The Problems with Facebook

[Bill Ryan]

.
Hi, Everyone — I'll start this thread with a joke. But it's actually a serious subject.

http://projectavalon.net/Making_friends_outside_of_Facebook.gif

Making fun of this aside (and often in parody, there's profound truth :bigsmile: ), I've never EVER liked or been seduced by Facebook, and neither have I ever liked Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's billionaire creator.

I tell this part of the story against myself. Wrongly thinking (quite wrongly!) that the 2010 movie The Social Network (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the-social-network) was a flattering, standard biopic of Zuckerberg, I'd never bothered to watch it.

But the script was written by the whiplash-brilliant (and internet-phobiac) Aaron Sorkin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Sorkin), who also wrote this year's extraordinary, blade-sharp Steve Jobs. After being completely staggered by that (quite a separate topic), I read the reviews for The Social Network. Many compared it to the 1941 Citizen Kane (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Kane), which in turn many have thought to be the greatest movie of all time. High praise indeed.

The parallel to Citizen Kane is that The Social Network tells Zuckerberg's story — as the almost Shakespearian parable of a brilliant but deeply flawed 19 year old who was so socially incompetent and maladjusted that he ended up creating Facebook — as an equally flawed and maladjusted substitute for genuine, meaningful human connection.

The reviewers were right: it's an incisive masterpiece. I've been kicking myself for turning my back on it till now. If anyone else has missed it, do help yourself here:

http://we.tl/aR65ylDb2x (699 Mb, free download till 14 Jan)

Here are just a few quotes from reviews:



Facebook has changed the way we interact and connect with other people. In a sense, it has brought people closer by keeping them apart -- allowing them to skip the uncomfortable face-to-face rituals that many of us stumble through.



“We lived on farms, we lived in cities, now we live on the internet” (a line from Facebook investor Sean Parker, in the movie)



...the paradox that Facebook, the mechanism by which the social relationships of at least two generations have been transformed, was created by a social misfit.



History has been written, in large part, by people not unlike the Winklevosses [real characters who also appear in the movie, who sued Zuckerberg for having stolen their idea]: aristocratic golden boys who know how to use their ample advantages, and how to leverage the talents of others.

The future may belong in large part to people like Zuckerberg, whom the movie presents as an inscrutable little rodent in a hoodie and flip-flops, tense and peevish, unreflectively arrogant in his intellectual superiority and ambition, almost as lacking in self-awareness as empathic awareness of others.



Mark’s attitude upon being called on the red carpet by university officials is instructive. He is unapologetic, defiant and even feels that he deserves credit for having identified the security issues he exploited.

This anarchic sense of entitlement is the essence of the hacker mentality, or one type of hacker mentality, in which ability, achievement and reputation are the only values. "If you are stupid or incompetent enough to let me compromise you, then you deserve to be compromised, and I deserve the credit for doing it."



And finally — this exchange is on factual record:

"If you ever need info about anyone at Harvard,” Zuckerberg once IMed a friend, “i have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses.”

Asked how he came by that info, Zuckerberg answered, in four successive messages: “people just submitted it”; “i don’t know why”; “they ‘trust me’”; “dumb f*cks”.

He bothered to put “trust me” in quotation marks, like a bit of unfamiliar jargon.

[Atlas]

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zQqDkmRFox8/U0KRlTwJKJI/AAAAAAAAA9g/8vT9273yMxo/s1600/Mark+Zuckerberg+(the+overlord).png
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[Bill Ryan]

.
Here's The Accidental Billionaires, by Ben Mezrich, about the founding of Facebook.

Aaron Sorkin, who wrote The Social Network's screenplay, didn't really adapt his screenplay from the book. He and Mezrich wrote their scripts pretty much in parallel, comparing notes and each consulting people who had known or worked closely with Zuckerberg, under condition of anonymity.

The detailed court records from lawsuits were also made available to both writers. (They're depicted quite faithfully in the film.)

http://projectavalon.net/The_Accidental_Billionaires_by_Ben_Mezrich.pdf

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Yoy%2BSfq-L._SX323_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

[Foxie Loxie]

Because of my age & my need to "keep things simple" I do not DO Facebook, even tho' you might find my name there. It seems as tho' now that we're more "connected", we are actually more "disconnected" as far a a truly human relationship goes. Each person has to figure out what is best for him or her & adjust the lifestyle most suited to becoming a "whole" person.

[ulli]

I thought their surveillance scene has been going on for much longer than FB.
I used FB for a year, didn't like it, especially when I found out that he sells info to the highest bidder.

After another year I decided to reactivate my account, which has many sleepy members on it, but also has whistle blowers and a sprinkle of Avalonians, and so decided to use FB as a tool to spread knowledge about the shadow government and also the UFO cover-up.
And guess what?
Whitin a few months some woke up and are now sharing the YouTube vids I've posted.
One of my nephews told me over Christmas how he now watches every Richard Dolan and Steven Greer video he can find.
And there are several others, who initially used to ridicule or warn me.

If everyone were using FB for this collective awakening then the FBI and CIA would not find the money nor the agents needed to catch every one of us.
Everything has a bright as well as a dark side; what matters is how one applies it.

