really seems to be a thing. The elite are supposedly into the occult including things
like clairvoyants. Have their soothsayers seen a future rebel that will take them down? Or
are they just insecure, criminally insane dopes that irrationally fear independent thinking?
Whatever the reason, they are extremely paranoid.
Predictably, conservative publications like Fox Newsdecried the
measures as a power grab by Big Tech and protestations came as far away from Europe, where
German Chancellor, Angela Merkel – whose disdain for Donald Trump has never been a secret
– called the decision to deplatform a head of state " problematic ," an
opinion shared by France's Finance Minister Bruno Le Marie, who warned of a "digital oligarchy"
usurping the powers of the state.
Missing in the salacious back-and-forth conversation between ideological factions and absent
from the argument that they are private corporations, which have the legal authority to ban or
deplatform anybody they wish, is the fact that Twitter, Facebook, and all the other major
social media platforms are organs of the state to begin with, and that nothing they do falls
outside of the ultimate designs of the powers they serve.
Examples abound of how these platforms regularly engage in cyber reconnaissance missions for
American and Atlanticist interests in violation of their own terms of service, such as when
NATO commanders made use of coordinates provided
by Twitter users in order to select missile strike targets in their war against Libya in
2011.
Facebook's recently created oversight
board includes Emi Palmor, who was directly responsible for the removal of thousands of
Palestinian posts from the social media giant during her tenure as Director of Israel's
Ministry of Justice. She, along with other individuals with clear sympathies to American
interests, now sit on an official body tasked with emitting the last word on any disputes
regarding issues of deplatforming on the global social network.
Following you since
1972
In Yasha Levine's seminal
work , "Surveillance Valley," the military origins of the Internet and the close
relationship of social media companies to federal and local law enforcement are made patently
clear. Since their creation, Twitter, Facebook, and other Silicon Valley behemoths have worked
hand in hand with law enforcement agencies to augment their capacity for mass tracking and
surveillance.
From facial recognition technologies to aggregated user post history, these platforms have
been a crucial component in the development of the pervasive surveillance state we now live in.
In the book's prologue, Levine details the attempted creation of a citywide police surveillance
hub in Oakland, California called the "Domain Awareness Center" (DAC), which drew intense
opposition from the local citizenry and privacy advocates who were quick to undress city
officials who were trying to hide the proposed center's insidious links to the NSA, CIA and
military contractors.
Among other capabilities, the control hub would be able to "plug in" social media feeds to
track individuals or groups that posed any kind of threat to the establishment. While the DAC
project was successfully
defeated by an engaged public, similar initiatives were quickly implemented throughout law
enforcement agencies across the country and continue to be perfected in order to not only
track, but infiltrate political groups deemed problematic.
'To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle,' George Orwell famously
observed. He was talking not about everyday life but about politics, where it is 'quite easy
for the part to be greater than the whole or for two objects to be in the same place
simultaneously'.
The examples he gave in his 1946 essay included the paradox that 'for years before the war,
nearly all enlightened people were in favour of standing up to Germany: the majority of them
were also against having enough armaments to make such a stand effective'.
Last week provided a near-perfect analogy. For years before the 2020 election, nearly all
American conservatives were in favour of standing up to big tech : the majority of them were
also against changing the laws and regulations enough to make such a stand effective. The
difference is that, unlike the German threat, which was geographically remote, the threat from
Silicon Valley was literally in front of our noses, day and night: on our mobile phones, our
tablets and our laptops.
Writing in this magazine more than three years ago, I warned of a coming collision between
Donald Trump and Silicon Valley. 'Social media helped Donald Trump take the White House,' I
wrote. 'Silicon Valley won't let it happen again.' The conclusion of my book The Square and the
Tower was that the new online network platforms represented a new kind of power that posed a
fundamental challenge to the traditional hierarchical power of the state.
By the network platforms, I mean Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Google and Apple, or FATGA for
short -- companies that have established a dominance over the public sphere not seen since the
heyday of the pre-Reformation Catholic Church . FATGA had humble enough origins in garages and
dorm rooms. As recently as 2008, not one of them could be found among the world's largest
companies by market capitalisation. Today, they occupy first, third, fourth and fifth places in
the market cap league table, just above their Chinese counterparts, Tencent and Alibaba.
What happened was that the network platforms turned the originally decentralised worldwide
web into an oligarchically organised and hierarchical public sphere from which they made money
and to which they controlled access. That the original, superficially libertarian inclinations
of these companies' founders would rapidly crumble under political pressure from the left was
also perfectly obvious, if one bothered to look a little beyond one's proboscis.
Following the violent far-right rally at Charlottesville in August 2017, Matthew Prince,
chief executive of the internet service provider Cloudflare, described how he had responded:
'Literally, I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone shouldn't be allowed on the internet.'
On the basis that 'the people behind the [white supremacist magazine] Daily Stormer are
assholes', he denied their website access to the internet. 'No one should have that power,' he
admitted. 'We need to have a discussion around this with clear rules and clear frameworks. My
whims and those of Jeff [Bezos] and Larry [Page] and Mark [Zuckerberg] shouldn't be what
determines what should be online.'
But that discussion had barely begun in 2017. Indeed, many Republicans at that time still
believed the notion that FATGA were champions of the free market that required only the
lightest regulation. They know better now. After last year's election Twitter attached health
warnings to Trump's tweets when he claimed that he had in fact beaten Joe Biden. Then, in the
wake of the storming of the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters, Twitter and Facebook began
shutting down multiple accounts -- including that of the President himself, now 'permanently
suspended' from tweeting. When Trump loyalists declared their intention to move their
conversations from Twitter to rival Parler -- in effect, Twitter with minimal content
moderation -- Google and Apple deleted Parler from their app stores. Then Amazon kicked Parler
off its 'cloud' service, effectively deleting it from the internet altogether. It was a
stunning demonstration of power.
It is only a slight overstatement to say that, while the mob's coup against Congress
ignominiously failed, big tech's coup against Trump triumphantly succeeded. It is not merely
that Trump has been abruptly denied access to the channels he has used throughout his
presidency to communicate with voters. It is the fact that he is being excluded from a domain
the courts have for some time recognised as a public forum.
Various lawsuits over the years have conferred on big tech an unusual status: a public good,
held in private hands. In 2018 the Southern District of New York ruled that the right to reply
to Trump's tweets is protected 'under the "public forum" doctrines set forth by the Supreme
Court'. So it was wrong for the President to 'block' people -- i.e. stop them reading his
tweets -- because they were critical of him. Censoring Twitter users 'because of their
expressed political views' represents 'viewpoint discrimination [that] violates the First
Amendment'.
In Packingham vs North Carolina (2017), Justice Anthony Kennedy likened internet platforms
to 'the modern public square', arguing that it was therefore unconstitutional to prevent sex
offenders from accessing, and expressing opinions on, social network platforms. 'While in the
past there may have been difficulty in identifying the most important places (in a spatial
sense) for the exchange of views,' Justice Kennedy wrote, 'today the answer is clear. It is
cyberspace -- the "vast democratic forums of the internet" in general and social media in
particular.'
In other words, as President of the United States, Trump could not block Twitter users from
seeing his tweets, but Twitter is apparently within its rights to delete the President's
account altogether. Sex offenders have a right of access to online social networks; but the
President does not.
This is not to condone Trump's increasingly deranged attempts to overturn November's
election result. Before last week's riots, he egged on the mob; he later said he 'loved' them,
despite what they had done. Nor is there any denying that a number of Trump's most fervent
supporters pose a threat of further violence. Considering the bombs and firearms some of them
brought to Washington, the marvel is how few people lost their lives during the occupation of
the Capitol.
Yet the correct response to that threat is not to delegate to Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg,
Twitter's Jack Dorsey and their peers the power to remove from the public square anyone they
deem to be sympathetic to insurrection or otherwise suspect. The correct response is for the
FBI and the relevant police departments to pursue any would-be Trumpist terrorists, just as
they have quite successfully pursued would-be Islamist terrorists over the past two
decades.
The key to understanding what has happened lies in an obscure piece of legislation, almost a
quarter of a century old, enacted after a New York court held online service provider Prodigy
liable for a user's defamatory posts. Congress then stepped in with the 1996 Telecommunications
Act and in particular Section 230, which was written to encourage nascent firms to protect
users and prevent illegal activity without incurring massive content management costs. It
states:
1. No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the
publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
2. No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account
of any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of
material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy,
excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable.
In essence, Section 230 gives websites immunity from liability for what their users post if
it is in any way harmful, but also entitles websites to take down with equal impunity any
content that they don't like the look of. The surely unintended result of this legislation,
drafted for a fledgling internet, is that some of the biggest companies in the world enjoy a
protection reminiscent of Joseph Heller's Catch-22 . Try to hold them responsible as
publishers, and they will say they are platforms. Demand access to their platforms and they
will insist that they are publishers.
This might have been a tolerable state of affairs if America's network platforms had been
subject to something like the old Fairness Doctrine, which required the big three terrestrial
TV networks to give airtime to opposing views. But that was something the Republican party
killed off in the 1980s, seeing the potential of allowing more slanted coverage on cable news.
What goes around comes around. The network platforms long ago abandoned any pretence of being
neutral. Even before Charlottesville, their senior executives and many of their employees had
made it clear that they were appalled by Trump's election victory (especially as both Facebook
and Twitter had facilitated it). Increasingly, they interpreted the words 'otherwise
objectionable' in Section 230 to mean 'objectionable to liberals'.
Throughout the summer of last year, numerous supporters of Black Lives Matter used social
media, as well as mainstream liberal media, to express their support for protests that in many
places escalated into violence and destruction considerably worse than occurred in the Capitol
last week. One looked in vain for health warnings, much less account suspensions, though
Facebook says it has removed accounts that promote violence.
Compare, for example, the language Trump used in his 6 January speech and the language
Kamala Harris used in support of BLM on Stephen Colbert's show on 18 June. Neither explicitly
condoned violence. Trump exhorted the crowd to march to the Capitol, but he told them to
'peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard'. Harris condemned 'looting and acts of
violence', but said of the BLM protestors: 'They're not going to stop. They're not. This is a
movement. I'm telling you. They're not going to stop, and everyone, beware. Because they're not
going to stop. They're not going to stop before election day in November, and they are not
going to stop after election day. And everyone should take note of that on both levels.' What
exactly was the significance of that 'beware'?
Earlier, on 1 June, Harris had used Twitter to solicit donations to the Minnesota Freedom
Fund, which posted bail for people charged with rioting in Minneapolis after the death of
George Floyd. It would be easy to cite other examples. 'Destroying property, which can be
replaced, is not violence,' Nikole Hannah-Jones of the New York Times told CBS in early June,
at a time when multiple cities were being swept by arson and vandalism. Her Twitter account is
still going strong.
The double standard was equally apparent when the New York Post broke the story of Biden's
son Hunter's dubious business dealings in China. Both Twitter and Facebook immediately
prevented users from posting links to the article -- something they had never done with stories
damaging to Trump.
You don't need to be a Trump supporter to find all this alarming. Conservatives of many
different stripes -- and indeed some bemused liberals -- have experienced the new censorship
for themselves, especially as the Covid-19 pandemic has emboldened tech companies to police
content more overtly. In the UK, TalkRadio briefly vanished from YouTube for airing
anti--lockdown views that violated the company's 'community guidelines'. A recording of Lionel
Shriver reading one of her Spectator columns on the pandemic was taken down for similar
reasons. Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson, two Oxford academics, fell foul of Facebook's censors
when they wrote for this magazine about a briefly controversial paper on the efficacy of masks
in Denmark.
You might think that FATGA have finally gone too far with their fatwa against a sitting
president of the United States. You might think a red line really has been crossed when both
Alexei Navalny and Angela Merkel express disquiet at big tech's overreach. But no. To an extent
that is remarkable, American liberals have mostly welcomed (and in some cases encouraged) this
surge of censorship -- with the honourable exception of the American Civil Liberties Union.
True, during last year's campaign the Biden team occasionally talked tough, especially about
Facebook. However, it is increasingly clear that the most big tech has to fear from the
Biden-Harris administration is protracted antitrust actions focused on their alleged
undermining of competition which, if history is any guide, will likely end with whimpers rather
than bangs. Either way, the issue of censorship will not be addressed by antitrust
lawsuits.
It is tempting to complain that Democrats are hypocrites -- that they would be screaming
blue murder if the boot were on the other foot and it was Kamala Harris whose Twitter account
had been cancelled. But if that were the case, how many Republicans would now be complaining?
Not many. No, the correct conclusion to be drawn is that the Republicans had their chance to
address the problem of over-mighty big tech and completely flunked it.
Only too late did they realise that Section 230 was Silicon Valley's Achilles heel. Only too
late did they begin drafting legislation to repeal or modify it. Only too late did Section 230
start to feature in Trump's speeches. Even now it seems to me that very few Republicans really
understand that, by itself, repealing 230 would not have sufficed. Without some kind of First
Amendment for the internet, repeal would probably just have restricted free speech further.
As Orwell rightly observed, 'we are all capable of believing things which we know to be
untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show
that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite
time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid
reality.'
Those words sum up quite a lot that has gone on inside the Republican party over the past
four years. There it was, right in front of their noses: Trump would lead the party to defeat.
And he would behave in the most discreditable way when beaten. Those things were predictable.
But what was also foreseeable was that FATGA -- the 'new governors', as a 2018 Harvard Law
Review article called them -- would be the true victors of the 2020 election.
I did so in 2012 and never looked back. I used to recycle Twitter accounts every few months
but now you need a phone number to do that. The near future of the internet is the absence of
the perception of anonymity, every child will be assigned an internet identifier that will be
linked to his social credit score. This is the ultimate goal of the tech companies: to merge
the real life with the internet as much as possible, and then own/profit from that outcome.
They have a common goal with the government in this quest, control.
I've never had a Facebook account. I follow many people on Twitter. Mostly financial
market participants but also political commentators across the spectrum. All the
"conservatives" on my feed have been disappeared. I stopped using Google for search many
years ago as I noticed that their results were getting worse and shifted to DuckDuckGo.
I used WhatsApp for international calling and text messaging - but am part of the wave
that have shifted to Signal in the past few weeks.
"It's the gradual, slight, imperceptible change in your own behaviour and perception
– that is the product." That is also how these corporations make their money, by
"changing what you do, what you think, who you are."
They make profits, big profits, from the predictions business – predicting what
you will think and how you will behave so that you are more easily persuaded to buy what
their advertisers want to sell you. To have great predictions, these corporations have had
to amass vast quantities of data on each of us – what is sometimes called
"surveillance capitalism."
First they'll teach us not to use gender pronouns & perhaps reward
us with a treat as we learn to think & speak like them. It's just
an obedience school they want to run for the greater good of course.
An old phrase comes to mind, "The beatings will end when compliance
begins" Boycotts are now at best symbolic as "They" run the currency.
Tor was developed by the US Navy to enable spies to communicate over the web without being
traced. But to actually work effectively lots of other more and less normal people had to be
encouraged to use it. The details are fascinating. Two links below.
Spy-funded privacy tools (like Signal and Tor) are not going to protect you from the
government -- see this from 2016
I had a Facebook account for about six weeks (a decade ago). My preferred search engine is
DuckDuckGo. I pay five bucks a month for the services of an Australia-based email provider (
fastmail.com ). And Amazon is my vendor of last resort.
What is the path forward for those who desire a forum to present an alternative point of
view?
Ron Paul touches on this in his most recent column:
"There are no easy solutions. But we must think back to the dissidents in the era of
Soviet tyranny. They had no Internet. They had no social media. They had no ability to
communicate with thousands and millions of like-minded, freedom lovers. Yet they used
incredible creativity in the face of incredible adversity to continue pushing their
ideas."
At the rate this is all going, we might have to start thinking "outside the box."
Joe Biden's "transition" team
is gaining a number of former high-level Facebook executives, which makes sense considering
these are the same folks that helped Biden "win" by censoring unsavory news about him on social
media.
Former Facebook board member Jeff Zients, it has been announced, will be co-chairing Biden's
transition team, while another former Facebook board member will act as an adviser. Two others,
one a former Facebook director and the other a former Facebook company lobbyist, will also be
assuming key leadership roles in Biden's installation.
Biden's personal friend Nick Clegg, a former top Facebook executive and former U.K. Deputy
Prime Minister, will also be joining the transition team that is planning to install Biden into
the White House come January.
According to Democrats, Facebook hasn't censored
conservatives enough
Seeing as how Facebook did everything it possibly could to ensure that Biden "won" the
election, including by
predictively programming that the vote count would probably be stalled in order to sneak in
late ballots, it is hardly a surprise that Facebook is now officially marrying the Biden
campaign. On the other hand, the Democrats have hardly been shy in condemning Facebook for
supposedly not engaging in enough censorship throughout the election cycle.
Democratic National Committee (DNC) chief mobilization officer Patrick Stevenson, for
instance, tweeted
recently that he believes "the two biggest institutional threats to our democracy are the
Republican Party and Facebook."
Shortly after the mainstream media called the race for Biden, campaign spokesman Bill Russo
also suggested that Facebook needs to go because it is "shredding the fabric of our
democracy."
"We basically think they're an immoral company," declared an anonymous senior Democratic
strategist close to the Biden campaign, at least according to Politico .
"There are thousands and thousands of people in their 20s and 30s and 40s who will be
incensed to find themselves working for Secretary of Commerce Sheryl Sandberg, or taking a soft
touch to Facebook because Nick Clegg and Joe Biden go way back."
Facebook and Joe Biden
are officially married
In a way, this anonymous insider makes a good point. Who on either the right or the left
would ever want any of these tech "gods" and "goddesses" to rule over their daily lives from
Washington, D.C.? Have not these people already done enough damage to our republic?
On the other hand, the Biden camp should probably be grateful beyond words that Facebook and
the rest of the Big Tech cabal openly catered to Biden by shielding him from
the Huntergate scandal , among other things.
Facebook may as well have just come out and proclaimed when Biden was selected as the
Democrat nominee that it would from that point on function as a media gatekeeper to shield
Biden from all scrutiny, all the while disenfranchising President Trump at every turn.
Keep in mind that these are not low-level former Facebook employees who are now helping with
Biden's transition: they are the company's top brass.
"Biden is not the president-elect," noted one commenter at The Right Scoop ,
correctly pointing out that all this talk about a transition team is mere fantasy. "Biden
should have zero security clearance after the corruption he's been involved in. I'll never
accept him. He's a domestic terrorist."
Another commenter pointed out the same, emphasizing that Biden "has not been elected" and is
merely trying to steal what is not rightfully his.
"If you thought any kind of bipartisan work towards curbing Big Tech's monopoly on
information was going to happen here's your answer," wrote yet another about how Biden's
rhetoric about tackling internet censorship was nothing but a lie.
The latest news about the rigged 2020 election can be found at Trump.news .
Suppression by the state is expensive and it undercuts productivity. Cyril @59 is
correct that state suppression cannot be maintained long term without significant external
support; say being backed up by a global hegemon with drones and nukes and control over
global finance. No state, no matter how suppressive or oppressive, can exist without the
economic wherewithal to support itself. The more suppression the state employs the more
personnel it needs to buy off to do the suppressing. The people doing the suppressing must be
more generously compensated than the people they are suppressing (usually the working class)
to buy their loyalty. Practically all value in capitalist society is created by the working
class, but the working class is also the labor pool that the elites have to recruit their
enforcers/suppressors from. More suppression personnel means more expense while also meaning
less actual productivity.
It is better for big business if you can train the population to suppress themselves.
Religion has historically worked pretty good for this with its admonitions to "Give unto
Caesar..." and "The meek shall inherit the dirt, probably from some boss's boot
grinding their face into it" , but in modern societies religion is losing its
effectiveness. That's where Identity Politics is intended to take over. The question
is can the establishment force that into the heads of 80+ million people?
Well, not if those 80+ million people see themselves as members of a huge demographic. If
they see themselves as isolated individuals on the fringes of society, then they can be
bullied and gaslit into shouldering the modern equivalent of original sin and learn to
identify with their personalized victim status and rely upon "Identity Politics" for
solace.
Will this work for the elites? I am thinking probably not. To enforce the isolation
necessary social media must be very tightly controlled to eliminate all disagreement with
"Identity Politics" and establishment narratives. This will be more difficult than the
elites imagine as it is cheap and easy to set up alternatives to Twitter and Facebook. In
fact, Mexico is currently making moves towards setting up a national
alternative to Facebook/Twitter . Such national infrastructure would be impossible for
the business elites to take over or shut down like TikTok or Parler.
"What happens if Twitter says tomorrow that AMLO is publishing things that it doesn't like?
What happens if the president of Twitter censors the democratically elected president of
Mexico? As we've relinquished our technological sovereignty and left our communication
tools, even our information systems, in the hands of multinationals with private interests,
we've relinquished our [right to] freedom of speech," Sánchez said.
If Mexico goes forward with this then there will be no technological reason why Americans
couldn't also use such a social platform.
Ultimately I think the elites will lose this war they are waging, but they will likely win
some battles in the near term. Spicy times ahead!
VK is a Russian version of FB and welcomes one and all and lacks the personal invasion FB
pursues, which is one of the main reasons why I joined. I have no second thoughts of being
censored there unlike with FB. It seems WeChat is also a worthy platform, but I haven't done
any real investigation. Wife uses FB to connect with her family back East, which I use mainly
to stay abreast with Pepe Escobar and comment at his site. IMO, it's clear the lessons from
previous attempts at suppression within the Outlaw US Empire weren't learned by those seeking
control, and they've already blown up in their face and have shown more of their Fascistic
nature than Trump could ever do, which in turn will hamper anything Biden tries.
"The ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible, and glittering... all
thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting,
triumphing, persecuting - three hundred million people all with the same face."
That was a quote from George Orwell's seminal work 1984 - a masterpiece that describes life
in a totalitarian state that demands blind obedience.
The 'Party' controlled everything - the economy, daily life, and even the truth. In Orwell's
1984 , "the heresy of heresies was common sense."
"Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has
been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been
altered."
"And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped.
Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right."
If you were ever caught committing a thoughtcrime -- dissenting from the Party for even an
instant– then "your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you
had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten."
Now, our world obviously hasn't become quite as extreme as Orwell's dystopian vision. But
Big Tech, Big Media, and Big Government certainly seem to be giving it their best effort.
70,000 thought criminals have already been purged from Twitter. Facebook and Reddit are
feverishly removing user content. Apple, Google, and Amazon have banned entire apps and
platforms.
Undoubtedly there is plenty of wacky content all over the Internet– misinformation,
ignorance, rage, hate, violence, and just plain stupidity.
But these moves by the Big Tech companies aren't about violence. If they were, they would
have deleted tens of thousands of accounts over the last few years– like the mostly
peaceful BLM activist who Tweeted "white people may have to die".
Or the countless others who have advocated for violent uprisings against the police
Then, of course, there's the #assassinatetrump and #killtrump hashtags that has Twitter has
allowed since at least 2016. Or the #killallmen hashtag that's allowed on Twitter and
Instagram.
This is not about violence. It's about ideology. If you hold different beliefs than the
'Party', then you risk being canceled or 'de-platformed' by Big Tech.
Icons like Ron Paul– who spent years criticizing the current administration's monetary
and national defense policies, and had nothing to do with the Capitol, have been suspended or
locked out of their Facebook pages.
The hammer has dropped, and it is now obvious, beyond any doubt, that you better watch what
you say– your livelihood, your social life, and your safety may just depend on it.
Or else, you will be purged, canceled, deleted from the Internet, denied payment processing
by Visa, PayPal, and Stripe, and expelled from domain registrars like GoDaddy.
The message is clear: behave and think exactly as we tell you, or you will lose everything
you have worked for, in the blink of an eye.
Sure, the 'Party' may give lip service to tolerance and unity. As long as you fall in line.
Otherwise it's more rage and ridicule.
They act like you're a crazy person because you have completely legitimate questions and
concerns– whether about Covid lockdowns, censorship, media misinformation, etc.
It's extraordinary that after so much deliberate misinformation and bias, the media still
expects people to take them seriously. CNN seems to believe that think anyone who doubts their
credibility is a 'conspiracy theorist.'
All of these trends are probably making a lot of people very nervous. Even scared. Despair
has undoubtedly set in, much like in Winston Smith, the main character in Orwell's 1984.
So, for all the Winstons out there, the most important thing right now is to remain
rational. As human beings we tend to make terrible decisions when we're scared, sad, or
angry.
Have confidence in knowing that you have MUCH more control over your own life, livelihood,
and future than they want to you believe.
But you absolutely will have to make some deliberate, potentially difficult decisions.
For example, if you're fed up with Big Tech, you can de-Google your life. No one is holding
a gun to your head to have a Facebook account or use gmail. There are plenty of other options
out there that we'll discuss in future letters.
More importantly, you might find that your hometown isn't safe anymore– especially if
you live in a big city controlled by politicians intoxicated on their Covid powers.
It's really time to consider your immediate environment – if the local schools are
brainwashing your kids, the dictatorial health officials shutting down your business, or nosy
neighbors ready to turn you into the Gestapo for having family over for the holidays, then you
might think about moving.
That might simply mean moving a few miles to a new county. Or a new state/province. Or
potentially overseas. We'll help provide you with information on plenty of options.
It might also be time to reconsider some of your business infrastructure– to have
backup web servers and payment processors, for example, if you have an online business.
It might be time to consider some new financial options as well, lest the banks jump on the
band wagon and start 'canceling' accounts for heretics.
But that's the silver lining: we've never had more alternatives than now. Everything–
technology platforms, financial institutions, and even our personal residence– it's all
replaceable. All of it.
We have never had more control over our own privacy, data, livelihood, and environment as
long as you have the willingness to take action.
2banana 2 hours ago remove link
GAB and Brave browsers,
rumble and bitchute video,
Signal for voice and messaging,
Session for messaging,
Epoch times for news,
Fastmail and ProtonMail for email,
Duchduckgo and dogpile for search,
And use a paid VPN like private internet access
Leave the phone at home as often as you can and pay cash.
Southern_Boy 1 hour ago (Edited) remove link
Use https, not http exclusively and don't use any web site that won't take it.
Fastmail is owned by Opera and its mail servers are located in the US, so it will not
protect you from subpoenas.
The GAB browser is called Dissenter.
Consider TOR for infrequent forays into the "dark web".
Don't forget that BitCoin (BTC) is traceable.
Use a free version of CCLEANER after every browser session to erase as much of your tracks
as you can.
Signal is a suspect because of its controlled ownership community
Using the same vendor for VPN as Anti-Virus is against IT security best practices
Paying for anything with your bank card is a red flag. Whoever you give your credit card
to now has your identity, including ZeroHedge. Consider creating an LLC or other identity
(preferably offshore) to fund a "burner" credit card or get a refillable debit card that you
can fill up using cash. Then you can pay for VPN, email and paid content subscription
services using an assumed name or LLC cover name. Assume that any payment to any tech service
with your personal card will be used for identification purposes.
Pay with money orders if possible.
Change cellular phone companies every 1 to two years. Avoid data usage on cellular phone,
consider using multiple WiFi hotspots for calls.
Consider 2-3 cheap used phones with cheap, pay as you go services and swap them regularly
and randomly.
Do not have contact lists on your cell phone and reset to factory settings every 6 months
to wipeout any data.
Reload from bare metal your laptop or desktop PC OS every 6 months.
Send random gibberish as an encrypted email every month or so and check if it's unusually
slow to be received or if any vendor calls or asks you about anything. If they do, you are
being tracked. There are no coincidences.
Make infrequent but regular phone calls with your multiple phones to law enforcement,
federal "three letter agency" main switchboards, politicians and random people. Just tell
anyone who answers it was a mistake and an improperly dialed number. If you get hold music,
then stay on as long as you can because traffic analysis will not know if your actually
talking to someone or not. If anyone is investigating or tracking you, your signals traffic
(CDR) will automatically confound them and involve unwanted parties that will confound and
scare the hounds.
If you are technically competent, consider getting any open source product you use and
then compile it yourself after reviewing the source. Check for hidden open doors or reporting
communications that aren't needed.
Fateful Destiny the Book 2 hours ago
1984 was prophetic for its time, but Fateful Destiny is the new dystopian benchmark novel
for what is to come. Get yours now: https://amzn.to/3owM5Sh
TheLastMan 1 hour ago
The media filter is dominant. Control the narrative, control the world. The official
narratives are perpetually meshed into daily consciousness. You must know it is literally
spellbinding.
Similar dangers exist on alt media sites like zh. Beware the narrative. Look for at least
three sides to every story - his side her side and maybe the truth
OpenEyes 1 hour ago
As much as possible, now is the time to start 'going grey' (if you haven't already
started).
One example: I see a lot of people, understandably, saying to delete your facebook
account, gmail account, twitter account etc. My recommendation, DO NOT do this. You don't
think "they" aren't keeping track of those who are doing this, especially right now? By
taking those actions you are pinning a big red flag on yourself.
No, my advice, just simply abandon your account. Stop commenting, posting, reading, etc..
simply walk away and stop using those accounts. It will take some time for 'them' to notice
that your account is inactive, if they even do. And, an inactive account will likely be
treated far less seriously than an actively deleted or cancelled account.
Keep your heads down and your family safe. Best wishes to all.
Misesmissesme 3 hours ago (Edited) remove link
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- forever. -
George Orwell: " An Instruction Guide for 2021 "
Cardinal Fang 2 hours ago (Edited)
Like that scene in The Graduate where the guy leans in and tells Dustin Hoffman 'One
word...Plastics' I am going to lean in and say 'One word...Wearables'
So Google just completes their acquisition of 'FitBit'...even though the Justice Dept has
not finished their anti-trust investigation...
Anyhow, it's all coming clear. The next stage in our Orwellian nightmare is Covid will be
the excuse to make you 'wear' a device to prove you are Covid free in some way. It will be
your permission slip, plus they can spy on you in real time even if you leave your phone
home, because you will not be able to leave your home without your 'Wearable'...
Then, in short order, you will get tired of your 'wearable' and beg for the chip
implant.
You will beg to be vaccinated and chipped like sheep.
They literally can't help themselves.
Jim in MN 2 hours ago
All new and improved ankle bracelets!
Only $299.99 and yes, it is required or else.
Batteries, monthly surveillance fees and random fines not included.
Dr.Strangelove 2 hours ago
I just watched 1984 and it is scary similar to the US political environment.
We are all Winston.
SullyLuther 1 hour ago remove link
Huxley will be proven correct. Z O G doesn't need a boot perpetually on our necks, when we
are so passive and ignorant.
Workdove PREMIUM 1 hour ago
They just need to make narcotics and psychedelics free and his vision of the future will
be complete. Orwell was correct too. We got both.
NIRP-BTFD 3 hours ago
Now, our world obviously hasn't become quite as extreme as Orwell's dystopian vision.
But Big Tech, Big Media, and Big Government certainly seem to be giving it their best
effort.
This is just the beginning. The technocrats at the WEF are planning to control your
thought with chips and brain interfaces. Now tell me what is neuralink that Musk is workign
on? I'm sure DARPA has technologcy that can allready do this.
seryanhoj 2 hours ago
It's hard to believe USA is now headed to a society like the worst days of the USSR.
Back in the fifties , paranoid Senator McCarthy used similar extreme methods to cancel all
those who he considered to by stealth communist sympathizers, or anyone who had been within
100 feet of one. Ironically his methods resembled those of Joseph Stalin.
He was finally discredited by an outstanding and brave news man who took the risk of
persecution by denouncing senator McCarthy's methods as unamerican .
So this kind of thing is not without precedent in USA.
@anarchyst hen made
public utilities available for all (obviously without compensation to the owners). No more of
the sad "private company" excuse, and no more billions into the pockets of criminals who hate
us.
Also, make Dorsey, Zuckerberg, Pichai et al. serve serious jail time for election
tampering if nothing else. Both to send out a clear warning to others, and for the simple
decency to see justice served.
Of course this will not happen short of a French Revolution-style regime shift. But since
(sadly) the same is equally true even for your extremely generous and modest proposal, I see
no harm in dreaming a little bigger.
When neoliberal ideology is crumbling and the US neoliberal empire is in trouble, more tight
censorship is logical step for neoliberal elite, who does not care and never believed in
democracy for prols in any case. They are Trotskyites and their ideology is neoliberalism aka
"Trotskyism for the rich". Which like was the case with Bolshevism in the USSR means that it is
neo-feudalism for everybody else.
I never heard that feudal were concerned about freedom of speech for "deplorable". Only for
their own narrow circle.
Also the stability of the society is often more important then individual freedoms. That's
why in time of war, the press is forced to publish only official propaganda. So it is naive to
expect that in crisis, and the US society is currently in crisis, freedom of speech would be
respected. It will not. And Trump ban while cynical and illogical makes perfect sence for
neoliberal oligarchy.
The problem is that the US elite has not plan other the kicking the neoliberal can down the
road. And they intentionally polarized the society by promoting identity politics as a way to
preserve thier power and split masses into warring ethic or other groups.
Tech companies were once the primary tools of US "soft power" used to overthrow
authoritarian regimes by exporting 'digital democracy'. Now they employ the same tactics of
suppression as those regimes to silence dissent at home.
The permanent suspension of President Trump's Twitter account, carried out unilaterally and
devoid of any pretense of due process or appreciation of the First Amendment rights of Donald
Trump, represents a low moment in American history. Trump's ban was followed by a decision by
Google to de-platform Parler.com, a social media alternative to Twitter favored by many of
Trump's supporters. Apple also gave Parler a "24 hour warning" asking it to provide a
detailed moderation plan. Twitter, Google, Facebook (who also banned Trump) and the political
supporters of President-elect Joe Biden cite concerns that the content of the president's
Twitter account, along with exchanges among pro-Trump users of Parler, constituted an
"incitement of violence" risk that justified the actions taken.
In the aftermath of the storming of the Capitol by protesters seemingly motivated by the
words of President Trump, there is legitimate justification for concern over the link between
political violence and social media. But if history has taught us anything, the cure can be
worse than the disease, especially when it comes to the issue of constitutionally protected
freedom of speech.
This danger is illustrated by the actions of the former First Lady Michelle Obama who
has
publicly called for tech companies like Twitter and Facebook to permanently ban Trump from
their platforms and enact policies designed "to prevent their technology from being used by the
nation's leaders to fuel insurrection." The irony of the wife of the last American President
Barack Obama, who weaponized so-called digital democracy to export "Western democratic values"
in the struggle against authoritarian regimes, to turn to Twitter to release her message of
internet suppression, is striking. The fact that neither Michelle Obama nor those who extoll
her message see this irony is disturbing.
The Obama administration first sought to use 'digital democracy', the name given to policies
which aim to use web-based social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter as vehicles to
enhance the organization and activism of young people in repressive regimes to achieve American
policy objectives of regime change, during the 2009 Iranian presidential election. US 'digital
democracy' efforts anchored a carefully orchestrated campaign to promote the candidacy of Mir
Hossein Mousavi. These efforts included a phone call from a US State Department official, Jared
Cohen, to executives at Twitter to forgo a scheduled maintenance period and keep the lines in
and out of Iran open, under the premise that it was essential to make sure that digital
messages sent by Iranian dissidents got out to an international audience. Digital democracy
became privatized when its primary architect, Jared Cohen, left the State Department in
September 2010 to take a new position with internet giant Google as the head of 'Google Ideas'
now known as 'Jigsaw'. Jigsaw is a global initiative 'think tank' intended to "spearhead
initiatives to apply technology solutions to problems faced by the developing world." This
was the same job Cohen was doing while at the State Department.
Cohen promoted the notion of a "digital democracy contagion" based upon his belief that
the "young people in the Middle East are just a mouse click away, they're just a Facebook
connection away, they're just an instant message away, they're just a text message away" from
sufficiently organizing to effect regime change. Cohen and Google were heavily involved the
January 2011 demonstrations in Egypt, using social networking sites to call for demonstrations
and political reform; the "Egyptian contagion" version of 'digital democracy' phenomena was
fueled by social networking internet sites run by Egyptian youth groups which took a very
public stance opposing the Mubarak regime and calling for political reform.
The Iranian and Egyptian experiences in digital democracy-inspired regime change represent
the nexus of the weaponization of social media by tech giants such as Twitter and Google, and
the US government, which at the time was under the stewardship of Barack Obama and then-Vice
President Joe Biden. The fact that both the Iranian and Egyptian efforts failed only
underscores the nefarious nature of this relationship. The very tools and methodologies used by
Iranian and Egyptian authorities to counter US-sponsored "digital democracy" –
suppression through de-platforming – have now been taken up by Twitter, Google, and the
political allies of Joe Biden to silence Donald Trump and his supporters from protesting an
election they believe was every bit as "stolen" as the 2009 Iranian presidential election that
gave birth to 'digital democracy' in the first place.
In a recently published
report addressing the issue of internet freedom, Freedom House, a US government-funded
non-profit, non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on democracy,
political freedom, and human rights, observed that internet connectivity "is not a
convenience, but a necessity." Virtually all human activities, including political
socialization, have moved online. This new 'digital world', the report noted, "presents
distinct challenges for human rights and democratic governance" with "State and nonstate
actors shape online narratives, censor critical speech, and build new technological systems of
social control."
Freedom House was one of the supporters of 'digital democracy' in Iran and has been highly critical of
the actions by Iranian authorities to shut down and otherwise control internet connectivity
inside Iran. It noted that such tactics are indicative of a system that is "fearful of their
own people and worr[ies] that they cannot control the information space." In its report,
Freedom House wrote that "when civic organizing and political dissent overflow from the
realm of social media onto the streets dictators shut down networks to choke off any calls for
greater democracy and human rights."
In July 2019, the US 2nd District Court of Appeals ruling on Knight
First Amendment Institute v. Trump determined that President Trump's Twitter account
"bear[s] all the trappings of an official, state-run account," meaning that the First Amendment
governed the conduct of the account. As such, "the First Amendment does not permit a public
official who utilizes a social media account for all manner of official purposes to exclude
persons from an otherwise open online dialogue because they expressed views with which the
official disagrees."
By banning Trump from their platform, the unelected employees of Twitter have done to the
president of the United States what he was accused of doing in Knight First Amendment Institute
v. Trump. If it was a violation of First Amendment-protected free speech for Trump to exclude
persons from an otherwise open online dialogue, then the converse is obviously also
true.
The notion that Trump's tweets somehow represented a "clear and present danger" that
required suppression is not supported by the law. In 1919 Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
wrote the majority opinion in Schenck v. United
States , a case which examined the limits of free speech protections under the First
Amendment, and famously observed that "The most stringent protection of free speech would
not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic [t]he question in
every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as
to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that
Congress has a right to prevent."
Holmes' opinion in Schenck was later limited by the Supreme Court in its 1969 decision in
Brandenburg v. Ohio ,
which replaced the "clear and present danger" standard with what is known as
"imminent lawless action," which holds that speech is not protected if it is likely to
cause violation of the law "more quickly than an officer of the law reasonably can be
summoned." By suppressing the social media expressions of Donald Trump and his supporters,
Twitter, Facebook, and Google – egged on by the political supporters of Joe Biden –
appear to have unilaterally adopted the "clear and present danger" standard which
deviates from the constitutionally-mandated norms, as established by Supreme Court precedent,
that govern the protection of speech in America.
Political speech is not just a human right – in America, it is an essential
constitutionally guaranteed freedom. When the political supporters of Joe Biden, along with the
unelected heads of media giants such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google, actively collaborate to
silence the ability of Donald Trump and the tens of millions of Americans who support him to
express themselves on social media, they become no better than the authoritarian regimes they
once sought to remove from power.
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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the
author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of '
SCORPION
KING : America's Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.' He served in the
Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf's staff during
the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter
Trump was right on the big tech, he tried to warn about their power for many years, now
big-tech crack down on him and his supporters.
The leftwingers at Big tech really proved his point, they are a enormous threat.
Liberals and leftwingers cheer today, they are people that pick tribalism before freedom
of speeech, so disgusting.
Anyone who doesn't see the danger in allowing Facebook, Twitter, and Google to decide what
people get to see and what must be censored is living in a fantasy world. With this power,
they can -- and have -- influenced the outcomes of elections, changed people's perspectives
on matters of importance, and further divided the population.
Facebook needs to be regulated since it has effectively organ-harvested the critical
thinking skills of a significant portion of the population. It'd be better if thinking people
simply deleted Facebook and let Facebook shrink and become the right-wing agit-prop tool that
it truly is. Mark Zuckerberg is happy to to destabilize society with his little toy invention.
You'd think with all that money, he could afford a conscience. What a wrecking ball Facebook
is.
"... Jeffrey Wernick is strategic investor in Parler. He is also an early bitcoin adopter, advocate and acquirer. Additionally he is a seed investor and an angel investor. Wernick is a frequently invited lecturer and speaker including at his alma mater, the University of Chicago. ..."
How major social media companies threaten our most basic freedoms.
It is no secret that the dominant social media companies now monetize what is not theirs:
our personal data. In none of the agreements between social media users and these companies is
there a transfer of property. Yes, users (and consumers in general) often agree to relinquish
some privacy in exchange for a service or a good. But privacy and property are completely
different. They should not be conflated.
Privacy is at the core of who we are as free and sovereign individuals. An individual is
composed of many attributes. Some are public and open, others we keep to ourselves. All of them
define who we are.
Apparently, there is great commercial value in understanding our attributes and then using
what is learned. Sometimes this is in our interest, but many times it is not.
In the digital world, companies dissect us and package us for commercial gain without
compensating us -- and too often without our consent. That is not merely an invasion of our
privacy, but in actuality is a theft of our personal property.
In any free society, respect for the individual is predicated upon his or her sovereignty.
Our most important property right is our right to ourselves. If we lose ownership of ourselves,
we become the property of others.
Social media companies, and other platforms that sell or monetize our data without
permission are appropriating aspects of the sovereign individuals who are their users, and it
is a violation of our rights.
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But selling or monetizing your personal information isn't the only way tyrannical tech
seeks to own you.
In 2019, Facebook's Mark Zuckerbe rg explicitly said, "We are a tech company, not a
media company."
He later gave Congress a more nuanced answer:
"I view us as a tech company because the primary thing we do is build technology and
products," Zuckerberg testified. "I agree that we're responsible for the content, but we
don't produce the content. I think when people ask us if we're a media company or a publisher,
my understanding of what they're really getting at is do we feel responsible for the content on
our platform."
"The answer to that, I think, is clearly yes," he continued. "But I don't think that's
incompatible with fundamentally at our core being a technology company."
Zuckerberg's view of his company raises a crucial question: is Facebook a technology company
that promotes free speech and exists as a public forum that should be held exempt from
liability in connection with the content posted on its platform? Or is it a publisher with the
right to edit content at its discretion, whatever the methodology -- but must then assume
responsibility and liability for that content?
To say you assume responsibility for content, and then declare yourself exempt from
liability in connection with it is an absurd contradiction. An assumption of liability is an
indispensable component of statement of responsibility. It is the price one pays for being able
to take credit for something, or to exercise control over it.
As troubled as I am regarding Zuckerberg's hypocri sy, as shown by the contradictions
between his words and Facebook's policies and practices, it is even more troubling to me
that many of my fellow Zuckerberg critics -- both in the technology community and in the
progressive movement–hold a very different conception of free speech than I do. Their
view of the range of speech that should be protected is, unfortunately, much narrower.
Essentially, many of them believe technology should be used to censor content, accord
ing to criteria established by whoever controls the technology company. And today, most of
the technology companies handling our content have decided to develop these criteria in
partnership with those operating on a kind of mob mentality that sees dissent as something that
is dangerous, something to be repressed.
A mere platform or "tech company" would not take it upon itself to do this. But publishers
would and do, usually in the name of being "responsible." Unfortunately, almost all of today's
technology is developed under the auspices of a controlling authority acting as a censor.
This would be acceptable -- if they acknowledged themselves as publishers. But Zuckerberg,
during his congressional testimony, walked that not-even-remotely-fine line for a reason. Many
of today's tech companies, doing the bidding of the various mobs that want to dictate what
speech is allowed, wield the power they have according to their own perspective on what is
right, just, and moral. They anoint themselves as the modern version of Torquemada. Yes, I said
it: It is an Inquisition. These tech companies, and the mobs whose favor they curry, seek a
strategy to dehumanize, delegitimize, and digitally exterminate those with whom they
disagree.
Those in academia are often told they must "publish or perish." If platforms like Google,
Facebook, Twitter and others dared to verbalize what they were doing in the form of an
expression, an appropriate expression might be: "If we decide not to publish you, you will
virtually perish. You will be erased."
These companies really aren't "social media." They are not public forums. An actual public
forum respects the First Amendment, in spirit, and does not monetize content or personal data.
Google, Facebook, Twitter and other tyrannical tech giants are private companies operating
opaquely in the digital domain, exempt from discovery or accountability, gifted by Congress
with a liability exemption that allows them to do whatever they want. Including deplatforming
you.
Rabbi Hillel said, "that which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow."
If you want the right to speak, to express your ideas and opinions, it would be despicable
to you if someone prevented you from doing so. You would not want someone else to persecute,
dehumanize, deplatform or digitally exterminate you.
Such behavior is abhorrent to the ideal of free speech. It is unfathomable that, in the
twenty-first century, "I wholly disapprove of what you say and will defend to the death your
right to say it," has, somehow mutated into, "I wholly disapprove of what you say and will
digitally exterminate you if you dare try to say it."
A true public forum eschews censorship of any kind. Freedom of expression, and the exchange
of knowledge that goes along with it, can flourish only in an environment where there is no
authoritative entity or controlling party, where one speaks by right, not by permission.
Jeffrey Wernick is strategic investor in Parler. He is also an early bitcoin adopter,
advocate and acquirer. Additionally he is a seed investor and an angel investor. Wernick is a
frequently invited lecturer and speaker including at his alma mater, the University of
Chicago.
With Facebook under enormous pressure to ban all "Coronavirus conspiracy theories," this
is the obvious reason for our removal.
I would agree that it's related to the Coronavirus but I think what we're seeing in this
case is Deep State's influence on big tech. IMHO, Unz Review was integral to the Chinese
pushback on the origin of COVID-19 and for that reason it (UR) was tagged as PNG (as my spook
friends would say) by Deep State.
I'm sure we've all seen declassified (TS/SCI/BAR) information on some national security
issue or another. While sources and methods are redacted we can see the content. And what is
always so remarkable is how unremarkable it is. Some of it even references news articles to
establish facts. If the same quality level of info and analysis were used as the basis of an
Unz Review column it would be savagely mocked and pilloried by the commenters. Yet people in
government jobs treat this useless pile of crap reverently.
Conversely, in many articles on UR, and especially the comments section, you will find
some real jaw-dropping bits of info or intel which you think can't possibly be true but upon
further research you're able to verify as true. Pretty soon a clear pattern emerges which is
vastly different from the official narrative.
From early on UR was challenging the Deep State official narrative on the Wuhan
Coronavirus and suggesting it was a bioweapon false flag. The excellent piece by Whitney Webb
really got things going. RU's excellent work on the subject was the final straw for Deep
State.
When the Chinese government began pushing back against Western propaganda and started to
suggest COVID-19 was a U.S. bioweapon by U.S. military personnel in Wuhan I immediately knew
that the Chinese government intelligence agencies were reading UR. And I also knew at that
time that Deep State would target UR or RU for take down.
So here we are. The banning of UR on FB is the first phase of the campaign. Like an F-117A
Stealth Fighter taking out radar and broadcast stations.
I should have added to my original comment that FB is a tool of the US government to get
around the First Amendment. FB and other social media are propaganda tools used to promote
the US government position on issues, mainly by averting anti propaganda from the public, but
also by allowing the dissemination of the of government approved propaganda.
What is "Facebook" really? What kind of losers even waste their time on this surveillance
platform? Here is it: losers trying to monitor the activities of their past or potential love
interests. That's about the extent of its practical utility in the sick, lonely lives
captured within the technological hell known as social media.
Do this: smash the damned thing. Destroy any and all of your social media log-in
credentials once and for all, and be free of them – Faceplants, Twits, etc. The most
effective way of destroying a "Facebook" account, or any other, is to publicly post your
private log-in name and password along with a public statement of separation and divorce from
the platform. Once log-in credentials are publicly know, and random users access the account,
then the account becomes useless for tracking and worthless to the surveillance state that
partnerships with the front company.
Then, get a real life. Go outside. Meet real people in a real place. Pandemic be damned.
Better to die free than waste slowly away inside the sealed coffin of "social media".
P2P is NOT facebutt, twitter, google, amazon or ANY kind of "cloud" or "gatekeeper"
computing.
"Cloud" is MAINFRAME of the current century.
Freedom and Independence are to be found in DECENTRALIZED Internet as originally envisioned,
designed and implemented by Cerf and Kahn.
Without sheeple, faceButt has no PRODUCT to trade and profit from.
@Free And Clean I've never used FB, TWTR, Insta, or any other such girly "social"
website. Send your articles, opinions, photos, birthday greetings via USPostal and amaze your
friends, enemies and total strangers.
When will thinking people realize that those sites can be defeated by not using them and
by setting up better platforms? I have no idea how they'd work or look. If I did, I'd become
a rich gentile social media monopolist.
Yes, the information sphere is of paramount importance the ruling elite has known for a
very long time the power of brainwashing and have employed huge programs of information
management all to keep the people believing in complete bunk, the same way that illiterate
serfs five hundred years ago believed the bullshit they were told by the priest
This is a cradle to grave indoctrination system that encompasses not only
electronic media, but also the so-called education system and hard copy publishing
The result is that westerners, and Americans in particular, are almost completely
illiterate of important realities of life on earth does anyone remember that Jay Leno segment
'Jaywalking' where he would go and do man-on-the-street interviews with people, asking them
basic questions about things like American history, current events etc just unbelievable how
stupid and uninformed people really are yet these doorknobs would invariably know all the ins
and outs of the latest celebrity gossip just unbelievable
Of course the scumbags that run platforms like facebook are going to work hand in glove
with the narrative that the elite has worked so hard to establish I don't see why anyone
would use the facebook platform for anything I never have if you want to put information on
the web, you just put up a blog page it's just as easy, and no one will censor you
Twitter is another one I have never used and will never sign up for just not interested
you will notice that these kinds of so-called 'social media' are all about garnering
'followers' so that's great if you are a sheep and like to follow go right ahead and sign up
for facebook, and twitter and instagram and all the other crapola and you can follow these
morons right off the edge of the cliff they are headed for
The one platform I do use is youtube, which does have a lot of interesting video content
here too the propaganda censorship is an issue, but information sites like South Front
regularly put content on youtube without any problems
Bottom line is that 'social media' is a complete waste of time I was living my life just
fine before this crapola came out, and continue to do so without it
As for South Front, they have an excellent website that provides very ACCURATE news about
Syria, which is my main interest, and is really a pivotal conflict for the entire world in a
lot of ways perhaps even more so than the Spanish Civil War in a previous time
I have never seen South Front get a story wrong about the war situation in Syria that says
a lot they have proven themselves without doubt, and I highly recommend their website they
should just pack up and leave the ridiculous facebook
...Facebook has also appointed Emi Palmor, the former Israeli Justice Ministry
director-general, to its "Oversight Board" which will be tasked with content moderation on
Facebook and Instagram going forward, along with Muslim Brotherhood-linked Yemeni writer
Tawakkol Karma.
"... Nothing speaks more loudly of the dumbed down, idiotic, Fakebook groupthink of the age than the current rush to buy toilet roll as a response to the Coronavirus crisis. ..."
No need to worry about the corona virus - it'll all be okay as long as you buy enough toilet
roll...
Nothing speaks more loudly of the dumbed down, idiotic, Fakebook groupthink of the age
than the current rush to buy toilet roll as a response to the Coronavirus crisis.
You've seen it on the tele and (un)social media – supermarket shelves denuded of bog
roll and fat birds beating seven shades of sh*t out of each other over the last bag of ass
wipe.
I mean, what the hell!? Is this how stupid and pathetic we've become? Someone sees a post
on Fakebook that says its a good idea to respond to a potentially fatal virus by buying lots
of bog roll and within 5 minutes there's a massive rush on the stuff – after all, you
gotta buy it, right, COS IT SAYS SO ON FAKEBOOK...
When Alex Stamos announced that the Internet Research Agency's ad buys were a drop in
the ocean, Zuckerberg was promptly taken to the Congressional Woodshed and told to report
to the Atlantic Council. Those two billion-odd fake accounts may be a fraud perpetrated on
the advertisers, but they are invaluable to US "law" enforcement and to US propaganda, where
the ability to open a fake account on Facebook gives the illusion of privacy.
With all due respect to Mr. Greenspan and his Lowell House creds, I think he fails to
understand that Facebook is now an NSA asset.
This is a fascinating article and it certainly put a smile on my dial. As an asset for use
by governments around the world, Facebook may be too invaluable to just let sink. One guy
reported that he was in a meeting with Facebook’s top brass including the Zuck when a
head honcho of the FBI came into the meeting and sang Zuck’s praises for all the help
that Facebook gave the FBI. So the question remains. Just how many “real” Facebook
accounts does Facebook have? Ones that people check on daily. Now that is the killer
question.
I have three Facebook accounts. The two I never ever look at are the one for my cat and
the one for my feminine alter ego. My own account is used for only one thing, watching
"People You May Know" to see how far they've penetrated my graph; occasionally disturbing,
occasionally hilarious. I've never looked at my "wall", issued or accepted a friend request,
posted anything, messaged anyone but they have my email, and wow do I hate this company!
May 2018, a woman I loved and was ultimately going to get to move in died (age 70, natural
causes). Twice a week on average I get emails from Facebook inviting me to read her most
recent messages. You can imagine how I feel about that. SHE DED!
Facebook has boasted on the order of 2-3 billion users, a significant percentage of the
world's population, and I don't believe a word of it. One may assume that the early adopters
were people with more tech savvy, affluence and most important, leisure time to screw around
on the internet, and the proles don't have a lot of leisure time. Moreover, the value to the
advertiser of a set of eyeball impressions is directly related to the amount of disposable
income those eyeballs have, and sure, India has about one and a half billion people, but a
lot of them have zero disposable income and zero leisure time.
"Based on a combination of publicly available research and Plaintiffs' own analysis, among
18-34 years-olds in Chicago, for example, Facebook asserted its Potential Reach was
approximately 4 times (400%) higher than the number of real 18-34 year-olds with Facebook
accounts in Chicago. Based on a combination of publicly available research and Plaintiffs'
own analysis, Facebook's asserted Potential Reach in Kansas City was approximately 200%
higher than the number of actual 18-54 year-olds with Facebook accounts in Kansas City. This
inflation is apparent in other age categories as well."
"These foundational representations are false. Based on publicly available research and
Plaintiffs' own analysis, Facebook overstates the Potential Reach of its advertisements. For
example, based on publicly available data, Facebook's purported Potential Reach among the key
18-34 year-
22 old demographic in every state exceeds the actual population of 18-34 year-olds ."
"... Russiagate, the most extensive disinformation/propaganda campaign since Iraqi WMD, has fallen/is falling apart without any need to reference fake Facebook accounts. ..."
"... The Collusion narrative/conspiracy theory was preposterous from the get-go, riven with internal inconsistencies, and the recent Federal court ruling that prevents Mueller from continuing to publicly accuse Concord management of "undermining our democracy" (that's a hot one) discredits the second of the three bases of the narrative. ..."
Russiagate, the most extensive disinformation/propaganda campaign since Iraqi WMD, has
fallen/is falling apart without any need to reference fake Facebook accounts.
The Collusion narrative/conspiracy theory was preposterous from the get-go, riven with
internal inconsistencies, and the recent Federal court ruling that prevents Mueller from
continuing to publicly accuse Concord management of "undermining our democracy" (that's a hot
one) discredits the second of the three bases of the narrative.
Someday the McResistance TM and unhinged liberals possessed by magical thinking must grapple
with the fact that Trump was elected in America, by Americans, and that there is no Santa
Claus.
"... Facebook hasn't provided any data to clarify the matter, in fact their data further confuses it. In that respect it resembles a Madoff-style scheme. And that will become terribly relevant once revenue growth slows down. ..."
From an investor point of view, revs are growing very nicely albeit at a slowing rate and
forward earning valuations are not atrocious. 47% rev growth in 2017. 37% rev growth in
2018.
24% rev growth forecast for 2019. 21% rev growth forecast in 2020. Those rev growth rates
are over the moon compared to the SP500.
Who gives a rat's ass about fake accounts as long as the revs are growing.
And Singer, poor fella, he was crying in his beer back in August because he probably lost
money when the stock price went down following an announcement that rev growth rates would
predictably slow. If the cry-baby didn't sell, the market has made him pretty much whole
again.
If and when rev growth falls off a cliff instead of a natural rate of deceleration, then
the fake accounts may become material. Even if revs fall off a cliff, there is little to no
likelihood you will find a Madoff of Ponzi lurking around the corner.
It sounds like revenue is only growing because advertisers aren't aware of the fake
accounts and related puffery.
That will only remain true for so long. Facebook hasn't provided any data to clarify
the matter, in fact their data further confuses it. In that respect it resembles a
Madoff-style scheme. And that will become terribly relevant once revenue growth slows
down.
Fortunately, elites never go after each other so Z and friends will be fine. No worries
there.
FB fake accounts were an issue for a very long time. It pops up now and then, and then is
ignored. Unfortunately.
Google, TBH, has a not dissimilar problem, although it's more obvious to the buyers. That
is, it can't tell how many clicks (don't even mention "impressions") are bots. And it has no
incentive to put anything strong there, to the contrary, it has incentive to show some
captures, but as few as possible.
After all, advertisers pay for clicks and impressions, and you don't want to drop those
numbers that your revenue depends on, do you?
If you business model is "user is the product", then of course you have an incentive to
fake the users..
"... The internet, as Yasha Levine showed us in an admirable and unfortunately neglected book last year, was always envisioned by the military industrial complex responsible for its creation as a tool for surveillance. ..."
"... It should come as no surprise that neoliberal capitalism, the only system with even more global reach than the American armed forces (with which big tech is increasingly allied anyway), would turn it to the very purpose for which it was designed. There was never going to be another way. ..."
"... We can insist on disclosure, but nobody is ever going to read through those terms of service documents. We can also attempt to limit the relationship between digital advertising and free social media services, but the latter could not exist without the former. Nor could the unlimited amount of "content" produced by wage slaves or unpaid amateurs. ..."
"... The fact that hundreds of companies know virtually everything about me because I use technologies that are all but unavoidable for anyone who participates in modern life is terrifying. ..."
"... I wonder how many other people now think that the old arrangement -- in which we took photos with real cameras and paid people at department stores to make prints of them and shared them in the privacy of our homes with people we really love, and had beautifully clear conversations on reliable pieces of hardware, and paid for newspapers that offered good wages to their writers and editors thanks to the existence of classified ads -- was so bad. ..."
Nothing in our conversations about the pros and cons of the modern internet seems to me more
naïve than our complaints about privacy.
... ... ...
The problem is that Facebook is not really a bookstore in this analogy -- at least not in
any straightforward sense. To understand what they do you have to imagine a chain for whom
selling books is not really the point; the books, which are rather enticingly free, are only
there to give the store's owners a sense of what you might be interested in, information that
they then sell to other companies that will in turn try to hawk everything from clothing to
medicine to political candidates. If you think the neat blue website pays engineers hundreds of
millions of dollars to let you share dog scrapbooks and spy on your old high-school classmates
out of the goodness of its founders' hearts, you're delusional.
But the issues go well beyond any single platform or website. The internet, as Yasha
Levine showed us in an admirable and unfortunately neglected book last year, was always envisioned by the
military industrial complex responsible for its creation as a tool for surveillance.
It should come as no surprise that neoliberal capitalism, the only system with even more
global reach than the American armed forces (with which big tech is increasingly allied
anyway), would turn it to the very purpose for which it was designed. There was never going to
be another way.
This doesn't necessarily mean that we have to live with the status quo. It is possible to
imagine a future in which the moral hazard of putting all the information available from search
engines and email use into the hands of private corporations disappeared. Instead of Google and
Gmail we could have a massive Library of Congress search engine and a free -- with paid
upgrades available for those who need additional storage -- Postal Service email platform. I
for one would not mind entrusting Uncle Sam with the knowledge that the phrase beginning with
"M" I am most likely to search for information about is "Michigan football recruiting."
The sad truth, though, is that these things have already been tried . Very few people remember now
that the post office once attempted to get into the email business and made various attempts to
keep digital commerce within the purview of the government rather than in the hands of private
corporations. These efforts failed time and again, often due to Silicon Valley lobbying
efforts. (Internal incompetence was also an issue: imagine paying $1.70 per email
in 2002.)
This problem might be solved easily enough if those corporations had no say in the matter,
like the coal companies under the post-war Labour government in Britain. But even if forcibly
nationalizing search, email, and other basic internet services now seems like the ideal
solution, it would involve the most radical use of government power since the New Deal. I doubt
there is a single member of Congress who would even entertain the idea. What does that leave
with us? A box of Band-Aids for some gaping wounds. We can insist on disclosure, but nobody
is ever going to read through those terms of service documents. We can also attempt to limit
the relationship between digital advertising and free social media services, but the latter
could not exist without the former. Nor could the unlimited amount of "content" produced by
wage slaves or unpaid amateurs.
I don't mean to sound unduly cynical. The fact that hundreds of companies know virtually
everything about me because I use technologies that are all but unavoidable for anyone who
participates in modern life is terrifying.
I wonder how many other people now think that the old arrangement -- in which we took
photos with real cameras and paid people at department stores to make prints of them and shared
them in the privacy of our homes with people we really love, and had beautifully clear
conversations on reliable pieces of hardware, and paid for newspapers that offered good wages
to their writers and editors thanks to the existence of classified ads -- was so bad.
In the future we should be more mindful of the power of technology to destroy things we
value. But how many of those things are still left?
A new report by The Intercept has unearthed some stunning quotes from Facebook's lawyers as
the controversial social media giant recently battled litigation in California courts related
to the Cambridge Analytica data sharing scandal. The report notes that
statements from Facebook's counsel "reveal one of the most stunning examples of corporate
doublespeak certainly in Facebook's history" concerning privacy and individual users'
rights.
Contrary to CEO Mark Zuckerberg's last testimony before Congress which included the vague
promise, "We believe that everyone around the world deserves good privacy controls," the latest
courtroom statements expose in shockingly unambiguous terms that Facebook actually sees privacy
as legally "nonexistent" -- to use The Intercept's apt description of what's in the courtroom
transcript -- up until now largely ignored in media commentary. The courtroom debate was
first reported by Law360 , and captures the transcribed back and forth between Facebook
lawyer Orin Snyder of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher and US District Judge Vince Chhabria.
The Intercept cites multiple key sections of the transcript
from the May 29, 2019 court proceedings showing Snyder arguing essentially something the
complete opposite of Zuckerberg's public statements on data privacy , specifically, on the idea
that users have any reasonable expectation of privacy at all.
There is no privacy interest , because by sharing with a hundred friends on a social media
platform, which is an affirmative social act to publish, to disclose, to share ostensibly
private information with a hundred people, you have just, under centuries of common law,
under the judgment of Congress, under the SCA, negated any reasonable expectation of privacy
.
As The Intercept commented of the blunt remarks ,
"So not only is it Facebook's legal position that you're not entitled to any expectation of
privacy, but it's your fault that the expectation went poof the moment you started using the
site (or at least once you connected with 100 Facebook "friends")."
Privacy invasion, is similar to rape - one is an invasion of the body, the other, of the
soul..
However, if you don't want your privacy invaded, stop using Facebook, WhatsApp, and all
the other privacy invading apps they offer, and find platforms that respect your rights to
your privacy..
On the other hand, stop sharing extremely intimate details if you'd rather have them be
off limits - do mano a mano sharing, so you can know who leaked what, and when..
Still, monetizing the souls of folks, without their consent, is egregious, and yet, you
get what you pay for..if it's free, you're the product, or more accurately, the cow, or
better yet, the gold laying geese, or most egregiously, the snitch, snitching on
yourself..
Zuckerberg, is NOT anyone's definition of a honest person..his contraption began with a
theft, is based on a deception, and operates via blackmail, for the purpose of control..how
you describe such a person, is your prerogative, cheers...
"Let me give you a hypothetical of my own. I go into a classroom and invite a hundred
friends. This courtroom. I invite a hundred friends, I rent out the courtroom, and I have a
party. And I disclose — And I disclose something private about myself to a hundred
people, friends and colleagues. Those friends then rent out a 100,000-person arena, and they
rebroadcast those to 100,000 people. I have no cause of action because by going to a hundred
people and saying my private truths, I have negated any reasonable expectation of privacy ,
because the case law is clear."
...is spurious because, in his example, it is the friends who are disseminating the
information, but Facebook is more like the person who he rented the hall from...
disseminating the information. It would be like 101 bankers setting up a meeting in a
Marriott, and discussing business plans and tactics, as the Marriott records and sells that
information to credit unions. Claiming the Bankers gave up any right to privacy... because
there were over 100 of them in that banquet room.
In the case of the Marriott recording and selling information that is passed in their
banquet rooms... would the Facebook attorney agree that is acceptable? To be consistent he
must.
"... The database keeps out extremism, but it is also an overly broad censorship tool. Users have been banned under this system without even knowing why they were banned. And there is nobody that they can appeal to to reverse their ban. ..."
"... Their surveillance of users is a feature, not a bug. ..."
"... The issue of privacy is one that the United States will need to regulate. Facebook and Google are merely the tip of the iceberg. ..."
"... Many data brokers are far more intrusive, and Google and Facebook buy data from them , as well as from payments companies like Mastercard. Acxiom is a data broker that collects 1,500 data points per person on more than 700 million consumers and sells analysis of such information. ..."
"... Not even the Stasi had as much information on the East Germans as Google, Facebook, and its data brokers have on American citizens. ..."
"... It is bad when the data is accurate, but it is almost worse when it is not. They store data indefinitely, even when people have had their criminal or misdemeanor records expunged by courts, and it has cost people jobs . ..."
"... Apple CEO Tim Cook has called on the FTC to create a " data-broker clearinghouse ." All data brokers would have to register and allow users to see what data is held on them and allow users to see what data of theirs has been tracked and sold. It would also allow them to delete it. This is a good first step. Another important step is to require user consent before a merchant passes on data to a third party. This currently takes place with no user content. ..."
"... The most contentious issue for reform is treating Facebook and Google like the monopolies they are. In a way, it makes sense. For years, Zuckerberg routinely described Facebook as a " social utility ." Indeed, it was originally part of the company's slogan. ..."
"... In 2017, Steve Bannon said tech companies like Facebook and Google have become essential elements of 21st-century life and should be regulated as utilities. ..."
"... In short, they cannot be both "media companies" and monopolies because monopoly control of media is the end of democracy. They are monopolies, therefore they cannot be allowed the editorial freedom of media companies. ..."
"... The services provided by Facebook, Google, etc have become an integral part of our daily lives. They are also natural monopolies. In that sense they are like the electric and gas companies, which are regulated utilities. So they, too should be regulated utilities. ..."
"... My ancestors didn't fight two world wars and a Cold War to secure a privacy violating mass surveillance society for their posterity. In some ways, we're turning into the very things that Americans fought tooth and nail to destroy, and that real Americans loathe to their marrow. It's sickening. ..."
"... I doubt "regulation" is enough. They operate like giant, unaccountable monopolies and should probably be broken up or shut down. Do it. Harsh criminal penalties and huge civil fines for violators of individual rights and privacy. ..."
At the recent F8 conference for Facebook developers, Mark Zuckerberg stood on stage laughing and trying to crack jokes.
"I know that we don't exactly have the strongest reputation on ptrivacy right now, to put it lightly," he said. The audience was
speechless. It would be like BP laughing about oil spills or Union Carbide laughing about the Bhopal disaster. Nobody laughed, not
even Facebook employees.
That same week, Facebook disclosed that it will be setting aside $5 billion to pay for potential fines from the Federal Trade
Commission relating to violations of user privacy. The fine is significant -- if only symbolically -- because when it comes to the
tech giants, the Department of Justice and FTC have been toothless enforcers and regulators. The biggest fine they've imposed thus
far was for
$22.5 million to Google in 2012 for misleading consumers about its online tracking tools, a penalty so inconsequential that it
amounts to less than a rounding error.
While banks are too big to fail, tech giants are too big to manage. Facebook has accumulated over 2 billion users on its main
platform, and also owns Instagram and Whatsapp. It is far too large to operate with any sensible degree of competent oversight.
The company has been accused of selling advertisements based on anti-Semitic keywords like "
Jew haters ," selling
ads that discriminate based on age
for job advertisements, targeting people by race to
exclude minorities
, and live-streaming murders and suicides. It has
helped fuel the ethnic
cleansing of the Rohingya in Myanmar, according to the United Nations. It has
exposed hundreds of millions of passwords stored internally without encryption. It has saved user videos that it
promised were
deleted . It has repeatedly
misled advertisers about its advertising metrics.
... ... ...
Efforts by Facebook, Google, and Twitter to self-regulate have encountered little success and present a host of problems. For
example, the tech giants collaborate in the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism. It
shares a
database of objectionable content that can be used to ban files and users. The problem with this database is that there is no
transparency, accountability or even a right to appeal. The database keeps out extremism, but it is also an overly broad censorship
tool. Users have been banned under this system without even knowing why they were banned. And there is nobody that they can appeal
to to reverse their ban.
When it comes to privacy in the United States, the tech giants have no interest in harming their ad-driven business models, and
there is very little self-regulation. Their surveillance of users is a feature, not a bug. Europe has the General Data Protection
Regulation, a regulatory framework to protect individuals, but the tech giants have fought privacy regulations at every step in state
legislatures and on Capitol Hill.
The issue of privacy is one that the United States will need to regulate. Facebook and Google are merely the tip of the iceberg.
Many data brokers are far more intrusive, and Google and Facebook
buy data from them , as well as from payments companies like Mastercard. Acxiom is a data broker that collects 1,500 data points
per person on more than 700 million consumers and sells analysis of such information. The kind of information it collects is
vast: identifying and contact information, court and public record information, financial "indicators", health "interests" including
web searches for "diabetes, arthritis, homeopathic, organic and senior needs," demographic information such as home value, home characteristics,
marital status, presence of children in the household, number of members in the household, education, occupation, and political party,
"lifestyle and interest indicators."
Not even the Stasi had as much information on the East Germans as Google, Facebook, and its data brokers have on American
citizens.
It is bad when the data is accurate, but it is almost worse when it is not. They store data indefinitely, even when people
have had their criminal or misdemeanor records expunged by courts, and it has
cost people jobs .
Apple CEO Tim Cook has called on the FTC to create a "
data-broker clearinghouse ." All data brokers would have to register and allow users to see what data is held on them and allow
users to see what data of theirs has been tracked and sold. It would also allow them to delete it. This is a good first step. Another
important step is to require user consent before a merchant passes on data to a third party. This currently takes place with no user
content.
Most importantly, the tech giants should be regulated as media companies. Executives from Google and Facebook go to great lengths
to deny that they run media companies, even though they behave exactly like media companies.
They aggregate, curate, and distribute content, but bear none of the burdens that come with that designation. Facebook's news
feed has become what the front page of the newspaper was for older generations of people; at least 66 percent of the social network's
2 billion users use it as a news source, according to a Pew Research Center study.
Thee are de facto editors of news content. Facebook and YouTube -- a subsidiary of Google's parent company, Alphabet -- have intentionally
designed their algorithms to customize user experience to increase engagement. They accomplish this by suggesting stories that user
will be most likely to respond to. An algorithm may not be an old-fashioned editor, but it is making editorial choices all the same.
They are also creators of content. Facebook and Google may say they aren't media companies, but they have been investing in originally
produced entertainment videos and shows.
If Facebook and Google were held responsible for the content they promote, the Federal Communications Commission would not let
them off lightly for their many failings. If Facebook and Google were treated as media companies, they would be held accountable
for the content that appears on their platforms. Today, under
Section 230 of the Communication
Decency Act , tech giants are broadly immune from liability over content posted by others.
The most contentious issue for reform is treating Facebook and Google like the monopolies they are. In a way, it makes sense.
For years, Zuckerberg routinely described Facebook as a "
social utility ." Indeed, it
was originally part of the company's slogan.
Facebook and Google have become essential fixtures of 21st-century life. If you want to be on a network with all of your friends,
there is really only one network to be on, and it is on Facebook. Likewise for search where Google has almost a 90 percent market
share globally with very strong feedback loops from its platform and advertisers. These business models have become a natural monopoly,
much like a phone company or water system except that they remain completely unregulated.
Figures from the Left and Right have called for them to be regulated like public utilities. In 2017, Steve Bannon said tech
companies like Facebook and Google have become essential elements of 21st-century life and should be regulated as utilities.The Economist has mooted the idea that the tech giants could be regulated based on a regulated return on assets. They can
stay private and enjoy utility-like status, but the returns they can harvest from being natural monopolies are capped at utility
like rates based on the return on their assets.
Reform is not impossible. More than two decades ago in 1998, Congress recognized that the internet was revolutionizing media and
commerce and passed two laws to address
copyright and free speech concerns. Two decades is an awfully long time in Silicon Valley and technology. Times have changed, and
updating the laws is long overdue.
Section 230, the "media companies" thing, is not enough. These companies have more power than the government did at the time the
First Amendment was ratified, especially when they act in concert as they have been doing recently to ban political speech.
The 1934 Universal Service Act is the right approach. Natural monopolies cannot be allowed to curate. They need to stop using
demonetizing, Youtube Jail, condescending Twitter "time outs", weaponized spam false positives they claim are "mistakes" when
caught, and outright bans to retaliate against legal speech they don't like, whether it is flat earth conspiracies, anti-vaxers,
Republicans, "Nazis," whatever. Even "Nazis" are allowed to buy food, have telephones, and print newspapers in this country. It
is extreme, but we decided to draw the line where we did for a reason, and have not agreed to move it since the Revolutionary
War. It is not their right to unilaterally move that line for us. They are so powerful all legal speech must be allowed, and the
people will have to sort out what's true. Achieving social harmony, or bettering humanity by arbitrating truth, are not their
responsibilities. They are not media companies.
In short, they cannot be both "media companies" and monopolies because monopoly control of media is the end of democracy.
They are monopolies, therefore they cannot be allowed the editorial freedom of media companies.
We know what will happen. Dodd-Frank. A "regulation" that makes it even easier for FB and Google to evade taxes and censor opponents
and kill competitors.
Bear in mind that the hearings in both Congress and Parliament were NOT bashing FB for invading privacy and censoring opinion.
Both were bashing FB for INADEQUATE censorship and invasion. They expected MORE EVIL, and Zuck was happy to give them more evil.
The issue is very simple. Let capitalism work by simply passing a law that states that information about an individual is the
property of that individual. And just like you can't sell the land I own without a contract to do so, you can't sell the information
(about me) that I own without a contract to do so.
In the agricultural age, property (land) rights became recognized. In the Industrial Age, capital, debt and share ownership
rights became codified. We are in the Information Age, and it's time to recognize the proper ownership of information.
Gene Smolko: It doesn't look like it. There used to be a bunch of search engines. Now it looks like there will never be another
search engine. "Search engine" is starting to look like a utility, something we all need to share to make more profit elsewhere.
While I totally agree that FB has evolved into what amounts to a public utility and needs to be treated as such, beware of the
following caveat: FB, Google etc. will no longer be "free." The likelihood will be that once the dust settles their services (as
well as those of any rival companies that will result from this process) will come with a price tag. FB, Google etc. will become
like electricity–if you want it, you have to pay for it.
The services provided by Facebook, Google, etc have become an integral part of our daily lives. They are also natural monopolies.
In that sense they are like the electric and gas companies, which are regulated utilities. So they, too should be regulated utilities.
On the advertising and data side, there are many competing data brokers who have every incentive to abuse your personal data.
What we need there is not just a law, but a constitutional amendment defining a citizen's right to privacy, that we own our own
data, and we must approve of any use of it. That simply was not an issue when the Bill of Rights was written, but it is now.
My ancestors didn't fight two world wars and a Cold War to secure a privacy violating mass surveillance society for their
posterity. In some ways, we're turning into the very things that Americans fought tooth and nail to destroy, and that real Americans
loathe to their marrow. It's sickening.
I doubt "regulation" is enough. They operate like giant, unaccountable monopolies and should probably be broken up or shut
down. Do it. Harsh criminal penalties and huge civil fines for violators of individual rights and privacy.
"... It is time Facebook is held accountable for how it handles consumers' personal information ," James said in a statement , claiming the social media company " has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of respect for consumers' information while at the same time profiting from mining that data ." ..."
"... Facebook admitted last week that it " unintentionally uploaded " 1.5 million new users' email address books since 2016, potentially slurping up hundreds of millions of people's contact information – including non-Facebook users ..."
"... That investigation continues, while the Federal Trade Commission, which opened its own probe following the Cambridge Analytica revelations alleging violation of a 2011 " consent decree ," is reportedly negotiating a settlement with Facebook. According to the company's first-quarter earnings report, Facebook expects to pay $3 to $5 billion in penalties – the largest FTC settlement ever for a tech company. ..."
New York Attorney General Letitia James is opening an investigation into Facebook's "unintentional"
upload of up to 1.5 million users' contact lists, vowing to hold it accountable for its cavalier
attitude toward user privacy.
"
It is time Facebook is held accountable for how it handles consumers' personal information
,"
James said in a
statement
, claiming the social media company "
has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of respect
for consumers' information while at the same time profiting from mining that data
."
Facebook admitted last week that it "
unintentionally uploaded
" 1.5 million new users'
email address books since 2016, potentially slurping up hundreds of millions of people's contact
information – including non-Facebook users – which was then used for targeted advertising and to
suggest potential "
friends
" based on email connections. The platform gained access to the
contacts by asking users for their email passwords after they clicked on a link to verify their
account, but did not ask the users before hoovering up their contact lists.
Facebook claims it is deleting the offending address book data and says it has notified people who
had their contacts copied. It says the contacts were not shared with anyone.
New York is one of several states currently investigating Facebook based on the March 2018
revelations that Cambridge Analytica used Facebook data scraped from millions of users without their
consent to assist the Donald Trump presidential campaign. That investigation continues, while the
Federal Trade Commission, which opened its own probe following the Cambridge Analytica revelations
alleging violation of a 2011 "
consent decree
," is reportedly negotiating a settlement with
Facebook. According to the company's first-quarter earnings report, Facebook expects to pay $3 to $5
billion in penalties – the largest FTC settlement ever for a tech company.
The company has been plagued with non-stop scandals since Cambridge Analytica, with users learning
last month hundreds of millions of passwords had sat, unencrypted, on an internal server for the past
seven years and reports from ex-employee whistleblowers accusing the site of "
de-boosting
"
conservative political content. Facebook has responded to users' worries about privacy by hiring one
of the authors of the notorious USA PATRIOT Act as its new general counsel.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
Monday, April 15, 2019Facebook
and Its Close Links to Washington With Facebook taking a very strong stance against
so-called fake news and foreign interference in what passes for democracy in the United States
and particularly given its
recent association with the Atlantic Council and its Digital Forensic Research Lab. I would
be remiss if I didn't thank Matt
Agorist at the Free Thought Project, one of the entities that was
purged by Facebook in October 2018, for inspiring this posting
In no particular order, let's look at some of Facebook's key personnel and their relationship
to Washington:
1.) Katie Harbath : Ms.
Harbath is currently Director of Global Politics and Government Outreach at Facebook as shown
here:
...and has very close links to the Republican Party (a relative rarity among Facebook key
personnel) including Deputy eCampaign Director for Rudy Giuliani's run at the Oval Office both
before and during her tenure at Facebook as shown here:
It was Ms. Harbath who
announced Facebook's "exciting new partnership" with the Atlantic Council on May 17,
2018:
" Today, we're excited to launch a new partnership with the Atlantic Council, which has a
stellar reputation looking at innovative solutions to hard problems. Experts from their Digital
Forensic Research Lab will work closely with our security, policy and product teams to get
Facebook real-time insights and updates on emerging threats and disinformation campaigns from
around the world. This will help increase the number of "eyes and ears" we have working to spot
potential abuse on our service -- enabling us to more effectively identify gaps in our systems,
preempt obstacles, and ensure that Facebook plays a positive role during elections all around
the world ."
2.) Nathaniel Gleicher : Mr.
Gleicher is Head of Cybersecurity Policy at Facebook as shown here:
...and was former Director for Cybersecurity Policy for the National Security Council at the
White House, Senior Counsel for Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section at the United
States Department of Justice and a Law Clerk for Senator Patrick Leahy as shown here:
Just so you can get a sense of Mr. Gleicher's belief system, here is what he said in a blog
posting on January 17, 2019 entitled " Removing Coordinated
Inauthentic Behaviour from Russia ":
" Today we removed 364 Facebook Pages and accounts for engaging in coordinated
inauthentic behavior as part of a network that originated in Russia and operated in the
Baltics, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Central and Eastern European countries. The Page
administrators and account owners primarily represented themselves as independent news Pages or
general interest Pages on topics like weather, travel, sports, economics, or politicians in
Romania, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan,
Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia, and Kyrgyzstan. Despite their misrepresentations of their
identities, we found that these Pages and accounts were linked to employees of Sputnik, a news
agency based in Moscow, and that some of the Pages frequently posted about topics like
anti-NATO sentiment, protest movements, and anti-corruption." (my bolds)
Yes, imagine being anti-NATO and anti-corruption! That's totally unAmerican not to mention
totally without merit !
3.) David Recordon :
Mr. Recordon lists himself as a "doer" on his Linkedin page as shown here:
...however, his "real position" is Engineering Director for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a
company founded by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan which has the goal of "advancing
human potential and promoting equality in areas such as health, education, scientific research
and energy".
Between March 2015 and January 2017, Mr. Recordon was the Special Assistant to the President
and Director of White House IT and a consultant for the U.S. Digital Service at the White House
as you can see here:
Please note that prior to his tenure with the federal government, Mr. Recordon was Engineering
Director at Facebook.
4.) Aneesh Raman : Mr.
