Facebook: Big Brother’s Strong Arm Part 1

“The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities.”

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Former National Security Adviser (1977-1981)

MARK ZUCKERBERG AND THE FACEBOOK AGENDA

Mark Zuckerberg is a human being and as a human being, he is deserving of love and understanding like all human beings, regardless of who they are. However, his actions and the actions of those at Facebook make me mad. For starters, hearing him speak is irritating to say the least. Secondly, I’m further irritated at how dumb he thinks the general public is by constantly undermining the mentality of people out there. That’s not to say that there aren’t dumb people out there because there are, but his smugness is blatant and obvious.

I’m more than likely not the first person to feel this way about Facebook, let alone present the information you’re about to read, but let’s get right to the point: I was watching this interview at a D8 conference in 2010 where he was being questioned mostly about the privacy issues regarding Facebook. What I saw really shocked me: an incredibly nervous and shaky young man who deflected questions and gave befuddled responses to questions it seems he didn’t want to answer. He was sweating profusely and had to wipe his brow a few times because of how much he was sweating. You cold tell he was VERY uncomfortable being questioned about user’s privacy. Throughout that, he apologized not for one moment Facebook’s constant invasion and theft of privacy and defended it to the core. Based on that presentation at the D8 conference, it led me to believe that Mark Zuckerberg was hiding something. After watching that interview, which I HIGHLY recommend that you do, it would be hard to believe otherwise.

(Click here to watch)

Here’s the deal: It is widely known that Facebook collects and keeps information about a person when they enter it on their Facebook profile. What many people may not know is that Facebook has found a way to track where you go on the web and collect data on you by installing cookies on your browser (it collects data on what type of browser you’re using, too) and it does it without your consent. Mark Zuckerberg’s justification for this is simply for “sharing” purposes between you and your friends. Not only that, according to USA Today, Facebook also collects data on your name, preferences, e-mail addresses, IP addresses, and time stamps websites you visit that have a Facebook plug-in among other things. And even if you’ve logged off, Facebook with its cookies firmly implanted in your web browser continues to monitor your web activity. So either on or off Facebook, it still follows you wherever you go on the web and in the world.

SHARING IS CARING?

Mark Zuckerberg throws out the pretext of “sharing” in order to justify the collection of personal data. And it doesn’t stop there. Facebook has also implemented a plan to share user’s home addresses and telephone numbers with external sites. Despite the outcry of this new plan, Facebook continues to assert it and refuses to withdraw the idea with the hope of “evaluating methods to further enhance user control in this area.” Well, I have an idea: why not just NOT DO IT? Nobody wants their information given to third parties and nobody should have to customize anything to prevent this. Nobody wants to be followed when they search the web. It doesn’t matter what they’re searching for, it’s not Facebook’s (or Google’s or anybody else’s for that matter) business what you or anyone else is searching for on the web regardless of what it is. All of these tactics are what’s called “data mining” (I was unfamiliar with the term until recently). These and I’m sure other methods is what Facebook does to its users to keep leashes on them and monitor them. But why?

One of the primary reasons considered is that Facebook is actually connected to a series of organizations including the CIA, In-Q-Tel (a company created by the CIA that provides the latest in information technology), DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is a military organization that does God-knows-what), and the Information Awareness Office (an office set up by the government to be, you know, AWARE of information). Facebook was started in 2004 and at the time it used to be called “thefacebook.com”. Even back then, it was still believed that “thefacebook.com” had backing of some sort from the CIA. The video below gives an illustrated account of the connections between Facebook and these organizations.

In a nutshell, it is believed that Facebook is actually a tool used for mass surveillance of the general public, gathering as much information about a person as possible. These methods that have been explained through various articles and opinion pieces show how this is being done. Of course, Facebook will vehemently deny these accusations as it has done in the past, but the evidence shows up time and time again as to how Facebook grabs your information and distributes it freely and without your consent to organizations who have no interest in you personally, but in how they can use that information to their advantage.

One of the things that I found most disturbing about Facebook is their use of facial recognition technology. It basically uses this so that when people “tag” someone in one of their pictures, the technology will then match the tagged picture to that person’s Facebook profile, in essence. And what this does, according to PC World, is it creates “a huge, photo-searchable database of its users”. So basically, there’s your profile picture (what you look like) and all of the pictures in your profile. There are people who are tagged in them, which are then linked to their profiles and identities, which will then create a record of what your tagged friends look like since Facebook now knows what you look like. And then your friends tag you and their friends and other’s friends and so on and so forth until Facebook has a tangible database of people and information about where they live, who they are, what they’re into, where they work, where they are or have been (check-ins), what their spiritual and political views are, and lastly, what they look like. In essence, Facebook owns the data of who you, your family, and your friends are.

AHI ESTA EL DETALLE/ THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS

Ever notice how Mark Zuckerberg gives such convoluted responses to questions that actually have a very simple answer? Just in reading his blogs and hearing him talk, it appears to me that he is throwing people off with what he says by what people who speak Spanish call “Cantinfleando”. To understand this, you must know about Mario Moreno or Cantinflas, a Mexican film actor who was famous for the comedic manner in which he spoke. Basically, he would throw out a lot words in response to a question without ever giving a clear answer and without ever really saying anything. This is what the CEO of Facebook does and he does it constantly, again, without ever being clear on what he’s saying or means to say. This can throw any person who’s familiar with the English language off their English-speaking rocker.

END OF PART 1. CLICK HERE FOR PART TWO.

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