[Mark]

It is one aspect of connecting the world and indispensable in doing so. The entire Internet is compromised, there is no such thing as privacy as we all know very well, especially those of us who are Administrators of different types of sites. We speak about one world and the interconnectedness of all beingness at the quantum and atomic levels, of spiritual holism. The Internet has manifested this at the material level and Facebook is the natural byproduct of that technological evolution. We see all human propensities toward social interaction in all of their variagated expressions, positive and negative, expressed on FB. The alphabet agencies, the terrorist organizations and every social collective under the sun, the social butterfly and the social pariah. Bullying, crowdfunding, mob rule, you name it. Beauty and ugliness, the entire gamut.

Regardless of our personal feelings, this is the way of the world now and there is no going back or giving it up without a major cultural and technological shift. In fact, that is currently underway as the internet prepares to go virtual and new ways of leveraging memory and space on computers opens the way for technology such as Oculus Rift to finally become practical. If y'all think social networking is bad now, wait three to five years when everyone will be wearing a headset and traversing the internet as a virtual space, "walking" and "talking" rather than typing and peering at text on a screen.

[Callista]

Like you, Bill, I have NEVER ever created a Facebook account. Knowing Zuckerberg’s story, it seemed to me that from the very beginning it had a very low frequency (jealousy and revenge?) and this seems to permanently taint the Facebook community. When Simon Parkes told me he was persuaded to go on Facebook, I told him that I would never be a part of it and that it would cause him heartache – which it has. There is something about the whole set-up that seems to bring out the worst in people, quite apart from the fact that it is a very useful tool for certain ones to obtain intimate information about millions of people.

A hundred years ago people used to be housed in very close living conditions, yet managed to keep secrets and observe another’s privacy with apparently no trouble. Now people have very private living spaces and yet choose to broadcast their intimate details over half the world. I’m not sure what it all means, but it seems to say something about the insecurity of the human race; the need to have another’s approval for one’s actions, thoughts, feelings and decisions. Facebook seems to be a sort of technological herd instinct activity.

I realize that many people use Facebook to promote very well-meaning activities, but to me it will always be a platform that sits uneasily and rather precariously as a foundation for service to others.

[Clear Light]

Regardless of our personal feelings, this is the way of the world now and there is no going back or giving it up without a major cultural and technological shift. In fact, that is currently underway as the internet prepares to go virtual and new ways of leveraging memory and space on computers opens the way for technology such as Oculus Rift to finally become practical. If y'all think social networking is bad now, wait three to five years when everyone will be wearing a headset and traversing the internet as a virtual space, "walking" and "talking" rather than typing and peering at text on a screen.

Oh, reading the above I was reminded of the film "Surrogates" ...


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The unstoppable advance of Technology eh ?

[kirolak]

I do have a Facebook account, but it is used only for activism. . . thousands of "friends", but I know only about 6 of them. I just hope that the message of freedom for all species somehow filters through. . . . :( Hope it's OK for me to post your joke on my page, Bill?:waving:

[TargeT]

If y'all think social networking is bad now, wait three to five years when everyone will be wearing a headset and traversing the internet as a virtual space, "walking" and "talking" rather than typing and peering at text on a screen.

Oculus Rift ships June 2016 (https://shop.oculus.com/en-us/cart/)... I think we are talking "by the end of summer"... VR will rush through the middle and upper class like wild fire IMO.


Regardless of our personal feelings, this is the way of the world now and there is no going back or giving it up without a major cultural and technological shift

but it doesn't HAVE to include "facebook" or Google Circles ... both are just data mining fronts built to farm add revenue; facebook is even basically openly allowing stolen content that generates millions of "views".... the corrupt corporate tools should be discarded, open-source is a movement and it needs to hit social media next!
t7tA3NNKF0Q

I don't have a FB account, but we use one for our business.

[Bill Ryan]

.
For those who appreciated the film (and maybe also for those who've not seen it), here's a marvelous New York Magazine article, in 7 parts, called Inventing Facebook.

I've combined it all into one PDF:
http://projectavalon.net/Inventing_Facebook.pdf (25 fascinating pages, 1.7 Mb),

And to read it online, it's here:
http://nymag.com/movies/features/68319

[Awakening2014]

I deleted my account 2 months ago. I couldn't be happier about my decision. So much negativity and wasted time. I now have more time to work on spiritual progress and research😀

[promezeus]

post deleted

[WhiteLove]

Facebook has never been very attractive to me. Why, because everything is so incredibly fragmented/limited over there, reading comments from small boxes lining up requiring me to scroll, has never been my thing. When I find someone I know over there, most of the time I'm seeing very outdated content there that is several years old. It's like getting a glimpse into how busy people are so that they don't have time to update their Facebook page. There are exceptions, for instance I like David Seredas page, because over there he posts interesting news he discovers, for that I find Facebook does provide some value. I created a Facebook page over there, for some reason I'm getting tons of friend requests from Asia, I accept them all, so now when I enter my Facebook page I can get detailed information about what people are doing all over Asia, in a way interesting because I have never been there and I don't know how they live their lives over there, I have never been in contact with anyone though and nobody has contacted me. They just send me friend requests, and I approve them and then that means the Facebook experience changes. The funny thing is though that I don't have more than max 1 minute of time watching a group image from some McDonalds over there in the Philippines, over the long run, I mostly just skip past all of that in the quest to find something more interesting, because I feel like my purpose here is not to know what exactly is happening to everyone everywhere (although I hope they have a great time). But I do like openness, so therefore I find nothing wrong with it, sometimes it can be quite nice pictures also, so then that is good. But the next minute, I'm out of there and then I don't come back, until I feel I know that David Sereda must have posted something interesting over there right now, then I go there. And sure, often times it's pretty interesting what he posts...