Raman is currently the Head of Economic and Social Impact at Facebook as you can see here:
...and was the former speechwriter to President Obama and worked in Strategic Communications at
the Pentagon as shown here:
5.) Meredith Carden :
Ms. Carden is currently working on Facebook's News Integrity Partnerships as shown here:
..and spent two years working in the Office of First Lady Michelle Obama and spent seven months
as a Press Intern for Obama For America as shown here:
6.) Joel Benenson: Mr. Benenson, founder of Benenson Strategy Group , is conducting research for the Chan
Zuckerberg Initiative as shown here:
...and was a former senior strategist to Hillary Clinton during her most recent run for the
Oval Office as well as doing research and polling programs for President Obama's 2008 and 2012
campaigns and working on President Bill Clinton's campaign during the 1996 election as shown
here :
Let's close with this. Remembering that Facebook is now tied to the Atlantic Council who
functions as its censor, here is a
screen capture that shows the close links between Washington and the Atlantic Council when
it comes to leadership:
...and funding:
While I'm quite certain that there are other examples of the very close links between
Washington and Facebook, I believe that you have enough information from this posting to come
to the conclusion that Facebook is far from a benign, private entity. Facebook put in place an
inordinate number of men and women who hail from the federal government and, as such, one might
almost conclude that the publicly traded Facebook functions as an extension of the federal
government and, more pointedly, the Democratic Party. Perhaps that's why Facebook has had its
proverbial "panties in a knot" about Russian-sourced fake news since Hillary Clinton lost the
election that was supposed to be hers.
Shadow banning (also called stealth banning, ghost banning or comment ghosting[1]) is the act of blocking or partially blocking
a user or their content from an online community such that it will not be readily apparent to the user that they have been banned.
By making a user's contributions invisible or less prominent to other members of the service, the hope may be that in the
absence of reactions to their comments, the problematic or otherwise out-of-favour user will become bored or frustrated and leave
the site.
< More and more "resistance" type Twitteratti get shadowbanned, that is, their posts dont appear in the Twitter feed though they
are visible on their profiles. Find out if you are shadowbanned here:>
Until recently I didn't know the word "shadowbanning", but that was what happened to me several years ago. The managers of
the Indianapolis Star had given their forum to the tender care of a mix of Libertarians, rightwingnuts, and devoted followers
of the Holy Cesspool south of Syria. Gradually I realized nobody was responding to my posts, and only by accident did I learn
those posts were invisible to everybody else. Only when I was logged in could I see them myself.
So that's why I have gone cold turkey on the only Indianapolis newspaper. I'd recommend it only for folks whose parakeets need
a lining for the bottom of the bird's cage. Their editorial page works best for that application.
Yeah I first encountered the phenom during the last days of the 2014 Euromaidan while reposting info on Facebook about sniper
fire coming from opp held rooftops. I couldnt understand why interaction on the subject stopped until someone confirmed via the
chat that none of my posts with the word "Ukraine" appeared in the feed. They must've triggered FBs early filter algorithm. I
have since left the Ministry of Truth..
"... The RussiaGate Narrative has been revealed as a Big Con (a.k.a. Nothing-Burger), but what's dangerously real is the censorship that's being carried out by the for-profit monopolies Facebook and Google on behalf of the status quo's Big Con. ..."
"... The damage to democracy wrought by Facebook and Google is severe: free speech no longer exists except in name, and what individuals see in search and social media feeds is designed to manipulate them without their consent or knowledge--and for a fat profit. Whether Facebook and Google are manipulating users for profit or to buy off Status Quo pressures to start regulating these monopolistic totalitarian regimes or to align what users see with their own virtue-signaling, doesn't matter. ..."
We either take down Facebook and Google and turn them into tightly regulated transparent public utilities available to all or
they will destroy what little is left of American democracy.
The RussiaGate Narrative has been revealed as a Big Con (a.k.a. Nothing-Burger), but what's dangerously real is the censorship
that's being carried out by the for-profit monopolies Facebook and Google on behalf of the status quo's Big Con.
This site got a taste of Facebook-Google-Big-Media's Orwellian Authoritarian-Totalitarian censorship back in 2016 when a shadowy
fake-news site called PropOrNot aggregated every major alt-media site that had published anything remotely skeptical of the coronation
of Hillary Clinton as president and labeled us all shills for Russian propaganda.
Without any investigation of the perps running the site or their fake-news methodology, The Washington Post (Jeff Bezos' plaything)
saw fit to promote the fake-news on Page One as if it were journalistically legitimate. Why would a newspaper that supposedly values
the integrity of its content run with such shameless fake-news propaganda? Because it fit the Post's own political agenda and biases.
This is the essence of Facebook-Google-Big-Media's Orwellian Authoritarian-Totalitarian censorship: sacrifice accepted journalistic
practice, free speech and transparency to promote an absurdly obvious political and social agenda.
If there was any real justice in America, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai should be wearing prison jumpsuits
for what Facebook and Google have done to American democracy. Both of these monopolies have manipulated news feeds, search results
and what individuals are shown in complete secret, with zero public oversight or transparency .
The damage to democracy wrought by Facebook and Google is severe: free speech no longer exists except in name, and what individuals
see in search and social media feeds is designed to manipulate them without their consent or knowledge--and for a fat profit. Whether
Facebook and Google are manipulating users for profit or to buy off Status Quo pressures to start regulating these monopolistic totalitarian
regimes or to align what users see with their own virtue-signaling, doesn't matter.
What matters is that no one can possibly know how Facebook and Google have rigged their algorithms and to what purpose. The typical
corporation can buy political influence, but Facebook and Google are manipulating the machinery of democracy itself in three ways:
1. They are secretly censoring alternative media and skeptics of the status quo narratives.
2. They are selling data and ads to anyone interested in manipulating voters and public opinion.
3. They are providing data to the National Security organs of the state which can then use this data to compile dossiers on
"enemies of the people," i.e. skeptics and dissenters who question the "approved" context and narrative.
That's a much more dangerous type of power than buying political influence or manipulating public opinion by openly publishing
biased "commentary."
We all understand how America's traditional Corporate Media undermines democracy: recall how every time Bernie Sanders won a Democratic
primary in 2016, The New York Times and The Washington Post "reported" the news in small typeface in a sidebar, while every Hillary
Clinton primary win was trumpeted in large headlines at the top of page one.
But this sort of manipulation is visible; what Google and Facebook do is invisible. What their algorithms do is invisible, and
the shadow banning and other forms of invisible censorship cannot be easily traced.
A few of us can trace shadow banning because we have access to our site's server data. Please consider the data of Google searches
and direct links from Facebook to oftwominds.com from November 2016 and November 2018:
Nov. 2016: Google Searches: 36,779
Nov. 2016: links from Facebook: 9,888
Nov. 2018: Google Searches: 12,671
Nov. 2018: links from Facebook: 859
Oftwominds.com has been around since 2005 and consistently draws around 250,000 page views monthly (via oftwominds.com and my
mirror site on blogspot, which is owned/operated by Google. Interestingly, traffic to that site has been less affected by shadow
banning ; Coincidence? You decide....).
Given the consistency of my visitor traffic over the years, it's "interesting" how drastically the site's traffic with Google
and Facebook has declined in a mere two years. How is this shadow banning not Orwellian Authoritarian-Totalitarian censorship? It's
akin to China's Orwellian Social Credit system but for private profit .
It wouldn't surprise me to find my photo airbrushed out of group photos on Facebook and Google just as the Soviet propaganda organs
did when someone fell out of favor in the 1930s.
Fortunately, oftwominds.com isn't dependent on Facebook or Google for its traffic; other content creators who were skeptical of
RussiaGate are not so fortunate. One of the implicit goals of shadow banning and filters is to destroy the income of dissenting sites
without the content creators knowing why their income plummeted.
Strip dissenters of their income and you strip them of the ability to dissent. Yea for "free speech" controlled by for-profit
monopolies!
Where's the "level playing field" of free speech? As long as Facebook and Google are free to censor and filter in secret, there
is no free speech in America. All we have is a simulacrum of free speech in which parroting "approved" narratives is promoted and
dissent is censored/banned--but without anyone noticing or even being able to tell what's been filtered, censored or banned.
So when are we going to tackle privately held monopolies which are selling user data to the highest bidder, obliterating free
speech in secret and manipulating news feeds and search to promote hidden agendas? I've argued (see links below) that the solution
is very simple:
1. Regulate Facebook and Google as public utilities. Ban them from collecting and selling user data to anyone, including federal
agencies.
2. Allow a modest profit to each firm via display adverts that are shown equally to every user.
3. Require any and all search/content filters and algorithms be made public, i.e. published daily.
4. Any executive or employee of these corporations who violates these statutes will face criminal felony charges and be exposed
to civil liability lawsuits from users or content providers who were shadow-banned or their right to free speech was proscribed
or limited by filters or algorithms.
There is no intrinsic right for privately held corporations to establish monopolies that can manipulate and filter free speech
in secret to maximize profits and secret influence. We either take down Facebook and Google and turn them into tightly regulated
transparent public utilities available to all or they will destroy what little is left of American democracy.
I recently addressed these invisible (but oh-so profitable) mechanisms in a series of essays:
"... While it's nice that Zuckerberg has suddenly realized that people value their privacy online, and end-to-end encryption for private conversations is obviously a positive step, his critics aren't entirely buying the new image. One technology writer described the move as "a power grab disguised as an act of contrition." ..."
"... Why? Because the long-winded spiel about the importance of privacy masks the fact that Zuckerberg's real motivation for combining the three services is to stave off efforts by US and EU regulators to force the unbundling of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram and introduce new competition to the market. ..."
Mark Zuckerberg is on a mission to rehabilitate Facebook's image. The CEO announced his new
"privacy-focused vision" for the social media platform this week – but it looks more like
a PR stunt than anything else. "Privacy gives people the freedom to be themselves and
connect more naturally, which is why we build social networks," Zuckerberg wrote . Now, is
there anyone who really believes Facebook was built to give people "the freedom to be
themselves?"
Zuckerberg does understand, however, why people are questioning Facebook's newfound
commitment to privacy, "...because frankly we don't currently have a strong reputation for
building privacy protective services." For a company plagued with privacy scandal after
privacy scandal, that seems like a bit of an understatement.
Putting "Privacy-focussed" in the headline is a great strategy, but none of the things
mentioned stop Facebook knowing who you are, your location, mobile number, who you're
connected to, linking this to other data sets, or following you around the web https://t.co/iKhYUtl4CCpic.twitter.com/UeRRpxWzz2
Still, reading through Zuckerberg's grand vision for a new kind of privacy-focused Facebook,
we are given the impression that the company is about to completely revamp itself from top to
bottom – but the only real concrete change proposed is one that critics are already
saying might not enhance privacy that much and isn't even really motivated by privacy concerns
at all. Essentially, Zuckerberg plans to integrate Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram
direct messages to build a kind of single, end-to-end messaging system (which we've actually
known-about since January). This change is because he now believes "the future of
communication will increasingly shift to private, encrypted services where people can be
confident what they say to each other stays secure."
*LOL* So @facebook merges all the data from
#Instagram ,
#WhatsApp and
#Facebook , while
only encrypting the content data (not the meta data) of Facebook messages and sells the
package as a #privacy move - a
PR masterpiece and the media falls for it.. 😜😂
While it's nice that Zuckerberg has suddenly realized that people value their privacy
online, and end-to-end encryption for private conversations is obviously a positive step, his
critics aren't entirely buying the new image. One technology writer
described the move as "a power grab disguised as an act of contrition."
Why? Because the long-winded spiel about the importance of privacy masks the fact that
Zuckerberg's real motivation for combining the three services is to stave off efforts by US and
EU regulators to force the unbundling of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram and introduce new
competition to the market.
Does anybody think that Facebook owning Instagram and WhatsApp is a good thing for
America, privacy, journalism, or anything except Zuck & shareholders getting rich?
Breaking up Facebook from Instagram and WhatsApp seems like the least radical idea, and I
hope we do it soon.
Zuckerberg is now firmly on a collision course with regulators around the world. Germany's
antitrust body ruled last month that Facebook was abusing its dominant position in the market
by combining the three services. Facebook, Zuckerberg wrote, has been "obsessed" with
creating an "intimate environment" for WhatsApp users. But an "intimate" feeling
"environment" isn't really going to cut it. Facebook has already been fined $122 million by the EU
for misleading antitrust regulators when it said its WhatsApp acquisition would not mean user
information from the two platforms would be combined (which, of course, it was).
Facebook exists primarily to sell advertisements – and its entire business model rests
on mining our data to do just
that. So while protecting private conversations is a good thing in and of itself, it doesn't
appear that anything else fundamental about Facebook will really be changing. Facebook still
has a million other ways to get hold of our data and monitor our online activity – and
even with stronger messaging encryption, Facebook can still use metadata to tell who we are
talking to and when, which is valuable information in itself.
This wasn't Zuckerberg's first effort to redeem himself and do damage control for Facebook
and its multiplying privacy scandals – and it certainly won't be his last. A blog post
laying out a blueprint for a "privacy-focused" company that doesn't actually exist
doesn't mean much. Zuckerberg has been offering apologies
left, right and center for the last year.
He doesn't have a great track record when it comes to keeping his promises, though. Plenty
of privacy tools Facebook has promised in the past never came to fruition. Remember that
"clear history" button that Zuckerberg promised nearly two years ago and users are still
waiting for today?
Anyone who thinks Facebook is really going to put its business model at risk, as it
scrambles to shield itself from regulators and maintain its monolithic status is more than
likely deluded.
Danielle Ryan, RT
Subscribe to RT newsletter to
get stories the mainstream media won't tell you.
The next time
someone tells you that "Facebook is a private company" ask them if they know about the dozens of
government employees who fill its ranks...
As the Free Thought Project has previously reported, the phrase "Facebook is a private company"
is not accurate as they have formed a partnership with an insidious neoconservative "think tank"
known as
the
Atlantic Council
which is directly funded and made up of groups tied to the pharmaceutical
industry, the military industrial complex, and even government itself. The Atlantic Council
dictates to Facebook who is allowed on the platform and who is purged.
Because the Atlantic Council is funded in part by the United States government -- and they are
making decisions for Facebook -- this negates the claim that the company is private.
Since our six million followers and years of hard work were wiped off the platform
during
the October purge
, TFTP has consistently reported on the Atlantic Council and their ties to the
social media giant. This week, however, we've discovered something just as ominous -- the government
to Facebook pipeline and revolving door.
It is a telltale sign of a corrupt industry or company when they create a revolving door between
themselves and the state. Just like
Monsanto
has former employees
on the Supreme Court and Pharmaceutical industry insiders move back and
fourth from the FDA to their companies, we found that Facebook is doing the same thing.
Below are just a few of corrupt connections we've discovered while digging through the list of
current and former employees within Facebook.
Facebook's Head of Cybersecurity Policy -- aka, the man who doles out the ban hammer to
anyone he wishes -- is
Nathaniel
Gleicher.
Before Gleicher was censoring people at Facebook, he prosecuted cybercrime at the
U.S. Department of Justice, and served as Director for Cybersecurity Policy at the National
Security Council (NSC) in the Obama White House.
While Facebook may have an interest in seeking out Gleicher's expertise, this man is an
outspoken advocate of tyranny.
After
deleting the pages
of
hundreds of antiwar and pro-peace media and activist outlets in October, last month, Facebook
made
another giant move to silence.
This time, they had no problem noting that they went after pages
whose specific missions were "anti-corruption" or "protest" movements. And it was all headed up by
Gleicher.
"Some of the Pages frequently posted about topics like
anti-NATO sentiment, protest
movements, and anti-corruption
," Gleicher wrote in a blog post.
"We are
constantly working to detect and stop this type of activity
because
we don't want our services to be used to manipulate people."
Seems totally legit, right?
The list goes on.
In 2017, as the Russian/Trump propaganda ramped up, Facebook hired
Joel
Benenson
, a former top adviser to President Barack Obama and the chief strategist for Hillary
Clinton's failed 2016 presidential campaign, as a consultant.
While filling team Zuck with Obama and Clinton advisers, Facebook hired
Aneesh
Raman
, a former Obama speechwriter who now heads up Facebook's "economic impact programming."
Highlighting the revolving door aspect of Facebook and the US government is Sarah Feinberg who
left the Obama train in 2011 to join Facebook as the director of corporate and strategic
communications. She then moved on after and went back to Obama in 2015 to act as the administrator
of the
Federal
Railroad Administration
(FRA).
David Recordon
also highlights the
revolving door between Facebook and the government. Recordon was the former Director of IT for
Obama's White House. He was also Engineering Director at Facebook prior to his role at the White
House, and returned to the position after the 2016 election. He is currently Engineering Director
for the Chan-Zuckerberg initiative.
Starting to see a pattern of political influence here? You should. But just in case you don't,
the list goes on.
Meredith Carden -- who, you guessed,
came
from the Obama administration
-- joined the Facebook clan last year to be a part of Facebook's
"News Integrity Team." Now, she's battling fake news on the platform and as we've shown, there is a
ridiculous amount of selective enforcement of these so-called "standards."
But fret not right wingers, Facebook likes their neocons too.
Jamie Fly, who was a top adviser to neocon Florida Senator Marco Rubio and who started his
career in US political circles as an adviser to the George W. Bush administration, actually
took
credit
for the massive purge of peaceful antiwar pages that took place last October.
"They can invent stories that get repeated and spread through different sites. So we are just
starting to push back. Just this last week Facebook began starting to take down sites.
So
this is just the beginning,"
Fly said in December.
Fly backs up his words with the fact that he works with Facebook's arm of the Atlantic Council
to ensure those dangerous antiwar folks don't keep pushing their propaganda of peace and community.
And yes, this list goes on.
Joel David Kaplan
is Facebook's vice president of global public policy. Prior to his major role
within Facebook, Kaplan took the place of neocon extraordinaire Karl Rove as the White House Deputy
Chief of Staff for George W. Bush. Before that, from 2001 to 2003 he was Special Assistant to the
President for Policy within the White House Chief of Staff's office. Then he served as Deputy
Director of the Office of Management And Budget (OMB).
Myriah Jordan
was a
special policy assistant in the Bush White House, who was hired on as a policy manager for
Facebook's congressional relations team -- aka, a lobbyist. Jordan has moved back and forth between
the private sector and the US government multiple times over his career as he's made millions
greasing the skids of the state for his corrupt employers.
So there you have it. Facebook, who claims to be a private entity, is quite literally
made up of and advised by dozens of members of government.
We're
ready for a change, are you?
As q just posted, FB is backed completely by the CIA, so this is
all part of still needs to be drained in this swamp where the CIA
calls the shots. A lot of people will have to be replaced, not
only in the FBI and DOJ where a lot has already happened.
So
far, against my early prejudice against Q, all he posted has come
true and it has been a news source where facts have found a place.
It's been reported Facebook is the 2nd incarnation of DARPA's (US
military intel) program "Lifelog". Lifelog stopped one day and
Facebook launched the next on the Lifelog platform. Sort of a
friendly way to collect everyone's personal data as they
mindlessly volunteer it.
The revolving door to and from EvilGoogle and the Obama White
House never stopped rotating, either. Far more Wh->EvilGoogle back
to WH then again EvilGoogle employees than even Facebook. Even the
WaPo and NYT wrote of the "peculiar" nature of those employments.
It went on for years.
That was BT; Before Trump. Every so often
WaPo etc. could still write a few items in a less than fully
politicized tone.
I saved several such items as links, but alas, funny thing
happened on the way to viewing them; they've been deleted. It was
noteworthy in its numbers. Only several months would pass and the
original EvilGoogle or WH employees would have come and gone to
and from the other.
Where the Atlantic Council has its finger in, there is propaganda
and brainwashing.
Before 1989 they had a right to exist as we
did not really want the corruption and militarism from the Warsaw
Pact countries. Now we have a worse militarism and corruption
under the NATO umbrella.
The Atlantic Council is another tool for fleecing us through
NATO and by global companies operating from tax havens. (never
been on FB)
Google stores your location (if you have location tracking turned on) every time you turn on your phone. You can see a timeline
of where you've been from the very first day you started using
Google on your phone. After reading this you might
start sympathizing to Ted Kaczynski ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... Google stores search history across all your devices. That can mean that, even if you delete your search history and phone history on one device, it may still have data saved from other devices . ..."
"... Google stores information on every app and extension you use. They know how often you use them, where you use them, and who you use them to interact with. That means they know who you talk to on Facebook, what countries are you speaking with, what time you go to sleep. ..."
"... Google stores all of your YouTube history, so they probably know whether you're going to be a parent soon, if you're a conservative, if you're a progressive, if you're Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, if you're feeling depressed or suicidal, if you're anorexic ..."
"... Facebook also stores what it thinks you might be interested in based off the things you've liked and what you and your friends talk about (I apparently like the topic "girl"). ..."
"... The data they collect includes tracking where you are, what applications you have installed, when you use them, what you use them for, access to your webcam and microphone at any time, your contacts, your emails, your calendar, your call history, the messages you send and receive, the files you download, the games you play, your photos and videos, your music, your search history, your browsing history, even what radio stations you listen to. ..."
The harvesting of our personal details goes far beyond what many of us could imagine. So I braced myself
and had a look .
A slice of the data that Facebook keeps on the author: 'This information has millions of nefarious uses.' Photograph: Dylan Curran
W ant to freak yourself out? I'm going to show just how much of your information the likes of
Facebook and Google store about you without you even
realising it. Google knows where you've been
Google stores your location (if you have location tracking turned on) every time you turn on your phone. You can see a timeline
of where you've been from the very first day you started using
Google on your phone.
Here is every place I have been in the last 12 months in Ireland. You can see the time of day that I was in the location and how
long it took me to get to that location from my previous one.
Google stores search history across all your devices. That can mean that, even if you delete your search history and phone
history on one device, it may still have data saved from other devices .
Why have we given up our privacy to Facebook and other sites so willingly?
Google has an advertisement profile of you
Google creates an advertisement profile based on your information, including your location, gender, age, hobbies, career, interests,
relationship status, possible weight (need to lose 10lb in one day?) and income.
Google stores information on every app and extension you use. They know how often you use them, where you use them, and who
you use them to interact with. That means they know who you talk to on Facebook, what countries are you speaking with, what time
you go to sleep.
Google stores all of your YouTube history, so they probably know whether you're going to be a parent soon, if you're a conservative,
if you're a progressive, if you're Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, if you're feeling depressed or suicidal, if you're anorexic
The data Google has on you can fill millions of Word documents
Google offers an option to download all of the data it stores about you. I've requested to download it and the file is 5.5GB
big , which is roughly 3m Word documents.
Manage to gain access to someone's Google account? Perfect, you have a diary of everything that person has done
This link includes your bookmarks, emails, contacts, your Google Drive files, all of the above information, your YouTube videos,
the photos you've taken on your phone, the businesses you've bought from, the products you've bought through Google
They also have data from your calendar, your Google hangout sessions, your location history, the music you listen to, the Google
books you've purchased, the Google groups you're in, the websites you've created, the phones you've owned, the pages you've shared,
how many steps you walk in a day
Facebook offers a similar option to download all your information. Mine was roughly 600MB, which is roughly 400,000 Word documents.
This includes every message you've ever sent or been sent, every file you've ever sent or been sent, all the contacts in your
phone, and all the audio messages you've ever sent or been sent.
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest 'A snapshot of the data Facebook has saved on me.' Photograph: Dylan Curran Facebook stores everything from your
stickers to your login location
Facebook also stores what it thinks you might be interested in based off the things you've liked and what you and your friends
talk about (I apparently like the topic "girl").
Somewhat pointlessly, they also store all the stickers you've ever sent on Facebook (I have no idea why they do this. It's just
a joke at this stage).
They also store every time you log in to Facebook, where you logged in from, what time, and from what device.
And they store all the applications you've ever had connected to your Facebook account, so they can guess I'm interested in politics
and web and graphic design, that I was single between X and Y period with the installation of Tinder, and I got a HTC phone in November.
(Side note, if you have Windows 10 installed, this is a picture of just the privacy options with 16 different sub-menus,
which have all of the options enabled by default when you install Windows 10)
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest Privacy options in Windows 10. Photograph: Dylan Curran They can access your webcam and microphone
The data they collect includes tracking where you are, what applications you have installed, when you use them, what you use
them for, access to your webcam and microphone at any time, your contacts, your emails, your calendar, your call history, the messages
you send and receive, the files you download, the games you play, your photos and videos, your music, your search history, your browsing
history, even what radio stations you listen to.
Facebook told me it would act swiftly on data misuse – in 2015 | Harry Davies Here are some of the different ways Google gets your data
I got the Google Takeout document with all my information, and this is a breakdown of all the different ways they get your information.
Here's the search history document, which has 90,000 different entries, even showing the images I downloaded and the websites
I accessed (I showed the Pirate Bay section to show how much damage this information can do).
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest 'My search history document has 90,000 different entries.' Photograph: Dylan Curran Google knows which events you
attended, and when
Here's my Google Calendar broken down, showing all the events I've ever added, whether I actually attended them, and what time
I attended them at (this part is when I went for an interview for a marketing job, and what time I arrived).
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest 'Here is my Google calendar showing a job interview I attended.' Photograph: Dylan Curran And Google has information
you deleted
This is my Google Drive, which includes files I explicitly deleted including my résumé, my monthly budget, and all the
code, files and websites I've ever made, and even my PGP private key, which I deleted, that I use to encrypt emails.
This is my Google Fit, which shows all of the steps I've ever taken, any time I walked anywhere, and all the times I've recorded
any meditation/yoga/workouts I've done (I deleted this information and revoked Google Fit's permissions).
I'll just do a short summary of what's in the thousands of files I received under my Google Activity.
First, every Google Ad I've ever viewed or clicked on, every app I've ever launched or used and when I did it, every website I've
ever visited and what time I did it at, and every app I've ever installed or searched for.
They also have every image I've ever searched for and saved, every location I've ever searched for or clicked on, every news article
I've ever searched for or read, and every single Google search I've made since 2009. And then finally, every YouTube video
I've ever searched for or viewed, since 2008.
This information has millions of nefarious uses. You say you're not a terrorist. Then how come you were googling Isis? Work at
Google and you're suspicious of your wife? Perfect, just look up her location and search history for the last 10 years. Manage to
gain access to someone's Google account? Perfect, you have a chronological diary of everything that person has done for the last
10 years.
This is one of the craziest things about the modern age. We would never let the government or a corporation put cameras/microphones
in our homes or location trackers on us. But we just went ahead and did it ourselves because – to hell with it! – I want to watch
cute dog videos.
NOTE: A caption was corrected on 28 March 2018 to replace "privacy options in Facebook" with "privacy options in Windows 10".
Dylan Curran is a data consultant and web developer, who does extensive research into spreading technical awareness and improving
digital etiquette
Facebook has been collecting "intensely personal information" from millions of people - whether they have Facebook accounts or
not, according to testing performed by the
Wall Street Journal .
According to tests of more than 70 apps using software to monitor internet communications, the Journal found that "the apps often
send the data without any prominent or specific disclosure," and that " Facebook software collects data from many apps even if no
Facebook account is used to log in and if the end user isn't a Facebook member. "
Eleven of the apps tested sent Facebook "potentially sensitive information about how users behaved or actual data they entered."
For example, Flo Health Inc.'s "Period & Ovulation Tracker" - which boasts 25 million active users, was sending Facebook information
on when women were having their periods - or indicated their desire to get pregnant , according to the tests.
Note: After being contacted by the Journal, Flo said it has 'substantially limited' data sharing with third-party analytics services.
Source: Wall Street Journal testing of the app
Other apps found sending Facebook information include; Instant Heart Rate: HR MOnitor, Realtor.com's app, "at least six of the
top 15 health and fitness apps" and BetterMe: Weight Loss Workouts"
Apple Inc. and
Alphabet Inc.'s Google, which operate the two dominant app stores,
don't require apps to disclose all the partners with whom data is shared. Users can decide not to grant permission for an app
to access certain types of information, such as their contacts or locations. But these permissions generally don't apply to the
information users supply directly to apps, which is sometimes the most personal.
In the Journal's testing, Instant Heart Rate: HR Monitor, the most popular heart-rate app on Apple's iOS, made by California-based
Azumio Inc., sent a user's heart rate to Facebook immediately after it was recorded . -
Wall Street Journal
Facebook told The Journal that some of the data sharing uncovered by the tests violate its business terms, by which app developers
are instructed not to send "health, financial information or other categories of sensitive information." The company has notified
app developers identified in the tests to stop sending sensitive information to them, and it may take additional steps if the apps
don't adhere to their requests.
""We require app developers to be clear with their users about the information they are sharing with us," said a Facebook spokeswoman.
In other words, they're sorry they got caught and are now on a finger-wagging campaign.
Apple and Google had relatively lawyerly responses to the investigation; Apple said its guidelines require apps to seek "prior
user consent" before collecting user data, adding "When we hear of any developer violating these strict privacy terms and guidelines,
we quickly investigate and, if necessary, take immediate action." Google declined to comment - pointing to the company's policy requiring
that apps which handle sensitive data prominently "disclose the type of parties to which any personal or sensitive user data is shared."
Flo initially said in a written statement that it doesn't send "critical user data" and that the data it does send Facebook
is "depersonalized" to keep it private and secure.
The Journal's testing, however, showed sensitive information was sent with a unique advertising identifier that can be matched
to a device or profile. A Flo spokeswoman subsequently said the company will "substantially limit" its use of external analytics
systems while it conducts a privacy audit.
Move, the owner of real-estate app Realtor.com -- which sent information to Facebook about properties that users liked, according
to the Journal's tests -- said "we strictly adhere to all local, state and federal requirements," and that its privacy policy
"clearly states how user information is collected and shared." The policy says the app collects a variety of information, including
content in which users are interested, and may share it with third parties. It doesn't mention Facebook. -
Wall Street Journal
"This is a big mess," said Disconnect's chief technology officer Patrick Johnson, who analyzed apps for the Journal analysis.
"This is completely independent of the functionality of the app."
While the software used by the Journal wasn't able to decipher specific content sent by Android apps, Defensive Lab Agency's Esther
Onfroy found in a separate test that at least one Android app flagged by the Journal - BetterMe: Weight Loss Workouts, shared users'
weights and heights with Facebook almost immediately after they were entered.
How is this possible?
Apps often incorporate code known as software-development kits (SDKs) which allow developers to integrate various features or
functions across platforms. One of these is Facebook's SDK - which allow apps to collect data for targeted advertising or to allow
apps to beter understand user behavior.
Facebook's SDK, which is contained in thousands of apps, includes an analytics service called "App Events" that allows developers
to look at trends among their users. Apps can tell the SDK to record a set of standardized actions taken by users, such as when
a user completes a purchase. App developers also can define "custom app events" for Facebook to capture -- and that is how the
sensitive information the Journal detected was sent.
Facebook says on its website it uses customer data from its SDK, combined with other data it collects, to personalize ads and
content, as well as to "improve other experiences on Facebook, including News Feed and Search content ranking capabilities." -
Wall Street Journal
A Facebook spokeswoman said that Facebook is now looking into how to search for apps violating its data sharing terms, and will
build safeguards to prevent the company from storing any sensitive data which may be provided by apps.
Last year Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed that the company would create a "Clear History" feature to allow users to analyze
data which had been collected about them from various apps and websites - and then delete it from Facebook.
keep a separate camera. message via Wickr. Use a VPN on phone and PC. Encrypt all personal data immediately (cards, passwords etc) and keep under two factor security (I do this)
If you use your phone as camera disconnect from networks first, then bluetooth to somewhere else, delete - if you are photographing
the misstress.
Try Linux. Create multiple user accounts. Use a VPN. If you do wireless, use a few extra cheap wireless USB devices to swap
MACs. On a wired (ethernet) connection, see if you can sometimes use wireless, and vice versa. Use different size monitors. It's
frightening what your PC tells the rest of the world about your system so web sites know what to send you.
For linux, use Ubuntu because more people use that than any other distro, I think. That is part of what gets sent out when
you connect to the internet.
You may want to load up VirtualBox and create a handful of different virtual machines. That, too, can add to the confusion.
Some clever hacking group is going to start massively corrupting Facebook, Amazon, Google, and Alphabet data (and thus NSA
data) instead of stealing it. It can't be too difficult to submit bogus data if these idiot data collectors are so cavalier about
their sources that they accept info from "Flo Health Inc."
Send 'em intel on Maxine Water's preferred brand of cigars, Donald Trump's menstrual cycle, Ralph Crandon's interest in high
end Manhattan real estate, Carrot Top's NASCAR obsession, Mitch McConnel's "How To Make A Bomb" searches, that kind of thing,
only on a grand scale. Make the databases so corrupted that they're utterly unreliable and useless to advertisers and spooks.
My daughter and her husband have this experiment where they pick a random product that they don't own and have never researched
online. They start saying the name of that item out loud randomly when they are on the phone with each other. Two out of the three
times they started getting ads for that item on FB. I'm still working on getting her to delete FB.
Most of the know-nothings using this waste of time & space don't know what the F they care about, other than that their daily
hedonistic rituals of eating, entertaining and cell-phoning aren't interrupted by a bolt of clear thinking.
"... The report accuses Mark Zuckerberg , Facebook's co-founder and chief executive, of contempt for parliament in refusing three separate demands for him to give evidence, instead sending junior employees unable to answer the committee's questions. ..."
Company broke privacy and competition law and should be regulated urgently, say
MPs
Facebook
deliberately broke privacy and competition law and should urgently be subject to statutory
regulation, according to a devastating parliamentary report denouncing the company and its
executives as "digital gangsters".
The
final report of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee's 18-month
investigation into disinformation and fake news accused Facebook of purposefully obstructing
its inquiry and failing to tackle attempts by Russia to manipulate elections.
"Democracy is at risk from the malicious and relentless targeting of citizens with
disinformation and personalised 'dark adverts' from unidentifiable sources, delivered through
the major social media platforms we use every day," warned the committee's chairman, Damian
Collins.
The report accuses Mark Zuckerberg , Facebook's
co-founder and chief executive, of contempt for parliament in refusing three separate demands
for him to give evidence, instead sending junior employees unable to answer the committee's
questions.
Warns British electoral law is unfit for purpose and vulnerable to interference by
hostile foreign actors, including agents of the Russian government attempting to discredit
democracy.
Calls on the British government to establish an independent investigation into
"foreign influence, disinformation, funding, voter manipulation and the sharing of data" in the
2014 Scottish independence referendum, the 2016 EU referendum and the 2017 general election.
The social media giant has a disturbing number of former Obama officials in key positions of
authority over content...
Imagine for a moment what it would look like if the federal government launched its own
social media network. Every day, Americans could freely use the platform to express their views
on everything from economic theory to the best tips for baking peanut butter cookies. They
could even discuss their political views and debate the important issues of the day.
But what if the government were empowered to determine which political views are appropriate
and which are too obscene for the American public? Well, it looks like this is already
happening. Of course, the state has not created a social media network; they didn't have to. It
appears the government is using Facebook – the world's largest social media company
– to sway public
opinion.
The Government's Fingers In Facebook
The Free Thought Project recently published a
report revealing that Facebook has some troubling ties to the federal government and that
this connection could be enabling former state officials to influence the content displayed.
The social media provider has partnered with various think tanks which receive state funding,
while hiring an alarming number of individuals who have held prominent positions in the federal
government.
Facebook recently announced their partnership
with the Atlantic Council – which is partly funded by tax dollars – to ensure that
users are presented with quality news stories. And by "quality," it seems that they mean
"progressive." The council is well known for promoting far-left news sources, including the
Xinhua News Agency, which was founded by the Communist Party of China. Well, that's reassuring.
What red-blooded American capitalist doesn't want to get the news from a communist regime?
But there one aspect of this story is even more troubling: the government-to-Facebook
pipeline. The company has employed a significant number of former officials in positions that
grant them influence over what content is allowed on the platform.
Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook's Head of Cybersecurity Policy, prosecuted cybercrimes at the
Department of Justice under President Obama. Now, he is responsible for determining who gets
banned or suspended from the network. But that's not the worst of it. He also spearheaded the
company's initiative to scrub anti-war content and "protest" movements. In a blog post,
Gleicher wrote: "Some of the Pages frequently posted about topics like anti-NATO sentiment,
protest movements, and anti-corruption." He continued, "We are constantly working to detect and
stop this type of activity because we don't want our services to be used to manipulate
people."
The company has also hired others who served in key positions in the Obama administration.
Some of these include:
Aneesh Raman: Former speechwriter
Joel Benenson: Top adviser
Meredith Carden: Office of the First Lady
To make things more interesting, Facebook has also hired neocons to help them determine the
type of content that is being published. So if you happen to be a conservative that isn't too
crazy about interventionism, your views are not as welcome on the network as others. After all,
how many times have you heard of people being banned for posting pro-war or socialist
propaganda?
Are Private Companies Truly Private?
The notion that government officials could be using positions of power in the private
industry to advance a statist agenda is disturbing, but the fact that most Americans are
unaware of this is far worse. It would be inaccurate to argue that the government is
controlling Facebook's content, but the level of the state's involvement in the world's biggest
social media company is a disturbing development.
This is not the only case of state officials becoming involved with certain industries. This
trend is rampant in the certain industries in which individuals move back and forth between
private organizations and the FDA. For example, Monsanto, an agricultural and agrochemical
company, has been under scrutiny for its ties to the
federal government.
It is not clear if there is anything that can be done to counteract inappropriate relations
between the government and certain companies – especially organizations with the level of
influence enjoyed by the likes of Facebook. But it essential that the public is made aware of
these relations, otherwise the state will continue to exert influence over society – with
Americans none the wiser.
People do not understand that Facebook is actually a surveillance company. Everything else is
a side business. From comments: "Facebook basically steals ad revenue from idiot companies who
think the clicks are real. THEYRE NOT. Bots clicking on your ad does nothing for your
business!!
The team detailed their findings in a 70-page report published on their website.
Facebook has been lying to the public about the scale of its problem with fake accounts,
which likely exceed 50% of its network. Its official metrics -- many of which it has stopped
reporting quarterly -- are self-contradictory and even farcical. The company has lost control
of its own product.
Ultimately, this is just the latest sign that Facebook - formerly one of the world's most
successful companies - is doomed to go the way of CompuServe and AOL.
PlainSite is a project launched by the Think Computer Corporation and Think Computer
Foundation which aims to make "data accessible to the public free of charge" and "lets ordinary
citizens impact the law- making process," according to Bloomberg. Aaron Greenspan recently told
his story about how he fit into the history of Facebook's founding at Harvard on a podcast .
Facebook's fraudulent numbers hurt its customers (advertisers) by overstating the
effectiveness of Facebook's product, the company said.
Fake accounts affect Facebook at its core in numerous ways:
Its customers purchase advertising on Facebook based on the fact that it can supposedly
target advertisements at more than 2 billion real human beings. To the extent that users
aren't real, companies are throwing their money down the drain.
Fake accounts click on advertising at random, or "like" pages, to throw off antifraud
algorithms. Fake accounts look real if they do not follow a clear pattern. This kind of
activity defrauds advertisers, but rewards Facebook with revenue.
Fake accounts often defraud other users on Facebook, through scams, fake news, extortion,
and other forms of deception. Often, they can involve governments
" Zuckerberg's creation is a reflection of his own flaws. It is a mirror of his own
personality and the insecurity and endless need of approval he has sought his whole life
leading to its creation. It is Zuckerberg made virtually. It is not a success nor is it a
triumph, it is a window into a flawed psyche. It spreads as an infection because it is."
@Dacian
Julien Soros Facebook has no (or little) original content. It does not compete with
Unz.com or with CNN. It leads users to the sites where original content is published. It is
meta-site.
So much is being published on so many sites that we need a community to cross-post. This is
done by Facebook.
I hope now you understand that you do not waste your time here instead of Facebook. Facebook
can lead you here, that's all. Or to Moon of Alabama, or to LRB or to wherever something
interesting had been published. Facebook is like a map of Treasure Island, not the treasure
itself.
You have a good point, but why not always avoid Facebook? I have read about it since it was
Harvard-only, then student-only.
That it had so much press coverage at those times, while it never had the accounts,
clearly a conspiracy.
I have somewhat friends, they say 'You must go on Facebook', I say 'No, you have my
telephone number and e-mail address, why are you trying to force me onto Facebook?' They are
generally stupid, but then, one must tolerate the stupid to have any social life.
Back to the progation of FB. Google was quite similar, there were many search engines that
were as good or better at the time, the NYT ran many articles to promote them, I was working
at a U.S.-owned company at the time, it was neo-religious, 'oh, you have to use Google', it
was the same kind of propaganda, earlier of course, as compulsory FB.
I never used google (the mis-spelling of googol shows what morons they are), OK, I don't
want to lie, did a little early last decade (very few), other search engines are usually
better.
The mainstream media from Tokyo to Paris [yap, yap, yap ]
Stopped reading right there.
Look, the word is mass media because that's what it's for, i.e., the
unthinking masses. Even an ignorant moron such as myself can understand that the media use
the term to help make mindless, mass-produced, garbage appear acceptable. It's obvious that
the term is supposed to suggest that "everyone" goes along with the message when it's their
own compostable ideas that they're trying to introduce and promote. The interests of the
"mainstream" or majority are in no way promoted, nor are they intended to be.
Anyone who's so mentally lazy as to use mass media's own legitimizing term for themselves
in the way they intend has nothing to say to me. Furthermore, I don't come to UR to be
exposed to the usual drivel mouthed incessantly by narcissistic, sociopathic, simple-minded,
goons.
Other acceptable terms are corporate media, propaganda media, or sewage media. No one with
a lick of sense views it as "mainstream" in any way. Get a clue already!
WeChat? Bad advice. End-to-server encryption means the Chinese government inspects all
messages. Right now, they're crouching tiger but who knows when they're going to go all
hidden dragon on us?
Use WhatsApp. It's got full end to end encryption and built in ways to verify no MITM
attacks. Safe choice.
For search engines, use startpage or duckduckgo.com. If you're performing really sensitive
searches, use tor browser. Only need to use yandex or baidu if the search terms themselves
are sensitive (very rare).
I do not use Facebook . It is evident that they spy everything , you just look for a hotel in
your computer and they send you hotel propaganda for weeks or months .
But , commercial purposes apart , don`t you think that a system that spies so much ends up
losing the sense of reality and thus dementing itself ?
@gmachine1729
Yes, as a stopgap measure one can boycott FB, Twitter, Google, and other services that
practice disgusting PC. I don't use FB or Twitter, use Google only occasionally. Need to stop
using it altogether and switch to Yandex and/or Baidu.
However, in the long run what needs to be built is a PC-free Internet. This would require
huge investment that only governments of serious countries (like China or Russia) that are
not subservient to the Empire can afford. These governments do have their own axes to grind,
but at the moment they are not as disgusting as the Empire and its vassals, or Israel, for
that matter.
"... Bankers, pharmaceutical giants, Google, Facebook ... a new breed of rentiers are at the very top of the pyramid and they're sucking the rest of us dry @rcbregman ..."
"... 'A big part of the modern banking sector is essentially a giant tapeworm gorging on a sick body' ..."
"... This piece is about one of the biggest taboos of our times. About a truth that is seldom acknowledged, and yet – on reflection – cannot be denied. The truth that we are living in an inverse welfare state. These days, politicians from the left to the right assume that most wealth is created at the top. By the visionaries, by the job creators, and by the people who have "made it". By the go-getters oozing talent and entrepreneurialism that are helping to advance the whole world. ..."
"... To understand why, we need to recognise that there are two ways of making money. The first is what most of us do: work. That means tapping into our knowledge and know-how (our "human capital" in economic terms) to create something new, whether that's a takeout app, a wedding cake, a stylish updo, or a perfectly poured pint. To work is to create. Ergo, to work is to create new wealth. ..."
"... But there is also a second way to make money. That's the rentier way : by leveraging control over something that already exists, such as land, knowledge, or money, to increase your wealth. You produce nothing, yet profit nonetheless. By definition, the rentier makes his living at others' expense, using his power to claim economic benefit. ..."
"... For those who know their history, the term "rentier" conjures associations with heirs to estates, such as the 19th century's large class of useless rentiers, well-described by the French economist Thomas Piketty . These days, that class is making a comeback. (Ironically, however, conservative politicians adamantly defend the rentier's right to lounge around, deeming inheritance tax to be the height of unfairness.) But there are also other ways of rent-seeking. From Wall Street to Silicon Valley , from big pharma to the lobby machines in Washington and Westminster, zoom in and you'll see rentiers everywhere. ..."
"... It may take quite a mental leap to see our economy as a system that shows solidarity with the rich rather than the poor. So I'll start with the clearest illustration of modern freeloaders at the top: bankers. Studies conducted by the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements – not exactly leftist thinktanks – have revealed that much of the financial sector has become downright parasitic. How instead of creating wealth, they gobble it up whole. ..."
"... In other words, a big part of the modern banking sector is essentially a giant tapeworm gorging on a sick body. It's not creating anything new, merely sucking others dry. Bankers have found a hundred and one ways to accomplish this. The basic mechanism, however, is always the same: offer loans like it's going out of style, which in turn inflates the price of things like houses and shares, then earn a tidy percentage off those overblown prices (in the form of interest, commissions, brokerage fees, or what have you), and if the shit hits the fan, let Uncle Sam mop it up. ..."
"... Bankers are the most obvious class of closet freeloaders, but they are certainly not alone. Many a lawyer and an accountant wields a similar revenue model. Take tax evasion . Untold hardworking, academically degreed professionals make a good living at the expense of the populations of other countries. Or take the tide of privatisations over the past three decades, which have been all but a carte blanche for rentiers. One of the richest people in the world, Carlos Slim , earned his millions by obtaining a monopoly of the Mexican telecom market and then hiking prices sky high. The same goes for the Russian oligarchs who rose after the Berlin Wall fell , who bought up valuable state-owned assets for song to live off the rent. ..."
"... Even paragons of modern progress like Apple, Amazon, Google , Facebook, Uber and Airbnb are woven from the fabric of rentierism. Firstly, because they owe their existence to government discoveries and inventions (every sliver of fundamental technology in the iPhone, from the internet to batteries and from touchscreens to voice recognition, was invented by researchers on the government payroll). And second, because they tie themselves into knots to avoid paying taxes, retaining countless bankers, lawyers, and lobbyists for this very purpose. ..."
"... Even more important, many of these companies function as "natural monopolies", operating in a positive feedback loop of increasing growth and value as more and more people contribute free content to their platforms. Companies like this are incredibly difficult to compete with, because as they grow bigger, they only get stronger. ..."
"... Most of Mark Zuckerberg's income is just rent collected off the millions of picture and video posts that we give away daily for free. And sure, we have fun doing it. But we also have no alternative – after all, everybody is on Facebook these days. Zuckerberg has a website that advertisers are clamouring to get onto, and that doesn't come cheap. Don't be fooled by endearing pilots with free internet in Zambia. Stripped down to essentials, it's an ordinary ad agency. In fact, in 2015 Google and Facebook pocketed an astounding 64% of all online ad revenue in the US. ..."
"... Rentierism is, in essence, a question of power. That the Sun King Louis XIV was able to exploit millions was purely because he had the biggest army in Europe. It's no different for the modern rentier. He's got the law, politicians and journalists squarely in his court. That's why bankers get fined peanuts for preposterous fraud, while a mother on government assistance gets penalised within an inch of her life if she checks the wrong box. ..."
"... The biggest tragedy of all, however, is that the rentier economy is gobbling up society's best and brightest. Where once upon a time Ivy League graduates chose careers in science, public service or education, these days they are more likely to opt for banks, law firms, or trumped up ad agencies like Google and Facebook. When you think about it, it's insane. We are forking over billions in taxes to help our brightest minds on and up the corporate ladder so they can learn how to score ever more outrageous handouts. ..."
"... One thing is certain: countries where rentiers gain the upper hand gradually fall into decline. Just look at the Roman Empire. Or Venice in the 15th century. Look at the Dutch Republic in the 18th century. Like a parasite stunts a child's growth, so the rentier drains a country of its vitality. ..."
Bankers, pharmaceutical giants, Google, Facebook ... a new breed of rentiers are at the very top of the pyramid and they're
sucking the rest of us dry @rcbregman
'A big part of the modern banking sector is essentially a giant tapeworm gorging on a sick body'.
This piece is about one of the biggest taboos of our times. About a truth that is seldom acknowledged, and yet – on reflection
– cannot be denied. The truth that we are living in an inverse welfare state. These days, politicians from the left to the right assume that most wealth is created at the top. By the visionaries, by the job
creators, and by the people who have "made it". By the go-getters oozing talent and entrepreneurialism that are helping to advance
the whole world.
Now, we may disagree about the extent to which success deserves to be rewarded – the philosophy of the left is that the strongest
shoulders should bear the heaviest burden, while the right fears high taxes will blunt enterprise – but across the spectrum virtually
all agree that wealth is created primarily at the top.
So entrenched is this assumption that it's even embedded in our language. When economists talk about "productivity", what they
really mean is the size of your paycheck. And when we use terms like "
welfare
state ", "redistribution" and "solidarity", we're implicitly subscribing to the view that there are two strata: the makers and
the takers, the producers and the couch potatoes, the hardworking citizens – and everybody else.
In reality, it is precisely the other way around. In reality, it is the waste collectors, the nurses, and the cleaners whose shoulders
are supporting the apex of the pyramid. They are the true mechanism of social solidarity. Meanwhile, a growing share of those we
hail as "successful" and "innovative" are earning their wealth at the expense of others. The people getting the biggest handouts
are not down around the bottom, but at the very top. Yet their perilous dependence on others goes unseen. Almost no one talks about
it. Even for politicians on the left, it's a non-issue.
To understand why, we need to recognise that there are two ways of making money. The first is what most of us do: work. That means
tapping into our knowledge and know-how (our "human capital" in economic terms) to create something new, whether that's a takeout
app, a wedding cake, a stylish updo, or a perfectly poured pint. To work is to create. Ergo, to work is to create new wealth.
But there is also a second way to make money.
That's the rentier way : by leveraging control over something that already exists, such as land, knowledge, or money, to increase
your wealth. You produce nothing, yet profit nonetheless. By definition, the rentier makes his living at others' expense, using his
power to claim economic benefit.
'From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, zoom in and you'll see rentiers everywhere.'
For those who know their history, the term "rentier" conjures associations with heirs to estates, such as the 19th century's large
class of useless rentiers, well-described by the
French economist
Thomas Piketty . These days, that class is making a comeback. (Ironically, however, conservative politicians adamantly defend
the rentier's right to lounge around, deeming inheritance tax to be the height of unfairness.) But there are also other ways of rent-seeking.
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley , from big
pharma to the lobby machines in Washington and Westminster, zoom in and you'll see rentiers everywhere.
There is no longer a sharp dividing line between working and rentiering. In fact, the modern-day rentier often works damn hard.
Countless people in the financial sector, for example, apply great ingenuity and effort to amass "rent" on their wealth. Even the
big innovations of our age – businesses like Facebook
and Uber – are interested mainly in expanding the rentier economy. The problem with most rich people therefore is not that they are
coach potatoes. Many a CEO toils 80 hours a week to multiply his allowance. It's hardly surprising, then, that they feel wholly entitled
to their wealth.
It may take quite a mental leap to see our economy as a system that shows solidarity with the rich rather than the poor. So I'll
start with the clearest illustration of modern freeloaders at the top: bankers. Studies conducted by the
International Monetary Fund and the
Bank for International Settlements – not exactly leftist
thinktanks – have revealed that much of the financial sector has become downright parasitic. How instead of creating wealth, they
gobble it up whole.
In other words, a big part of the modern banking sector is essentially a giant tapeworm gorging on a sick body. It's not creating
anything new, merely sucking others dry. Bankers have found a hundred and one ways to accomplish this. The basic mechanism, however,
is always the same: offer loans like it's going out of style, which in turn inflates the price of things like houses and shares,
then earn a tidy percentage off those overblown prices (in the form of interest, commissions, brokerage fees, or what have you),
and if the shit hits the fan, let Uncle Sam mop it up.
The financial innovation concocted by all the math whizzes working in modern banking (instead of at universities or companies
that contribute to real prosperity) basically boils down to maximizing the total amount of debt. And debt, of course, is a means
of earning rent. So for those who believe that pay ought to be proportionate to the value of work, the conclusion we have to draw
is that many bankers should be earning a negative salary; a fine, if you will, for destroying more wealth than they create.
Bankers are the most obvious class of closet freeloaders, but they are certainly not alone. Many a lawyer and an accountant wields
a similar revenue model.
Take
tax evasion . Untold hardworking, academically degreed professionals make a good living at the expense of the populations of
other countries. Or take the tide of privatisations over the past three decades, which have been all but a carte blanche for rentiers.
One of the richest people in the world,
Carlos Slim , earned his millions by obtaining a monopoly of the Mexican telecom market and then hiking prices sky high. The
same goes for the Russian oligarchs who rose after the
Berlin Wall fell , who bought up valuable state-owned assets for song to live off the rent.
But here comes the rub. Most rentiers are not as easily identified as the greedy banker or manager. Many are disguised. On the
face of it, they look like industrious folks, because for part of the time they really are doing something worthwhile. Precisely
that makes us overlook their massive rent-seeking.
Take the pharmaceutical industry. Companies like
GlaxoSmithKline and
Pfizer regularly
unveil new drugs, yet most real medical breakthroughs are made quietly at government-subsidised labs. Private companies mostly manufacture
medications that resemble what we've already got. They get it patented and, with a hefty dose of marketing, a legion of lawyers,
and a strong lobby, can live off the profits for years. In other words, the vast revenues of the pharmaceutical industry are the
result of a tiny pinch of innovation and fistfuls of rent.
Even paragons of modern progress like Apple, Amazon, Google
, Facebook, Uber and Airbnb are woven from the fabric of rentierism. Firstly, because they owe their existence to government discoveries
and inventions (every sliver of fundamental technology in the iPhone, from the internet to batteries and from touchscreens to voice
recognition, was invented by researchers on the government payroll). And second, because they tie themselves into knots to avoid
paying taxes, retaining countless bankers, lawyers, and lobbyists for this very purpose.
Even more important, many of these companies function as "natural monopolies", operating in a positive feedback loop of increasing
growth and value as more and more people contribute free content to their platforms. Companies like this are incredibly difficult
to compete with, because as they grow bigger, they only get stronger.
Aptly characterising this "platform capitalism" in an article,
Tom Goodwin writes : "Uber, the world's largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world's most popular media owner,
creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world's largest accommodation provider,
owns no real estate."
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest 'Every sliver of fundamental technology in the iPhone, from the internet to batteries and from touchscreens to voice
recognition, was invented by researchers on the government payroll.' Photograph: Regis Duvignau/Reuters
So what do these companies own? A platform. A platform that lots and lots of people want to use. Why? First and foremost, because
they're cool and they're fun – and in that respect, they do offer something of value. However, the main reason why we're all happy
to hand over free content to Facebook is because all of our friends are on Facebook too, because their friends are on Facebook because
their friends are on Facebook.
Most of Mark Zuckerberg's income is just rent collected off the millions of picture and video posts that we give away daily for
free. And sure, we have fun doing it. But we also have no alternative – after all, everybody is on Facebook these days. Zuckerberg
has a website that advertisers are clamouring to get onto, and that doesn't come cheap. Don't be fooled by endearing pilots with
free internet in Zambia. Stripped down to essentials, it's an ordinary ad agency. In fact, in 2015 Google and Facebook pocketed an
astounding
64% of all online ad revenue in the US.
But don't Google and Facebook make anything useful at all? Sure they do. The irony, however, is that their best innovations only
make the rentier economy even bigger. They employ scores of programmers to create new algorithms so that we'll all click on more
and more ads.
Uber has
usurped the whole taxi sector just as
Airbnb has upended the hotel industry and Amazon has overrun the book trade. The bigger such platforms grow the more powerful
they become, enabling the lords of these digital feudalities to demand more and more rent.
Think back a minute to the definition of a rentier: someone who uses their control over something that already exists in order
to increase their own wealth. The feudal lord of medieval times did that by building a tollgate along a road and making everybody
who passed by pay. Today's tech giants are doing basically the same thing, but transposed to the digital highway. Using technology
funded by taxpayers, they build tollgates between you and other people's free content and all the while pay almost no tax on their
earnings.
This is the so-called innovation that has Silicon Valley gurus in raptures: ever bigger platforms that claim ever bigger handouts.
So why do we accept this? Why does most of the population work itself to the bone to support these rentiers?
I think there are two answers. Firstly, the modern rentier knows to keep a low profile. There was a time when everybody knew who
was freeloading. The king, the church, and the aristocrats controlled almost all the land and made peasants pay dearly to farm it.
But in the modern economy, making rentierism work is a great deal more complicated. How many people can explain a
credit default swap
, or a collateralised debt obligation ? Or the revenue
model behind those cute Google Doodles? And don't the folks on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley work themselves to the bone, too?
Well then, they must be doing something useful, right?
Maybe not. The typical workday of Goldman Sachs' CEO may be worlds away from that of King Louis XIV, but their revenue models
both essentially revolve around obtaining the biggest possible handouts. "The world's most powerful investment bank," wrote the journalist
Matt Taibbi about
Goldman Sachs , "is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything
that smells like money."
But far from squids and vampires, the average rich freeloader manages to masquerade quite successfully as a decent hard worker.
He goes to great lengths to present himself as a "job creator" and an "investor" who "earns" his income by virtue of his high "productivity".
Most economists, journalists, and politicians from left to right are quite happy to swallow this story. Time and again language is
twisted around to cloak funneling and exploitation as creation and generation.
However, it would be wrong to think that all this is part of some ingenious conspiracy. Many modern rentiers have convinced even
themselves that they are bona fide value creators. When current Goldman Sachs CEO
Lloyd Blankfein
was asked about the purpose of his job, his straight-faced answer was that he is "
doing God's
work ". The Sun King would have approved.
The second thing that keeps rentiers safe is even more insidious. We're all wannabe rentiers. They have made millions of people
complicit in their revenue model. Consider this: What are our financial sector's two biggest cash cows? Answer: the housing market
and pensions. Both are markets in which many of us are deeply invested.
Recent decades have seen more and more people contract debts to buy a home, and naturally it's in their interest if
house
prices continue to scale new heights (read: burst bubble upon bubble). The same goes for pensions. Over the past few decades
we've all scrimped and saved up a mountainous pension piggy bank. Now pension funds are under immense pressure to ally with the biggest
exploiters in order to ensure they pay out enough to please their investors.
The fact of the matter is that feudalism has been democratised. To a lesser or greater extent, we are all depending on handouts.
En masse, we have been made complicit in this exploitation by the rentier elite, resulting in a political covenant between the rich
rent-seekers and the homeowners and retirees.
Don't get me wrong, most homeowners and retirees are not benefiting from this situation. On the contrary, the banks are bleeding
them far beyond the extent to which they themselves profit from their houses and pensions. Still, it's hard to point fingers at a
kleptomaniac when you have sticky fingers too.
So why is this happening? The answer can be summed up in three little words: Because it can.
Rentierism is, in essence, a question of power. That the Sun King Louis XIV was able to exploit millions was purely because he
had the biggest army in Europe. It's no different for the modern rentier. He's got the law, politicians and journalists squarely
in his court. That's why bankers get fined peanuts for preposterous fraud, while a mother on government assistance gets penalised
within an inch of her life if she checks the wrong box.
The biggest tragedy of all, however, is that the rentier economy is gobbling up society's best and brightest. Where once upon
a time Ivy League graduates chose careers in science, public service or education, these days they are more likely to opt for banks,
law firms, or trumped up ad agencies like Google and Facebook. When you think about it, it's insane. We are forking over billions
in taxes to help our brightest minds on and up the corporate ladder so they can learn how to score ever more outrageous handouts.
One thing is certain: countries where rentiers gain the upper hand gradually fall into decline. Just look at the Roman Empire.
Or Venice in the 15th century. Look at the Dutch Republic in the 18th century. Like a parasite stunts a child's growth, so the rentier
drains a country of its vitality.
What innovation remains in a rentier economy is mostly just concerned with further bolstering that very same economy. This may
explain why the big dreams of the 1970s, like flying cars, curing cancer, and colonising Mars, have yet to be realised, while bankers
and ad-makers have at their fingertips technologies a thousand times more powerful.
Yet it doesn't have to be this way. Tollgates can be torn down, financial products can be banned, tax havens dismantled, lobbies
tamed, and patents rejected. Higher taxes on the ultra-rich can make rentierism less attractive, precisely because society's biggest
freeloaders are at the very top of the pyramid. And we can more fairly distribute our earnings on land, oil, and innovation through
a system of, say, employee shares, or a
universal basic
income .
But such a revolution will require a wholly different narrative about the origins of our wealth. It will require ditching the
old-fashioned faith in "solidarity" with a miserable underclass that deserves to be borne aloft on the market-level salaried shoulders
of society's strongest. All we need to do is to give real hard-working people what they deserve.
And, yes, by that I mean the waste collectors, the nurses, the cleaners – theirs are the shoulders that carry us all.
CHICAGO -- Saying it was ultimately a small price to pay in exchange for the splendid spectacle that has followed, millions of
Americans admitted Thursday that they didn't really mind having their Facebook data stolen if it meant getting to watch that
little fucker squirm.
Over the last few years, the potentially damaging impact of the internet, and particularly
social media, on democracy has increasingly come to dominate the news. The recently disclosed
internal Facebook emails, which revealed that employees
discussed allowing developers to harvest user data for a fee, are but the latest in a long
line of scandals surrounding social media platforms. Facebook has also been accused, alongside
Twitter, of fuelling the spread of false information. In October, the Brazilian newspaper
Folha exposed how Jair Bolsonaro's candidacy benefited from a coordinated disinformation
campaign conducted via Whatsapp, which is owned by Facebook. And there are growing concerns
that this tactic could be used to skew the Indian general elections in April.
Yet, reality could be bleeker. A handful of private companies control the information that
is needed to understand how the online ecosystem works. They manage the key infrastructure, and
most experts in the field are running this infrastructure after having signed non-disclosure
agreements. Thus, Plato's Allegory of the Cave might be a more fitting metaphor. Control over
key data allows these companies to play the role of shadow-masters. They get the chance to
reveal only the portions of reality they find convenient, defining how the general public
perceives the online space. Information scarcity is therefore not just the natural consequence
of the internet's novelty; it is created artificially and for strategic purposes: To shape
public opinion.
Should we break up these big companies? Should we allow them to continue growing, but under
strict, utility-type rules? Should we do nothing? Whatever we do should be the result of a
robust public debate. One that is based on the best available evidence regarding the effects
the internet is having on power relations, and is therefore capable of defining the set of
actions that would best serve the public interest. In short, at this point, we need key
information to be disclosed and available for public scrutiny. But information is power –
and it is unlikely to be disclosed voluntarily. It might require regulation.
When food production became industrialized, the US Government created the Food and Drug
Administration, which was tasked with monitoring and disclosing information regarding
compliance with quality standards. When government became too complex for the average citizen
to navigate, ombuds offices sprouted across the globe. As an independent institution of
government, ombuds were given the duty and power to investigate how government units work, and
report on matters concerning people's rights. The current situation requires exploring a
similarly bold institutional reform. One focused on ensuring the data needed to inform public
debate is made available by the tech industry.
Most people scoffed at the limited understanding of our digital world members of the US
Congress revealed when they grilled Mark Zuckerberg . And yet its likely
Facebook is not the only company behaving recklessly, nor the US Senators the only public
representatives that are "ignorant".
What we have is a growing gap between where power lies and where the institutions that seek
to hold it accountable to the people operate. Such institutions are incapable of allowing
democratically elected leaders to deliver their campaign promises. This is what is ultimately
triggering social tensions and undermining trust in our democracies. We need our institutions
to interpret these tensions as red flags and a call for a new social contract. And we need
institutions to react now. This situation goes far beyond the debate around digitalization. Yet
the online space is our future, and is therefore where this gap is most visible and urgent.
If our current institutions of government fail to ensure the ongoing technological
revolution puts people first, these institutions will sooner or later be rendered
irrelevant.
A previous version of this article was published at Chatham
House .
Facebook is a dictatorship of one. Alphabet is a dictatorship of two. As long as corporate
governance is anti-democratic that will have an unfortunately negative impact on civil
society. I hope shareholders in these and other companies will vote in favor of proposals by
NorthStar and others to phase out multi-class share structures, require that directors get at
least a majority vote to take office, do away with supermajority voting requirements,
etc.
The Internet was "born in sin," developed as it was to maintain communications during a
nuclear holocaust against a fundamentally fake threat.
Let's remember that the Soviet Union, however repressive it may have been toward its own
people and those in satellite countries, never posed the existential threat to the US that
was claimed. Rather, as Senator Arthur Brandenburg of Michigan infamously told Harry Truman
at the dawn of the Cold War, it would be necessary "to scare the hell out of the American
people" to get them to turn against their former Soviet allies, which the State and compliant
media spent the next forty years doing, often/largely producing weapons that don't work
against enemies that don't exist.
How has the Internet ever not been a tool of the national security state, and why should
we have ever expected otherwise?
While the discussion of of the need for new paradigms for regulation and accountability --
lest democratic or civil institutions become irrelevant -- is very much needed, I am
bewildered by the framing of the discussion to only the internet. The internet is just one,
interactive and immediately visible use of technology that has the potential to undermine a
fair society.
Some of the most insidious and destructive uses of data technology is not on the internet;
it's tools and processes used by previously trusted corporations, governments, and
institutions that is not regulated, not transparent and not accountable. So framing the
discussion with the 'internet' seems disengenuous.
"... They go into business to wheel & deal and to rip people off. There are no depths that they won't sink to just to enrich themselves with wealth and power. They quickly learn how to sidestep and evade every law on the statute books. They have no integrity, no ethical standards and no moral compass. They are conscienceless and shameless. ..."
"... Surely by now people realize that FB is a data-gathering organ for a Deep State geointelligence database? Why all the indignation? Every key stroke you have ever made has been recorded. Just stop using all the Deep State social media (ie, all of them). ..."
"... Reject all the "divide-and-conquer" BS. We are many, they are few. United we stand. Divided, we fall. ..."
"... Never used FaceBook nor any other social media platform. All they exist to do is aggregate personal data which is then either sold or handed to governments to build profiles and keep tabs on what people are doing. The hell with that. ..."
Update: As the giant cache of newly released internal emails has also revealed, Karissa Bell
of
Mashable notes that Facebook used a VPN app to spy on its competitors .
The
internal documents , made public as part of a cache of documents released
by UK lawmakers, show just how close an eye the social network was keeping on competitors
like WhatsApp and Snapchat , both of which became acquisition targets.
Facebook tried to acquire Snapchat that year for $3 billion -- an offer Snap CEO Evan
Spiegel rejected . (Facebook then spent years attempting, unsuccessfully, to copy
Snapchat before finally kneecapping the app
by cloning Stories.)
...
Facebook's presentation relied on data from Onavo, the virtual private network (VPN)
service which Facebook also acquired several months later
. Facebook's use of Onavo, which has been likened to "corporate
spyware," has itself been controversial.
The company was forced to remove Onavo from Apple's App Store earlier this year after
Apple changed its
developer guidelines to prohibit apps from collecting data about which other services are
installed on its users' phones. Though Apple never said the new rules were aimed at Facebook,
the policy change came after repeated criticism of the social network by Apple CEO Tim Cook.
-
Mashable
A top UK lawmaker said on Wednesday that Facebook maintained secretive "whitelisting
agreements" with select companies that would give them preferential access to vast amounts of
user data, after the parliamentary committee released documents which had been sealed by a
California court, reports
Bloomberg .
The documents - obtained in a sealed California lawsuit and leaked to the UK lawmaker during
a London business trip, include internal emails involving CEO Mark Zuckerberg - and led
committee chair Damian Collins to conclude that Facebook gave select companies preferential
access to valuable user data for their apps, while shutting off access to data used by
competing apps. Facebook also allegedly conducted global surveys of mobile app usage by
customers - likely without their knowledge , and that "a change to Facebook's Android app
policy resulted in call and message data being recorded was deliberately made difficult for
users to know about," according to Bloomberg.
In one email, dated Feb. 4, 2015, a Facebook engineer said a feature of the Android
Facebook app that would "continually upload" a user's call and SMS history would be a
"high-risk thing to do from a PR perspective." A subsequent email suggests users wouldn't
need to be prompted to give permission for this feature to be activated. -
Bloomberg
The emails also reveal that Zuckerberg personally approved limiting hobbling Twitter's Vine
video-sharing tool by preventing users from finding their friends on Facebook.
In one email, dated Jan. 23 2013, a Facebook engineer contacted Zuckerberg to say that
rival Twitter Inc. had launched its Vine video-sharing tool, which users could connect to
Facebook to find their friends there. The engineer suggested shutting down Vine's access to
the friends feature, to which Zuckerberg replied, " Yup, go for it ."
"We don't feel we have had straight answers from Facebook on these important issues, which
is why we are releasing the documents," said Collins in a Twitter post accompanying the
published emails. -
Bloomberg
We don't feel we have had straight answers from Facebook on these important issues, which
is why we are releasing the documents.
Thousands of digital documents were passed to Collins on a London business trip by Ted
Kramer, founder of app developer Six4Three, who obtained them during legal discovery in a
lawsuit against Facebook. Kramer developed Pikinis, an app which allowed people to find photos
of Facebook users wearing Bikinis. The app used Facebook's data which was accessed through a
feed known as an application programming interface (API) - allowing Six4Three to freely search
for bikini photos of Facebook friends of Pikini's users.
Facebook denied the charges, telling Bloomberg in an emailed statement: "Like any business,
we had many of internal conversations about the various ways we could build a sustainable
business model for our platform," adding "We've never sold people's data."
A small number of documents already
became public last week, including descriptions of emails suggesting that Facebook
executives had discussed giving access to their valuable user data to some companies that
bought advertising when it was struggling to launch its mobile-ad business. The alleged
practice started around seven years ago but has become more relevant this year because the
practices in question -- allowing outside developers to gather data on not only app users but
their friends -- are at the heart of Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Facebook said last week that the picture offered by those documents was misleadingly
crafted by Six4Three's attorneys. -
WaPo
"The documents Six4Three gathered for this baseless case are only part of the story and are
presented in a way that is very misleading without additional context," said Facebook's
director of developer platforms and programs, Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, who added: "We stand
by the platform changes we made in 2015 to stop a person from sharing their friends' data with
developers. Any short-term extensions granted during this platform transition were to prevent
the changes from breaking user experience."
Kramer was ordered by a California state court judge
on Friday to surrender his laptop to a forensic expert after he admitted giving the UK
committee the documents. The order stopped just short of holding the company in contempt as
Facebook had requested, however after a hearing, California Superior Court Judge V. Raymond
Swope told Kramer that he may issue sanctions and a contempt order at a later date.
"What has happened here is unconscionable," said Swope. "Your conduct is not well-taken by
this court. It's one thing to serve other needs that are outside the scope of this lawsuit. But
you don't serve those needs, or satisfy those curiosities, when there's a court order
preventing you to do so ."
Trouble in paradise?
As Facebook is now faced with yet another data harvesting related scandal, Buzzfeed
reports that internal tensions within the company are boiling over - claiming that "after more
than a year of bad press, internal tensions are reaching a boiling point and are now spilling
out into public view."
Throughout the crises, Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who maintains majority shareholder
control, has proven remarkably immune to outside pressure and criticism -- from politicians,
investors, and the press -- leaving his employees as perhaps his most important stakeholders.
Now, as its stock price declines and the company's mission of connecting the world is
challenged, the voices inside are growing louder and public comments, as well as private
conversations shared with BuzzFeed News, suggest newfound uncertainty about Facebook's future
direction.
Internally, the conflict seems to have divided Facebook into three camps: those loyal to
Zuckerberg and chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg; those who see the current scandals as
proof of a larger corporate meltdown ; and a group who see the entire narrative -- including
the portrayal of the company's hiring of
communications consulting firm Definers Public Affairs -- as examples of biased media
attacks. - Buzzfeed
"It's otherwise rational, sane people who're in Mark's orbit spouting full-blown anti-media
rhetoric, saying that the press is ganging up on Facebook," said a former senior employee.
"It's the bunker mentality. These people have been under siege for 600 days now. They're
getting tired, getting cranky -- the only survival strategy is to quit or fully buy in."
A Facebook spokesperson admitted to BuzzFeed that this is "a challenging time."
When exactly did [neo]Liberal Dems become enthusiastic cheerleaders for rapacious profit-maximizing
corporations acting illegally against the public interest?
Why would "progressives" want to shield Facebook from anti-trust legislation? Compared to
the 1950s / 60s / 70s ... it seems like "liberals" and "conservatives" have switched
roles.
Why is it that Zucker.slime.berg and so many other people of his ilk are basically crooks.
They go into business to wheel & deal and to rip people off. There are no depths that
they won't sink to just to enrich themselves with wealth and power. They quickly learn how to
sidestep and evade every law on the statute books. They have no integrity, no ethical
standards and no moral compass. They are conscienceless and shameless.
The world would be better off without them. Who would miss Phacephuq?
Surely by now people realize that FB is a data-gathering organ for a Deep State
geointelligence database? Why all the indignation? Every key stroke you have ever made has
been recorded. Just stop using all the Deep State social media (ie, all of them).
Get your
faces out of your phones and look around you and see what's happening. Humanity is becoming
digital. This is a control mechanism. To regain its sovereignty, humanity needs to unite
spiritually and head in a new direction. Reject all the "divide-and-conquer" BS. We are many,
they are few. United we stand. Divided, we fall.
Never used FaceBook nor any other social media platform. All they exist to do is aggregate
personal data which is then either sold or handed to governments to build profiles and keep
tabs on what people are doing. The hell with that.
In the USA we have always had will always have corruption to the fullest extent possible.
I know rich and powerful people who are very well connected and if the average person knew
what they truly think they would be freakin pissed!!
"... "We have followed this court case in America and we believed these documents contained answers to some of the questions we have been seeking about the use of data, especially by external developers," ..."
"... "to refrain from reviewing them" ..."
"... "return them to counsel or to Facebook." ..."
It is alleged that the data was harvested to target the users in political campaigns,
including in former UKIP leader Nigel Farage's Leave.EU campaign.
The UK parliamentary investigators used the former Six4Three top executive's brief stay in
London to force him to hand over documents his firm had obtained from a US court in Six4Three's
own lawsuit against Facebook.
The Guardian reported that the tech entrepreneur was warned he might go to jail or face a
hefty fine if he refuses to comply with the British authorities' request.
The documents, which are now to be reviewed by the British MPs, are said to include a
confidential correspondence between Facebook's senior officials, including Mark Zuckerberg, who
has so far snubbed requests to testify before parliament.
The lawsuit Six4Three, an app-developing startup, brought against Facebook back in 2015,
alleges that Zuckerberg was personally involved in a "malicious and fraudulent scheme"
and deliberately left loopholes for data-harvesting companies to fend off competition.
The documents are expected to reveal the scope of the Facebook CEO's involvement in the
alleged scheme.
"We have followed this court case in America and we believed these documents contained
answers to some of the questions we have been seeking about the use of data, especially by
external developers," Collins said.
Six4Three is in a long-running litigation with Facebook over the demise of its app Pikinis,
that allowed users to scan through friends' photos in an automatic search for bikini pics.
After Facebook disabled the function that allowed apps to access users' friend lists, Six4Three
filed a complaint against Facebook, arguing that it hurt its business model by no longer
permitting customers to share the data. Facebook argues that the allegations of its improper
handling of personal data have nothing to do with the lawsuit and had unsuccessfully fought the
release of its internal documents to Six4Three. The documents were provided to the startup by
the San Mateo Superior Court in California and are subject to a non-disclosure order, meaning
that are unlikely to be revealed to the public.
In response to the seizure of the documents by British MPs, Facebook has urged lawmakers
"to refrain from reviewing them" while calling to "return them to counsel or to
Facebook."
Zuckerberg has previously denied that he
knew of illegal harvesting of user data by Cambridge Analytica before the breach was reported
in the media.
It is alleged that Facebook's off-hand approach to personal data might have helped to alter
the outcome of the Brexit vote. In March, former director of research at Cambridge Analytica,
Chris Wylie, testified before MPs that the research carried out by a Canadian company with ties
to Cambridge Analytica before 2016 Brexit referendum might have swayed the vote.
"... There's no doubt about Google tracking. At least DuckDuckGo has a stated policy of not tracking, and is an alternative to the Google Goliath. ..."
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: A study from the Norwegian Consumer
Council dug into the underhanded
tactics used by Microsoft, Facebook, and Google to collect user data . "The findings
include privacy intrusive default settings, misleading wording, giving users an illusion of
control, hiding away privacy-friendly choices, take-it-or-leave-it choices, and choice
architectures where choosing the privacy friendly option requires more effort for the users,"
states the report , which includes images and examples of confusing design choices and
strangely worded statements involving the collection and use of personal data.
Google makes opting out of personalized ads more of a chore than it needs to be and uses
multiple pages of text, unclear design language, and, as described by the report, "hidden
defaults" to push users toward the company's desired action. "If the user tried to turn the
setting off, a popup window appeared explaining what happens if Ads Personalization is turned
off, and asked users to reaffirm their choice," the report explained. "There was no explanation
about the possible benefits of turning off Ads Personalization, or negative sides of leaving it
turned on." Those who wish to completely avoid personalized ads must traverse multiple menus,
making that "I agree" option seem like the lesser of two evils. In Windows 10, if a user
wants to opt out of "tailored experiences with diagnostic data," they have to click a dimmed
lightbulb, while the symbol for opting in is a brightly shining bulb, says the report.
Another example has to do with Facebook. The social media site makes the "Agree and
continue" option much more appealing and less intimidating than the grey "Manage Data Settings"
option. The report says the company-suggested option is the easiest to use. "This 'easy road'
consisted of four clicks to get through the process, which entailed accepting personalized ads
from third parties and the use of face recognition. In contrast, users who wanted to limit data
collection and use had to go through 13 clicks."
You seem to be keeping your gaze too low. You are not just a target for buying stuff; you
are also a target for modifying your opinion and behaviour in politics and other
questions.
You can be targeted through other vectors than traditional ads, e.g. notification flows,
news flows, ads-or-propaganda-disguised-as-news, product placement, insurance company
policies, employability, police knocking on your door, ...
As an extreme, think China. The view we outsiders get is that if they collect the wrong
data about you, they will *target* you in a way that no ad-blocker will stop.
This info has been out there for years yet no one is listening and/or cares. The mantra of
people seems to be "it's free" so why not. I have long ago seen this coming. Use Fedora Linux
or Debian. Use an iPhone over Android despite Apple having some issues. Use P2P apps in lieu
of things like Skype. Own your own domain and use that for email. It's cheap and you have
control of your user name and domain name. Tie that domain name to a privacy-respecting
service like Fastmail.
Don't use spy devices like Alexa or Google Home. These exist not to help you but to
harvest your data 24/7. Roll your own solutions, especially if you're technical or in IT. Use
your own skills. Run a Pi-hole, block and defund the ad companies and tracking companies.
Like drugs, just say no...
This info has been out there for years yet no one is listening and/or cares. The mantra of
people seems to be "it's free" so why not. I have long ago seen this coming. Use Fedora Linux
or Debian. Use an iPhone over Android despite Apple having some issues. Use P2P apps in lieu
of things like Skype. Own your own domain and use that for email. It's cheap and you have
control of your user name and domain name. Tie that domain name to a privacy-respecting
service like Fastmail.
Don't use spy devices like Alexa or Google Home. These exist not to help you but to
harvest your data 24/7. Roll your own solutions, especially if you're technical or in IT. Use
your own skills. Run a Pi-hole, block and defund the ad companies and tracking companies.
Like drugs, just say no...
what can be attributed to three companies who are some of the worst offenders of screwing
up general UI design.
Who the hell cares about my privacy settings when I can no longer safely use maps for
navigation due to its shitty settings of minimising into a useless picture in picture
everytime there's a hiccup on my phone and has removed the option to force audio output
throught the speaker meaning I can't hear it with bluetooth on either.
Who the hell cares about privacy settings on a website that makes it borderline impossible
to easily scroll through past messages, or whose mobile app doesn't let you post pictures
because it ends up in a select picture loop.
And as for Microsoft, one word... err two words: Start Menu *raises middle finger*
While Facebook is avoidable good luck avoiding Microsoft and Google if you're not a member
of the zombie Steve Jobs fan club...that said, whatever they extract is far less damaging
than the Equifax breach, after that I'd say cell phone carriers and all of the historical gps
data they share with third parties without your consent. Just like the instigators of the
2008 global financial meltdown the penalties = zero dollars.
You sound like a Google employee. There's no doubt about Google tracking. At least DuckDuckGo has a stated policy of not tracking, and is an alternative to the Google
Goliath.
The first stage is social media censorship. The next stage is the total blocking of
websites offering alternative news to the MSM. This is by far the most dangerous threat to
individual freedom.
The intenet addressing system is controlled at the top by the US military (and always
was). The ultimate arbiter for any internet address lookup is in the US InterNIC system
(owned and controlled by the US military), to which all the national domain name registries
defer. By manipulating or falsifying lookup data they can block international access to any
website in the world (including covertly). US/UK censorship is going to rapidly expand over
the very near future, as the West moves to ever more suppressionist policies. We urgently
need a new internet addressing infrastructure with a capability to bypass the US structures
and allow any internet access that might be blocked by the US, before alternative media
outlets are totally silenced.
There are vague references in the alternate media from time to time of Russian/Chinese
initiatives to develop an alternative infrastructure, but I have not seen anything specific.
I don't know how advanced these projects are, or whether they are intended for use from
anywhere in the world or only internally in the officially participating countries.
Under the current internet system, the local user uses configurable numerical addresses as
local address lookup under TCP/IP (Name Server) - ISPs normally try to set this to their own
servers through their installation software, but you can also set it manually to some other
name server that you find more reliable. For example, many ISPs illegally block certain
websites by sabotaging the address lookup on their own name server (i.e. it does not match
the data held by the official registry for the domain name) with false data (I have seen this
done many times to my own website, both my own ISP and other people's ISP; it blocks email
based on the blocked domain name at the same time, or the block can be specific to sub-domain
such as www). When you try to access the site you then get an error message from the browser.
If you challenge the ISP they will be forced to correct the data, but then they may silently
sabotage it again later. Instead of using your ISPs own name server, you can use any other
name server that is publicly accessible (some name servers might not be accessible from a
different ISP, but many are accessible to anyone). A good solution is often a name server
belonging to a local (or non-local!) university. Sometimes you might find you then get more
reliable access to non-mainstream websites, and fewer browser errors (address not found).
What I would like to see Russia/China/BRICS/SCO/etc offer ASAP is some nameserver
infrastructure that can be accessed through the standard nameserver settings under TCP/IP on
any computer, and which offer configurable access to the internet address lookup registries
around the world without critical dependence on the US controlled InterNIC database.
Numerical internet addresses (IP addresses) change from time to time. This is in itself
normal. For example if MoA changes its service provider (web server), the MoA numerical IP
address will be changed. The change in IP address is registered in the database stored in the
registry for the .org upper level domain name in the US, and other name servers around the
world regularly update their own data from that. If the US substitutes false values, any
attempt to access the website can be diverted to an alternative address (sometimes a fake
website!) managed by the US. Sometimes they do this even now, and then if challenged they
pretend it was a "mistake". Russia/China need to provide name server infrastructure combined
with user software (browser inferface) that is capable of selecting archived IP address
lookup data when the most recently available data in the registry is false, selectable by
date (the registry contains information on when the data was last changed). By selecting an
IP address from archived data before the block, it can re-enable access to the site (as long
as the website is still on the servers - if on US servers that is still under US control, but
if it is on Russian servers it is not under US control).