[Zionbrion]

I love the Onion! Ha they nailed it with this one.

juQcZO_WnsI


Edit
Oops just realized this was posted above. Leaving it anyways, its so good you can watch it twice.
:rofl:

[Heartsong]

I like Facebook. I have about 25 friends, only about 5 are active. Four of them are relatives. We share pictures of kids, pets, and vacations. One shares recipes. I don't "friend" people I don't know. I unfriend people who plague me with opinions. I refuse any commercial associations that want to post. All in all, it's a positive experience as long as it's controlled. It brings us closer together.

[Mark]

Oculus Rift ships June 2016 (https://shop.oculus.com/en-us/cart/)... I think we are talking "by the end of summer"... VR will rush through the middle and upper class like wild fire IMO.

True. But right now, the Net isn't really set up for seamless VR. As a tech guy, I know you are very well aware of that. Now, gaming and virtual "surfing" would be bottlnecked and lagged by lack of bandwidth. Phillip Rosedale, one of the creators of Second Life, is now working with a new platform, High Fidelity (http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/19/5732386/high-fidelity-philip-rosendale-telepresence-second-life-hands-on), which will:


Where Second Life is housed on hundreds of thousands of Linden Lab machines, High Fidelity worlds would be distributed across the user base. "We could potentially go from 600,000 or so servers to 600 million," says Rosedale. If you're on one world, you can see others in the sky and travel between them, watching blocky Minecraft-like environments resolve to detailed landscapes as you get closer. As computers advance, so will the possibilities. "

That will, conceivably, end "lag" and it seems to be a model that could transform the virtual experience itself.


but it doesn't HAVE to include "facebook" or Google Circles ... both are just data mining fronts built to farm add revenue; facebook is even basically openly allowing stolen content that generates millions of "views".... the corrupt corporate tools should be discarded, open-source is a movement and it needs to hit social media next!

True. And, probably, its next evolution won't, unless FB evolves to incorporate new tech innovations as well as cultural evolutions. The kids these days shun FB because it is where their parents hang out. That is the way of the young and as, First Adaptors, they are the ones to watch in order to determine which social networks will be the currency of the near future.

[Bill Ryan]

juQcZO_WnsI



Priceless! :bigsmile:

And there's a lot of truth there. My strong guess is that Zuckerberg had no idea that this would be the surveillance tool of choice a few years hence, but I'd be equally sure that he'd have had no qualms at ALL about selling out, if something was proposed to him on the quiet for CIA backdoor access.

Zuckerberg is not on our side, folks.

My own interest in the phenomenon was actually NOT about surveillance. As Rahkyt said in his post #6 above (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?88051-The-Problems-with-Facebook&p=1035570&viewfull=1#post1035570), surveillance is a given these days. Facebook just makes it simpler and easier, as many people are so compliant and unaware.

The more insidious threat is that it separates us, divides us, isolates us. While all the while beguilingly pretending to do just the opposite.

We present to others a kind of constructed, fabricated, carefully manicured version of ourselves — it's not really us.

Spend quality time with a real friend in a real room, or a car, or a café, or on a walk. Or even on a phone call. And experience the difference.

(The Avalon forum does that too, of course, as does everything else on the net: but at least most of the subjects and views shared here are serious and worthwhile!)

[TargeT]

The more insidious threat is that it separates us, divides us, isolates us. While all the while beguilingly pretending to do just the opposite.

We present to others a kind of constructed, fabricated, carefully manicured version of ourselves — it's not really us.



But isn't that modern society?

We have platform shoes so we are taller, body constriction clothing so we look thinner, make up so we look.... almost completely different?

we start our day out by standing in front of a mirror carefully constructing these small white lies; creating our public persona (which may or may not be very close to the "normal" persona) we exaggerate to others to make us seem more attractive to them (though really we are trying to lie to our selves) it's done all the time, almost everywhere.....

I think this is mostly because the ego is just a mechanism that mimes individuality but doesn't actually know how to fully achieve it or keep it static (our self image is very very fluid).

Of course then we should get into Desensitization and hyper sexual nature of this "society" we all share in because that most certainly plays a roll as well.


Bread and Circus is a concept that can be summarized by this: give the people what they want (a distraction, a focus, a enemy... or all three!) & they will suffer incredible levels of oppression and discomfort to keep it all while supporting the giver.

Facebook is that right? social interaction with out all the "difficult" parts... hell there's barely any physical aspect to it at all! easy-button social interactions, sure they are shallow and un-fulfilling but we've already been psychologically profiled and it was determined that we would accept that un-fulfillment with out much complaint.

[Bill Ryan]

The more insidious threat is that it separates us, divides us, isolates us. While all the while beguilingly pretending to do just the opposite.

We present to others a kind of constructed, fabricated, carefully manicured version of ourselves — it's not really us.



But isn't that modern society?



Yes, it is. But I wonder where it's all headed? The more I think about that, the more worried I feel.

Some more review quotes: (many of the movie reviews (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the-social-network) are highly intelligent critiques, by the way)





The Social Network is many things. It is the origin story of Facebook, an incisive portrait of the dorm hermit who can't read social cues but built the social mousetrap that caught millions, and an acid-etched picture of friends unfriended. Most of all, it is the improbably entertaining story of how new media are altering the very nature of courtship and friendship.

To comic and tragic effect, they show how Facebook (like the telephone and e-mail before it) became a connector that can just as easily distance people as bring them together.

Within a decade, one in 14 people on the planet would adopt [Zuckerberg's] mode of human interaction, a way to "friend" a person without actually meeting them. It's a form of communication, as we see, that's more to his liking.

As we note in scene one, wherein a scalded Zuckerberg runs back to his Harvard dorm to insult his girlfriend on a public blog, then to attack women in general - he steals private photos of Harvard women from online dormitory registers (known as facebooks), posts them online two by two, and invites all undergrads to vote for the hottest Harvard chick.

It's a huge campus hit. It's also a creepy, exploitive, interactive, communal and hypnotically addictive form of superficial judgment.

In other words, social networking.

In its Pong infancy.

[Ewan]

In its Pong? infancy.

[TargeT]

In its Pong? infancy.

that's sort of a technology reference, as "Pong" was one of the very first video games....

we went from "pong":
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to

The Division (random example of next gen game):
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The inference there is that Facebook will go from what it is now (ie pong) to what it will be (the division); a vastly more complex version of its original self.

[Hawkwind]

One theory that I read a while back is that humanity experienced a very sharp upswing in terms of cultural and scientific achievement after the advent of city-states. The reason given for this was that the existence of centers of commerce greatly facilitated the exchange of information and ideas. I believe the advent of the internet, particularly the social networking aspects of it, is serving much the same role. Yes, many people use Facebook to post pictures of their latest meal or their latest achievement in Candy Crush. I don't tend to add those people to my friends list. The people I do tend to add are every bit as aware of what's going on in the world as folks here at Avalon. Of late, I've actually been getting a better return on time invested there than I have here. Sure, I occasionally engage in discussions which turn into unproductive arguments, but by and large, I share useful info and ideas with others who are interested in such things and they do the same with me. The main difference between here and there (at least from my perspective) is that Facebook represents a much, much larger and broader cross-section of humanity. The upside to that being a far greater potential audience. The downside, a far greater need to be selective about who I interact with. Like most tools, it can be helpful or harmful depending upon how its used.

[Ewan]

The inference there is that Facebook will go from what it is now (ie pong) to what it will be (the division); a vastly more complex version of its original self.


Well we're playing with matches, there may well be seeds of good in various concepts but there are also seeds of chaos and unfortunately I see a dystopian future approaching.

EDIT: That sounds like I'm a scared little tortoise peeping tentatively out of it's shell and neither understanding or liking what it sees. There is actually far more behind my brief comment but right now my communication centres are feeling low so I will have to elaborate at some other time.

[ulli]

I just shared this on my FB page.

If everyone on Avalon were to add this to their home page it would go viral in no time and get to be seen by millions:

https://scontent-mia1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xta1/v/t1.0-9/10484962_386391088175005_5857383700541162037_n.jpg?oh=1846c7c2e1491b37e3ecfc3feb04205f&oe=5710CD65

[Bill Ryan]

It's a huge campus hit. It's also a creepy, exploitive, interactive, communal and hypnotically addictive form of superficial judgment.

In other words, social networking.

In its Pong infancy.

I'd like to say a little more about this. I really do think about this often.

Sometimes, the mods here on the forum feel we have to make a decision, and we unsubscribe someone. This is the more complex, slightly-more-than-one-dimensional equivalent of 'unfriending' someone on Facebook. A click of the mouse consigns them to — well, a different place, but not here.

It's like killing someone with a drone strike. You don't have to look them in the eye as you pull the trigger.

Contrary to internet rumor, we (the mods) really do take great care with such decisions. Most people might never believe what care we take.

(Ask Curt, the newest member of the mods team. He doesn't know I'm writing this, but he may [possibly!] testify to how much we care about people who we feel have become problems to the community. We quite often write to people we've unsubscribed. I often do this personally. Mike, too, may have something to say about this. And others.)

But the at-a-safe-distance, remote-control aspect of this always bothers me. If I click the mouse to unsubscribe someone, I am very acutely aware that in that moment I am (to some degree) changing their lives, or maybe hurting them very terribly. It's no simple or easy matter — and should not be.

But it's awfully easy to do. To click a button with a mouse probably burns up a thousandth of a calorie. It's not like you have to engage them in a swordfight — or, more energy-depleting still, meet them in person to explain.

Firing people is what the (also very good) George Clooney film Up in the Air (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/up_in_the_air_2009/) was all about. His character's full-time job was to meet with employees and fire them personally, taking all the care that was needed... until he was himself replaced by a computer interface.

It was deliciously ironic, and while it was a kind of semi-comedy, it was also a very thought-provoking commentary on our modern era of impersonal, digital shortcuts.

(Aside: for anyone who's seen the film, the montage of people's on-camera reactions when being fired were all real people, not actors, real-world, really-fired-at-that-moment, some people reduced to tears, used in the movie with each person's later full consent. That discovery alone was enough to make me go watch the movie over, very carefully, a second time.)