Some websites legitimately need to be blocked - eg ISIS propaganda sites etc - the system
would need to be able to block access to archived IP addresses for such legitimately blocked
sites.
As I suggested some weeks ago, B really needs to prepare for possible blocking in advance
- I am quite sure it will come eventually - by registering a non-US website such as
moonofalabama.org.ru etc, and announcing that alternate address. When the internet is cut, it
is already too late to announce the backup site! That can still be blocked by the US, but
there are more ways to get around it.
Facebook's New Troll-Crushing "War Room" Confirms Surveillance By Corporation Is The New
America
by Tyler Durden
Sun, 10/21/2018 - 22:30 270 SHARES
Facebook on Wednesday briefed journalists on its latest attempt to stop fake news during the
election season , offering an exclusive tour of a windowless conference room at its California
headquarters, packed with millennials monitoring Facebook user behavior trends around the
clock, said
The Verge .
This is Facebook's first ever "war room," designed to bring leaders from 20 teams,
representing 20,000 global employees working on safety and security, in one room to lead a
crusade against conservatives misinformation on the platform as political
campaigning shifts into hyperdrive in the final weeks leading up to November's US midterm
elections. The team includes threat intelligence, data science engineering, research, legal,
operations, policy, communications, and representatives from Facebook and Facebook-owned
WhatsApp and Instagram.
"We know when it comes to an election, every moment counts," said Samidh Chakrabarti, head
of civic engagement at Facebook, who oversees operations in the war room.
"So if there are late-breaking issues we see on the platform, we need to be able to detect
and respond to them in real time, as quickly as possible."
This public demonstration of Facebook's internal efforts comes after a series of security
breaches and user hacks, dating back to the 2016 presidential elections. Since the announcement
of the Cambridge Analytics privacy scandal in March, Facebook shares have plunged -14.5% It
seems the war room is nothing more than a public relations stunt, which the company is
desperately trying to regain control of the narrative and avoid more negative headlines.
The war room is staffed with millennials from 4 am until midnight, and starting on Oct. 22,
social media workers will be monitoring trends 24/7 leading up to the elections. Leaders from
20 teams will be present in the room. Workers will use machine learning and artificial
intelligence programs to monitor the platform for trends, hate speech, sophisticated trolls,
fake news, and of course, Russian, Chinese, and Iranian interference.
Nathan Gleicher, Facebook's head of cybersecurity, told CNBC the company wants fair
elections, and that "debate around the election be authentic. ... The biggest concern is any
type of effort to manipulate that."
In the first round of presidential elections in Brazil, Facebook's war room identified an
effort to suppress voter turnout:
"Content that was telling people that due to protest, that the election would be delayed a
day," said Chakrabarti. "This was not true, completely false. So we were able to detect that
using AI and machine learning. The war room was alerted to it. Our data scientist looked into
what was behind it and then they passed it to our engineers and operations specialist to be
able to remove this at scale from our platform before it could go viral."
The war room has been focused on the US and Brazilian elections because it says
misinformation in elections is a global problem that never ends. Gleicher warns that Facebook
is observing an increased effort to manipulate the public debate ahead of US midterms.
"Part of the reason we have this war room up and running, is so that as these threats
develop, not only do we respond to them quickly, but we continue to speed up our response, and
make our response more effective and efficient." Gleicher adds that it is not just foreign
interference but also domestic "bad actors" who are hiding their identity, using fake accounts
to spread misinformation.
"This is always going to be an arms race, so the adversaries that we're facing who seek to
meddle in elections, they are sophisticated and well-funded," said Chakrabarti.
"That is the reason we've made huge investments both in people and technology to stay
ahead and secure our platforms."
Big Brother is watching you: surveillance by corporations is the new America.
One of the privileges granted to corporations under State laws is the limitation of
liabilities as to shareholders. If you operate a business as a sole proprietor or as one of
the partners in a general partnership, then you can personally be sued for the unpaid debts
or other liabilities arising from the operation of the business. But if you are an owner of a
corporation, which is what shareholders are, then you have no personal liability and can't be
held accountable for the unpaid debts or other liabilities arising from the operation of the
corporation.
This limited liability privilege is what is wrong with corporations. The most you stand to
lose as a shareholder is what you paid for your shares. As a result, corporations can amass a
large amount of capital and when they become very large they not only damage free market
competition, but they power associated with their size and importance gives them control over
the political process. They can lobby and bribe politicians for laws that are favourable to
themselves, and unfavourable to the rest of us. And shareholders lose control over the
operation, just like your vote for politicians is relatively meaningless as a percentage of
the total vote. Management takes over, just like the elite take over governments, and ethics
disappear.
If shareholders of corporations did not have limited liability, the incentive to buy
shares would disappear, and most businesses would be carried out by small entities; we would
have a competitive "mom and pop" economy instead of a monopoly or oligopoly type economy. And
with a competitive economy if one of the competitors pulled the **** that the big internet
corporations pull, they would soon suffer the wrath of their customers who would have
alternative places to go.
Corporate laws are just another example of government interference in the economy that
produces the bad results we see today from corporatism. Corporatism is just another mechanism
to create rule by the elite and slavery for the majority. The solution is to prohibit States
from franchising corporations, and to use existing anti-trust laws to bust up all the big
corporations.
It is sad that so many people think that corporatism is capitalism and then reach the
conclusion that socialism or communism is the solution to the bad results they see today. It
is not. Capitalism is a free market with no government granted privilege to any of the
competitors. The only role of government in the economy is to protect rights, instead of
destroying rights as they do today.
I just had to uninstall my ESET anti-virus software. It was intentionally erasing utorrent
from my computer. To get to Pirate Bay, now blocked in the USA, I set my VPN to Belgium.
Almost immediately, I started getting messages from my e-mail provider, MSN, asking if I was
signing in from Belgium. When I make any payments via Internet banking, I have to turn off my
VPN or the transaction will not be recognized. When Trump and his NWO puppeteers decide to
take their gloves off, I am pretty sure my Internet connection will be on the Kill List. Just
like yours, you ZH posters.
That is why my description on Facebook states that if you post political information you
will be unfollowed. I only allow photos of kittens and well a lot of nebulous stuff,
education, and health and fitness. If they knew my ideas I would be followed by all the
worlds security agencies. I am resolved to help people become Normal within the infosphere. I
allow no politics because politics is Fake News and the sooner people forget about the
concept the sooner they will be inclined to decentralize existing concentrations of
wealth.
" The war room is staffed with millennials from 4 am until midnight, and starting on Oct.
22, social media workers will be monitoring trends 24/7 leading up to the elections. Leaders
from 20 teams will be present in the room. Workers will use machine learning and artificial
intelligence programs to monitor the platform for trends, hate speech, sophisticated trolls,
fake news, and of course, Russian, Chinese, and Iranian interference."
With all this fascist (and highly provocative) techno-insanity at their disposal
before the midterms...
...what, pray tell, will these pointy-headed leftist brats say about a red
asshamering in November?
Their silly "war room" wasn't expansive or invasive enough...?
Even the dullest people should be able to figure out that the easiest way to divulge the
truth about anything is to allow ALL information to flow like a stream. Whoever's telling the
lies will be discovered apace. Of course, FaceBook, Google, Twitter and all of the other
corporate entities know this. And they also know who the (((great masters of the lie))) are.
It is themselves. They are in panic mode, folks. We must kill this latest effort of
(((theirs))) by simply avoiding their platforms. Use their own weapons against them...
BOYCOTT. Seek alternative sites and search engines. Most importantly, spread far and wide
what you know to be their ulterior motives.
"... Journalist Glenn Greenwald hit out at those on the left who cheered Facebook and Twitter's coordinated 'deplatforming' of right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in August. "Those who demanded Facebook & other Silicon Valley giants censor political content...are finding that content that they themselves support & like end up being repressed," he wrote. "That's what has happened to every censorship advocate in history." ..."
"... "a wider war on dissident narratives in online media." ..."
Alternative voices online are incensed after Facebook and Twitter closed down hundreds of
political media pages ahead of November's crucial midterm elections. Facebook says they broke
its spam rules, they say it's censorship. Some 800 pages spanning the
political spectrum, from left-leaning organizations like The Anti Media, to flag-waving opinion
sites like Right Wing News and Nation in Distress, were shut down. Other pages banned include
those belonging to police brutality watchdog groups Filming Cops and Policing the Police.
Even
RT America's Rachel Blevins found her own page banned for posts that were allegedly
"misleading users."
Journalist Glenn Greenwald hit out at those on the left who cheered Facebook and Twitter's coordinated 'deplatforming' of
right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in August. "Those who demanded Facebook & other Silicon Valley giants censor political
content...are finding that content that they themselves support & like end up being repressed," he wrote. "That's what has
happened to every censorship advocate in history."
In America, Conservatives were the first to complain about unfair treatment by left-leaning Silicon Valley tech giants.
However, leftist sites have increasingly become targets in what Blumenthal calls "a wider war on dissident narratives in
online media." In identifying enemies in this "war," Facebook has partnered up with the Digital Forensics Lab, an
offshoot of NATO-sponsored think tank the Atlantic Council. The DFL has promised to be Facebook's "eyes and ears" in
the fight against disinformation (read: alternative viewpoints).
"... "It seems like the censorship power many people on the left want Silicon Valley executives to unilaterally exercise might end up being wielded against the left. One good way to know that would happen is that is already is happening." ..."
"... teleSUR English's page has been removed from Facebook for the second time this year without any specific reason being provided. It should be noted that the first time this occurred back in January 2018, Facebook did NOT provide any explanation in spite of our best efforts to understand their rationale. This is an alarming development in light of the recent shutting down of pages that don't fit a mainstream narrative. ..."
"... Your Page "teleSUR English" has been removed for violating our Terms of Use. A Facebook Page is a distinct presence used solely for business or promotional purposes. Among other things, Pages that are hateful, threatening or obscene are not allowed. We also take down Pages that attack an individual or group, or that are set up by an unauthorized individual. If your Page was removed for any of the above reasons, it will not be reinstated. Continued misuse of Facebook's features could result in the permanent loss of your account. ..."
"... Max Blumenthal tweet shows the role of the Atlantic counsel had in removing the site from Facebook. Click the link to show who is on the counsel. This group has had a hand in a lot of shit that has been happening since Trump was elected. ..."
"... It is Deeply Concerning when one of the biggest social media platform censors whomever the hell they want and people say that "what's the big deal? It's a private company that should be able to monitor the content if they want." ..."
"... private company ..."
"... Here's a Reuters article on the role of the Atlantic Council. And yes, their board is a rogue's gallery of warmongers and imperialists. Reuters ..."
"... They are tightening the screws. I am more grateful each day that I never signed up for any of this horrific social media. This is as social as I get. ..."
"... They track your web movement any time you read a page that has their "like us" button. They can learn everything about you from your family and friends who are on it because they get access to their contacts in their phones and tons of other places. This is a huge invasion of privacy, but no one should be surprised. The CIA gave Zucchini his start up money to build his site for that reason. ..."
"... I realize not participating in social media does not exempt me from the surveillance state. Heaven forbid they miss someone. But it's one or three less things I am giving absolute permission to my life. ..."
"... Ceterem censeo, Facebook delendum est! ..."
"... @thanatokephaloides ..."
"... inspired me to seek it out and add it to my home page. I'm going to paste Infowars (Alex Jones) on here too, just to spite them. Also, it's good to know what the crazies are up to. Jones got a big spike from the ban. ..."
"It seems like the censorship power many people on the left want Silicon Valley executives to unilaterally exercise might
end up being wielded against the left. One good way to know that would happen is that is already is happening."
For the second time this year, Facebook has suspended teleSUR English's page, claiming the left-leaning Latin American news
network violated the social media platform's terms of service without any further explanation -- a move that provoked outrage
and concern among journalists, free speech advocates, and Big Tech critics.
In a short article posted on teleSUR's website on Monday, the regional news network -- which is based in Venezuela but also
has received funding from Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, and Nicaragua -- explained:
teleSUR English's page has been removed from Facebook for the second time this year without any specific reason being
provided. It should be noted that the first time this occurred back in January 2018, Facebook did NOT provide any explanation
in spite of our best efforts to understand their rationale. This is an alarming development in light of the recent shutting
down of pages that don't fit a mainstream narrative.
According to the outlet, "the only communication" teleSUR has received from Facebook is the following message:
Your Page "teleSUR English" has been removed for violating our Terms of Use. A Facebook Page is a distinct presence
used solely for business or promotional purposes. Among other things, Pages that are hateful, threatening or obscene are not
allowed. We also take down Pages that attack an individual or group, or that are set up by an unauthorized individual. If your
Page was removed for any of the above reasons, it will not be reinstated. Continued misuse of Facebook's features could result
in the permanent loss of your account.
Max Blumenthal tweet shows the role of the
Atlantic counsel had in removing the site from
Facebook. Click the link to show who is on the counsel. This group has had a hand in a lot of shit that has been happening since
Trump was elected.
Facebook has just deleted the page of @telesurenglish
. A network source tells me FB justified eliminating the page on the vague basis of "violation of terms." The NATO-backed
@DFRLab is currently assisting FB's purge. This is
deeply disturbing. pic.twitter.com/MQe3Brdn15
It is Deeply Concerning when one of the biggest social media platform censors whomever the hell they want and people say that
"what's the big deal? It's a private company that should be able to monitor the content if they want."
Well it seems that its a Big Fucking Deal when that private company is working hand in hand with the government. Facebook
has already been removing left leaning website's post for some time now and it looks like they are upping their game.
Directors. There's some real stinkers on that list. 'Honor' has nothing to fo with it.
Honorary Directors
David C. Acheson
James A. Baker, III
Harold Brown
Frank C. Carlucci, III
Ashton B. Carter
Robert M. Gates
Michael G. Mullen
Leon E. Panetta
William J. Perry
Colin L. Powell
Condoleezza Rice
Edward L. Rowny
George P. Shultz
Dr. Horst Teltschik
John W. Warner
William H. Webster
If you don't think that, then good luck. They are tightening the screws. I am more grateful each day that I never signed
up for any of this horrific social media. This is as social as I get.
Good luck to us all. Let's hope a supervolcano blows before we are all actually further imprisoned in this open air prison.
They track your web movement any time you read a page that has their "like us" button. They can learn everything about
you from your family and friends who are on it because they get access to their contacts in their phones and tons of other places.
This is a huge invasion of privacy, but no one should be surprised. The CIA gave Zucchini his start up money to build his site
for that reason.
Many lefties were happy when FB deleted Jones and were mad at the Twitter guy who didn't. The site that they censored today
isn't an American one, but I'm sure those lefties would be sh*tting bricks if FB did that to Rachel's show and website.
If you don't think that, then good luck. They are tightening the screws. I am more grateful each day that I never signed
up for any of this horrific social media. This is as social as I get.
Good luck to us all. Let's hope a supervolcano blows before we are all actually further imprisoned in this open air prison.
They track your web movement any time you read a page that has their "like us" button. They can learn everything about you
from your family and friends who are on it because they get access to their contacts in their phones and tons of other places.
This is a huge invasion of privacy, but no one should be surprised. The CIA gave Zucchini his start up money to build his site
for that reason.
Many lefties were happy when FB deleted Jones and were mad at the Twitter guy who didn't. The site that they censored today
isn't an American one, but I'm sure those lefties would be sh*tting bricks if FB did that to Rachel's show and website.
I realize not participating in social media does not exempt me from the surveillance state. Heaven forbid they miss someone.
But it's one or three less things I am giving absolute permission to my life.
Anyway, it's disheartening how we are giving away our freedoms so easily.
and not enough people care about it because it. This I don't get. They are the ones who say that our military is fighting to
defend our freedoms and yet they say that it's okay if the government spies on them because they have nothing to hide.
I realize not participating in social media does not exempt me from the surveillance state. Heaven forbid they miss
someone. But it's one or three less things I am giving absolute permission to my life.
Anyway, it's disheartening how we are giving away our freedoms so easily.
I am more grateful each day that I never signed up for any of this horrific social media. This is as social as I get.
Ceterem censeo, Facebook delendum est!
(Further, I opine, Facebook must be abolished!)
edit: Adjusted translation to less violent (but still accurate) terminology.
If you don't think that, then good luck. They are tightening the screws. I am more grateful each day that I never signed
up for any of this horrific social media. This is as social as I get.
Good luck to us all. Let's hope a supervolcano blows before we are all actually further imprisoned in this open air prison.
inspired me to seek it out and add it to my home page. I'm going to paste Infowars (Alex Jones) on here too, just to spite
them. Also, it's good to know what the crazies are up to. Jones got a big spike from the ban.
Silicon Valley's coordinated purge of all things Infowars from social media has had an unexpected result; website traffic
to Infowars.com has soared in the past week, according to Amazon's website ranking service Alexa.
That said, Google and Apple are still allowing people to access Infowars content via apps, which have seen their downloads
spike as well.
Consumers still can access InfoWars through the same tech companies that just banned it. Google still offers the Infowars
app for Android users, and Apple customers can download it through the App Store.
As of Friday, the show's phone app remained near the top of the charts in both the Apple App and Google Play stores.
Infowars Official, an app that lets viewers stream Jones' shows and read news of the day, was ranked fourth among trending
apps in the Google Play store Friday. In the news category on Apple's App Store, Infowars earned the fourth slot under the
top free apps, behind Twitter and News Break, a local and breaking news service, revealing a sudden boost of user downloads.
–American Statesman
I like your idea. I'm going to hit both sites daily just to spite them.
inspired me to seek it out and add it to my home page. I'm going to paste Infowars (Alex Jones) on here too, just to spite
them. Also, it's good to know what the crazies are up to. Jones got a big spike from the ban.
"... People with original content and distingushable personalities were purged from Twitter for reasons that are hard to discern ..."
"... Probably 99% of posters at Twitter (the only "social media" that I read) are amateurs who never had time, talent or inclination to post anything original. ..."
"... If we count re-tweets or copies of pictures of cute cats and puppies, the percentage of "inauthenticity" is huge. But when one posts about atrocities in Yemen rather than puppies or adorable Israeli settlers in West Bank then he/she can be identified as a "threat". To USA? to humanity? to puppies? to the adorable settlers?. Who knows and who cares. ..."
"... what you see going on nowadays reminds you of George Orwells "2 minutes of hate" in his book 1984. ..."
"... Why (for what reason) is anybody on this social media shit? Not a rhetorical question; I dumped all of it well more than a decade ago. I'm not claiming some kind of superiority here; just questioning where critical thinking skills failed big time. It should have been obvious (it was to me) where this would end. And here we are... ..."
"... I don't see much serious debate on FB. Most people are communicating with friends, or people they call friends. And they are not anonymous which makes people cautious about expressing their true feelings. ..."
"... Selling advertisements is Facebook's business. Well only partially, a secondary line. Their main business is harvesting the psychometric data all its users so carelessly hand them, and then selling said data on to nefarious third parties. ..."
"... In the battles over ideas, printing presses were often targeted for destruction so ideas could be restricted--what's happening with Twitter and Facebook is merely an updated version of such repression. ..."
"... Amazon (and others) banning books is the updated version of book burning. ..."
"... Young Millennials were drawn to Facebook like 1950's teenyboppers were drawn to smoking. All the kids were doing it. Decades later, those smokers paid a terrible price: lung cancer, COPD, etc. And they had even (unknowingly) poisoned their own kids (via secondhand smoke). ..."
"... People simply have no "sense" for systemic risk. We only seem to learn via disaster. Whether it is social media, MIC, financial markets, propaganda, climate change, etc. ..."
"... "Free Syrian Army sentences Syrian doctor to 6 months in prison for criticizing Erdogan on Facebook" ..."
I followed FireEye link a bit and I have several conclusions.
1. The diagram they made about several "inauthentic sites" is totally bogus. People have various reasons to create anonymous
accounts, for example if they have Saudi citizenship and they post something "pro-Iranian" because of authentic views they may
be kidnapped, whipped and perhaps even executed. An American citizens may want to be anonymous if his/her views are unpopular
among H management where they work. Besides several black lines of "shared e-mail addresses" that are already inconclusive they
have "red arrows" of "promotional activity", presumably links, re-Tweets etc. of which there are billions.
2. I checked a "persona" and black-linked "fake journal". Persona has almost zero activity, 3 Twitter followers. Journal seems
to be somewhat fake because it has several articles with low originality, nicely looking frontpage and some pages that are totally
empty (e.g. Central Asia). It seems that this is one person effort to collate themes and views to his/her liking and practice
web design, and due to sparse posting and mediocre originality, probably zero effective influence.
3. Eliminating 543 such accounts changes next to nothing given their sparse traffic. But FireEye identifies them as "threats".
WFT?
4. By the way of contrast, when I followed tweets about fighting in Syria I witness huge concerted waves of masked re-tweets,
identical tweets presented not as re-tweets that clearly had the purpose of swamping the traffic sympathetic to their opponents.
The numbers were not surprising given the number of jihadi volunteers that actually served as cannon fodder rather than twitter
warriors.
5. People with original content and distingushable personalities were purged from Twitter for reasons that are hard to
discern (posting bloody pictures from battlefields? non-purged accounts show them too).
Probably 99% of posters at Twitter (the only "social media" that I read) are amateurs who never had time, talent or inclination
to post anything original. For example they may find several posts of their liking and re-post them, expressing their views
without inventing new content. If they create more than one account and are noticed by others, they could fall into FireEye criteria.
If we count re-tweets or copies of pictures of cute cats and puppies, the percentage of "inauthenticity" is huge. But when
one posts about atrocities in Yemen rather than puppies or adorable Israeli settlers in West Bank then he/she can be identified
as a "threat". To USA? to humanity? to puppies? to the adorable settlers?. Who knows and who cares.
That's quite an intelligent and observant post Piotr Berman. The evolution of the social media phenomena has me, for one, astounded.
Not to mention confounded. How to go viral?
That's the question to answer. Even the mightiest sea wall can not resist the big
tide.
@25 pB, respectfully, you must not know a lot of people... Many, many people still use Facebook and even use it as their main
source of information; instead of ridiculing and thinking oneself superior to these people, we should engage them where they are
at and tell them that it is not the best place to rely on for news.
The social media censorship has certainly escalated lately but it is of course following a long trend - we've known for several
months for example that Facebook was shutting down pro-Palestine pages at the behest of the Israeli, American, and German governments,
and of course there was the PropOrNot fiasco and the tweaking of Google's algorithms to supress alternative, mainly (real, not
liberal-capitalist) left-wing websites. I am hopeful however that in a sense the cat is out of the bag, there is a critical mass
of people who simply do not trust enough in the official channels anymore, and eventually all this censorship will backfire. That
is an optimistic view anyway...
there's a long and even honourable history behind the use of such professional actors going back to Ancient Egypt and the use
of wailers at high-class peoples funerals, and one could see the point to all of that. But that was all done for the best of intentions.
unfortunately the modern incarnation of such ancient traditions is now being done for all the worst of intentions. (originally
it was all done to generate positive emotions and feelings) nowadays its the complete opposite.
what you see going on nowadays reminds you of George Orwells "2 minutes of hate" in his book 1984.
if you are going to say anything, at please do try to be positive or constructive. Otherwise probably best not to do or say
anything at all.
Why (for what reason) is anybody on this social media shit? Not a rhetorical question; I dumped all of it well more than a
decade ago. I'm not claiming some kind of superiority here; just questioning where critical thinking skills failed big time. It
should have been obvious (it was to me) where this would end. And here we are...
there's a long and even honourable history behind the use of such professional actors going back to Ancient Egypt and
the use of wailers at high-class peoples funerals, and one could see the point to all of that. but that was all done for the
best of intentions.
Best of intentions, maybe not. The proletariat struggled greatly against their rulers. Slavery and serfdom were cultural norms.
Not that these were attendees of upper class funerals, but in service to the elite to be sure. The illusion that oppressors are
benevolent must be upheld. The reports would be spread throughout the town. Perhaps we were wrong in our assessment that ol' Joe
was a cruel and miserable oppressor.
This trick has endured through the ages. See Facebook. By the looks of it, everyone now suffers from Stockholm Syndrome.
@36 I don't see much serious debate on FB. Most people are communicating with friends, or people they call friends. And they
are not anonymous which makes people cautious about expressing their true feelings.
I work in a library part-time. Most of my regular patrons who do nothing but use the computers use Facebook for their entire two
hours for messaging friends or lovers, or they divide up their time between that and YouTube videos. I try to help them from time
to time figure out the latest changes to their Facebook accounts, even though I haven't used it in years.
They're ordinary sorts of people whose lifestyles require them to get their Internet through our public space rather than at
home, or they don't want to use their phones for it. There are also folks who have various social or physical disabilities who
enjoy watching videos of trains and steam engines. There are also kids who don't use Facebook but watch endless reiterations of
AI-generated YouTube videos or play roblox or agar.io.
So, I guess I'm saying people use social media shit to pass the time. Much like those of us who are passing the time using
this site. While we might believe we are getting deeper to the truth of our realities through MoA, we're also sitting in front
of a screen just as much.
Selling advertisements is Facebook's business. Well only partially, a secondary line. Their main business is harvesting
the psychometric data all its users so carelessly hand them, and then selling said data on to nefarious third parties.
@karlof1 | Aug 22, 2018 3:31:39 PM | 14
In the battles over ideas, printing presses were often targeted for destruction so ideas could be restricted--what's happening
with Twitter and Facebook is merely an updated version of such repression.
While Amazon (and others) banning books is the updated version of book burning.
Why (for what reason) is anybody on this social media shit? Not a rhetorical question; I dumped all of it well more than a
decade ago. I'm not claiming some kind of superiority here; just questioning where critical thinking skills failed big time.
It should have been obvious (it was to me) where this would end. And here we are...
I was active on a few web-places in the years 2002-2008 or so. The opportunity for "platonic dialog" was suited to my temperament
I guess and the results were interesting.
I turned more than one big site on it's head with my questioning. Some of my posts went insanely viral. Those were the early
days. I noticed professional trolls from the outset who seemed to be part of the web-site forum itself. They were my adversaries,
and over time began to mimic my posts since no one could beat me at Socratic dialoging.
The topics were many different: for examples: global warming and the environmental ethos, the old Leibnitz-Newton argument,
and regarding the justifications for the Iraq War...
It was fun! A Socratic dialog site with member-referees would actually be a great thing.
This is based on my experience: it is a great learning experience to have to defend a thesis. I did independent research at
that time to avoid getting caught in an argument with my pants down. In every thread it was just about EVERYBODY in there against
me.
(I knew the non-poster listeners were fascinated by what was going on. One site employed a software called Motet which
is excellent for making repeated references to one´s own posts or to the posts of another or to documentary evidence, so the discussions
don't get bogged down explaining the debate to new-comers). I came to realize that my posts were being studied when i drew some
conclusions from the responses they were provoking.
Ten years ago, I totally dropped out of these kinds of internet forums where ideas might so usefully be examined in light of
the opinions and knowledge of a diversity of persons.
Young Millennials were drawn to Facebook like 1950's teenyboppers were drawn to smoking. All the kids were doing it. Decades
later, those smokers paid a terrible price: lung cancer, COPD, etc. And they had even (unknowingly) poisoned their own kids (via
secondhand smoke).
People simply have no "sense" for systemic risk. We only seem to learn via disaster. Whether it is social media, MIC, financial
markets, propaganda, climate change, etc.
Hey all the cool kids are on THIS side of the boat!!
Rivera told officials he exited his vehicle and started "running behind her and alongside her," according to the criminal
complaint. Tibbetts then grabbed her phone and told him she was going to call the police , according to the criminal
complaint.
@46 "But the naivete of Millennials is now legendary. From SJW "snowflakes" to attractive joggers that think their cellphone protects
them in sparsely populated areas:..."
And that is precisely what I dislike about FB. If I was to post something like that there I would be called a fascist or dragged
into unwinnable arguments. Or, horror of horrors, publicly unfriended.
Facebook has deleted all of my posts from July 2017 to last week because I am, apparently, a
Russian Bot. For a while I could not add any new posts either, but we recently found a way
around that, at least for now. To those of you tempted to say "So what?", I would point out
that over two thirds of visitors to my website arrive via my posting of the articles to
Facebook and Twitter. Social media outlets like this blog, which offer an alternative to MSM
propaganda, are hugely at the mercy of these corporate gatekeepers.
Facebook's plunge into censorship is completely open and admitted, as is the fact it
is operated for Facebook by the Atlantic Council - the extreme neo-con group part funded by
NATO and whose board includes serial war criminal Henry Kissinger, Former CIA Heads Michael
Hayden and Michael Morrell, and George Bush's chief of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff ,
among a whole list of horrors .
The staff are worse than the Board. Their lead expert on Russian bot detection is an
obsessed nutter named Ben Nimmo, whose fragile grip on reality has been completely broken by
his elevation to be the internet's Witchfinder-General. Nimmo, grandly titled "Senior Fellow
for Information Defense at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab", is the go-to
man for Establishment rubbishing of citizen journalists, and as with Joseph McCarthy or Matthew
Clarke, one day society will sufficiently recover its balance for it to be generally
acknowledged that this kind of witch-hunt nonsense was not just an aberration, but a
manifestation of the evil it claimed to fight.
There is no Establishment cause Nimmo will not aid by labeling its opponents as Bots.
This from the Herald newspaper two days ago, where Nimmo uncovers the secret web
of Scottish Nationalist bots that dominate the internet, and had the temerity to question the
stitch-up of Alex Salmond.
Nimmo's proof? 2,000 people had used the hashtag #Dissolvetheunion on a total of 10,000
tweets in a week. That's five tweets per person on average. In a week. Obviously a massive
bot-plot, eh?
When Ben's great expose for the Herald was met with widespread ridicule , he doubled
down on it by producing his evidence - a list of the top ten bots he had uncovered in this
research. Except that they are almost all, to my certain knowledge, not bots but people . But
do not decry Ben's fantastic forensic skills, for which NATO and the CIA fund the Atlantic
Council. Ben's number one suspect was definitely a bot. He had got the evil kingpin. He had
seen through its identity despite its cunning disguise. That disguise included its name,
IsthisAB0T, and its profile, where it called itself a bot for retweets on Independence. Thank
goodness for Ben Nimmo, or nobody would ever have seen through that evil, presumably
Kremlin-hatched, plan.
No wonder the Atlantic Council advertise Nimmo and his team as " Digital Sherlocks ".
"... The boundaries for paranoia are moving rapidly. Trump's election appears to have caused the security state to move into overdrive and in its haste drop almost all pretense re the attempts to control access to dissenting narratives. ..."
"... Inertia, or even misplaced patriotism over US corporations like Facebook, is the road to hell. ..."
"... The Second Amendment make specific provision for the people's right to prevent tyranny by their government in the material world. So far, the Constitution lacks a similar provision preventing government tyranny in cyberspace. This does not mean that defense of this right should be fought for any less vigorously and in the 21st century I'd consider it at least as important. ..."
"... Zuck and his ilk Sandberg are doing CYA and using those who have contacts inside the beltway. ..."
Is there something wrong with this picture, or am I just being overly suspicious or even
paranoid?
No, just "inauthentic".
The boundaries for paranoia are moving rapidly. Trump's election appears to have caused the
security state to move into overdrive and in its haste drop almost all pretense re the attempts
to control access to dissenting narratives. I truly fear for SST in this fast-deteriorating
environment. If Trump's presidency does nothing else but bring the thought-control swamp to the
attention of the masses, he will have done his country a great service.
RaisingMac has the right idea.
Rights waste away unless frequently exercised and 'voting' to switch to less censorious
platforms is a vital part of defending the right to free speech. Inertia, or even misplaced
patriotism over US corporations like Facebook, is the road to hell.
The Second Amendment make
specific provision for the people's right to prevent tyranny by their government in the
material world. So far, the Constitution lacks a similar provision preventing government
tyranny in cyberspace. This does not mean that defense of this right should be fought for any
less vigorously and in the 21st century I'd consider it at least as important.
FireEye's tip eventually led Facebook to remove 652 fake accounts and pages. And
Liberty Front Press, the common thread among much of that sham activity, was linked to
state media in Iran, Facebook said on Tuesday.
"... The anti-Russian mania in U.S. politics gives social media companies a welcome excuse to clamp down on promotional schemes for sites like Liberty Front Press by claiming that these are disinformation campaigns run by the U.S. enemy of the day . ..."
"... Moon of Alabama ..."
"... Moon of Alabama ..."
"... Well this surely shows that Facebook/Twitter is run through the help of US/Western intelligence ..."
"... Sorry, but, if you let any opinion on Facebook or Twitter sway your politics, you're an idiot. ..."
"... fireEye, google, yahoo, facebook and so many other tech companies are all in a few miles radius of one another in San Jose area of California ..."
"... In the battles over ideas, printing presses were often targeted for destruction so ideas could be restricted -- what's happening with Twitter and Facebook is merely an updated version of such repression. ..."
"... Blogs today represent yesterday's broadsheets, and by using social media, they can increase their exposure to a wider audience. Thus, social media represents a point-of-control for those trying to shape/frame discourse/content. They may be private companies, but they interact with public discourse and ought to be subjected to Free Speech controls like the USA's 1st Amendment. ..."
"... Very many hi-tech companies in the US are working with the CIA. Such as Oracle that has an office on the east coast of the US that keeps a very low profile inside the company. ..."
"... Robert Bridge provides us with a timely written article dealing with the issue at hand: "And if US intel is in bed with Hollywood you can be damn sure they're spending time in the MSM whorehouse as well." ..."
"... IMHO, it would be foolish to presume that the CIA would simply discontinue and to walk away from (as it claims!) a program like Operation Mockingbird. Government agencies have famously infiltrated the Quakers (ferchrissakes!). Facebook was funded and developed by a CIA front shop. Zuckerburg is a dopey kid and a frontispiece. ..."
"... The danger of course is when people start to conclude that any media site permitted by FB or SM is Sanctioned by the Propaganda department of the Ministry of Truth and ignored. ..."
"... Trump would be hailed a savior if he were to morph into President Taft and Bust the Trusts like BigLie Media, its allied telecoms and social media corps. ..."
"... As to a lack authenticity, what about the tweets from outside Egypt pushing and reporting on the "Arab Spring" protests there. We have other examples of "inauthentic" social messaging on other agendas pushed like Syria. What about "A Gay Girl in Damascus?" ..."
"... who still uses facebook? The only people i know who still are active users are senior citizens. ..."
The creation of digital content led to the re-establishment of claqueurs :
By 1830 the claque had become an institution. The manager of a theatre or opera house was
able to send an order for any number of claqueurs. These were usually under a chef de claque
(leader of applause), who judged where the efforts of the claqueurs were needed and to
initiate the demonstration of approval. This could take several forms. There would be
commissaires ("officers/commissioner") who learned the piece by heart and called the
attention of their neighbors to its good points between the acts. Rieurs (laughers) laughed
loudly at the jokes. Pleureurs (criers), generally women, feigned tears, by holding their
handkerchiefs to their eyes. Chatouilleurs (ticklers) kept the audience in a good humor,
while bisseurs (encore-ers) simply clapped and cried "Bis! Bis!" to request encores.
An alternative is to create artificial social media personas who then promote ones content.
That is what the Internet Research Agency , the Russian "troll factory" from St.
Petersburg, did. The fake personas it established on Facebook promoted IRA created
clickbait content like puppy picture pages that was then marketed
to sell advertisements .
The profit orientated social media giants do not like such third party promotions. They
prefer that people pay THEM to promote their content. Selling advertisements is Facebook's
business. Promotional accounts on its own platform are competition.
Yesterday Facebook announced that it deleted a
number of user accounts for "inauthentic behavior":
We've removed 652 Pages, groups and accounts for coordinated inauthentic behavior that
originated in Iran and targeted people across multiple internet services in the Middle East,
Latin America, UK and US. FireEye, a cybersecurity firm, gave us a tip in July about "Liberty
Front Press," a network of Facebook Pages as well as accounts on other online services.
...
We are able to link this network to Iranian state media through publicly available website
registration information, as well as the use of related IP addresses and Facebook Pages
sharing the same admins. For example, one part of the network, "Quest 4 Truth," claims to be
an independent Iranian media organization, but is in fact linked to Press TV, an
English-language news network affiliated with Iranian state media.
FireEye has identified a suspected influence operation that appears to originate from Iran
aimed at audiences in the U.S., U.K., Latin America, and the Middle East. This operation is
leveraging a network of inauthentic news sites and clusters of associated accounts across
multiple social media platforms to promote political narratives in line with Iranian
interests. These narratives include anti-Saudi, anti-Israeli, and pro-Palestinian themes, as
well as support for specific U.S. policies favorable to Iran, such as the U.S.-Iran nuclear
deal (JCPOA) .
...
Based on an investigation by FireEye Intelligence's Information Operations analysis team, we
assess with moderate confidence that this activity originates from Iranian actors.
The evidence FireEye presents is quite thin. The purpose of its inquest and report is
obviously self-promotion.
Moon of Alabama is also promoting anti-Saudi , anti-Israeli
, and pro-Palestinian themes. It
supports the JCPOA deal. This is, according to FireEye, "in line with Iranian interests".
It may well be. But does that make Moon of Alabama a "suspected influence operation"?
Is it an "inauthentic news site"?
Is the @MoonofATwitter
account showing "coordinated inauthentic behavior" when it promotes the pieces presented on
this site? We, by the way, assess with high confidence that that this activity originates from
a German actor. Is that a reason to shut it down?
Here is another high confidence tip for FireEye. There is proof, and even an admission of
guilt, that a hostile government financed broadcasting organization is creating inauthentic
Facebook accounts to disseminate disinformation. These narratives include
anti-Russian, anti-Syrian, and pro-Saudi views, as well as support for specific U.S. policies
favorable to Israel, such as its financing of the
anti-Iranian headscarf campaign .
This year the U.S. government run Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) will spend more than
$23 million for its Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB). OCB administers Radio and Television
(TV) Martí programs directed at the Cuban public. In its 2019 budget
request to Congress (pdf) the BBG admits that it creates inauthentic Facebook
accounts to increase the distribution of its dreck:
In FY 2018, OCB is establishing on island digital teams to create non-branded local Facebook
accounts to disseminate information . Native pages increase the chances of appearing on Cuban
Facebook users newsfeeds. The same strategy will be replicated on other preferred social
media networks.
How is this different from what the PressTV may have done? When will Facebook shut those
inauthentic BBG accounts down?
At the Defense One Summit last November [2016], former GEC director Michael Lumpkin [GEC,
Pentagon propaganda department] described how the Center was using the data it received as
a Facebook advertiser to maximize the effectiveness of its own targeted appeals.
"Using Facebook ads, I can go within Facebook, I can go grab an audience, I can pick
Country X, I need age group 13 to 34, I need people who have liked -- whether it's Abu Bakr
Al Baghdadi or any other set -- I can shoot and hit them directly with messaging," Lumpkin
said. He emphasized that with the right data, effective message targeting could be done for
"pennies a click."
Ironically, when I created a FB page hangout for my foreign students to disseminate topical
educational materials that were freely available as PDF links, or free 'loss-leader' lessons
from for-profits, or Khan Academy free lesson links ... in other words, organizing a
docent-guided free education feed for terribly poor 3W students ...
FB informed me that this
was an 'illegal' business activity, lol. They shut it down with *zero* warning. One moment it
was a beautiful colorful uplifting education resource, the next it was burnt to ashes. 404.
ATM, on an Anony FB page I launched to reconnect with my students, after a couple
ill-advised comments to their thread posts, discussing what's *really* going on in the world,
FB has blocked any posts that I might want to make. They just never show up when I hit enter.
Like training a bad puppy, lol. All FB lets me do is 'like' or emoji or 'wave' to my
students, so it's a semaphore that I still exist, even in FB lockup.
But I think I'll stop. It's bread-crumbing them to FBs candy-cane house and the boiling
cauldron that awaits. Frog in a Pot!
"...we assess with moderate confidence that this activity originates from Iranian actors."
Jeez, can't they at least produce a "highly likely" for us? On the intelligence community's confidence scale, "moderate" has to be just above
"wishful" and "doubtful"
One of the tricks of corporate propaganda:
Often, when exposed to capitalist propaganda, a socialist gets the impression that he can
have the best of both worlds! - the perceived benefits of capitalism as he keeps his beloved
social benefits.
It isn't until some time after the bmobing has stopped, that he realizes that he has lost
ALL his former social benefits and what he has thereafter is hard capitalism and no
money.
Well this surely shows that Facebook/Twitter is run through the help of US/Western
intelligence.
Only way is to fight back or you will eventually have fines and end up in jail for
thoughtcrimes.
This site and us here commenting is of course already targeted by these scums, besides,
sites like this will certainly be shut down sooner or later.
Remember Facebook also attacked Venezuela recently, "Why Did Facebook Purge TeleSUR English?"
TeleSUR English is a rare voice of dissent to US foreign policy. Is that why Facebook
deleted its page?
b.. thanks... your first paragraph giving context to how the public was swayed going back
close to 200 years ago was very interesting..
The usa gov't has something to sell and something to buy.. fireEye, google, yahoo,
facebook and so many other tech companies are all in a few miles radius of one another in
San Jose area of California.. If Russia was to bomb somewhere in the usa - that would be one good
place to start!
They are all selling to the usa gov't at this point... the usa devotes so
much to propaganda and these corps all try to peddle the needed tools to keep the
fearmongering going, when they're not snooping of course! hey - they can do both - snoop and
sell!!
Long ago before the Hydrocarbon Epoch, the Broadsheet was your typical newscast assembled by
the local printer who was often reporter and editor, and even in small towns there was
competition, with readers of news gathering in coffee shops to discuss their contents. The
vociferousness of many publications was extreme, but as Jefferson observed in the 1790s,
easily disproved hyperbole was far more desirable than censorship -- people were deemed capable
of determining a publication's veracity for themselves and thus their success or failure
would be determined by the marketplace of ideas.
In the battles over ideas, printing presses were often targeted for destruction so ideas
could be restricted -- what's happening with Twitter and Facebook is merely an updated version
of such repression. With the advent of the personal computer and internet, ease of publishing
exploded, which presented elites determined to control the overall discourse with a huge
problem they are still grappling with. One of the aims of the Independent Media Center on its
founding in 1999 was to turn every activist into a reporter and every computer into a
printing press with contents published collectively at regional Media Centers. Unfortunately,
after a promising first several years, the nascent movement failed and remains in dormancy,
being mostly replaced by personal blogs.
Blogs today represent yesterday's broadsheets, and by using social media, they can
increase their exposure to a wider audience. Thus, social media represents a point-of-control
for those trying to shape/frame discourse/content. They may be private companies, but they
interact with public discourse and ought to be subjected to Free Speech controls like the
USA's 1st Amendment.
Very many hi-tech companies in the US are working with the CIA. Such as Oracle that has an
office on the east coast of the US that keeps a very low profile inside the company. In fact
the first contract that launched the company was a contract with the CIA to implement the IBM
SQL standard. I shouldn't have to explain to anyone here why the CIA would use a relational
database (have to keep all those subversive secret ops in order). Similar connection to CIA
for Google, Facebook, Symantec, etc.
If you are using US software (very likely) then assume CIA and NSA back-doors. Some
solutions are to use Linux and VPNs, and Yandex for cloud storage. Get away from US
software.
Robert Bridge provides us with a timely written article dealing with the issue at hand:
"And if US intel is in bed with Hollywood you can be damn sure they're spending time in the
MSM whorehouse as well."
Sorry, should have included this in 17. As many know, Caitlin Johnstone, a Truth Seeker par
excellence, has also been censored, but prior to that
wrote this essay on the subject at hand, which is all about manufacturing consent as she
sees it:
"This is a setup. Hit the soft target so your oligarch-friendly censorship doesn't look
like what it is, then once you've manufactured consent, go on to shut down the rest of
dissenting media bit by bit."
This is a US government ordered setup supported by the evidence she presents in her intro,
but not by Trump!
IMHO, it would be foolish to presume that the CIA would simply discontinue and to walk away
from (as it claims!) a program like Operation Mockingbird.
Government agencies have famously infiltrated the Quakers (ferchrissakes!). Facebook was funded and developed by a CIA front shop. Zuckerburg is a dopey kid and a
frontispiece.
The danger of course is when people start to conclude that any media site permitted by FB or
SM is Sanctioned by the Propaganda department of the Ministry of Truth and ignored. Then
these few truthful media sites that are unbanned will need to beg these social media giants
to ban them so as to restablish credibility. FB and SM will then need to ban a few controlled
MSM sites so people will believe they are credible and read the propaganda
I guess we are not there yet, or are we? I do not use FB or other SM for news or anything else, although I do occasionally click on
links to them from a web page, but I guess a lot of people do. Maybe that will change.
The battle over Net Neutrality is related to this. Recently,
Verizon blackmailed a California fire department engaged in fighting the state's largest
ever wildfire by throttling its data feed thus threatening public safety for a Few Dollars
More.
Trump would be hailed a savior if he were to morph into President Taft and Bust the Trusts
like BigLie Media, its allied telecoms and social media corps.
Claqueurs. One of the earliest versions of the annoying "laugh track" used in television.
Like Ben 10, I learned something new today.
As to a lack authenticity, what about the tweets from outside Egypt pushing and reporting
on the "Arab Spring" protests there. We have other examples of "inauthentic" social messaging
on other agendas pushed like Syria. What about "A Gay Girl in Damascus?"
As usual, thanks for pointing out the hypocrisy of US govt/media.
Russiagate has deepened the partnership between Washington and Silicon Valley, and leftist websites are among the first
casualties.
Notable quotes:
"... America has a real problem here with accomplishing its goals – which it is obviously achieving, the silencing of legitimate dissent and the prioritization of the national-security narrative – while simultaneously advertising itself as the center of what the evildoers hate for its freedoms. ..."
"... Americans, and everyone who uses their services, are increasingly regulated in everything they do and say, extending now to what you are allowed to see and hear. Actual freedom is dwindling away to a pinpoint, and what the government wants every election cycle is more cops, more law and order and more security. ..."
TheRealNews
Published on 11 Aug 2018
From Alex Jones to alleged Russian trolls, major internet companies are increasingly policing content on their platforms. Max
Blumenthal of the Grayzone Project says the partnership between Facebook and the Atlantic Council highlights "the merger of the
national security state and Silicon Valley."
Russiagate has deepened the partnership between Washington and Silicon Valley, and leftist websites are among the first casualties.
After falsely accusing an anti-white supremacist rally event page of being a fake, Facebook shut down the page of VenezuelaAnalysis.com
for several hours without explanation. We speak to VA founder and TRNN host Greg Wilpert, as well as the Grayzone Project's Max
Blumenthal
Western "freedom" of expression in action. I find it interesting how the voices of a few heretics are supposedly some big threat
to NATzO. That would indicate that NATzO is not quite the bastion of democracy it paints itself to be. It is unstable because
it is based on lies and heretics can initiate the crashing of the facade. But if this is indeed the case, then NATzO is on its
way out since no amount of repression of dissidents will change the fundamental inconsistency of its existence.
America has a real problem here with accomplishing its goals – which it is obviously achieving, the silencing of legitimate dissent
and the prioritization of the national-security narrative – while simultaneously advertising itself as the center of what the
evildoers hate for its freedoms.
Americans, and everyone who uses their services, are increasingly regulated in everything they
do and say, extending now to what you are allowed to see and hear. Actual freedom is dwindling away to a pinpoint, and what the
government wants every election cycle is more cops, more law and order and more security.
I was surprised by the reactions (good and bad) to the column. Some readers were sarcastic.
Not having access to Google, Facebook or Twitter? "Lucky them!" wrote one Facebook user. "They
have not missed anything important!" said another.
... ... ...
In other news this week:
Li Yuan is the Asia tech columnist for The Times. She previously reported on China
technology for The Wall Street Journal. You can follow her on Twitter here:
@LiYuan6.
Zuckerberg states that Facebook will have a huge "counterterrorism" team. Any counterterrorism
team doubles as anti-dissidents team.
Notable quotes:
"... The team is comprised of 200 people, who he said are just focused on counterterrorism. Zuckerberg said content reviewers also go over flagged information. ..."
"... "I think we have capacity in 30 languages that we are working on and in addition to that, we have a number of AI tools that we are developing like the one's that I mentioned that can proactively go flag the content," he said in response to a question from Rep. Susan Brooks of Indiana. ..."
Actually there were a couple of moments in this dog and pony show where truth surfaced
;-)
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told lawmakers today that his company has a counterterrorism
team.
The team is comprised of 200 people, who he said are just focused on counterterrorism.
Zuckerberg said content reviewers also go over flagged information.
"I think we have capacity in 30 languages that we are working on and in addition to that,
we have a number of AI tools that we are developing like the one's that I mentioned that can
proactively go flag the content," he said in response to a question from Rep. Susan Brooks of
Indiana.
She asked Zuckerberg how the team stops terrorist groups from recruiting and
communicating.
He said the team first identifies those groups' patterns of communicating. They then
design systems that proactively flag the messaging, so those accounts could be removed.
The company outlined its counterterrorism approach in 2017 in a
blog post , where it
said that the team included "academic experts on counterterrorism, former prosecutors, former
law enforcement agents and analysts, and engineers."
To a certain extent Facebook success is the success of narcissism and herd mentality. There is not much of value in Facebook and
the level programming at least several years ago was really primitive (although implementation was not -- due to giant scale they faced
all king of complex problems)
In a way people who use Facebook for email are idiots. People who post all kind of personal information on their Facebook pages
are sick (ersatz collectivism at one time popular among adolescents).
Who help Zuckerberg to grow the company to this level is a very interesting question indeed. If definitely is a part of Prism like
Google, Yahoo and Hotmail?
His testimony before the Congress raises certain questions.
Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress - watch live is
very educational listering to any Facebook user. It is essentially intelligence company masking as a social site with advertizing as
the core business model.
I wrote just
one post last week and it centered around the dangers posed to society by U.S. tech giants . I specifically called out Facebook,
pointing out how company executives are currently groveling to politicians in order to prevent legislation that might deem it a monopoly
and curtail its power.
I explained how U.S. politicians prefer to use the power and reach of tech giants for their own ends rather than take them down
a notch. Politicians aren't at all concerned about the outsized influence of centralized tech behemoths engineering society using
secret algorithms, they just want to be in control of how this power is abused.
Meanwhile, today's biggest news is the uniform move by three U.S. tech giants to de-platform Alex Jones and his Infowars website.
The main companies involved are Apple, Facebook and Google (via YouTube), as reported in
The Guardian
:
All but one of the major content platforms have banned the American conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, as the companies raced
to act in the wake of Apple's decision to remove five podcasts by Jones and his Infowars website.
Facebook unpublished four pages run by Jones for "repeated violations of community standards", the company said on Monday.
YouTube terminated Jones's account over him repeatedly appearing in videos despite being subject to a 90-day ban from the website,
and Spotify removed the entirety of one of Jones's podcasts for "hate content"
Facebook's and YouTube's enforcement action against Jones came hours after
Apple removed Jones from its podcast directory. The
timing of Facebook's announcement was unusual, with the company confirming the ban at 3am local time.
Put aside what you think of Alex Jones for a moment. If they can do this to him and not fear the repercussions, they can do it
to anybody. This is about power, and these platforms together account for a massive share of content distribution in the U.S. Ultimately,
this is just a particularly muscular and in your face example of what's known as
Silicon
Valley's cultural imperialism .
I know a lot of people think the answer is to get Congress to do something, as if those monumentally corrupt donor puppets have
any interest in helping the public.
... ... ...
I'd also like to point out that Facebook's stock was up over 4% today, completely shrugging off any potential backlash from users.
Executives assume its users are all addled junkies unwilling to give up convenience and their addiction no matter what the company
does. Are they right?
Speaking of which, on the same day the move against Jones was announced we learn Facebook is in talks with mega banks to get your
financial information.
The social media giant has asked large U.S. banks to share detailed financial information about their customers, including
card transactions and checking account balances, as part of an effort to offer new services to users.
Facebook increasingly wants to be a platform where people buy and sell goods and services, besides connecting with friends.
The company over the past year asked JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc. and U.S. Bancorp to discuss potential
offerings it could host for bank customers on Facebook Messenger, said people familiar with the matter.
Facebook executives don't actually care about anything besides their profits and power, so the only way you can take any individual
action against the company is to delete your account. I haven't engaged with Facebook since 2012, so permanently deleting it wasn't
a personal sacrifice, but I did it anyway earlier today.
... ... ...
Don't wait for other people to change things for you, stop whining and take some individual responsibility. If you agree that
Facebook's primarily a nefarious narcissism-factory wasteland masquerading as a platform just delete it... before it deletes you.
* * *
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"The Facebook intervention is a qualitative escalation of the McCarthyite offensive."
Facebook has assumed additional political police powers, disrupting a planned counter-demonstration against white
supremacists, set for August 12th in Washington, on the grounds that it was initiated and inspired by "Russians" as part of
a Kremlin campaign to "sow dissention" in the US. The Facebook intervention is a qualitative escalation of the McCarthyite
offensive launched by the Democrat Party and elements of the national security state, and backed by most of the corporate
media, initially to blame Hillary Clinton's 2016 defeat on "collusion" between Wikileaks, "the Russians" and the Trump
campaign to steal and publicize embarrassing Clinton campaign emails.
After failing to produce one shred of hard evidence to support their conspiracy theory, the anti-Russia hysteria mongers
switched gears, focusing on the alleged purchase of about $100,000 in Facebook ads by the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a
St. Petersburg-based Russian company, over a multi-year period. The problem was, most of the ads had no direct connection
to the presidential contest, or were posted after the election was over, and many had no political content, at all. The
messages were all over the place, politically, with the alleged Russian operatives posing as Christian activists, pro- and
anti-immigration activists, and supporters of the Black Lives Matter Movement. Special prosecutor Robert Mueller was forced
to flip the script,
indicting 13 Russians
for promoting general "discord" and undermining "public confidence in democracy" in the United
States – thus creating a political crime that has not previously been codified in the United States.
"Mueller was forced to flip the script."
In doubling down on an unraveling conspiracy tale, the Mueller probe empowered itself to tar and feather all controversial
speech that can be associated with utterances by "Russians," even if the alleged "Russians" are, in fact, mimicking the
normal speech of left- or right-wing Americans -- a descent, not into Orwell's world, but that of Kafka (Beyond the Law)
and Heller (Catch-22).
Facebook this week announced that it had taken down 32 pages and accounts that had engaged in "coordinated and inauthentic
behavior" in promoting the August 12 counter-demonstration against the same white supremacists that staged the fatal "Unite
the Right" demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia, a year ago. Hundreds of anti-racists had indicated their intention
to rally against "Unite the Right 2.0" under the banner of Shut It Down DC, which includes D.C. Antifascist Collective,
Black Lives Matter D.C., Hoods4Justice, Resist This, and other local groups.
Facebook did not contend that these anti-racists' behavior was "inauthentic," but that the first ad for the event was
purchased by a group calling itself "Resisters" that Facebook believes were behaving much like the Internet Research
Agency. "At this point in our investigation, we do not have enough technical evidence to state definitively who is behind
it," said Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook's
head of cybersecurity policy
. "But we can say that these accounts engaged in some similar activity and have connected
with known I.R.A accounts."
"The Mueller probe empowered itself to tar and feather all controversial speech that can be associated with
utterances by 'Russians,' even if the alleged 'Russians' are, in fact, mimicking the normal speech of left- or right-wing
Americans."
Chelsea Manning, whose prison sentence for sending secret documents to Wikileaks was commuted by President Obama, said the
counter-protest was "organic and authentic"and that activists had begun organizing several months ago. "Folks from D.C. and
Charlottesville have been talking about this since at least February,"
Manning told
The New York Times.
"This was a legitimate Facebook event that was being organized by Washington, DC locals," says
Dylan
Petrohilos
, of Resist This. Petrohilos was one of the defendants in the Trump inauguration "riot" prosecutions. He
protested Facebook's disruption of legitimate free speech and assembly. "DC organizers had controlled the messaging on the
no UTR fb page and now FB made it harder for grassroots people to organize," he tweeted. The organizers insist the August
12 counter-demonstration -- "No Unite the Right 2 – DC" -- is still a go, as is the white supremacist rally.
Whoever was first to buy a Facebook ad – the suspected Russian "Resisters," or Workers Against Racism, who told the Daily
Beast they decided to host their own anti-"Unite the Right 2.0" event because they thought "Resisters" was an
"inexperienced liberal organizer" – there was no doubt whatsoever that the white supremacists would be confronted by much
larger numbers of counter-demonstrators, in Washington. Nobody in Russia needed to tell US anti-racists to shut the white
supremacists down, or vice versa. The Russians didn't invent American white supremacy, or the native opposition to it. Even
if Mueller, Facebook, the Democratic Party and the howling corporate media mob are to be believed, the "Russians" are
simply mimicking US political rhetoric and sloganeering – and weakly, at that. The Workers Against Racism thought the
"Resisters" weren't worth partnering with, but that the racist rally must be countered. The Shut It Down DC coalition
didn't need the "Resisters" to crystallize their thinking on white supremacism.
"Chelsea Manning said the counter-protest was 'organic and authentic."
The Democratic Party and corporate media, speaking for most of the US ruling class – and actually bullying one of its top
oligarchs, Mark Zuckerberg – is on its own bizarre and twisted road to fascism. (Donald Trump's proto-fascism is the old
fashioned, all-American type that the white supremacists want to celebrate on August 12.) With former FBI Director Robert
Mueller at the head of the pack, they have created a pseudo legal doctrine whereby "Russians" (or US spooks pretending to
be Russians) can be indicted for launching a #MeToo campaign of mimicry, echoing the rhetoric and memes indigenous to US
political struggles, while the genuine, "authentic" American political voices – the people who are being mimicked – are
labeled co-conspirators in a foreign-based "plot," and their rights to speech and assembly are trashed.
That's truly crazy, but devilishly clever, too. If "Russian" mimics (or cloaked spooks) can reproduce the vocabulary and
political program of US dissent, then all of us actual US lefties can be dismissed as "dupes of the Russians" or
"co-conspirators" in the speech crimes of our mimics -- for sounding like ourselves.
"... Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy ..."
"... The War and Peace Report ..."
"... Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy ..."
"... Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy ..."
"... If you want to organize a protest out of the eyes of the government, the worst thing you can do is use Facebook or Twitter in that effort, right? ..."
"... Look, any police department, any state security service anywhere in the world that doesn't infiltrate protest groups or, you know, activist groups that way is foolish, right? It's so easy. Facebook makes surveillance so easy. ..."
"... It's great for motivating people to get into the street, but don't be surprised if there are a couple guys with crew cuts in the crowd with you. ..."
...We speak with Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of "Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects
Us and Undermines Democracy." He is a professor of media studies and director of the Center for
Media and Citizenship at the University of Virginia.
AMY GOODMAN : Facebook has been at the
center of a number of controversies in the United States and abroad. Earlier this year,
Facebook removed more than 270 accounts it determined to be created by the Russia-controlled
Internet Research Agency. Facebook made that move in early April, just days before founder and
CEO Mark Zuckeberg was question on Capitol Hill about how the voter-profiling company Cambridge
Analytica harvested data from more than 87 million Facebook users without their permission in
efforts to sway voters to support President Donald Trump. Zuckerberg repeatedly apologized for
his company's actions then.
MARK ZUCKERBERG : We didn't take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a
big mistake. And it was my mistake, and I'm sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I'm
responsible for what happens here.
AMY GOODMAN : Today we spend the hour with a leading critic of Facebook, Siva Vaidhyanathan,
author of Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy .
He's professor of media studies and director of the Center for Media and Citizenship at the
University of Virginia. We're speaking to him in Charlottesville.
Professor, welcome to Democracy Now!
SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN : Oh, thanks. It's good to be here.
AMY GOODMAN : Well, let's begin with this latest news. There are hearings today that the
Senate Intelligence Committee is holding, and yesterday Facebook removed these -- well, a bunch
of pages, saying they don't know if it's Russian trolls, but they think they are inauthentic.
Talk about these pages, what they mean, what research is being done and your concerns.
... ... ...
SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN : Yeah. Look, Cambridge Analytica was a great story, right? It finally
brought to public attention the fact that for more than five years Facebook had encouraged
application developers to get maximal access to Facebook data, to personal data and activity,
not just from the people who volunteered to be watched by these app developers, but all of
their friends -- right? -- which nobody really understood except Facebook itself and the
application developers. So, thousands of application developers got almost full access to
millions of Facebook users for five years. This was basic Facebook policy. This line was lost
in the storm over Cambridge Analytica.
...You know, Steve Bannon helped run the company for a while. It's paid for by Robert
Mercer, you know, one of the more evil hedge fund managers in the United States. You know, it
had worked for Cruz, for Ted Cruz's campaign, and then for the Brexit campaign and also for
Donald Trump's campaign in 2016. So it's really easy to look at Cambridge Analytica and think
of it as this dramatic story, this one-off. But the fact is, Cambridge Analytica is kind of a
joke. It didn't actually accomplish anything. It pushed this weird psychometric model for voter
behavior prediction, which no one believes works.
And the fact is, the Trump campaign, the Ted Cruz campaign, and, before that, the Duterte
campaign in the Philippines, the Modi campaign in India, they all used Facebook itself to
target voters, either to persuade them to vote or dissuade them from voting. Right? This was
the basic campaign, because the Facebook advertising platform allows you to target people quite
precisely, in groups as small as 20. You can base it on ethnicity and on gender, on interest,
on education level, on ZIP code or other location markers. You can base it on people who are
interested in certain hobbies, who read certain kinds of books, who have certain professional
backgrounds. You can slice and dice an audience so precisely. It's the reason that Facebook
makes as much money as it does, because if you're selling shoes, you would be a fool not to buy
an ad on Facebook, right? And that's drawing all of this money away from commercially based
media and journalism. At the same time, it's enriching Facebook. But political actors have
figured out how to use this quite deftly.
AMY GOODMAN : "Every Breath You Take" by The
Police. This is Democracy Now! , democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report .
We're spending the hour with professor Siva Vaidhyanathan, who is author of Antisocial
Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy . He's speaking to us from
Charlottesville, from the University of Virginia, professor of media studies and head of the
Center for Media and Citizenship at UVA . Your book, Antisocial Media: How Facebook
Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy .
I want to go back to the beginning of this interview, where we talked about Facebook taking
down more than 30 pages, saying that they are not authentic. We immediately got responses from
all over saying the protest against the Unite the Right rally in Washington, D.C., in August,
around the anniversary of the attacks at your university, University of Virginia, are real.
These protests against Unite the Right are real. So, this goes to a very important issue,
Professor, that you now have Facebook, this corporation, deciding what we see and what we don't
see. It's almost as if they run the telephone company and they're listening to what we say and
deciding what to edit, even if some of the stuff is absolutely heinous that people are talking
to each other about -- the idea of this multinational corporation becoming the publisher and
seen as that and determining what gets out. So, yes, there's a protest against Unite the Right.
That is very real. They've taken down one page, that might not have been real, organizing the
protest against Unite the Right. And the Unite the Right rally is supposed to be happening.
What, for example, would happen if there was a protest against Facebook, Siva?
SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN : Yeah, you can't use Facebook to protest against Facebook, by the way.
You can't even use Facebook to advertise a book about Facebook, for actually one --
AMY GOODMAN : What do you mean?
SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN : Well, they will not allow a group or a page or an advertisement to
contain the word "Facebook." And it's not just to insulate themselves from criticism. That is a
nice bonus for them. But it's really because they don't want any sort of implication that the
company itself is endorsing any group or page or product. So, the use of the word -- look, the
only way Facebook operates is algorithmically, right? It has machines make very blunt
decisions. So the very presence of the word "Facebook" will knock a group down or knock a page
down. And so you can't use Facebook to criticize Facebook, not very effectively.
AMY GOODMAN : So what about your book, which has the word "Facebook" in it?
SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN : Right. I can't -- I can't buy ads on Facebook about it. But that's OK.
I think I'll do OK.
... ... ...
But in addition, Facebook has the ability to get hijacked, because what it promotes mostly
are items that generate strong emotions. What generates strong emotions? Well, content that is
cute or lovely, like puppies and baby goats, but also content that is extreme, content that is
angry, content that is hateful, content that feeds conspiracy theories. And this hateful, angry
conspiracy theory collection doesn't just spread because people like it. In fact, it, more
often than not, spreads because people have problems with it. If I were to post some wacky
conspiracy theory on my Facebook page today, nine out of 10 of the comments that would follow
it would be friends of mine arguing against me, telling me how stupid I was for posting this.
The very act of commenting on that post amplifies its reach, puts it on more people's news
feeds, makes it last longer, sit higher. Right? So the very act of arguing against the crazy
amplifies the crazy. It's one of the reasons that Facebook is a terrible place to deliberate
about the world. It's a really effective place if you want to motivate people toward all sorts
of ends, like getting out to a rally. But it's terrible if you actually want to think and
discuss and deliberate about the problems in the world. And what the world needs now more than
anything are more opportunities to deliberate calmly and effectively and with real information.
And Facebook is working completely against that goal.
by around 2002, Google figured out how to target ads quite effectively based on the search
terms that you had used. By about 2007, Facebook was starting to build ads into its platform,
as well. And because it had so much more rich information on our interests and our connections
and our habits, and even, once we put Facebook on our mobile phones, our location -- it could
trace us to whatever store we went into, whatever church or synagogue or mosque we went into;
it could know everything about us -- at that point, targeting ads became incredibly efficient
and effective. That's what drove the massive revenues for both Facebook and Google. That's why
Facebook and Google have all the advertising money these days, right? It's why the traditional
public sphere is so impoverished, why it's so hard to pay reporters a living wage these days,
because Facebook and Google is taking all that money -- are taking all that money, because they
developed something better than the display ad of a newspaper or magazine, frankly. But there
was just no holding back on that. As a result, once Facebook goes big, once Twitter emerges
around 2009, you start seeing --
... ... ...
Right now, there are 220 million Americans who regularly use Facebook. That's
pretty flat. But there are 250 million people in India who regularly use Facebook, so more than
in the United States. And that's only a quarter of the population of India. So, not only is the
future of Facebook in India, the present of Facebook is in India. So let's keep that in mind.
This is a global phenomenon. The United States matters less and less every day.
Yet the United States Congress has inordinate power over Facebook. The fact that its
headquarters is here, for one thing. The fact that the major stock markets of the world pay
strong attention to what goes on in our country, right? So we have the ability, if we cared to,
to break up Facebook. We would have to revive an older vision of antitrust, one that takes the
overall health of the body politic seriously, not just the price to consumers seriously. But we
could and should break up Facebook. We never should have -- excuse me -- allowed Facebook to
purchase WhatsApp. We should never have allowed Facebook to purchase Instagram. Those are two
of the potential competitors to Facebook. If those two companies existed separately from
Facebook and the data were not shared among the user files with Facebook, there might be a
chance that market forces could curb the excesses of Facebook. That didn't happen. We really
should sever those parts. We should also sever the virtual reality project of Facebook, which
is called Oculus Rift. Virtual reality has the potential to work its way into all sorts of
areas of life, from pilot training to surgeon training to pornography. In all of these ways --
to shopping -- right? -- to tourism. In all of these ways, we should be very concerned that
Facebook itself is likely to control all of the data about one of the more successful and
leading virtual reality companies in the world. That's a problem. Again, we should spin that
off. But we should also limit what Facebook can do with its data. We should have strong data
protection laws in this country, in Canada, in Australia, in Brazil, in India, to allow users
to know when their data is being used and misused and sold.
Those are necessary but, I'm afraid, insufficient legislative and regulatory interventions.
Ultimately, we are going to have to put Facebook in its place and in a box. We are going to
have to recognize, first of all, that Facebook brings real value to people around the world.
Right? There are not 2.2 billion fools using Facebook. There are 2.2 billion people using
Facebook because it brings something of value to their lives, often those puppy pictures or
news of a cousin's kid graduating from high school, right? Those are important things. They are
not to be dismissed. There are also places in the world where Facebook is the entire media
system, or at least the entire internet, places like sub-Saharan Africa, places like Myanmar,
places like Sri Lanka, and increasingly in India, Facebook is everything. And we can't dismiss
that, as well. And so, we are -- AMY GOODMAN : Well, I mean, the government works with
Facebook. For example, you talk about --
SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN : Absolutely.
AMY GOODMAN : -- Myanmar, Burma. It's more expensive to get internet on your phone if you're
trying to access a site outside of Facebook.
SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN : That's right.
AMY GOODMAN : It's free to use Facebook services on your phone.
SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN : Right, Facebook -- use of Facebook does not count against your data cap
in Myanmar and in about 40 other countries around the world, the poorest countries in the
world. So, the poorest places in the world are becoming Facebook-dependent at a rapid rate.
This was -- Facebook put this plan forward as a philanthropic arm. And one could look at it
cynically and say, "Well, you were just trying to build Facebook customers." But the people who
run Facebook are true believers that the more people use Facebook for more hours a day, the
better humanity will be. I think we've shown otherwise. I know my book shows otherwise. And I
think we've built -- we've allowed Facebook to build this terrible monster that is taking great
advantage of the people who are most vulnerable. And it's one reason I think we should pay less
attention to what's going on.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, but, Professor Vaidhyanathan, I think also, though, the
importance of your book is that while you concentrate on Facebook, you make the point over and
over again that it's not just Facebook. I think in the conclusion to your book -- I want to
read a section where you talk about technopoly. And you say, "Between Google and Facebook we
have witnessed a global concentration of wealth and power not seen since the British and Dutch
East India Companies ruled vast territories, millions of people, and the most valuable trade
routes." And then you go on to say, "Like the East India Companies, they excuse their zeal and
umbrage around the world by appealing to the missionary spirit: they are, after all, making the
world better, right? They did all this by inviting us in, tricking us into allowing them to
make us their means to wealth and power, distilling our activities and identities into data,
and launching a major ideological movement" -- what Neil Postman, the famous NYU critic, called
technopoly. And then you go on to say, "'Technopoly is a state of culture. It is also a state
of mind. It consists of the deification of technology, which means that the culture seeks its
authorization in technology, finds its satisfactions in technology, and takes its orders from
technology.'" You could say this about Uber, about Airbnb, about all these folks that are
saying that data and technology will save the world.
SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN : That's right. It's a false religion. And what we really need is to
rehumanize ourselves. That is the long, hard work. So, I can propose a few regulatory
interventions, and they would make a difference, but not enough of a difference. Fundamentally,
we have to break ourselves out of this habit of techno-fundamentalism -- trying to come up with
a technological solution to make up for the damage done by the previous technology. It's a very
bad habit. It doesn't get us anywhere. If we really want to limit the damage that Facebook has
done, we have to invest our time and our money in institutions that help us think, that help us
think clearly, that can certify truth, that can host debate -- right? -- institutions like
journalism, institutions like universities, public libraries, schools, other forms of public
forums, town halls. We need to put our time and our energy into face-to-face politics, so we
can look our opponents in the eye and recognize them as humans, and perhaps achieve some sort
of rapprochement or mutual understanding and respect. Without that, we have no hope. If we're
engaging with people only through the smallest of screens, we have no ability to recognize the
humanity in each other and no ability to think clearly. We cannot think collectively. We cannot
think truthfully. We can't think. We need to build -- rebuild, if we ever had it, our ability
to think. That's ultimately the takeaway of my book. I hope we can figure out better, richer
ways to think. We're not getting rid of Facebook. We're going to be with it -- we're going to
have it for a long time. We might even learn to use it better, and we might rein it in a little
better. But, ultimately, the big job is to train ourselves to think better.
AMY GOODMAN : So, Siva, let me ask you about WeChat in China. I mean, WeChat is everything
there. It's Yelp, PayPal, Google, Instagram, Facebook, all rolled into one. You write, "With
almost a billion users, WeChat has infused itself into their lives in ways Facebook wishes it
could."
... ... ...
SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN : The other part of their long-term strategy is, Mark
Zuckerberg wants to get into the Chinese market. That is the one place in the world where he
can't do business effectively. He would love to take on WeChat directly. But here's the big
difference. WeChat, like every other application or software platform in the People's Republic
of China answers to the People's Republic of China. There is constant, full surveillance by the
government. WeChat cannot operate without that. Facebook seems to be willing to negotiate on
that point. If Facebook became more like WeChat, it's very likely that around the world it
would have to cut very strong agreements with governments around the world that would allow for
maybe not Chinese level of surveillance, but certainly a dangerous level of surveillance and
licensing. And so, again, we might not sweat that in the United States or in Western Europe,
where we still have some basic civil liberties -- at least most of us do -- but people in
Turkey, people in Egypt, people in India should be very worried about that trend.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: What about the issue, that's been much publicized, of the role of
Facebook and Twitter and other social media in protest movements, in dissident movements around
the world, whether it's in Egypt during the Tahrir Square protests or other parts of the
world?
SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN : I think one of the great tragedies of this story is that we were misled
into thinking that social media played a direct and motivating role in the uprisings in 2011.
In fact, almost nobody in Egypt used Twitter at the time. The handful of people who did were
cosmopolitans who lived in Cairo. And what they did, they used Twitter to inform the rest of
the world, especially journalists, what was going on in Egypt. That was an important function,
but it wasn't used to organize protests. Neither was Facebook, really, for the simple reason
that the government watches Facebook, right? The government watches Twitter. If you want to
organize a protest out of the eyes of the government, the worst thing you can do is use
Facebook or Twitter in that effort, right? In addition, when we think about the Arab
Spring, the alleged Arab Spring, we often focus on --
... ... ...
AMY GOODMAN : The Guardianreports
today, quote, "A trove of documents released by the city of Memphis late last week appear to
show that its police department has been systematically using fake social media profiles to
surveil local Black Lives Matter activists, and that it kept dossiers and detailed power point
presentations on dozens of Memphis-area activists along with lists of their known associates."
The report reveals a fake Memphis Police Department Facebook profile named "Bob Smith" was used
to join private groups and pose as an activist. We have just 30 seconds, Siva.
SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN : Yeah. Look, any police department, any state security service
anywhere in the world that doesn't infiltrate protest groups or, you know, activist groups that
way is foolish, right? It's so easy. Facebook makes surveillance so easy.
My friends who do activism, especially human rights activism, in parts of the world that are
authoritarian, the first thing they tell people is get off of Facebook. Use other services to
coordinate your activities. Right? Use analog services and technologies. Right? Facebook is the
worst possible way to stay out of the gaze of the state. It's great for motivating people
to get into the street, but don't be surprised if there are a couple guys with crew cuts in the
crowd with you.
The New York Times and Washington Post this week published reports of a
private meeting last month between eight major technology and social media corporations and the
US intelligence agencies, to discuss their censorship operations in the lead-up to the November
2018 mid-term elections.
The meeting was convened at Facebook's Menlo Park, California, headquarters on May 23, and
was attended by representatives from Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Snap, Twitter and Oath,
owner of Yahoo! and a subsidiary of the telecommunications giant Verizon, along with agents
from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.
The Post described the meeting, organized at the request of Facebook, as a "new
overture by the technology industry to develop closer ties to law enforcement." Both articles
were based on anonymous statements by individuals who attended. One attendee told the
Post that the conversation was a "back-and-forth, with both sides talking about how
they were thinking about the problem and how we were looking for opportunities to work
together."
The meeting is yet another testament to the increasing integration of the technology giants
with the US military/intelligence apparatus. These companies, which provide a growing share of
the technical infrastructure for the repressive apparatus of the state, increasingly see the
censorship of left-wing, anti-war, and progressive viewpoints as an integral part of their
business strategy.
Facebook is hoping that a new alliance with the Atlantic Council -- a leading geopolitical
strategy think-tank seen as a de facto PR agency for the U.S. government and NATO military
alliance – will not only solve its "fake news" and "disinformation" controversy, but will
also help the social media monolith play "a positive role" in ensuring democracy on a global
level.
The new partnership will effectively ensure that Atlantic Council will serve as Facebook's
"eyes and ears," according to a company press statement. With its leadership comprised of
retired military officers, former policymakers, and top figures from the U.S. National Security
State and Western business elites, the Atlantic Council's role policing the social network
should be viewed as a virtual takeover of Facebook by the imperialist state and the council's
extensive list of ultra-wealthy and corporate donors.
The partnership is only the latest in a steady stream of announced plans by the Menlo Park,
California-based company to address controversy surrounding its role in the 2016 U.S.
presidential election. The company has been mired in scandal stemming from the allegations of
"election interference" carried out through the social network – usually pinned on the
Russian government and ranging from the use of independent media to the theft of Facebook user
data by political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica.
The announcement should sound alarm bells when one considers the Atlantic Council's list of
sponsors – including, but not limited to, war-profiteering defense contractors; agencies
aligned with Washington and the Pentagon; Gulf Arab tyrants; major transnational corporations;
and such well-loved Western philanthropic brands as Carnegie, Koch, Rockefeller, and Soros.
Even the name of the group itself is meant to evoke the North Atlantic Council, the highest
political decision-making body of North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Full report: https://www.mintpressnews.com/facebook-partners-hawkish-atlantic-council-nato-lobby-group-protect-democracy/242289/
Lambert here: Readers will notice that Auerback seems to assume that Cambridge
Analytica's shenanigans with Facebook data shifted votes in 2016 (as do the links to which he
cites)*. His post summarizes the political and analytical state of play, but may be usefully
read in conjunction with
this 2017 post at NC by Marina Bart, who cautioned :
There is no question that modern social media facilitates highly segmented marketing.
There is no question that political campaigns can benefit from this. Figuring out who might
be receptive to your candidate and their policies, where they vote, and motivating them to go
to the polls is fundamental campaign work. But that is not at all the same thing as
manipulating people into voting against their interests, which is presumably what is feared
(and possibly secretly hoped for) by the fretful Democrats. There is no evidence Cambridge
Analytica did any psychological manipulations for Trump.
I'm not saying it's impossible for Big Data highly segmented psychological manipulation to
ever work. But it isn't happening now; there's no evidence it will work in the near future;
there are many, many obstacles to overcome; and there are two very basic reasons why it
cannot be the secret weapon I suspect the Democrats long for.
The most basic one is that voting is not the same as buying stuff . There is no
direct connection between casting a vote and getting anything in return, not even the
momentary pleasure of buying a candy bar.
(In other words, the current Cambridge Analytical scare is based on a category error.) Of
course, from a Wall Street "beauty contest" perspective, what Facebook can actually do may
matter less than what people think it can do. From my own perspective, I don't want Facebook's
filthy data-gathering proboscis nuzzling my personal affairs at all , regardless of
any effect it may have, and that goes for Google, too. Whether I'm an outlier in my revulsion
remains to be seen.
NOTE * Indeed, were evidence for this assumption to exist, one would assume it would already
have been produced. If it has been, I've missed it, and I do try to keep track.
Cambridge Analytica's systematic harvesting of Facebook user preferences to create detailed
models of voter emotions appears to have played a significant role in the election of Donald
Trump and the victory of the "Brexiters" on the referendum on whether the United Kingdom should
leave the European Union or not. There is shock and anxiety
at the revelations about how a few right-wing ideologues were able to exploit Facebook's
database and then use it to justify populist campaigns fronted by publicity hounds of dubious
moral and financial principles (Donald Trump, Steve Bannon and Nigel Farage immediately spring
to mind).
Whether the Facebook fiasco conclusively proves either Russian involvement in the 2016
election (or the UK's Brexit referendum), or simply highlights the violation of campaign
finance laws, is yet to be determined. But what is certainly beyond dispute from the apparently
unauthorized use of Facebook's database
of some 50 million users is that longstanding Madison Avenue advertising techniques worked
equally well when applied to majority voting instead of employee practices or consumer
spending. One possible outcome is that centralized repositories like Facebook -- or Google, or
Amazon -- could become a ripe target for regulation and/or anti-trust action. Another
possibility is that the voluntary participation on which Facebook is built will collapse
spontaneously via consumer rejection.
In one sense, there is nothing new in what Facebook and Cambridge Analytica have done. Way
back in 1957, author Vance Packard's The
Hidden Persuaders described
how :
"Large-scale efforts are being made, often with impressive success, to channel our
unthinking habits, our purchasing decisions, and our thought processes by the use of insights
gleaned from psychiatry and the social sciences. Typically these efforts take place beneath
our level of awareness, so that the appeals which move us are often, in a sense,
'hidden.'"
But in a world in which we have all become reliant on the internet for our information, our
searches and declared preferences are constantly recorded. Therefore an uncanny amount about us
can be learned in a manner that is far more centralized and prone to manipulation than
traditional forms of advertising. A wave of shrinkage in traditional advertising firms has
correspondingly occurred as the robotic, targeted advertising has become the new norm, largely
because it is both cheaper and more effective.
Facebook in particular is a social media way of harnessing interpersonal linkages through
the net. Its model must be using those links and the information they generate to create value
for advertisers. Any user of Facebook (or Amazon) can easily see how fast browsers insert ads
related to one's most recent searches. So it becomes manifestly clear that these companies are
tracking us for common advertising purposes.
Politics has always looked into the underlying motivations of voters to manage them. But
using the data as documented
by the Guardian , this went to a new level of political detail in 2016 that fueled the
faster cycle of hard-hitting Trump campaigning. Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter, etc., have
all become huge aggregators of this information. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's recent
apologies notwithstanding , the companies are either being naïve in proclaiming shock
that their data can be misused or, more likely, have been so obsessed with building market
share and watching their company market caps explode into the hundreds of billions of dollars
that they willfully ignored the scope for abuse. Either way, the information seems to have
reached a threshold of importance where governments will step in and disrupt the existing mode,
especially now that the full power of this database has been recognized and exploited by a
successful political candidate, whether via regulation or antitrust measures. Otherwise, the
demands will rise for Facebook to give the data to all, because it cannot guarantee that it has
been erased everywhere, which has disturbing implications for our privacy (as well as
threatening to destroy Facebook's business model, the success of which is predicated on the
exclusive use of the data aggregated from the user base).
However much someone like Brian Acton, who was made a billionaire courtesy of Facebook's
purchase of his company, might like others to embrace his #DeleteFacebook campaign, that
appears problematic, given how successfully the use of Facebook's model operated in the
political context. But there is growing international political momentum to strip the "
social network " and its
targeted advertising model of much of its abilities to record and use customer data. Former
President Barack Obama hinted at
this at a recent speech at MIT :
"I do think the large platforms -- Google and Facebook being the most obvious, Twitter and
others as well, are part of that ecosystem -- have to have a conversation about their
business model that recognizes they are a public good as well as a commercial enterprise.
They're not just an invisible platform, they're shaping our culture in powerful ways."