Much has also been written about the phenomenon of 'trolling'. This is closely related to everything we've been talking about. Would someone who's being a jerk online be so crassly abusive to another person to their face? Some would, maybe in a bar after a few drinks, but most of us surely would not.

Anyone reading this, whether a member or not: do ask yourself how readily you'd say in person to someone's face, in a chair opposite you a few feet away, what you're just about to write, under the safe cloak of a maybe almost untraceable pseudonym.

The illusion of protected anonymity can bring out the worst in us... it's the drone strike thing, again. We can say or do what we wish — almost — with no personal risk, no personal responsibility, no recourse for the person attacked, or digitally injured, or, sometimes, digitally 'killed'.

I hope this has been as interesting to read as it was for me to write. :)

If this is somehow off-topic... then :focus:

[Eram]

One thing in favor of facebook:
Many people who espouse the same ideologies form groups on facebook and exchange ideas and information there.

For instance: I am member of a Dutch facebook group of people who do not vaccinate their children.
It acts in many ways like a forum. Information is shared, people are being supported when in need, news is being shared and such.
Groups like these can easily grow to tens of thousands of members.

So in a way, facebook is also acting as a platform for awakening.

[TargeT]

a very thought-provoking commentary on our modern era of impersonal, digital shortcuts.


I also see it as an unintentional commentary on how committed we are to the idea of 100% employment and how this false requirement is subtly re-enforced at all turns... The structure, the CONTEXT of these movies is what interests me... the subtle cultural re-enforcement of oppressive / labor force / dis-empowering group think that we eventually ALL defend through our actions, language mannerisms and personal opinions.

Maybe it's not UN-intentional... maybe that WAS the intention the whole time; show a popular (for the time) subject (to "hook" people in... most of our stories are the same story with a different "hook" (context)) with systematic re-enforcement of the base programming: UN-motivated, powerless working class nobody.

For example:

Most Americans will "break the ice" in a very interesting way:

"so what do you do?"

such a simple question, but the implications of that being the first question are huge: we build identities around our "work" & we think of others in the same way (semi cast system).... If I were the global elite I'd be very proud of my accomplishments.



One thing in favor of facebook:
Many people who espouse the same ideologies form groups on facebook and exchange ideas and information there.

That is a very dangerous situation also though.

That is like a dry tinderbox for Disinfo, those types of "echo chambers" where everyone agrees can quickly propagate false information since they are all like minded.

the lack of diversity in thinking by joining these like minded groups is very stiffing and limiting & can be supportive of the divide and conquer tactic we are constantly being assaulted with.

[Eric J (Viking)]

I do have a Facebook account, but it is used only for activism. . . thousands of "friends", but I know only about 6 of them. I just hope that the message of freedom for all species somehow filters through. . . . :( Hope it's OK for me to post your joke on my page, Bill?:waving:

Yes..me too. I find it quite useful for exactly this and try my best to awaken as many as I can, although get a lot of stick about it. But try we must.

Viking

[Hawkwind]

For example:

Most Americans will "break the ice" in a very interesting way:

"so what do you do?"

such a simple question, but the implications of that being the first question are huge: we build identities around our "work" & we think of others in the same way (semi cast system).... If I were the global elite I'd be very proud of my accomplishments.



Japan actually goes one better. People (especially people who work for large corporations) often introduce themselves by first stating what company they work for, eg- "Sony no Takhashi desu". The literal translation of which would be I'm Takahashi who belongs to Sony."

Sorry for the aside- :focus:

[Hym]

Why not another alternative? How much does it cost to get something like that going, without the need to sell customer's info?
Wait a minute...........It's here and here's a link...

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/forum.php

The cool things are people doing good within phoney structures presented.

It all plays on the ego...(my)Face..book,,,,,the "I"phone (ego-phone-y), a self(ish)ie, My(not your)Space....just the name alone tells me there is no room for US, WE, OUR...and when the name for something that large is communal and sharing I'll stand off, because we know them. In fact there are probably some very good small groups, services, help based on the OUR, US, WE names.

[Curt]

I can definitely say there's a lot of care and attention that goes into every decision I've seen the mods team make.

It's no joke. There are mod discussion threads that go on for days and weeks on how best to help out a member who's having a rough time.

I'm surprised how much time is devoted to making good decisions.

There's virtually no shooting from the hip that I've seen. There's A LOT of deliberation before anyone is asked to chill out, or is sent on a vacation, much less unsubscribed.

Anyway, just wanted to report that. Apologies for the thread-jacking.

:focus:

[bettye198]

Like many who have posted here, I have never had a Facebook Acct. Sometimes in a forum someone posts a great find from FB and I may copy the link but again, not a member. I would rather align my addiction with forums with intelligent thought provoking subject matter like Avalon.

I have family members who have UNfriended family members on FB. Can that be anything good?

[CD7]

WELP..........FB has been a great hub for "alternative" networking.....I don't do all those general fb things anymore...blue moon if I do...There are many who are gaining tools..instruction...knowledge...RBE networking from their connections ...I STILL have not connected with ANYONE like I can find in the ethers of the net! I must be on the wrong island!! 😨


FB seems to be splintering off into different branches.....I only like to friend those of like minds so eventually most of my feed reads like " The New World Gazette! " Lol.. Would eventually love to print my timeline down the road as I have gathered alot of intelligent " how to's" and connections to Green Projects across the globe . ...Micheal E V Knight Knight is an awesome Fb hub for everything resourced based ...eco friendly...alot of connections 😊 The being Watched thing.....IS everywhere

[tessfreq]

I feel my anger creep up just thinking of all the opinions I have about FB.
(I apologize for repeating a few points others have made – took me too long to compose, and I suppose it’s more a personal journey with FB)

The story of a socially awkward guy who created something brilliant to help the situation, to what we now have, is two different animals.

I liked FB at first. I had an account. It was great to have a way to connect with my big family. It thrilled me to see all the kids get to know each other when they lived all over the world. I loved being able to collect family pictures that I’d never get the old fashion way. I would be waiting a long time for someone to send me photos in the mail.

FB created such a nice easy way to stalk people, also. I would learn things about them I would never know. Like their friends and family, their leanings on politics, their favorite type of music, and even if they were home currently. This new ability lost its charm quickly, though. I felt like I was being seduced with all this personal information about people. I didn’t even have to talk to them, and visa-versa. (better expressed in Bill’s post #26)

Even if I did see the good things about FB, the algorithms, data science, facial recognition, and blind tests they do on the population just creeps me the heck out. That’s just a partial list of what made me delete my account.

Sometimes it feels like FB scoops my own world, even without an account, because someone in my midst has one and is hungry for content. There’s an annoying adjustment to be made in r/l conversations when someone tells you about your life when you haven’t talked to them in months. It’s created a rebellious crusade in me to not share anything content worthy without a disclaimer of ‘do not to share my life on FB’.

I remember before I deleted my account, trying to figure out how to have this connection to my family that was created by FB, but, to not be exploited in the process. The choices I had were few. Either I do it the old fashion way (which I tried with no responses), or try and move all my people to a site that doesn’t creep me out (also didn’t work), or to not think about all that and allow the TOS to rule my information, which meant agreeing to become a lab rat for those who have other things in mind then allowing me to have warm family hugs.

What you can learn with mathematics is amazing if you have willing test subjects, especially if they don’t realize they are test subjects. Instead of putting a survey in everyones mail boxes and hope you get your 10% back, based on mailer stats, you run surveys by posting negative news in the feeds, allowing people to knee-jerk react to hardly any information and then run the numbers.

I watched this show about the magic of mathematics. In one part it had this very interesting mathematical equation. They had a jar of jellybeans and asked a bunch of people to guess how many. Once they got to a certain number of guesses (it was 160 in this example) they ran all the numbers to get the median and this number magically was the correct number of beans in the jar. When I think about this equation being used with the data collection on FB, I come up with some scenarios that could be used for the good or the bad. Either or, we have no access to this information even though members are the source. (Like I couldn’t contact FB and say ‘hey I have an idea, can you run this for me?’)

In conclusion, FB has a life of it’s own now, and lot’s of players enjoying the new easy way to collect data from it’s members, for numerous experiments, in a varied of fields, without paying a dime to you. I can’t shake that one.

….and
Yes this is modern society, but is it mandatory to participate? Modern society dictates I have online communications for banking, bill payments, healthcare, insurance, email shopping. I believe the internet to be a vulnerable system in regards to privacy! Is it mandatory I use it? No. There are still some manual methods in place, but even if you keep it on paper, someone else will type it into the computer. Blah… I am a dinosaur.
---- sorry, off topic.

[6pounder]

I would like to share my short story about the addiction I had to face book.

About 3 years ago I noticed that all of my attention was aimed at the activity on Facebook. I was posting things and just sitting there hip ng to get attention or to be "liked" by others. In some point idk what happened but I've noticed that it's ruining my life emotionally. One day I just said to my self that I have to stop with this nonsense and get back to real life where I meet my friends face to face and share with them my life with more then just letters on the screen. It was a hard addiction to overcome I must say. But today I rarely get on Facebook to communicate. My only activity there is to post alot of material to awake people in a specific group I've opened just for this matter.

[Lifebringer]

I use it for games and politics and a happy thought or two when others are troubled.

[Bill Ryan]

I would like to share my short story about the addiction I had to face book.

About 3 years ago I noticed that all of my attention was aimed at the activity on Facebook. I was posting things and just sitting there hip ng to get attention or to be "liked" by others. In some point idk what happened but I've noticed that it's ruining my life emotionally. One day I just said to my self that I have to stop with this nonsense and get back to real life where I meet my friends face to face and share with them my life with more then just letters on the screen. It was a hard addiction to overcome I must say..

Thank you for that. And kudos to you! :highfive:

That's EXACTLY what happens to so many people. It's an addiction that takes us AWAY from reality. But you spotted it and kicked it. :thumbsup:

[enfoldedblue]

I see facebook as a tool -that of course comes with a price. Like any tool it is how you use it, AND what price you are willing to pay for that use. What I like about it is that I can shape my newsfeed so that all I see is interesting articles and comments and ideas from people and sites that I like and respect. I have connected with some pretty awesome people around the planet through interaction via FB. HOWEVER, there are some definite cons as well! For one, in terms of ethics and ideology, it is a bit like dancing with the devil. So much centralised power and control .. is clearly not a good thing! If there was an good alternative that respected privacy and was about the people... not the investors, I would jump ship for sure. Well in fact I have tried several times with alternatives like Ello ... but they never seemed to catch on ... as FB power and control is so difficult to try and challenge.
I hope something shifts that allows an good alternative to rise up ... in the meantime I'll use FB ... and wash my hands when I'm done ;)

[Constance]

But the at-a-safe-distance, remote-control aspect of this always bothers me. If I click the mouse to unsubscribe someone, I am very acutely aware that in that moment I am (to some degree) changing their lives, or maybe hurting them very terribly. It's no simple or easy matter — and should not be.