Obama did not explicitly state what he had in mind for these companies, but he did
suggest
that at a minimum, "the government should have 'rules of the road' to create a level playing
field." Even if users find they can't do without their daily Facebook fix, Google search, or
Amazon shopping spree, the former president is right. A price will be paid as these companies'
activities are increasingly scrutinized.
There are defenses that have been mounted in favor of an unregulated market for Big Data,
notably by People Analytics, an organization run by Alex Pentland and his colleagues at MIT's
Media Lab.
Pentland feels the very centralized nature of the aggregated data is what makes these
companies such excellent research targets:
"With the advent of big data and machine learning, researchers actually have enough data
and sufficient mathematical tools to build predictive mathematical models. If you talk to
other people and see what they are doing, you can improve your own performance, and as you
talk to more and more people, you continue to do better and better."
What is not to like? Better decision-making, higher productivity, more efficient
communication networks: It looks like a win-win all around. Of course, it was under the guise
of research that Cambridge Analytica allegedly got the Facebook data in the first place. It can
be used as cover for less benign purposes.
Going further, Pentland cleverly invokes a "New Deal on
Data" that allows for the "rebalancing of the ownership of data in favor of the individual
whose data is collected. People would have the same rights they now have over their physical
bodies and their money."
In theory, this allows the individual discretion as to how much he/she will share with
corporations and government regulators. Pentland goes on to suggest that, "the economy will be
healthier if the relationship between companies and consumers is more respectful, more
balanced. I think that's much more sustainable and will prevent disasters."
Pentland's optimism sounds somewhat naïve in the wake of Edward Snowden's revelations,
as well as the current Facebook controversy. Of course, anything that further legitimizes this
intrusion on our privacy will be welcomed by these entities. How much do we, the owners of our
own personal data, actually control it? As far as the government goes, not much, Snowden's revelations (or
those of WikiLeaks) illustrated. And surely the current Facebook and Cambridge Analytica
imbroglio undercuts this benign picture that Pentland describes of a happy, informed consumer
who autonomously shares his data with various companies, with a view toward building a more
"balanced" relationship.
On the contrary, the Facebook fiasco highlights that there exists a thoroughly unequal
partnership between the aggregators of information and the information owners, making abuse
almost inevitable. Indeed, it is highly doubtful that most consumers and users are even aware
of the extent to which their habits, thoughts, and overall private space are monitored by these
companies (to say nothing of the more obvious government and law enforcement agencies, even if
we're not terrorists).
In general, the notion of a level playing field of information or data that the market can
freely and efficiently price has been debunked successfully by Nobel Laureates George Akerlof
and Joseph Stiglitz. Both have challenged the " efficient market hypothesis ,"
which holds that market prices or odds reflect all known information, mitigating the need for
intrusive government intervention/regulation. If information asymmetry exists, the obvious
implication is that there is a need for some form of overriding regulation to rectify this
imbalance. This would also seem to apply to Pentland's New Deal on Data.
Edward Snowden has made us question whether the data and corresponding privacy can be
adequately safeguarded from more scrutiny by governments. The more relevant question from the
point of view of, say, Silicon Valley and its high tech moguls is whether governments will move
more aggressively to control the aggregators themselves, and whether the revelations of their
abuses will provoke a backlash, which will impact their companies' growth and
profitability.
Already, as Reuters reported, "
Nordea, the Nordic region's biggest bank, will not let its sustainable funds buy more Facebook
shares for the time being." The European Union
has fined Facebook €110m "for 'incorrect or misleading' information regarding data
sharing between Facebook and WhatsApp" (even though Facebook acquired the latter). And the EU
has also proposed that "companies with significant digital revenues in Europe will pay a 3
percent tax on their turnover on various online services in the European Union," legislation
that will cover Facebook (as well as Amazon and Google). Although the tax doesn't actually
address the issue of the database abuse itself, the Cambridge Analytica scandal has dissipated
valuable political capital for these companies, which will make it harder for them to stop
these attacks on their business model and underlying profitability.
Indeed, the focus on taxing turnover, as opposed to profits, is telling, because sales
records are far more difficult to doctor and conceal via accounting subterfuge than profits. In
effect, this is tantamount to the EU stating to these tech giants, "Don't even think about
making a transfer payment to Ireland and leaving yourself with an operating loss in our
jurisdiction so you can pay no tax."
As the Brexit referendum illustrates, the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal itself
goes well beyond the U.S. Consequently, we can expect an attack on all fronts -- the U.S., the
EU, and likely Asia as well. At this point it is too early to judge if this will have any
impact on the ongoing Mueller investigation, but the economic implications already seem
evident. The U.S. equity boom has been partly in reaction to deregulation in banking and
elsewhere. The tech industry has largely escaped any kind of regulatory or antitrust scrutiny
and has benefited accordingly. As Edward Harrison of the site Credit Writedowns
has observed :
"Some of the best performing stocks in the US are the large Internet-centric technology
stocks like Facebook. There is even an acronym, FANG, to describe Facebook, Amazon, Netflix
and Google. Add Apple and, together, these five stocks account for one quarter of the
Nasdaq's total market capitalization. They are huge. And Facebook's data breach represents a
threat to them."
Could it be that public indignation at the Facebook profile harvesting scandal will lead to
new regulation that could impede the value of some tech-based advertising models? Will it lead
to a consumer backlash that slows the growth of the companies themselves? Certainly, it is
easier to attack a wealthy and powerful company, if and when it becomes Public Enemy #1, even
though many of these politicos will find themselves attacking the instruments of their own
political success (or fundraising sources). Facebook or Google would no doubt argue that their
platforms are just a facilitation of the communities inherent in the internet and that they
have benefited by exploiting first mover advantage . But a
centralized, monopolistic exploitation of these interpersonal links is inviting public
intervention, especially as the technology can also survive on a distributed, competitive
basis. In the eyes of many, these companies are unlikely to escape the opprobrium of helping to
allow the Trump disaster to descend upon us. Overseas, they could well be scapegoated if the
British economy falters as a result of leaving the European Union. On a broader scale, this
scandal may well destroy any last vestiges of "techno-optimism," seeing how it has highlighted
the misuses of technology and the human damage it can continue to inflict on us far more
profoundly than ever before.
Maybe it did expand my audience. I have no idea. About the only proven use I found was being
able to get on Tinder to get laid, as you cannot have a Tinder account without a Facebook
account. Thereafter I called it Fuckbook.
Facebook's problems are just getting worse, and now investors can add worker morale to the (bucket)
list of problems as the
New York Times
reports that employees furious over a
leaked 2016 memo
from a top executive seeking to justify the company's relentless growth and
"questionable" data harvesting - even if it led to terrorists attacks organized on the platform.
VP Andrew "Boz" Bosworth - one of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's most trusted executives, wrote that
connecting people is the greater good even if it "
costs someone a life
by exposing
someone to bullies.
"Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools."
On Friday, the fallout from Bosworth's leaked memo - following several weeks of outrage over the
company's data harvesting practices,
has Facebook employees in an uproar
, according to
The
Times
.
According to two Facebook employees,
workers have been calling on internal message boards
for a hunt to find those who leak to the media
. Some have questioned whether Facebook has
been transparent enough with its users and with journalists, said the employees, who asked not to be
identified for fear of retaliation.
Many are also concerned over what might leak next and are
deleting old comments or messages that might come across as controversial or newsworthy
, they
said. -
NYT
One former Facebook employee, Alex Muffett, wrote on Twitter that Bosworth's memo was a "significant"
part of his decision to leave the company.
"Between overwork and leadership direction evidenced thusly, I could never stay,"
wrote Muffett.
"There are some amazing engineers working at Facebook, folks who care deeply about user privacy,
security, and how people will use the code that they write," Mr. Muffett said later in a message. "Alas
this episode may not help" to achieve more transparent internal product discussion, he said.
Buzzfeed article suppressed?
Following Buzzfeed's Thursday's publication of the "growth at any cost" leak, BuzzFeed reporter Ryan
Mac suggested Facebook was censoring the article - tweeting "Interesting that only about 14k views (about
2% of total) for our story have come through Facebook referrals. Facebook's users should be aware of
this, so feel free to share it on Facebook."
When
Vox
's Matthew Yglesias chimed in to corroborate Mac's observation, Facebook head of news
feed Adam Mosseri chimed in to say that the social media giant "
100% do not take any action on
stories for being critical of us.
"
Mark Zuckerberg responded to Bosworth's letter in a statement essentially disavowing the Boz, while
also noting that Facebook
changed their entire corporate focus
to connect people
and
"bring
them together"...
Boz is a talented leader who says many provocative things. This was one that most people at
Facebook including myself disagreed with strongly.
We've never believed the ends justify the
means
.
We recognize that connecting people isn't enough by itself. We also need to work to bring people
closer together.
We changed our whole mission and company focus to reflect this last year
.
Meanwhile, Facebook is rapidly becoming radioactive, inside and out.
The question is when will investors - and especially hedge funds, for whom FB was the second most
popular stock as of Dec. 31 - agree, and do what Mark Zuckerberg has
been aggressively doing in recent weeks
: dump it.
This is not a coordinated and concerted effort by Facebook execs to 'grow' the
company at any and all costs because stock options must be vested 'in the
money' and obscene amounts of 'compensation' are their god given right.
Nope, this is the work of a lone wolf exec VP who was drunk on power and out
of control.
<Well, it works for the CIA to explain away their latest domestic
terrorism operation or Presidential assassination attempt.>
Today Mark Zuckerberg announced the official name change of
FaceBook to GoëbbelsBook.
"Today marks the official change of our corporate name from
FaceBook to GoëbbelsBook in honor of the German NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische
Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) Reich Minister of Propaganda
(1933-1945) Dr. Joseph Goëbbels (29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945).
Dr. Goëbbels revolutionary and visionary dream was that of the
total surveillance state. We have successfully implemented his
concept of the total surveillance state."
"When a client downloads the GoëbbelsBook application it
vacuums up everything from their computer and mobile devices.
It gobbles up everything they write, all their contacts, their
"likes"; in short every action they perform. The application
also digitizes all telephone conversations for upload. The
application then uploads everything to our corporate servers.
We then upload all user data to the "Five Eyes" Gestapo (Geheime
Staatspolizei) agencies that are our true original investors
and beneficial owners."
"It is truly a proud day for me and all of my servants here
at GoëbbelsBook that we have implemented the revolutionary
total surveillance state vision of Dr. Joseph Goëbbels. I'm
sure that he would be justifiably proud of our accomplishment."
It's a little more complex than just Gramma giving
up some data that she volunteers via a form. It's
sucking in everything that a user does or says and
selling that...everything. Same as Google.
In
many cases you will find people who weren't aware
that FB was selling user data, it's not really
clear, unless you read the TOS fine print it's not
clear. Even in the fine print what they do is
obscured by the way they write it.
If the announcement of what they do with the
data was in big bold letters at the top of FB every
time you logged in the participation would be
different.
This is one reason that although I've got a FB
account I've never provided anything more than the
de minimus information to have that account, and I
don't spend much if any time on it. It's been weeks
since I've logged in to FB.
You may be enjoying the mockery of FB users, but
your line of argument ignores reality.
FB users
indeed knew that the company was "selling
something": advertising. Advertising in the form
of "sponsored posts," newsfeed videos,
solicitations to "like" an advertiser's page,
notifications that someone in your network had
liked an advertiser's page, and on and on and on.
Every user viewed such advertising while using the
service.
And indeed, selling targeted advertising is the
dominant business model for providers of free
content, messaging, email, webhosting, and a host
of other internet services. It is exactly what a
reasonable person would expect FB to be doing,
based on its public disclosures and statements to
the business community, and consistent with privacy
laws. Even educated users would not expect the
company to be selling its user data to third
parties, let alone to government three-letter
agencies. No one would expect the phone app to
illegally log or record phone and message data for
communications outside the app.
Jumanji, I live in heart of silicon valley and the goobook
employees are so self important and associate working for the
goobook surveillance tracking digtal advertising monopolies as
a virtuous thing.
Let's call goobook what they are a
surveillance tracking company that doesn't share any of the
profits from your data with the owner: you.
My solution to these corporate pricks is to cut off their
oxygen: digtal advertising and refuse to let them monetize me
and others promoting using adblocking on mobile.
My solution is for everybody to immediately download brave
browser or equivalent adblocker solution (depending on your
tech knowledge).
Brave blocks advertising malware and tracking by DEFAULT on
any device and operating system rendering digital advertising
model useless.
Whoever controls the browser controls the money.
I use YouTube daily but run it out of brave browser. Zero
ads and you can listen with screen off or while browsing other
content.
We can destroy the value of digtal advertising by mass
adoption of brave browser.
What is digtal advertising worth if ads can't be sent,
viewed or tracked?
Let's take down the goobook surveillance tracking censorship
monopolies. Install brave or equivalent mobile adblocker
immediately.
I created a fake FB account, then 'deleted' it when FB demanded
I prove who I wasn't.
LOL
Does anyone wonder why FB only wants 'real' accounts? Data
mining is so much more profitable when you can assure the
purchaser the 'data' are grade A number one bleeders/spenders.
Which ties in nicely with the US demanding social media account details
with visa applications. You haven't said whether your work is us government
based, but it would be pleasingly ironic if it were.
I'm still confused
by that, actually: allegedly the NSA has all data, from everywhere, so why
ask for the visa applicant's data? Is it too hard to connect physical and
digital people, or are they just seeing if you will admit to your online
indiscretions?
14 day waiting period on facebook account deletes.
Some years ago I created a
facebook account and then deleted it. Deleting it was not easy. When I did the
final delete, it stated that all my data would be deleted, and would not be
recoverable ever. I was also told I would have to **not** log into my account for
14 days after which everything would be gone. If I did log in during that period
the account delete would not occur.
It has been some years and I still live in fear that if I was to "check" if my
account still exists by attempting to log into it I will get a "Welcome back"
message.
I suppose there are worse things. The account could be active and "owned" by
someone else.
The CIA put way too much time, money and effort into Facebook to just
let it fade away. Hell no, they will double down and figure out a way
to keep the concern going, if under a different guise.
But but but...they are listening! They even reformatted so their victims can moar
easily delete private information themselves instead of having to dig
down through twenty two screens to find it!
And Fuckerberg has a mansion. In
Hawaii. With a wall. Because he cares!
They even reformatted so their victims can moar easily delete
private information themselves.....
The funniest part of your comment is the fact people will actually believe
their information was 'deleted' because they push a button that said doing so
would delete the information.
Riiiiiight. And I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale that you can get for a
steal.
"people will actually believe their information was 'deleted' "
Well,
aside from birth and school records, most data will become 'stale' and
worthless to advertisers and agencies. I suspect that your 'old' data will
eventually become 'archived' in a storage array somewhere, essentially,
statistically more worthless as time goes by. Perhaps, adding to a
historical perspective on some future Documentary, about the collapse of
Facebook.
Info on your birth, school, medical, jobs, driving record ... the
authorities already have all that. Facebook is essentially worthless, other
than as a phone book with pictures.
It's amazing that FB employees were THIS NAIVE about what was going on in that
company, thinking it was just about "connecting people." Anyone on the street
with half a brain could see what was going on. Grow up and see the world for
what it is, people.
I think it is more "being ignorant". To me, being naive implies being "an
innocent". These people are hard core coders, computer scientists, network
engineers, etc. What they do is figure out how to do outrageously complex
technical things, and they are very successful at it. Like most scientists
and engineers however, they never stop to ask "should we be doing these
things". They stand on the shoulders of the scientist and engineers who
came before them and continue to progress the state of their art, but never
consider the ethics. I see it all the time at work. Can we develop this
new thing? Sure. Should we develop this new thing? That's not my problem
- management wants this new thing. They are no different than the guards
at a concentration camp herding people to the ovens. I was only following
orders.
Alphabet (the parent company of Google) spent the most as a company on
Lobbying. Facebook's spend on lobbying increased 5500% since 2009. They spent
most lobbying on changes to data privacy.
Have Zuckerberg and the rest of the asseclowns over there realized how
fuccked they really are? It is only a matter of time before class action and
individual lawsuits are filed not only against Facebook (fuck that) but them
personally, for intentionally and willfully creating a data mining operation
disguised as a social network. They will get sued for every penny they have
and will be lucky if they don't end up doing time.
The people who use this tripe are addicts, and like all addicts need rehab.
They couldn't say how many articles are in the US Constitution yet practically
know what Oprah eats for breakfast - and it ain't a Weight Watchers diet!
I got into the dotcom world in 97 got out in '11. Worked for a bunch of big
and small dotcoms. They are all so badly run its hard to describe. rampant
greed zero morality.. The VCs just want their 100:1 return. VCs are idiots.
some are just stupid many are just illegal accounting fraud capitalizing
expenses accelerating revenue recognition over stating audience. People
forget that Fb has already had a bunch of exposed numbers "mistakes". Hope it
goes to zero.
From an evolutionary standpoint, humans are extemely adapted to hiding
feelings, thoughts, plans, motivations, and intentions. This has enabled our
survival for millenia. Our ears don't move toward what or who we're listening
to, and we don't have tails or bristling fur or feathers that would display
our emotions. Facebook causes us to post all this stuff, then takes ownership
and uses it to make a profit any way they can. Social media is not something
that we are adapted to, and we're getting stomped on by the companies that
engineer it.
To me, what is really sad about this whole story is that there is nobody at
Facebook - now or previously - who doesn't know that their company makes its
money by harvesting data and selling it to anyone with a few bucks in their
hand. I believe these employees are all lying when they deny this plain fact.
I believe the same to be true of Google, but of course, Google at least has
never denied it, like Facebook is trying to do now that someone in the MSM has
bothered to report about it.
Anyone here ever work with chickens...the henhouse/chicken analogy is often
used with the facebook...when you walk into the henhouse sometimes the hens
they aren't expecting visitors and they get all fussy and show their agitation
through clucking and squawking and fussing about...but then after a few
moments they go back to what they were doing as if nothing ever happened. That
about what is going on here. Facebook users and employees will go back to work
for their owners in a few more days and it will have been all forgotten.
Since most users of Facebook are gossiping women and deeply closeted
homosexuals, I don't see this having a material impact on user growth. It may
even suck more of them in.
According to Thomas Paine, all the Facebook, Amazon, Google and Tesla are
products of the DOD and are losing their hidden government support. That is
the real reason that people like Zuckerberg and Soros are divesting.
People will forget about any Facebook scandal after another scandal surfaces
elsewhere in 3, 2, 1 and....... There goes the school of ADHD zombie fish-head
people onto another hook, the scandal of the next week. The next scandal will
hit the top of the pond and sink, and the fish-head school of people-fish will
swim over to it and stare at the scandal to see if it moves. People are
grotesquely simple minded.
fb will not recover from massive spying vs people will once again log on to
say something snarky, see another picture of their neighbor's cat and above
all else get a "like". OMG I'm important!
Soros has billions to funnel
through the resistance that is fb for the furtherance of his global agenda.
They may be down, but certainly not out.
So now the FB employees finally see what the bloodsucking Vampire
Zuckerberg and Frankenstein Bosworth really are: the enemy of the people.
Time for a mass revolt, pitchforks and torches to burn down the platform.
The Facebook Wall photograph is Photoshoped. While everyone else has
written in freehand in chalk, the "Maybe someone dies!?". "Why We Spy So
Much?" and "WTF?" posts are set in perfect computer type.
Facebook is a
monster of deceit. Why does this article need to lie with Photoshopped
photographs? If Facebook thinks we're rubes and yokels, so does this
article.
"We've never believed the ends justify the means
." ~
Zuckerfucker
Bull-EFFIN-Shit.
The Liberal Credo is
"THE ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS"
I can't tell you how many Liberals I've asked this very question and they
will flat out tell you that if you have to throw babies into a branch
chipper to get what you want,
YOU DO IT
. Lefties/Communists have
always believed in mass murder to get what they want - so - spying on a few
million people certainly doesn't give the pause.
"... Like Google, Facebook is ambiguous in its privacy policies as to how it will share information with third parties. A former CIA officer, speaking anonymously, confirmed the CIA's interest in Facebook as an intelligence and communications tool, noting that the agency's use of Facebook for operations is "classified." ..."
"... Christopher Ketcham is a freelance writer. You can write him at [email protected] or see more of his work at christopherketcham.com . ..."
Users with at least half a brain have long known that Facebook exploits their privacy and was probably from the start a vehicle
for full-blown surveillance by our spy agencies. I certainly suspected the latter. In 2009, I wrote up a pitch for an investigative
piece about Google, Facebook and their connections to the CIA. I published a piece in Counterpunch about the Google angle, but was
never able to report out fully what I suspected about Facebook. In the pitch, I wrote:
If personal data could be collected in more concentrated, focused form, with the additional advantage of efficiently collating
social networks, complete with personal photos, habits, activities and itineraries freely provided in a centralized system by
the users themselves well, that would be Facebook. The intelligence services' hand in Facebook is not direct, but publicly available
records suggest that venture capital was pumped into Facebook from investment firms whose board members cross-pollinate with a
company called In-Q-Tel.
Founded in 1999 to research and invest in new digital technologies focused on intelligence gathering, In-Q-Tel was part of
the push for the privatization of national security operations that would become endemic under the Bush Administration. Some $25
million in seed money during Google's start-up in 1999 arrived in part from the equity firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers,
which works with In-Q-Tel to develop spy technology. In-Q-Tel-funded companies produced the eye-in-the-sky image database that
would become Google Earth. In mid-2005, In-Q-Tel's former director of technology assessment, Rob Painter, joined Google as "senior
federal manager," further cementing Google's bond with the intelligence community.
Like Google, Facebook is ambiguous in its privacy policies as to how it will share information with third parties. A former
CIA officer, speaking anonymously, confirmed the CIA's interest in Facebook as an intelligence and communications tool, noting
that the agency's use of Facebook for operations is "classified." The former CIA officer only went so far as to suggest the
CIA may be using the site for communications. "It's a perfect place to hide communications," says the former CIA officer. "You
don't need secret, expensive satellite systems anymore when you can hide in plain sight with millions of idiots sending photos
and inane messages to each other." When pressed on the subject, the source reiterated: "How it's employed by [the CIA] is classified,
and you shouldn't write about it." The Facebook angle for the proposed piece will require further reporting. What's widely known
is that the CIA has been using Facebook since 2006 as a recruiting tool for the clandestine services, which marks the first time
the CIA has employed online social networking for the hiring of personnel.
Ah, but denial is a powerful drug, one that produces amnesia, and I soon forgot my own reporting and marched as a guinea pig into
the Facebook surveillance system. We now know exactly how Facebook shares information with third parties.
Deleting my account, I join an exodus that requires no explanation given the Cambridge Analytica disclosures. Hopefully this is
the start of a movement that will drive the company's stock price down where we'll find greasy Mark Zuckerberg begging for a quarter
on the corner. Perhaps sooner, someone skilled with demolitions and with access inside the company can blow up the Facebook servers,
and we can be done with this menace altogether. More articles by:
Christopher Ketcham
Those companies are way too connected with intelligence agencies (some of then are
essentially an extension of intelligence agencies) and as such they will be saved in any case.
That means that chances that it will be dot com bubble burst No.2 exist. but how high they are is
unclear.
Trump is after Amazon, Congress is after Facebook, and Apple and Google have their problems
too. Should the world's top tech firms be worried?
rump is going after Amazon; Congress is after Facebook; Google is too big, and Apple is
short of new products. Is it any surprise that sentiment toward the tech industry giants is
turning sour? The consequences of such a readjustment, however, may be dire.
Trump lashes out at Amazon and sends stocks tumbling
Read more
The past two weeks have been difficult for the tech sector by every measure. Tech stocks
have largely driven the year's stock market decline, the largest quarterly drop since 2015.
Facebook saw more than $50bn shaved off its value after the Observer revealed that Cambridge
Analytica had harvested millions of people's user data for political profiling. Now users are
deleting accounts, and regulators may seek to limit how the company monetizes data, threatening
Facebook's business model.
On Monday, the Federal Trade Commission confirmed it was investigating the company's data
practices. Additionally, Facebook said it would send a top executive to London to appear in
front of UK lawmakers, but it would not send the chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, who is
increasingly seen as isolated and aloof.
Shares of Facebook have declined more than 17% from the close on Friday 16 March to the
close on Thursday before the Easter break.
Amazon, meanwhile, long the target of President Trump's ire, saw more than $30bn, or 5%,
shaved off its $693bn market capitalization after it was reported that the president was
"obsessed" with the company and that he "wondered aloud if there may be any way to go after
Amazon with antitrust or competition law".
Shares of Apple, and Google's parent company Alphabet, are also down, dropping on concerns
that tech firms now face tighter regulation across the board.
For Apple, there's an additional concern that following poor sales of its $1,000 iPhone X.
For Google, there's the prospect not only of tighter regulation on how it sells user date to
advertisers, but also the fear of losing an important Android software patent case with the
Oracle.
Big tech's critics may be forgiven a moment of schadenfreude. But for shareholders and
pension plans, the tarnishing of tech could have serious consequences.
Apple, Amazon and Alphabet make up 10% of the S&P 500 with a combined market
capitalization market cap of $2.3tn. Add Microsoft and Facebook, with a combined market value
of $1.1tn, and the big five make up 15% of the index.
Overall, technology makes up 25% of the S&P. If tech pops, the thinking goes, so pops
the market.
"We're one week into a sell-off after a multi-year run-up," says Eric Kuby of North Star
Investment Management. "The big picture is that over the past five years a group of mega cap
tech stocks like Nvidia, Netflix, Facebook have gone up anywhere from 260% to 1,800%."
The post office is a service for citizens. It operates at a loss. Being able to send a letter
across the country in two days for fifty cents is a service our government provides. Amazon
is abusing that service. It's whole business model requires government support.
Amazon's spending power is garnered simply from its massively overalued stock price. If that
falls, down goes Amazon. Facebook is entirely dependent on the postive opinion of active
users. If users stop using, down goes Facebook's stock price, and so goes the company. It's
extremely fragile. Apple has a short product cycle. If people lose interest in its newest
versions, its stock price can tank in one year or so. Google and Microsoft seem quite solid,
but are likely overvalued. (Tesla will most likwly go bankrupt, along with many others.) If
these stocks continue to lose value, rwtirement funds will get scary, and we could enter
recession again almost immediately. Since companies such as Amazon have already degraded the
eatablished infrastructure of the economy, there may be no actual recovery. We will need to
change drastically in some way. It seems that thw wheels are already turning, and this is
where we are going now - with Trump as our leader.
'Deutsche Bank analyst Lloyd Walmsley said: "We do not think attacking Amazon will be
popular."'
Lloyd Walmsley hasn't spent much time in Seattle, apparently. The activities of Amazon and
Google (but especially Amazon) have all contributed to traffic problems, rising rents and
property prices, and gentrification (among other things) that are all making Seattle a less
affordable, less attractive place to live. That's why Amazon is looking to establish a
'second headquarters' in another city: they've upset too many people here to be able to
expand further in this area without at least encountering significant resistance. People here
used to refer to Microsoft as 'the evil empire'; now we use it to refer to Amazon. And when
it comes to their original business, books, I and most people I know actively avoid buying
from Amazon, choosing instead to shop at the area's many independent book stores.
Dear Guardian,
why do you still sport the FB, Twitter, Google+, Instagramm, Pinterest etc. buttons below
every single article? Why do you have to do their dirty work? I don't do that on my webpages,
you don't need to do neither. Please stop it.
Not being a Trump supporter, however there is a lot of sense in some of the comments coming
from Trump,. Whether he carries through with them , is another subject.
His comment on Amazon:- " Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state or local
governments, use our postal system as their delivery boy (causing tremendous loss to the US)
and putting many thousands of retailers out of business."
Who can argue against that? Furthermore, the retailers would have paid some
tax!
Talk about elephants in the room. What about the elephants who were let out of the room
to run amuck ? Should it not have been the case of being wise before the event , rather than
after the event?
A quasi-battle of the billionaires. With Bezos, there's the immediate political element in
Bezos' ownership of the clearly anti-Trump Washington Post, which has gone so far as to
become lax in editorial oversight (eg, misspelling and even occasional incomplete articles
published in an obvious rush to be first to trash POTUS), but there are other issues.
Amazon's impact on physical retail is well-documented, and not so long ago (ie, before Trump
"attacked" Amazon"), it was sometimes lamented by those on the American left, and Trump is
correct in that critique, provided one believes it is valid in the first place. Amazon does
have a lot of data on its customers, including immense expenditure information on huge
numbers of people. What kinds of constraints are there in place to protect this data, aside
from lawyer-enriching class action suits? Beyond that, there's also online defense
procurement, worth hundreds of billions in revenue to Amazon in the years to come, that was
included in the modified NDAA last year. Maybe that is on Trump's mind, maybe not, but it
should probably be on everyone's mind. Maybe the Sherman Antitrust Act needs to be
reinvigorated. It would seem that even Trump's foes should be willing to admit that he gets
some things right, but that now seems unacceptable. I mean, look at the almost knee-jerk
defense of NAFTA, which way back when used to be criticized by Democrats and unions, but now
must be lionized.
If Amazon can get cheaper shipping than anyone else and enable manufactuers to sell direct,
they can sell more than anyone else as long as consumers only buy according to total price.
This means two things. One, all retailers as well as distributors may be put out of business.
Two, the success of Amazon may rely almost entirely on shipping costs. American consumers
also will need to forego the shopping experience, but if they may do so if they're sarisfied
with remaining in their residences, workplaces, and cars most of the time. This is the case
in many places. People visit Starbucks drive thrus and eat and drink in their cars. If Amazon
owns the food stores such as Whole Foods and Starbucks, it's a done deal. Except for one
thing. If this happens, the economy will collapse. That may have already happened. Bezos is
no rocket scientist.
Facebook's dirty tricks have been exposed, they will never completely regain the trust of
users.
Alternatives are set to cannibalize the social media model, pioneered by Facebook.
Costs of security features, auditing information, and loss of ad revenue will make
Facebook less profitable.
Finally, Facebook ( FB )
has been exposed for the fraud that it is. There has never been such an inflated market cap
based on nothingness, just hype. Steve Jobs successfully hyped up Apple ( AAPL ) but unlike Fakebook, Apple actually
makes products, and they have a huge following. Here we will elaborate on several key points
that we've been saying for years, but now maybe the market is listening:
Facebook ( FB ) has a
weak underlying business model. Users do not like to see advertisements therefore management
will be driven to measures such as grey hat (or even black hat) methods to obtain data and
use data in ways in conflict with users.
Facebook ( FB ) is
ultimately and primarily a tool of the intelligence agencies (primarily but not exclusively
the CIA) and furthers a larger agenda as part of the DOD's "Information Awareness" program,
more than it is a hot business model.
There are thousands of social media networks , in fact Ning offers users a platform to create their own social network.
The only thing unique about Facebook ( FB ) is that it is the most used and trusted
network, but that all is hanging on the thin thread of users trust, which has now completely
evaporated.
Mark Zuckerberg is an unethical tricky leader that cannot change , he is detached from
reality, has no vision, no understanding of what his customers want, and perhaps most
importantly; stole Facebook ( FB ) from Winkelvoss .
Facebook became spammy in 2010 , the amount of bot manipulation is highly under-reported.
Fake accounts are bought and sold in a black market, software is sold that can create fake
accounts by the hundreds, thousands.
Based on the above, we believe the real value of Facebook ( FB ) is about $10 - $20 per share. Let's use the
'toplist' format as promoted by Facebook ( FB ) itself:
So if this trend continues - what should investors do? Sell , that's for starters. Contact
an attorney who knows Securities if you are a shareholder. That's the good news. Finally,
unless you like being tracked in your every move, delete your Facebook ( FB ) account. Because that's the only real
remedy. You can't block Zuck:
Remember one thing, Facebook ( FB ) users - you use FB with your consent. This author
deleted FB years ago, as have millions of others. If you really like the idea of social network
there are hundreds of others. Or set one up yourself for sharing family photos with Grandma.
JomSocial can turn any Joomla site into a
social media site.
The point here is investors that this is the beginning of a crap storm that has been brewing
for years but it didn't metastasize until now.
Facebook is going to zero. If you're long get out now before it drops further. There's
nothing supporting the stock except hopers and hot air.
One last thing, Fake News started on Facebook ( FB ) see articles here ,
here , and
here
. Since the Trump election there has been a backlash on 'Fake News' sites, which Facebook is #1
. It's a platform for Fake News!
News existed before Fakebook and will continue to exist. Facebook is to the internet was the
Laser Disc was to the home movie industry. It's outdated, it's bloated, it's hype - there's
nothing there. Move on, drones. Nothing to see here.
CIA-Facebook sucks. But this is not news. FB is service. The web has changed a great deal since it started. It was always
overpriced and overhyped but this is not at all unique. It reflects more on how pathetic, misguided and sick most the average neoliberal
"consumer" is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYFz1am9OO4
As long as there are attention whores, there will be some type of facebook
As long as there are attention whores, there will be some type of facebook. I tried it for a while until my page was hijacked
and someone put a picture of some black girl naked with a big booty under a waterfall as my profile photo. No shit, this really
happened. I went from 13 friends to hundreds of friend requests overnight.
People were emailing my wife and asking her if we split up or something. Now I am glad I quit that shit. To some people it
is like crack. My neighbor used to post pictures of himself pulling worms out of his garden or when he was in yoga class. I wanted
to tell him that no one really gives a fuck.
In response to the Facebook data harvesting scandal, Mozilla has launched an
extension for its Firefox Browser
which
helps you segregate your web activity from Facebook's prying eyes by isolating your identity into a separate "container." This makes
it far more difficult for Facebook to track your activity on other websites using third-party cookies.
Upon installation, the extension deletes your Facebook cookies and logs you out of Facebook. The next time you visit the social
media giant, it will open in a special blue browser "container" tab - which you can use to safely log in to Facebook and use it like
you normally would. If you then click on a link that takes you outside of Facebook, it will load outside of the container.
Should you click on any Facebook Share buttons on other browser tabs it will load them within the Facebook container. You should
know that when you're using these buttons information will be sent to Facebook about the website that you shared from .
If you use your Facebook credentials to create an account or log in using your Facebook credentials, it may not work properly
and you may not be able to login. Also, because you're logged into Facebook in the container tab, embedded Facebook comments and
Like buttons in tabs outside the Facebook container tab will not work. This prevents Facebook from associating information about
your activity on websites outside of Facebook to your Facebook identity. So it may look different than what you are used to seeing.
-
Mozilla.org
Think of it as a condom for Facebook.
Mozilla notes that it "does not collect data from your use of the Facebook Container extension," adding "We only know the
number of times the extension is installed or removed."
One Reddit user asks "why not just make every tab an isolated container? "There should be NO REASON for one tab to know or read
what another tab (aka cookies) are doing from another domain," states
/u/Pro2U
Lo and behold, the Mozilla programmer who created the extension popped into the thread and answered the question:
So there you have it - if you don't want Facebook harvesting most of your data and tracking you around the web, strap on the
Firefox extension and go to town.
In Firefox Options - Privacy section you can setup to
delete cookies and clear history at every browser exit.
Same with Internet explorer. Not sure about Chrome.
You can also accept or deny third party cookies.
Ghostery is a must, especially for ZH
C Cleaner is a nice utility for getting rid of excess crap.
In 1994, Wired magazine ran a short story entitled "Hack the spew" . This was back when Wired was
actually cutting edge and not the insufferable Silicon
Valley stroke job it became after Conde Naste acquired it. In it our antihero "Stark" finds
himself inexplicably recruited as a kind of data scout, looking for viable consumer trends
emerging from the fully immersive, all encompassing data field known as "The Spew".
"When a schmo buys something on the I-way it goes into his Profile, and if it happens to
be something that he recently saw advertised there, we call that interesting, and when he
uses the I-way to phone his friends and family, we Profile Auditors can navigate his social
web out to a gazillion fractal iterations, the friends of his friends of his friends of his
friends, what they buy and what they watch and if there's a correlation."
The Spew of course, was the near future analogy of where the internet was headed, and when I
went looking to link to it for this post, the piece turned out to be written by none other than
Neal Stephenson. That means I read "Hack The Spew" and it made an impression on me before I
even knew who Stephenson was or perhaps was on his way to becoming. Few would argue that
Stephenson has a gift for seeing the general ambience of our oncoming future. Cryptonomicon uncannily anticipated the impetus
toward crypto-currencies; the current systemic dysfunction of national sovereignty worldwide
was foretold in Snow Crash; so it follows
that all this will likely culminate in something that resembles The Diamond Age .
Today, "The Spew" is not equivalent to the Internet itself, but it is more accurately
analogous to say the social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, especially when combined
with the twin monopolies of Google and Amazon, collectively are: The Spew.
It is like a global garbage pile of digital flotsam and jetsam, over which peasants scurry
around and scour, looking for some morsel here, a crumb there, which can be monetized. If a
trend or a trait is detected, even better. Those can be aggregated, syndicated, federated, even
rehypothecated and at scale that can yield staggering financial payoffs and perhaps, even steer
the course the history.
At least that's the narrative since the Cambridge Analytica scandal blew up in Facebook's
face. After a long string of successive privacy fails (a.k.a a pattern of abuse?) this time
feels different, as if the chickens are finally coming home to roost for
Facebook.
Cambridge Analytica is not uniqueEver heard of Kareem Serageldin?
Probably not.
To date, he is the only banker to
have been sent to prison in connection with the 2008–2009 Global Financial Crisis for
his role in issuing fraudulent mortgage-backed securities (at least outside of
Iceland ). To be sure, he was a fall guy, a token sacrifice to demonstrate contrition for
what was a systemic, institutionalized effort to inflate a bubble whose implosion nearly
crashed the entire global financial system.
In this case while Facebook attempted to throw water on this crisis by ceremonially
banishing Cambridge Analytica from its system, the longstanding pattern of abuse remains, and
is perhaps now, finally, awareness of that is reaching critical mass with the public:
And while there were
key differences in the way data was used , (not to mention more informed consent) the
2012 Obama re-election campaign used the same data mining features and accessed the same data
as the Cambridge Analytica app
In fact it may be veritably baked into their ecosystem to such a degree that it is almost
impossible to develop and create an app on Facebook
that doesn't harvest your data
"At this point, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's pattern on privacy is clear. Launch new
stuff that pushes the boundaries of what people consider comfortable. Apologize and assure
users that they control their information, but rarely pull back entirely, and usually
reintroduce similar features at a later date when people seem more ready for it."
It becomes clear, as Futurist (and easyDNS member) Jesse Hirsh made this point on
Steve Pakin's "The Agenda" over the weekend: "Facebook ships with all privacy enhanced
settings disabled" -- further, my personal findings are that they use obfuscation
to make it harder to disable data sharing settings. You have to jump through hoops to do
it.
WhatsApp founder Brian Acton, who became a billionaire when Facebook bought his company
hasn't let that dissuade him from telling the world what he thinks of all this:
Should you? Should easyDNS? Here's my take on it:
If you are a business: keep your
page but don't be reliant on it
There is a difference between a business who uses Facebook as an antennae to provide
additional ways to stay in touch with customers and those whose business model is completely
dependent on Facebook. We started our Facebook page when we were pulled into the
Wikileaks Crisis as a way to stay in touch with our customers while that entire fiasco
played out. We maintain it today for the same reason, and people do frequently contact us
through that page looking for support.
You have to credit the guy with dominating his niche but I couldn't help wondering what
would happen to his business if something substantial changed at Facebook, or if some of his
readers would feel "used" if they understood some of the myriad tactics some of these sites
routinely use, via Facebook, to drive their own affiliate revenues.
It brings to mind 2 things:
My late friend and one of the original easyDNS customers Atul Chitnis who was among the first to
observe "if you're not paying for the product, you are the product"
My own maxim, which I introduced in the
Guerrilla Capitalism Overview that there are two kinds of companies, those that feed on
customer ignorance compared to those who prosper via customer savvy . I think it is obvious
to all, at least now, that Facebook needs customer ignorance to survive.
(Or as Zuck eloquently observed it back in his dormroom days)
YMMV on your personal
pages
I read a long time ago "don't put anything on the internet that you wouldn't want to read in
the newspapers the next day", and that has served me well as a guide over the years.
My basic assumption is that everything I post to Facebook, including "private" messages are
wide open, being harvested, data mined, aggregated, used to target and retarget ads to me,
build a profile and otherwise compile a comprehensive dossier, even stuff I've "deleted". (If
you've ever watched "Terms and Conditions May
Apply" you'll know that Facebook actually keeps the stuff you "delete").
So I never say anything on Facebook or put anything on there that is remotely confidential
or proprietary. It's strictly a water cooler. I like it because it enabled me to reconnect with
various groups of my friends and peers over the years, from the kids I grew up and went to high
school with in Galt, Ontario to the misfits from the London underground music scene in college,
to the tech entrepreneurs from the mid-90's on.
Would I use it to send anything to anybody that I found myself hoping that it's never going
to leak or be used against me? Uh, no. That would be terribly naive.
So to that end, I'll probably keep my personal Facebook page, even though I sometimes catch
myself spending too much time arguing stupid pointless crap (like politics) with people I'd
otherwise never associate with. But that's a self-discipline issue, not a data soveriengty
issue (although it is
now also common knowledg e that Facebook deliberately codes the platform itself to be as
addictive as possible)
All that said
At least #deleteFacebook from your mobile devices
Facebook harvests your contact lists from your mobile devices (don't believe me, go here )
There are people in that list that I do not know. There are phone numbers from people who work
for my competitors in there. My daughter's (age 11) cell phone number is in there.
You can "delete" all this here : (but as you know Facebook never
actually deletes anything).
Then when you go to "delete" all your contacts you get a message
"We won't be able to tell you when your friends start using Messenger if you delete all
your uploaded contact info."
They say that like it's a bad thing. But there is also this curious sentence:
"If you have Continuous Uploading turned on in the Messenger app, your contact info will
be uploaded again the next time the app syncs with Facebook servers."
I had deleted the Facebook mobile app from my phone a long time ago. I kept messenger
installed because sometimes customers would contact easyDNS or Zoneedit via our Facebook pages
for support.
But Writing this I wanted to turn off "continuous uploading" in the app. Despite this Facebook help article
not explaining how to do it, while this third party
article from 2016 did.
It turned out I had already disabled continuous uploading but I was surprised to find that
the messenger app had defaulted permission to access my phone's microphone.
After this exercise I simply deleted the Messenger app from my phone as well.
Personal
Data Sovereignty is an idea who's time has come
I think it would be safe to assume, that barring some widespread public pushback (such as
the one happening right now), this is The New Normal.
People who may have been complacently oblivious to the fact that their social network was
pimping them as mere data points are realizing that they don't like it as they have their faces
rubbed in one data breach and privacy violation after another.
Given the outrages of Equifax, Facebook et al, we may have arrived at the crossroads and we
may only get this choice once.
Do we push back and say "NO", I own my own data, I control who gets it and what happens with
it. ?
Or, do we calm down after a few days, or weeks and then it's business as usual. Next year
Zuck will apologize for some other new breach of trust ahead of his 2020 presidential bid,
while us "shmoes" go ahead and vote for him.
Doesn't the entity we fear most already have access to all our data? Who is it that we
think we are hiding anything from? Just don't be stupid and put any new sensitive info out
there, anywhere, if you don't have to... but worrying about the info the the govt already has
on you? What would be the point?
"... Much of what Cambridge Analytica claimed to be able to do for its clients has an exaggerated ring to it. As with the Steele dossier, several of the Cambridge Analytica documents are unintentionally funny, such as a letter from Aleksandr Kogan, the Russian-American academic researcher, suggesting that finding out if people used crossbows or believed in paganism would be useful traits on which to focus. ..."
"... What is lacking in these scandals is much real evidence that Russian "meddling" or Cambridge Analytica "harvesting" – supposing all these tales are true – really did much to determine the outcome of the US election. Keep in mind that many very astute and experienced American politicians, backed by billions of dollars, regularly try and fail to decide who will hold political office in the US. ..."
Many people who hate and fear Donald Trump feel that only political
black magic or some form of trickery can explain his election as US President. They convince
themselves that we are the victims of a dark conspiracy rather than that the world we live in
is changing, and changing for the worse.
Cambridge
Analytica has now joined Russia at the top of a list of conspirators who may have helped
Trump defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016. This is satisfactory for Democrats as it shows that they
ought to have won, and delegitimises Trump's mandate.
In the Russian and Cambridge Analytica scandals, dodgy characters abound who claim to have a
direct line to Putin or Trump, or to have secret information about political opponents or a
unique method of swaying the voting intentions of millions of Americans. The most doubtful
evidence is treated as credible.
The dossier by the former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, about Trump's
romps in Moscow, struck me when I first read it as hilarious but entirely unbelievable. The US
media thought the same when this document was first being hawked around Washington before the
election, and refused to publish it. It was only after Trump was elected that that they and the
US security agencies claimed to find it in any way credible.
Much of what Cambridge Analytica claimed to be able to do for its clients has an exaggerated
ring to it. As with the Steele dossier, several of the Cambridge Analytica documents are
unintentionally funny, such as a letter from Aleksandr Kogan, the Russian-American academic
researcher, suggesting that finding out if people used crossbows or believed in paganism would
be useful traits on which to focus.
We are told that Facebook profiles of more than 50 million users have been "harvested" (a
good menacing word in this context, suggesting that the poor old users are being chopped off at
the ankles), and that information so garnered could be fed into the Trump campaign to put him
over the top on election day. In reality, information gathered from such a large number of
people is too generalised or too obvious to be of much use.
What is lacking in these scandals is much real evidence that Russian "meddling" or Cambridge
Analytica "harvesting" – supposing all these tales are true – really did much to
determine the outcome of the US election. Keep in mind that many very astute and experienced
American politicians, backed by billions of dollars, regularly try and fail to decide who will
hold political office in the US.
It simply is not very likely that the Kremlin – having shown extraordinary foresight
in seeing that Trump stood a chance when nobody else did – was able to exercise
significant influence on the US polls. Likewise, for all its bombastic sales pitch, Cambridge
Analytica was really a very small player in the e-campaign.
The Russian "meddling" story (again, note the careful choice of words, because "meddling"
avoids any claim that the Russian actions had any impact) and the Cambridge Analytica saga are
essentially conspiracy theories. They may damage those targeted such as Trump, but they also do
harm to his opponents because it means that they do not look deeply enough into the real
reasons for their defeat in 2016, or do enough to prevent it happening again.
Since Clinton lost the election by less than 1 per cent of the vote in the crucial swing
states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, almost anything that happened in the campaign
can be portrayed as decisive. But there are plenty of common-sense reasons for her defeat which
are now being submerged and forgotten, as the Democrats and a largely sympathetic media look to
Russian plots and such like to show that Trump won the election unfairly.
It is worth looking again at Hillary Clinton's run-for-office in 2016 to take a more
rational view of why she unexpectedly lost. A good place to start is Shattered: Inside
Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign , by the journalists Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes,
which was published a year ago and is based on interviews with senior campaign staffers.
Ironically, the Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook based his approach on a similar sort of
analysis of vast quantities of data about voters that Cambridge Analytica claimed it could use
to great effect.
Mook's conviction that this data was a sure guide to where to invest the Democrats' best
efforts had disastrous consequences, even though Clinton outspent Trump by 2 to 1. For
instance, she did not campaign in Wisconsin after winning the nomination, because her election
team thought she was bound to win there. She put too little effort into campaigning in
Michigan, though her weakness there was underlined there in March when she lost the primary to
Bernie Sanders.
Traditional tools of electioneering such as polls and door-to-door canvassing were
discounted by Mook, who was absorbed by his own analytical model of how the election was going.
In major swing states, the book says that "he declined to use pollsters to track voter
preferences in the final three weeks of the campaign".
Clinton carried a lot of political baggage because she had been demonised by the Republicans
for 25 years. She had bad lluck, such the decision of the FBI director, James Comey, to send a
letter to Congress about her emails two weeks before the election – but Trump somehow
managed to survive even worse disasters, such as boasting of how he groped women.
Opponents of Trump tend to underestimate him because they are convinced that his faults are
so evident that he will implode when the electorate find him out. Somehow they never do, or at
least not those parts of the electorate which votes for him.
The very scandals that Trump's critics believe will sink him have enabled him dominate the
news agenda in a way no American politician has ever done before. The New York Times
and CNN may detest him, but they devote an extraordinary proportion of their news
output to covering his every action.
The accusation that the Kremlin and companies like Cambridge Analytica put Trump in the
White House may do him damage. But I suspect that the damage will mostly be among people who
never liked him and would never vote for him.
Perhaps the one thing would have lost Trump the election is if his campaign had truly relied
on Cambridge Analytica's data about the political proclivities of pagan crossbow
enthusiasts.
To corporate giants like Facebook, leaks to rivals or the media are a cardinal sin.
That notion was clear in a new Wired
story about Facebook's rocky time over the last two years. The story talks about how
Facebook was able to find two leakers who told a Gizmodo reporter about its news operations.
But one source for the Wired story highlighted just how concerned employees are about how
their company goes after leakers. According to the story, the source, a current Facebook
employee, asked a Wired reporter to turn off his phone so Facebook
wouldn't be able to use location tracking and see that the two were close to each other for
the meeting .
The Wired's 11,000-word
wide-ranging piece , for which it spoke with more than 50 current and former Facebook
employees, gives us an inside look at how the company has been struggling to curb spread of
fake news; battling internal discrimination among employees; and becoming furious when anything
leaks to the media. Another excerpt from the story:
The day after Fearnow (a contractor who leaked information to a Gizmodo reporter) took
that second screenshot was a Friday. When he woke up after sleeping in, he noticed that he
had about 30 meeting notifications from Facebook on his phone. When he replied to say it was
his day off, he recalls, he was nonetheless asked to be available in 10 minutes. Soon he was
on a video-conference with three Facebook employees, including Sonya Ahuja, the company's
head of investigations. According to his recounting of the meeting, she asked him if he had
been in touch with Nunez (the Gizmodo reporter, who eventually published
this and
this ).
He denied that he had been. Then she told him that she had their messages on Gchat,
which Fearnow had assumed weren't accessible to Facebook. He was fired. "Please shut your
laptop and don't reopen it," she instructed him.
(reuters.com)
did not adequately secure the informed consent of its users . From a report: The
verdict, from a Berlin regional court, comes as Big Tech faces increasing scrutiny in Germany
over its handling of sensitive personal data that enables it to micro-target online
advertising. The Federation of German Consumer Organisations (vzvb) said that Facebook's
default settings and some of its terms of service were in breach of consumer law, and that the
court had found parts of the consent to data usage to be invalid. "Facebook hides default
settings that are not privacy-friendly in its privacy center and does not provide sufficient
information about it when users register," said Heiko Duenkel, litigation policy officer at the
vzvb. "This does not meet the requirement for informed consent."
(recode.net)BeauHD on Monday
February 12, 2018 @09:20PM from the shifting-demographics dept. According to new estimates by
eMarketer,
Facebook users in the 12- to 17-year-old demographic declined by 9.9 percent in 2017 , or
about 1.4 million total users. That's almost three times more than the digital measurement firm
expected. There were roughly 12.1 million U.S. Facebook users in the 12- to 17-year-old
demographic by the end of the year. Recode reports:
There are likely multiple reasons for the decline. Facebook has been losing its "cool"
factor for years, and young people have more options than ever for staying in touch with
friends and family. Facebook also serves as a digital record keeper -- but many young people
don't seem to care about saving their life online, at least not publicly.
That explains why Snapchat and Instagram, which offer features for sharing photos and
videos that disappear, are growing in popularity among this demographic. Overall, eMarketer
found Facebook lost about 2.8 million U.S. users under 25 last year.
The research firm released Facebook usage estimates for 2018 on Monday, and expects
that Facebook will lose about 2.1 million users in the U.S. under the age of 25 this
year.
(techcrunch.com)Onavo Protect, the VPN client from the data-security app maker acquired
by Facebook back in 2013, has now popped up in the Facebook app itself,
under the banner "Protect" in the navigation menu . Clicking through on "Protect" will
redirect Facebook users to the "Onavo Protect -- VPN Security" app's listing on the App Store.
We're currently seeing this option on iOS only, which may indicate it's more of a test than a
full rollout here in the U.S. Marketing Onavo within Facebook itself could lead to a boost in
users for the VPN app, which promises to warn users of malicious websites and keep information
secure as you browse. But Facebook didn't buy Onavo for its security protections. Instead,
Onavo's VPN allow Facebook to monitor user activity across apps, giving Facebook a big
advantage in terms of spotting new trends across the larger mobile ecosystem. For example,
Facebook gets an early heads up about apps that are becoming breakout hits; it can tell which
are seeing slowing user growth; it sees which apps' new features appear to be resonating with
their users, and much more. Further reading: Do Not, I
Repeat, Do Not Download Onavo, Facebook's Vampiric VPN Service (Gizmodo).
(theverge.com)BeauHD on Friday
March 16, 2018 @11:30PM from the violation-of-terms dept. An anonymous reader quotes a report
from The Verge: Facebook said late Friday that it had suspended Strategic
Communication Laboratories (SCL), along with its political data analytics firm, Cambridge
Analytica, for violating its policies around data collection and retention. The companies,
which
ran data operations for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential election campaign , are widely
credited with helping Trump more effectively target voters on Facebook than his rival, Hillary
Clinton. While the exact nature of their role remains somewhat mysterious, Facebook's
disclosure suggests that the company
improperly obtained user data that could have given it an unfair advantage in reaching
voters . Facebook said it cannot determine whether or how the data in question could have
been used in conjunction with election ad campaigns.
In a blog post, Facebook deputy general counsel Paul Grewal laid out how SCL came into
possession of the user data. In 2015, Aleksandr Kogan, a psychology professor at the University
of Cambridge, created an app named "thisisyourdigitallife" that promised to predict aspects of
users' personalities. About 270,000 people downloaded it and logged in through Facebook, giving
Kogan access to information about their city of residence, Facebook content they had liked, and
information about their friends. Kogan passed the data to SCL and a man named Christopher Wylie
from a data harvesting firm known as Eunoia Technologies, in violation of Facebook rules that
prevent app developers from giving away or selling users' personal information. Facebook
learned of the violation that year and removed his app from Facebook. It also asked Kogan and
his associates to certify that they had destroyed the improperly collected data. Everyone said
that they did. The suspension is not permanent, a Facebook spokesman said. But the suspended
users would need to take unspecified steps to certify that they would comply with Facebook's
terms of service.
(theguardian.com)umafuckit
shared this article from The Guardian: The data analytics firm that worked with Donald
Trump's election team and the winning Brexit campaign
harvested millions of Facebook profiles of U.S. voters , in one of the tech giant's biggest
ever data breaches, and used them to build a powerful software program to predict and influence
choices at the ballot box... Christopher Wylie, who worked with a Cambridge University academic
to obtain the data, told the Observer : "We exploited
Facebook to harvest millions of people's profiles . And built models to exploit what we
knew about them and target their inner demons. That was the basis the entire company was built
on."
Documents seen by the Observer , and confirmed by a Facebook statement, show
that by late 2015 the company had found out that information had been
harvested on an unprecedented scale . However, at the time it failed to alert users and
took only limited steps to recover and secure the private information of more than 50 million
individuals... On Friday, four days after the Observer sought comment for this story,
but more than two years after the data breach was first reported, Facebook
announced that it was suspending Cambridge Analytica and Kogan from the platform, pending
further information over misuse of data. Separately, Facebook's external lawyers warned the
Observer on Friday it was making "false and defamatory" allegations, and reserved
Facebook's legal position...
The evidence Wylie supplied to U.K. and U.S. authorities includes a letter from
Facebook's own lawyers sent to him in August 2016, asking him to destroy any data he held that
had been collected by GSR, the company set up by Kogan to harvest the profiles... Facebook did
not pursue a response when the letter initially went unanswered for weeks because Wylie was
travelling, nor did it follow up with forensic checks on his computers or storage, he said.
"That to me was the most astonishing thing. They waited two years and did absolutely nothing to
check that the data was deleted. All they asked me to do was tick a box on a form and post it
back."
Wylie worked with Aleksandr Kogan, the creator of the "thisisyourdigitallife" app, "who has
previously unreported links to a Russian university and took Russian grants for research,"
according to the article. Kogan "had a licence from Facebook to collect profile data, but it
was for research purposes only. So when he hoovered up information for the commercial venture,
he was violating the company's terms...
"At the time, more than 50 million profiles represented around a third of active North
American Facebook users, and nearly a quarter of potential U.S. voters."
(theguardian.com)They had records of a screenshot he'd taken, links he had clicked or
hovered over, and they strongly indicated they had accessed chats between him and the
journalist, dating back to before he joined the company. "It's horrifying how much they know,"
he told the Guardian, on the condition of anonymity... "You get on their bad side and
all of a sudden you are face to face with Mark Zuckerberg's secret police "... One European
Facebook content moderator signed a contract, seen by the Guardian, which granted the company
the right to monitor and record his social media activities, including his personal Facebook
account, as well as emails, phone calls and internet use. He also agreed to random personal
searches of his belongings including bags, briefcases and car while on company premises.
Refusal to allow such searches would be treated as gross misconduct...
Some employees switch their phones off or hide them out of fear that their location is
being tracked. One current Facebook employee who recently spoke to Wired asked the reporter to
turn off his phone so the company would have a harder time tracking if it had been near the
phones of anyone from Facebook. Two security researchers confirmed that this would be
technically simple for Facebook to do if both people had the Facebook app on their phone and
location services switched on. Even if location services aren't switched on, Facebook can infer
someone's location from wifi access points.
The article cites a 2012 report that Microsoft read a French
blogger's Hotmail account to identify a former employee who had
leaked trade secrets . And it also reports that tech companies hire external agencies to
surveil their employees. "One such firm, Pinkerton, counts Google and Facebook among its
clients." Though Facebook and Google both deny this, "Among other services, Pinkerton offers to
send investigators to coffee shops or restaurants near a company's campus to eavesdrop on
employees' conversations...
Al Gidari, consulting director of privacy at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society,
says that these tools "are common, widespread, intrusive and legal."
(sfgate.com)BeauHD on Friday
March 23, 2018 @08:50PM from the rough-week dept. Facebook has had a terrible week. Since it
was revealed that political data firm Cambridge Analytica
obtained information about 50 million Facebook users , the social media company has been in
damage control mode,
apologizing for its mistakes and
conducting forensic audits to determine exactly what happened. SFGate reports today that
Facebook "
has been hit with four lawsuits in federal court in San Francisco and San Jose thus far
this week." From the report: One lawsuit was filed by a Facebook user who claims the Menlo
Park company acted with "absolute disregard" for her personal information after allegedly
representing that it wouldn't disclose the data without permission or notice. That lawsuit,
filed by Lauren Price of Maryland in San Jose on Tuesday, seeks to be a class action on behalf
of up to 50 million people whose data was allegedly collected from Facebook by London-based
Cambridge Analytica. The lawsuit says that during the 2016 election, Price was "frequently
targeted with political ads while using Facebook." It seeks financial restitution for claims of
unfair business practices and negligence. Both Facebook and Cambridge Analytica are named as
defendants. Cambridge Analytica also announced today that the company will
undergo an independent third-party audit to determine whether it still holds any data
covertly obtained from Facebook users. "We take the disturbing recent allegations of unethical
practices in our non-U.S. political business very seriously," CEO Alexander Tayler writes . "The Board
has launched a full and independent investigation into SCL Elections' past practices, and its
findings will be shared publicly."
(medium.com)
Onavo Protect , a newly released VPN service from Facebook : I found that Onavo Protect uses a Packet
Tunnel Provider app extension, which should consistently run for as long as the VPN is
connected, in order to
periodically send the following data to Facebook (graph.facebook.com) as the user goes
about their day:
When user's mobile device screen is turned on and turned off.
Total daily Wi-Fi data usage in bytes (Even when VPN is turned off).
Total daily cellular data usage in bytes (Even when VPN is turned off).
Periodic beacon containing an "uptime" to indicate how long the VPN has been connected.
(theguardian.com)
but behind the cartoonish facade is a ruthless code of secrecy . From a report: They
rely on a combination of Kool-Aid, digital and physical surveillance, legal threats and
restricted stock units to prevent and detect intellectual property theft and other criminal
activity. However, those same tools are also used to catch employees and contractors who talk
publicly, even if it's about their working conditions, misconduct or cultural challenges within
the company. While Apple's culture of secrecy, which includes making employees sign
project-specific NDAs and covering unlaunched products with black cloths, has been widely
reported, companies such as Google and Facebook have long put the emphasis on internal
transparency.
Zuckerberg hosts weekly meetings where he shares details of unreleased new products and
strategies in front of thousands of employees. Even junior staff members and contractors can
see what other teams are working on by looking at one of many of the groups on the company's
internal version of Facebook. "When you first get to Facebook you are shocked at the level of
transparency. You are trusted with a lot of stuff you don't need access to," said Evans, adding
that during his induction he was warned not to look at ex-partners' Facebook accounts.
(businessinsider.com)
reported this week , speaks volumes of Facebook's core beliefs. Sample
this except from Business Insider : Facebook executives waded into a firestorm of
criticism on Saturday, after news reports revealed that a data firm with ties to the Trump
campaign harvested private information from millions of Facebook users. Several executives took
to Twitter to insist that the data leak was not technically a "breach." But critics were
outraged by the response and accused the company of playing semantics and missing the
point. Washington Post reporter Hamza Shaban: Facebook insists that the Cambridge
Analytica debacle wasn't a data breach, but a "violation" by a third party app that abused user
data. This offloading of responsibility says a lot about Facebook's approach to our
privacy. Observer reporter Carole Cadwalladr, who broke the news about Cambridge Analytica:
Yesterday Facebook threatened to sue us. Today we publish this. Meet the whistleblower
blowing the lid off Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. [...] Facebook's chief strategy officer
wading in. So, tell us @alexstamos (who expressed his displeasure with the use of "breach" in
media reports) why didn't you inform users of this "non-breach" after The Guardian first
reported the story in December 2015? Zeynep Tufekci: If your business is building a
massive surveillance machinery, the data will eventually be used and misused. Hacked, breached,
leaked, pilfered, conned, "targeted", "engaged", "profiled", sold.. There is no informed
consent because it's not possible to reasonably inform or consent. [...] Facebook's defense
that Cambridge Analytica harvesting of FB user data from millions is not technically a "breach"
is a more profound and damning statement of what's wrong with Facebook's business model than a
"breach." MIT Professor Dean Eckles: Definitely fascinating that Joseph Chancellor, who
contributed to collection and contract-violating retention (?) of Facebook user data, now works
for Facebook. Amir Efrati, a reporter at the Information: May seem like a small thing to
non-reporters but Facebook loses credibility by issuing a Friday night press release to
"front-run" publications that were set to publish negative articles about its platform. If you
want us to become more suspicious, mission accomplished. Further reading: Facebook's
latest privacy debacle stirs up more regulatory interest from lawmakers (TechCrunch).
(arstechnica.com)BeauHD on Sunday
March 25, 2018 @10:34AM from the book-of-secrets dept. An anonymous reader quotes a report from
Ars Technica: This past week, a New Zealand man was looking through the data Facebook had
collected from him in an archive he had
pulled down from the social networking site. While scanning the information Facebook had stored
about his contacts, Dylan McKay discovered something distressing:
Facebook also had about two years worth of phone call metadata from his Android phone ,
including names, phone numbers, and the length of each call made or received. This experience
has been shared by a number of other Facebook users who spoke with Ars, as well as
independently by us -- my own Facebook data archive, I found, contained call-log data for a
certain Android device I used in 2015 and 2016, along with SMS and MMS message metadata. In
response to an email inquiry about this data gathering by Ars, a Facebook spokesperson replied,
"The most important part of apps and services that help you make connections is to make it easy
to find the people you want to connect with. So, the first time you sign in on your phone to a
messaging or social app, it's a widely used practice to begin by uploading your phone
contacts." The spokesperson pointed out that contact uploading is optional and installation of
the application explicitly requests permission to access contacts. And users can delete contact
data from their profiles using a tool accessible via Web browser.
If you granted permission to read contacts during Facebook's installation on Android a
few versions ago -- specifically before Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) -- that permission also
granted Facebook access to call and message logs by default. The permission structure was
changed in the Android API in version 16. But Android applications could bypass this change if
they were written to earlier versions of the API, so Facebook API could continue to gain access
to call and SMS data by specifying an earlier Android SDK version. Google deprecated version
4.0 of the Android API in October 2017 -- the point at which the latest call metadata in
Facebook user's data was found. Apple iOS has never allowed silent access to call data. You
are able to have Facebook delete the data it collects from you, "but it's not clear if this
deletes just contacts or if it also purges call and SMS metadata," reports Ars. Generally
speaking, if you're concerned about privacy, you shouldn't share your contacts and call-log
data with any mobile application.
"... Evidence of Israel's role in gas attacks in Syria was overwhelming even though Russia was blocked from presenting same to the United Nations time and time again. ..."
"... the Likudist extremists who run that nation are mostly former Russian gangsters and enemies of Russia's current leadership. ..."
"... As anger grew toward Cambridge Analytica on Monday after Britain's Channel 4 broadcast a report showing company executives boasting about their extreme propaganda strategies, including filming opponents in compromising situations with Ukrainian sex workers, authorities in the U.K. and the U.S. also questioned whether Facebook mishandled the alleged breach and it's now facing damaging investigations that will further tarnish its brand. ..."
"... Britain's information commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, confirmed she was applying to the courts for a warrant to search Cambridge Analytica's London offices and said Tuesday morning that she has been left frustrated by the company's reluctance to cooperate with her investigation. ..."
Now
we know they not only kept files on 50 million Americans through Facebook, using the data there
to profile fears and emotions, targeting and manipulating millions but when Google added their
incredible mass of data, billions of illegally read emails and more, the American people became
little more than pawns.
Again we reiterate, Russia didn't do it. It was the tech companies, all working as is now
being made public, for Israeli intelligence and the mob. From the Daily Beast, March 20, 2018
by Jamie Ross:
"Facebook has been plunged into crisis over the allegations that Cambridge Analytica misused
data from more than 50 million people to help elect Donald Trump. Nearly $40 billion was wiped
off Facebook's market value Monday, an emergency meeting is due to be held Tuesday morning, and
CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been criticized for remaining silent during what some analysts are
describing as a threat to the company's existence.
Zuckerberg has been summoned to the British parliament to give evidence about the how it
handles people's personal data. The head of a British inquiry into 'fake news,' Damian Collins,
has accused Facebook of previously 'misleading' a parliament committee, adding: 'It is now time
to hear from a senior Facebook executive with the sufficient authority to give an accurate
account of this catastrophic failure of process.'"
What is being left out is more telling, that Zuckerberg, CEO and founder of Facebook, has
long openly worked for Israeli intelligence and that evidence now exists that Israel not only
ran the program to rig the American election, as many believe it did in both 2000 and 2004,
leading to the destruction of Iraq, but that it did so again in 2016.
Few note the real policies of former Secretary of State Kerry and President Obama, the even
handedness in the Middle East and their use of leverage against Israel. Obama never accepted
wild claims made against Syria as Trump has and never attacked Damscus.
Evidence of Israel's role in gas attacks in Syria was overwhelming even though Russia was
blocked from presenting same to the United Nations time and time again.
But then we hypothesize, what are we speaking of when we talk of Israel? This is where so
many back off as anyone who questions Israel is smeared as an "anti-Semite" though the Likudist
extremists who run that nation are mostly former Russian gangsters and enemies of Russia's
current leadership.
The reason for what appears to be Israeli animosity toward Russia in reality originated when
Putin cleaned out the oligarchs that looted Russia for two decades, plunging that nation into
poverty and then fleeing to Tel Aviv or New York with endless billions of ill gotten gains.
This is real history, not the history written down in books or reported in fake news.
More on happenings in London as reported by Jamie Ross:
"As anger grew toward Cambridge Analytica on Monday after Britain's Channel 4 broadcast a
report showing company executives boasting about their extreme propaganda strategies, including
filming opponents in compromising situations with Ukrainian sex workers, authorities in the
U.K. and the U.S. also questioned whether Facebook mishandled the alleged breach and it's now
facing damaging investigations that will further tarnish its brand.
Britain's information commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, confirmed she was applying to the
courts for a warrant to search Cambridge Analytica's London offices and said Tuesday morning
that she has been left frustrated by the company's reluctance to cooperate with her
investigation.
[ Editor's Note : There appears to have been the classic "fix" in at the British Court by
delaying for days the seizure of Cambridge's computer files, giving the needed time to remove
any incriminating evidence Jim W. Dean ]
Fears have also been raised that the investigation may have been compromised by the presence
of cybersecurity consultants from Stroz Friedberg -- the company hired by Facebook to audit
Cambridge Analytica on its behalf -- who were in the London offices on Monday evening, until
they were asked to leave by the information commissioner.
Asked if there was a risk of Cambridge Analytica or Facebook destroying evidence, Denham
said on Sky News: "As this point we're not satisfied with the cooperation we're getting from
Cambridge Analytica, so the next step is for us to apply to the court and to do an audit to get
some answers as to whether data was misused and shared inappropriately."
British Parliament Culture Committee Chairman Damian Collins said:
'This is a matter for the authorities. Facebook sent in data analysts and lawyers who they
appointed. What they intended to do there, who knows? The concern would have been, were they
removing information or evidence which could have been vital to the investigation? It's right
they stood down but it's astonishing they were there in the first place.'"
The issue now is one of accepting what is happening for all to see rather than absorbing the
fake narrative sold the world. For those unaware, it isn't just millions of Americans but
government officials as well, who form their opinions and prejudices against nations, races of
people, religions and even ideas themselves.
The are imprinted via fictional television shows like Homeland , whose writers and
producers are in actuality as complicit in psychological warfare as those who run Cambridge
Analytical, Google or Facebook, the groups now under the public microscope.
As for Mueller and his investigation, it is pure theatre. As for Trump, more theatre as
well, a buffoon long shown to be a mob asset, now wielding nukes and threatening the world,
holding it hostage to his bad brain chemistry and his criminal handlers.
Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War that has worked on veterans and
POW issues for decades and consulted with governments challenged by security issues. He's a
senior editor and chairman of the board of Veterans Today, especially for the online magazine
"New Eastern Outlook."
I would not exaggerate the voodoo science behind Cambridge Analitica activities -- all this
crap about the Big Five personality traits borrowed from social psychology: openness,
conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.
But it really can create "plausible lies" to targeted groups of voters in best "change we can
believe in" style. Essentially promoting "bat and switch" politics.
Notable quotes:
"... The Guardian ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... In July 2005, SCL underwent a dramatic transformation. It very publicly rebranded itself as a psychological warfare company by taking part in the UK's largest military trade show. ..."
"... The company's efforts paid off. Over the next ten years, SCL won contracts with the US Defense Department's Combatant Commands, NATO, and Sandia National Labs. ..."
"... Along the way it created Cambridge Analytica, a subsidiary firm which differs from SCL Group in that it focuses primarily on political campaigns. Its largest investors include billionaire Robert Mercer, co-CEO of hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, who is best known for his advocacy of far-right political causes and his financial support of Breitbart News. Steve Bannon briefly sat on Cambridge Analytica's board of directors. ..."
"... Although Cruz ultimately failed, Cambridge Analytica's CEO, Alexander Nix, claimed that Cruz's popularity grew largely due to the company's skillful use of aggregated voter data and personality profiling methods. ..."
"... Cambridge Analytica relies upon "psychographic" techniques that measure the Big Five personality traits borrowed from social psychology: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. ..."
"... In the US, Cambridge Analytica developed psychological profiles of millions of Americans by hiring a company called Global Science Research (GSR) to plant free personality quizzes. Users were lured by the prospect of obtaining free personality scores, while Cambridge Analytica collected data–and access to users' Facebook profiles. Last week, The Guardian ..."
"... Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet ..."
"... Twitter And Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest ..."
"... Roberto J. González is chair of the anthropology department at San José State University. He has written several books including American Counterinsurgency: Human Science and the Human Terrain and Militarizing Culture: Essays on the Warfare State . He can be reached at [email protected] . ..."
In the days and weeks following the 2016 presidential elections,
reports surfaced about how a small British political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica,
might have played a pivotal role in Donald Trump's surprise victory. The company claimed to
have formulated algorithms to influence American voters using individually targeted political
advertisements. It reportedly generated personality profiles of millions of individual citizens
by collecting up to
5000 data points on each person. Then Cambridge Analytica used these "psychographic" tools
to send voters carefully crafted online messages about candidates or hot-button political
issues.
Although political consultants have long used "microtargeting" techniques for zeroing in on
particular ethnic, religious, age, or income groups, Cambridge Analytica's approach is unusual:
The company relies upon individuals' personal data that is harvested from social media apps
like Facebook. In the US, such activities are entirely legal. Some described Cambridge
Analytica's tools as "
mind-reading software " and a " weaponized AI
[artificial intelligence] propaganda machine ." However, corporate media outlets such as
CNN and the
Wall Street Journal often portrayed the company in glowing terms.
Cambridge Analytica is once again in the headlines–but under somewhat different
circumstances. Late last week, whistleblower
Christopher Wylie went public , explaining how he played an instrumental role in collecting
millions of Facebook profiles for Cambridge Analytica. This revelation is significant because
until investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr published her exposé in The
Guardian , Cambridge Analytica's then-CEO Alexander Nix had adamantly denied using
Facebook data. And although Facebook officials knew that Cambridge Analytica had previously
gathered data on millions of users, they did not prohibit the company from advertising until
last Friday, as the scandal erupted. To make matters worse, the UK's Channel 4 released
undercover footage early this week in which Cambridge Analytica executives boast about
using dirty tricks–bribes, entrapment, and "beautiful girls" to mention a few.
The case of Cambridge Analytica brings into focus a brave new world of electoral politics in
an algorithmic age–an era in which social media companies like Facebook and Twitter make
money by selling ads, but also by selling users' data outright to third parties. Relatively few
countries have laws that prevent such practices–and it turns out that the US does not
have a comprehensive federal statute protecting individuals' data privacy. This story is
significant not only because it demonstrates what can happen when an unorthodox company takes
advantage of a lax regulatory environment, but also because it reveals how Internet companies
like Facebook have played fast and loose with the personal data of literally billions of
users.
From Public Relations to Psychological Warfare
In order to make sense of Cambridge Analytica it is helpful to understand its parent
company, SCL Group, which was originally created as the PR firm Strategic Communications
Laboratory.
It was founded in the early 1990s by Nigel Oakes , a flamboyant UK businessman. By the late
1990s, the company was engaged almost exclusively in political projects. For example, SCL was
hired to help burnish the image of Indonesian president Abdurrahman Wahid–but Oakes and
SCL employees had to shut down their operations center when SCL's cover was blown by the
Wall Street
Journal .
In July 2005, SCL underwent a dramatic transformation. It
very publicly rebranded itself as a psychological warfare company by taking part in the
UK's largest military trade show. SCL's exhibit included a mock operations center
featuring dramatic crisis scenarios–a smallpox outbreak in London, a bloody insurgency in
a fictitious South Asian country–which were then resolved with the help of the company's
psyops techniques. Oakes told a
reporter : "We used to be in the business of mindbending for political purposes, but now we
are in the business of saving lives." The company's efforts paid off. Over the next ten
years, SCL won contracts with the US Defense Department's Combatant Commands, NATO, and Sandia
National Labs.
Over the past few years SCL–now known as SCL Group –has transformed itself yet again. It no longer
defines itself as a psyops specialist, nor as a political consultancy–now, it calls
itself a data analytics company specializing in "behavioral change" programs.
Along the way it created Cambridge Analytica, a subsidiary firm which differs from SCL
Group in that it focuses primarily on political campaigns. Its largest investors include
billionaire Robert Mercer, co-CEO of hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, who is best known for
his advocacy of far-right political causes and his financial support of Breitbart News. Steve
Bannon briefly sat on Cambridge Analytica's board of directors.
Cambridge Analytica first received
significant media attention in November 2015, shortly after the firm was hired by
Republican presidential nominee Ted Cruz's campaign. Although Cruz ultimately failed,
Cambridge Analytica's CEO, Alexander Nix, claimed that Cruz's popularity grew largely due to
the company's skillful use of aggregated voter data and personality profiling methods.
In August 2016, the Trump campaign hired Cambridge Analytica as part of a desperate effort
to challenge Hillary Clinton's formidable campaign machine. Just a few months later,
reports revealed that Cambridge Analytica had also played a role in the UK's successful
pro-Brexit "Leave.EU" campaign.
Hacking the Citizenry
Cambridge Analytica relies upon "psychographic" techniques that measure the Big Five
personality traits borrowed from social psychology: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion,
agreeableness and neuroticism.
In the US, Cambridge Analytica developed psychological profiles of millions of Americans
by hiring a company called Global Science Research (GSR) to plant free personality quizzes.
Users were lured by the prospect of obtaining free personality scores, while Cambridge
Analytica collected data–and access to users' Facebook profiles. Last week, The Guardian reported that Cambridge Analytica collected data from more than
300,000 Facebook users in this way. By agreeing to the terms and conditions of the app, those
users also agreed to grant GSR (and by extension, Cambridge Analytica) access to the profiles
of their Facebook "friends"–totalling approximately 50 million people.
Psychographics uses algorithms to scour voters' Facebook "likes," retweets and other social
media data which are aggregated with commercially available information: land registries,
automotive data, shopping preferences, club memberships, magazine subscriptions, and religious
affiliation. When combined with public records, electoral rolls, and additional information
purchased from data brokers such as Acxiom and Experian, Cambridge Analytica has raw material
for shaping personality profiles. Digital footprints can be transformed into real people. This
is the essence of psychographics: Using software algorithms to scour individual voters'
Facebook "likes," retweets and other bits of data gleaned from social media and then combine
them with commercially available personal information. Data mining is relatively easy in the
US, since it has relatively weak privacy laws compared to South Korea, Singapore, and many EU
countries.
In a 2016
presentation , Nix described how such information might be used to influence voter opinions
on gun ownership and gun rights. Individual people can be addressed differently according to
their personality profiles: "For a highly neurotic and conscientious audinece, the threat of a
burglary–and the insurance policy of a gun. . .Conversely, for a closed and agreeable
audience: people who care about tradition, and habits, and family."
Despite the ominous sounding nature of psychographics, it is not at all clear that Cambridge
Analytica played a decisive role in the 2016 US presidential election. Some charge that the
company and its former CEO Alexander Nix, exaggerated Cambridge Analytica's effect on the
election's outcome. In February 2017, investigative journalist
Kendall Taggart wrote an exposé claiming that more than a dozen former employees of
Cambridge Analytica, Trump campaign staffers, and executives at Republican consulting firms
denied that psychographics was used at all by the Trump campaign. Taggart concluded: "Rather
than a sinister breakthrough in political technology, the Cambridge Analytica story appears to
be part of the traditional contest among consultants on a winning political campaign to get
their share of the credit–and win future clients." Not a single critic was willing to be
identified in the report, apparently fearing retaliation from Robert Mercer and his daughter
Rebekah, who is also an investor in the firm.
Not-So-Innocents Abroad
By no means has Cambridge Analytica limited its work to the US. In fact, it has conducted
"influence operations" in several countries around the world.
For example, Cambridge Analytica played a major role in
last year's presidential elections in Kenya, which pitted incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta of the
right-wing Jubilee Party against Raila Odinga of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement. The
Jubilee Party hired Cambridge Analytica in May 2017. Although the company claims to have
limited its activities to data collection, earlier this week Mark Turnbull, a managing director
for Cambridge Analytica,
told undercover reporters a different story . He admitted that the firm secretly managed
Kenyatta's entire campaign: "We have rebranded the party twice, written the manifesto, done
research, analysis, messaging. I think we wrote all the speeches and we staged the whole
thing–so just about every element of this candidate," said Turnbull.
Given the most recent revelations about Cambridge Analytica's planting of
fake news stories , it seems likely that the company created persuasive personalized ads
based on Kenyans' social media data. Fake Whatsapp and Twitter posts exploded days before the
Kenyan elections. It is worth remembering that SCL Group has employed disinformation campaigns
for military clients for 25 years, and it seems that Cambridge Analytica has continued this
pattern of deception.
The August elections were fraught with accusations of vote tampering, the inclusion of dead
people as registered voters, and the murder of
Chris Msando , the election commission's technology manager, days before the election. When
the dust settled, up to 67 people died in post-election violence–and Kenyatta ultimately
emerged victorious. Weeks later, the Kenyan Supreme Court annulled the elections, but when new
elections were scheduled for October, Odinga declared that he would boycott.
Given Kenya's recent history of electoral fraud, it is unlikely that Cambridge had much
impact on the results.
Anthropologist Paul Goldsmith , who has lived in Kenya for 40 years, notes that elections
still tend to follow the principle of "who counts the votes," not "who influences the
voters."
But the significance of Cambridge Analytica's efforts extends beyond their contribution to
electoral outcomes. Kenya is no technological backwater. The world's first mobile money service
was launched there in 2007, allowing users to transfer cash and make payments by phone.
Homegrown tech firms are creating a "Silicon Savannah" near Nairobi. Two-thirds of Kenya's 48
million people have Internet access. Ten million use Whatsapp; six million use Facebook; two
million use Twitter. As Kenyans spend more time in the virtual world, their personal data will
become even more widely available since Kenya has no data protection laws.
Cambridge Analytica doesn't need to deliver votes so much as to create the perception that
they can produce results. . .Kenya provides an ideal entry point into [Africa]. . .Embedding
themselves with ruling elites presents a pivot for exploiting emergent commercial
opportunities. . .with an eye on the region's resources and its growing numbers of
persuadable youth.
Recent reports reveal that Cambridge Analytica has ongoing operations in Mexico and
Brazil (which have general elections scheduled this July and October, respectively).
India (which has general elections in about a year) has also been courted by the company,
and it is easy to understand why: the country has 400 million smartphone users with more than
250 million on either Facebook or Whatsapp. India's elections are also a potential gold mine.
More than half a billion people vote in parliamentary elections, and the expenditures are
astonishing: Political parties spent $5 billion in 2014, compared to $6.5 billion in last
year's US elections. India also has a massive mandatory ID program based on biometric and
demographic data, the largest of its kind in the world.
Cambridge Analytica's global strategy appears focused on expanding its market share in
promising markets. Although many people might describe Kenya, Mexico, Brazil, and India as
developing countries, each in fact has a rapidly growing high-tech infrastructure, relatively
high levels of Internet penetration, and large numbers of social media users. They all have
weak or nonexistent Internet privacy laws. Though nominally democratic, each country is
politically volatile and has experienced episodic outbursts of extreme political, sectarian, or
criminal violence. Finally, these countries have relatively young populations, reflecting
perhaps a long-term strategy to normalize a form of political communication that will reap
long-term benefits in politically sensitive regions.