Glad to hear that Bill. :sun:

Something that really shook my soda bottle up and made it fizz over...

One day, I was on my son's computer with a friend and happened to come across a document folder.

Within that document folder, was the typical "example" photos that Microsoft provide.

It wasn't something personal so there was a thought to delete it.

We took a look at what was inside the folder.

It was a photo of a beautiful bird.

My friends hand hovered over the "delete" button.

A long pause followed....

We just couldn't do it.

What if we were deleting an entire species of birds in our ignorance of the true nature of consciousness?

[Limor Wolf]

Hi , I read this discussion with interest and would like to contribute my thoughts. (Be warned accompanied by a little serious tone :))

Do we want to change the world? To only see the immediate layer is no longer enough in a world that is laying on it's side and going towards other's desire for control - (fast).

We, the humans who have greater awarness have also greater saying with our choices because of consciousness and our potentiality to understand what our fellow humans don't yet see. It is in this way that we are made to 'give our agreement' and confirmation imprint with our participation and putting our energy into things, I believe these matters are being observed and reviewed to see the level of our maturity from many factors out there and may very well determind our fate (Yes, I know it's only a Facebook discussion not a world wide dilemma.. but it all connects : ) So to help the system to promote the 'digital relationship' over the human's one towards obvious outcome of control may pretty much happen to be something that will be incredibly difficult to turn over, if at all.

Much is said about the general population cooperating and participating in their own enslavement, from simple use of identifying card in public transportation to giving their finger print in order to recieve a package delivered to them (yes, this is already happening)

Those in the know, know how to get our consent, and it seems we do provide this sometimes on those small 'necessities' like Facebook and the like with sheer enthusiasm. A sincere help can't be given as we are stamping on this package with our both hands..

I hope it is possible for us to speak under terms of spiritual honesty even in these days and times. Perheps the well intentioned Facebook supporters here do not get down into the bottom of meaning of this participation, the meaning of giving our CONSENT for the system to bypass us while using our 'own satisfaction' in every day life choices. Perheps we can't change the system, but we can either support it or not.

In relations to Zuckerberg I heard something yesterday - 'Some of the problems that are occuring in today's world is that there are humans who have become so clever in recieving ideas, following instructions, thinking erroneous that these are their ideas, that what they are doing originates with them, having no clues whatsoever that they are multidimensional puppets. where ideas are shot like errors in the dream state or the waking state and instructions are followed and carried out and the individual becomes wealthy.'

There is possibly nothing wrong with a kindergarten, but it does matter who is the teacher in charge

Times seems to encourage us to see through things and to move into new level of consciousness if we like to see beneficial change in the world

Blessings ~

Limor

[Callista]

Limor Wolf says:

"There is possibly nothing wrong with a kindergarten, but it does matter who is the teacher in charge"

This is a brilliant statement, Limor Wolf!! Sums up the whole human experience on this planet!!

Thank you! (and thank you for expressing your thoughts so gently - I tend to be a bit more ascerbic and hence have made careful comments earlier)

much love
Callista

[Carmody]

The pre-buy for the Oculus Rift* CV1 (Consumer version One) went live on the 6th of January 2016, 8am PST.

(Oculus was bought personally by Zukerburg for $2B US) (meaning, he made his contacts and overtures in person)

https://www.oculus.com/en-us/

(one of many first oculus reviews) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbpAXBMkh6s)

Which means that this coming, er, fecal-storm... will be rocket and explosion propelled in such a environment as VR, as compared to the semi real world of facebook. Facebook is hampered by it's 'reality' control structure, ie the person is manipulating a keyboard interface with a form of a 'reality context.'

When the eye and brain/head motions and then the hands, all in their feedback loop, are interrupted by a VR interface, one that is effective (and the oculus rift IS effective in this task!!), well, we'll see....something different.

I saw this coming back in the early 90's, (the rise of computer based communication systems) the thought that ....what was coming.... was a interruption and insertion in the base reality of all people on the planet, individually.

What was coming was a fundamental disconnect and manipulation point for every individual biological interface. Every. All. Individually.

The Wachowski's gave it a name, a popularization and moniker, if you will. They called it 'The Matrix'.

The return shot was that individualism, in that floundering initial interface with the emergent, would have a window.

A window of opportunity to be as powerful in their individualism, as the fundamental components of the rising control structure. This, I saw clearly, by 1992-93.

Then the Buddhist (and other) thoughts on the matter, which is that you are already ensconced in a matrix, and VR would make it recursive. (a second layer within the same)


The Oculus Rift and the VR environment is "Facebook stage II", or "Internet Stage III", if you will. Multiple consumer level high quality VR headset designs are concurrently emergent to the Oculus Rift. The Rift being seen as the spark/initiator/bell and spear tip point in the whole area of VR emergence.

Facebook is like touching the gas pedal and revving the engine a bit while floating between gear shifts, in comparison to the internet.... and the VR environment that is coming.

This places Facebook in the realm of being manipulative of conditions and symptoms, but not a fundamental. The Internet and VR are both more in the area of fundamentals.