The capacity for saturating global voters with charged political messages is growing across
much of the world, since the cost of buying Facebook ads, Twitterbots and trolls, bots for
Whatsapp and other apps is cheap–and since more people than ever are spending time on
social media. Such systems can be managed efficiently by remote control. Unlike the CIA's
psyops efforts in the mid-20th century, which required extensive on-the-ground
efforts–dropping leaflets from airplanes, bribing local journalists, broadcasting
propaganda on megaphones mounted on cars–the new techniques can be deployed from a
distance, with minimal cost. Cambridge Analytica relies upon small ground teams to do business
with political parties, and partnerships with local business intelligence firms to scope out
the competition or provide marketing advice, but most of the work is done from London and New
York.
Weaponizing Big Data?
From its beginnings, Cambridge Analytica has declared itself to be a "data-driven" group of
analytics experts practicing an improved form of political microtargeting, but there are
indications that the firm has broader ambitions.
In March 2017,
reports emerged that top executives from SCL Group met with Pentagon officials, including
Hriar Cabayan, head of a branch which conducts DoD research and cultural analysis. A decade
ago,
Cabayan played an instrumental role in launching the precursor to the Human
Terrain System , a US Army counterinsurgency effort which embedded anthropologists and
other social scientists with US combat brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A few months later, in August 2017, the Associated Press reported that
retired US Army General Michael Flynn, who briefly served as National Security Director in the
Trump administration, had signed a work agreement with Cambridge Analytica in late 2016, though
it is unclear whether he actually did any work for the firm. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to
the FBI about his contacts with Russian operatives in late 2017, when he was working with
Trump's transition team. Given his spot in the media limelight, it is easy to forget that he
once headed US intelligence operations in Afghanistan, advocating for a big data
approach to counterinsurgency that would, among other things, include data collected by
Human Terrain Teams.
The connections between Cambridge Analytica/SCL Group and the Pentagon's champions of
data-driven counterinsurgency and cyberwarfare may be entirely coincidental, but they do raise
several questions: As Cambridge Analytica embarks on its global ventures, is it undertaking
projects that are in fact more sinister than its benign-sounding mission of "behavioral
change"? And are the company's recent projects in Kenya, India, Mexico, and Brazil simply
examples of global market expansion, or are these countries serving as laboratories to test new
methods of propaganda dissemination and political polarization for eventual deployment here at
home?
Here the lines between military and civilian applications become blurred, not only because
ARPANET–the Internet's immediate precursor–was developed by the Pentagon's Advanced
Research Projects Agency, but also because the technology can be used for surveillance on a
scale that authoritarian regimes of the 20th century could only have dreamed about. As Yasha
Levine convincingly argues in his book Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet , the Internet
was originally conceived as a counterinsurgency surveillance program.
Neutralizing Facebook's Surveillance Machine
It appears that many people are finally taking note of the digital elephant in the room:
Facebook's role in enabling Cambridge Analytica and other propagandists, publicists, and
mind-benders to carry out their work–legally and discreetly. As recently
noted by Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai in the online journal Motherboard ,
Cambridge Analytica's data harvesting practices weren't security breaches, they were "par for
the course. . .It was a feature, not a bug. Facebook still collects -- and then sells --
massive amounts of data on its users." In other words, every Facebook post or tweet, every
g-mail message sent or received, renders citizens vulnerable to forms of digital data
collection that can be bought and sold to the highest bidder. The information can be used for
all kinds of purposes in an unregulated market: monitoring users' emotional states,
manipulating their attitiudes, or disseminating tailor-made propaganda designed to polarize
people.
"If your business is building a massive surveillance machinery, the data will eventually
be used and misused. Hacked, breached, leaked, pilfered, conned, targeted, engaged, profiled,
sold. There is no informed consent because it's not possible to reasonably inform or
consent."
Cambridge Analytica is significant to the extent that it illuminates new technological
controlling processes under construction. In a supercharged media environment in which
Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp (owned by Facebook) have become the primary means by which
literally billions of people consume news, mass producing propaganda has never been easier.
With so many people posting so much information about the intimate details of their lives on
the Web, coordinated attempts at mass persuasion will almost certainly become more widespread
in the future.
In the meantime, there are concrete measures that we can take to rein in Facebook, Amazon,
Google, Twitter, and other technology giants. Some of the most lucid suggestions have been
articulated by Roger McNamee, a venture capitalist and early Facebook investor.
He recommends a multi-pronged approach : demanding that the social media companies' CEOs
testify before congressional and parliamentary committees in open sessions; imposing strict
regulations on how Internet platforms are used and commercialized; requiring social media
companies to report who is sponsoring political and issues-based advertisements; mandating
transparency about algorithms ("users deserve to know why they see what they see in their news
feeds and search results," says McNamee); requiring social media apps to offer an "opt out" to
users; banning digital "bots" that impersonate humans; and creating rules that allow consumers
(not corporations) to own their own data.
In a world of diminishing privacy, our vulnerabilities are easily magnified. Experimental
psychologists specializing in what they euphemistically call "behavior design" have largely
ignored ethics and morality in order to help Silicon Valley companies create digital devices,
apps, and other technologies that are literally irresistible to their users. As the fallout
from Cambridge Analytica's activities descends upon the American political landscape, we should
take advantage of the opportunity to impose meaningful controls on Facebook, Google, Twitter,
and other firms that have run roughshod over democratic norms–and notions of individual
privacy–in the relentless pursuit of profit. Join the debate on
Facebook More articles by: Roberto J. González
Tonight at 7pm ET/PT,
60 Minutes
will air a controversial interview with Stephanie Clifford, aka Stormy Daniels, the
adult-film star who says she had an affair with Donald Trump. Daniels will talk to Anderson Cooper
about the relationship she says she had with Trump in 2006 and 2007, unveiling details that bring her
story up to the present. It will be the first - and so far only - television interview in which she
speaks about the alleged relationship.
The 60 Minutes interview will include an examination of the
potential legal and political ramifications of the $130,000 payment that Trump's attorney Michael
Cohen says he made to Daniels using his own funds. Daniels accepted the money in return for signing a
confidentiality agreement, although she recently violated the CA, claiming Trump never signed it.
The president has denied having an affair with Daniels, while Trump's legal team - in this case led
by Charles Harder who won a $140MM verdict for Hulk Hogan against Gawker - is seeking to move the case
to federal court and claims that
Stormy is liable
for up to $20 million in damages. This in turn prompted Daniels to launch a
crowdfunding
campaign to fund her lawsuit
against Trump, which at last
check had raised over $290K
.
Cooper conducted the interview earlier this month, shortly after Cohen obtained a temporary
restraining order against Daniels. Meanwhile, Daniels is seeking a ruling that the confidentiality
agreement between her and the president is invalid, in part because Mr. Trump never signed it. The
president's attorneys are seeking to move the case to federal court and claim Daniels is liable for
more than $20 million in damages for violations of the agreement.
On Thursday, the lawyer representing Daniels fired off a tweet with a picture of what appeared to
be a compact disc in a safe - hinting that he has video or photographic evidence of Clifford's affair
with President Trump.
"If 'a picture is worth a thousand words,' how many words is this worth?????" tweeted lawyer
Michael Avenatti.
Avenatti has been a frequent guest on cable news as he promotes Stormy's upcoming 60 minutes
tell-all about her alleged affair with President Trump. When CBS Evening News' Julianna Goldman asked
Avenatti if he had photos, texts or videos of her alleged relationship with Trump, he replied "No
comment," adding that Clifford just "wants to set the record straight." (which you can read more about
in her upcoming book, we're sure).
Previewing today's 60 Minutes segment, Avenatti purposefully built up the suspense, tweeting that,
among other things,
"tonight is not the end – it's the beginning"
And while it is highly unlikely that the Stormy Daniels scandal will escalate into anything of
Clinton-Lewinsky proportions, not to mention that Trump has enough other headaches on his hands, here
according to The Hill
, are seven things to watch for in tonight's interview:
1. Will she give details about the nondisclosure agreement?
Daniels has never spoken publicly about the nondisclosure agreement that purportedly bars her from
speaking about her alleged affair with Trump. But a lawsuit filed by Daniels earlier this month
confirmed the existence of such a document, arguing that it is invalid because it was never co-signed
by Trump himself.
Whether Daniels will discuss the details of the agreement in the "60 Minutes" interview remains to
be seen. Her lawsuit seeking to void the contract is still pending, and NDAs often prohibit
signatories from speaking about the agreements.
Daniels has hinted that is true of her NDA. During an interview with late-night host Jimmy Kimmel
in January, Kimmel pointed out that Daniels would likely be barred from discussing the agreement if
it, in fact, existed. "You're so smart, Jimmy," was her cagey response.
2. Will she talk openly about the alleged affair?
Daniels has implied she was paid $130,000 by Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen weeks before
the 2016 presidential election to keep quiet about the alleged affair.
Speaking openly about
her claims would certainly violate the terms of the disputed NDA, and could subject Daniels to legal
penalties.
In court papers filed earlier this month, Trump's lawyers said that Daniels could face up to $20
million in damages for violating the terms of the agreement. One question that remains is whether
Daniels could toss out the NDA completely in her "60 Minutes" interview, and provide details about her
alleged relationship with the president. The last time she spoke about it was 2011, when she gave an
interview to In Touch magazine that wasn't published until this year.
3. Will she mention possible video or photographic evidence?
Avenatti has repeatedly hinted that video or photographic evidence of Daniels's alleged affair with
Trump exists. The March 6 lawsuit filed by Daniels to void the nondisclosure agreement with Trump
refers to "certain still images and/or text messages which were authored by or relate to" the
president. While the NDA reportedly required her to turn over such material and get rid of her own
copies, Avenatti has suggested that Daniels may have retained it.
Avenatti hinted this week that he may be in possession of such material, tweeting a cryptic photo
of a compact disc inside of what appeared to be a safe. "If 'a picture is worth a thousand words,' how
many words is this worth?????" he wrote on Twitter.
4. Will she address whether she was physically threatened?
Avenatti prompted questions earlier this month when he said that Daniels had been threatened with
physical harm in connection with the alleged affair with Trump. Asked on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" whether
Daniels had been physically threatened, Avenatti bluntly replied, "yes." Exactly who may have
threatened Daniels or what the nature of those threats may have been is unclear, and Avenatti has
declined to discuss the matter in greater detail. Daniels herself has not addressed any potential
physical threats that she may have gotten, leaving open whether she will discuss the topic in the "60
Minutes" interview.
5. Will she discuss whether Trump knew about the $130K payment?
Cohen himself has acknowledged making the payment to Daniels, but has insisted that the money came
from his personal funds and that Trump was never made aware of the transaction. White House press
secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has said she does not believe Trump knew about the payment. But
Avenatti has argued otherwise, saying the fact that Cohen used a Trump Organization email address
backs up his claim that the real estate mogul was aware of the transaction. In an interview on
"Morning Joe" last week, Avenatti also suggested that he had more evidence that Trump knew about the
payment. Asked by Willie Geist if his "belief that the president directed this payment is based on
more than a hunch," Avenatti simply replied, "yes," but declined to provide any evidence.
6. Why does she want to talk about the affair now?
Daniels's lawsuit claims she expressed interest in discussing the alleged affair publicly in 2016
after The Washington Post published a 2005 "Access Hollywood" tape in which Trump could be heard
boasting about groping and kissing women without their permission. It was at this point that Cohen and
Trump "aggressively sought to silence Ms. Clifford," according to the lawsuit, which claims that the
$130,000 payment and nondisclosure agreement soon followed. But for more than a year after that,
Daniels was silent about the alleged affair, and it was only in recent months that the accusations
resurfaced. One thing to watch for is whether Daniels addresses her motives in the "60 Minutes"
interview, or answers questions about what she hopes will happen next.
7. What happens next?
There may be hints of what Daniels's next steps are in the interview. A planned court hearing for
Daniels's lawsuit is still months away. However, whatever Daniels reveals in the interview may force
the hand of Trump's own legal team. After news broke that CBS intended to air the "60 Minutes" segment
with Daniels, speculation swirled that Trump's lawyers would take legal action seeking to block the
broadcast. Such legal action would have been unlikely to proceed, because courts rarely allow such
prior restraint of speech, particularly regarding the news media.
But Trump's legal team has already signaled they're willing to fight Daniels on her claims. They
reportedly asked for a temporary restraining order against her last month and have asked to transfer
the lawsuit from California state court to a federal court in Los Angeles. But how Trump and his
lawyers respond to the interview after it airs will be closely watched.
Tags
Law
Crime
News Agencies
Internet Service Providers
Glasses, Spectacles & Contact lenses
Initially, this ridiculous scandal was mildly amusing.
Now, it
has become a tedious circus sideshow that serves to distract the
masses from much more important issues.
The disgusting fact that Trump chose to throw his dick into
this cum-dumpster skank is bad enough, but now that her lawyer
apparently has a Trump dick-pic or some other pornographic
evidence, he intends to exploit and extort as much publicity and
money that he can in an effort to embarrass the POTUS.
Is it any wonder that the USA has become the laughing stock of
the world?
Creating a malware application which masks itself as some kind of pseudo scientific test and
serves as the backdoor to your personal data is a very dirty trick...
Especially dirty it it used by academic researchers, who in reality are academic scum... An
additional type of academic gangsters, in addition to Harvard Mafia
Notable quotes:
"... By Ivan Manokha, a departmental lecturer in the Oxford Department of International Development. He is currently working on power and obedience in the late-modern political economy, particularly in the context of the development of new technologies of surveillance. Originally published at openDemocracy ..."
"... The current social mobilization against Facebook resembles the actions of activists who, in opposition to neoliberal globalization, smash a McDonald's window during a demonstration. ..."
"... But as Christopher Wylie, a twenty-eight-year-old Canadian coder and data scientist and a former employee of Cambridge Analytica, stated in a video interview , the app could also collect all kinds of personal data from users, such as the content that they consulted, the information that they liked, and even the messages that they posted. ..."
"... All this is done in order to use data to create value in some way another (to monetize it by selling to advertisers or other firms, to increase sales, or to increase productivity). Data has become 'the new oil' of global economy, a new commodity to be bought and sold at a massive scale, and with this development, as a former Harvard Business School professor Shoshana Zuboff has argued , global capitalism has become 'surveillance capitalism'. ..."
"... What this means is that platform economy is a model of value creation which is completely dependant on continuous privacy invasions and, what is alarming is that we are gradually becoming used to this. ..."
"... In other instances, as in the case of Kogan's app, the extent of the data collected exceeds what was stated in the agreement. ..."
"... What we need is a total redefinition of the right to privacy (which was codified as a universal human right in 1948, long before the Internet), to guarantee its respect, both offline and online. ..."
"... I saw this video back in 2007. It was originally put together by a Sarah Lawrence student who was working on her paper on social media. The ties of all the original investors to IN-Q-Tel scared me off and I decided to stay away from Facebook. ..."
"... But it isn't just FB. Amazon, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, Apple, Microsoft and many others do the same, and we are all caught up in it whether we agree to participate or not. ..."
"... Platform Capitalism is a mild description, it is manipulation based on Surveillance Capitalism, pure and simple. The Macro pattern of Corporate Power subsuming the State across every area is fascinating to watch, but a little scary. ..."
"... For his part, Aleksandr Kogan established a company, Global Science Research, that contracted with SCL, using Facebook data to map personality traits for its work in elections (Kosinski claims that Kogan essentially reverse-engineered the app that he and Stillwell had developed). Kogan's app harvested data on Facebook users who agreed to take a personality test for the purposes of academic research (though it was, in fact, to be used by SCL for non-academic ends). But according to Wylie, the app also collected data on their entire -- and nonconsenting -- network of friends. Once Cambridge Analytica and SCL had won contracts with the State Department and were pitching to the Pentagon, Wylie became alarmed that this illegally-obtained data had ended up at the heart of government, along with the contractors who might abuse it. ..."
"... This apparently bizarre intersection of research on topics like love and kindness with defense and intelligence interests is not, in fact, particularly unusual. It is typical of the kind of dual-use research that has shaped the field of social psychology in the US since World War II. ..."
"... Much of the classic, foundational research on personality, conformity, obedience, group polarization, and other such determinants of social dynamics -- while ostensibly civilian -- was funded during the cold war by the military and the CIA. ..."
"... The pioneering figures from this era -- for example, Gordon Allport on personality and Solomon Asch on belief conformity -- are still cited in NATO psy-ops literature to this day ..."
"... This is an issue which has frustrated me greatly. In spite of the fact that the country's leading psychologist (at the very least one of them -- ex-APA president Seligman) has been documented taking consulting fees from Guantanamo and Black Sites goon squads, my social science pals refuse to recognize any corruption at the core of their so-called replicated quantitative research. ..."
Yves
here. Not new to anyone who has been paying attention, but a useful recap with some good
observations at the end, despite deploying the cringe-making trope of businesses having DNA.
That legitimates the notion that corporations are people.
By Ivan Manokha, a departmental lecturer in the Oxford Department of International
Development. He is currently working on power and obedience in the late-modern political
economy, particularly in the context of the development of new technologies of surveillance.
Originally published at
openDemocracy
The current social mobilization against Facebook resembles the actions of activists who,
in opposition to neoliberal globalization, smash a McDonald's window during a
demonstration.
On March 17,
The Observer of London and The
New York Times announced that Cambridge Analytica, the London-based political and corporate
consulting group, had harvested private data from the Facebook profiles of more than 50 million
users without their consent. The data was collected through a Facebook-based quiz app called
thisisyourdigitallife, created by Aleksandr Kogan, a University of Cambridge psychologist who
had requested and gained access to information from 270,000 Facebook members after they had
agreed to use the app to undergo a personality test, for which they were paid through Kogan's
company, Global Science Research.
But as Christopher Wylie, a twenty-eight-year-old Canadian coder and data scientist and
a former employee of Cambridge Analytica, stated in a video interview , the
app could also collect all kinds of personal data from users, such as the content that they
consulted, the information that they liked, and even the messages that they posted.
In addition, the app provided access to information on the profiles of the friends of each
of those users who agreed to take the test, which enabled the collection of data from more than
50 million.
All this data was then shared by Kogan with Cambridge Analytica, which was working with
Donald Trump's election team and which allegedly used this data to target US voters with
personalised political messages during the presidential campaign. As Wylie, told The Observer,
"we built models to exploit what we knew about them and target their inner demons."
'Unacceptable Violation'
Following these revelations the Internet has been engulfed in outrage and government
officials have been quick to react. On March 19, Antonio Tajani President of the European
Parliament Antonio Tajani, stated in a twitter message that misuse of
Facebook user data "is an unacceptable violation of our citizens' privacy rights" and promised
an EU investigation. On March 22, Wylie communicated in a tweet that he accepted
an invitation to testify before the US House Intelligence Committee, the US House Judiciary
Committee and UK Parliament Digital Committee. On the same day Israel's Justice Ministry
informed
Facebook that it was opening an investigation into possible violations of Israelis'
personal information by Facebook.
While such widespread condemnation of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica is totally justified,
what remains largely absent from the discussion are broader questions about the role of data
collection, processing and monetization that have become central in the current phase of
capitalism, which may be described as 'platform capitalism', as suggested by the Canadian
writer and academic Nick Srnicek in his recent book
.
Over the last decade the growth of platforms has been spectacular: today, the top 4
enterprises in Forbes's
list of most valuable brands are platforms, as are eleven of the top twenty. Most recent
IPOs and acquisitions have involved platforms, as have most of the major successful startups.
The list includes Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, eBay, Instagram,
YouTube, Twitch, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Waze, Uber, Lyft, Handy, Airbnb, Pinterest, Square, Social
Finance, Kickstarter, etc. Although most platforms are US-based, they are a really global
phenomenon and in fact are now playing an even more important role in developing countries
which did not have developed commercial infrastructures at the time of the rise of the Internet
and seized the opportunity that it presented to structure their industries around it. Thus, in
China, for example, many of the most valuable enterprises are platforms such as Tencent (owner
of the WeChat and QQ messaging platforms) and Baidu (China's search engine); Alibaba controls
80 percent of China's e-commerce market through its Taobao and Tmall platforms, with its Alipay
platform being the largest payments platform in China.
The importance of platforms is also attested by the range of sectors in which they are now
dominant and the number of users (often numbered in millions and, in some cases, even billions)
regularly connecting to their various cloud-based services. Thus, to name the key industries,
platforms are now central in Internet search (Google, Yahoo, Bing); social networking
(Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat); Internet auctions and retail (eBay, Taobao, Amazon,
Alibaba); on-line financial and human resource functions (Workday, Upwork, Elance, TaskRabbit),
urban transportation (Uber, Lyft, Zipcar, BlaBlaCar), tourism (Kayak, Trivago, Airbnb), mobile
payment (Square Order, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Wallet); and software development (Apple's App
Store, Google Play Store, Windows App store). Platform-based solutions are also currently being
adopted in more traditional sectors, such as industrial production (GE, Siemens), agriculture
(John Deere, Monsanto) and even clean energy (Sungevity, SolarCity, EnerNOC).
User Profiling -- Good-Bye to Privacy
These platforms differ significantly in terms of the services that they offer: some, like
eBay or Taobao simply allow exchange of products between buyers and sellers; others, like Uber
or TaskRabbit, allow independent service providers to find customers; yet others, like Apple or
Google allow developers to create and market apps.
However, what is common to all these platforms is the central role played by data, and not
just continuous data collection, but its ever more refined analysis in order to create detailed
user profiles and rankings in order to better match customers and suppliers or increase
efficiency.
All this is done in order to use data to create value in some way another (to monetize
it by selling to advertisers or other firms, to increase sales, or to increase productivity).
Data has become 'the new oil' of global economy, a new commodity to be bought and sold at a
massive scale, and with this development, as a former Harvard Business School professor
Shoshana Zuboff
has argued , global capitalism has become 'surveillance capitalism'.
What this means is that platform economy is a model of value creation which is
completely dependant on continuous privacy invasions and, what is alarming is that we are
gradually becoming used to this.
Most of the time platform providers keep track of our purchases, travels, interest, likes,
etc. and use this data for targeted advertising to which we have become accustomed. We are
equally not that surprised when we find out that, for example,
robotic vacuum cleaners collect data about types of furniture that we have and share it
with the likes of Amazon so that they can send us advertisements for pieces of furniture that
we do not yet possess.
There is little public outcry when we discover that Google's ads are racially biased as, for
instance, a Harvard professor Latanya Sweeney
found by accident performing a search. We are equally hardly astonished that companies such
as Lenddo buy access to
people's social media and browsing history in exchange for a credit score. And, at least in
the US, people are becoming accustomed to the use of algorithms, developed by private
contractors, by the justice system to take decisions on sentencing, which often result in
equally unfair and racially
biased decisions .
The outrage provoked by the Cambridge Analytica is targeting only the tip of the iceberg.
The problem is infinitely larger as there are countless equally significant instances of
privacy invasions and data collection performed by corporations, but they have become
normalized and do not lead to much public outcry.
DNA
Today surveillance is the DNA of the platform economy; its model is simply based on the
possibility of continuous privacy invasions using whatever means possible. In most cases users
agree, by signing the terms and conditions of service providers, so that their data may be
collected, analyzed and even shared with third parties (although it is hardly possible to see
this as express consent given the size and complexity of these agreements -- for instance, it
took 8 hours and 59 minutes for an actor hired by the consumer group Choice to read Amazon Kindle's terms and
conditions). In other instances, as in the case of Kogan's app, the extent of the data
collected exceeds what was stated in the agreement.
But what is important is to understand that to prevent such scandals in the future it is not
enough to force Facebook to better monitor the use of users' data in order to prevent such
leaks as in the case of Cambridge Analytica. The current social mobilization against Facebook
resembles the actions of activists who, in opposition to neoliberal globalization, smash a
McDonald's window during a demonstration.
What we need is a total redefinition of the right to privacy (which was codified as a
universal human right in 1948, long before the Internet), to guarantee its respect, both
offline and online.
What we need is a body of international law that will provide regulations and oversight for
the collection and use of data.
What is required is an explicit and concise formulation of terms and conditions which, in a
few sentences, will specify how users' data will be used.
It is important to seize the opportunity presented by the Cambridge Analytica scandal to
push for these more fundamental changes.
I am grateful for my spidey sense. Thanks, spidey sense, for ringing the alarm bells
whenever I saw one of those personality tests on Facebook. I never took one.
The most efficient strategy is to be
non-viable . They may come for you eventually, but someone else gets to be the canary,
and you haven't wasted energy in the meantime. TOR users didn't get that figured out.
Never took the personality test either, but now I now that all of my friends who did
unknowingly gave up my personal information too. I read an article somewhere about this over
a year ago so it's really old news. Sent the link to a few people who didn't care. But now
that they all know that Cambridge Analytical used FB data in support of the Trump campaign
it's all over the mainstream and people are upset.
You can disable that (i.e., prevent friends from sharing your info with third parties) in
the privacy options. But the controls are not easy to find and everything is enabled by
default.
I haven't FB'd in years and certainly never took any such test, but if any of my friends,
real or FB, did, and my info was shared, can I sue? If not, why not?
Everyone thought I was paranoid as I discouraged them from moving backups to the cloud,
using trackers, signing up for grocery store clubs, using real names and addresses for online
anything, etc. They thought I was overreacting when I said we need European-style privacy
laws in this country. People at work thought my questions about privacy for our new
location-based IoT plans were not team-based thinking.
And it turns out after all this that they still think I'm extreme. I guess it will have to
get worse.
In a first for me, there are surface-mount resistors in the advert at the top of today's
NC links page. That is way out of the ordinary; what I usually see are books or bicycle
parts; things I have recently purchased or searched.
But a couple of days ago I had a SKYPE conversation with a sibling about a PC I was
scavenging for parts, and surface mount resistors (unscavengable) came up. I suspect I have
been observed without my consent and am not too happy about it. As marketing, it's a bust; in
the conversation I explicitly expressed no interest in such components as I can't install
them. I suppose I should be glad for this indication of something I wasn't aware was
happening.
No keyboard search. I never so much as think about surface mount components; the inquiry
was raised by my sibling and I responded. Maybe its coincidental, but it seems quite odd.
I decided to click through to the site to generate a few pennies for NC and at least feel
like I was punishing someone for snooping on me.
Its been happening to me a lot recently on my Instagram, I don't like pictures or
anything, but whenever I have a conversation with someone on my phone, I start seeing ads of
what I spoke about
What we need is a total redefinition of the right to privacy (which was codified as a
universal human right in 1948, long before the Internet), to guarantee its respect, both
offline and online.
Are we, readers of this post, or citizens of the USA supposed to think there is anything
binding in declarations? Or anything from the UN if at all inconvenient for that matter?
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or
correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to
the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Platforms like facebook allow individuals to 'spy' on each other and people love it. When
I was a kid i always marveled at how some households would leave a police scanner on 24/7.
With the net we have this writ large with baby, puppy and tv dinner photos. Not to forget
it's a narcissist paradise. I have friends who I've tried to gently over time inject tidbits
of info like this article provides for many years and they still just refuse to try and get
it. If they looked over their shoulder and saw how many people/entities are literally
following them everywhere they go, they would become rabid gun owners (don't tread on me!)
overnight, but the invisible hand/eye registers not at all.
A side note: If Facebook and other social media were to assume ANY degree of
responsibility for content appearing on their platforms, they would be acknowledging their
legal liability for ALL content.
Hence they would be legally responsible just as newspapers are. And major newspapers have
on-staff lawyers and editors exquisitely attuned to the possibility of libelous content so
they can avoid ruinous lawsuits.
If the law were applied as it should be, Facebook and its brethren wouldn't last five
minutes before being sued into oblivion.
Non-liability is a product of the computer age. I remember having to agree with Microsofts
policy to absolve them of -any- liability when using their software. If they had their
druthers, -no- company would be liable for -anything-. It's called a 'perfect world'.
Companies that host 'social media' should not have to bear any responsibility for their
users content. Newspapers employ writers and fact checkers. They are set up to monitor their
staff for accuracy (Okay, in theory). So you can sue them and even their journalist
employees. Being liable (and not sued) allows them to brag about how truthful they are.
Reputations are a valuable commodity these days.
In the case of 'social media' providers, liability falls on the authors of their own
comments, which is only fair, in my view. However, I would argue that those 'providers'
should -not- be considered 'media' like newspapers, and their members should not be
considered 'journalists'.
Also, those providers are private companies, and are free to edit, censor, or delete
anything on their site. And of course it's automated. Some conservative Facebook members were
complaining about being banned. Apparently, there a certain things you can't say on
Facebook.
AFAIC, the bottom line is this: Many folks tend to believe everything they read online.
They need to learn the skill of critical thinking. And realize that the Internet can be a
vast wasteland; a digital garbage dump.
Why are our leaders so concerned with election meddling? Isn't our propaganda better than
the Russians? We certainly pay a lot for it.
. .. . .. -- .
Today, Musk also made fun of Sonos for not being as committed as he was to the
anti-Facebook cause after the connected-speaker maker said it would pull ads from the
platform -- but only for a week.
Musk, like Trump, knows he does not need to advertise because a fawning press will
dutifully report on everything he does and says, no matter how dumb.
A thoughtful post, thanks for that. May I recommend you take a look at "All You Can Pay"
(NationBooks 2015) for a more thorough treatment of the subject, together with a proposal on
how to re-balance the equation. Full disclosure, I am a co-author.
I saw this video back in 2007. It was originally put together by a Sarah Lawrence
student who was working on her paper on social media. The ties of all the original investors
to IN-Q-Tel scared me off and I decided to stay away from Facebook.
But it isn't just FB. Amazon, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, Apple, Microsoft and many
others do the same, and we are all caught up in it whether we agree to participate or
not.
Anyone watch the NCAA Finals and see all the ads from Google about being "The Official
Cloud of the NCAA"? They were flat out bragging, more or less, about surveillance of players.
for the NCAA.
Platform Capitalism is a mild description, it is manipulation based on Surveillance
Capitalism, pure and simple. The Macro pattern of Corporate Power subsuming the State across
every area is fascinating to watch, but a little scary.
It was amusing that the top Google hit for the Brandeis article was JSTOR which requires
us to surrender personal detail to access their site. To hell with that.
The part I like about the Brandeis privacy story is the motivation was some Manhattan rich
dicks thought the gossip writers snooping around their wedding party should mind their own
business. (Apparently whether this is actually true or just some story made up by somebody
being catty at Brandeis has been the topic of gigabytes of internet flame wars but I can't
ever recall seeing any of those.)
" Two young psychologists are central to the Cambridge Analytica story. One is Michal
Kosinski, who devised an app with a Cambridge University colleague, David Stillwell, that
measures personality traits by analyzing Facebook "likes." It was then used in collaboration
with the World Well-Being Project, a group at the University of Pennsylvania's Positive
Psychology Center that specializes in the use of big data to measure health and happiness in
order to improve well-being. The other is Aleksandr Kogan, who also works in the field of
positive psychology and has written papers on happiness, kindness, and love (according to his
résumé, an early paper was called "Down the Rabbit Hole: A Unified Theory of
Love"). He ran the Prosociality and Well-being Laboratory, under the auspices of Cambridge
University's Well-Being Institute.
Despite its prominence in research on well-being, Kosinski's work, Cadwalladr points out,
drew a great deal of interest from British and American intelligence agencies and defense
contractors, including overtures from the private company running an intelligence project
nicknamed "Operation KitKat" because a correlation had been found between anti-Israeli
sentiments and liking Nikes and KitKats. Several of Kosinski's co-authored papers list the US
government's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, as a funding source. His
résumé boasts of meetings with senior figures at two of the world's largest
defense contractors, Boeing and Microsoft, both companies that have sponsored his research.
He ran a workshop on digital footprints and psychological assessment for the Singaporean
Ministry of Defense.
For his part, Aleksandr Kogan established a company, Global Science Research, that
contracted with SCL, using Facebook data to map personality traits for its work in elections
(Kosinski claims that Kogan essentially reverse-engineered the app that he and Stillwell had
developed). Kogan's app harvested data on Facebook users who agreed to take a personality
test for the purposes of academic research (though it was, in fact, to be used by SCL for
non-academic ends). But according to Wylie, the app also collected data on their entire --
and nonconsenting -- network of friends. Once Cambridge Analytica and SCL had won contracts
with the State Department and were pitching to the Pentagon, Wylie became alarmed that this
illegally-obtained data had ended up at the heart of government, along with the contractors
who might abuse it.
This apparently bizarre intersection of research on topics like love and kindness with
defense and intelligence interests is not, in fact, particularly unusual. It is typical of
the kind of dual-use research that has shaped the field of social psychology in the US since
World War II.
Much of the classic, foundational research on personality, conformity, obedience,
group polarization, and other such determinants of social dynamics -- while ostensibly
civilian -- was funded during the cold war by the military and the CIA. The cold war was
an ideological battle, so, naturally, research on techniques for controlling belief was
considered a national security priority. This psychological research laid the groundwork for
propaganda wars and for experiments in individual "mind control."
The pioneering figures from this era -- for example, Gordon Allport on personality and
Solomon Asch on belief conformity -- are still cited in NATO psy-ops literature to this
day .."
This is an issue which has frustrated me greatly. In spite of the fact that the
country's leading psychologist (at the very least one of them -- ex-APA president Seligman)
has been documented taking consulting fees from Guantanamo and Black Sites goon squads, my
social science pals refuse to recognize any corruption at the core of their so-called
replicated quantitative research.
I have asked more than five people to point at the best critical work on the Big 5
Personality theory and they all have told me some variant of "it is the only way to get
consistent numbers". Not one has ever retreated one step or been receptive to the suggestion
that this might indicate some fallacy in trying to assign numbers to these properties.
They eat their own dog food all the way and they seem to be suffering from a terrible
malnutrition. At least the anthropologists have Price . (Most of
that book can be read for free in installments at Counterpunch.)
This is really deception as an art form: presenting a specially crafted false message to
group of voters bating them into voting for this candidate with explicit goal to deceive. This is
the same method pedophiles used to groom victims.
Notable quotes:
"... "CA was able to provide the campaign with predictive analytics based on more than 5,000 data points on every voter in the United States. From there, CA's team of political consultants and psychologists guided the campaign on what to say and how to say it to specific groups of voters." ..."
"CA was able to provide the campaign with predictive
analytics based on more than 5,000 data points on every voter in the United States. From there,
CA's team of political consultants and psychologists guided the campaign on what to say and how
to say it to specific groups of voters."
This is a vocal acknowledgement from Trump's data guru that he was able to change the
behaviour of American voters in favour of a Trump victory in the presidential election, but
unfortunately, the American deep state blamed Russia for hacking American democracy – a
claim which is totally baseless and untrue. In a total disingenuous move, American mainstream
media tried to link-up CA with WikiLeaks. While CA did contact Wikileaks, Julian Assange is on
the record as rebuffing CA's advances.
American warmongers within the deep state worked for a Hillary Clinton victory through their
control of American mainstream media, but they nevertheless failed to elect her. As a result,
Clinton's team blamed her loss on Russia, in order to accelerate hostility towards Moscow and
to apply pressure on President Trump so that he could not establish friendly relations with
Russia. They have succeeded in this regard as Trump surrendered to the war hungry deep state.
That being said, the fight within the deep state between FBI and CIA also helped Trump to use
the situation in his favour, as the FBI investigated Clinton after emails leaks scandal.
The CIA blamed Russia for hacking Hillary Clinton's DNC emails and allegedly passing them to
Wikileaks. The purpose of this blame was to influence the FBI investigation against her. To a
degree they succeeded. While she did not go to jail, she ended up losing the election. US
intelligence agencies propagated a myth that Wikileaks worked for Russia, but it is a fact that
Russia has no links with Wikileaks.
... ... ...
Recently Russian President Vladimir Putin held up a mirror to western global
manipulator elite and addressed their baseless 'blame campaign' against Russia. Speaking with
NBC news anchor Megyn Kelly, Putin said, "We're holding discussions with our American friends
and partners, people who represent the government, by the way, and when they claim that some
Russians interfered in the US elections, we tell them and we did so fairly recently at a very
level, 'But you are constantly interfering in our political life'. Can you imagine, they don't
even deny it, you know what they told us last time? They said, 'Yes, we do interfere but we are
entitled to do it because we are spreading democracy and you're not, and you can't do it'. Does
this seem like a civilized and modern approach to international affairs? At the level of the
Russian government and the level of Russian President, there has never been any interference in
the internal political process of the United States."
President Putin further explained, "Not long ago President Trump said something, he said
that if Russia goal was to sow chaos it has succeeded, but that's not the result, that's the
result of your political system; the internal struggle, the disorder, and division. Russia has
nothing to do with it. Whatsoever we have nothing to do with it all. Get your own affairs in
order first and the way the question's been framed as I mentioned –that you can interfere
anywhere you want because you bring democracy but we can't –that's what causes conflicts.
You have to show your partners respect and they will respect you."
President Putin's statement clearly indicates that it is the USA who is behind the effort to
hack democracy and bring about regime changes throughout the world with the aim to install
puppet regimes in targeted states. Cambridge Analytica and its mother company SCL are working
for the strategic interests of the USA and its western partner NATO in order to achieve these
regime change ambitions. Hence, this is the reason that Facebook after the publication of my
previous article, suspended the CA/SCL group from its social media network by saying,
"Protecting people's information is at the heart of everything we do, and we require the same
from people who operate apps on Facebook. In 2015, we learned that a psychology professor at
the University of Cambridge named Dr. Aleksandr Kogan lied to us and violated our Platform
Policies by passing data from an app that was using Facebook Login to SCL/Cambridge Analytica,
a firm that does political, government and military work around the globe. He also passed that
data to Christopher Wylie of Eunoia Technologies, Inc."
Manipulating democracy -- brainwashing the public for a large fee
Cambridge Analytica, the data harvesting firm that worked for the Trump campaign, is in the
midst of a scandal that should make everyone who cares about a clean political process demand
major investigations of anyone who has procured the services of the company, major prosecutions
of those who have violated laws across multiple nations and a wholesale revitalisation of
electoral laws to prevent politicians from ever again procuring the services of unethical
companies like Cambridge Analytica.
Days ago, whistleblower Christopher Wylie went public about his time
working for Cambridge Analytica and specifically about how the firm illegally obtained the
public and private data, including the private messages of 50 million Facebook users. He also
exposed how Cambridge Analytica used this data to run highly scientific social manipulation
campaigns in order to effectively brainwash the public in various countries to support a
certain political candidate or faction.
Cambridge Analytica's dubious methods were used to meddle in the US election after the Trump
campaign paid Cambridge Analytica substantial sums of money for their services. The firm also
meddled in the last two Kenyan Presidential elections, elections in Nigeria, elections in Czech
Republic, elections in Argentina, elections in India, the Brexit campaign, UK Premier Theresa
May's recently election and now stands accused of working with the disgraced former
Pakistani Premier Nawaz Sharif in an attempt to reverse his judicial ban on holding public
office, while helping his PML-N party win the forthcoming general election.
Beyond the scandalous use of personal data from Facebook users and the illegal access to
people's private messages, Cambridge Analytica has now been exposed as a company that, by the
hidden-camera admission of its CEO Alexander Nix, engages in nefarious, illegal and outrageous
activities across the globe.
The UK Broadcaster Channel 4 just released a video of Cambridge Analytica's CEO and Managing
DIrector Mark Turnbull in a conversation with an undercover reporter posing as a Sri Lankan
businessman interested in meddling in domestic elections. During the conversation Nix boasted
of Cambridge Analytica's history of using entrapment, bribery and intimidation against the
political opponents of its wealthy clients. Furthermore, Nix boasted about his firm's ability
to procure Ukrainian prostitutes as a means to entrap adversaries while also procuring the
services of "Israeli spies" as part of dirty smear operations.
The activities that Nix boasted of using in the past and then offered to a prospective
client are illegal in virtually every country in the world. But for Nix and his world of
ultra-rich clients, acting as though one is above the law is the rule rather than the
exception. Thus far, Cambridge Analaytica has been able to escape justice throughout the world
both for its election meddling, data harvesting, data theft and attempts to slander politicians
through calculated bribery and entrapment schemes.
One person who refused to be tempted by Cambridge Analytica was Julian Assange. Alexander
Nix personally wrote to Julian Assange asking for direct access to information possessed by
Wikileaks and Assange refused. This is a clear example of journalistic ethics and personal
integrity on the part of Assange. Justice must be done
Cambridge Analytica stands accused of doing everything and more that the Russian
state was accused of doing in respect of meddling in the 2016 US Presidential election. While
meetings and conversations that Trump campaign officials, including Steve Bannon had with
Cambridge Analyatica big wigs were not recorded, any information as to what was said during
these exchanges should be thoroughly investigated by law enforcement and eventually made public
for the sake of restoring transparency to politics.
Just as the Hillary Clinton campaign openly conspired to deprive Bernie Sanders of the
Democratic Party's nomination, so too did Donald Trump's campaign pay Cambridge Analytica to
conspire against the American voters using a calculated psychological manipulation campaign
that was made possible through the use of unethically obtained and stolen data.
While Facebook claims it was itself misled and consequently victimised by Cambridge
Analytica and has subsequently banned the firm from its platform, many, including Edward
Snowden have alleged that Facebook knew full well what Cambridge Analytica was doing with the
data retrieved from its Facebook apps. Already, the markets have reacted to the news and the
verdict is not favourble in terms of the public perception of Facebook as an ethical company.
Facebook's share prices are down over 7% on the S&P 500. This represents the biggest tumble
in the price of Facebook share prices since 2014. Moreover, the plunge has knocked Facebook out
of the coveted big five companies atop the S&P 500. Furthermore, Alex Stamos, Facebook's
security director has announced that he will soon leave the company.
The Trump myth and Russia myth exposed
Donald Trump has frequently boasted of his expert campaigning skills as being the reason he
won an election that few thought he could have ever won. While Trump was a far more charismatic
and exciting platform speaker than his rival Hillary Clinton, it seems that for the Trump
campaign, Trump ultimately needed to rely on the expensive and nefarious services of Cambridge
Analytica in order to manipulate the minds of American voters and ultimately trick them into
voting for him. It is impossible to say whether Trump would have still won his election without
Cambridge Analaytica's services, but the fact they were used, should immediately raise the
issue of Trump's suitability for office.
Ultimately, the Trump campaign did conspire to meddle in the election, only it was
not with Russia or Russians with whom the campaign conspired, it was with the British firm
Cambridge Analytica. Thus one sees that both the narrative about Trump the electoral "genius"
and the narrative about Trump the Kremlin puppet are both false. The entire time, the issue of
Trump campaign election meddling was one between a group of American millionaires and
billionaires and a sleaze infested British firm.
Worse than Watergate
In 1972, US President Richard Nixon conspired to cover-up a beak-in at the offices of his
political opponents at the Watergate Complex. The scandal ultimately led to Nixon's resignation
in 1974. What the Trump campaign did with Cambridge Analytica is far more scandalous than the
Watergate break-in and cover-up. Where Nixon's cronies broke into offices to steal information
from the Democratic party, Trump's paid cyber-thugs at Cambridge Analytica broke in to the
private data of 50 million people, the vast majority of whom were US citizens.
Richard Nixon, like Donald Trump, was ultimately driven by a love of power throughout his
life. Just as Trump considered running for President for decades, so too did Nixon try to run
in 1960 and lost to John Fitzgerald Kennedy, while he also failed to become governor of
California in 1962 election. By 1968 he finally got into the White House at the height of the
Vietnam War. When time came for his re-election, Nixon's team weren't going to take any chances
and hence the Watergate break-in was orchestrated to dig up dirt on Nixon's opponent. As it
turned out Nixon won the 1972 by a comfortable margin, meaning that the Watergate break-in was
probably largely in vain.
Likewise, Trump may well have won in 2016 even without Cambridge Analytica, but in his quest
for power, Trump has resorted to dealing with a company whose practices have done far more
damage to the American people than the Watergate break-in.
New laws are needed
While existing laws will likely be sufficient to bring the fiends at Cambridge Analytica to
justice, while also determining the role that Trump campaign officials, up to and including
Trump played in the scandal, new laws must be enshrined across the globe in order to put the
likes of Cambridge Analytica out of business for good.
The following proposals must be debated widely and ideally implemented at the soonest
possible date:
-- A total ban on all forms of data mining/harvesting for political purposes.
-- A total ban on the use of algorithms and artificial intelligence in any political
campaign or for any political purpose.
-- A mandatory seizing of the assets of any company involved in data mining/harvesting for
political purposes, after which point such a company would be forcibly shut down
permanently.
-- A mandatory seizing of the assets of any company involved in the use of artificial
intelligence or algorithms in the course of a public political campaign.
-- A total ban on the use of internet based platforms, including social media by political
candidates and their direct associates for anything that could reasonably be classified as a
misinformation and/or manipulation scheme.
-- A total ban on politicians using third party data firms or advertising firms during
elections. All such advertising and analysis must be devised by advisers employed directly by
or volunteering for an individual candidate or his or her party political organisation.
-- A total ban on any individual working for a political campaign, who derives at least half
of his or her income from employment, ownership and/or shares in a company whose primary
purpose is to deliver news and analysis.
-- A total ban on anyone paid by a political candidate to promote his or her election from
an ownership or major share holding role in any company whose primary purpose is to deliver
news and analysis until 2 years after the said election.
If all of these laws were implemented along with thorough campaign finance reform
initiatives, only then can anything remotely resembling fair elections take place.
The elites eat their own
While many of the media outlets who have helped to publish the revelations of whistleblower
Christopher Wylie continue to defame Russia without any evidence about Russian linkage to the
2016 US election (or any other western vote for that matter), these outlets are nevertheless
exposing the true meddling scandal surrounding the Trump campaign which has the effect of
destroying the Russia narrative.
In this sense, a divided elite are turning against themselves. While the billionaire
property tycoon Donald Trump can hardly be described as anything but a privileged figure who
moved in elite public circles for most of his life, his personal style, rhetoric and attitude
towards fellow elites has served to alienate Trump from many. Thus, there is a desire on the
part of the mainstream media to expose a scandal surrounding Trump in a manner that would be
unthinkable in respect of exposing a cause less popular among western elites, for example the
brutal treatment of Palestine by the Zionist regime.
In this sense, Trump's own unwillingness or lack of desire to endear himself to fellow
elites and instead present himself as a 'man of the people', might be his penultimate undoing.
His rich former friends are now his rich present day enemies and many ordinary voters will be
completely aghast at his involvement with Cambridge Analytica, just as many Republicans who
voted for Nixon, became converts to the anti-Nixon movement once the misdeeds and dishonesty of
Richard Nixon were made public. Many might well leave the 'Trump train' and get on board the
'political ethics express'.
Conclusion
This scandal ultimately has nothing to do with one's opinion on Trump or his policies, let
alone any of the other politicians who have hired Cambridge Analytica. The issue is that a
company engaged in the most nefarious, dangerous, sleazy and wicked behaviour in the world, is
profiting from their destruction of political institutions that ought to be based on open
policy debates rather than public manipulation, brainwashing and artificial intelligence.
The issue is also one of privacy. 50 million people have been exploited by an unethical
company and what's more is that the money from the Trump campaign helped to empower this
unethical company. This is therefore as unfair to non-voters as it is to voters. Cambridge
Analytica must be shut down and all companies like it must restrict the scope of their
operations or else face the same consequence.
Look at this great interview with Adam Garrie. This is a must watch video.
This scandal is HUUUGE
He discusses Cambridge Analytica involvement in basically all elections, involvement of
Facebook and its Sugar daddy, UK ,US gov. How they tried to co-opt Mr.Assange and he said
FO.
How UK tries to cover it up . There is a whistleblower and soon more ,it seems
I ran onto something about that when researching SCL/Cambridge Analytica
The Mercer/Cambridge Analytica US wing of SCL put a lot of funding into the leave campaign
which was undeclared. Like a political campaign, donations above a threshold have to be
declared.
Threshold for declaring donations I think was around 3 to 7000 and CA put in over 300
000.
I have been researching SCL the last few days now. It is starting to look as though,
rather than being political mercenary's working for whoever pays, they seem to back
nationalist leaning groups or individuals. They have a political or geo-political agenda but
not sure what at the moment. Always anti Russia. Involved in operations in most of the ex
soviet countries to create a hatred of ethnic Russians and I think will work with non
nationalist types who are very anti Russia.
by Tyler Durden
Sun, 03/25/2018 - 13:00 371 SHARES
Julian Assange fired off a tweet Friday afternoon reminding people of the time Mark
Zuckerberg called his users "Dumb fucks" because they trusted him with their private
information.
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask.
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks.
The exchange,
originally published by Business Insider 's editor-in-chief Nicholas Carlson in 2010, was
an early instant messenger conversation then 19-year-old Zuckerberg had with a college friend
shortly after he launched "The Facebook" in his dorm room.
At the time Business Insider published the exchange, Facebook had "faced one privacy flap
after another, usually following changes to the privacy policy or new product releases."
But the company's attitude toward privacy, as reflected in Mark's early emails and IMs,
features like Beacon and Instant Personalization, and the frequent changes to the privacy
policy, has been consistently aggressive: Do something first, then see how people react.
And this does appear to reflect Mark's own views of privacy, which seem to be that people
shouldn't care about it as much as they do -- an attitude that very much reflects the
attitude of his generation.
After all, here's what early Facebook engineering boss, Harvard alum, and Zuckerberg
confidant Charlie Cheever said in David Kirkpatrick's brilliantly-reported upcoming book The
Facebook Effect.
"I feel Mark doesn't believe in privacy that much, or at least believes in privacy as a
stepping stone. Maybe he's right, maybe he's wrong."
Kirkpatrick had this to say about Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg in his book:
"Mark really does believe very much in transparency and the vision of an open society and
open world, and so he wants to push people that way . I think he also understands that the
way to get there is to give people granular control and comfort . He hopes you'll get more
open, and he's kind of happy to help you get there. So for him, it's more of a means to an
end . For me, I'm not as sure."
Zuckerberg reportedly hacked into people's email using their TheFacebook passwords...
At one point early on on Facebook history, Zuckerberg - nervous about an upcoming report in
the Harvard Crimson , used "TheFacebook" login data of Crimson staff to crack into their
Harvard email accounts to see if the paper was going to include a claim that he had stolen an
idea for a TheFacebook feature called "Visualize Your Buddy."
Tim and Elisabeth decided to drop John's claims from the story. But, this time, they
decided to go ahead and publish a story on ConnectU's claims against Facebook.
Mark Zuckerberg was not content to wait until the morning to find out if the Crimson would
include John's accusations in its story.
Instead, he decided to access the email accounts of Crimson editors and review their
emails. How did he do this? Here's how Mark described his hack to a friend:
Mark used his site, TheFacebook.com, to look up members of the site who identified
themselves as members of the Crimson . Then he examined a log of failed logins to see if any
of the Crimson members had ever entered an incorrect password into TheFacebook.com. If the
cases in which they had entered failed logins, Mark tried to use them to access the Crimson
members' Harvard email accounts. He successfully accessed two of them.
In other words, Mark appears to have used private login data from TheFacebook to hack into
the separate email accounts of some TheFacebook users.
In one account he accessed, Mark saw an email from Crimson writer Tim McGinn to Cameron,
Tyler, and Divya. Another email Mark read was this one, from Crimson managing editor
Elisabeth Theodore to Tim McGinn:
From: Elisabeth Susan Theodore
To: Timothy John McGinn
Subject: Re: Follow-up
OK, he did seem very sleazy. And I thought that some of his answers to the questions were
not very direct or open. I also thought that his reaction to the website was very very weird
. But, even if it's true so what? It's an [redacted] thing to do but it's not illegal, right?
- Business
Insider
Lo and behold, Mark's cavalier attitude towards Facebook user data is costing him billions
at a time he's actively shedding shares as part of a $12 billion liquidation which started
last
September .
"... The US congress has carried out two probes into "Russiagate" without much to show for their laborious endeavors. A special counsel headed up by former FBI chief Robert Mueller has spent millions of taxpayer dollars to produce a flimsy indictment list of 19 Russian individuals who are said to have run influence campaigns out of a nondescript "troll farm" in St Petersburg. ..."
Now, at last, a real "election influence" scandal -- and, laughably, it's got nothing to do
with Russia. The protagonists are none other than the "all-American" US social media giant
Facebook and a British data consultancy firm with the academic-sounding name Cambridge
Analytica.
Facebook's chief executive Mark Zuckerberg is being called upon by British and European
parliamentarians to explain his company's role in a data-mining
scandal in which up to 50 million users of the social media platform appear to have had
their private information exploited for electioneering purposes.
Exploited, that is, without their consent or knowledge. Facebook is being investigated by US
federal authorities for alleged breach of privacy and, possibly, electoral laws. Meanwhile,
Cambridge Analytica looks less an academic outfit and more like a cheap marketing scam.
Zuckerberg has professed "shock" that his company may have unwittingly been involved in
betraying the privacy of its users. Some two billion people worldwide are estimated to use the
social media networking site to share personal data, photos, family news and so on, with
"friends".
Now it transpires that at least one firm, London-based Cambridge Analytica, ran a profitable
business by harvesting the publicly available data on Facebook for electioneering purposes for
which it was contracted to do. The harvested information was then used to help target election
campaigning.
Cambridge Analytica was reportedly contracted by the Trump campaign for the 2016
presidential election. It was also used during the Brexit referendum campaign in 2016 when
Britons voted to leave the European Union.
This week the British news outlet Channel 4 broadcast
a stunning investigation in which chief executives at Cambridge Analytica were filmed secretly
boasting about how their firm helped win the US presidential election for Donald Trump.
More criminally, the data company boss, Alexander Nix, also revealed that they were prepared
to gather information which could be used for blackmailing and bribing politicians, including
with the use of online sex traps.
The repercussions from the scandal have been torrid. Following the Channel 4 broadcast,
Cambridge Analytica has suspended its chief executive pending further investigation. British
authorities have sought a warrant to search the company's computer servers.
Moreover, Zuckerberg's Facebook has seen $50 billion wiped of its stock value in a matter of
days. What is at issue is the loss of confidence among its ordinary citizen-users about how
their personal data is vulnerable to third party exploitation without their consent.
Cambridge Analytica is just the tip of an iceberg. The issue has raised concerns that other
third parties, including criminal identity-theft gangs, are also mining Facebook as a mammoth
marketing resource. A resource that is free to exploit because of the way that ordinary users
willingly publish their personal profiles.
The open, seemingly innocent nature of Facebook connecting millions of people -- a "place
where friends meet" as its advertising jingle goes -- could turn out to be an ethical nightmare
over privacy abuse.
Other social media companies like Amazon, Google, WhatsApp and Twitter are reportedly
apprehensive about the consequences of widespread loss of confidence among consumers in privacy
security. One of the biggest economic growth areas over the past decade -- social media --
could turn out to be another digital bubble that bursts spectacularly due to the latest
Facebook scandal.
But one other, perhaps more, significant fallout from the scandal is the realistic
perspective it provides on the so-called "Russiagate" debacle.
For well over a year now, the US and European corporate news media have been peddling claims
about how Russian state agents allegedly "interfered" in several national elections.
The Russian authorities have consistently rejected the alleged "influence campaigns" as
nothing but a fabrication to slander Russia. Moscow has repeatedly asked for evidence to verify
the relentless claims -- and none has been presented.
The US congress has carried out two probes into "Russiagate" without much to show for
their laborious endeavors. A special counsel headed up by former FBI chief Robert Mueller has
spent millions of taxpayer dollars to produce a flimsy indictment list of 19 Russian
individuals who are said to have run influence campaigns out of a nondescript "troll farm" in
St Petersburg.
It still remains unclear and unconvincing how, or if, the supposed Russian hackers were
linked to the Russian state, and how they had any impact on the voting intentions of millions
of Americans.
Alternatively, there is plausible reason to believe that the so-called Russian troll farm in
St Petersburg, the Internet Research Agency, may have been nothing other than a dingy marketing
vehicle, trying to use the internet like thousands of other firms around the world hustling for
advertising business. Firms like Cambridge Analytica.
The whole Russiagate affair has been a storm in a teacup, and Mueller seems to be desperate
to produce some, indeed any, result for his inquisitorial extravaganza.
The amazing thing to behold is how the alleged Russian "influence campaign" narrative has
become an accepted truth, propagated and repeated by Western governments and media without
question.
Pentagon defense strategy papers, European Union policy documents, NATO military planning,
among others, have all cited alleged "Russian interference" in American and European elections
as "evidence" of Moscow's "malign" geopolitical agenda.
The purported Russiagate allegations have led to a grave deepening of Cold War tensions
between Western states and Russia to the point where an all-out war is at risk of breaking
out.
Last week, the Trump administration slapped more sanctions on Russian individuals and state
security services for "election meddling".
No proof or plausible explanation has ever been provided to substantiate the allegations of
a Russian state "influence campaign'. The concept largely revolves around innuendo and a
deplorable prejudice against Russia based on irrational Cold War-style Russophobia.
However, one possible beneficial outcome from the latest revelations of an actual worldwide
Facebook election-influence campaign, driven by an ever-so British data consultancy, is that
the scandal puts the claims against Russia into stark, corrective perspective.
A perspective which shows that the heap of official Western claims against Russia of
"influencing elections" is in actual fact negligible if not wholly ridiculous.
It's a mountain versus a hill of beans. A tornado versus a storm in a teacup. Time to get
real on how Western citizens are being really manipulated by their own consumer-capitalist
cultures.
The reason Hillary Clinton did not win despite the media and social media companies
doing everything they could to rig the election in her favor is because Facebook double
dipped and allowed Cambridge Analytica to use their surveying tools to collect user data on
tens of millions of users. This data was then used to target tens of millions of users with
political advertising using Facebook's ad platform based on psycholgoical profiles from
data they bought or acquired from Facebook.
Facebook is basically responsible for feeding the analytics system that enabled
Cambridge Analytica and the Trump campaign to be so targeted and effective with a minimal
budget.....
That's what happened, that's how Trump won. It wasn't the Russians, it was our own
social media companies who sold our data to the Trump campaign which they then likely used
to convince liberals not to vote in swing states.
It's both horrifying, and cleverly brilliant at the same time.
The funny thing is, Obama did something similar in 2012 and liberals celebrated. Not
so funny when the other team takes your trick and executes it more effectively now is
it?
There are way too many idiots. They will continue using it no matter what.
Notable quotes:
"... Readers report that Facebook keeps asking them to reactivate their accounts. Wolf confirms that and adds critically important point in his post: you can never escape Facebook. Facebook continues to sell your data even if you have "deleted" your account. ..."
"... By Wolf Richter, a San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and author, with extensive international work experience. Originally published at Wolf Street ..."
"... With credit bureaus, consumers have no choice. They're forced to be part of the credit-bureau data bases. Their data is collected, and there is nothing they can do about it. Consumer protection should be the number one priority. When companies get hacked and this consumer data gets stolen, there should be harsh punishments against these companies if they're found to have been negligent. Arthur Andersen comes to mind. ..."
"... But with Facebook and other social media platforms, there is no coercion. Consumers submit their most private data voluntarily -- nay, eagerly. They jump through hoops to share this stuff with the rest of the world. So maybe they only want to share it with x and not with y, but heck, they're uploading it to the Internet. What do they expect? ..."
"... And there is another difference between Equifax and Facebook: Equifax was hacked and the data was stolen ..."
"... But they do have a major trait in common: An aggrieved consumer cannot delete the data these outfits have collected on that consumer. While Facebook allows you to "delete" items and "delete" your account, the data stays behind on the server. It's available for all purposes; it's just not publicly viewable. ..."
"... With Facebook, consumers are in total control: They can just refuse to open an account. And if they have already opened an account, they can delete the app on their mobile devices, clean the cache on their computers, and swear to not ever again sign back in. If enough consumers do that, the whole construct would come down. ..."
"... Meanwhile, these dang trillions are flying by so fast, they're hard to see. Read US Gross National Debt Spikes $1.2 Trillion in 6 Months, Hits $21 Trillion ..."
Readers report that Facebook keeps asking them to reactivate their accounts. Wolf
confirms that and adds critically important point in his post: you can never escape Facebook.
Facebook continues to sell your data even if you have "deleted" your account.
I doubt enough people are aware of that issue. Having delete mean delete, as in Facebook
wipes your data entirely, should become a key demand in the row over Facebook's information
"sharing" policies.
By Wolf Richter, a San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and
author, with extensive international work experience. Originally published at Wolf
Street
Things at Facebook came to a head, following the disclosure that personal data from 50
million of its users had been given to a sordid outfit in the UK, Cambridge Analytica, whose
business model is to manipulate elections by hook or crook around the world, and which is now
getting vivisected by UK and US authorities.
The infamous "person familiar with the matter" told
Bloomberg that the Federal Trade Commission has opened an investigation into whether
Facebook violated a consent decree dating back to 2011, when Facebook settled similar
allegations -- giving user data to third parties without user's knowledge or consent.
Bloomberg:
Under the 2011 settlement, Facebook agreed to get user consent for certain changes to
privacy settings as part of a settlement of federal charges that it deceived consumers and
forced them to share more personal information than they intended. That complaint arose after
the company changed some user settings without notifying its customers, according to an FTC
statement at the time.
If Facebook is found to be in violation of the consent decree, the FTC can extract a fine of
$40,000 per day, per violation. Given the 50 million victims spread over so many days, this
could be some real money, so to speak.
Facebook said in a statement, cited by Bloomberg, that it rejected "any suggestion of
violation of the consent decree." It also said with tone-deaf Facebook hilarity, "Privacy and
data protections are fundamental to every decision we make."
That Facebook is collecting every little bit of personal data it can from its users and
their contacts and how they react to certain things, their preferences, their choices, physical
appearance -- photos, I mean come on -- clues about their personalities, and the like has been
known from day one. That's part of its business model. It's not a secret.
That third parties have access to this data has also been known at least since 2011.
Advertisers also have had access to certain types of data to target their ads.
And yet, Facebook's user base has grown. More than ever, people put their entire lives on
Facebook -- maybe not the kids, as they've become enamored with other platforms, but their
moms. Babies are on Facebook long before they have any idea what Facebook is. There's a
generation growing up that has been on Facebook since birth.
When the Equifax hack occurred last year -- which Equifax disclosed
graciously and partially months after the fact on September 7 -- the personal data of what
has now grown to 145.5 million consumers was stolen. This included names, birth dates, Social
Security numbers, addresses, and "in some instances," driver's license numbers, and other
data.
This shocked the world that pays attention to this because the data breach could unleash a
tsunami of identity theft. But most consumers who saw it in the media simply shrugged and went
on. They could have put a credit freeze on their accounts with the credit bureaus, thus making
it nearly impossible for someone else to get a loan or credit card in their name (identity
theft). But few consumers put a credit freeze on their accounts. Many consumers still don't
know what Equifax is or what it does, and when you discuss the situation, they think you're
spouting off conspiracy theories.
But there is a difference between credit bureaus such as Equifax and social media platforms
such as Facebook.
With credit bureaus, consumers have no choice. They're forced to be part of the
credit-bureau data bases. Their data is collected, and there is nothing they can do about it.
Consumer protection should be the number one priority. When companies get hacked and this
consumer data gets stolen, there should be harsh punishments against these companies if they're
found to have been negligent. Arthur Andersen comes to mind.
But with Facebook and other social media platforms, there is no coercion. Consumers
submit their most private data voluntarily -- nay, eagerly. They jump through hoops to share
this stuff with the rest of the world. So maybe they only want to share it with x and not with
y, but heck, they're uploading it to the Internet. What do they expect?
And there is another difference between Equifax and Facebook: Equifax was hacked and the
data was stolen . Facebook gave away the data as part of its business
model.
But they do have a major trait in common: An aggrieved consumer cannot delete the data
these outfits have collected on that consumer. While Facebook allows you to "delete" items and
"delete" your account, the data stays behind on the server. It's available for all purposes;
it's just not publicly viewable.
So now there's a hue and cry in the media about Facebook, put together by reporters who are
still active on Facebook and who have no intention of quitting Facebook. There has been no
panicked rush to "delete" accounts. There has been no massive movement to quit Facebook
forever. Facebook does what it does because it does it, and because it's so powerful that it
can do it. A whole ecosystem around it depends on the consumer data it collects.
Yes, there will be the usual ceremonies that Equifax also went through: CEO Zuckerberg may
get to address the Judiciary Committee in Congress. The questions thrown at him for public
consumption will be pointed. But behind the scenes, away from the cameras, there will be the
usual backslapping between lawmakers and corporations. Publicly, there will be some
wrist-slapping and some lawsuits, and all this will be settled and squared away in due time.
Life will go on. Facebook will continue to collect the data because consumers continue to
surrender their data to Facebook voluntarily. And third parties will continue to have access to
this data.
With Facebook, consumers are in total control: They can just refuse to open an account.
And if they have already opened an account, they can delete the app on their mobile devices,
clean the cache on their computers, and swear to not ever again sign back in. If enough
consumers do that, the whole construct would come down.
The only act that would change anything is if consumers massively and forever abandon
Facebook and platforms like it, and never-ever sign on again. That would bulldoze the whole
problem away. But that's not going to happen because consumers don't want it to happen.
So as far as I'm concerned, people who are still active on Facebook cannot be helped. They
should just enjoy the benefits of having their lives exposed to the world and serving as a
worthy tool and resource for corporate interests, political shenanigans, election manipulators,
jealous exes, and other facts of life.
T he data analysis firm at the centre of a privacy scandal came under more pressure on
Monday when Channel 4 broadcast footage of Cambridge Analytica's chief executive discussing
using bribes, former spies and Ukrainian women to entrap politicians.
It emerged as the Information Commissioner said she was seeking a warrant to search its
computers and servers as part of investigation into the use of personal data of Facebook
users.
The controversy
wiped billions of dollars off Facebook's value as its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, faced
questions on both sides of the Atlantic about how a private company was able to gather personal
information of 50 million users.
"... "Businesses that make money by collecting and selling detailed records of private lives were once plainly described as "surveillance companies." Their rebranding as "social media" is the most successful deception since the Department of War became the Department of Defense." ..."
Well, there seems to be a new wrinkle in the Skripal hoax,
Adam Garrie muses :
"... whether the still evidence free accusations that Russia was behind the poisoning of a
former double-agent on UK soil, are not related to the breaking of the Cambridge Analytica
scandal. The revelations from Christopher Wylie were published by the New York Times and The
Observer (an off-shoot of The Guardian) on the 17th of March, just three days after the
British Prime Minister announced that she has found Russia guilty of murder, in spite of
failing to produce any real evidence. Logic would dictate that it took far more than three
days to produce and edit the piece about Wylie's revelations."
Assange, Snowden and others join Garrie in saying the real investigation ought to be of
Cambridge. Assange also notes on
his Twitter the massive mining the Obama campaign did via Facebook in 2012--an action it
appears Cambridge copied for Trump's campaign. Given the info on Assange's Twitter, Cambridge
and Facebook are both up to their necks in the illegal mining of personal data and worse.
"Businesses that make money by collecting and selling detailed records of private lives
were once plainly described as "surveillance companies." Their rebranding as "social media"
is the most successful deception since the Department of War became the Department of
Defense."
And an observation about the reports of Russian election ballot box stuffing -- none of the
reports I've seen say for which candidate the stuffing was for. Clearly, Putin didn't need
any help, so I suspect US/UK embassy staffers going around and trying to help their liberal
candidates get at least 1% of the vote. Russia's election authority did announce there were
irregularities including the stuffing, a fact omitted from the items I read, which all
implied it was Putin's team that did the deed.
NSA whistleblower and former CIA employee Edward Snowden slammed Facebook in a Saturday
tweet following the suspension of Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) and its political
data analytics firm, Cambridge Analytica, over what Facebook says was imporoper use of
collected data.
In a nutshell, in 2015 Cambridge Analytica bought data from a University of Cambridge
psychology professor, Dr. Aleksandr Kogan, who had developed an app called
"thisisyourdigitallife" that vacuumed up loads of information on users and their contacts.
After making Kogan and Cambridge Analytica promise to delete the data the app had gathered,
Facebook received reports (from sources they would not identify) which claimed that not all the
data had been deleted - which led the social media giant to delete Cambridge Analytica and
parent company SCL's accounts.
"By passing information on to a third party, including SCL/Cambridge Analytica and
Christopher Wylie of Eunoia Technologies, he violated our platform policies. When we learned
of this violation in 2015, we removed his app from Facebook and demanded certifications from
Kogan and all parties he had given data to that the information had been destroyed. Cambridge
Analytica, Kogan and Wylie all certified to us that they destroyed the data." - Facebook
Of note, Cambridge Analytica worked for Ted Cruz and Ben Carson during the 2016 election
before contracting with the Trump campaign. Cruz stopped using CA after their data modeling
failed to identify likely supporters.
In response to the ban, Edward Snowden fired off two tweets on Saturday criticizing
Facebook, and claimed social media companies were simply "surveillance companies" who engaged
in a "successful deception" by rebranding themselves.
Snowden isn't the first big name to call out Silicon Valley companies over their data
collection and monitoring practices, or their notorious intersection with the U.S.
Government.
In his 2014 book:
When Google Met WikiLeaks
,
Julian Assange describes Google's close relationship with the NSA and the Pentagon.
Around the same time, Google was becoming involved in a program known as the "Enduring
Security Framework" (ESF), which entailed the sharing of information between Silicon Valley
tech companies and Pentagon-affiliated agencies "at network speed." Emails obtained in 2014
under Freedom of Information requests show Schmidt and his fellow Googler Sergey Brin
corresponding on first-name terms with NSA chief General Keith Alexander about ESF Reportage
on the emails focused on the familiarity in the correspondence: "General Keith . . . so great
to see you . . . !" Schmidt wrote. But most reports overlooked a crucial detail. " Your
insights as a key member of the Defense Industrial Base," Alexander wrote to Brin, "are
valuable to ensure ESF's efforts have measurable impact." -
Julian Assange
Kim Dotcom has also opined on social media's close ties to the government, tweeting in
February "Unfortunately all big US Internet companies are in bed with the deep state. Google,
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. are all providing backdoors to your data."
In 2013, the
Washington Post
and
The Guardian
revealed that the NSA has backdoor access to all major Silicon Valley social
media firms, including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and
Apple - all through the notorious PRISM program which began in 2007 under the Protect America
Act. PRISM's existence was leaked by Edward Snowden before he entered into ongoing asylum in
Moscow. Microsoft was the first company to join the PRISM program.
The NSA has the ability to pull any sort of data it likes from these companies, but it
claims that it does not try to collect it all. The PRISM program goes above and beyond the
existing laws that state companies must comply with government requests for data, as it gives
the NSA direct access to each company's servers -- essentially letting the NSA do as it
pleases. -
The Verge
After PRISM's existence was leaked by Snowden, the Director of National Intelligence issued
a statment which stated that the only people targed by the programs are "outside the United
States," and that the program "does not allow" the targeting of citizens within US borders.
In 2006,
Wired
magazine published
evidence from a retired AT&T communications technician, Mark Klein, that revealed a secret
room used to "split" internet data at a San Francisco office as part of the NSA's bulk data
collection techniques used on millions of Americans.
During the course of that work, he learned from a co-worker that similar cabins were being
installed in other cities, including Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego, he
said.
The split circuits included traffic from peering links connecting to other internet
backbone providers, meaning that AT&T was also diverting traffic routed from its network
to or from other domestic and international providers , Klein said. -
Wired
"They are collecting everything on everybody," Klein said.
Well look on the bright side, only idiots are placing their most vital thoughts,
and innovations on Facebook or any social media for that matter. So basically
big brother has acres of databases full of idiotic things. Believe me, if it can
take humans a step into the future, its not on the web. So basically big brother
is mining through vast amounts of useless data. Here's your sign!
If you actually worked for the Navy for
any period of time, you should know that this government cannot tie its
own shoes. No way are any of your whacked-out conspiracy theories even
remotely possible.
Yes, Zuckerberg and the Winkelvoss twins came up with Facebook for
social reasons. The government spy agencies, who know a good opportunity
to use someone else's invention to serve their own ends when they see one,
co-opted it. It really doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.
The fact of WHO did this is irrelevant. What matters is that we should
have understood what this meant from the begining. Many did, many more
did not. We complain of being treated like sheep, bleeting all the way
to our pens.
What we must accept is that there are many who could
care less about liberty, happy to live in a cell, as long as th
econveniences continue to poor in.
I wonder how livestock feel about living in a pen while receiving
free food and healthcare? I wonder if given the choice of freedom or
feed lot, which way they would go. I think we see the answer in the
inner cities of our nation (and others).
It's all well and good to be disgusted by surveillance, but it's
ever-encroaching, and soon you won't be able to function without complying.
Privacy will be impossible, except for the elite for whom privacy will be
another luxury that they get which you don't. Sort of like a gun.
I initially thought Snowden was a traitor. But over careful examination, he
exposed lying by Brennan and Clapper, unwarranted surveillance of Americans
and lot of complete lies told by the government to We The People.
Well look on the bright side, only idiots are placing their most vital
thoughts, and innovations on Facebook or any social media for that matter. So
basically big brother has acres of databases full of idiotic things. Believe
me, if it can take humans a step into the future, its not on the web. So
basically big brother is mining through vast amounts of useless data. Here's
your sign!
Tape over the user facing camera, don't use finger print to unlock, and dont
do voice search, it will buy you a bit more time before they can profile u
completely. Of course, stay away from FB. Install no script addon to your
Firefox browser.
That's where I'm counting on. Years of showing middle finger for every
potential partner related to potential use of this surveillance media. I
wanna piss everyone off big time, make myself active target, and to see what
happens.
Picture this: a civilization muzzled for decades upon decades by political
correctness, the pressures building inside people not being able to spout off
at the mouth. Then along comes the internet and socials where people can
imagine they're anonymously blabbing away at the keyboard. My point is that
most people mean very little of what they put on the web, it's just that the
dam broke with the onset of the web. That's another reason data collection is
useless.
A recent release of Edward Snowden-provided classified PowerPoint presentation from the National Security Agency (NSA) provides a
rather detailed description of how the FIVE EYES signals intelligence alliance of the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia,
and New Zealand has conspired with the promoters of social media-based revolutions, such as the "Arab Spring", to bring about the
collapse of democratically-elected or otherwise stable governments. However, the PowerPoint slides were partially redacted in key
areas by the dubious censors of First Look Media, financed by e-Bay founder and multi-billionaire Pierre Omidyar.
The PowerPoint
slides illustrate how, in November 2011, the NSA; Canada's Communications Security Establishment (CSE), now Communications Security
Establishment Canada (CSEC), the Defense Signals Directorate (DSD) of Australia, now the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD); New
Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB); and Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) developed
a method for not only monitoring but taking control of cell phone and social media networks used for socio-political uprisings.
The program, known as "Synergizing Network Analysis Tradecraft", was developed by the FIVE EYES's Network Tradecraft Advancement
Team or "NTAT".
... ... ...
The slides show that among the countries where mobile application servers were targeted by the FIVE EYES were France, Cuba, Senegal,
Morocco, Switzerland, Bahamas, and Russia. The information targeted by the Western signals intelligence partners included "geolocation
and network ownership information for each IP address" that consisted of "network owner name, carrier name, ASN (advanced service
network), continent, country, region, city, latitude and longitude, and any other related details". Not of interest to FIVE EYES
were such applications as Google, mobile banking, and iTunes.
Every year, Facebook gets tens of thousands of requests for data from governments worldwide
, including search warrants, subpoenas, or calls to restrict certain kinds of content. And,
according to a new report, those requests are increasing at an alarming rate.
According to QZ.com , in the United States, the
requests rose by 26% from the last six months of 2016 to the first six months of 2017,
while globally, requests increased by about 21%. Since 2013, when the company first started
providing data on government requests, the US number has been steadily rising - it has roughly
tripled in a period of four years.
"You have to remember that Zuckerberg had "seed money" and that seed money came from CIA
front companies that put a lot of resources into this and basically think about it as like,
sowing seeds; if you will. They knew that Facebook was gonna bear fruit.
I don't think they realized just how big it would become. But I can tell you that they get
so much information and intel from social media: I don't think that it would go away even if
we wanted it to ."
The government keeps requesting the information, and Facebook continues to comply with the
government's demands.
In the first six months of 2013, it granted the government - which includes the police -
79% of requests ("some data was produced" in these cases, the company says); in the first six
months of 2017, that share rose to 85%. "We continue to carefully scrutinize each request we
receive for account data -- whether from an authority in the U.S., Europe, or elsewhere -- to
make sure it is legally sufficient," Chris Sonderby, the company's general counsel, wrote in a
post . "If a request appears to be deficient or overly broad, we push back, and will fight
in court, if necessary."
But Joseph thinks Facebook is just trying to pacify the easily manipulated sheeple of
society.
"This is pretty troubling when you think about what you put out there, what they collect,
and Facebook only being one of the many avenues that they have," Joseph says.
"The United States is collecting your data. Whether you like it or not. They are scooping
up everything. And they're taking it and they're storing it in their
facility at Bluffdale, Utah which has the capacity at this time to store every
communication on the face of this earth for the next one hundred years."
"It's unbelievable," Joseph continues. "This is stuff that is unacceptable to me, but I'm
sure, to a lot of you. And these companies have really gone too far they can reconstruct your
life and make anyone they want a patsy ."
"... The initiative described in this article reminds me of how the World Bank pushed hard for emerging economies to develop capital markets, for the greater good of America's investment bankers. ..."
"... By Burcu Kilic, an expert on legal, economic and political issues. Originally published at openDemocracy ..."
"... Today, the big tech race is for data extractivism from those yet to be 'connected' in the world – tech companies will use all their power to achieve a global regime in which small nations cannot regulate either data extraction or localisation. ..."
"... One suspects big money will be thrown at this by the leading tech giants. ..."
"... Out of idle curiosity, how could you accurately deduce my country of origin from my name? ..."
December 14, 2017 by Yves Smith Yves here. Notice that Costa
Rica is served up as an example in this article. Way back in 1997, American Express had
designated Costa Rica as one of the countries it identified as sufficiently high income so as
to be a target for a local currency card offered via a franchise agreement with a domestic
institution (often but not always a bank). 20 years later, the Switzerland of Central America
still has limited Internet connectivity, yet is precisely the sort of place that tech titans
like Google would like to dominate.
The initiative described in this article reminds me of how the World Bank pushed hard
for emerging economies to develop capital markets, for the greater good of America's investment
bankers.
By Burcu Kilic, an expert on legal, economic and political issues. Originally published
at
openDemocracy
Today, the big tech race is for data extractivism from those yet to be 'connected' in
the world – tech companies will use all their power to achieve a global regime in which
small nations cannot regulate either data extraction or localisation.
To avoid a 'failure ministerial," some countries see the solution as pushing governments to
open a mandate to start conversations that might lead to a negotiation on binding rules for
e-commerce and a declaration of the gathering as the "digital ministerial". Argentina's MC11
chair, Susana Malcorra, is actively pushing for member states to embrace e-commerce at the WTO,
claiming that it is necessary to " bridge the gap between the
haves and have-nots ".
It is not very clear what kind of gaps Malcorra is trying to bridge. It surely isn't the
"connectivity gap" or "digital divide" that is growing between developed and developing
countries, seriously impeding digital learning and knowledge in developing countries. In fact,
half of humanity is not even connected to the internet, let alone positioned to develop
competitive markets or bargain at a multilateral level. Negotiating binding e-commerce rules at
the WTO would only widen that gap.
Dangerously, the "South Vision" of digital trade in the global trade arena is being shaped
by a recent alliance of governments and well-known tech-sector lobbyists, in a group called
'Friends of E-Commerce for Development' (FED), including Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa
Rica, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Uruguay, and, most recently, China. FED
claims that e-commerce is a tool to drive growth, narrow the digital divide, and generate
digital solutions for developing and least developed countries.
However, none of the countries in the group (apart from China) is leading or even remotely
ready to be in a position to negotiate and push for binding rules on digital trade that will be
favorable to them, as their economies are still far away from the technology revolution. For
instance, it is perplexing that one of the most fervent defenders of FED's position is Costa
Rica. The country's economy is based on the export of bananas, coffee, tropical
fruits, and low-tech medical instruments, and almost half of its population
is offline . Most of the countries in FED are far from being powerful enough to shift
negotiations in favor of small players.
U.S.-based tech giants and Chinese Alibaba – so-called GAFA-A – dominate, by
far, the future of the digital playing field, including issues such as identification and
digital payments, connectivity, and the next generation of logistics solutions. In fact, there
is a no-holds-barred ongoing race among these tech giants to consolidate their market share in
developing economies, from the race to grow the advertising market to the race to increase
online payments.
An e-commerce agenda that claims unprecedented development for the Global South is a Trojan
horse move. Beginning negotiations on such topics at this stage – before governments are
prepared to understand what is at stake – could lead to devastating results, accelerating
liberalization and the consolidation of the power of tech giants to the detriment of local
industries, consumers, and citizens. Aware of the increased disparities between North and
South, and the data dominance of a tiny group of GAFA-A companies, a group of African nations
issued a statement opposing the digital ambitions of the host for MC11. But the political
landscape is more complex, with China, the EU, and Russia now supporting the idea of a
"digital" mandate .
Repeating the Same Mistakes?
The relationships of most countries with tech companies are as imbalanced as their
relationships with Big Pharma, and there are many parallels to note. Not so long ago, the
countries of the Global South faced Big Pharma power in pharmaceutical markets in a similar
way. Some developing countries had the same enthusiasm when they negotiated intellectual
property rules for the protection of innovation and research and development costs. In reality,
those countries were nothing more than users and consumers of that innovation, not the owners
or creators. The lessons of negotiating trade issues that lie at the core of public interest
issues – in that case, access to medicines – were costly. Human lives and
fundamental rights of those who use online services should not be forgotten when addressing the
increasingly worrying and unequal relationships with tech power.
The threat before our eyes is similarly complex and equally harmful to the way our societies
will be shaped in the coming years. In the past, the Big Pharma race was for patent
exclusivity, to eliminate local generic production and keep drug prices high. Today, the Big
Tech race is for data extractivism from those who have yet to be connected in the world, and
tech companies will use all the power they hold to achieve a global regime in which small
nations cannot regulate either data extraction or data localization.
Big Tech is one of the most concentrated and resourceful industries of all time. The
bargaining power of developing countries is minimal. Developing countries will basically be
granting the right to cultivate small parcels of a land controlled by data lords -- under their
rules, their mandate, and their will -- with practically no public oversight. The stakes are
high. At the core of it is the race to conquer the markets of digital payments and the battle
to become the platform where data flows, splitting the territory as old empires did in the
past. As
the Economist claimed on May 6, 2017: "Conflicts over control of oil have scarred
the world for decades. No one yet worries that wars will be fought over data. But the data
economy has the same potential for confrontation."
If countries from the Global South want to prepare for data wars, they should start thinking
about how to reduce the control of Big Tech over -- how we communicate, shop, and learn the
news -- , again, over our societies. The solution lies not in making rules for data
liberalization, but in devising ways to use the law to reduce Big Tech's power and protect
consumers and citizens. Finding the balance would take some time and we are going to take that
time to find the right balance, we are not ready to lock the future yet.
One suspects big money will be thrown at this by the leading tech giants. To paraphrase
from a comment I made recently regarding a similar topic : "with markets in the developed
world pretty much sewn up by the tripartite tech overlords (google, fb and amazon), the next
3 billion users for their products/services are going to come from developing world". With
this dynamic in mind, and the "constant growth" mantra humming incessantly in the background,
it's easy to see how high stakes a game this is for the tech giants and how no resources will
be spared to stymie any efforts at establishing a regulatory oversight framework that will
protect the digital rights of citizens in the global south.
Multilateral fora like the WTO are de facto enablers for the marauding frontal attacks of
transnational corporations, and it's disheartening to see that some developing nations have
already nailed the digital futures of their citizens to the mast of the tech giants by
joining this alliance. What's more, this signing away of their liberty will be sold to the
citizenry as the best way to usher them into the brightest of all digital futures.
One suspects big money will be thrown at this by the leading tech giants.
Vast sums of money are already being thrown at bringing Africa online, for better
or worse. Thus, the R&D aimed at providing wireless Internet via giant
drones/balloons/satellites by Google, Facebook, etc.
You're African. Possibly South African by your user name, which may explain why you're a
little behind the curve, because the action is already happening, but more to the north --
and particularly in East Africa.
The big corporations -- and the tech giants are competing with the banking/credit card
giants -- have noted how mobile technology leapt over the dearth of last century's telephony
tech, land lines, and in turn enabled the highest adoption rates of cellphone banking in the
world. (Particularly in East Africa, as I say.) The payoffs for big corporations are massive
-- de facto cashless societies where the corporations control the payment systems
–and the politicians are mostly cheap.
In Nigeria, the government has launched a Mastercard-branded national ID card that's also
a payment card, in one swoop handing Mastercard more than 170 million potential customers,
and their personal and biometric data.
In Kenya, the sums transferred by mobile money operator M-Pesa are more than 25 percent of
that country's GDP.
You can see that bringing Africa online is technically a big, decade-long project. But
also that the potential payoffs are vast. Though I also suspect China may come out ahead --
they're investing far more in Africa and in some areas their technology -- drones, for
instance -- is already superior to what the Europeans and the American companies have.
Hoisted from a comment I made here recently: "Here in South Africa and through its Free
Basics programme, facebook is jumping into bed with unsuspecting ISPs (I say unsuspecting
because fb will soon be muscling in on their territory and becoming an ISP itself by
provisioning bandwidth directly from its floating satellites) and circumventing net
neutrality "
I'm also keenly aware of the developments in Kenya re: safaricom and Mpesa and how that
has led to traditional banking via bank accounts being largely leapfrogged for those moving
from being unbanked to active economic citizens requiring money transfer facilities. Given
the huge succes of Mpesa, I wouldn't be surprised if a multinational tech behemoth (chinese
or american) were to make a play for acquiring safaricom and positioning it as a triple-play
ISP, money transfer/banking services and digital content provider (harvesting data about
users habits on an unprecedented scale across multiple areas of their lives), first in Kenya
then expanded throughout east, central and west africa. I must add that your statement about
Nigeria puts Mark Zuckerberg's visit there a few months back into context somewhat, perhaps a
reconnaissance mission of sorts.
Out of idle curiosity, how could you accurately deduce my country of origin from my
name?
As you also write: "with markets in the developed world pretty much sewn up by the
tripartite tech overlords (google, fb and amazon), the next 3 billion users for their
products/services are going to come from developing world."
Absolutely true. This cannot be stressed enough. The tech giants know this and the race is
on.
His comments echoed remarks by Sean Parker, one of the early pioneers of Facebook,
who spoke on 8 November , saying the social network provided "a dopamine hit and a social
validation feedback loop, that exploited a vulnerability in human psychology."
However, coverage this week has seen thousands responding to Palihaptiya's words.
"We have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works," he
told the audience.
He advised people take a "hard break" from social media, describing its effect as
"short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops."
'You are being programmed'
"We curate our lives around this perceived sense of perfection, because we get rewarded in
these short term signals: Hearts, likes, thumbs up," Palihaptiya said.
"We conflate that with value and we conflate it with truth, and instead what it really is is
fake, brittle popularity that's short term and leaves you even more vacant and empty before you
did it.
"You don't realise it but you are being programmed."
Palihapitiya said he could not offer a solution but deals with the problem himself by not
using social media anymore, something which he says has caused tension with his family and
friends.
I would not put YouTube in the same set of Facebook. This is a different platform. And much
more useful. IMHO no respectful person that I know uses Facebook for putting personal information
on it. Only teenagers are doing that. And even among them resentment against
Facebook is common.
Google with its search engine is a more dangerous beast, but there are alternatives. many
people stitched for Google to other search engines. That does not give much privacy
protection other then moral satisfaction, but still it is stupid just to use Big Brother search
engine voluntarily if you can avoid it.
Notable quotes:
"... For Google and Facebook as the world's new major -only?!- ad agencies: Tax the heebies out of them or forbid them from running any ads at all. Why? Because they extract enormous amounts of productive capital from society. Capital they, as Varoufakis says, do not even themselves create. ..."
"... As Google, Facebook and the CIA are ever more entwined, these companies become so important to what 'the spooks' consider the interests of the nation that they will become mutually protective. And once CIA headquarters in Langley, VA, aka the aptly named "George Bush Center for Intelligence", openly as well as secretly protects you, you're pretty much set for life. A long life. ..."
"... I know, you were thinking it was 'the Russians' with a few as yet unproven bucks in Facebook ads that were threatening US and European democracies. Well, you're really going to have to think again. ..."
An entire library of articles about Big Tech is coming out these days, and I find that much
of it is written so well, and the ideas in them so well expressed, that I have little to add.
Except, I think I may have the solution to the problems many people see. But I also have a
concern that I don't see addressed, and that may well prevent that solution from being adopted.
If so, we're very far away from any solution at all. And that's seriously bad news.
Let's start with a general -even 'light'- critique of social media by Claire Wardle and
Hossein Derakhshan for the Guardian:
Social media force us to live our lives in public , positioned centre-stage in our very own
daily performances. Erving Goffman, the American sociologist, articulated the idea of "life as
theatre" in his 1956 book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, and while the book was
published more than half a century ago, the concept is even more relevant today. It is
increasingly difficult to live a private life, in terms not just of keeping our personal data
away from governments or corporations, but also of keeping our movements, interests and, most
worryingly, information consumption habits from the wider world.
The social networks are engineered so that we are constantly assessing others – and
being assessed ourselves. In fact our "selves" are scattered across different platforms, and
our decisions, which are public or semi-public performances, are driven by our desire to make a
good impression on our audiences, imagined and actual. We grudgingly accept these public
performances when it comes to our travels, shopping, dating, and dining. We know the deal. The
online tools that we use are free in return for us giving up our data, and we understand that
they need us to publicly share our lifestyle decisions to encourage people in our network to
join, connect and purchase.
But, critically, the same forces have impacted the way we consume news and information.
Before our media became "social", only our closest family or friends knew what we read or
watched, and if we wanted to keep our guilty pleasures secret, we could. Now, for those of us
who consume news via the social networks, what we "like" and what we follow is visible to many
[..] Consumption of the news has become a performance that can't be solely about seeking
information or even entertainment. What we choose to "like" or follow is part of our identity,
an indication of our social class and status, and most frequently our political persuasion.
That sets the scene. People sell their lives, their souls, to join a network that then sells
these lives -and souls- to the highest bidder, for a profit the people themselves get nothing
of. This is not some far-fetched idea. As noted further down, in terms of scale, Facebook is a
present day Christianity. And these concerns are not only coming from 'concerned citizens',
some of the early participants are speaking out as well. Like Facebook co-founder Sean
Parker:
Sean Parker, the founding president of Facebook, gave me a candid insider's look at how
social networks purposely hook and potentially hurt our brains. Be smart: Parker's I-was-there
account provides priceless perspective in the rising debate about the power and effects of the
social networks, which now have scale and reach unknown in human history. [..]
"When Facebook was getting going, I had these people who would come up to me and they would
say, 'I'm not on social media.' And I would say, 'OK. You know, you will be.' And then they
would say, 'No, no, no. I value my real-life interactions. I value the moment. I value
presence. I value intimacy.' And I would say, 'We'll get you eventually.'"
"I don't know if I really understood the consequences of what I was saying, because [of] the
unintended consequences of a network when it grows to a billion or 2 billion people and it
literally changes your relationship with society, with each other It probably interferes with
productivity in weird ways. God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains."
"The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of
them, was all about: 'How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as
possible?'" "And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once
in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever. And that's
going to get you to contribute more content, and that's going to get you more likes and
comments."
"It's a social-validation feedback loop exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself
would come up with, because you're exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology." "The
inventors, creators -- it's me, it's Mark [Zuckerberg], it's Kevin Systrom on Instagram, it's
all of these people -- understood this consciously. And we did it anyway."
Early stage investor in Facebook, Roger McNamee, also has some words to add along the same
lines as Parker. They make it sound like they're Frankenstein and Facebook is their
monster.
The term "addiction" is no exaggeration. The average consumer checks his or her smartphone
150 times a day, making more than 2,000 swipes and touches. The applications they use most
frequently are owned by Facebook and Alphabet, and the usage of those products is still
increasing. In terms of scale, Facebook and YouTube are similar to Christianity and Islam
respectively. More than 2 billion people use Facebook every month, 1.3 billion check in every
day. More than 1.5 billion people use YouTube. Other services owned by these companies also
have user populations of 1 billion or more.
Facebook and Alphabet are huge because users are willing to trade privacy and openness for
"convenient and free." Content creators resisted at first, but user demand forced them to
surrender control and profits to Facebook and Alphabet. The sad truth is that Facebook and
Alphabet have behaved irresponsibly in the pursuit of massive profits. They have consciously
combined persuasive techniques developed by propagandists and the gambling industry with
technology in ways that threaten public health and democracy.
The issue, however, is not social networking or search. It is advertising business models.
Let me explain. From the earliest days of tabloid newspapers, publishers realized the power of
exploiting human emotions. To win a battle for attention, publishers must give users "what they
want," content that appeals to emotions, rather than intellect. Substance cannot compete with
sensation, which must be amplified constantly, lest consumers get distracted and move on. "If
it bleeds, it leads" has guided editorial choices for more than 150 years, but has only become
a threat to society in the past decade, since the introduction of smartphones.
Media delivery platforms like newspapers, television, books, and even computers are
persuasive, but people only engage with them for a few hours each day and every person receives
the same content. Today's battle for attention is not a fair fight. Every competitor exploits
the same techniques, but Facebook and Alphabet have prohibitive advantages: personalization and
smartphones. Unlike older media, Facebook and Alphabet know essentially everything about their
users, tracking them everywhere they go on the web and often beyond.
By making every experience free and easy, Facebook and Alphabet became gatekeepers on the
internet, giving them levels of control and profitability previously unknown in media. They
exploit data to customize each user's experience and siphon profits from content creators.
Thanks to smartphones, the battle for attention now takes place on a single platform that is
available every waking moment. Competitors to Facebook and Alphabet do not have a prayer.
Facebook and Alphabet monetize content through advertising that is targeted more precisely
than has ever been possible before . The platforms create "filter bubbles" around each user,
confirming pre-existing beliefs and often creating the illusion that everyone shares the same
views. Platforms do this because it is profitable. The downside of filter bubbles is that
beliefs become more rigid and extreme. Users are less open to new ideas and even to facts.
Of the millions of pieces of content that Facebook can show each user at a given time, they
choose the handful most likely to maximize profits. If it were not for the advertising business
model, Facebook might choose content that informs, inspires, or enriches users. Instead, the
user experience on Facebook is dominated by appeals to fear and anger. This would be bad
enough, but reality is worse.
And in a Daily Mail article, McNamee's ideas are taken a mile or so further. Goebbels,
Bernays, fear, anger, personalization, civility.
Facebook officials have been compared to the Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels by a
former investor. Roger McNamee also likened the company's methods to those of Edward Bernays,
the 'father of public' relations who promoted smoking for women. Mr McNamee, who made a fortune
backing the social network in its infancy, has spoken out about his concern about the
techniques the tech giants use to engage users and advertisers. [..] the former investor said
everyone was now 'in one degree or another addicted' to the site while he feared the platform
was causing people to swap real relationships for phoney ones.
And he likened the techniques of the company to Mr Bernays and Hitler's public relations
minister. 'In order to maintain your attention they have taken all the techniques of Edward
Bernays and Joseph Goebbels, and all of the other people from the world of persuasion, and all
the big ad agencies, and they've mapped it onto an all day product with highly personalised
information in order to addict you,' Mr McNamee told The Telegraph. Mr McNamee said Facebook
was creating a culture of 'fear and anger'. 'We have lowered the civil discourse, people have
become less civil to each other..'
He said the tech giant had 'weaponised' the First Amendment to 'essentially absolve
themselves of responsibility'. He added: 'I say this as somebody who was there at the
beginning.' Mr McNamee's comments come as a further blow to Facebook as just last month former
employee Justin Rosenstein spoke out about his concerns. Mr Rosenstein, the Facebook engineer
who built a prototype of the network's 'like' button, called the creation the 'bright dings of
pseudo-pleasure'. He said he was forced to limit his own use of the social network because he
was worried about the impact it had on him.
As for the economic, not the societal or personal, effects of social media, Yanis Varoufakis
had this to say a few weeks ago:
Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has claimed capitalism is coming to an end
because it is making itself obsolete. The former economics professor told an audience at
University College London that the rise of giant technology corporations and artificial
intelligence will cause the current economic system to undermine itself. Mr Varoufakis said
companies such as Google and Facebook, for the first time ever, are having their capital bought
and produced by consumers.
"Firstly the technologies were funded by some government grant; secondly every time you
search for something on Google, you contribute to Google's capital," he said. "And who gets the
returns from capital? Google, not you. "So now there is no doubt capital is being socially
produced, and the returns are being privatised . This with artificial intelligence is going to
be the end of capitalism."
Ergo, as people sell their lives and their souls to Facebook and Alphabet, they sell their
economies along with them.
That's what that means. And you were just checking what your friends were doing. Or, that's
what you thought you were doing.
The solution to all these pains is, likely unintentionally, provided by Umair Haque's
critique of economics. It's interesting to see how the topics 'blend', 'intertwine'.
When, in the 1930s, the great economist Simon Kuznets created GDP, he deliberately left two
industries out of this then novel, revolutionary idea of a national income : finance and
advertising. [..] Kuznets logic was simple, and it was not mere opinion, but analytical fact:
finance and advertising don't create new value , they only allocate, or distribute existing
value in the same way that a loan to buy a television isn't the television, or an ad for
healthcare isn't healthcare. They are only means to goods, not goods themselves. Now we come to
two tragedies of history.
What happened next is that Congress laughed, as Congresses do, ignored Kuznets, and included
advertising and finance anyways for political reasons -after all, bigger, to the politicians
mind, has always been better, and therefore, a bigger national income must have been better.
Right? Let's think about it. Today, something very curious has taken place.
If we do what Kuznets originally suggested, and subtract finance and advertising from GDP,
what does that picture -a picture of the economy as it actually is reveal? Well, since the
lion's share of growth, more than 50% every year, comes from finance and advertising -whether
via Facebook or Google or Wall St and hedge funds and so on- we would immediately see that the
economic growth that the US has chased so desperately, so furiously, never actually existed at
all.
Growth itself has only been an illusion, a trick of numbers, generated by including what
should have been left out in the first place. If we subtracted allocative industries from GDP,
we'd see that economic growth is in fact below population growth, and has been for a very long
time now, probably since the 1980s and in that way, the US economy has been stagnant, which is
(surprise) what everyday life feels like. Feels like.
Economic indicators do not anymore tell us a realistic, worthwhile, and accurate story about
the truth of the economy, and they never did -only, for a while, the trick convinced us that
reality wasn't. Today, that trick is over, and economies grow , but people's lives, their
well-being, incomes, and wealth, do not, and that, of course, is why extremism is sweeping the
globe. Perhaps now you begin to see why the two have grown divorced from one another: economics
failed the economy.
Now let us go one step, then two steps, further. Finance and advertising are no longer
merely allocative industries today. They are now extractive industries. That is, they
internalize value from society, and shift costs onto society, all the while creating no value
themselves.
The story is easiest to understand via Facebook's example: it makes its users sadder,
lonelier, and unhappier, and also corrodes democracy in spectacular and catastrophic ways.
There is not a single upside of any kind that is discernible -and yet, all the above is counted
as a benefit, not a cost, in national income, so the economy can thus grow, even while a
society of miserable people are being manipulated by foreign actors into destroying their own
democracy. Pretty neat, huh?
It was BECAUSE finance and advertising were counted as creative, productive, when they were
only allocative, distributive that they soon became extractive. After all, if we had said from
the beginning that these industries do not count, perhaps they would not have needed to
maximize profits (or for VCs to pour money into them, and so on) endlessly to count more. But
we didn't.
And so soon, they had no choice but to become extractive: chasing more and more profits, to
juice up the illusion of growth, and soon enough, these industries began to eat the economy
whole, because of course, as Kuznets observed, they allocate everything else in the economy,
and therefore, they control it.
Thus, the truly creative, productive, life-giving parts of the economy shrank in relative,
and even in absolute terms, as they were taken apart, strip-mined, and consumed in order to
feed the predatory parts of the economy , which do not expand human potential. The economy did
eat itself, just as Marx had supposed – only the reason was not something inherent in it,
but a choice, a mistake, a tragedy.
[..] Life is not flourishing, growing, or developing in a single way that I or even you can
readily identify or name. And yet, the economy appears to be growing, because purely allocative
and distributive enterprises like Uber, Facebook, credit rating agencies, endless nameless
hedge funds, shady personal info brokers, and so on, which fail to contribute positively to
human life in any discernible way whatsoever, are all counted as beneficial. Do you see the
absurdity of it?
[..] It's not a coincidence that the good has failed to grow, nor is it an act of the gods.
It was a choice. A simple cause-effect relationship, of a society tricking itself into
desperately pretending it was growing, versus truly growing. Remember not subtracting finance
and advertising from GDP, to create the illusion of growth? Had America not done that, then
perhaps it might have had to work hard to find ways to genuinely, authentically, meaningfully
grow, instead of taken the easy way out, only to end up stagnating today, and unable to really
even figure out why yet.
Industries that are not productive, but instead only extract money from society, need to be
taxed so heavily they have trouble surviving. If that doesn't happen, your economy will never
thrive, or even survive. The whole service economy fata morgana must be thrown as far away as
we can throw it. Economies must produce real, tangible things, or they die.
For the finance industry this means: tax the sh*t out of any transactions they engage in.
Want to make money on complex derivatives? We'll take 75+%. Upfront. And no, you can't take
your company overseas. Don't even try.
For Uber and Airbnb it means pay taxes up the wazoo, either as a company or as individual
home slash car owners. Uber and Airbnb take huge amounts of money out of local economies,
societies, communities, which is nonsense, unnecessary and detrimental. Every city can set up
its own local car- or home rental schemes. Their profits should stay within the community, and
be invested in it.
For Google and Facebook as the world's new major -only?!- ad agencies: Tax the heebies out
of them or forbid them from running any ads at all. Why? Because they extract enormous amounts
of productive capital from society. Capital they, as Varoufakis says, do not even themselves
create.
YOU are creating the capital, and YOU then must pay for access to the capital created.
Yeah, it feels like you can just hook up and look at what your friends are doing, but the
price extracted from you, your friends, and your community is so high you would never volunteer
to pay for it if you had any idea.
The one thing that I don't see anyone address, and that might prevent these pretty
straightforward "tax-them-til they-bleed!" answers to the threat of New Big Tech, is that
Facebook, Alphabet et al have built a very strong relationship with various intelligence
communities. And then you have Goebbels and Bernays in the service of the CIA.
As Google, Facebook and the CIA are ever more entwined, these companies become so important
to what 'the spooks' consider the interests of the nation that they will become mutually
protective. And once CIA headquarters in Langley, VA, aka the aptly named "George Bush Center
for Intelligence", openly as well as secretly protects you, you're pretty much set for life. A
long life.
Next up: they'll be taking over entire economies, societies. This is
happening as we speak . I know, you were thinking it was 'the Russians' with a few as yet
unproven bucks in Facebook ads that were threatening US and European democracies. Well, you're
really going to have to think again.
The world has never seen such technologies. It has never seen such intensity, depth of, or
such dependence on, information. We are simply not prepared for any of this. But we need to
learn fast, or become patsies and slaves in a full blown 1984 style piece of absurd theater.
Our politicians are AWOL and MIA for all of it, they have no idea what to say or think, they
don't understand what Google or bitcoin or Uber really mean.
In the meantime, we know one thing we can do, and we can justify doing it through the
concept of non-productive and extractive industries. That is, tax them till they bleed.
That we would hit the finance industry with that as well is a welcome bonus. Long overdue.
We need productive economies or we're done. And Facebook and Alphabet -and Goldman Sachs- don't
produce d*ck all.
When you think about it, the only growth that's left in the US economy is that of companies
spying on American citizens. Well, that and Europeans. China has banned Facebook and Google.
Why do you think they have? Because Google and Facebook ARE 1984, that's why. And if there's
going to be a Big Brother in the Middle Kingdom, it's not going to be Silicon Valley.
"... In an interview this week with Axios, Facebook's original president, Sean Parker, admitted that the company intentionally sought to addict users and expressed regret at the damage being inflicted on children. ..."
"... The term "addiction" is no exaggeration. The average consumer checks his or her smartphone 150 times a day, making more than 2,000 swipes and touches. The applications they use most frequently are owned by Facebook and Alphabet, and the usage of those products is still increasing. ..."
"... From the earliest days of tabloid newspapers, publishers realized the power of exploiting human emotions. To win a battle for attention, publishers must give users "what they want," content that appeals to emotions, rather than intellect. Substance cannot compete with sensation, which must be amplified constantly, lest consumers get distracted and move on. ..."
"... Roger McNamee is Managing Director at Elevation Partners and an early stage investor in Google and Facebook. ..."
In an interview this week with Axios, Facebook's original president, Sean Parker,
admitted that the company intentionally sought to addict users and expressed regret at the
damage being inflicted on children.
This admission, by one of the architects of Facebook, comes on the heels of last week's
hearings by Congressional committees about Russian interference in the 2016 election, where the
general counsels of Facebook, Alphabet (parent of Google and YouTube),
and Twitter attempted to deflect responsibility for manipulation of their platforms.
The term "addiction" is no exaggeration. The average consumer checks his or her
smartphone 150 times a day, making more than 2,000 swipes and touches. The applications they
use most frequently are owned by Facebook and Alphabet, and the usage of
those products is still increasing.
In terms of scale, Facebook and YouTube are similar to Christianity and Islam respectively.
More than 2 billion people use Facebook every month, 1.3 billion check in every day. More than
1.5 billion people use YouTube. Other services owned by these companies also have user
populations of 1 billion or more.
Facebook and Alphabet are huge because users are willing to trade privacy and openness for
"convenient and free." Content creators resisted at first, but user demand forced them to
surrender control and profits to Facebook and Alphabet.
The sad truth is that Facebook and Alphabet have behaved irresponsibly in the pursuit of
massive profits. They have consciously combined persuasive techniques developed by
propagandists and the gambling industry with technology in ways that threaten public health and
democracy. The issue, however, is not social networking or search. It is advertising business
models. Let me explain.
From the earliest days of tabloid newspapers, publishers realized the power of
exploiting human emotions. To win a battle for attention, publishers must give users "what they
want," content that appeals to emotions, rather than intellect. Substance cannot compete with
sensation, which must be amplified constantly, lest consumers get distracted and move
on.
"If it bleeds, it leads" has guided editorial choices for more than 150 years, but has only
become a threat to society in the past decade, since the introduction of smartphones. Media
delivery platforms like newspapers, television, books, and even computers are persuasive, but
people only engage with them for a few hours each day and every person receives the same
content.
Today's battle for attention is not a fair fight. Every competitor exploits the same
techniques, but Facebook and Alphabet have prohibitive advantages: personalization and
smartphones. Unlike older media, Facebook and Alphabet know essentially everything about their
users, tracking them everywhere they go on the web and often beyond.
By making every experience free and easy, Facebook and Alphabet became gatekeepers on the
internet, giving them levels of control and profitability previously unknown in media. They
exploit data to customize each user's experience and siphon profits from content creators.
Thanks to smartphones, the battle for attention now takes place on a single platform that is
available every waking moment. Competitors to Facebook and Alphabet do not have a prayer.
Facebook and Alphabet monetize content through advertising that is targeted more precisely
than has ever been possible before. The platforms create "filter bubbles" around each user,
confirming pre-existing beliefs and often creating the illusion that everyone shares the same
views. Platforms do this because it is profitable. The downside of filter bubbles is that
beliefs become more rigid and extreme. Users are less open to new ideas and even to facts.
Of the millions of pieces of content that Facebook can show each user at a given time, they
choose the handful most likely to maximize profits. If it were not for the advertising business
model, Facebook might choose content that informs, inspires, or enriches users. Instead, the
user experience on Facebook is dominated by appeals to fear and anger. This would be bad
enough, but reality is worse.
Any advertiser can get access to any Facebook user over unsupervised, automated systems.
Five million advertisers do so every month. The Russians took advantage of this first to sow
discord among Americans and then to interfere in the 2016 election. Other bad actors exploited
Facebook in other areas. One company surveilled protest groups and
marketed that data to police departments.
Financial institutions were investigated for using Facebook advertising tools to
discriminate on the basis of race. Facebook is not the only problem. Alphabet provides
Chromebooks to elementary schools with the objective of capturing the attention, and perhaps
even behavioral data, about children. At the same time, Alphabet's YouTube Kids is a site
filled with inappropriate content that creates addiction in children far too young to
resist.
While optimizing for profit is understandable and generally appropriate, Facebook and
Alphabet have caused harm that requires serious discussion and remediation.
Facebook and Alphabet assert they are not media companies and therefore are not responsible
for what third parties do on their platforms. While that position might be reasonable from
start-ups, it is not appropriate from companies who control seven of the top 10 platforms on
the internet and exhibit the behaviors of monopolies.
Society regulates products that create addiction. We have laws to prevent discrimination and
election manipulation. None of these regulations and laws has yet been applied to Facebook and
Google . The time
has come.
Roger McNamee is Managing Director at Elevation Partners and an early stage
investor in Google and Facebook.
In an interview this week with Axios, Facebook's original president, Sean Parker,
admitted that the company intentionally sought to addict users and expressed regret at the
damage being inflicted on children.
This admission, by one of the architects of Facebook, comes on the heels of last week's
hearings by Congressional committees about Russian interference in the 2016 election, where the
general counsels of Facebook, Alphabet (parent of Google and YouTube),
and Twitter attempted to deflect responsibility for manipulation of their platforms.
The term "addiction" is no exaggeration. The average consumer checks his or her
smartphone 150 times a day, making more than 2,000 swipes and touches. The applications they
use most frequently are owned by Facebook and Alphabet, and the usage of
those products is still increasing.
In terms of scale, Facebook and YouTube are similar to Christianity and Islam respectively.
More than 2 billion people use Facebook every month, 1.3 billion check in every day. More than
1.5 billion people use YouTube. Other services owned by these companies also have user
populations of 1 billion or more.
Facebook and Alphabet are huge because users are willing to trade privacy and openness for
"convenient and free." Content creators resisted at first, but user demand forced them to
surrender control and profits to Facebook and Alphabet.
The sad truth is that Facebook and Alphabet have behaved irresponsibly in the pursuit of
massive profits. They have consciously combined persuasive techniques developed by
propagandists and the gambling industry with technology in ways that threaten public health and
democracy. The issue, however, is not social networking or search. It is advertising business
models. Let me explain.
From the earliest days of tabloid newspapers, publishers realized the power of
exploiting human emotions. To win a battle for attention, publishers must give users "what they
want," content that appeals to emotions, rather than intellect. Substance cannot compete with
sensation, which must be amplified constantly, lest consumers get distracted and move
on.
"If it bleeds, it leads" has guided editorial choices for more than 150 years, but has only
become a threat to society in the past decade, since the introduction of smartphones. Media
delivery platforms like newspapers, television, books, and even computers are persuasive, but
people only engage with them for a few hours each day and every person receives the same
content.
Today's battle for attention is not a fair fight. Every competitor exploits the same
techniques, but Facebook and Alphabet have prohibitive advantages: personalization and
smartphones. Unlike older media, Facebook and Alphabet know essentially everything about their
users, tracking them everywhere they go on the web and often beyond.
By making every experience free and easy, Facebook and Alphabet became gatekeepers on the
internet, giving them levels of control and profitability previously unknown in media. They
exploit data to customize each user's experience and siphon profits from content creators.
Thanks to smartphones, the battle for attention now takes place on a single platform that is
available every waking moment. Competitors to Facebook and Alphabet do not have a prayer.
Facebook and Alphabet monetize content through advertising that is targeted more precisely
than has ever been possible before. The platforms create "filter bubbles" around each user,
confirming pre-existing beliefs and often creating the illusion that everyone shares the same
views. Platforms do this because it is profitable. The downside of filter bubbles is that
beliefs become more rigid and extreme. Users are less open to new ideas and even to facts.
Of the millions of pieces of content that Facebook can show each user at a given time, they
choose the handful most likely to maximize profits. If it were not for the advertising business
model, Facebook might choose content that informs, inspires, or enriches users. Instead, the
user experience on Facebook is dominated by appeals to fear and anger. This would be bad
enough, but reality is worse.
Any advertiser can get access to any Facebook user over unsupervised, automated systems.
Five million advertisers do so every month. The Russians took advantage of this first to sow
discord among Americans and then to interfere in the 2016 election. Other bad actors exploited
Facebook in other areas. One company surveilled protest groups and
marketed that data to police departments.
Financial institutions were investigated for using Facebook advertising tools to
discriminate on the basis of race. Facebook is not the only problem. Alphabet provides
Chromebooks to elementary schools with the objective of capturing the attention, and perhaps
even behavioral data, about children. At the same time, Alphabet's YouTube Kids is a site
filled with inappropriate content that creates addiction in children far too young to
resist.
While optimizing for profit is understandable and generally appropriate, Facebook and
Alphabet have caused harm that requires serious discussion and remediation.
Facebook and Alphabet assert they are not media companies and therefore are not responsible
for what third parties do on their platforms. While that position might be reasonable from
start-ups, it is not appropriate from companies who control seven of the top 10 platforms on
the internet and exhibit the behaviors of monopolies.
Society regulates products that create addiction. We have laws to prevent discrimination and
election manipulation. None of these regulations and laws has yet been applied to Facebook and
Google . The time
has come.
Roger McNamee is Managing Director at Elevation Partners and an early stage
investor in Google and Facebook.
To abandon Amazon is unrealistic, but to control what you are buying (in view that all
purchases goes into your Dossier) is probably the necessary precaution.
Google as a search engine deteriorated (Any search engine based on advertizing revenue is
promoting spyware. and Google is especially bad in this respect due to its dominant position--
those guy pay Google and push themselves to the top of searches) , and alternative are
not much worse, if not batter. It might make sense to change engine
periodically, not to stick to a single one.
Facebook is intelligence collection company that masquerade itself as social site. So
anybody who use Facebook is actually making creation of a comprehensive dossier on him/her much
easier. You contacts are especially important. Same is true for Gmail and hotmail.
Notable quotes:
"... From the beginning of Zuckerberg's empire, I thought Facebook was an idiotic excuse to get people involved in trivia, even the name turned me off. ..."
I would like to posit that we stop with the Googling on
the internet. I have never "Googled" ever. Oh sure, Google is involved with connecting you when
you might click on some links. That you seemingly can't avoid. I also don't Face or Twitter. If
everyone could avoid doing that now, perhaps we could show our disdain with these entities
acquiescing to Feinstein, et. al. I am so fed up with the Clinton crime family getting away
with almost as much as the George H.W. crime family.
Skip Scott , November 1, 2017 at 8:46 am
geeyp-
That is a very good suggestion. Don't feed the beast. Duckduckgo is a good alternative to
google. And facebook and twitter's revenues are add based, so don't go there either, as they
have been shown to be caving to TPTB. Amazon is also one to avoid for Bezo's links to the
CIA.
From the beginning of Zuckerberg's empire, I thought Facebook was an idiotic excuse to
get people involved in trivia, even the name turned me off.
Now, Twitter is planning extending tweets to 280 characters, as if 140 is not bad enough.
Unfortunately, Twitter can work to tell lies as well as push back on lies, same for Facebook
and Google.
Seriously, this society has become unglued and as Lois says, "It ain't a pretty sight".
Bad choices are leading to the American empire's downfall.
There's an interesting article
from a week ago on Zero Hedge, "China's Rise, America's Fall", about China's launch of the petroyuan and other countries' desire to get off of dollar dominance.
Has a graph showing
empire dominance from Portugal in 15th century, then Netherlands followed by Spain, then
France, Great Britain, and finally the American empire, poised to be replaced by China.
The author presentation of Facebook social effects is somewhat hysteric and lacks depth, but
still mining data on two billion people is probably the moment when quantity turns into
quality. For many people usage of Facebook is the symbol of being stupid. But other
are too stupid to notice that they are being used. The same actually is true for Goggle.
Still, those in intelligence agencies who financed Facebook can
now be proud.
Notable quotes:
"... Online organizers, who arguably have more awareness of the problems with Facebook, are equally committed to sticking with it, because "that's where the people are." To imagine fixing the democracy-distorting effects of Facebook's power, you have to be able to see beyond its boundaries, to a world where how we learn, play, and socialize isn't structured by the Lawnmower Man and surveillance capitalism. And I fear that our ability to imagine that world is rapidly fading ..."
On June 27, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, announced that "the Facebook
community is now officially 2 billion people!" It took the platform a little more than eight
years to reach 1 billion users, and then less than five years to reach the second billion.
Close to two-thirds of users visit the site at least once a day. There is no other human entity
on earth as big as Facebook -- no country, no business, no single religious denomination.
We have to trust Facebook when its spokespeople say they are not abusing these powers to the
benefit of any partisan cause. While the company has tried to downplay its ability to influence
political choices, internal documents obtained by The Australian revealed that Facebook
routinely tells advertisers that it knows exactly which buttons they should press to sell their
products to impressionable young people. We should assume the same is true for other audiences.
Don't forget, dear reader, especially if -- as is more than likely -- you are reading this
article on Facebook right now: You are not Facebook's customer; you are its product. Facebook's
only true constituency is its millions of advertisers.
... ... ...
Indeed, it is becoming more clear with each passing day that operatives tied to Russia used
Facebook to insinuate themselves into the 2016 election, by creating fake accounts and group
pages, pumping up false news stories, and targeting tens of millions of users with ads designed
to sow division and affect their inclination to vote. Because Facebook's algorithms are tuned
to optimize "engagement," meaning the amount of time its users spend on the site, such
inflammatory content was catnip. But the Russia-Trump connection is not the central question to
focus on when it comes to Facebook's power; it's just the tipping point that is causing many
people to pay attention at last.
You can't solve a problem if you can't even name it, and we're just beginning to find words
to adequately describe the issues raised by Facebook and other dominant tech platforms like
Google and Amazon. In a very important article in The Yale Law Journal, "Amazon's Antitrust
Paradox," Lina Khan of the Open Markets Institute notes that, while Amazon has lowered prices
for consumers across many market categories, it has also abused its monopoly power in numerous
ways. For example, it has mined internal data on the usage of its Amazon Web Services platform
to figure out which tech start-ups were taking off and thus gain an insider's advantage on
investment decisions. It has also created copycat products under the AmazonBasics label to
directly compete with outside retailers by using internal data about the best-selling products
on the site. Third-party sellers who use Amazon's delivery service do better in search results.
Likewise, Google has used its dominant position as the main place that people go to search for
information to sometimes favor its own content, such as travel-booking services and restaurant
recommendations.
Since Facebook is currently a de facto social utility, it's tempting to propose that it be
regulated, perhaps in a manner similar to the ways that the government has regulated
telecommunications companies. For example, as Harold Feld of Public Knowledge has argued,
Facebook could be required to show that it is not discriminating against particular classes of
users or individuals when it comes to who it allows on the platform or how they're permitted to
use it. Thus, when Facebook fires up its voter megaphone, the company could be required to show
technical auditors that it is indeed being used in a neutral way. Likewise, when Google or
Amazon exploit their market dominance in Web searches to privilege their own products, an
antitrust case could be made that they're unfairly rigging the marketplace.
It's hard to see where the political will to explore these sorts of remedies is going to
come from. Most of my liberal friends, confronted by the evidence that Facebook was used to
meddle in the election, still can't find the energy to quit or stop using the platform. Online
organizers, who arguably have more awareness of the problems with Facebook, are equally
committed to sticking with it, because "that's where the people are." To imagine fixing the
democracy-distorting effects of Facebook's power, you have to be able to see beyond its
boundaries, to a world where how we learn, play, and socialize isn't structured by the
Lawnmower Man and surveillance capitalism. And I fear that our ability to imagine that world is
rapidly fading.
Patricia J. Williams is the James L. Dohr Professor of Law at Columbia University
School of Law and a columnist for The Nation.
The danger is that intelligence agencies cause Facebook to influence elections.
Notable quotes:
"... Fowler told Rosen that it was "even possible that Facebook is completely responsible" for the youth voter increase. And because
a higher proportion of young people vote Democratic than the general population, the net effect of Facebook's GOTV effort would have
been to help the Dems. ..."
"... In June 2014, Harvard Law scholar Jonathan Zittrain wrote an essay in New Republic ..."
"... But the point isn't that a Republican beat a Democrat. The point is that the very roots of the electoral system -- the news
people see, the events they think happened, the information they digest -- had been destabilized. ..."
"... Chaos Monkeys ..."
"... The information systems that people use to process news have been rerouted through Facebook, and in the process, mostly broken
and hidden from view. It wasn't just liberal bias that kept the media from putting everything together. Much of the hundreds of millions
of dollars that was spent during the election cycle came in the form of "dark ads." ..."
"... Update: After publication, Adam Mosseri, head of News Feed, sent an email describing some of the work that Facebook is doing
in response to the problems during the election. They include new software and processes "to stop the spread of misinformation , click-bait
and other problematic content on Facebook." ..."
"... "The truth is we've learned things since the election, and we take our responsibility to protect the community of people who
use Facebook seriously. As a result, we've launched a company-wide effort to improve the integrity of information on our service," he
wrote. "It's already translated into new products, new protections, and the commitment of thousands of new people to enforce our policies
and standards... We know there is a lot more work to do, but I've never seen this company more engaged on a single challenge since I
joined almost 10 years ago." ..."
And why it was so hard to see it coming In the media world, as in so many other realms, there is a sharp discontinuity in the
timeline: before the 2016 election, and after.
Things we thought we understood -- narratives, data, software, news events -- have had to be reinterpreted in light of Donald
Trump's surprising win as well as the continuing questions about the role that misinformation and disinformation played in his election.
Tech journalists covering Facebook had a duty to cover what was happening before, during, and after the election. Reporters tried
to see past their often liberal political orientations and the unprecedented actions of Donald Trump to see how 2016 was playing
out on the internet. Every component of the chaotic digital campaign has been reported on, here at The Atlantic , and elsewhere:
Facebook's enormous distribution power for political information, rapacious partisanship reinforced by distinct media information
spheres, the increasing scourge of "viral" hoaxes and other kinds of misinformation that could propagate through those networks,
and the Russian information ops agency.
But no one delivered the synthesis that could have tied together all these disparate threads. It's not that this hypothetical
perfect story would have changed the outcome of the election. The real problem -- for all political stripes -- is understanding the
set of conditions that led to Trump's victory. The informational underpinnings of democracy have eroded, and no one has explained
precisely how.
* * *
We've known since at least 2012 that Facebook was a powerful, non-neutral force in electoral politics. In that year, a combined
University of California, San Diego and Facebook research team led by James Fowler published
a study in Nature , which argued that Facebook's "I Voted" button had driven a small but measurable increase in turnout,
primarily among young people.
Rebecca Rosen's 2012 story, "
Did Facebook Give Democrats the Upper Hand? " relied on new research from Fowler, et al., about the presidential election that
year. Again, the conclusion of their work was that Facebook's get-out-the-vote message could have driven a substantial chunk of the
increase in youth voter participation in the 2012 general election. Fowler told Rosen that it was "even possible that Facebook
is completely responsible" for the youth voter increase. And because a higher proportion of young people vote Democratic than the
general population, the net effect of Facebook's GOTV effort would have been to help the Dems.
The potential for Facebook to have an impact on an election was clear for at least half a decade.
The research showed that a small design change by Facebook could have electoral repercussions, especially with America's electoral-college
format in which a few hotly contested states have a disproportionate impact on the national outcome. And the pro-liberal effect it
implied became enshrined as an axiom of how campaign staffers, reporters, and academics viewed social media.
In June 2014, Harvard Law scholar Jonathan Zittrain wrote an essay in New Republic called, "
Facebook
Could Decide an Election Without Anyone Ever Finding Out ," in which he called attention to the possibility of Facebook selectively
depressing voter turnout. (He also suggested that Facebook be seen as an "information fiduciary," charged with certain special roles
and responsibilities because it controls so much personal data.)
In late 2014, The Daily Dot
called attention to an
obscure Facebook-produced case study on how strategists defeated a statewide measure in Florida by relentlessly focusing Facebook
ads on Broward and Dade counties, Democratic strongholds. Working with a tiny budget that would have allowed them to send a single
mailer to just 150,000 households, the digital-advertising firm Chong and Koster was able to obtain remarkable results. "Where the
Facebook ads appeared, we did almost 20 percentage points better than where they didn't," testified a leader of the firm. "Within
that area, the people who saw the ads were 17 percent more likely to vote our way than the people who didn't. Within that group,
the people who voted the way we wanted them to, when asked why, often cited the messages they learned from the Facebook ads."
In April 2016, Rob Meyer published "
How Facebook Could Tilt the 2016 Election " after a company meeting in which some employees apparently put the stopping-Trump
question to Mark Zuckerberg. Based on Fowler's research, Meyer reimagined Zittrain's hypothetical as a direct Facebook intervention
to depress turnout among non-college graduates, who leaned Trump as a whole.
Facebook, of course, said it would never do such a thing. "Voting is a core value of democracy and we believe that supporting
civic participation is an important contribution we can make to the community," a spokesperson said. "We as a company are neutral
-- we have not and will not use our products in a way that attempts to influence how people vote."
From the system's perspective, success is correctly predicting what you'll like, comment on, or share.
The same was true even of people inside Facebook. "If you'd come to me in 2012, when the last presidential election was raging
and we were cooking up ever more complicated ways to monetize Facebook data, and told me that Russian agents in the Kremlin's employ
would be buying Facebook ads to subvert American democracy, I'd have asked where your tin-foil hat was," wrote Antonio García Martínez,
who managed ad targeting for Facebook back then. "And yet, now we live in that otherworldly political reality."
Not to excuse us, but this was back on the Old Earth, too, when electoral politics was not the thing that every single
person talked about all the time. There were other important dynamics to Facebook's growing power that needed to be covered.
* * *
Facebook's draw is its ability to give you what you want. Like a page, get more of that page's posts; like a story, get more stories
like that; interact with a person, get more of their updates. The way Facebook determines the ranking of the News Feed is the probability
that you'll like, comment on, or share a story. Shares are worth more than comments, which are both worth more than likes, but in
all cases, the more likely you are to interact with a post, the higher up it will show in your News Feed. Two thousand kinds of data
(or "features" in the industry parlance) get smelted in Facebook's machine-learning system to make those predictions.
What's crucial to understand is that, from the system's perspective, success is correctly predicting what you'll like, comment
on, or share. That's what matters. People call this "engagement." There are other factors, as Slate' s Will Oremus noted in
this rare story about
the News Feed ranking team . But who knows how much weight they actually receive and for how long as the system evolves. For
example, one change that Facebook highlighted to Oremus in early 2016 -- taking into account how long people look at a story, even
if they don't click it -- was subsequently dismissed by
Lars Backstrom, the VP of engineering in charge of
News Feed ranking , as a "noisy" signal that's also "biased in a few ways" making it "hard to use" in a May 2017 technical talk.
Facebook's engineers do not want to introduce noise into the system. Because the News Feed, this machine for generating engagement,
is Facebook's most important technical system. Their success predicting what you'll like is why users spend
an average of more than 50 minutes a day on the site, and why even the former
creator
of the "like" button worries about how well the site captures attention. News Feed works really well.
If every News Feed is different, how can anyone understand what other people are seeing and responding to?
But as far as "
personalized newspapers " go, this one's editorial sensibilities are limited. Most people are far less likely to engage with
viewpoints that they find confusing, annoying, incorrect, or abhorrent. And this is true not just in politics, but the broader culture.
That this could be a problem was apparent to many. Eli Pariser's The Filter Bubble, which came out in the summer of 2011,
became the most widely cited distillation of the effects Facebook and other internet platforms could have on public discourse.
Pariser began the book research when he noticed conservative people, whom he'd befriended on the platform despite his left-leaning
politics, had disappeared from his News Feed. "I was still clicking my progressive friends' links more than my conservative friends'
-- and links to the latest Lady Gaga videos more than either," he wrote. "So no conservative links for me."
Through the book, he traces the many potential problems that the "personalization" of media might bring. Most germane to this
discussion, he raised the point that if every one of the billion News Feeds is different, how can anyone understand what other people
are seeing and responding to?
"The most serious political problem posed by filter bubbles is that they make it increasingly difficult to have a public argument.
As the number of different segments and messages increases, it becomes harder and harder for the campaigns to track who's saying
what to whom," Pariser wrote. "How does a [political] campaign know what its opponent is saying if ads are only targeted to white
Jewish men between 28 and 34 who have expressed a fondness for U2 on Facebook and who donated to Barack Obama's campaign?"
This did, indeed, become an enormous problem. When I was editor in chief of Fusion , we set about trying to track the "digital
campaign" with several dedicated people. What we quickly realized was that there was both too much data -- the noisiness of all the
different posts by the various candidates and their associates -- as well as too little. Targeting made tracking the actual messaging
that the campaigns were paying for impossible to track. On Facebook, the campaigns could show ads only to the people they
targeted. We couldn't actually see the messages that were actually reaching people in battleground areas. From the outside, it was
a technical impossibility to know what ads were running on Facebook,
one that the company
had fought to keep intact .
Across the landscape, it began to dawn on people: Damn, Facebook owns us .
Pariser suggests in his book, "one simple solution to this problem would simply be to require campaigns to immediately disclose
all of their online advertising materials and to whom each ad is targeted." Which
could happen in future campaigns .
Imagine if this had happened in 2016. If there were data sets of all the ads that the campaigns and others had run, we'd know
a lot more about what actually happened last year. The Filter Bubble is obviously prescient work, but there was one thing
that Pariser and most other people did not foresee. And that's that Facebook became completely dominant as a media distributor.
* * *
About two years after Pariser published his book, Facebook took over the news-media ecosystem. They've never publicly admitted
it, but in late 2013, they began to serve ads inviting users to "like" media pages. This caused a massive increase in the amount
of traffic that Facebook sent to media companies. At The Atlantic and other publishers across the media landscape, it was
like a tide was carrying us to new traffic records. Without hiring anyone else, without changing strategy or tactics, without publishing
more, suddenly everything was easier.
While traffic to The Atlantic from Facebook.com increased, at the time, most of the new traffic did not look like it was
coming from Facebook within The Atlantic 's analytics. It showed up as "direct/bookmarked" or some variation, depending on
the software. It looked like what I called "dark social" back in 2012. But as BuzzFeed 's Charlie Warzel
pointed
out at the time , and as I came to believe, it was primarily Facebook traffic in disguise. Between August and October of 2013,
BuzzFeed 's "partner network" of hundreds of websites saw a jump in traffic from Facebook of 69 percent.
At The Atlantic, we ran a series of experiments that showed, pretty definitively from our perspective, that most of the
stuff that looked like "dark social" was, in fact, traffic coming from within Facebook's mobile app. Across the landscape, it began
to dawn on people who thought about these kinds of things: Damn, Facebook owns us . They had taken over media distribution.
Why? This is a best guess,
proffered by Robinson Meyer as it was happening : Facebook wanted to crush Twitter, which had drawn a disproportionate share
of media and media-figure attention. Just as Instagram borrowed Snapchat's "Stories" to help crush the site's growth, Facebook decided
it needed to own "news" to take the wind out of the newly IPO'd Twitter.
The first sign that this new system had some kinks came with "
Upworthy -style " headlines. (And you'll never guess what happened next!) Things didn't just go kind of viral, they went
ViralNova , a site which, like Upworthy
itself , Facebook eventually smacked down
. Many of the new sites had, like Upworthy , which was cofounded by Pariser, a progressive bent.
Less noticed was that a right-wing media was developing in opposition to and alongside these left-leaning sites. "By 2014, the
outlines of the Facebook-native hard-right voice and grievance spectrum were there," The New York Times ' media and tech writer
John Herrman told me, "and I tricked myself into thinking they were a reaction/counterpart to the wave of soft progressive/inspirational
content that had just crested. It ended up a Reaction in a much bigger and destabilizing sense."
The other sign of algorithmic trouble was the wild swings that Facebook Video underwent. In the early days, just about any old
video was likely to generate many, many, many views. The numbers were insane in the early days. Just as an example,
a Fortune article noted that BuzzFeed
's video views "grew 80-fold in a year, reaching more than 500 million in April." Suddenly, all kinds of video -- good, bad,
and ugly -- were doing 1-2-3 million views.
As with news, Facebook's video push was a direct
assault on a competitor, YouTube . Videos changed the dynamics of the News Feed for individuals, for media companies, and
for anyone trying to understand what the hell was going on.
Individuals were suddenly inundated with video. Media companies, despite no business model, were forced to crank out video somehow
or risk their pages/brands losing relevance as video posts crowded others out.
And on top of all that, scholars and industry observers were used to looking at what was happening in articles to understand
how information was flowing. Now, by far the most viewed media objects on Facebook, and therefore on the internet, were videos without
transcripts or centralized repositories. In the early days, many successful videos were just "freebooted" (i.e., stolen) videos from
other places or reposts. All of which served to confuse and obfuscate the transport mechanisms for information and ideas on Facebook.
Through this messy, chaotic, dynamic situation, a new media rose up through the Facebook burst to occupy the big filter bubbles.
On the right, Breitbart is the center of a new conservative network. A
study of 1.25 million election news
articles found "a right-wing media network anchored around Breitbart developed as a distinct and insulated media system,
using social media as a backbone to transmit a hyper-partisan perspective to the world."
Breitbart , of course, also lent Steve Bannon, its chief, to the Trump campaign, creating another feedback loop between
the candidate and a rabid partisan press. Through 2015, Breitbart went from a medium-sized site with a small Facebook page
of 100,000 likes into a
powerful force
shaping the election with almost 1.5 million likes. In the key metric for Facebook's News Feed, its posts got 886,000 interactions
from Facebook users in January. By July, Breitbart had surpassed The New York Times ' main account in interactions.
By December, it was doing 10 million interactions per month, about 50 percent of Fox News, which had 11.5 million likes on its main
page. Breitbart 's audience was hyper-engaged.
There is no precise equivalent to the Breitbart phenomenon on the left. Rather the big news organizations are classified
as center-left, basically, with fringier left-wing sites showing far smaller followings than Breitbart on the right.
And this new, hyperpartisan media created the perfect conditions for another dynamic that influenced the 2016 election, the rise
of fake news.
In a December 2015 article for BuzzFeed , Joseph Bernstein argued that "
the dark forces of the internet became a counterculture ." He called it "Chanterculture" after the trolls who gathered at the
meme-creating, often-racist 4chan message board. Others ended up calling it the "alt-right." This culture combined a bunch of people
who loved to perpetuate hoaxes with angry Gamergaters with "free-speech" advocates like Milo Yiannopoulos with honest-to-God neo-Nazis
and white supremacists. And these people loved Donald Trump.
"This year Chanterculture found its true hero, who makes it plain that what we're seeing is a genuine movement: the current master
of American resentment, Donald Trump," Bernstein wrote. "Everywhere you look on 'politically incorrect' subforums and random chans,
he looms."
When you combine hyper-partisan media with a group of people who love to clown "normies," you end up with things like
Pizzagate , a patently ridiculous and widely
debunked conspiracy theory that held there was a child-pedophilia ring linked to Hillary Clinton somehow. It was just the most bizarre
thing in the entire world. And many of the figures in Bernstein's story were all over it, including several who the current president
has consorted with on social media.
But Pizzagate was but the most Pynchonian of all the crazy misinformation and hoaxes that spread in the run-up to the election.
BuzzFeed , deeply attuned to the flows of the social web, was all over the story through reporter Craig Silverman. His
best-known analysis happened after the election, when he showed that "in the final three months of the U.S. presidential campaign,
the top-performing fake election-news stories on Facebook generated more engagement than the top stories from major news outlets
such as The New York Times , The Washington Post , The Huffington Post , NBC News, and others."
But he also tracked fake news
before the election , as did other outlets such as The Washington Post, including showing that Facebook's "Trending"
algorithm regularly promoted fake news. By September of 2016,
even the Pope himself was talking about fake news, by which we mean actual hoaxes or lies perpetuated by a variety of actors.
The fake news generated a ton of engagement, which meant that it spread far and wide.
What made the election cycle different was that all of these changes to the information ecosystem had made it possible to develop
weird businesses around fake news. Some random website posting aggregated news about the election could not drive a lot of traffic.
But some random website announcing that the Pope had endorsed Donald Trump definitely could . The fake news generated a
ton of engagement, which meant that it spread far and wide.
A few days before the election Silverman and fellow BuzzFeed contributor Lawrence Alexander traced 100 pro–Donald Trump
sites to
a town of 45,000 in Macedonia . Some teens there realized they could make money off the election, and just like that, became
a node in the information network that helped Trump beat Clinton.
Whatever weird thing you imagine might happen, something weirder probably did happen. Reporters tried to keep up, but it was too
strange. As Max Read put it in New York Magazine , Facebook is "like a four-dimensional object, we catch slices of it when
it passes through the three-dimensional world we recognize." No one can quite wrap their heads around what this thing has become,
or all the things this thing has become.
"Not even President-Pope-Viceroy Zuckerberg himself seemed prepared for the role Facebook has played in global politics this past
year," Read wrote.
And we haven't even gotten to the Russians.
* * *
Russia's disinformation campaigns are well known. During his reporting for
a story in The New York Times Magazine
, Adrian Chen sat across the street from the headquarters of the Internet Research Agency, watching workaday Russian agents/internet
trolls head inside. He heard how the place had "industrialized the art of trolling" from a former employee. "Management was obsessed
with statistics -- page views, number of posts, a blog's place on LiveJournal's traffic charts -- and team leaders compelled hard
work through a system of bonuses and fines," he wrote. Of course they wanted to maximize engagement, too!
There were reports that Russian trolls
were commenting on American news sites . There were many, many reports of Russia's propaganda offensive in Ukraine.
Ukrainian journalists run a website dedicated to cataloging these disinformation attempts called StopFake . It has hundreds of posts reaching back into 2014.
The influence campaign just happened on Facebook without anyone noticing.
A Guardian reporter who looked into
Russian
military doctrine around information war found a handbook that described how it might work. "The deployment of information weapons,
[the book] suggests, 'acts like an invisible radiation' upon its targets: 'The population doesn't even feel it is being acted upon.
So the state doesn't switch on its self-defense mechanisms,'" wrote Peter Pomerantsev.
As more details about the Russian disinformation campaign come to the surface through Facebook's continued digging, it's fair
to say that it's not just the state that did not switch on its self-defense mechanisms. The influence campaign just happened on Facebook
without anyone noticing.
As many people have noted, the 3,000 ads that have been linked to Russia are a drop in the bucket, even if they did reach millions
of people. The real game is simply that Russian operatives created pages that reached people "organically," as the saying goes. Jonathan
Albright, research director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University,
pulled data on the six publicly known Russia-linked Facebook pages . He found that their posts had been shared 340 million
times . And those were six of 470 pages that Facebook has linked to Russian operatives. You're probably talking billions of shares,
with who knows how many views, and with what kind of specific targeting.
The Russians are good at engagement! Yet, before the U.S. election, even after Hillary Clinton and intelligence agencies
fingered Russian intelligence meddling in the election, even after news reports
suggested that a disinformation campaign was afoot , nothing about the actual operations on Facebook came out.
In the aftermath of these discoveries, three Facebook security researchers, Jen Weedon, William Nuland, and Alex Stamos, released
a white paper called Information
Operations and Facebook . "We have had to expand our security focus from traditional abusive behavior, such as account hacking,
malware, spam, and financial scams, to include more subtle and insidious forms of misuse, including attempts to manipulate civic
discourse and deceive people," they wrote.
"These social platforms are all invented by very liberal people. And we figure out how to use it to push conservative values."
One key theme of the paper is that they were used to dealing with economic actors, who responded to costs and incentives. When
it comes to Russian operatives paid to Facebook, those constraints no longer hold. "The area of information operations does provide
a unique challenge," they wrote, "in that those sponsoring such operations are often not constrained by per-unit economic realities
in the same way as spammers and click fraudsters, which increases the complexity of deterrence." They were not expecting that.
Add everything up. The chaos of a billion-person platform that competitively dominated media distribution. The known electoral
efficacy of Facebook. The wild fake news and misinformation rampaging across the internet generally and Facebook specifically. The
Russian info operations. All of these things were known.
And yet no one could quite put it all together: The dominant social network had altered the information and persuasion environment
of the election beyond recognition while taking
a very big chunk
of the estimated $1.4 billion worth of digital advertising purchased during the election. There were hundreds of millions of
dollars of dark ads doing their work. Fake news all over the place. Macedonian teens campaigning for Trump. Ragingly partisan media
infospheres serving up only the news you wanted to hear. Who could believe anything? What room was there for policy positions when
all this stuff was eating up News Feed space? Who the hell knew what was going on?
Hillary Clinton is running arguably the most digital presidential campaign in U.S. history. Donald Trump is running one of
the most analog campaigns in recent memory. The Clinton team is bent on finding more effective ways to identify supporters and
ensure they cast ballots; Trump is, famously and unapologetically, sticking to a 1980s-era focus on courting attention and voters
via television.
Just a week earlier, Trump's campaign had hired Cambridge Analytica. Soon, they'd ramped up to $70 million a month in Facebook
advertising spending. And the next thing you knew, Brad Parscale, Trump's digital director, is
doing the postmortem rounds talking up his win .
"These social platforms are all invented by very liberal people on the west and east coasts," Parscale said. "And we figure out
how to use it to push conservative values. I don't think they thought that would ever happen."
And that was part of the media's problem, too.
* * *
Before Trump's election, the impact of internet technology generally and Facebook specifically was seen as favoring Democrats.
Even a
TechCrunch critique of Rosen's 2012 article about Facebook's electoral power argued, "the
internet inherently advantages
liberals because, on average, their greater psychological embrace of disruption leads to more innovation (after all, nearly every
major digital breakthrough, from online fundraising to the use of big data, was pioneered by Democrats)."
In June 2015, The New York Times ran an article about
Republicans trying to ramp up their digital campaigns that began like this: "The criticism after the 2012 presidential election
was swift and harsh: Democrats were light-years ahead of Republicans when it came to digital strategy and tactics, and Republicans
had serious work to do on the technology front if they ever hoped to win back the White House."
"Facebook is what propelled Breitbart to a massive audience. We know its power."
It cited Sasha Issenberg, the most astute reporter on political technology. "The Republicans have a particular challenge," Issenberg
said, "which is, in these areas they don't have many people with either the hard skills or the experience to go out and take on this
type of work."
University of North Carolina journalism professor Daniel Kreiss wrote a whole (good) book, Prototype Politics , showing that Democrats had
an incredible personnel advantage. " Drawing on an innovative data set of the professional careers of 629 staffers working
in technology on presidential campaigns from 2004 to 2012 and data from interviews with more than 60 party and campaign staffers,"
Kriess wrote, "the book details how and explains why the Democrats have invested more in technology, attracted staffers with specialized
expertise to work in electoral politics, and founded an array of firms and organizations to diffuse technological innovations down
ballot and across election cycles."
Which is to say: It's not that no journalists, internet-focused lawyers, or technologists saw Facebook's looming electoral presence
-- it was undeniable -- but all the evidence pointed to the structural change benefitting Democrats. And let's just state the obvious:
Most reporters and professors are probably about as liberal as your standard Silicon Valley technologist, so this conclusion fit
into the comfort zone of those in the field.
By late October, the role that Facebook might be playing in the Trump campaign -- and more broadly -- was emerging. Joshua Green
and Issenberg
reported
a long feature on the data operation then in motion . The Trump campaign was working to suppress "idealistic white liberals,
young women, and African Americans," and they'd be doing it with targeted, "dark" Facebook ads. These ads are only visible to the
buyer, the ad recipients, and Facebook. No one who hasn't been targeted by then can see them. How was anyone supposed to know what
was going on, when the key campaign terrain was literally invisible to outside observers?
Steve Bannon was confident in the operation. "I wouldn't have come aboard, even for Trump, if I hadn't known they were building
this massive Facebook and data engine," Bannon told them. "Facebook is what propelled Breitbart to a massive audience. We
know its power."
The very roots of the electoral system had been destabilized.
Issenberg and Green called it "an odd gambit" which had "no scientific basis." Then again, Trump's whole campaign had seemed like
an odd gambit with no scientific basis. The conventional wisdom was that Trump was going to lose and lose badly. In the days before
the election, The Huffington Post 's data team had Clinton's election probability at 98.3 percent. A member of the team, Ryan
Grim, went after Nate Silver for his more conservative probability of 64.7 percent, accusing him of skewing his data for "punditry"
reasons. Grim ended his post on the topic, "If you want to put your faith in the numbers, you can relax. She's got this."
Narrator: She did not have this.
But the point isn't that a Republican beat a Democrat. The point is that the very roots of the electoral system -- the news
people see, the events they think happened, the information they digest -- had been destabilized.
In the middle of the summer of the election, the former Facebook ad-targeting product manager, Antonio García Martínez, released
an autobiography called Chaos Monkeys . He called
his colleagues "chaos monkeys," messing with industry after industry in their company-creating fervor. "The question for society,"
he wrote, "is whether it can survive these entrepreneurial chaos monkeys intact, and at what human cost." This is the real epitaph
of the election.
The information systems that people use to process news have been rerouted through Facebook, and in the process, mostly broken
and hidden from view. It wasn't just liberal bias that kept the media from putting everything together. Much of the hundreds of millions
of dollars that was spent during the election cycle came in the form of "dark ads."
The truth is that while many reporters knew some things that were going on on Facebook, no one knew everything that
was going on on Facebook, not even Facebook. And so, during the most significant shift in the technology of politics since the television,
the first draft of history is filled with undecipherable whorls and empty pages. Meanwhile, the 2018 midterms loom.
Update: After publication, Adam Mosseri, head of News Feed, sent an email describing some of the work that Facebook is doing
in response to the problems during the election. They include new software and processes "to stop the
spread of misinformation
, click-bait
and other
problematic
content on Facebook."
"The truth is we've learned things since the election, and we take our responsibility to protect the community of people who
use Facebook seriously. As a result, we've launched a company-wide effort to improve the integrity of information on our service,"
he wrote. "It's already translated into new products, new protections, and the commitment of thousands of new people to enforce our
policies and standards... We know there is a lot more work to do, but I've never seen this company more engaged on a single challenge
since I joined almost 10 years ago."
"... Among the advertisements included hundreds of irrelevant issues (even simple pictures with puppies), while 65% of the messages were uploaded after the US presidential elections, so, apparently, they would not had been able to influence the final result. So, the big news was not the content of the Ads, but the fact that Zuckerberg agreed to cooperate with the US authorities by offering information of Facebook users - a policy immediately followed by Google and Twitter. ..."
"... For many, the informal proclamation was an expression of "subjugation" to the US deep state, and especially to the reborn camp of neoconservatives, who, led by Hillary Clinton, have launched a new witch hunt against Moscow. For others, it was just a compromise move that proved that Zuckerberg can "swim" comfortably into the deep waters of the American political scene. ..."
The decision of the founder of Facebook to work with the US authorities on the hunting
of Russian hackers is a turning point in the policy of the largest social medium on the planet.
Perhaps it is the moment that officially enters the political arena. globinfo
freexchange
There are two things that have been commonplace for White House occupants for centuries: a long
tour in all the American states before the elections and a proclamation to the American people
after their election. Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, did both.
In the last year he visits all the American states, taking pictures with farmers, workers,
priests and even addicted people in a personal "election campaign" without any opponents. And
then, it was time to turn Urbi et Orbi to the two billion "believers" who keep active Facebook
accounts.
The reason was that the known social medium allowed the publication of paid Ads by Russian
users, supposedly aimed at influencing the outcome of the US elections. Although initially
Facebook reported that it had not identified any suspicious action, when the pressures began to
rise, Zuckerberg said in his "statement" that he would provide data to a congressional
committee for about 3,000 related Ads posted on his pages. Of course, as the researcher and
journalist Max Blumenthal explained, this "treasure" turned out to be coal too. Among the advertisements included hundreds of irrelevant issues (even simple pictures with
puppies), while 65% of the messages were uploaded after the US presidential elections, so,
apparently, they would not had been able to influence the final result. So, the big news was
not the content of the Ads, but the fact that Zuckerberg agreed to cooperate with the US
authorities by offering information of Facebook users - a policy immediately followed by Google
and Twitter. For many, the informal proclamation was an expression of "subjugation" to the US deep
state, and especially to the reborn camp of neoconservatives, who, led by Hillary Clinton, have
launched a new witch hunt against Moscow. For others, it was just a compromise move that proved
that Zuckerberg can "swim" comfortably into the deep waters of the American political
scene.
In any case, the incident once again brought to light the terrifying power that Facebook has
acquired in the already oligopolistic market of social media. "Facebook users could outnumber
Christians before the end of the year" CNBC stated a few days ago - a peculiar way indeed to
explain that soon one-third of the world's inhabitants will use Zuckerberg's platform at least
once a month.
The case of the Russian Ads, however, has triggered an even more interesting debate. Most of
those who criticized Zuckerberg's decision accused him of interfering in the operation of the
algorithms that determine which news, Ads, and friend's messages will be viewed by each user on
his "wall". This view, however, implies that algorithms consist a kind of objective (and mostly
apolitical) mechanism.
In a sense, as writer Franklin Foer explained in his new book, "World Without Mind," the myth
of the objective algorithm is the contemporary expression of a technocratic concept, first
appeared in 18th century Europe by writers such as Henri de Saint-Simon.
Known as the Utopian precursor of "scientific socialism," Saint-Simon envisioned a society in
which the interests of the corrupt old regime and the chaos that the power of "mob" might bring
to the society, would give their place to a body of technocrats engineers who would regulate
the functioning of society exclusively with scientific criteria. Instead of philosophers in
politics, or, philosophical politicians, the new vision foresaw positions only for
engineers.
The seemingly neutral algorithms of present era, Franklin Foer argues, come to replace the
Utopia and the myth of the first technocrats. In fact, as he explains quite thoroughly, each
algorithm hides enormous amounts of politics and political economy too, depending on the
aspirations of its creators.
Perhaps the next US president will be elected by an algorithm - that of Mark Zuckerberg. Article by Aris Chatzistefanou, translated from the original source: http://info-war.gr/pios-kyverna-afto-to-facebook/
Facebook users with so-called optimistic bias think they're less likely than other users to experience cyberbullying, depression
and other negative social and psychological effects from using the site, a Dartmouth-Cornell study finds.
The study suggests that
optimistic bias, or an intrinsic tendency to imagine future events in a favorable light that enhances positive self-regard - in other
words, wishful thinking - leaves those Facebook users vulnerable to the negative realities of social media.
The findings appear in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. A PDF is available on request.
"Our findings demonstrate important and novel discrepancies in how people perceive themselves and others concerning the
positive and negative outcomes of Facebook use," says lead author Sunny Jung Kim, a postdoctoral research associate in the Psychiatric
Research Center and the Center for Technology and Behavioral Health at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. "A growing
number of studies report possible benefits and risks of using Facebook and other social media, ranging from effects on self-esteem
to cyberbullying. But little is known about how people perceive themselves to be likely to experience these mixed outcomes
and what the implications of having these perceptions are."
More information: Kim Sunny Jung and Hancock Jeffrey T.. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. April
2015, 18(4): 214-220. DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2014.0656.
In recent months, Facebook has been quietly holding talks with at least half a
dozen media companies about hosting their content inside Facebook rather than making users tap
a link to go to an external site.
The new proposal by Facebook carries another risk for publishers: the loss of valuable
consumer data. When readers click on an article, an array of tracking tools allow the host site
to collect valuable information on who they are, how often they visit and what else they have
done on the web.
And if Facebook pushes beyond the experimental stage and makes content hosted on
the site commonplace, those who do not participate in the program could lose substantial traffic
- a factor that has played into the thinking of some publishers. Their articles might load more
slowly than their competitors', and over time readers might avoid those sites.
Last week, I came across an incredibly important article from the New York Times, which
described Facebook's plan to provide direct access to other websites' content in exchange for some
sort of advertising partnership. The implications of this are so huge that at this point I have far
more questions than answers.
With 1.4 billion users, the social media site has become a vital source of traffic for
publishers looking to reach an increasingly fragmented audience glued to smartphones. In recent
months, Facebook has been quietly holding talks with at least half a dozen media companies about
hosting their content inside Facebook rather than making users tap a link to go to an external
site.
Such a plan would represent a leap of faith for news organizations accustomed to keeping
their readers within their own ecosystems, as well as accumulating valuable data on them. Facebook
has been trying to allay their fears, according to several of the people briefed on the talks,
who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were bound by nondisclosure agreements.
Facebook intends to begin testing the new format in the next several months, according
to two people with knowledge of the discussions. The initial partners are expected to
be The New York Times, BuzzFeed and National Geographic, although others may be added since discussions
are continuing. The Times and Facebook are moving closer to a firm deal, one person said.
Facebook has said publicly that it wants to make the experience of consuming content online
more seamless. News articles on Facebook are currently linked to the publisher's own website,
and open in a web browser, typically taking about eight seconds to load. Facebook thinks that
this is too much time, especially on a mobile device, and that when it comes to catching the roving
eyeballs of readers, milliseconds matter.
The Huffington Post and the business and economics website Quartz were also approached.
Both also declined to discuss their involvement.
Facebook declined to comment on its specific discussions with publishers. But the company
noted that it had provided features to help publishers get better traction on Facebook, including
tools unveiled in December that let them target their articles to specific groups of Facebook
users, such as young women living in New York who like to travel.
The new proposal by Facebook carries another risk for publishers: the loss of valuable
consumer data. When readers click on an article, an array of tracking tools allow the host site
to collect valuable information on who they are, how often they visit and what else they have
done on the web.
And if Facebook pushes beyond the experimental stage and makes content hosted on the site
commonplace, those who do not participate in the program could lose substantial traffic - a factor
that has played into the thinking of some publishers. Their articles might load more slowly than
their competitors', and over time readers might avoid those sites.
And just as Facebook has changed its news feed to automatically play videos hosted
directly on the site, giving them an advantage compared with videos hosted on YouTube, it could
change the feed to give priority to articles hosted directly on its site.
Let me try to address this the best I can from several different angles. First off, what's
the big picture plan here? As the number two ranked website in the world with 1.4 billion
users, Facebook itself is already something like an alternative internet where a disturbing number
of individuals spend a disproportionate amount of their time. The only thing that seems to make many
of its users click away is content hosted on other people's websites linked to from Facebook users.
Other than this outside content, many FB users might never leave the site.
While this is scary to someone like me, to Facebook it is an abomination. The company doesn't
want people to leave their site ever - for any reason. Hence the aggressive push to carry outside
news content, and create a better positioned alternative web centrally controlled by it.
This is a huge power play move.
Second, the New York Times righty asks the question concerning what will publishers get
from Facebook for allowing their content to appear on the site seamlessly. Some sort of revenue share
from advertisers seems to be an obvious angle, but perhaps there's more.
While Facebook isn't a huge traffic driver for
Liberty Blitzkrieg, it isn't totally
irrelevant either. For example, FB provided about 3% of the site's traffic over the past 12 months.
This is despite the fact that LBK doesn't even have a Facebook page, and I've never shared a link
through it. Even more impressive, Facebook drove more traffic to LBK over the same time period than
Twitter, and I am very active on that platform. So I can only imagine how important FB is to website
editors who actually use it.
This brings me to a key point about leverage. It seems to me that Facebook has
all the leverage in negotiations with content providers. If you're a news website that refuses to
join in this program, over time you might see your traffic evaporate compared to your competitors
whose content will load seamlessly and be promoted by the FB algorithm. If a large percentage of
your traffic is being generated by Facebook, can you really afford to lose this?
One thing that FB might be willing to offer publishers in return other than advertising dollars,
is increased access to their fan base. For example, when I try to figure out through Google analytics
who specifically (or what page) on Facebook is sharing my work, I can't easily do so. Clearly this
information could prove very useful for networking purposes and could be quite valuable.
Looking for some additional insight and words of wisdom, I asked the smartest tech/internet person
I know for his opinion. It was more optimistic than I thought:
This could be a huge shaper of news on the internet. or it could turn out to be nothing.
Other than saying that I don't really know how to predict what might or might not happen,
and I sort of don't care much because it is in the realm (for now at least) of stuff that I don't
read (mainstream news), on a site that I never see (Facebook). However, the one thing I wonder
in terms of the viability of this is whether in the end it may drive people away from FB.
Back in the day, probably when you weren't so aware of the nascent net, there were two
giant "services" on the Internet called Compuserve and America Online. They were each what you
are thinking that Facebook is heading toward; exclusive, centralized portals to the whole net.
They were also giant and successful at the time. Then people outside of them started doing things
that were so much more creative and interesting. At the same time, in order to make everything
fit inside their proprietary boxes and categories, they were making everything ever more standardized
and boring. Then they just abruptly died.
Given the enormity of what Facebook is trying to achieve, I have some obvious concerns. First,
since all of the leverage seems to reside with Facebook, I fear they are likely to get the better
part of any deal by wide margin. Second, if they succeed in this push, this single company's
ability to control access to news and what is trending and deemed important by a huge section of
humanity will be extraordinary.
balolalo
I think this shows how desperate both parties are. The MSM is dying. Facebook has plateued. However
the risk is great to both parties. What happens when users hijack the message? And how do they
control feedback? I think this will shoot both of them in the foot in the end. BLOWBACK BITCHEZ.
Macchendra
Do you see any of your code on Facebook?
Did I use any of your code?
What? Match.com for Harvard guys?
You know, you really don't need a forensics team to get to the bottom of this.
If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you'd have invented Facebook.
Macchendra
And honestly, the "goy" version of this, classmates.com, had been around for ages stinking
up your spam folder. Thank God the MBAs didn't win this battle. They would have monetized it to
death. And YOUR opinion has benefited. YOU have been given a voice.
Yes, this is all about control of the 'message'. They are loosing control, this is one option
they've chosen and they'll attempt to vilify any and all alternate sources.
Imagine FaceFuck controlling all the information delivered to the sheep on say ….hmmm, Russia
for example.
doctor10
"they" have lost control of the narrative. Can't even get a good game of cowboys and indians
going anywhere in the world any longer.
When despite all their insane raving about him, even Putin comes off looking more of a statesman
than anybody in the West, its obvious the stories no longer hold together into a believable story
Burt Gummer
I'm gonna twitter this shit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBCUCJNWimo
Paveway IV
"...With 1.4 billion users..."
Yeah, and I account for a dozen of those. I can't remember the username or password or email account that I made up the last time I was forced to use it so I just make up another one. Which I promptly forget again because I never use it.
When you hear your teenage kids say, "Facebook?? Facebook SUCKS" you know it's over for them.
MSM want's to funnel their feces through FB? Hey - I'm all for it. More power to them. I would rather have ALL the knuckle-draggers self-confined to their own little cage somewhere on the periphery of the internet than wandering around loose and showing up on worthwhile sites. Like I would ever even bother to make up yet another fake account on Facebook to read somethign like the NYT, WSJ, WaPo, Bussiness Insider, etc., etc., etc.
bag holder
This sounds exactly like America Online back in the 90s. They tried to create their own
self-contained Internet, too. It didn't exactly end well.
in4mayshun
Half the people I know already ditched FB for Instagram. The other half were smart enough
never to join FB..
Nowadays, privacy does not hold much value when it comes to the privacy of our data on our digital
devices or on the internet. In the past few weeks, we learned that everyone who tries to maintain
privacy on the net is under suspicion which is all the more reason to try to keep our data, contacts,
communications, and whereabouts on the internet anonymous and hidden from prying eyes as much as
possible. This holds true even more for people that are more exposed like human rights activists,
journalists, lawyers, and even doctors. Some of the distributions that try to assist us with this
build on the Tor network.
One of these distributions is Tails, based on Debian Testing. It had a formidable boost when
whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed, that he used Tails to stay anonymous. The latest release
is Tails 1.1 which was released on July 22. We are going to show you how to set it up on a device
like a USB memory stick or a SD card. The term 'installing' is used by the Tails project in this
context, but technically this is only partially correct. The easiest way of using Tails is to just
copy the bootable image to the device using the linux command dd as opposed to real installations
to USB devices. If you want a read-only device for anonymously surfing the internet, that will suffice.
If you need a setup that you can also write to and save your work on, the setup is a little bit more
complicated, as the Tails installer only works from inside Tails.
The European Commission has warned EU citizens that they should close their Facebook accounts if
they want to keep information private from US security services, finding that current Safe Harbour
legislation does not protect citizen's data.
The comments were made by EC attorney Bernhard Schima in a case brought by privacy campaigner
Maximilian Schrems, looking at whether the data of EU citizens should be considered safe if sent
to the US in a post-Snowden revelation landscape.
"You might consider closing your Facebook account, if you have one," Schima told attorney general
Yves Bot in a hearing of the case at the European court of justice in Luxembourg.
... ... ...
Schrems maintains that companies operating inside the EU should not be allowed to transfer data
to the US under Safe Harbour protections – which state that US data protection rules are adequate
if information is passed by companies on a "self-certify" basis – because the US no longer qualifies
for such a status.
The case argues that the US government's Prism data collection programme, revealed by Edward
Snowden in the NSA files, which sees EU citizens' data held by US companies passed on to US intelligence
agencies, breaches the EU's Data Protection Directive "adequacy" standard for privacy protection,
meaning that the Safe Harbour framework no longer applies.
Poland and a few other member states as well as advocacy group Digital Rights Ireland joined Schrems
in arguing that the Safe Harbour framework cannot ensure the protection of EU citizens' data and
therefore is in violation of the two articles of the Data Protection Directive.
The European Commission has warned EU citizens that they should close their Facebook accounts
if they want to keep information private from US security services…
i 'deactivated' my facebook account a few years ago, and asked to have my account permanently
removed, but facebook won't even respond to my repeated requests.
Loquito 27 Mar 2015 20:16
Facebook is the ultimate expression of the infantile, shallow and narcissistic approach
a lot of people take to their lives nowadays. People who like to be watched and spied. People
who thoroughly enjoy being stupid.
Raytrek 27 Mar 2015 19:53
I want to be spied on, the spies may learn a thing or two.
Joseph Jessup 27 Mar 2015 19:48
The EU is just a vassal for the US anyway, not sure why everybody is complaining here. The
EU is pretty much controlled by the US in all aspects. "If the US says Bark, roll over", the EU
does it faithfully, and demonstrates it daily in every sphere of foreign and domestic policy.
EU citizens have no right to complain until they start showing a little pride and independence,
because now, it is is just a marionette.
CaptCrash -> BlancoDiabloMagico 27 Mar 2015 19:36
Oh... I filled in a form to close the account, with a reason of "duplicate account". Gone within
48 hours I think.
Zooni_Bubba 27 Mar 2015 19:16
This is the most of course story ever. The US government is breaking all sorts of laws, why
would anyone put their information under in their domain. People should also not use any US based
software products or email servers.
It is illegal to look through someones mail and therefore should be illegal to look through
email, phone records, cookies etc.
GiovannidiPietro0714 27 Mar 2015 19:09
Leave Facebook . . .
more like leave planet earth, right?
That "Collect it All", "Process it All", "Exploit it All", "Partner it All", "Sniff it
All" (tm) mindset, which by the way was started by U.S. IT companies, won't ever be abandoned
by "freedom-loving" politicians and police.
there is a story from a few years ago stating a cia agent helped fund facebook
ChristopherPrice Bob Howie 27 Mar 2015 16:23
There's a difference between secrecy and privacy. Having "nothing to hide" is good (which
means you are likely a non-secretive, law abiding citizen), and it goes under the category of
being transparent with regards to the rule of law. However, your ethical right to privacy is
an entirely different discussion. Would you mind if the gov authorities placed a camera inside
of your home and took pictures of your unclothed wife?
robertthebruce2014 27 Mar 2015 13:56
The corporate State considers that private enterprise in the sphere of production is the
most effective and useful instrument in the interest of the nation. In view of the fact that
private organisation of production is a function of national concern, the organiser of the
enterprise is responsible to the State for the direction given to production.
State intervention in economic production arises only when private initiative is lacking or
insufficient, or when the political interests of the State are involved. This intervention
may take the form of control, assistance or direct management
.
(Benito Mussolini, 1935, Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions, pp. 135 / 136)
egbertnosausage -> SusanTorveldtt 27 Mar 2015 13:51
You're being spied upon all the time.
Turn off location services and use on an as needed basis then turn off again.
You're phone is a walking microphone telling companies like Google where you go and who you
meet.
Dunnyveg 27 Mar 2015 12:50
Europeans should be just as concerned with keeping their private information away from
EU authorities. Both Washington and Brussels are controlled by the same liberals who have
declared war on their own citizens.
Alan Tasman 27 Mar 2015 12:20
I agree with this assessment 100%
Loveable Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg called his first few thousand users "dumb fucks" for
trusting him with their data, published IM (Instant Message) transcripts show. Zuckerberg has
since admitted he made the comments.
Zuckerberg was chatting with an unnamed friend, apparently in early 2004. Business Insider,
which has a series of quite juicy anecdotes about Facebook's early days, takes the credit for
this one.
The exchange apparently ran like this:
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask.
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks
leveut2 27 Mar 2015 12:04
This is almost funny. More correctly put: "EU citizens that they should close their
Facebook accounts if they want to keep information private".
Facebook's business plan is:
get people to put as much as their personal information as possible on Facebook,
figure out out to screw them over but good using that personal information, and
screw them over but good.
By putting your information on Facebook you lose any right to complain about snooping by
anyone.
uzzername 27 Mar 2015 10:48
Why don't the EU make Facebook put its server farms for European users within the territory
of EU.
This way traffic from EU citizens won't leave its borders.
Kelly Trujillo 27 Mar 2015 10:48
So European nations have figured out that they don't want to be part of the U.S.
nazification of the whole world. How long before the so called American "intellectual
property" companies like Facebook become irrelevant?
BaffledFromBalham -> SirDemilo Brewer 27 Mar 2015 09:02
Who cares if FB is spying on you; if you don't have anything to hide what's the problem?
What if you do have something to hide? What if you were a member of some protest group in your
student youth but now wanted to go on holiday to the US ... maybe you might want not want the
US government to see all of your old posts of "down with this sort of thing" in case they got
touchy and banned you from entering the country.
BaffledFromBalham -> Mike Kelligan 27 Mar 2015 08:52
just look at the contract and what it stipulates
It's not just what's in the contract; the NSA were using the data sent over the wire to by
these apps.
BaffledFromBalham -> amberjack 27 Mar 2015 08:48
If the spooks can just suck your data out of the wires, it doesn't really matter which
social network you're on.
Indeed, that's why GCHQ were tapping into the undersea internet cables. I guess the only
defence then is https.
ID8246338 27 Mar 2015 08:40
One would have to be very stupid to think that any on-line communication is 'safe' or
'private' unless one takes specific steps.
Security has been a concern since the internet started to develop. From the beginning hackers
were beavering away to find ways of accessing government systems - many of them very
successfully. Many of them became employees of the governments who they were once hacking.
Combine this with the resources available to governments around the world nowadays and the
cooperation of social media giants and other providers and its not hard to understand the
risks one takes by using the internet.
Although we may think that we are doing nothing that the authorities would be interested in,
the fact is that those authorities like data. They can analyse it and do all kinds of
projections and discover trends in society which may be a threat to their power. That is the
reason - not as much of that analysis is related to crime as they say it is.
Its common sense not to put anything on the internet you do not want others to see - no matter
how private you think it is.
Wharfat9 27 Mar 2015 08:05
The idea of spying, snooping, entering into ... is rather against the idea of ´private´. Of
course, if a phenotype puts a photo of self, 3/4´s naked, and then starts to blab his/her
intimacies ... considering the platform, he/she has somewhat unlatched the locks, cut the
barbed wire and otherwise ´invited the world on in.´
We are, aren´t we? .. pretty exhibitionist creatures.
Where we want to ´be seen´ ´heard´ ... offers the silly putty of our little ego´s up for those
who want to snoop.
The people at Bluffdale, NSA, FBI, CIA have never had it so good. The kind of data
collection they get as freebie, swooping it up by the ton - from willing bedmates throughout
the social networks - is the kind of data collection they could only have dreamed of .. if
Hoxha could have had this, Albania might be poised to take on the world!
What happens if there comes a day when we just simply turn these things off? What would be
gained? What would be lost? The ´puter .. as someone in the U.S. said to me, "can´t live with
´em, can´t live without ´em." Is that really the way it is?
There is lingering curiosity, too: why in the world do governments want to snoop so badly?
Beyond simple, grade ´b´ perversity, what is it? The United States, my country, has had as
close to zero-success in snooping as has any country in the world, free, unfree, or oblong.
What´s the deal?
.. millions of bucks, snooping .. failure after failure .. what´s the deal?
Everything that could have gone wrong vis-a-vis terrorism, has.
Maybe U.S. officials want to talk about the ´ones they thwarted.´
"Oh, if only you knew!"
.. that, children, would require a leap of faith that he who writes here is not willing to
take-make.
Reading the great Malinowski, his investigation of the Trobriand Islanders, one notes a
complete, integral society, at work, at play, celebrating, mourning, living. Less than a
hundred years ago. The stunning clarity of his writing portrays an integral society. If the
society is whole, the community - as sub-strata, is whole, as well. Or, at least, can be ...
One can´t get over the fact that the ones who took the flying lessons before whacking the
WTC´s (if this is really how it went) went into small town ´flying schools´ .. being very
foreign, and .. ? .. ! .. and, the terrible serial killer who lived next door, ´was such a
quiet boy.´
If we have lost it, the integrity, the integral part .. the rest is left-overs, bits ´n
pieces, bacon bits, halal. And spying is the least of us. Lord help us.
david wright 27 Mar 2015 05:33
The 'right to be forgotten' legislation, however well-mening, was drafted in fairly
complete ignorance of various technical realities. It provides very litle - if any -
meaningful protection, beyond a comforting illusion. Would you care to be protected in
shipwreck by an illusory life-jacket? Thought not.
General point being that absent accurate, timely and clear technical briefing of lawyers and
parliamentary draughters, such laws will be effective purely by chance.
Dave Butler 27 Mar 2015 05:05
As a UK citizen who is already spied on more than any other country in the world what can
the Americans find out that GCHQ , the thousands of camera's and the tracking of my phone,
plus following my fancy new bank cards purchases is not already in the public domain.
Of course if you have something worth hiding you may feel different......
dralion 27 Mar 2015 04:54
Never joined, it or any other of the anti social networks.
Still can't understand this need to spread its life all over the net to thousands of so called
friends. Croaks (as opposed to tweets) are reliable news for many and decision are based on
rumours, false information...
There is no need for any of this. People are no more than cattle for those companies, milked
out of their money, their time, their liberty of thinking; drone consumers...
ID3547814 -> Khoryos 27 Mar 2015 04:51
Not even FB deleting your account removes everything, from that FB help page;
"Some of the things you do on Facebook aren't stored in your account. For example, a friend
may still have messages from you even after you delete your account. That information remains
after you delete your account."
This means some incriminating posts you may have made will be stored on your FB friends
accounts. Better still, you'll need to get all your friends to make a request to delete their
FB accounts too, and their friends as well. Ad infinitum until the only account still using FB
is Mark Zuckerburg's.
Денис Панкратов -> Khoryos 27 Mar 2015 04:44
Unfortunately, this is not quite true. By these actions, you can close your page for users,
but not for US intelligence. But if you do not intelligence agent, not a politician, not a
businessman, but simply communicate on the network, no need to worry. Special services are not
interested in you. By the way, not only the "Facebook" is watching you. It is actively engaged
in "Google", almost all social networks, file sharing, porn sites and sites for storing files.
The principle is the same: you want to keep confidential information, do not spread it to
the network.
amberjack -> BaffledFromBalham 27 Mar 2015 03:54
Would you really trust a social media site set up by a governing organisation? Surely it
would be way too tempting for them to fit backdoors for EuroPol to log in and search through
all data, public and private.
That could be addressed by using a free open-source product like Diaspora. If everyone can
see the code, back doors are easily detected and publicised. And it's a distributed system, so
if you're really paranoid, you can install it on your own server and operate it on a
peer-to-peer (pod to pod, in Diaspora jargon) basis.
The drawback is, of course, that as sdkeller72 and others have pointed out, once the
information is transmitted between different pods/countries, it becomes vulnerable to third
parties. If the spooks can just suck your data out of the wires, it doesn't really matter
which social network you're on.
If you just don't like Facebook using your private information to pump you full of ads,
though, a distributed, democratic system like Diaspora is the way to go.
monostatos 27 Mar 2015 03:44
has anyone found a way to delete a FB account in the real sense of 'delete' and not just
abandon. I couldnt find a definitive answer in the comments. The offcial procedure on FB has
very little effect on your data.
Its probably best to assume that anything ever uploaded to FB will exist forever right?
So the EU is urging people to close their Facebook accounts if they are concerned with
possible privacy breaches. Sounds reasonable enough. I agree.
There's just one gotcha. Currently, it seems, there is NO way to actually close your Facebook
account. You can deactivate it, but that doesn't actually delete it. All deactivating does is
makes your account invisible; all your data is still there.
The closest you can get is to delete every last bit of data in your Facebook account -- and
that means sitting there and deleting perhaps years worth of posts to your wall and the like,
contacts, and any other services you have used on Facebook. The deactivate it and hope you and
no one else trips over it in the future.
If there is anything the EU could demand, it would be to require that FB provide a means to
truly delete an account. I mean, it is ridiculous that this is not available, given that this
is doable on virtually every other site on the web. Not just ridiculous, outright lazy and
irresponsible.
ramacaida58 27 Mar 2015 02:49
Are people naive?
"Face Book" National security project made by National security agencies.
We all applauded well done you clever boy how did you come out with such clever ideas.
But this is democracy we do have the choice to "shut it down or keep it open". We, who are
the peaceful ordinary citizens of this word. Have nothing to worry about. May be even it is
good for our security. At the end most of us we have nothing to hide.
orag -> Cumming madeiranlotuseater 27 Mar 2015 02:48
No, Facebook is where people post news that the mainstream media are reluctant to publish.
It was the first place, for example, where people were extensively warning about NHS
privatisation, or about the terrible effects of benefit sanctions.
It's also great for finding links to really interesting science sites, or culture that you may
be interest ted in.
argonauta -> madeiranlotuseater 27 Mar 2015 02:46
My dog has 12 friends on FB. She's popular among my friends. I have no FB but my dog loves
me anyway. And I love her friends, because the friends of my dog are my friends, chiefly when
they were my friends in the first place. It's a win-win-woof situation
Brian -> Haughan Ellenrocr 27 Mar 2015 02:44
We all need to use an instant messaging solution like Cribble where messages can only be
decrypted by the intended recipient. That way it doesn't matter where the servers are located
because the governments can't read your messages anyway.
John MacKenzie -> tempodulu 27 Mar 2015 02:43
One of Edward Snowdons revelations was never to use Dropbox, ever. Continously
monitored apparently.
John MacKenzie 27 Mar 2015 02:40
Can I suggest that, if you want your privacy protected, download Ghostery and ZenMate.
Ghostery blocks 'trackers,' essentially online ads and tracking apps that run in the
background mining data. For example, at the moment, on the Guardian site, Ghostery is blocking
the following -
Audience Science
Criteo (ads)
Double Click (ads)
Facebook Social Graph
Google Ads
Krux Digital (ads)
Net Ratings (analytics)
Outbrain (tracker)
Scorecard Research
Zenmate is a VPN.
Ghostery does make the internet so much better as the pages load faster. They don't need to
load ads and trackers all the time.
In reality the state took an active role in creating such companies as Google and Facebook.
So I would not call their excessive zeal for surveillance of the users accidental. Quote: "Headlines
have always been composed to grab attention, but now they can gather intelligence too. Your decision
to click-and even the amount of time you spend reading or watching-is a piece of data for which the
advertiser will pay good money.
As Silverman describes it, the urge to gather endless data about all of us-from our spending habits
to the pace of our heartbeats-is a huge, lucrative industry, driven by the fantasy that correlation
is causation, that because you did X activity, you'll buy Y product."
Your decision to click-and even the
amount of time you spend reading or watching-is a piece of data for which the advertiser will pay
good money.
What are we prepared to give up in the name of convenience? Throughout
Jacob Silverman's capacious study of the
world we're in and the world we're making-or rather, allowing tech companies to make for us-it's
demonstrated repeatedly that billions of us are happy to surrender our privacy to save a few keystrokes.
Why not log in to that other website with your Facebook or Twitter or Google ID? Why not use your
real identity and photograph, with a record of your movements, all across the web? You have it on
Google's word that they're not
"evil"; what could be the harm?
Silverman's new book, Terms of
Service: Social Media and the Price of Constant Connection, does a thorough, if sometimes
long-winded, job of explaining what the harm is and what it could become. He begins with an analysis
of the philosophy, variously termed "techno-utopianism"
or "cyber-libertarianism,"
that drives the major social media companies. The ideology should be familiar in essence, if not
in name-we've been soaking in it for the past decade. Media theorists, long before the advent of
Facebook, were calling it "the
Californian ideology." It's what happens when youthful rebelliousness and a countercultural,
anti-authoritarian spirit meets gobs of cash and untrammeled power. It's the myth-tirelessly peddled
by optimistic tech, business and culture reporters and embraced by the customers who line up for
new gadgets-that a corporation that calls its headquarters a "campus" and equips its offices with
slides, snacks and free daycare is something other than a capitalist entity, with motives other than
profit.
To be fair, the big tech companies-Google and Facebook are the stars here, with Twitter, Tumblr
and LinkedIn singing backup - do have goals beyond their bottom line. They want to do the kinds of
things that beauty-pageant contestants want to do: cure diseases, end terrorism,
go to the moon. They share a disdain for government
- Mark Zuckerberg is committed to the idea of "companies
over countries" - but also share a zeal for surveillance.
For Silverman, the harm of social media is both specific and philosophical. It turns journalism
into a clickbait race, for instance, but it also radically changes our concepts of privacy and identity.
He considers the fate of those who are chewed up and spat out by the Internet's nano-fame cycle (nobody
gets 15 minutes anymore), whose embarrassing or self-aggrandizing antics, captured on video, do the
rounds and attract a quick, overwhelming torrent of derision or rage. But while we might shrug our
shoulders at the fate of an
Antoine Dodson
or a Taylor
Chapman (respectively a viral hero and villain), Silverman argues that we should be aware of
the numbing and alienating consequences of the viral instinct. Not only does it frequently make clowns
of those who are seriously disadvantaged, and destroy reputations and careers, it also molds
the larger media world in its own image. Hate-watching a two-minute video of a reality show
contestant's racist rant is a sign that you'll give attention to this kind of content-and the site
that hosts the video, beholden to its advertisers, traffics in your attention, not your intelligence
or humanity.
Headlines have always been composed to grab attention, but now they can gather intelligence
too. Your decision to click - and even the amount of time you spend reading or watching-is a piece
of data for which the advertiser
will pay good money. As Silverman describes it, the urge to gather endless data about all of
us - from our spending habits to the pace of our heartbeats - is a huge, lucrative industry, driven
by the fantasy that correlation is causation, that because you did X activity, you'll buy Y product.
It may be foolhardy to make predictions about the fast-evolving tech world, but Silverman offers
some chilling evidence that the world of "big data" is beginning to affect the choices available
to us. Some
healthcare companies will lower your premiums if you use a fitness-tracking app (and share that
data, of course). Data about what you eat and buy is increasingly being used like your credit score,
to determine if you are worthy of that job, that car or that home.
So what? A good citizen who eats her greens and pays her bills has nothing to fear! And if she
worries that some misstep-glancing at an unsavory website, running a red light, suffering a computer
hack-will damage her, she can just pay protection money to one of several companies that exist to
safeguard their clients' online reputations. Silverman has no solution to these linked problems,
of course, since there is far too much money driving this brave new world and far too little government
will to resist. Mass surveillance is the present and the future. But if information-meaning data
points-is corporate power, then knowledge and critical thinking may be citizen power.
Silverman is too cautious and self-conscious a thinker to inspire a revolution. Instead, he advocates
a kind of lowlevel "social-media rebellion" - messing with, rather than rejecting, the digitally
networked world in which we live. Putting up a cartoon monkey as your online avatar might not
feel like much of a blow to the Facebook assault on privacy, but it's an annoyance to the
booming facial- recognition industry-and perhaps a few million determined annoyances can disrupt
the techno-utopia in favor of the common good.
Joanna Scutts is a freelance writer based in Queens, NY, and a board member
of the National Book Critics Circle. Her book reviews and essays have appeared in the Washington
Post, the New Yorker Online, The Nation, The Wall Street Journal and several other publications.
You can follow her on Twitter @life_savour.
"Instead of a win-win, the Internet is, in fact, more akin to a negative feedback loop in which
we network users are its victims rather than beneficiaries,"
Andrew Keen, The Internet Is Not the Answer (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2015), 288 pp., $25.00.
DURING THE past few years, if you were one of the many people trawling the dating website OkCupid
in search of love, you might have received a notice letting you know it had found someone who was an
"exceptionally good" match for you. You might have contacted this match and even gone on dates with
this person, comfortable in the knowledge that a sophisticated algorithm had done the difficult work
of sorting through millions of profiles to find someone with just the right balance of appealing quirks
and concupiscent charms to match your own delightful attributes.
What you didn't know is that OkCupid was experimenting on you. Engineers programmed the site to
send its users matches that it claimed were "exceptional" but that were in fact bogus-all for the
purpose of finding out if you would believe the assessment and pursue the match. Not
surprisingly, most users did. We are nothing if not suggestible when it comes to love, even if Cupid's
arrow has been replaced by OkCupid's algorithm.
This past summer, Christian Rudder, the founder of OkCupid, was prompted to publicize his company's
manipulation of its users in response to the furor created by Facebook's acknowledgement that it, too,
often uses the social network as a massive online behavioral-science experiment. In January 2012, more
than half a million Facebook users became unwitting lab rats when the company deliberately massaged
its users' news feeds by putting either more or less positive information in them, ostensibly to determine
if emotions are "contagious." (Short answer: yes, but behavioral science had already proven this; Facebook,
by contrast, was not doing this for science. The company wanted to show advertisers that it could manipulate
its users.)
For a brief moment, as news of these experiments became public, we caught a glimpse of the chasm
that has developed between what technology companies like Facebook and OkCupid assume about their users
and how those users actually feel. Some OkCupid devotees were horrified to learn that the site
keeps not only every single message sent to a potential date, but also bits of messages erased while
trying to craft a perfectly pitched response. The users felt, well, used. Rudder was unmoved.
As one of his OkCupid blog posts boasted, "We Experiment On Human Beings!"
Both the public's brief outrage and the hubris of the technology companies would come as no surprise
to Andrew Keen, whose new book, The Internet Is Not the Answer, offers a critical narrative of the
various ways Silicon Valley is reshaping the world's economy and values-and not for the better.
"Instead of a win-win, the Internet is, in fact, more akin to a negative feedback loop in which we
network users are its victims rather than beneficiaries," Keen writes. "Rather than the answer,
the Internet is actually the central question about our connected twenty-first-century world."
Keen states outright that his book is a synthesis, and it contains both the benefits and drawbacks
of one-repetitive and larded with quotations, it mainly advances arguments that have been made already
(and in greater depth) by technology critics such as Jaron Lanier, Sherry Turkle and Nicholas Carr.
Withal, he provides a timely and necessary overview of how the Internet arrived at its present state
and a bracing polemic about where it's headed. If, as MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito once said, "The
Internet is not a technology; it's a belief system," then Andrew Keen is one of its more compelling
heretics.
SOMETIME AROUND 1989, Keen argues, when computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee sketched the early outline
for the World Wide Web, the world changed. This new world, defined by the Internet's expansion, is
one that has "created new values, new wealth, new debates, new elites, new scarcities, new markets,
and above all, a new kind of economy." It is a world where, as a recent United Nations report noted,
more people have cell phones than access to functioning toilets.
Many early Internet champions believed that the Web they were building would connect people in a
way that would inaugurate an era of creative, cooperative economic and technological development. Technologists
such as Berners-Lee and Robert Kahn had backgrounds in research science and academia; they were not
focused on the potential profitability of their enterprise. Once the U.S. government opened up the
Internet to commercial use in the early 1990s, however, Keen shows how it "triggered the rush by
a new class of technological oligarchs in the United States to acquire prime online real estate."
In Keen's telling, the story of the Internet can be "summarized in a single word: money." One of
the creators of the early Web browser Netscape captured the mood well when he said, "The hell with
the commune. This was business."
But it is business that, for all of its rhetoric about innovation and disruption, has taken a traditional
form. The online world is now dominated by a small group of big companies-Google, Amazon, Apple and
Facebook foremost among them-that function like the monopolies of old. One technology investor whom
Keen cites puts it this way: "The Internet, in its current form, has simply replaced the old boss with
a new boss and these new bosses have market power that, in time, will be vastly larger than that of
the old boss."
The Internet and our digital media are quietly becoming a pervasive and manipulative interactive
surveillance system. Leading U.S. online companies, while claiming to be strong supporters of
an open and democratic Internet, are working behind the scenes to ensure that they have unlimited and
unchecked power to "shadow" each of us online. They have allied with global advertisers to transform
the Internet into a medium whose true ambition is to track, influence and sell, in anever-ending
cycle, their products and political ideas. While Google, Facebook and other digital giants
claim to strongly support a "democratic" Internet, their real goal is to use all the
"screens"we use to empower a highly commercialized and corporatized digital media culture.
Last Thursday was widely viewed as a victory for "Internet Freedom" and a blow to a "corporatized"
Internet as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) endorsed a historic public utility framework
for Network Neutrality (NN). It took the intervention of President Obama last year, who
called for "the strongest possible rules to
protect net neutrality," to dramatically transform the FCC's plans. Its chairman, Thomas Wheeler, a
former cable and telecom lobbyist, had previously been ambivalent about endorsing strong utility-like
regulations. But feeling the pressure, especially from the president, he became a "born again" NN champion,
leading the agency to
endorse
"strong, sustainable rules to protect the Open Internet."
But the next day, the Obama White House took another approach to Internet Freedom, handing
the leading online companies, including Google, Facebook, and their Fortune-type advertising clients,
a major political victory. The administration released its long-awaited "Consumer
Privacy Bill of Rights" legislation. The bill enables the most powerful corporations and their
trade associations to greatly determine what American privacy rights will be. By giving further control
over how data are gathered and used online, the administration basically ceded more clout to a corporate
elite that will be able to effectively decide how the Internet and digital applications operate, today
and in the near future.
How do privacy rules impact the openness of the Internet, and the ability to promote and sustain
progressive and alternative perspectives? While much of the public debate on pervasive data mining
has focused on the role of the NSA and other intelligence agencies that were exposed by Edward Snowden,
there has not been as much discussion on the impact of the commercial data system that is at the core
of the Internet today. Google, Facebook, and others use our data as the basis of an ever-expanding
global system of commercial surveillance. This information is gathered from our mobile devices, PCs,
apps, social networks, and increasingly even TVs-and stored in digital profiles. These far-reaching
dossiers-which can be accessed and updated in milliseconds-can include information on our race/ethnicity,
financial status, health concerns, location, online behavior, what our children do, whom we communicate
with on social media, and much more.
The major online companies are continually expanding their commercial data gathering practices.
They now merge and use our online and offline data (what we do online and information collected from
store loyalty cards, etc.); track us across all the devices we use (PCs, mobile, etc.); and amass even
more data about us supplied by a vast network of
data broker alliances and partnerships (such asFacebook
with its myriad of data partners, including Acxiom and Epsilon). A U.S. digital data industry
"arms race," with companies vying to own the most complete set of records on every consumer, has also
led to a
wave of mergers and acquisitions, where companies that have already compiled huge datasets on Americans
(and global consumers) being swallowed up by even larger ones.
Leading corporations are investing vast sums to harvest and, in their own words, make "actionable"
information we now generate nearly 24/7. So-called "Big Data" technologies enable companies to quickly
analyze and take advantage of all this information, including understanding how each of us uses online
media and mobile phones. A score of "Math Men and Women"-led advertising-technology companies have
pioneered the use of super fast computers that track where we are online and, in milliseconds, crunch
through lots of our data to decide whether to target us with advertising and marketing (regardless
of whether we use a PC or mobile device and, increasingly, using our geolocation information).
These machines are used to "auction" us off individually to the highest bidder, so we can be instantly
delivered some form of marketing (or even political) message. Increasingly, the largest brands and
ad agencies are using all this data and new tactics to sell us junk food, insurance, cars, and political
candidates. For example, these anonymous machines can determine whether to offer us a high-interest
pay day loan or a lower interest credit card; or an ad from one political group versus another.
But it's not just the ability to harvest data that's the source of increased corporate clout on
the Internet. Our profiles are tied to a system of micro-persuasion, the 21st century updating of traditional
"Madison Avenue" advertising tactics that relied on "subliminal" and cultural influence. Today,
online ads are constructed by connecting our information to a highly sophisticated digital marketing
apparatus. At places like Google's
BrandLab, AT&T's
Adworks Lab, or through research efforts such as
Facebook IQ, leading companies help their well-heeled clients
take advantage of the latest insights from neuromarketing
(to deliberately influence our emotions and subconscious), social media
monitoring, new forms of corporate product
placement, and the most effective
ways to use all of our digital platforms.
The online marketing industry is helping determine the dimensions of our digital world. Much
of the Internet and our mobile communications are being purposely developed as a highly commercialized
marketplace, where the revenues that help fund content go to a select, and largely ad-supported, few.
With Google, Facebook, major advertisers and agencies all working closely together throughout the world
to further commercialize our relationship to digital media, and given their ownership over the leading
search engines, social networks, online video channels, and how "monetization" of content operates,
these forces pose a serious obstacle to a more democratic and diverse online environment.
One of the few barriers standing in the way of their digital dominance is the growing public
concern about our commercial
privacy. U.S. companies have largely bitterly opposed proposed privacy legislation-in the U.S. and
also in the
European
Union (where data protection, as it is called, is considered a
fundamental right).
Effective regulations for privacy in the U.S. would restore our control of the information that has
been collected about us, versus the system now in place that, for the most part, enables companies
to freely use it. But under the proposed Obama plan, Google, Facebook and other data-gathering
companies would be allowed to determine the rules. Through a scheme the White House calls a "multi-stakeholder"
process, industry-dominated meetings-with consumer and privacy groups vastly outnumbered and out-resourced-would
develop so-called self-regulatory "codes of conduct" to govern how the U.S. treats data collection
and privacy. Codes would be developed to address, for example, how companies can track and use our
location information; how they compile dossiers about us based on what we do at the local grocery store
and read online; how health data can be collected and used from devices like Fitbit; and more. This
process is designed to protect the bottom line of the data companies, which the Obama White House views
as important to the economy and job growth. (Stealing other people's data, in other words, is one of
America's most successful industries). Like similar self-regulatory efforts, stakeholder codes are
really designed to sanction existing business practices and enable companies to continue to accumulate
and use vast data assets unencumbered. The administration claims that such a stakeholder process can
operate more effectively than legislation, operating quickly in "Internet time." Dominated by
industry
as they are, stakeholder bodies are incapable of doing anything that would adversely impact their own
future-which currently depends on the ability to gather and use all our data.
The administration's bill also strips away the power of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which
now acts as the leading federal watchdog on privacy. Instead of empowering the FTC to develop national
rules that enable individuals to make their own privacy decisions, the bill forces the agency to quickly
review (in as little as 90 days) the proposed stakeholder codes-with little effective power to reject
them. Companies become largely immune to FTC oversight and enforcement when they agree to abide by
the self-regulatory policies their lobbyists basically wrote. In a rare rebuke to the administration,
the
FTC, leading Congressional
Democrats, and the majority of consumer and
privacy organizations rejected the White House's privacy plan. But the administration does not
appear to be willing, for now, to change its support for the data companies; and as we know, Silicon
Valley and their business allies have strong support in Congress that will prevent any privacy law
from passing for now.
To see how the online lobby has different views on Internet Freedom, compare, for example the statements
of the "Internet Association"-the lobbying trade organization that
represents Google, Facebook, Amazon and dozens
of other major online data-gathering companies-on last week's two developments. It
praised the FCC NN decision for creating
"strong, enforceable net neutrality rules … banning paid prioritization, blocking, and discrimination
online." But the group rejected the
Administration's privacy proposal, as weak as it was, explaining that "today's wide-ranging legislative
proposal outlined by the Commerce Department casts a needlessly imprecise net." At stake, as the Internet
Association knows, is the ability of its members to expand their businesses throughout the world unencumbered.
For example, high on the agenda for the Internet Association
members are new U.S. brokered
global trade deals, such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which will free
our digital giants from having to worry about strong privacy laws abroad.
While the NN battle correctly viewed Comcast, Verizon, and other cable and phone giants as major
opponents to a more democratic digital media environment, many of the online companies were seen as
supporters and allies. But an "open" network free from control of our cable/telco monopolies is just
one essential part for a more diverse and public interest-minded online system. Freedom must also prevent
powerful interests from determining the very structure of communications in the digital age. Those
companies that can collect and most effectively use our information are also gatekeepers and shapers
of our Internet Future.
The NN victory is only one key step for a public-interest agenda for digital media. We also must
place limits on today's digital media conglomerates, especially their ability to use all our data.
The U.S is one of the only "developed" countries that still
doesn't
have a national law protecting our privacy. For those concerned about the environment, we must
also address how U.S. companies are using the Internet to encourage the
global public to engage in a never-ending
consumption spree that has consequences for sustainability and a more equitable future.
There is ultimately an alignment of interests between the so-called "old" media of cable and the
telephone industry with the "new" online media. They share similar values when it comes to ensuring
the media they control brings eyeballs and our bank accounts to serve them and their advertising clients.
While progressive and public interest voices today find the Internet accessible for organizing and
promoting alternative views, to keep it so will require much more work.
Jeffrey Chester is executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy (
www.democraticmedia.org).
"In 2012, the data broker industry generated 150 billion in revenue that's twice the size of the entire intelligence budget
of the United States government-all generated by the effort to detail and sell information about our private lives."
- Senator
Jay Rockefeller IV
"Quite simply, in the digital age, data-driven marketing has become the fuel on which America's free market engine runs."
- Direct Marketing Association
* *
Google is very secretive about the exact nature of its for-profit Intelligence operation and how it uses the petabytes of data
it collects on us every single day for financial gain. Fortunately, though, we can get a sense of the kind of info that Google and
other Surveillance Valley megacorps compile on us, and the ways in which that intel might be used and abused, by looking at the business
practices of the "data broker" industry.
Thanks to a series of Senate hearings, the business of data brokerage is finally being understood by consumers, but the industry
got its start back in the 1970s as a direct outgrowth of the failure of telemarketing. In its early days, telemarketing had an abysmal
success rate: only 2 percent of people contacted would become customers. In his book, "The Digital Perso," Daniel J. Solove explains
what happened next:
To increase the low response rate, marketers sought to sharpen their targeting techniques, which required more consumer research
and an effective way to collect, store, and analyze information about consumers. The advent of the computer database gave marketers
this long sought-after ability - and it launched a revolution in targeting technology.
Data brokers rushed in to fill the void. These operations pulled in information from any source they could get their hands on
- voter registration, credit card transactions, product warranty information, donations to political campaigns and non-profits, court
records - storing it in master databases and then analyzing it in all sorts of ways that could be useful to direct-mailing and telemarketing
outfits. It wasn't long before data brokers realized that this information could be used beyond telemarketing, and quickly evolved
into a global for-profit intelligence business that serves every conceivable data and intelligence need.
Today, the industry churns somewhere around $200 billion in revenue annually. There are up to 4,000 data broker companies - some
of the biggest are publicly traded - and together, they have detailed information on just about every adult in the western world.
No source of information is sacred: transaction records are bought in bulk from stores, retailers and merchants; magazine subscriptions
are recorded; food and restaurant preferences are noted; public records and social networks are scoured and scraped. What kind of
prescription drugs did you buy? What kind of books are you interested in? Are you a registered voter? To what non-profits do you
donate? What movies do you watch? Political documentaries? Hunting reality TV shows?
That info is combined and kept up to date with address, payroll information, phone numbers, email accounts, social security numbers,
vehicle registration and financial history. And all that is sliced, isolated, analyzed and mined for data about you and your habits
in a million different ways.
The dossiers are not restricted to generic market segmenting categories like "Young Literati" or "Shotguns and Pickups" or "Kids
& Cul-de-Sacs," but often contain the most private and intimate details about a person's life, all of it packaged and sold over and
over again to anyone willing to pay.
Take MEDbase200, a boutique for-profit intel outfit that specializes in selling health-related consumer data. Well, until last
week, the company offered its clients a list of
rape victims (or "rape sufferers," as the company calls them) at the low price of $79.00 per thousand. The company claims to
have segmented this data set into hundreds of different categories, including stuff like the ailments they suffer, prescription drugs
they take and their ethnicity:
These rape sufferers are family members who have reported, or have been identified as individuals affected by specific illnesses,
conditions or ailments relating to rape. Medbase200 is the owner of this list. Select from families affected by over 500 different
ailments, and/or who are consumers of over 200 different Rx medications. Lists can be further selected on the basis of lifestyle,
ethnicity, geo, gender, and much more. Inquire today for more information.
MEDbase promptly took its "rape sufferers" list off line last week after its existence was revealed in a Senate investigation
into the activities of the data-broker industry. The company pretended like the list was a huge mistake. A MEDbase rep
tried
convincing a Wall Street Journal reporter that its rape dossiers were just a "hypothetical list of health conditions/ailments."
The rep promised it was never sold to anyone. Yep, it was a big mistake. We can all rest easy now. Thankfully, MEDbase has hundreds
of other similar dossier collections, hawking the most private and sensitive medical information.
For instance, if lists of rape victims aren't your thing, MEDbase can sell dossiers on people suffering from anorexia, substance
abuse, AIDS and HIV, Alzheimer's Disease, Asperger Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Bedwetting (Enuresis), Binge
Eating Disorder, Depression, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Genital Herpes, Genital Warts, Gonorrhea, Homelessness, Infertility, Syphilis…
the
list goes on and on and on and on.
Normally, such detailed health information would fall under federal law and could not be disclosed or sold without consent. But
because these data harvesters rely on indirect sources of information instead of medical records, they're able to sidestep regulations
put in place to protect the privacy of people's health data.
MEBbase isn't the only company exploiting these loopholes. By the industry's own estimates, there are something like 4,000 for-profit
intel companies operating in the United States. Many of them sell information that would normally be restricted under federal law.
They offer all sorts of targeted dossier collections on
every population segments of our society, from the affluent to the extremely vulnerable:
people with drug addictions
detailed personal info on police officers and other government employees
people with bad credit/bankruptcies
minorities who've used payday loan services
domestic violence shelter locations (normally these addresses would be shielded by law)
elderly gamblers
If you want to see how this kind of profile data can be used to scam unsuspecting individuals, look no further than a Richard
Guthrie, an Iowa retiree who had his life savings siphoned out of his bank account. Their weapon of choice: databases bought from
large for-profit data brokers listing retirees who entered sweepstakes and bought lottery tickets.
Here's a 2007 New York Times story
describing the racket:
Mr. Guthrie, who lives in Iowa, had entered a few sweepstakes that caused his name to appear in a database advertised by infoUSA,
one of the largest compilers of consumer information. InfoUSA sold his name, and data on scores of other elderly Americans, to
known lawbreakers, regulators say.
InfoUSA advertised lists of "Elderly Opportunity Seekers," 3.3 million older people "looking for ways to make money," and "Suffering
Seniors," 4.7 million people with cancer or Alzheimer's disease. "Oldies but Goodies" contained 500,000 gamblers over 55 years
old, for 8.5 cents apiece. One list said: "These people are gullible. They want to believe that their luck can change."
Data brokers argue that cases like Guthrie are an anomaly - a once-in-a-blue-moon tragedy in an industry that takes privacy and
legal conduct seriously. But cases of identity thieves and sophistical con-rings obtaining data from for-profit intel businesses
abound. Scammers are a lucrative source of revenue. Their money is just as good as anyone else's. And some of the profile "products"
offered by the industry seem tailored specifically to fraud use.
As Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sergeant Yves Leblanc told the New York Times: "Only one kind of customer wants to buy lists
of seniors interested in lotteries and sweepstakes: criminals. If someone advertises a list by saying it contains gullible or elderly
people, it's like putting out a sign saying 'Thieves welcome here.'"
So what is InfoUSA, exactly? What kind of company would create and sell lists customized for use by scammers and cons?
As it turns out, InfoUSA is not some fringe or shady outfit, but a hugely profitable politically connected company. InfoUSA was
started by Vin Gupta in the 1970s as a basement operation hawking detailed lists of RV and mobile home dealers. The company quickly
expanded into other areas and began providing business intel services to thousands of businesses. By 2000, the company raised more
than $30 million in venture capital funding from major Silicon Valley venture capital firms.
By then, InfoUSA boasted of having information on 230 million consumers. A few years later, InfoUSA counted the biggest Valley
companies as its clients, including Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL. It got involved not only in raw data and dossiers, but moved
into payroll and financial, conducted polling and opinion research, partnered with CNN, vetted employees and provided customized
services for law enforcement and all sorts of federal and government agencies: processing government payments, helping states locate
tax cheats and even administrating President Bill Clinton "Welfare to Work" program. Which is not surprising, as Vin Gupta is a major
and close political supporter of Bill
and Hillary Clinton.
In 2008, Gupta was sued by InfoUSA shareholders for inappropriately using corporate funds. Shareholders accused of Gupta of illegally
funneling corporate money to fund an extravagant lifestyle and curry political favor. According to the Associated Press, the lawsuit
questioned why Gupta used private corporate jets to fly the Clintons on personal and campaign trips, and why Gupta awarded Bill Clinton
a $3.3 million consulting gig.
As a result of the scandal, InfoUSA was threatened with delisting from Nasdaq, Gupta was forced out and the company was snapped
up for half a billion dollars by CCMP Capital Advisors, a major private equity firm spun off from JP Morgan in 2006. Today, InfoUSA
continues to do business under the name Infogroup, and has nearly 4,000 employees working in nine countries.
As big as Infogroup is, there are dozens of other for-profit intelligence businesses that are even bigger: massive multi-national
intel conglomerates with revenues in the billions of dollars. Some of them, like Lexis-Nexis and Experian, are well known, but mostly
these are outfits that few Americans have heard of, with names like Epsilon, Altegrity and Acxiom.
These for-profit intel behemoths are involved in everything from debt collection to credit reports to consumer tracking to healthcare
analysis, and provide all manner of tailored services to government and law enforcement around the world. For instance, Acxiom has
done business with most major corporations, and boasts of intel on "500 million active consumers worldwide, with about 1,500 data
points per person. That includes a majority of adults in the United States," according to the
New York Times.
This data is analyzed and sliced in increasingly sophisticated and intrusive ways to profile and predict behavior. Merchants are
using it customize shopping experience- Target
launched a program to figure out
if a woman shopper was pregnant and when the baby would be born, "even if she didn't want us to know." Life insurance companies are
experimenting with predictive consumer intel to estimate life expectancy and determine eligibility for life insurance policies. Meanwhile,
health insurance companies are raking over this data in order to deny and challenge the medical claims of their policyholders.
Even more alarming, large employers are turning to for-profit intelligence to mine and monitor the lifestyles and habits of their
workers outside the workplace. Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal
described how employers
have partnered with health insurance companies to monitor workers for "health-adverse" behavior that could lead to higher medical
expenses down the line:
Your company already knows whether you have been taking your meds, getting your teeth cleaned and going for regular medical
checkups. Now some employers or their insurance companies are tracking what staffers eat, where they shop and how much weight
they are putting on - and taking action to keep them in line.
But companies also have started scrutinizing employees' other behavior more discreetly. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North
Carolina recently began buying spending data on more than 3 million people in its employer group plans. If someone, say, purchases
plus-size clothing, the health plan could flag him for potential obesity - and then call or send mailings offering weight-loss
solutions.
…"Everybody is using these databases to sell you stuff," says Daryl Wansink, director of health economics for the Blue Cross
unit. "We happen to be trying to sell you something that can get you healthier."
"As an employer, I want you on that medication that you need to be on," says Julie Stone, a HR expert at Towers Watson told the
Wall Street Journal.
Companies might try to frame it as a health issue. I mean, what kind of asshole could be against employers caring about the wellbeing
of their workers? But their ultimate concern has nothing to do with the employee health. It's all about the brutal bottom line: keeping
costs down.
An employer monitoring and controlling your activity outside of work? You don't have to be union agitator to see the problems
with this kind of mindset and where it could lead. Because there are lots of things that some employers might want to know about
your personal life, and not only to "keep costs down." It could be anything: to weed out people based on undesirable habits or discriminate
against workers based on sexual orientation, regulation and political beliefs.
It's not difficult to imagine that a large corporation facing a labor unrest or a unionization drive would be interested in proactively
flagging potential troublemakers by pinpointing employees that might be sympathetic to the cause. But the technology and data is
already here for wide and easy application: did a worker watch certain political documentaries, donate to environmental non-profits,
join an animal rights Facebook group, tweet out support for Occupy Wall Street, subscribe to the Nation or Jacobin, buy Naomi Klein's
"Shock Doctrine"? Or maybe the worker simply rented one of Michael Moore's films? Run your payroll through one of the massive consumer
intel databases and look if there is any matchup. Bound to be plenty of unpleasant surprises for HR!
This has happened in the past, although in a cruder and more limited way. In the 1950s, for instance, some lefty intellectuals
had their lefty newspapers and mags delivered to P.O. boxes instead of their home address, worrying that otherwise they'd get tagged
as Commie symps. That might have worked in the past. But with the power of private intel companies, today there's nowhere
to hide.
FTC Commissioner Julie Brill has repeatedly voiced concern that unregulated data being amassed by for-profit intel companies would
be used to discriminate and deny employment, and to determine consumer access to everything from credit to insurance to housing.
"As Big Data algorithms become more accurate and powerful, consumers need to know a lot more about the ways in which their data is
used," she told the Wall Street Journal.
Pam Dixon, executive director of the Privacy World Forum, agrees. Dixon frequently testifies on Capitol Hill to warn about the
growing danger to privacy and civil liberties posed by big data and for-profit intelligence. In Congressional testimony back in 2009,
Dixon called this growing mountain of data the "modern permanent record" and explained that users of these new intel capabilities
will inevitably expand to include not just marketers and law enforcement, but insurance companies, employers, landlords, schools,
parents, scammers and stalkers. "The information – like credit reports – will be used to make basic decisions about the ability of
individual to travel, participate in the economy, find opportunities, find places to live, purchase goods and services, and make
judgments about the importance, worthiness, and interests of individuals."
* *
For the past year, Chairman John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV has been conducting a Senate Commerce Committee investigation of the
data broker industry and how it affects consumers. The committee finished its investigation last week without reaching any real conclusions,
but issued a report warning about the dangers posed by the for-profit intel industry and the need for further action by lawmakers.
The report noted with concern that many of these firms failed to cooperate with the investigation into their business practices:
Data brokers operate behind a veil of secrecy. Three of the largest companies – Acxiom, Experian, and Epsilon – to date have
been similarly secretive with the Committee with respect to their practices, refusing to identify the specific sources of their
data or the customers who purchase it. … The refusal by several major data broker companies to provide the Committee complete
responses regarding data sources and customers only reinforces the aura of secrecy surrounding the industry.
Rockefeller's investigation was an important first step breaking open this secretive industry, but it was missing one notable
element. Despite its focus on companies that feed on people's personal data, the investigation did not include Google or the other
big Surveillance Valley data munchers. And that's too bad. Because if anything, the investigation into data brokers only highlighted
the danger posed by the consumer-facing data companies like Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Apple.
As intrusive as data brokers are, the level of detail in the information they compile on Americans pales to what can be vacuumed
up by a company like Google. To compile their dossiers, traditional data brokers rely on mostly indirect intel: what people buy,
where they vacation, what websites they visit. Google, on the other hand, has access to the raw uncensored contents of your inner
life: personal emails, chats, the diary entries and medical records that we store in the cloud, our personal communication with doctors,
lawyers, psychologists, friends. Data brokers know us through our spending habits. Google accesses the unfiltered details of our
personal lives.
A recent study showed that Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to having their online activity tracked and analyzed. Seventy-three
percent of people polled for the
Pew
Internet & American Life Project viewed the tracking of their search history as an invasion of privacy, while 68 percent were
against targeted advertising, replying: "I don't like having my online behavior tracked and analyzed."
This isn't news to companies like Google, which last year warned shareholders: "Privacy concerns relating to our technology could
damage our reputation and deter current and potential users from using our products and services."
Little wonder then that Google, and the rest of Surveillance Valley, is terrified that the conversation about surveillance could
soon broaden to include not only government espionage, but for-profit spying as well.
Researchers have roundly condemned Facebook's experiment in which it manipulated nearly 700,000 users' news feeds to see whether
it would affect their emotions, saying it breaches ethical guidelines for "informed consent".
James Grimmelmann, professor of law at the University of Maryland, points in an
extensive blog post that "Facebook didn't give users
informed consent" to allow them to decide whether to take part in the study, under US human subjects research.
"The study harmed participants," because it changed their mood, Grimmelmann comments, adding "This is bad, even for Facebook."
But one of the researchers, Adam Kramer, posted a lengthy defence
on Facebook, saying it was carried out "because we care about the emotional impact of Facebook and the people that use our product."
He said that he and his colleagues "felt that it was important to investigate the common worry that seeing friends post positive
content leads to people feeling negative or left out."
The experiment hid certain elements from 689,003 peoples' news feed – about 0.04% of users, or 1 in 2,500 – over the course of
one week in 2012. The experiment hid "a small percentage" of emotional words from peoples' news feeds, without their knowledge, to
test what effect that had on the statuses or "Likes" that they then posted or reacted to.
The results found that, contrary to expectation, peoples' emotions were reinforced by what they saw - what the researchers called
"emotional contagion".
But the study has come in for severe criticism because unlike the advertising that Facebook shows - which arguably aims to alter
peoples' behaviour by making them buy products or services from those advertisers - the changes to the news feeds were made without
users' knowledge or explicit consent.
Max Masnick, a researcher with a doctorate in epidemiology who says of his work that "I do human-subjects research every day",
says that the structure of the experiment means there was no informed consent
- a key element of any studies on humans.
"As a researcher, you don't get an ethical free pass because a user checked a box next to a link to a website's terms of use.
The researcher is responsible for making sure all participants are properly consented. In many cases, study staff will verbally go
through lengthy consent forms with potential participants, point by point. Researchers will even quiz participants after presenting
the informed consent information to make sure they really understand.
"Based on the information in the PNAS paper, I don't think these researchers met this ethical obligation."
Kramer does not address the topic of informed consent in his blog post. But he says that "my co-authors and I are very sorry for
the way the paper described the research and any anxiety it caused. In hindsight, the research benefits of the paper may not have
justified all of this anxiety."
But one of the researchers, Adam Kramer, posted a lengthy defence on Facebook, saying it was carried out "because we care
about the emotional impact of Facebook and the people that use our product." He said that he and his colleagues "felt that
it was important to investigate the common worry that seeing friends post positive content leads to people feeling negative
or left out."
This is creepy, even for Facebook.
I hate to wish ill on anyone (or anything) but in this case I feel it is justified: this 'experiment' was so disturbing and
creepy that I really hope it comes back to bite Facebook somewhere painful, and soon.
Unfortunately, it probably won't - which is a shame, because it should.
Given the States love of litigation, is it not likely they will be sued?
Surely people deserve the right to know if and how their feed was manipulated? Then, they get their lawyers in for being
made to feel rubbish without their consent.... $10 million please!
People might argue that we are not forced to use Facebook, and have the option to leave it. But they have crossed a line
here; they have used their service in a way which people did not sign up for and it had a negative effect on them.
Not only that, but they could use their findings to manipulate people unknowingly; we live in Orwell-esque dystopian future
already...
My guess is that they are coming clean and "transparent" about this before they got caught. Because if this was discovered
rather than released optionally, you might even be looking at criminal prosecutions.
If they cared about the emotional impact of Facebook on people, they would have been careful to conduct this research ethically.
The rules exist to minimise harm.
The study could easily have been conducted by providing an "opt-in" study statement, and a questionnaire to ensure vulnerable
members of our society (children, the mentally ill, etc) are excluded from having their emotions manipulated. The opt-in statement
would not necessarily have required full exposition of the study design, but MUST include an assessment of potential risks,
contact details for further information, and a clear statement that participation is voluntary.
This is standard for ethical research, under the Declaration of Helsinki.
This is a disgrace… do they realise they're playing with people's life? There are people out there that are suicidal. Is it
possible to know who the "lab rats" were?
I downloaded my Facebook data today (for anyone who hasn't done it, you can obtain the information easily by going into
your account settings).
I wasn't surprised by much of what I found, but I did find it bizarre that under "contacts" they had all of my phone contacts
(and not just people who are on Facebook, and not just from my current/last phones - I'm talking like my mum & dad's home phone
number, taxi numbers, even a takeaway from years ago).
Stories like this make me angry but not surprised (if that makes sense). I've come to expect it from Facebook. It also makes
me feel humiliated and stupid for buying into it in the first place. Then again, I know they're far from the only company logging
everything, and I don't know the best way to break the cycle.
(I'll start by deleting my Facebook though, obviously. I'd been thinking of doing it anyway, but this is the last straw.)
That's not enough unfortunately, you should also use
Ghostery and
AdBlock+ and
NoScript and
BetterPrivacy. Because
Facebook doesn't just regular cookies, they use flash cookies installed on millions of third-party sites (including this one).
Ghostery and AB+ block flash cookies and trackers and BetterPrivacy auto-deletes them on exit. NoScript blocks all javascript
code except the websites you unblock.
In addition, you can block Facebook.com and all their various domains more directly, because they're still tracking you
(without your consent) through their "Like-button" on various sites. I think most of this is blocked by the above addons,
but blocking their domains in your router, firewall or HOSTS file definitely blocks most of that.
It's unfortunate such extreme steps have to be taken to protect against rampant data mining, and that many corporations
including the Guardian expose their readers to Facebook and a dozen other trackers for chump change. There are more than enough
trackers on this site to precisely determine your views political and otherwise, ten times over. This data about you is traded
and sold back and forth, governments included, something many people will come to regret down the line. People rightly oppose
mass surveillance but fail to realise it's not just governments that have become dataholics.
Anyway please don't edit your HOSTS file unless you know what you're doing, it's not complicated stuff, but don't do it
until you're confident you understand how the HOSTS file works. A simple explanation is that instead of resolving these domains
(like fb.com) to their IP-address (ie Facebook's servers) the domains you enter in your HOSTS file immediately following
127.0.0.1 will instead resolve to your own computer's LOCALHOST (that's the "127.0.0.1" part) thereby making impossible
any connection between your computer and Facebook servers, because Facebook addresses don't get resolved by DNS. Facebook's
insidious Like-buttons don't even show up.
The quote below is what my HOSTS file looks like, for example.
(You can copy paste and save this into a text-file until you're confident you can alter the HOSTS file; it's protected by Windows
so it's a bit tricky; for example in Win7 it can't be edited and saved, not even with admin privileges, only deleted and replaced
with a modified copy).
Peoples brains don't really connect with things like Facebook or iPhones on a moralistic basis, i.e your iPhone is constantly
feeding back information to various companies and organisations, your Facebook tells anyone who wants to access a lot of information
about you with a few clicks. Yet no alarm bells ring what so ever.
Obvious parallels to Napoleon Bonaparte. The emotion study breaching ethical guidelines may just save us from impending negative/detrimental
consequential outcomes. Misinformation dominates in Facebook circles once again. Don't rely on your beliefs, they'll only blind
you to the facts.
It is valid and quite important to do research on the impact of social media on emotions and psychological well being and getting
consent poses a real problem because if a significant proportion opt out then you may end up working with an unrepresentative
group and thus come to false conclusions. However, if you are going to interfere with people's communications you can't do that
without consent. Suppose someone proposed rewriting some of the emails that people receive or even more intrusively, steaming
open their letters and rewriting some of them. That would rightly cause outrage and in the last example would actually be a criminal
offence. I don't know how you get round it but you don't do it by underhand methods.
Both the American universities involved in this research and the journal, should be at least severely chastised. Given the
sometimes excessive lengths that even undergraduates are now required to go to to secure ethical approval from their universities
ethics panel for any research, it is completely unacceptable for these universities and Facebook to use clients for research purposes
with out their express individual permission. A key protocol of ethical research is to avoid harm to the participants. How can
Facebook guarantee none of its research subjects was adversely affected? If a UK uni acted in this way they'd lose grants and
credibility. Let's not forget that even with large numbers of required participants, Facebook's reach could have been used to
gain the necessary individual acceptances. They were just too damn arrogant to bother.
Time to rename Facebook, F*** Your Rights Book?
You can get an informed USA perspective on this from The Atlantic.com, here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/everything-we-know-about-facebooks-secret-mood-manipulation-experiment/373648/?utm_content=buffer42e11&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
As a researcher I don't know of any university's code of conduct which this would pass. However ethical committees rarely sit
as high up in the internal hierarchy as the public would expect, and I do plenty of management types who I wouldn't trust not
to use their weight to overrule a decision if a rich and media friendly company came calling.
Facebook died several years ago. Its full of adverts, meaningless thoughts of uninteresting people and we are supposed to be
surprised its unethical? Facebook will sell any data for cash. Its all driven by cash.
This entire episode must be a new low in ridiculousness regarding what people get upset about. Come on! Seriously... they did
an experiment for one week where they wanted to see the emotional impact of positive or negative words/phrases in the feed of
1 in 2500 members. The very point of the study is to NOT let people know so you get an honest appraisal of the effects.
The results of this study can be quite interesting and offer avenues to create various potential feel-good "treatments" that,
on the whole, can have a positive influence on people, if done correctly. But no, it is Facebook, so everybody has to be outraged
and Guardian even believes this warrants a poll on whether people 'lost faith' on Facebook. Really, truly - give them a bloody
break. This is by no means even CLOSE to being a serious breach of anything.
And for those who are going to say "yeah but what about suicidal people that might have been pushed over the edge" - that is
just trying to come up with a very far-fetched potential scenario so you can feel justified in berating Facebook for doing such
a rather harmless experiment.
Seriously - what's next?? People suing Google coz they become emotionally damaged they are not the first result when they search
their name?? Get a grip people...
I think it's a safe bet that atleast one kid who uses Facebook will have been diagnosed with depression during the period
the study ran. At that point Facebook is rolling the legal dice.
Informed consent is important for the same reason subliminal advertising is banned.
Interesting this was part funded by the US military. The department of Minitrue, presumably.
Have you read 1984? Do you really want to be emotionally manipulated so that you feel "happy"? Ok, so I accept we are, all
the time. Fake unemployment figures, economy growing - instruction to go out and spend, spend, spend. You've never had it so
good...
All this fuss. We are subjected daily to social psychological profiling - it's called marketing - or reading the Guardian,
or Telegraph. This smells of the professionally offended, grasping desperately to find something else about which to be outraged.
Most amusing to witness such faux hissy-fitting.
Not at all. I'm a scientist, and experimentation on 600,000 people without consent is genuinely a big deal in the scientific
world. We must conduct experiments on humans in a way that takes into account their wellbeing. It must be overseen by independent
committee to ensure research is in the public interest, and is not putting people in harm's way. It must allow people to say
no, I don't want to be involved.
I can assure you there's nothing "faux" about this hissy fit! It's the genuine article.
It's hardly a newsflash. Facebook tries to do everything in it's power to find out what you like in order to better sell you
as a nice, pliant little package to companies so they can better trick you to buy their wares. It was the next logical step that
they would try and manipulate your emotions in order to facilitate that process. Gotta keep the shareholders happy. (While it
may be under the auspices of pure 'research' but rest assured, in the long run, it's only to sell you more shit).
What's ultimately more worrying than nefarious marketing company engaged in nefariously manipulative activities shocker is
that a peer-reviewed journal has got involved without seeking informed consent. It's a serious breach of their ethical responsibilities.
On another matter, I am continually amazed by people's seeming inability to get rid of Facebook. It's not that hard.
I've still got a bare bones account (though I've not logged in about a year and I don't know the password) so I know it's there
if I ever need it in an emergency (though I can't imagine in what circumstances that would ever occur). De-activate your account,
remove the app from your smartphone- that's it. Ignore the urge to check it and you fall out of the habit.
Deeply unethical etc, yes, and it doesn't surprise me given Facebook wasn't exactly an altruistic company beforehand.
However, I do think some of the coverage has been hyperbolic. Ideas about how it could be used politically or help to swing
voters etc for instance... ie: what the published media do all the time. Or saying it will be used to help influence advertising
by trying to tap into people's emotions... ie: what companies have been doing ever since they first put a pretty girl on their
adverts.
"The real lesson I learned from this exercise is how difficult it is to manage one's online persona."
Jan 01, 2014 | Slate
It was hard.
If I had my way, Facebook would have a hard and fast expiration date for posts. I generally don't want most of what I say hanging
around longer than I'd keep eggs in the fridge. Sure, some links and videos are worth revisiting-but does anyone really
care that I was tired on that Monday in 2008?
But most of our Timelines are full of this rotting nonsense. There's no value in it for me, nor for my friends either, most likely.
I'll grant the infrequent occasion for someone to think, "I remember an awesome video that Jen posted last year-let me go find it
on her Timeline!" But most of those posts are digital clutter. They aren't interesting, especially when they're taken out of the
context in which they were originally posted. I have celebrations of past Washington Capitals victories, well wishes for friends
running marathons, and inane comments about the weather. I see no reason to preserve this for prosperity, and since it's my data,
I want to be in control of its disposal.
Finding my past is easy. Facebook's "Activity Log" (found near the top of your Timeline page) shows you everything
you've ever done on Facebook: every friendship made, every like, every comment, every cringe-worthy thing you've ever said. I'd
go on, but Slate contributor
Steve Kolowich already nailed the feeling you get from browsing this excruciating log.
Before deleting everything, you might want to save a copy of it. This is easy. Click on the gear at the top of the
Facebook site and select Account Settings. At the bottom of that page is a link to download your data. Facebook will assemble
a package of everything you have posted, including photos and videos, and send you a link to a zip file. Now, you can keep a private
copy of everything-just in case.
I averaged about 10 "activities" per day. The occasional status update, a handful of likes, a comment here or there-it all
adds up. During periods of time when I was active on a Facebook discussion board, the activity was much higher. I joined Facebook
in 2005, and, my conservative estimate is that I had roughly 30,000 items to delete. If I had printed out the full log, it would
have taken about 2,400 pages.
Deleting 30,000 things takes a long time. In the Activity Log, there's a pencil icon next to each item. Clicking that shows
a menu of options. Some items can be truly purged; the Delete option is in the menu itself.
Some events can't be deleted. For Likes, the closest equivalent is unlike. Although it felt a bit harsh, I
was committed. So, I unliked everything. Other events (like friendships) aren't as easy; short of unfriending someone, the only
option is to mark them Hidden from Timeline.
On average, it took 20 to 30 minutes to purge a month's worth of posts. After about 12 hours of hand-deleting stories, I decided
it was time to automate.
I found two options: the Facebook Timeline Cleaner
and Absterge, both scripts than can run in the Firefox
or Chrome browsers. Both are actively maintained, which is important. Facebook changes its code frequently, so tools that interact
with it need to keep up. They're also open-source, so other coders can check them to make sure they work properly (and don't do
anything nefarious).
Facebook Timeline Cleaner is the more nuanced option. It allows you to delete posts older or younger than a given time. However,
it didn't work well for me. I spent a week trying to get it to work in Firefox and Chrome. It would run for eight to 10 hours,
delete some things, and then the browser would crash. I tried it for only very old posts, but it still fizzled. I suspect this
is because I had so much activity, and the computational power required to run the script was more than the browser could handle.
Absterge is less subtle: It deletes everything. You do have somecontrol-you can choose types of activity from the
left-hand side of the Activity Log and purge only those posts. For example, pick "likes," then click the Absterge
button. It deletes all the likes.
Daniel
Facebook doesn't actually "delete" anything, they just don't display it. This is a company that keeps "shadow profiles"
for people that haven't even signed for the service, populated with data gleaned from other sources. It's important for people
to know exactly what happens when they hit "delete."
Pepin the Short
@QwertyQwert
"Facebook should welcome my want to make my page cleaner by only keeping what I consider as the highlights of my page"
In case you haven't noticed, Facebook is in the business of selling your personal information; they are not in the "social experience"
business and they don't care if your page looks clean (it looks the way it looks because they designed it to look that way). All
they care about is:
You posting more information about yourself and your friends
You NOT deleting ANY information
Selling your information to advertisers
Satisfying the gods of Wall Street with an ever increasing stock price
Pepin the Short
@QwertyQwert
Facebook wants your information visible to the world and the more the better (I'm sure they have some kind of metric for it).
Let's say you walk into Walmart and see all the aisles and shelves are full of everything you're looking for (an analogy to your
information being visible on Facebook) - that's a positive experience for you and others. Now let's say you delete your information
(even though Facebook still has it on their servers and is available for sale), this would be like walking into a Walmart and
seeing barren and empty shelves even though they have merchandise in their backroom. The store looks unused and abandoned which
is not a pleasant user experience.
You said that "Now I find myself checking incoming interns out on Facebook looking for troublemakers." Well what if suddenly
all the posters deleted their information? Facebook may still have the previous information on their servers, but the Facebook
website has suddenly become more useless to you. Now imagine if everyone made their information private or deleted it. This would
effectively make Facebook useless to the people that matter, which are the advertisers (I hope you didn't think it was you, silly.)
Irwin Busk
Nothing is actually deleted from the back end servers (the actual database, and backup storage).
For months, leading technology companies have been buffeted by revelations about government spying on their customers' data, which
they believe are undermining confidence in their services.
"Both sides are saying, 'My biggest issue right now is trust,' " said Matthew Prince, co-founder and chief executive of CloudFlare,
an Internet start-up. "If you're on the White House side, the issue is they're getting beaten up because they're seen as technically
incompetent. On the other side, the tech industry needs the White House right now to give a stern rebuke to the N.S.A. and put
in real procedures to rein in a program that feels like it's out of control."
The meeting of Mr. Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and 15 executives from the likes of Apple, Google, Facebook and Yahoo
came a week after those companies and other giants, usually archrivals, united in a public campaign calling for reform in government
surveillance practices.
On Monday, a federal district judge ruled that the N.S.A. sweep of data from all Americans' phone calls
was unconstitutional, a ruling that added import to the discussions.
...Several executives, including Ms. Mayer, the chief executive of Yahoo, expressed concerned that foreign countries may now decide
to prevent all the user data generated by users in a foreign country from flowing to the United States, the people said. One such
law has been proposed in Brazil. The executives said these laws would significantly hurt their businesses and America's start-up
economy.
...The meeting reflected a shift in the tech sector's once-close relationship with Mr. Obama, whose 2008 election many industry
executives generously supported.
Chuck Woods, ID
I don't see how there can be any trust restored until the administration changes it's outlook on Edward Snowden. Without the
revelations about wholesale spying and illegal data collection by Snowden we would not even be having this national discussion.
President Obama will be on the wrong side of history if he doesn't recognize the value of this issue. It would be sad if he is
remembered as the president of drones and spying on citizens. Perhaps healthcare will save him from that. But isn't about time
he stood up to the spooks and hawks who pull many of the levers.
Deregulate_This, Oregon
President Obama meets with these particular tech CEOs? The same ones who claim there are no CS graduates in America? The same
ones who abuse the H-1B visa program and undercut American wages? The same ones who happily signed on to sell information to the
C.I.A. and N.S.A.? (Our tax dollars pay for access to their data - see previous NYT articles about payouts to tech companies)
I've worked in the tech industry for 15 years and have seen massive layoffs of Americans while they send jobs overseas. Now, they
are being used as Obama's advisers? What could they possibly advise? "Lower Wages" "Allow us to outsource more" "Allow us to have
permanent unpaid interns" "keep paying us for private user information"?
eric glen
Hopkinton, NH
"The Adminstration told executives that government action related to NSA surveillance would happen in the new year. . . "
Yeah, and if you like your plan you can keep your plan, period.
This article to some degree depicts our President as somehow an outsider to the NSA workings.
He's the commander in chief. He could have changed the system five years ago if he wanted to.
Our President has authorized the spying that has gone on and seeks to prosecute Snowden to the fulll extent of the law. Why, because
President Obama believes the government should spy on us.
If only Snowden were an "undocumented worker", he would be safe from prosecution whatever his crimes.
AdamOnDemand, Bloomingdale, NJ
Unchecked power to spy is like any other unchecked power: it corrupts, and while it may be intended for only the best reasons,
it won't be used only or even primarily for them for long...
senatordl
new jersey
"The president made clear his belief in an open, free and innovative Internet ". Anyone who believes that is delusional! this
president and his congressional co=conspirators are the worst thing that has ever happened to the US. the last thing they believe
in is something that is open let alone free. we are no longer free because they take our freedom of choice away on virtually everything.
The worst part is people on the government dole don't see it or don't care. if we have not lost what we fought for during several
wars then this war is even more insidious because most people are not even aware that it's being waged against them.
Brooklyn Song, Brooklyn
NYT Pick
Facebook and Google are 1) speaking with Obama about how bad the NSA spying is for business, and b) buying fiber optic cables
to evade government spying out their customers (us).
In other words, giant corporations are the good guys now. Brave new world.
rcrogers6, Durham, NC
It's a little late to install a competent IT professional to run the website development contract - or should I say contracts.
The mismanagement began when President Obama eschewed competent advice and turned the ACA implementation over to the White House
staffers who shepherded it through Congress. This concrete demonstration of the President's lack of any managerial background
and unwillingness to accept expert advice has permeated his presidency and led to the disappointment of those of us who voted
for him - twice.
I cannot imagine anything concerning either of the meeting's subjects that would warrant that grin or the reciprocating smiles
of the apparent sycophants. We will soon see what impact this president's ignorance and arrogance has had on the fortunes of the
Democratic Party in the 2014 elections. Next time, I will try not to be influenced by a charismatic candidate and look for one
who brings some experience to the table. I honestly had looked forward to change and a new era in politics. Well, in regard to
the Legislative Branch, that's what I got - in the form of a disaster. The Executive, in lieu of change, has just delivered more
of the same with a soupcon of additional incompetence.
alan, United States
Since it is obvious to even a blind man that the government has no real desire to protect Americans from illegal spying< I
hope Brazil and other nations will pass laws that forces tech companies to keep their citizens data in their respective countries.
This will costs the tech industries billions of dollars. That is the only way they will get out of bed with the government. They
can cry foul all they want to but it sounds hollows. After all, AT&T and the other phone companies turned over call records to
the government after 911 without a whimper.
Maybe when enough people stop using their services or go with a company that is serious about users' privacy, Microsoft and the
rest will do the right thing.
Nathan an Expat, China
The Internet companies' real concern is loss of overseas markets due to revelations they were providing voluntary and/or unwitting
back door access to their customer data to US intelligence services. If their overseas clientele and their governments wake up
this might lead to a "balkanisation!" of the Internet -- that translates into loss of market share for the major players. Most
amusing is that major telecommunication companies like CISCO, Juniper and Alcatel who by definition have to be major players in
this activity have managed with the collusion of mainstream media to keep a low profile on this. No visits to the White House
for them because they are fully in line with these programs and have been for decades. Meanwhile, the US senators advise/warn
foreigners not to buy telecommunication systems from China's Huawei because you know . . .
Jerry, New York
It's nice when the families get together to decide how to divide control over citizens and their money. God bless them.
Trenton, Washington, D.C.
The tech moguls are creating the devices and application that track the 99 percent's every move, thought and action--technology
they sell to the federal government. They lobby for privatizing of public services so they can exert even greater control.
And, yeah, if they're not Libertarians feeding at the public trough, they're Democrats.
All it will take is one well-coordinated nationwide terrorist attack and we'll all be in virtual lock-down via technology created
and peddled by these children.
Watch for the false flag.
Jim Michie, Bethesda, Maryland
What amazes me is how and why Barack Obama keeps flashing those toothy smiles. Here is a man who "gave us hope" and "promised"
us so much, but delivered so little, continuing many of the ugly, dark policies of the Bush regime and adding his own. Among so
many betrayals, Obama has failed to close his gulag, Guantanamo, failed to bring all of our troops home, expanded his war capabilities,
failed to prosecute his felon friends on Wall Street and in the too-big-to-jail banks, launched a war on both whistleblowers and
journalists, worked closely with the for-profit "health insurance industry" to create a "Frankenstein health care plan" and I
could go on and on and on and on. "Fading trust," you say, New York Times? Shouldn't your headline read, "Tech Leaders and Obama
Find Shared Problem: Lost Public Trust"!
John, Hartford
Reflects a shift? It actually reflects the closeness and interdependence of the relationship between government the tech industry.
At times I wonder who writes these articles, 28 year old techno whizzes who may know all about IT but very little about the realities
of power?
66hawk, Gainesville, VA
This article feel like empty calories to me. The characterization of the meeting is mostly critical when it seems that the
fact that the meeting was held and that an exchange of viewpoints was accomplished made the meeting a success. I have no doubt
that Obama will address some of the concerns that the tech industry has while still maintaining the ability to protect our nation
from terrorists. The problem of getting people to trust that social media and the internet are totally secure is probably unsolvable.
If you don't want someone to have access to your information, you certainly don't want to use Facebook.
Pat Choate, Washington, Va.
The expose of the NSA excesses and that Agency's linkages with these corporations is taking a heavy tool on these companies'
foreign-derived bottom line and global reputation. What citizen or company in any foreign country wants to do business with a
corporation that is secretly funneling their clients' data to US spy agencies.
Big Tech's concern for their profits will result in more pressures for "reforms" at NSA than anything the Congress, Courts or
Administration would ever do on their own.
Steve Fankuchen, Oakland CA
The information Americans gladly give to private companies is more of a threat to individual well-being and collective democracy
than the egregious data collecting of the government. The real danger is that Apple is much more popular than the government,
because people understand what their iPod does for them but not what the government does for them.
The workings of the government are, compared to that of the big tech corporations, quite transparent. You may or may not like
the influence of the Koch brothers money on politics, but at least it all plays out in a relatively public arena. Google not so
much. And, while our electoral process is very far from perfect, you have more of an influence on that than you do on corporate
policy. Have you tried voting Tim Cook or Mark Zuckerberg out of office?
What the government is doing now it has done for decades, spying with whatever tools were available. They may have new tools,
but so do those they want to spy on. What is different now is that there are huge, wealthy corporations whose profit largely come
from spying and espionage i.e. the collection of your info with or without your permission. And to the extent that you may have
become dependent on the internet and these companies, they simply make you an offer you can't refuse.
Dean Charles Marshall, California
Steve your comment is "spot on". Our deification of technology is beyond absurd. At the end of the day the Internet has become
a vast "sink hole" of distraction where tech companies rake in billions covertly pimping off our private information in exchange
for bits and bits of superfluous and dubious information we crave, but for reasons we can't explain. Thanks to companies like
Google, Apple and Facebook we've become a nation of techno zombies enamored with the trivial pursuit.
ronco, San Francisco
Those private companies don't intentionally weaken security and encryption standards in order to make breaking into encrypted
data streams easier. Those companies make a living by ensuring the integrity of the data that you host with them. One has choices
whether to give data to those companies in order to get services from them or to pay in a more traditional model. When a company
is found to play loosely with data they are sussed out very quickly and very publicly. We don't have a recourse against the NSA
- voting is a very slow process.
While researchers have known about the weaknesses introduced into data encryption standard algorithms by the NSA, none of them
spoke up about it because of the chilling effect it would have on getting grants for their research.
It is a vicious circle that is not only strengthened by criminal prosecution but also character assassination and black listing
at government levels. There's nothing inherently good or evil about corporations or their motives but I usually have a choice
about where I purchase goods and services or even build my own company to compete. The fact that we can't trust our government
to do the right thing and haven't been able to have that trust since 9/11 is a problem because one either has to wait for the
voting process to eventually work (a generation?) or just vote with their feet.
Scientella, palo alto
Spying by the NSA is unconstitutional.
Silicon Valley has changed from a benevolent geek town to run by ruthless, parasitic, dishonest, money crazed functionaries of
the policed state.
Jack O'Hanlon
San Juan Islands
Where was Cisco? If you want to ask some deep questions about a technology company that has sold billions of dollars worth
of IP routing and switching equipment worldwide that now seems to have engineered back door access for the NSA, Cisco would be
the banner carrier.
No subsea system, no terrestrial network can function without Cisco equipment in line somewhere. When Cisco claims it drives the
Internet, it is not kidding.
Ironic in this is the fact that Cisco has lobbied to keep Huawei out of U.S. carrier networks based on "security issues" that
have been discussed in general terms, ie, backdoors that would allow the Chinese to compromise U.S. communications.
It now seems that Cisco had some direct experience in understanding this sort of activity.
You can't pick off photonic transmissions (the fiber optic cable hacks revealed in the Snowden documents) unless you can hack
the IP routers that send the traffic across the cables. A pure photonic hack is a futuristic endeavour, one that can be conducted
so long as the producer of all optic routing has built in back door access at the laser level. Not so easy. All optic routing
is called O-O-O, for optical-optical-optical transmission and destination routing of Internet Protocol traffic.
Bill Appledorf, British Columbia
Give me a break.
Corporate America spies on everyone to personalize the limits of the cognitive sandbox each consumer wanders in.
The NSA's job is to make sure no one extricates themselves from virtual reality, discovers the planet Earth, and finds out what
global capitalism has been doing to it and the people who live here.
Information technology and covert intelligence are the public and secret sides of one and the same coin.
Cisco, Juniper, Alcatel, Huawei and a scant few others build what are called - O-E-O routers, for optical-electrical-optical transmission.
The NSA is hacking the E part of this, with the vendors' potential help, obviously.
Bruce, San Diego, CA
I believe I have a way to regain the public trust: Give Mr. Snowden permission to re-enter the US, give him a Presidential
pardon and award him the Congressional Gold Metal. Mr. Snowden maybe labeled a traitor by some in government; if so he is in fine
company: Mr. King, Mr. Gandhi, Mr. Mandela, Mr. Patrick Henry. All of whom have been called "Traitor" and all of whom like Mr.
Snowden shook up the established order for the betterment of society. Some like Mr. King, Gandhi & Henry paid the ultimate price
for their beliefs.
Mr. Snowden has done more to advance the cause of freedom in the US and around the world than anyone for a long, long time. In
the process he has made the "Powers That Be" very uncomfortable. Well done Sir!
borntorun45, NY
Do you feel that Snowden should be granted a Presidential pardon for cheating on the exam to obtain employment as a contractor
for the NSA in Hawaii with the specific intent of mining data that he should not have had access to in the first place? Maybe
you feel that Snowden should be pardoned for absconding to Hong Kong with his stolen files - do you find his fleeing the country
of his own accord particularly heroic, proper, or necessary? Or, should he receive a pardon for then making that intelligence
available to people who have profited by the purloined intelligence by publishing it for all the world to see, jeopardizing America's
security and causing a strain on foreign relations?
Snowden carefully planned his mission, he didn't simply come upon the "leaked files" through his work in Hawaii - he has admitted
to taking the job with Booz Allen specifically to obtain the files he stole. He was so much more than a whistleblower - he broke
into and entered areas of the NSA he had no legal access to, and he download millions of files. Imagine anyone working in private
business doing such a thing, let alone someone who took an oath of secrecy.
How exactly has "Mr. Snowden... done more to advance the cause of freedom in the US and around the world"? We are all being watched
whenever we use our computers, cell phones, debit cards - it's the digital age, my friend, and the US government's surveillance
of you should be the least of your worries.
Che Beauchard, Manhattan
Can't the photo shown with this article be used as evidence in a trial for a RICO violation? Surely the government has become
a Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization in collusion with these corporations.
infinityON, NJ
Sorry, I am having a hard time believing that Google and Facebook are concerned about their users privacy. They are more worried
about their bottom lines due to the Snowden revelations. And we can add in the Obama Administration not being concerned about
Americans privacy.
Patrick Dugan, Berkeley, CA
Google's entire business is built on respecting the privacy of their users. Sure they've misstepped in the past, usually not
on purpose, but the presumption that they blatantly disrespect users and their privacy is uninformed.
Colenso, Cairns
'Try working part time at WalMart for awhile and then tell me that the NSA is your biggest problem.' ~ paul, CA
I sympathise. Nevertheless, if you are a resident of a US town where there's a Walmart or some such, you can choose whether or
not to work for Wal-Mart Stores Inc or for some other exploitative US employer. If you don't like it, then you can improve your
qualifications or skills, move to another town or even another country. That's always been the American way.
No one, however, US citizen or non-citizen, resident or non-resident in the USA, has any direct say whatsoever in what the US
National Security Agency decides to do to you. Even the so-called 'courts' that oversee the NSA admit no litigant to the proceedings.
To take up your challenge, therefore, with the exception of those who live in North Korea and similar jurisdictions, I say yes
- the NSA *is* everyone's biggest problem.
The company says it made more clear that postings and other personal data can be used in advertising on the site and reiterated
that includes information from teenage users.
... ... ...
Facebook has maintained that its previous terms of use granted it the right to use a person's name, face and posts in ads sent
to other people in that user's social network. But with the new policy, the company has replaced vaguer language with more specific
wording that clarifies its policies.
...Senator Markey, who joined several other lawmakers in introducing a "Do Not Track Kids" bill on Thursday, said in a statement
that Facebook's decision not to shield teenagers from advertising underscored the need for Congress to act. Currently, the
law only restricts advertising to children under age 13.
While Facebook has clarified its disclosures, it has not yet put into effect two other important provisions of the settlement
that would give users more control over how their information is used in sponsored stories.
One provision requires the company to give parents the ability to prevent their children's information from being used in such
advertising.
The other would allow all users to see if Facebook had turned any comments they had made on the service into a sponsored story
ad and allow them to opt out of future broadcasting of that ad.
"Machiavellian" public-relations methods of tech companies like Facebook: "A new feature, which shares more personal data with advertisers,
is rolled out. A blowback ensues. Then comes the company's response: minor changes that largely leave the new feature in place, plus
reassuring noises like "we are listening to our users." "
In 2010 two privacy scholars published an op-ed criticizing the "Machiavellian" public-relations methods of tech companies like
Facebook. They analyzed a PR script that may sound familiar to many of Facebook's 1.2 billion users. A new feature, which shares
more personal data with advertisers, is rolled out. A blowback ensues. Then comes the company's response: minor changes that largely
leave the new feature in place, plus reassuring noises like "we are listening to our users."
"Guided by earlier battles fought by tobacco and drug companies, information-intensive firms have learned how to use rhetoric
to distract the public while successfully implementing new programs," the scholars, Chris Hoofnagle and Michael Zimmer,
wrote in
The Huffington Post."They are the Machiavellis of privacy."
On Friday, Mr. Zimmer announced a new way to track such rhetoric: "The Zuckerberg
Files." The project is an online archive that attempts to collect every public utterance made by Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook
founder and chief executive, including blog posts, magazine interviews, TV appearances, letters to shareholders, public presentations,
and other events. The archive runs from a 2004 interview with The Harvard Crimson to more recent fare, like Mr. Zuckerberg's
comments at an event The Atlantic held last month in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Zimmer, an assistant professor in the School of Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, says he built
the archive in part to enable scholarly investigation of Facebook's "philosophy of information." He plans to analyze Mr. Zuckerberg's
evolving response to privacy issues. "The Zuckerberg Files" offers revealing glimpses of those ideas, such as the chief executive's
remarks during a 2008 "Web 2.0 Summit":
Four years ago, when Facebook was getting started, most people didn't want to put up any information about themselves on the
Internet. Right? So, we got people through this really big hurdle of wanting to put up their full name, or real picture, mobile
phone number …
I would expect that, you know, next year, people will share twice as much information as they are this year. And then, the
year after that, they'll share twice as much information as they are next year …
… as long as the stream of information is just constantly increasing, and we're doing our job, and, and our, and our role,
and kind of like pushing that forward, then I think that, you know, that's, that's just been the best strategy for us.
The archive's bibliographic and metadata are openly available. Due to copyright, though, full-text transcripts and video files
are restricted to scholars conducting relevant research.
Beyond privacy, scholars and others outside academe could use the database to look at variety of issues, Mr. Zimmer says, such
as what the hot Facebook-related topics have been over time, or what characterizes Mr. Zuckerberg's leadership style.
Mr. Zuckerberg is known for "not being a very good public speaker," Mr. Zimmer notes. He sweats, seems uncomfortable, and gives
answers that are brief or that come off as prepackaged. His mannerisms quickly grated on the students who spent hours listening to
the Facebook CEO's voice as they helped Mr. Zimmer build his archive. "I have a roomful of students who can do some really good Mark
Zuckerberg impersonations," the Milwaukee scholar says.
So why should people care about a Web site archiving his every public peep?
"It's important because Facebook is so much a reflection of him," Mr. Zimmer says. "Even though it's now a public company, he
still has an incredible amount of direct and specific control and influence in terms of what the platform is and how it works. And
he has the final say on changes of privacy settings and default settings. So the way that Mark Zuckerberg the person views the world-the
way he views online sharing, what his philosophy of information is-is really critical to how that platform is going to be designed."
Dryheaves Daily > H Goldstein
... the Facebook has more data on any user than any other company and as Mr. SNowden has shown us, data can be held against
you.. We only see the face of the FB dungeons....
There are 20 levls below us that have all the data. Once you hit delete it does not remove it. It is stored in one of hundreds
of thousands of servers. FB an Zuckerberg and his minions have too much power and it needs to be recognized.
"These business practices are Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices"
May 06, 2010 | Network World
On Wednesday, the Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a
38-page complaint against the company with
the Federal Trade Commission, demanding that Facebook cancel new features introduced in mid-April that compel users to share
more information than before.
"Facebook now discloses personal information to third parties that Facebook users previously did not make available," EPIC
said in its complaint. "These changes violate user expectations, diminish user privacy, and contradict Facebook's own representations.
These business practices are Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices."
In response to the FTC complaint, a Facebook spokesman said, "Our new features are providing beneficial new social experiences
to people around the world that are transparent, consistent with user expectations, and in full compliance with legal requirements."
Common logic dictates that when you have the
world's eyes upon you and the
FTC breathing down the back of your neck you do not A. Blatantly violate the personal privacy of your users and B. Sound nonchalant
about the implications when you're caught and have to explain it.
Facebook, of course, has never been strong on common logic, particularly when it comes to the privacy of its
membership
base which it seems to treat with the casual grace of a chieftain running a fiefdom. Its looming IPO has probably only
served to exacerbate matters.
How else can we explain the fact that Facebook was caught
red-handed
with the ability to read any text message sent over mobiles and tablets which have downloaded its mobile app. Facebook apparently
uses this data as research in the process of developing its own SMS-like messaging service. So far, it has only tapped into the texting
inboxes of a handful of users, but it has the power to grab any and all texts if it wants to.
When questioned about the mid-2013
PRISM scandal at
the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in September 2013, Zuckerberg stated that the U.S. government "blew it." He further explained that
the government performed poorly in regard to the protection of the freedoms of its citizens, the economy, and companies.[56]
According to the NSA's analysis of a single day's collection, Yahoo was the most collected source, followed by Hotmail, Gmail,
and Facebook. Facebook's data was by far the most accurate, however, ranking in at 95.87 percent attributable (that is, gave verifiable
information on a real person). As a point of comparison, the next highest was Gmail, which came in at a measly 6.97 percent attributable.
Facebook's attribution "success rate" is probably due to the social network's insistence on non-anonymity and little spam within
the service. In fact, the NSA program could be described to be, in effect, one giant Facebook Graph Search.
Swift2001
In other news, the Census Bureau has kept a complete "census," supposedly for government persons, for over 200 years. Duh-duh-duhhhhh!
They have a head count of every household, names, addresses, sex! and age! ohmigawd, the Libertarians will be rilly angry about
that!!
As a genealogy guy, I like it. It's allowed me to see past my grandfather, to the civil war, and a nearly-forgotten family
past.
I agree heartily that we need reforms, but I have no idea what they should be. You CAN be a privacy nut, you know? So, if they
had some reason to come up with the name of a guy I talked on the phone with to get a job 15 years ago, they might find the address
he had then, and then trace him by other means? What are they looking for him for? Oh, it's something to do with the New World
Order, huh? Sure.
Who is most evil on the internet? If we're to believe the
latest coverage surrounding
Facebook, then we'd probably have to say Mark Zuckerberg and associates, who have decided that graphic video footage of beheadings
on the social network are AOK with them, so long as they come with content warnings. Bet you're missing that wanton youthful abandon
of Myspace now.
Facebook's explanation for allowing executions galore on your timeline seems to be that the site has morphed over the years from
mere social network into noble protector of freedom of information, no matter how disturbing the content. That's right: it's basically
WikiLeaks, but with a constant stream of updates about what your old school frenemies' babies weigh. Get rid of all those boundary-pushing,
controversial beheadings, and it's a slippery slope to an endlessly banal stream of boring people who spend hours carefully constructing
online facades in order to convince "friends" they don't even know in real life that they go to better parties than them. Oh wait.
If you think that it's only Facebook fiddling with the parameters of morality in today's cyberworld, then you might be interested
to know that Google is evil too. For those who know Google's motto, "Don't
be evil", and have taken it at face value, this could come as something of a surprise. But for those of you who, like me,
have a Gmail account and feel ethically torn about it but way too lazy to delete, it might not be such a shocker.
Gmail has been accused
of "automatically scanning" the private contents of emails to and from your e-buddies for a while now, and using the information
to tailor the advertisements it places in the corners of your screen. From 11 November, it will be widening its remit and taking
"names, photos and reviews" from connected sites like
YouTube to
use in marketing. In other words, don't be surprised if your face and words start appearing in the online adverts that presently
irritate you on a daily basis.
What all of this essentially means is that by signing up to a service run by Google, you are no longer just part of the system:
you are the system. You are the advertised-to and the advertisement, the customer and the marketer, the instrument of your own drowning
in commercial fodder.
But is that evil? In a recent
Atlantic article titled What
is "evil" to Google?, Ian Bogost argued that Google's wrongs were "evil insofar as they prevent a program from being effectively
created and maintained, not because they make that program run wickedly". The company's position on not being evil essentially means
a commitment to technological progression, not a commitment to morality (Bogost also points out that Wiktionary has already redefined
evil in the case of computing/programming as something that is "undesirable; harmful; bad practice", far removed from what most of
us might understand "evil" to mean.) Perhaps, then, not evil at all.
But if turning a blind eye is more your kind of evil, then we shouldn't let
accusations levied against Ask.fm
this year pass us by. The site, whose audience is mainly teenagers, was linked with the suicides of a number of users last year after
they apparently suffered a campaign of vicious cyberbullying facilitated by its anonymous questioning set-up. Ask.fm's failure to
monitor and protect its young users was seen at the time as the ultimate online evil: developers had built a platform that could
be easily used for harassment, and then failed to take responsibility for creating such a platform seriously. It eventually changed
its safety policy, but anonymous questions remain, with a company disclaimer that it "strongly encourages" users to turn the option
off.
We saw the same problem with Twitter, where a particular fever pitch of vilification directed at
Caroline Criado-Perez
drew attention to a situation that had been going on for a long time. Twitter eventually bowed to public pressure and introduced
a report abuse button for individual tweets in August, but not before arguing long and hard for its right not to do so based upon
the practicalities of sifting through so much material. It wasn't the most sympathetic argument in the world: our lucrative website
makes it so easy for people to abuse each other that the volume of reported material after the introduction of a "report abuse" button
would make its creation horrendously inconvenient. So why not keep things the way they are?
Unsurprisingly, it didn't fly. It suffered the consequences of its own tweetstorm.
With friends like these in the cybersphere, it's hard to believe that any of us need enemies. And with your data now standing
as the most valuable asset you have, there is cause to worry about exactly how evil your email account is versus your networking
outlet. You might not see a beheading on
Google+, but your music taste may
well be gathered, analysed and sold as you type. You might applaud Twitter's new position on abuse, but be less enamoured with the
idea of someone policing what you write.
Ultimately, the worldwide web is a scary playground populated with a lot of powerful bullies. The only way to navigate
it safely is to scrutinise terms and conditions, monitor your privacy policies and, if in any doubt, opt out. It's a time-consuming
inconvenience they're hoping you won't undergo, but it's worth it. In other words, it's a necessary evil.
Dunnyboy
October 25, 2013
It's a funny old thing. Up until very recently I had been the archetypal "I've got nothing to hide, so I don't care if the
government reads my emails" kind of guy, but it is really starting to piss me off now. As a result, over the past couple of weeks
I've written three letters to friends - real letters, fountain pen and paper letters - and I hadn't written a letter for about
a decade. From now on I'm only going to use IM and email for business. Personal stuff is going to go in a letter.
MattVauxhall -> Dunnyboy
Its not that these brands are "Evil" but more that we seem to be in the middle of a giant experiment where all previous norms
of privacy have been thrown away in a rush to a brave new world
We need to put the onus of any damage from this back on the companies...it would fix things up quite quickly
LesterJones -> Dunnyboy
...and yet if you sent 30 a day and stuffed them full of photos of yourself and your lunch with accompanying short messages
about your success and general happiness people would think your absolutely insane...
...which is strange considering that is all Facebook does...
permafail
Gmail has been accused of "automatically scanning" the private contents of emails to and from your e-buddies for a while
now, and using the information to tailor the advertisements it places in the corners of your screen
I don't get adverts on my gmail. Am I doing something wrong, or does it just take installing adblock to cut them out?
TheTrueGeek permafail
I agree. I don't see any adverts when browsing the web. AdBlock is excellent. It tidies up the Guardian site nicely too!
I wont stop the content of emails etc. being trawled to generate ads that might appear elsewhere, and seen by others though.
NB. Ghostery is another plug-in I recommend people use! (to stop/limit your internet movements being tracked)
Zakelius
I recently closed my facebook account and feel great about it. I do have a gmail account, but I only use it for instances
where I might get spam and would rather not use my personal email address. So far I'm happy about it but in the long run I'd
rather not use any of their products, including youtube (which is owned by Google) which makes things a bit more difficult.
peopleisstupid Zakelius
I don't have any social media accounts. I use Goggles and Tubes because it's helpful, but haven't signed up.
Occasionally you'll find yourself the odd one out in a conversation down the pub, or not quite getting the point of a particular
article/story/news item, but it really doesn't make a blind bit of difference.
This isn't a 'look-how-retro-cool' I am comment, it's just a confirmation that you really don't need these things to live
a normal, happy, engaged life
Toyin
If people have to make a conscious choice to use Facebook or Google is it right to define the services we subscribe to as evil?
Do we not have any role in the decisions we make?
If these businesses offered a life giving or compulsory commodity like water then yes, but they don't. They offer efficient access
to on-line information and social networks. Yes their long term ambitions are ethically dubious but to call these networks "a
necessary evil" is a stretch, they are more a morally compromised convenience.
James Hudson -> Toyin
Excellent remark, It seems that more and more in our society people are looking to shirk their personal responsibilities and
seek someone else to make the moral decisions for them. If Google or Facebook make you uncomfortable, don't use them. They'll
soon change when the traffic drops.
Toyin -> James Hudson
They'll soon change when the traffic drops.
Exactly. It's important that users remember that the traffic they generate for these companies through donating their IP for free
is utilised to generate advertising revenue. If you can get something useful out of the deal then great, if not then log off.
dogfondler
Social media moguls are wankers, the spooks are bastards. It's an important distinction.
JohnBroggio dogfondler
Absolutely. And as both FB & G hand over our data to the NSA, GCHQ et al, they both fall a long way short of "don't be evil"
(I can't speak for their other "talents").
Apresmoiledeluge
It's like hating petrol or fast food.
We use them all the time. Petrol is destroying the climate. Fast food is causing obesity. But we still drive cars and still eat
fast food.
I think what we should be doing is looking at battlegrounds. In Facebook and Google the US empire has already one. They keep
tabs on everyone.
But Wikipedia is a battle.
NeverMindTheBollocks
Neither.
Sorry to ruin the fun here of "who can we call evil today?".
Reasonable and informed Guardian readers realise that the world is not as simplistic and black-and-white (or black-and-blacker)
as portrayed here.
EllisWyatt NeverMindTheBollocks
Oh come on, where's the fun in that. If we believed that actually the world was a complex place of people bumping into each
other, acting in a haphazard way and generally being fallible then 90% of CiF contributions would die up overnight!
Where we be without politicians, tories, immigrants, greens, Osborne, bankers, oil companies, lefties, labour, tony blair etc
for all the troubles in our lives?
PollitoIngles
[Google/Facebook] Pick your playmates carefully in the internet playground
They're the big kids on the block, controlled by the grand-daddy bully of them all. Choice is: there is no choice.
Tacgnol
Now that Google has decided that I need to 'add an account' to an inescapable front page to be remembered every time I just
want to check my fucking e-mail, I'm going with Google. They've also linked (my previously deleted Google Plus) account to Youtube
and every time I click to disconnect the two so I can delete Google Plus, it takes me to a page where the disconnect link simply
doesn't exist -- and yes, I've taken it to the Google forums, where people were as baffled as I was.
They've made some awful, intrusive changes lately and as soon as I find a good alternative to Gmail, I'm jumping ship. (Any recommendations
welcome, by the way.)
BawbagMcWimoweh
Who's more evil – Facebook or Google?
There are lots of different search engines that can be used. Google is simply the most well-known.
Facebook exploits people's own sense of vanity and desire to invade other people's privacy. There is no requirement to
plaster your life all over the internet.
Europe isn't happy with the U.S. at the moment. The National Security Agency has seen to that. Actually, the anger stretches farther
than Europe: Brazil and Mexico have made their displeasure known, and
the list of peeved countries
will surely grow; as the Guardian reported late last week, the NSA monitored the calls of some 35 world leaders after
the U.S. handed over the contacts. Notably, German chancellor Angela Merkel isn't happy that the U.S. was monitoring her personal
phone calls as far back as 2002. From the more citizen-centric perspective, Spain is the latest to weigh in-unhappily-based on allegations
that the NSA tracked some
60 million calls in the country in the space of a month.
The cascading revelations have put American statecraft to the test. But there could also be economic fallout. Brazil is not pleased
that the U.S. has been spying on its president, Dilma Rousseff, and reportedly responded to the news by
pulling the
plug on Brazil's $4 billion purchase of arms from Boeing. Administration officials have been quick to downplay the economic consequences
of its surveillance; the Brazilian government can certainly vote with its pocketbook, but ordinary Brazilians will probably still
login to Facebook and Google, no matter how annoyed they are that the U.S. has been watching.
Why is that? Basically, we don't like it when the government-ours or other people's-collects our data for national-security purposes,
but we're more or less cool with private companies collecting our data for revenue purposes. What's even more incongruous is that
much of the information that the NSA collects about us is from the very same private companies that we're entrusted with our online
selves. Data-sharing between private companies: A-OK. Data-sharing between a private company and the government: creepy.
Sure, we willingly offer up our data when we use Facebook, Google, or any other similar site or service. But the bigger issue
might be that we simply don't know-or choose not to know, by not reading or remembering the terms and conditions-what's being collected,
as if we're waiting around for the Edward Snowden of Facebook to go rogue and tell us.
NPR's Larry Abramson recently hired MIT Media Lab professor Cesar Hidalgo to use the program he created, Immersion, to mine Abramson's
personal Gmail account. Even without reading the actual contents-simply by parsing the metadata-a startling amount of information
could be gathered. "Like a fortune teller, [Hidalgo] could immediately ferret out my closest relationships," Abramson reported. Then,
of course, there's Facebook. Today, Leo Mirani of Quartz
had a piece demonstrating
"the value of what the American security establishment reassures us is 'just metadata' and revealing Facebook's baroque privacy settings
as the faith-based garments of the emperor's new clothes." There's also Facebook's
facial recognition technology, which means that the company doesn't even really need you to tag photos-it's already got you covered.
None of this is new, but all of it has fresh resonance with the ongoing NSA revelations in showing a stark disconnect of anger.
If the government collects our data to stay secure, it's Orwellian. If a private company does it to make money, meh, we keep tagging
and liking-and that's great news for their bottom line.
Google has argued that lawsuits against it for improperly scanning the contents of Gmail users' emails should be dismissed because
users
know
that their emails are being read by the company when they signed up for the email service. The real problem is that Google may
be right.
There was a time when the shadier online "element" was mostly interested in procuring credit card numbers, usually from Eastern
European sources, in order to turn a quick buck. However, over time, interest in credit card fraud declined and according to RSA
the going rate for 1000 credit card numbers has now dropped to as little as $6.
What has taken the place of monetary online fraud, is artificial "likability" and "popularity." Reuters reports that with the
rise of social networking, instead of obtaining credit card numbers, hackers have used their computer skills to create and sell false
endorsements - such as "likes" and "followers" - that purport to come from users of Facebook, its photo-sharing app Instagram, Twitter,
Google's YouTube, LinkedIn and other popular websites. This can be seen in the costs charged by "service" providers: 1,000 Instagram
"followers" can be bought for $15, while 1,000 Instagram "likes" cost $30. It is likely that the going rates for fake popularity
on other online social networks, FaceBook and Twitter is comparable.
'I will give you free Web hosting and some PHP doodads, and you get spying for free all the time.'"
Harsh words, but important insights, destined
to be largely ignored by the herd:
"Mr. Zuckerberg has attained an unenviable record," Moglen said of the founder of Facebook. "He has done more harm to the human
race than anybody else his age."
Why? Because, Moglen said, Mark Zuckerberg had harnessed the energy of our social desires to talk us into a swindle.
"Everybody needs to get laid," Moglen said.
"He turned it into a structure for degenerating the integrity of human personality, and he has to a remarkable extent succeeded
with a very poor deal.
Namely, 'I will give you free Web hosting and some PHP doodads, and you get spying for free all the time.'"
[…]
But as the business press and slavering investors look on eagerly at Zuckerberg's coronation, many believe that the seeds of
Facebook's downfall have already been sown. The company might have brought people together like never before, but exploitation
is woven inextricably into its DNA. Facebook makes its money by commercializing personal information, watching its users,
analyzing their behavior, and selling what it learns.
[…]
What you share and what you click on affects what Facebook knows about your friends, too. And in the aggregate, all
this personal information helps build a machine that can know the past and present and make good guesses about the future, a machine
whose insights are incredibly valuable to everyone from corporations to state-intelligence services.
[…]
What makes Facebook so valuable isn't the Web ads it serves up, but rather the unprecedented amount of information it has about
its users, which it can then sell to third parties. Business intelligence-the data a company can scrape together about its customers-is
the fastest-growing segment of enterprise computing. Major tech companies are snapping up companies that make business-intelligence
software. But the software that does the data mining is only a tool-what really matters is how much data you have. And Facebook
has a lot.
[…]
In Europe at least, Facebook's users are becoming increasingly aware that Facebook is first and foremost a surveillance mechanism,
and they don't like it. If that realization spreads, Facebook's most precious asset-its users-could stampede and flee to a safer
network.
The societal vanguard will lead the way, out of Facebook and government control, into federated, more open, user-controlled systems
that allow for anonymity and privacy.
Facebook may
be making us lonely, giving users the information age equivalent of a faceless suburban wasteland, claims the fantastic
cover story of The Atlantic. Key excerpts:
We were promised a global village; instead we inhabit the drab cul-de-sacs and endless freeways of a vast suburb of information.
At the forefront of all this unexpectedly lonely interactivity is Facebook.
Facebook makes real relationships harder:
That one little phrase, Your real friends-so quaint, so charmingly mothering-perfectly encapsulates the anxieties that social
media have produced: the fears that Facebook is interfering with our real friendships, distancing us from each other, making us
lonelier; and that social networking might be spreading the very isolation it seemed designed to conquer.
Here's why:
Our omnipresent new technologies lure us toward increasingly superficial connections at exactly the same moment that they make
avoiding the mess of human interaction easy. The beauty of Facebook, the source of its power, is that it enables us to be social
while sparing us the embarrassing reality of society-the accidental revelations we make at parties, the awkward pauses, the farting
and the spilled drinks and the general gaucherie of face-to-face contact. Instead, we have the lovely smoothness of a seemingly
social machine. Everything's so simple: status updates, pictures, your wall.
Finally, FB fosters a retreat into narcissism:
Self-presentation on Facebook is continuous, intensely mediated, and possessed of a phony nonchalance that eliminates even
the potential for spontaneity. ("Look how casually I threw up these three photos from the party at which I took 300 photos!")
Curating the exhibition of the self has become a 24/7 occupation.
Facebook users retreat from "messy" human interaction and spend too much of their time curating fantasy avatars of themselves
to actually to out and meet real people:
The relentlessness is what is so new, so potentially transformative. Facebook never takes a break. We never take a break. Human
beings have always created elaborate acts of self-presentation. But not all the time, not every morning, before we even pour a
cup of coffee.
The always-on effects are profound:
What Facebook has revealed about human nature-and this is not a minor revelation-is that a connection is not the same thing
as a bond, and that instant and total connection is no salvation, no ticket to a happier, better world or a more liberated version
of humanity. Solitude used to be good for self-reflection and self-reinvention. But now we are left thinking about who we are
all the time, without ever really thinking about who we are. Facebook denies us a pleasure whose profundity we had underestimated:
the chance to forget about ourselves for a while, the chance to disconnect.
One of the deepest and best researched meditations on FB 2012.
Facebook has had customer satisfaction issues for some time, but recently did a particularly good job of alienating a portion
of its nearly one billion members. According to the ACSI, Facebook is one of the most strongly disliked American companies, beaten
out only by three public utilities companies.
This comes in part from the company's continuing user privacy concerns. Mark Zuckerberg's company did not help itself
in this regard in 2012, after it announced that it had the right to republish any and all photos in the accounts of its
Instagram users.
Surely most of the sheep won't mind getting shorn and Zuckerberg will continue to find new ways to shear them. Congrats!
Facebook currently has more than 800 million users. Any company of this size is sure to have some detractors. Compared to other
leading social media sites, however, Facebook has the lowest customer satisfaction score from the American Customer Satisfaction
Index. The site has repeatedly irked users by neglecting personal privacy. Notable events include the introduction of facial recognition
software, which spurred an investigation by the European Union, and the Facebook timeline. Facebook received significant negative
press for forcing new settings on users that changes how their personal information is shared with others. CEO Mark Zuckerberg
has only recently said that the company will no longer do this. According to the MSN Money-IBOPE Zogby International customer
service survey for 2011, 25.9% of Facebook users described the company's customer service as "poor" - the lowest rating.
FB
has
known everything you do online for some time now. Thanks to its sagging stock price they now take intrusion and user abuse to
a new level: FB now matches online and offline data on a massive scale.
Online ads will be targeted at you according to your offline purchases. Here's how to
opt out (until FB finds a workaround).
General Counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence Robert S. Litt explained that our expectation of
privacy isn't legally recognized by the Supreme Court once we've offered it to a third party.
Thus, sifting through third party data
doesn't
qualify 'on a constitutional level' as invasive to our personal privacy. This he brought to an interesting point about volunteered
personal data, and social media habits. Our willingness to give our information to companies and social networking websites is
baffling to the ODNI.
'Why is it that people are willing to expose large quantities of information to private parties but don't want the Government
to have the same information?,' he asked."
... ... ...
While Snowden's leaks have provoked Jimmy Carter into labeling this government a sham, and void of a functioning democracy, Litt
presented how these wide data collection programs are in fact valued by our government, have legal justification, and all the
necessary parameters.
Litt, echoing the president and his boss James Clapper, explained thusly:
"We do not use our foreign intelligence collection capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies in order
to give American companies a competitive advantage. We do not indiscriminately sweep up and store the contents of the communications
of Americans, or of the citizenry of any country. We do not use our intelligence collection for the purpose of repressing the
citizens of any country because of their political, religious or other beliefs. We collect metadata-information about communications-more
broadly than we collect the actual content of communications, because it is less intrusive than collecting content and in fact
can provide us information that helps us more narrowly focus our collection of content on appropriate targets. But it simply
is not true that the United States Government is listening to everything said by every citizen of any country."
It's great that the U.S. government behaves better than corporations on privacy-too bad it trusts/subcontracts corporations
to deal with that privacy-but it's an uncomfortable thing to even be in a position of having to compare the two. This is the point
Litt misses, and it's not a fine one.
"Twitter co-founder Biz Stone today decided to offer some business advice for Facebook: launch a premium subscription service.
For $10 a month, Stone figures the company could get rid of ads on its site for those willing to pay to go 'premium.' He says
in part: ' Anywhoo, now that I'm using it and thinking about it, I've got an idea for Facebook. They could offer Facebook Premium.
For $10 a month, people who really love Facebook (and can afford it), could see no ads. Maybe some special features too. If 10%
percent of Facebook signed up, that's $1B a month in revenue. Not too shabby. It's a different type of company, but by way of
validation, have a look at Pandora's 1Q14 financial results. Of all Pandora's revenue generators, the highest growth year-over-year
by far (114% growth rate) is in subscriptions-people paying a monthly fee for an ad-free experience....."
Anonymous Coward
Yeah Right
It would probably be more like 0.001%.
HornWumpus
Re:Yeah Right (Score:5, Funny)
Think how valuable that list would be. The world's uberchumps.
Art Challenor
Re:Yeah Right (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd pay for a subscription if it gave me access to, and the ability to delete, any information they have that references me.
oPless
Even that figure would be a revenue stream worth having.
Personally I only see adverts when I'm on a machine that doesn't run chrome and I stray off onto "consume this" type of sites.
It's quite a shock seeing all the crap regular joe has to put up with.
Anonymous Coward
That'd still be $100,000 a month in revenues, assuming .001% of 1 billion users (they had this number somewhere back end-2012)
pays $10 a month.
I'd consider it, depending on the price. Why? Because:
1) I do value my privacy, and control of my data (which is why i'm very selective about what I upload to Facebook today);
2) I do still get some value out of the service Facebook provides;
3) I understand that Facebook does not exist to provide me with free services, and that running an ad blocker as I do currently
is kind of underhanded;
Taking those 3 data points together, if they offered ad-free, plus better control over how my data is shared with other people
(i.e., "we won't share your data at all"), and a covenant to truly and permanently delete any data I upload or enter into their
systems whenever I wish, plus access to, say apis that allow other integrations they've worked hard to make difficult (google,
twitter, etc.), I'd consider paying a subscription. I don't know that I'd value it at $10 a month, but offer me a $60 a year discount
plan or something? I might go for it.
Anonymous Coward
don't underestimate the gullibility of the average facebook user. malware writers, crooks, hackers and scammers don't.
Anonymous Coward
... they'd still track and sell your data anyway, so what exactly is the point?
Xicor
facebook is already ad-free. just download the free app called adblocker and put it to good use
Anonymous Coward
Adblock? (Score:0)
So his grand advice of making $1B/month (LOL!) is to disable ads?
MightyYar
Adblock + (Score:3)
If you were so addicted to Facebook that the ads really annoyed you, wouldn't you have Facebook enhancing crap installed, like
Adblock+? Social Fixer is pretty great, but I'm not quite addicted enough to use it.
--
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
mozumder
Ads aren't the problem Re:Adblock + (Score:0)
The ads aren't the problem. No one minds the ads. In fact, if they had any skills, they would make the ads a FEATURE of the
site. People actually BUY magazines like Vogue FOR the ads.
The problem is that the content is crap - photos of your friends throwing up, political rants no one cares about, etc..
Subscription services generally offer professional content worth buying. No one wants to buy photos of your friends throwing
up.
Facebook tries to filter the content automatically to limit low-value content, but that only gets rid of the bottom-of-the-barrel.
They still aren't going to offer professional articles, movies, music, etc.. that people generally pay for.
Their layout sucks too. The web has moved far beyond their old-school layout into magazine-quality layout. Amateur's aren't
going to be able to produce magazine quality layout as well.
Facebook has 1 billion users, and ONLY makes $4billion/year. Conde-Nast makes $4billion just from 10 million readers - 1/100th
less. Their amateur content is the reason they can only charge $0.10 CPM, whereas a professional media company can charge $50
CPM.
Andy_R
Re:Adblock + (Score:4, Interesting)
Adblock + gets rid of the overt adverts, and FBPurity (http://www.fbpurity.com/) gets rid of the spammy content (game requests,
'questions', 'trending articles', 'promoted posts') and cleans up the UI cruft (news ticker, half the left column).
With those two, and manually turning on the see all posts option for every page, FB doesn't have much left to charge for that
you can't get for free.
Re:Facebook isn't that good and people know it (Score:2)
by dingen (958134) writes: Alter Relationship on Sunday July 21, 2013 @11:04AM (#44342261) It used to be the case that Facebook
was sort of OK. Nothing special, but not too bad too. But in the last couple of months (years maybe even), it really has declined
in quality a lot.
I fully agree that some edge cases are always going to be a problem, but Facebook's utter randomness really goes way beyond
acceptable behavior from a software product.
It seems to me that the more you use Facebook, the more you grow upset with it. Which is kind of hard to combine with the "lets
let people who love Facebook pay for it" idea, as it really are the people who should love the platform the most who are the ones
having the most issues with it.
--
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
Re:Facebook isn't that good and people know it (Score:3)
by siride (974284) writes: Alter Relationship on Sunday July 21, 2013 @11:05AM (#44342269) People get pissed about FB changes,
and then they keep on using it, because the problem is that people don't like change. Can you provide some specific examples of
the downhill direction?
Anonymous Coward
Re:Facebook isn't that good and people know it (Score:0)
because the problem is that people don't like change.
You cannot decide that for them. What change? All change? No; some changes are good, and others are bad. This 'You just don't
like change' nonsense is just that: nonsense.
siride
Re:Facebook isn't that good and people know it (Score:2)
I can decide that when the same people stop complaining and keep using the service and use the new features without a peep.
Remember when they first started having the feed? That caused a huge uproar. Now I'm trying to imagine anyone making good use
of Facebook without the feed. That's how I even see stuff to common on or follow up on. So yes, people complain when it changes
and it's clear that they're only complaining because of change.
This seems overstated for Facebook, as it caters to the most clueless portion of Internet user population. Also consumer lock-in
in tablets is more them 90% between Apple and Google Android and both have genuine interest to keep cloud alive.
U.S. cloud providers could lose between $21.5 billion and $35 billion in revenue over the next three years because of worries
about the National Security Agency's PRISM program, which enables the government to access user data from U.S. Internet companies,
according to a report this week by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation.
Too much information. Our instincts for privacy evolved in tribal societies where walls didn't exist. No wonder we are hopeless
oversharers
... ... ...
More recently, Edward Snowden's revelations about the panoptic scope of government surveillance have raised the hoary spectre
of 'Big Brother'. But what Prism's fancy PowerPoint decks and self-aggrandising logo suggest to me is not so much an implacable,
omniscient overseer as a bunch of suits in shabby cubicles trying to persuade each other they're still relevant. After all, there's
little need for state surveillance when we're doing such a good job of spying on ourselves. Big Brother isn't watching us; he's taking
selfies and posting them on Instagram like everyone else. And he probably hasn't given a second thought to what might happen to that
picture of him posing with a joint.
Walls are a relatively recent innovation. Members of pre-modern societies happily coexisted while carrying out almost all of
their lives in public view
Stone's story is hardly unique. Earlier this year, an Aeroflot air hostess was fired from her job after a picture she had taken
of herself giving the finger to a cabin full of passengers circulated on Twitter. She had originally posted it to her profile on
a Russian social networking site without, presumably, envisaging it becoming a global news story. Every day, embarrassments are endured,
jobs lost and individuals endangered because of unforeseen consequences triggered by a tweet or a status update. Despite the many
anxious articles about the latest change to Facebook's privacy settings, we just don't seem to be able to get our heads around the
idea that when we post our private life, we publish it.
At the beginning of this year, Facebook launched the drably named 'Graph Search', a search engine that allows you to crawl through
the data in everyone else's profiles. Days after it went live, a tech-savvy Londoner called Tom Scott started a blog in which he
posted details of searches that he had performed using the new service. By putting together imaginative combinations of 'likes'
and profile settings he managed to turn up 'Married people who like prostitutes', 'Single women nearby who like to get drunk', and
'Islamic men who are interested in other men and live in Tehran' (where homosexuality is illegal).
Scott was careful to erase names from the screenshots he posted online: he didn't want to land anyone in trouble with employers,
or predatory sociopaths, or agents of repressive regimes, or all three at once. But his findings served as a reminder that many
Facebook users are standing in their bedroom naked without realising there's a crowd outside the window. Facebook says that
as long as users are given the full range of privacy options, they can be relied on to figure them out. Privacy campaigners want
Facebook and others to be clearer and more upfront with users about who can view their personal data. Both agree that users deserve
to be given control over their choices.
... ... ...
We might be particularly prone to disclosing private information to a well-designed digital interface, making an unconscious and
often unwise association between ease-of-use and safety. For example, a now-defunct website called Grouphug.us solicited anonymous
confessions. The original format of the site was a masterpiece of bad font design: it used light grey text on a dark grey background,
making it very hard to read. Then, in 2008, the site had a revamp, and a new, easier-to-read black font against a white background
was adopted. The cognitive scientists Adam Alter and Danny Oppenheimer gathered a random sample of 500 confessions from either side
of the change. They found that the confessions submitted after the redesign were generally far more revealing than those submitted
before: instead of minor peccadilloes, people admitted to major crimes. (Facebook employs some of the best web designers in the world.)
This is not the only way our deeply embedded real-world instincts can backfire online. Take our rather noble instinct for reciprocity:
returning a favour. If I reveal personal information to you, you're more likely to reveal something to me. This works reasonably
well when you can see my face and make a judgment about how likely I am to betray your confidence, but on Facebook it's harder to
tell if I'm trustworthy. Loewenstein found that people were much readier to answer probing questions if they were told that others
had already answered them. This kind of rule-of-thumb - when in doubt, do what everyone else is doing - works pretty well when it
comes to things such as what foods to avoid, but it's not so reliable on the internet. As James Grimmelmann, director of the intellectual
property programme at the University of Maryland, puts it in his article 'Facebook and the Social Dynamics of Privacy' (2008):
'When our friends all jump off the Facebook privacy bridge, we do too.'
Giving people more control over their privacy choices won't solve these deeper problems. Indeed, Loewenstein found evidence for
a 'control paradox'. Just as many people mistakenly think that driving is safer than flying because they feel they have more control
over it, so giving people more privacy settings to fiddle with makes them worry less about what they actually divulge.
Then again, perhaps none of this matters. Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg is not the only tech person to suggest that privacy
is an anachronistic social convention about which younger generations care little. And it's certainly true that for most of human
existence, most people have got by with very little private space, as I found when I spoke to John L Locke, professor of linguistics
at Ohio University and the author of Eavesdropping: An Intimate History (2010). Locke told me that internal walls are a relatively
recent innovation. There are many anthropological reports of pre-modern societies whose members happily coexisted while carrying
out almost all of their lives in public view.
You might argue, then, that the internet is simply taking us back to something like a state of nature. However, hunter-gatherer
societies never had to worry about invisible strangers; not to mention nosy governments, rapacious corporations or HR bosses. And
even in the most open cultures, there are usually rituals of withdrawal from the arena. 'People have always sought refuge from the
public gaze,' Locke said, citing the work of Paul Fejos, a Hungarian-born anthropologist who, in the 1940s, studied the Yagua people
of Northern Peru, who lived in houses of up to 50 people. There were no partitions, but inhabitants could achieve privacy any time
they wanted by simply turning away. 'No one in the house,' wrote Fejos, 'will look upon, or observe, one who is in private facing
the wall, no matter how urgently he may wish to talk to him.'
The need for privacy remains, but the means to meet it - our privacy instincts - are no longer fit for purpose
... ... ...
Over time, we will probably get smarter about online sharing. But right now, we're pretty stupid about it. Perhaps this
is because, at some primal level, we don't really believe in the internet. Humans evolved their instinct for privacy in a world where
words and acts disappeared the moment they were spoken or made. Our brains are barely getting used to the idea that our thoughts
or actions can be written down or photographed, let alone take on a free-floating, indestructible life of their own. Until we
catch up, we'll continue to overshare.
A long-serving New York Times journalist who recently left his post was clearing his desk when he came across an internal
memo from 1983 on computer policy. It said that while computers could be used to communicate, they should never be used for indiscreet
or potentially embarrassing messages: 'We have typewriters for that.' Thirty years later, and the Kremlin's security agency has concluded
that TheNew YorkTimes IT department was on to something: it recently put in an order for electric typewriters.
An agency source told Russia's Izvestiya newspaper that, following the WikiLeaks and Snowden scandals, and the bugging of
the Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev at the G20 summit in London, 'it has been decided to expand the practice of creating paper
documents'.
Its invention enabled us to capture and store our thoughts and memories but, today, the best thing about paper is that it
can be shredded.
The only difference we can achieve is if we all pitch in and boycott social networks and telecom companies that participated
in the ravishing and raping of our freedoms.
Therefore get on ipetitions.com and look for boycottfacebook.com and verizon's violation of our privacy and sign the petitions.
close your accounts with those despots thus by delivering a financial blow to those companies. other companies will learn not
to cooperate with despot gov's.
A month ago, I noted that after Ron Wyden and Mark Udall criticized Keith Alexander for suggesting the NSA could not deliberately
search the records of specific Americans, the NSA Director withdrew the white sheet implying such a claim.
The latest report from Glenn Greenwald, describing how XKeyscore allows analysts - with no court review or other oversight - to
review already collected information by indexing on metadata.
The purpose of XKeyscore is to allow analysts to search the metadataas well as the content of emails and other internet activity,
such as browser history, even when there is no known email account (a "selector" in NSA parlance) associated with the individual
being targeted.
Analysts can also search by name, telephone number, IP address, keywords, the language in which the internet activity was conducted
or the type of browser used.
One document notes that this is because "strong selection [search by email address] itself gives us only a very limited capability"
because "a large amount of time spent on the web is performing actions that are anonymous."
... ... ...
slide entitled "plug-ins" in a December 2012 document describes the various fields of information that can be searched. It
includes "every email address seen in a session by both username and domain", "every phone number seen in a session (eg address
book entries or signature block)" and user activity – "the webmail and chat activity to include username, buddylist, machine specific
cookies etc".
[snip]
One document, a top secret 2010 guide describing the training received by NSA analysts for general surveillance under the Fisa
Amendments Act of 2008, explains that analysts can begin surveillance on anyone by clicking a few simple pull-down menus designed
to provide both legal and targeting justifications. Once options on the pull-down menus are selected, their target is marked for
electronic surveillance and the analyst is able to review the content of their communications
Clark Hilldale on July 31, 2013 at 10:42 am said:
From the Greenwald piece:
An NSA tool called DNI Presenter, used to read the content of stored emails, also enables an analyst using XKeyscore to read
the content of Facebook chats or private messages.
An analyst can monitor such Facebook chats by entering the Facebook user name and a date range into a simple search screen.
On Facebook, the company that threatens the wrath of god upon anyone violating their TOS.
Also, the program name XKeyscore sounds like it might generate some type of score for everybody along the lines of a credit
score which might aim to rank folks in terms of dangerousness, subversiveness, or plain salaciousness.
An 80 minute documentary makes the case for data access and privacy rights.
Filmmaker Cullen Hoback adeptly uses a combination of cutesy animation, archival footage, and even guerilla journalism to make
a movie that's informative, frightening, and compelling to watch. Hyrax Films provided Ars with an advanced copy-it opened in New
York earlier this month, and is currently being screened this weekend in Denver. In late July and early August, TACMA will
screen in tech hubs San Francisco and San Jose, as well as Phoenix, Portland, Dallas, Richmond (Virginia), Toronto, and San Diego.
"One says that you're totally anonymous, the other says 'when necessary,' you're not."
Within the first 10 minutes of the film, Hoback reminds us of the halcyon days of the late 1990s commercial Web, when startups
rose and fell and a real digital privacy policy in America was bubbling beneath the surface. In early 2001, over a dozen privacy
bills were introduced in Congress. But after Sept 11, 2001, the narrator (Hoback himself) intones: "all privacy legislation was either
killed or abandoned and the PATRIOT Act was, of course, initiated." The film deftly reminds us that this was the initial seed that
gave rise to National Security Agency's blanket telephony metadata collection program. (A Congressional vote to shut down that program
was
defeated by a slim margin just this past week.)
Upon your first visit to Google, Google sends a "cookie" to your computer. A cookie is a file that identifies you as a unique
user. Google uses cookies to track user trends and patterns to better understand our user base and to improve the quality of our
service. Google may also choose to use cookies to store user preferences. A cookie can tell us, "This is the same computer that
visited Google two days ago," but it cannot tell us, "This person is Joe Smith" or even, "This person lives in the United States."
But then, Google made a fundamental change to that policy in December 2001.
Upon your first visit to Google, Google sends a "cookie" to your computer. A cookie is a piece of data that identifies you
as a unique user. Google uses cookies to improve the quality of our service and to understand our user base more. Google does
this by storing user preferences in cookies and by tracking user trends and patterns of how people search. Google will not disclose
its cookies to third parties except as required by a valid legal process such as a search warrant, subpoena, statute, or court
order.
Again, the narrator reminds us that this is a very important difference: "One says that you're totally anonymous, the other says
'when necessary,' you're not."
Enlarge
/ Filmmaker Cullen Hoback (left) interviewed Max Schrems, an Austrian law student and activist, in Vienna.
Hoback then transitions from talking about Google's privacy policies, to how Facebook has forcibly shifted "social norms"
for how and what people share online. The film visits Max Schrems, who has been a thorn in Facebook's side, particularly in
Europe, for a few years now.
Schrems shows Hoback, in his Vienna apartment, with the 1,222 pages of his own data that he compelled Facebook to share with him
in 2011. With a few keystrokes, Schrems demonstrates how easy it is to search his own data in the PDF that Facebook provided, showing
anytime the word "sex" shows up in his entire data file.
"If you hit the 'remove' button, it just means that it's been flagged as deleted-you hide it, actually from yourself.
But anyone at Facebook or any government agency who wants to look at it later, can still retrieve it and get it back," Schrems says.
"It's not actually gone, it's still there."
"Mark Zuckerberg smiled at me."
Another civil rights advocate that the film quotes from liberally-and who's shown up on the
pages of Ars just as much-is Chris Soghoian, now a privacy researcher at the
American Civil Liberties Union.
Early on in the film, Soghoian reminds us of the proposed
Total Information
Awareness program, which was publicly killed, but nearly all of which was shifted over to black operations programs to be run
by the NSA and other intelligence agencies.
Even Barrett Brown, the self-proclaimed spokesperson for Anonymous, gets a few minutes of screen time-presumably before getting
arrested in September 2012. (He currently faces a slew of
federal criminal charges.)
The film closes with Hoback staking out Mark Zuckerberg's house in Palo Alto (which he found with some easy Googling). When Zuck
does finally emerge, Hoback approaches him, tells him that he's tried to get an interview through the normal PR channels, but hasn't
received any response. Zuck sees the camera, and tells Hoback to stop filming-but what he doesn't realize is that Hoback has a hidden
camera in his glasses.
Mark loosens up after he thinks we've stopped recording. And you see that? That right there. That's a smile. Mark Zuckerberg
smiled at me. And you know why? Because he thought I'd stopped recording. And he was relieved. Imagine what a relief it would
be if all of these companies, and the government, stopped recording everything that we do.
"It's like data slavery."
After watching the film, I called Hoback-currently on tour with his film-and asked him how his own behavior had changed after
making the film.
"I always imagine that I'm having a conversation with whoever I'm having a conversation with, and the NSA," he told Ars. "It absolutely
[changes my behavior.] It changes how I communicate in phone conversation or what I text. it's frustrating that anything that I do
can be logged as a time machine-that's a frightening concept. I use
Ghostery and Disconnect, and Firefox with cookies turned off,
and
DuckDuckGo."
As Hoback continues to show the film around North America, he hopes to see more European-style data protection principles implemented
in the United States.
"I think the film is about building awareness," he said. "It's about taking people on the same journey that I went through: taking
users to understand the implications of what they're using, then you can open up new opportunities for innovation. There's not a
big market for encryption-services that put encryption and privacy at the forefront, these things haven't done well. I think there's
room for growth in that field."
Finally, Hoback questioned why the United States doesn't have a concept of habeas data enshrined into our law, as is the case in
many other countries.
"Why is that data property of the company?" he asked. "Why isn't it the property of the individual? It's like data slavery.
You don't have the right to lend it, it's just taken from you. If we don't have access, and then it's a lack of control-it dis-empowers
you. Why is data not a right? These services only exist if users continue to use them."
Unfortunately as it stands I think we're trapped on Facebook, on Google, it's hard to get your data off of them. It's impossible.
In order to have some sort of say in all of this, the government needs to step in and say that the Fourth Amendment matters online.
How do you make that happen? How do you make the Constitution apply in this space? It's not impossible. It's perfectly doable, [companies
and the government] just don't want to do it."
"Ultimately I hope that [my film] supports a movement and relationship to what Snowden has done ... We need shifts in the PATRIOT
Act, and all of that is a trickle down of one simple premise: that the Constitution applies online-the next step is data access
and data control."
Terms and Conditions May Apply is currently being screened across North
America over the coming weeks, but Cullen Hoback is
encouraging groups and individuals to
hold their own screening, as well.
The revelations about the National Security Agency's (NSA) broad monitoring of traffic and access to the data of cloud providers
spurred by the actions of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden may or may not have hurt national security, depending on who you ask.
But according to a recent survey by the
industry organization Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), the exposure of NSA's PRISM program is having a very real impact on the
bottom line of US cloud service providers in the form of lost overseas customers.
Concerns about NSA surveillance are hardly new. The PATRIOT Act's "Enhanced Surveillance" provisions have raised privacy concerns
about using US service providers since it was passed. The allowance for warrantless access to traffic to and from "protected computers,"
the overly broad definition of what exactly a protected computer is, and provisions for access to business records and metadata about
customers left many concerned that the FBI and NSA could gain access to their corporate data just by asking cloud providers nicely
for it.
Revelations about the NSA's collection of phone call metadata from telecom companies in 2006 offered more evidence for those concerns.
Two years ago, I was interviewing the CIO of a major Canadian healthcare organization for a story on cloud computing, and asked
if he had considered using US cloud providers or software-as-a-service. He said that he couldn't even begin to consider those because
of concerns because of Canadian patient privacy laws-not just because of differences between US and Canadian laws, but because of
the assumption that NSA would gain access to patient records as they crossed the border.
At the time, the concern might have sounded a bit paranoid. But now that those concerns have been validated by the details revealed
by Snowden, US cloud providers are losing existing customers from outside the US, according to the CSA study. The survey of members
of the organization found that 10 percent of non-US member companies had cancelled contracts with US providers as a result of revelations
about PRISM.
The PRISM revelations are also making it harder for US companies to get new business abroad. Of the non-US respondents to the
survey, 56 percent are now less likely to consider doing business with a US service provider. And 36 percent of respondents from
US companies said that the Snowden "incident" was making it harder for them to do business overseas.
Concerns about government access to cloud data weren't limited to the US alone. Information about the NSA's collaboration with foreign
intelligence organizations to provide data on their citizens has also spooked cloud customers about their own countries' surveillance
programs. Of all those surveyed, 47 percent rated the process by which their governments obtained user information for terrorist
and criminal investigations as poor, with little or no transparency.
The survey suggests that giving cloud providers the ability to provide transparency to customers over government access to data
could undo some of the damage done by the PRISM revelations. Ninety-one percent of respondents said that companies should be allowed
to publish information about their responses to subpoenas and FISA warrants.
The Canadian CIO clearly was misinformed. The NSA would not capture the records when they crossed the border. The US
government has privately approached every US based cloud provider and made it clear they interpreted the Patriot Act as
applying to any IT system their company touches, even if those systems are hosted entirely offshore / outside US borders.
It was also made clear the Patriot Act applied even when the seizure of such records is illegal in the jurisdiction in which
the data physically resides. It is clear some kind of pressure was brought to bear, threats of repercussions, if the companies
failed to comply with the US Governments requests; otherwise why would corporations comply with requests that are a) not
in their business interest and b) counter to local country governance compliance. It comes down to who has a bigger stick
(even though they may be speaking very softly indeed)
I work for a major Canadian health care technology provider. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the one mentioned in the
article. We are setting up a Canadian cloud for an application that is already deployed and used by millions in the US,
but could not be used by Canadians because of privacy laws. I'm not sure this decision by Canadian lawmakers has anything
to do with the NSA. I think it's just the same concern everyone has regarding health care data privacy. We're not loathe
to host in the US per se, we're loathe to host anywhere we can't prosecute breaches of privacy easily.
Or maybe I'm completely wrong and I owe my job to NSA's overreach. In that case, thanks!
Your Facebook Friends May Be Evil Bots InfoWorld (07/08/13) Eagle Gamma
University of British Columbia (UBC) researchers have found that groups of social bots could lead to disaster for large online
destinations, or even threaten the fabric of the Internet, having ramifications for the broader economy and society as a whole. The
UBC researchers created a "social botnet" and unleashed it on Facebook's more than 1 billion profiles. These social bots pose as
online users, adding posts that seem like they came from real people. However, they secretly promote products or viewpoints, and
could even siphon off private information. The bots can steal information on a massive scale when coordinated by a botmaster, and
the UBC researchers developed a program that creates Facebook profiles and friends regular users. "We saw that the success rate can
be up to 80 percent," says UBC's Kosta Beznosov.
The bots follow a specific set of behavioral guidelines that place them in positions from which they can access and disseminate
information. The bots explore the social network, progressively expanding through friends of friends. The research is based on a
principle called triadic closure, in which two parties connected by a mutual acquaintance will likely connect directly to each other.
The complexity of social botnets makes it difficult to develop an effective security policy, the researchers note.
It's official. I'm off the Facebook (FB) grid. Nobody offended
me. I didn't have a bad experience. While I'm not thrilled about the idea of Big Brother watching my every move, I'm not particularly
paranoid about social media sharing. Therefore, I'm sharing why I'm dumping Facebook and committing to Twitter and Instagram.
1) Facebook sucks time from my life, and unlike money, time is a zero sum game (thanks to Laura Vanderkam for
reminding us). Without question, some of
the time I spend on Facebook is edifying and life-giving. For example, my good friend, Nick Selvi-a husband, father, teacher and
musician-is stricken with stage four rectal cancer, and his Facebook
page keeps me informed of the battle he and his family are
waging. I'll miss that, but hopefully I'll be a real friend and call and visit to support him.
2) Most of my Facebook friends aren't (actually friends). They're not enemies. It's not that I wish them ill,
but for the majority of them, there's a reason we don't associate other than on Facebook. For most, it's not because of a geographic
disparity or because they don't have an email address or phone number-it's because we're simply not actual…friends. (This makes me
wonder if the reason I initially got on Facebook was actually a matter of pride. "How many virtual friends can I assemble?" I appreciated
the reminder from Leo Babauta this week that comparing ourselves to
others is an exercise in futility.)
3) There are other (better) options for photo sharing. Seeing my friends' and family's pictures, and sharing
my own, is what I like most about Facebook. A picture and a caption can generate a belly laugh or bring tears to my eyes. I also
know that it is the real-time exchange of family pics that likely inspired 90% of the grandparents who are on Facebook today-so I'm
not going to leave them hanging. Now instead of merely using Instagram to obscure my lack of photographic skill and then upload pictures
on Facebook, I'll simply use Instagram as my photo exchange medium, inviting only family and close friends to follow me there.
4) Facebook brings out the worst in people. How I didn't quit Facebook during the last presidential campaign,
I'll never know. The willingness of so many to spew half-baked
punditry that
almost assuredly alienates them from half of their friends-and convinces precisely no one of their opinion-boggles the mind! Yes,
these offenders are buoyed by the 10 Likes they get from the people who think similarly, but scores more harden their opinion in
opposition and are likely offended in the process. (If this point doesn't resonate with you, you may be an offender.)
5) I learn more on Twitter. Twitter is to Facebook as a biography is to a novel. I know there's nothing wrong
with reading fiction, but I confess that I (wrongly) feel a little guilty when I spend time reading something that didn't (or won't)
actually happen. I enjoy being on Twitter, much as I enjoy reading a good biography, but I'm allowed to feel like I'm better for
having done so-that I've learned something beneficial. Twitter is now my number one source for hard news and opinions I value, as
well as a relational connecting point. Twitter is more of a
resource and less of a popularity contest. And
let's face it, for all too many, Facebook is really closer to the intellectual or emotional equivalent of eating a tub of Ben & Jerry's
in one sitting. (It's not good for you.)
6) The presence of ads on Facebook is getting ridiculous. I care more about you than the fact that you like Cherry
Coke. I certainly care more about you than whatever Facebook wants me to buy, and it seems like there are increasingly more ads every
day. Am I the only one who notices that?
7) Less is more. I'm on a mission to simplify life, to slow it down to a pace at which it can actually be consumed,
not just tasted. I don't want to hide behind the ubiquitous, "I'm really busy" as a badge of honor. I want a lower cost
of living (not just financially) and a higher quality of life. I want to limit the number of [things] that compete for my attention
so that I can apply more attention to those [things] I care the most about. Less is
the new more.
Goodbye, Facebook. Follow me on Twitter: @TimMaurer.
(And just to keep me out of any potential regulatory hot water, my comments here are regarding Facebook as a service-not an investment.)
When Max Kelly, the chief security officer for Facebook, left the social media company in 2010, he did not go to Google, Twitter
or a similar Silicon Valley concern. Instead the man who was responsible for protecting the personal information of Facebook's more
than one billion users from outside attacks went to work for another giant institution that manages and analyzes large pools of data:
the National Security Agency.
Mr. Kelly's move to the spy agency, which has not previously been reported, underscores the increasingly deep connections between
Silicon Valley and the agency and the degree to which they are now in the same business. Both hunt for ways to collect, analyze and
exploit large pools of data about millions of Americans.
The only difference is that the N.S.A. does it for intelligence, and Silicon Valley does it to make money.
The disclosure of the spy agency's program called Prism, which is said to collect the e-mails and other Web activity of foreigners
using major Internet companies like Google, Yahoo and Facebook, has prompted the companies to deny that the agency has direct access
to their computers, even as they acknowledge complying with secret N.S.A. court orders for specific data.
Yet technology experts and former intelligence officials say the convergence between Silicon Valley and the N.S.A. and the rise
of data mining - both as an industry and as a crucial intelligence tool - have created a more complex reality.
Silicon Valley has what the spy agency wants: vast amounts of private data and the most sophisticated software available to analyze
it. The agency in turn is one of Silicon Valley's largest customers for what is known as data analytics, one of the valley's fastest-growing
markets. To get their hands on the latest software technology to manipulate and take advantage of large volumes of data, United States
intelligence agencies invest in Silicon Valley start-ups, award classified contracts and recruit technology experts like Mr. Kelly.
"We are all in these Big Data business models," said Ray Wang, a technology analyst and chief executive of Constellation Research,
based in San Francisco. "There are a lot of connections now because the data scientists and the folks who are building these systems
have a lot of common interests."
Although Silicon Valley has sold equipment to the N.S.A. and other intelligence agencies for a generation, the interests of the
two began to converge in new ways in the last few years as advances in computer storage technology drastically reduced the costs
of storing enormous amounts of data - at the same time that the value of the data for use in consumer marketing began to rise. "These
worlds overlap," said Philipp S. Krüger, chief executive of Explorist, an Internet start-up in New York.
The sums the N.S.A. spends in Silicon Valley are classified, as is the agency's total budget, which independent analysts say is
$8 billion to $10 billion a year.
Despite the companies' assertions that they cooperate with the agency only when legally compelled, current and former industry
officials say the companies sometimes secretly put together teams of in-house experts to find ways to cooperate more completely with
the N.S.A. and to make their customers' information more accessible to the agency. The companies do so, the officials say, because
they want to control the process themselves. They are also under subtle but powerful pressure from the N.S.A. to make access easier.
Skype, the Internet-based calling service, began its own secret program, Project Chess, to explore the legal and technical issues
in making Skype calls readily available to intelligence agencies and law enforcement officials, according to people briefed on the
program who asked not to be named to avoid trouble with the intelligence agencies.
Project Chess, which has never been previously disclosed, was small, limited to fewer than a dozen people inside Skype, and was
developed as the company had sometimes contentious talks with the government over legal issues, said one of the people briefed on
the project. The project began about five years ago, before most of the company was sold by its parent, eBay, to outside investors
in 2009. Microsoft acquired Skype in an $8.5 billion deal that was completed in October 2011.
A Skype executive denied last year
in a blog post that recent changes in the way Skype operated were made at the behest of Microsoft to make snooping easier for
law enforcement. It appears, however, that Skype figured out how to cooperate with the intelligence community before Microsoft took
over the company, according to documents leaked by Edward J. Snowden, a former contractor for the N.S.A. One of the documents about
the Prism program made public by Mr. Snowden says Skype joined Prism on Feb. 6, 2011.
Microsoft executives are no longer willing to affirm
statements, made by Skype several years ago, that
Skype calls could not be wiretapped. Frank X. Shaw, a Microsoft spokesman, declined to comment.
In its recruiting in Silicon Valley, the N.S.A. sends some of its most senior officials to lure the best of the best. No less
than Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the agency's
director and the chief of the Pentagon's Cyber Command, showed up at one of the world's largest hacker conferences in Las Vegas last
summer, looking stiff in an uncharacteristic T-shirt and jeans, to give the keynote speech. His main purpose at Defcon, the conference,
was to recruit hackers for his spy agency.
N.S.A. badges are often seen on the lapels of officials at other technology and information security conferences. "They're very
open about their interest in recruiting from the hacker community," said Jennifer Granick, the director of civil liberties at Stanford
Law School's Center for Internet and Society.
But perhaps no one embodies the tightening relationship between the N.S.A. and the valley more than Kenneth A. Minihan.
A career Air Force intelligence officer, Mr. Minihan was the director of the N.S.A. during the Clinton administration until his
retirement in the late 1990s, and then he ran the agency's outside professional networking organization. Today he is managing director
of Paladin Capital Group, a venture capital firm based in Washington that in part specializes in financing start-ups that offer high-tech
solutions for the N.S.A. and other intelligence agencies. In effect, Mr. Minihan is an advanced scout for the N.S.A. as it tries
to capitalize on the latest technology to analyze and exploit the vast amounts of data flowing around the world and inside the United
States.
The members of Paladin's strategic advisory board include Richard C. Schaeffer Jr., a former N.S.A. executive. While Paladin is
a private firm, the American intelligence community has its own in-house venture capital company,
In-Q-Tel, financed by the Central Intelligence Agency to invest in high-tech start-ups.
Many software technology firms involved in data analytics are open about their connections to intelligence agencies. Gary King,
a co-founder and chief scientist at Crimson Hexagon, a start-up in Boston, said in an interview that he had given talks at C.I.A.
headquarters in Langley, Va., about his company's social media analytics tools.
The future holds the prospect of ever greater cooperation between Silicon Valley and the N.S.A. because data storage is expected
to increase at an annual compound rate of 53 percent through 2016, according to the International Data Corporation.
"We reached a tipping point, where the value of having user data rose beyond the cost of storing it," said Dan Auerbach, a technology
analyst with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an electronic privacy group in San Francisco. "Now we have an incentive to keep
it forever."
Social media sites in the meantime are growing as voluntary data mining operations on a scale that rivals or exceeds anything
the government could attempt on its own. "You willingly hand over data to Facebook that you would never give voluntarily to the government,"
said Bruce Schneier, a technologist and an author.
James Risen reported from Washington, and Nick Wingfield from Seattle. Kitty Bennett contributed reporting.
An anonymous reader writes "Bruce Schneier has written a blunt article in CNN about the state of privacy on the internet. Quoting:
'The Internet is a surveillance
state. Whether we admit it to ourselves or not, and whether we like it or not, we're being tracked all the time. Google tracks
us, both on its pages and on other pages it has access to. Facebook does the same; it even tracks non-Facebook users. Apple tracks
us on our iPhones and iPads. One reporter used a tool called Collusion to track who was tracking him; 105 companies tracked his Internet
use during one 36-hour period. ... This is ubiquitous surveillance: All of us being watched, all the time, and that data being stored
forever. This is what a surveillance state looks like, and it's efficient beyond the wildest dreams of George Orwell. Sure, we can
take measures to prevent this. We can limit what we search on Google from our iPhones, and instead use computer web browsers that
allow us to delete cookies. We can use an alias on Facebook. We can turn our cell phones off and spend cash. But increasingly, none
of it matters. There are simply too many ways to be tracked."
TWX:
Won't work so well. They're starting to write-in to the design of the website to need them in order to get the content.
Same with noscript functions. There are lots of sites that, in order to get content, one has to have otherwise-unrelated scripts
functioning for the content to ultimately appear.
I just don't have the browser save anything anymore at close. No cache, no cookies, no login credentials, no history, nothing.
I also blocked a whole bunch of crap through my router, and I further block things through the hosts file that *I* don't use but
others using the router might want or need.
The solution that I recommend is living in the real world. Get a hobby that isn't principally on the computer. I chose things
like auto restoration, model rocketry, and working with older machinery.
They only have power because you give them power. Take away their power by no longer playing the game.
Paul Fernhout:
The need for FOSS intelligence tools for sensemaki (Score:5, Insightful)
Something I wrote a couple years ago: http://pcast.ideascale.com/a/dtd/-The-need-for-FOSS-intelligence-tools-for-sensemaking-etc.-/76207-8319
[ideascale.com] "Now, there are many people out there (including computer scientists) who may raise legitimate concerns about
privacy or other important issues in regards to any system that can support the intelligence community (as well as civilian needs).
As I see it, there is a race going on. The race is between two trends. On the one hand, the internet can be used to profile and
round up dissenters to the scarcity-based economic status quo (thus legitimate worries about privacy and something like TIA).
On the other hand, the internet can be used to change the status quo in various ways (better designs, better science, stronger
social networks advocating for some healthy mix of a basic income, a gift economy, democratic resource-based planning, improved
local subsistence, etc., all supported by better structured arguments like with the Genoa II approach) to the point where there
is abundance for all and rounding up dissenters to mainstream economics is a non-issue because material abundance is everywhere.
So, as Bucky Fuller said, whether is will be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race to the very end. While I can't
guarantee success at the second option of using the internet for abundance for all, I can guarantee that if we do nothing, the
first option of using the internet to round up dissenters (or really, anybody who is different, like was done using IBM computers
in WWII Germany) will probably prevail. So, I feel the global public really needs access to these sorts of sensemaking tools in
an open source way, and the way to use them is not so much to "fight back" as to "transform and/or transcend the system". As Bucky
Fuller said, you never change thing by fighting the old paradigm directly; you change things by inventing a new way that makes
the old paradigm obsolete."
Opportunist
There's something worse than no data (Score:4, Interesting)
It's poisoned data. Since it has become virtually impossible to leave no trace and not be tracked,
make sure you poison their data pool enough to make the data useless. It's a bit like buying condoms and dog food
and making the analyst at your local store freak out.
Also, you can use the data hunger of companies to your advantage. If you dig through the net by my real name, I seem to be
rubbing shoulders with the greatest of the industry. Schneier is actually one of them. I have met him briefly, but we're nowhere
near the seemingly constant exchange of ideas you'd think we have when you start data mining on me. When preparing for a job interview,
rest assured people will start digging through facebook and google to find out what they can about you, and make sure that they
find what they're supposed to find. Worked for me pretty well so far.
As for the rest, like I said, make sure the data that can be gathered about you makes no sense. Disinformation is the name of the game, once it becomes impossible to tell truth from lie, the whole data mining effort goes
to waste.
Once upon a time at Facebook, or so the story from an anonymous Facebook employee goes, there was a general password employees
could use to access Facebook accounts. For kicks and giggles, some Facebook employees, including the one recently interviewed on
the
Rumpus
Web site, did just that.
Two Facebook employees got fired, says Anonymous Facebook Employee, for manipulating user profile
information. Others, such as Anonymous Facebook Employee, just peeked.
Is this story even true? Regarding the veracity of Anonymous Facebook Employee's claims, a company spokesperson stated via e-mail:
"This piece contains the kind of inaccuracies and misrepresentations you would expect from something sourced 'anonymously,' and we'll
leave it at that."
Specifics of the alleged inaccuracies above were not addressed, nor was this other thing: You know all those e-mails you send
and receive on Facebook, along with those sent and received by more than 350 million users worldwide? They live forever on a Facebook
database that doesn't require a tool and a reason to access it; just a search query, says Anonymous Facebook Employee.
Shocked? Whether or not this story is in any way true, you shouldn't be. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently went
on record speaking the same sentiments blathered by the big money data farmers
that came before him; none of the cool kids care about privacy.
Neither should you.
"You have zero privacy anyway," Sun Microsystems chief executive Scott McNealy
famously said in 1999. "Get over it."
This past December, Google Chief Executive
Eric Schmidt glibly stated in a
CNBC interview, "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
Does that include your address, credit card statements, social security number, medical records, legal and
financial documents, competitive business secrets, fan fiction, bad poetry, love letters or any ill-advised
photos or videos taken in one's hormone-addled youth? Schmidt didn't say.
" … in the last 5 or 6 years, blogging has taken off in a huge way and all these different services that have people sharing
all this information. People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly
and with more people. That social norm is just something that's evolved over time."
Zuckerberg was addressing last month's latest
privacy evisceration
on Facebook; the one that ripped the curtain off user activities, photos, even birthdays, making a whole lot of information previously
controlled by users available for anyone on God's green Google (advertisers, identity thieves, stalkers et al.) to see.
What's more, the thick coating of doublespeak made understanding and changing Facebook privacy settings less intuitive than ever.
For some casual Internet users, Zuckerberg's smooth 'n savvy sound bites may seem to make sense. It's true, we as a society are
less bashful (a lot of us full-on narcissistic) when it comes to sharing the personal minutiaeb - be it breakfast choice or sexual
exploits - previously kept behind closed doors.
But choosing to
share your bra color in your Facebook status in an effort to spread breast cancer awareness - or just because - is a whole lot
different than having your metaphorical shirt ripped off in the middle of the roller rink by a social network that built its empire
luring you and assuring that you that it had nothing but respect for your privacy.
Facebook stomped predecessors MySpace and Friendster not (only) because it wasn't lousy with glitter GIFs or hobbled by crippled
servers seemingly riddled with the consumption. College students, then their parents and grandparents,
flocked to what is now the world's largest social network site because it offered non-tech heads wary of cyberspace a secluded booth
at the back of the Internet where they could hang out with chosen circle of family and friends.
Now, as Facebook successfully copies Twitter in order to compete with it, and monetizes even the virtual kitchen sink as it moves
toward its initial public stock offering (IPO), your privacy is the first
thing to go. While tech and business bloggers call shenanigans, Facebook's general users are lulled into compliance
via public relations doublespeak meant to make you believe this corporate titan is doing it for you, all for you.
For example, according to Facebook's privacy
guide, information that users previously had the power to make private - your photo, city, friends, networks and fan pages -
are public and searchable, for your own good:
"Making connections - finding people you know, learning about people, searching for what people are saying about topics that
interest you - is at the core of our product. This can only happen when people make their information available and choose to
share more openly."
Unmentioned is the fact that by decreasing control over your profile, Facebook can compete with Twitter by bringing in more traffic
when your info shows up on Google and other search engines. (Meanwhile, users knew Twitter was open and searchable going in.)
Ripping the privacy carpet out from under its users is the kind of shifty behavior that will no doubt result in lawsuits topping
that of Facebook's Beacon debacle back in 2007, when
user purchases and other Internet activity popped up in Facebook's "news feed" for all friends to see. But what will most users do?
Quit Facebook? Maybe. But probably not.
While there are those privacy advocates who will make a big blogging deal of doing just that, most of us will stay for the many
positive aspects Facebook offers: Connection with far-away friends and family, a one-stop shop for free e-mail and FarmVille. Technotica,
of course, will stay on Facebook as long as you're still there, as it's my job to screech about the importance of your privacy and
blah blah blah.
Because here's the thing: Privacy is important - as important,
if not more important, than it ever was. You have a right to access popular technology without worrying that anonymous Facebook employees
are rifling photos or e-mails. In the larger picture, it is a company's responsibility to spell out policy changes in clear language
free of legalese and public relations doubletalk.
What's more, as we live more of our lives online, this goes beyond Facebook. Privacy isn't just about you, even if you have nothing
to hide. Privacy is also about those in power abusing personal information, or those in power having their personal information abused
in ways that can eventually affect us, the little people.
It's not impossible that Facebook may fall under the weight of its privacy follies. Remember MySpace? Remember Friendster? Come
to think of it, Friendster wasn't all that bad. Maybe it's time to give Friendster another try.
Friend Helen A.S. Popkin on Facebook or follow her on Twitter,
and see her personal information flapping in the breeze.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange touched on the subject of social networking in an interview with Russia Today, calling
Facebook "the most appalling spy machine that has ever been invented."
Assange said he believes Facebook is a giant database of names and records about people, maintained voluntarily by its users but
developed for U.S. intelligence to use.
"Everyone should understand that when they add their friends to Facebook, they are doing free work for United States intelligence
agencies, and building this database for them," Assange said.
While Assange doesn't claim that Facebook is actually run by U.S. intelligence agencies, the fact that they have access to its
records is - in his view - dangerous enough.
"Now, is the case that Facebook is run by U.S. intelligence? No, it's not like that. It's simply that U.S. intelligence is able
to bring to bear legal and political pressure to them," he said.
Assange also weighed in on the subject of secret government cables released by WikiLeaks, claiming the really important ones haven't
been exposed yet.
"We only released secret, classified, confidential material. We didn't have any top secret cables. The really embarrassing stuff,
the really serious stuff wasn't in our collection to release. But it is still out there," he said.
At the end of the interview, Assange trashed the media industry, claiming it is heavily distorting reality to the public and doing
too little to prevent wars and remove corrupt governments from power. "It really is my opinion that the media, in general, are so
bad, we have to question whether the world would be better off without them altogether," he said.
See the full video of the interview below...
Julian Assange RT interview
The founder of the resource WikiLeaks Julian Assange in an exclusive interview to RT (formerly known as Russia Today) called social
network Facebook "the greatest instrument in history for spying." According to Assange, Facebook automatically collects confidential
data on the registered site users, and later this information gets to the U.S. intelligence services.
"Facebook - this is the greatest spy vehicle ever created by human beings - the founder of WikiLeaks said in an interview. - Here
we are dealing with a very detailed database about people, their habits, their social contacts, addresses, place of residence, relatives
- and All these data are in the United States. All are available to American intelligence. "
Answering the question what role social networks play in shaping the recent revolutions in the Middle East, the notorious online
journalist suddenly said:
"Facebook in particular is the most disgusting of all espionage tool ever invented. Users should be aware that by adding a
contact to your Facebook, they work for U.S. intelligence, updating their database. Other intelligence can either hack Facebook,
or obtain the information from the Americans in exchange for some services. "
"Facebook, Google, Yahoo - all these big American companies have a built-in interface for use by American intelligence. Does
this mean that Facebook is in the hands of American intelligence? No, it's just different. Just U.S. intelligence agencies can
legal and political means to them pressure. They were troublesome to provide each record separately on the agenda, so they have
automated the process, "
Recall now pending appeal of a decision of the court in London for his extradition to Sweden, where authorities accuse 39-year-old
Australian in sexual crimes. Assange lawyers tend to believe that Sweden is seeking the expulsion order to pass dirt-digger to USA.
Recently, Facebook has puzzled some of their users with new privacy and security settings, and the company's founder, Mark Zuckerberg
came out strongly against the anonymity of the Internet. His statement provoked resistance from the founder of of the site 4chan,
Christopher "moot" Poole, who believes that using Internet incognito allow to reveal it "in all its unvarnished, unfiltered, brutally
primitive beauty."
The authority or, if you will, popularity of Assange did little to change in the situation in social networks. Fishers of souls
here have not lost at all, relying on ordinary stupidity.
Over the last five years almost a billion people around the world were in the full sense of the word in the networks, and their
number grows with terrifying force. Guidelines for staff of major news agencies almost require the registration of their employees
in such social networks as Facebook or "VKontakte". This might be extended to "Live Journal" (popular in Russia social site). What
was so far digged using spies will be replaced by being comstantly "in focus of secuty camera". Those easily fooled lemmings will
willinglly play a role of Pavlik Morozov in relation to themselves..
As author of the article at Globalist writes:
"The problem of data leakage from social networks, online services and mobile devices is becoming increasingly important. Regularly
there are reports that the iOS and Android based send store photos, data on the movements of the device and personal data to network
storage"
On May 1 the company "Yandex" admitted that it passed data passed to FSB about some people using the services of "Yandex". Do
not forget that social networking can become a meeting place for terrorists and dangerous sociopaths. This fact was mentions many
times in publicationsdevoted to social network from the very begiining to superfast growth of populatiry of this type of sites.
The only argument of those who lost faith in conspiracy theories is the following argument: just try to handle this tsunami of
data. No increases of staffing in three latter agencies will be enough. Man proposes and God disposes. But apart from politics, social
networks has become also amplifies of people not so good social tendencies.
"According to psychologists, the most popular social networks used principle of Maslow's pyramid. According to this theory, the
highest level of needs of the individual is self-expression. Thus the social network user not only provide confidential data about
himself/herself but also tried to demonstrate achievements, create audio and video clips, his/her own photo galleries.
But few people think about what information we so carelessly reveal of such pages, photos and clips. This information becomes
a tasty target for intelligence services and, as the the USA experience had shown a great way for lenders and IRS to determine your
true income.
There is also a spectrum of cyber-stalking when a mentally unbalanced person tracks and blackmails innocent person " write the
Globalist author. By the way, according to recent data, the son of Kaspersky location (the author refers to kidnapping of sun of
the founder of the Antivirus company Kaspersky) and wayabouts were not reveals by hired undercover detectives. Young man himself
recklessly pointed out in his blog all the necessary information: the address of residence and your schedule.
We will not be able to live without social networking sites, like we will not stop to eat fish caught from the Japanese coast.
Some are heart-rending cry, it's all lies (and poisoned, "Fukushima" fish), others - in vain try to resist progress. I wonder how
this is being protected from scrutiny of foreign secret services. Is not it funny that Russian president and other senior officials,
created accounts on Facebook and Twitter? It is understandable why such a question was not asked in Julian Assange RT interview.
After all, he has repeatedly admitted that his most important revelations yet to come, and what was already released is "just
the tip of the iceberg."
Facebook is a data collection agency masquerading as a social site
Nearly half of Americans believe that popular social-networking site Facebook is merely a passing fad, a new study suggests.
A poll conducted by the Associated Press and CNBC found that 46% of respondents think Facebook will fade away as new platforms
come along in the future. However, about 43% believe the site will likely be successful for the long haul.
The
study was conducted among 1,000 Americans ages 18 and over, with a margin of error of 3.9%.
The survey comes as Facebook readies for its initial public offering later this week. The company confirmed on Tuesday that
shares will be priced between $34
and $38, with the company's valuation at more than $100 billion.
For a Web site, it could hardly look less exciting. Its pages are heavy with text, much of it a flat blue, and there are few photos
and absolutely no videos.
But LinkedIn, the social network for professionals, is dull by design. Unlike
Facebook
and MySpace,
the site is aimed at career-minded, white-collar workers, people who join more for the networking than the social.
Now, in the midst of Silicon Valley's recession-proof enthusiasm for community-oriented Web sites, the most boring of the social
networks is finally grabbing the spotlight.
On Wednesday, LinkedIn will announce that it has raised $53 million in capital, primarily from Bain Capital Ventures, a Boston-based
private equity firm. The new financing round values the company at $1 billion. That heady valuation is more than the $580 million
that the
News Corporation
paid for MySpace in 2005, but less than the $15 billion value assigned to Facebook last year when
Microsoft
bought a minority stake.
LinkedIn's investment round delays a rumored initial public offering, which would have finally tested the public market's interest
in social networking.
"What we didn't want is to have the distraction of being public and to be worried by quarterly performance," said Dan Nye, the
buttoned-down chief executive of LinkedIn, who would not be caught dead in the Birkenstocks and rumpled T-shirts favored by MySpace
and Facebook employees.
LinkedIn, which says it is already profitable, will use the investment to make acquisitions and expand its overseas operations.
"We want to create a broad and critical business tool that is used by tens of millions of business professionals every day to
make them better at what they do," Mr. Nye said.
The average age of a LinkedIn user is 41, the point in life where people are less likely to build their digital identities around
dates, parties and photos of revelry.
LinkedIn gives professionals, even the most hopeless wallflower, a painless way to follow the advice of every career counselor:
build a network. Users maintain online résumés, establish links with colleagues and business acquaintances and then expand their
networks to the contacts of their contacts. The service also helps them search for experts who can help them solve daily business
problems.
The four-year-old site is decidedly antisocial: only last fall, after what executives describe as a year of intense debate, did
the company ask members to add photos to their profiles.
That business-only-please strategy appears to be paying off. The number of people using LinkedIn, based in Mountain View, Calif.,
tripled in May over the previous year, according to Nielsen Online. At 23 million members, LinkedIn remains far smaller than Facebook
and MySpace, each with 115 million members, but it is growing considerably faster.
LinkedIn also has a more diversified approach to making money than its entertainment-oriented rivals, which are struggling to
bring in ad dollars and keep up with inflated expectations for increased revenue.
LinkedIn will get only a quarter of its projected $100 million in revenue this year from ads. (It places ads from companies like
Microsoft and
Southwest Airlines on profile pages.) Other moneymakers include premium subscriptions, which let users directly contact any
user on the site instead of requiring an introduction from another member.
A third source of revenue is recruitment tools that companies can use to find people who may not even be actively looking
for new jobs. Companies pay to search for candidates with specific skills, and each day, they get new prospects as people who
fit their criteria join LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is set to undergo a radical shift in strategy to find other sources of revenue. Instead of catering primarily to individual
white-collar workers, the site will soon introduce new services aimed at companies. It is a risky move that could alienate members
who prefer to use the networking site to network - without their bosses peering over their shoulders.
One new product, Company Groups, automatically gathers all the employees from a company who use LinkedIn into a single, private
Web forum. Employees can pose questions to each other, and share and discuss news articles about their industry.
Soon, LinkedIn plans to add additional features, like a group calendar, and let independent developers contribute their own programs
that will allow employees to collaborate on projects.
The idea is to let firms exploit their employees' social connections, institutional memories and special skills - knowledge that
large, geographically dispersed companies often have a difficult time obtaining.
For example, in a test of the feature by AKQA, a digital ad agency in San Francisco, an employee based in Amsterdam recently asked
her 350 colleagues on LinkedIn if the firm had done any previous work for television production companies. Executives in San Francisco,
New York and London promptly responded to the query.
"This is a collected, protected space for employees to talk to each other and reference outside information," said Reid Hoffman,
LinkedIn's founder and chairman.
Becoming even more corporate is something of a gamble for LinkedIn. Many companies might resist the idea of confidential corporate
information circulating on LinkedIn's servers - and perhaps being exposed to former employees who are included in the group because
they have not updated their LinkedIn résumés. (LinkedIn says every member of a company group can remove people whom they identify
as former workers or interlopers.)
Diffusing the purpose of the site might also repel some users.
"It will be extraordinarily challenging to simultaneously serve as a corporate tool and yet promote the 'brand of me' in an emerging
free-agent nation," said Keith Rabois, a former LinkedIn executive who is now vice president at Slide, a maker of applications for
social networks.
Jeffrey Glass, a partner at Bain Capital, says his firm invested in LinkedIn primarily because it is now becoming popular enough
to introduce these kinds of products to companies and other organizations, like universities.
"This is a powerful tool because inside the corporation, there are massive bodies of knowledge and relationships between individuals
that the corporation has been unable to take advantage of until now," he said.
The new services could help LinkedIn fend off some new competition. Microsoft, long covetous of rapidly growing social-networking
properties, is internally testing a service called TownSquare that allows employees of a company to follow one another's activities
on the corporate network.
Executives at Facebook, meanwhile, have recently said that they see networking tools for professionals as a primary avenue of
growth. The site recently added networking to the list of options that new users select when they are asked to specify what they
intend to do on the site.
Mr. Hoffman was an early investor in Facebook and says he does not want to disparage the competition. But he said that most members
of Facebook who are older than 30 use it for entertainment, like playing Scrabulous, a version of Scrabble - not for doing their
jobs.
"Scrabulous is not work, and it does not enable you to be an effective professional," he said.
Critics say people could accidentally share too much information
Digital rights groups and bloggers have heaped criticism on Facebook's changed privacy policy.
Critics said the changes were unwelcome and "nudged" people towards sharing updates with the wider web and made them findable
via search engines.
The changes were introduced on 9 December via a pop-up that asked users to update privacy settings.
Facebook said the changes help members manage updates they wanted to share, not trick them into revealing too much.
"Facebook is nudging the settings toward the 'disclose everything' position," said
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the US Electronic Privacy Information Center (Epic). "That's not fair from the privacy perspective."
Epic said it was analysing the changes to see if they amounted to trickery.
Control reduction
In a statement, the Electronic Frontier Foundation said: "These new 'privacy' changes are clearly intended to push Facebook users
to publicly share even more information than before. "
It added: "Even worse, the changes will actually reduce the amount of control that users have over some of their personal data."
Facebook began testing the privacy changes during mid-2009 before introducing them site-wide. The changes let people decide who
should see updates, whether all 350 million Facebook members should see them, and if they should be viewable across the web.
Barry Schnitt, a Facebook spokesman, said users could avoid revealing some information to non-friends by leaving gender and location
fields blank.
He said the changes to privacy made it easier to tune the audience for an update or status change so default settings of openness
should have less impact.
"Any suggestion that we're trying to trick them into something would work against any goal that we have," said Mr Schnitt.
Facebook would encourage people to be more open with their updates because, he said, that was in line with "the way the world
is moving".
Assessing the changes, privacy campaigners criticised a decision to make Facebook users' gender and location viewable by everyone.
Jason Kincaid, writing on the Tech Crunch news blog, said some of the changes were made to make Facebook more palatable to search
sites such as Bing and Google.
Blogger Marshall Kirkpatrick was worried that the default setting for privacy was to make everything visible to everyone.
"This is not what Facebook users signed up for," he wrote. "It's not about privacy at all, it's about
increasing traffic and the visibility of activity on the site."
He also criticised the fact that the pop-up message that greets members asking them to change their privacy settings was different
depending on how engaged that person was with Facebook.
He said Facebook was "maddeningly unclear" about the effect of the changes.
Many users left comments on the official Facebook blog criticising the changes. Some said they had edited their profiles and reduced
their use of the social site to hide information they do not want widely spread either by accident or design.
DNI Office Asks Why People Trust Facebook More Than the Government
Daniel_Stuckey writes
General Counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence Robert S. Litt explained that our expectation of privacy
isn't legally recognized by the Supreme Court once we've offered it to a third party.
Thus, sifting through third party data
doesn't
qualify 'on a constitutional level' as invasive to our personal privacy. This he brought to an interesting point about volunteered
personal data, and social media habits. Our willingness to give our information to companies and social networking websites is baffling
to the ODNI.
'Why is it that people are willing to expose large quantities of information to private parties but don't want the Government
to have the same information?,' he asked."
... ... ...
While Snowden's leaks have provoked Jimmy Carter into labeling this government a sham, and void of a functioning democracy, Litt
presented how these wide data collection programs are in fact valued by our government, have legal justification, and all the necessary
parameters.
Litt, echoing the president and his boss James Clapper, explained thusly:
"We do not use our foreign intelligence collection capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies in order to
give American companies a competitive advantage. We do not indiscriminately sweep up and store the contents of the communications
of Americans, or of the citizenry of any country. We do not use our intelligence collection for the purpose of repressing the
citizens of any country because of their political, religious or other beliefs. We collect metadata-information about communications-more
broadly than we collect the actual content of communications, because it is less intrusive than collecting content and in fact
can provide us information that helps us more narrowly focus our collection of content on appropriate targets. But it simply is
not true that the United States Government is listening to everything said by every citizen of any country."
It's great that the U.S. government behaves better than corporations on privacy-too bad it trusts/subcontracts corporations to
deal with that privacy-but it's an uncomfortable thing to even be in a position of having to compare the two. This is the point Litt
misses, and it's not a fine one.
Five people have filed a suit against Facebook, charging the social-networking company with violating California privacy laws
and false advertising.
Facebook users assume that personal information and photos that they post on the site are shared only with authorized friends,
the suit, filed in the Superior Court for California in Orange County, says. "Users may be unaware that data they submit ... may
be extracted and then shared, stored, licensed or downloaded by other persons or third parties they have not expressly authorized,"
the suit reads.
Writing and photos that people share on the Internet are protected by law, so using that content without permission from the owner
infringes on the creator's rights, the lawsuit alleges.
The suit describes at length a massive data mining operation at Facebook, which it says has transformed itself from a social-networking
company to a data-mining company. It faults the company for collecting and analyzing site content without user knowledge or consent.
Facebook's controversial Beacon ad system tracks users' off-Facebook activities even if those users are logged off from the
social-networking site and have previously declined having their activities on specific external sites broadcast to their Facebook
friends, a company spokesman said via e-mail over the weekend.
Ok, let me get this straight. You're not using the service but it is spying on you anyway. That's spyware, plain and simple. I
guess the users agreed to it in the Terms of Use. Now I'm glad I never installed it.
Why is there so much surprise? Social Networking should really be called Social Marketing. As Dvorak says in his pcmag.com
column, the whole purpose is to gather data about you, and use it to identify things that can be sold to you.
This is America. Making money is our primary function. Is there really any more compelling motive for doing anything?
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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© Global Look Press / ZUMAPRESS.com / Panoramic The UK Parliament has taken hold of documents from Facebook that may shed light on the online giant's carefree approach to user privacy amid claims that it was fully aware of user data loopholes exploited by Cambridge Analytica. The documents were seized from the founder of US tech startup Six4Three, who was on a business trip to the UK, the Guardian reported , citing MP Damian Collins, chair of the Commons select committee for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The DCMS is in charge of investigating a siphoning of Facebook user data by UK consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica. The news on the massive data breach broke in March with Facebook later admitting the data of up to 87 million people might have been shared with Cambridge Analytica without their explicit consent. Read more
'In-house fake news shop' – Facebook facing new scandal and losing friends