(* The Initiator of the company, Palmer Luckey, called it 'the Rift', as he was aware that it would be a fully blown tear in society. A rift, if you will. It came to him at a stoplight, when he was driving his car, when trying to find a good name and descriptor for what he was about to try and create--a high quality consumer level VR interface. the oculus rift is that very thing. It exceeds all others, all pro level gear, by a good margin, in all ways [as a total sum value in comparison]. It is short in one area, and that is resolution [@1080Hx1200W per eye]. That will change by CV2 [second consumer version], which is about 2 years out)

(I don't do Facebook and I disallow any family members, friends or whatnot to share, include, write about or have images of me on Facebook)

[Bill Ryan]

The pre-buy for the Oculus Rift CV1 (Consumer version One) went live on the 6th of January 2016, 8am PST.



For anyone for whom the post above zoomed over their head a little, this is what Carmody's talking about. (And this rather scary future is very nearly here :) )

(Note: this is certainly Facebook-relevant, but the whole coming VR [Virtual Reality] thing might also deserve a thread of its own.)

http://projectavalon.net/Oculus.jpg

[Ewan]

Thanks for that Carmody. I'm reminded of a story I came up with personally after watching The Matrix.

A brief synopsis: The main protaganist lived his life much like Neo, completely unaware of its virtual nature. Once we get used to watching him and get involved somewhat in his life the camera would blur and zoom out of screen to re-focus on a group of people watching him on a monitor. They're concerned, discussing how they can bring him out without mental damage. Turns out he was one of the original programmers of the VR world who had been the first to try an extended stay.

Now we are getting caught up in the new drama, how do they help him? They influence happenings that are just too strange, synchronicities, trying to trigger an 'awakening' etc. He notices them, and ponders for a moment or two but ultimately shakes off the feeling and continues his (unreal) life.

As this progresses the camera blur happens again and we zoom out to resolve on yet another level. Now these people, different, almost transparent, are discussing how interesting it is that their experiment, their creations, are re-creating the same story in their version of reality.

Level upon level upon level.

As I could never resolve a satisfactory ending though this is as far as it ever got.

Basically this new tech has the power to send asleep people even further into the labyrinth, can anyone see a power for good here?

[happyuk]

What a great posting Bill. I think the following video epitomizes the previous description given of Zuckerberg as a "tense peevish social misfit":

G4XGbZ7IrC8

[AriG]

Of the many things there are to dislike about ****erberg, was that his original "Facebook" was designed to place rankings based upon physical appearance on the young women with whom he attended school. As if his mug is something to write home about. Now ironically, he seeks to change the world based upon his ability to reproduce a child (wow, jerk, my goats do that too). Wonder how he would/will feel when someone judges his offspring based upon her physical characteristics. Sorry, ranting here.

[Hawkwind]

We, the humans who have greater awarness have also greater saying with our choices because of consciousness and our potentiality to understand what our fellow humans don't yet see. It is in this way that we are made to 'give our agreement' and confirmation imprint with our participation and putting our energy into things, I believe these matters are being observed and reviewed to see the level of our maturity from many factors out there and may very well determind our fate...

... Perheps the well intentioned Facebook supporters here do not get down into the bottom of meaning of this participation, the meaning of giving our CONSENT for the system to bypass us while using our 'own satisfaction' in every day life choices. Perheps we can't change the system, but we can either support it or not. ...

... There is possibly nothing wrong with a kindergarten, but it does matter who is the teacher in charge.


Okay, so would an enlightened master use Facebook, or the internet, for that matter?- Probably not, but I don’t see that decision arising out of conscientious objection to an ultimately dehumanizing force. For beings who have attained that level of (enlightenment/awareness of connection to all that is) there simply would be no need. I, personally, am not there yet.

So then the questions become, is my use of Facebook and the internet 1- facilitating or impeding my own awakening, 2- does it tend to cause or alleviate the suffering of others, 3- could my time be better spent in other ways?

To the first question I'm certain that my heart is more open as a result of interactions I’ve had on FB and here than it otherwise would have been. To the second, it certainly has the potential to bring about much more good than harm, although that potential is largely unrealized as yet. To the third, I honestly don’t know, but until and unless I find better uses of my time, I imagine I’ll continue on my present course.

Does my use of Facebook give tacit consent to the imposition of a totalitarian control grid? Yep, but then so does walking down any street with a surveillance camera- hell, walking anywhere if you include satellites. Does it contribute to the dehumanization of relationships and consequently humanity in general? For me, the way I use it, not really (well, I don’t think so anyway). For the majority of users, probably yes.

As you said, we “are being observed and reviewed to see the level of our maturity”. Yep, that’s pretty much how I see it. If you’ve seen the film “2001: A Space Odyssey”, there’s a scene where a jubilant apeman throws a bone club into the air then segways into a scene of a spaceship in orbit. For me, the significance of this cut is that as soon as man evolved to the point of using even the most primitive technology, space flight, nuclear weapons and all the rest of it became an inevitability. That’s not, however, the end of the story. The current state of man is depicted as a transition from ape to star child. It’s only by passing through this technologically dependent transition that the next evolutionary step can be taken.

So, does the use of technology tend to dehumanize people? Yep. Does the use of technology tend to be addictive? Yep. Is technology in general then, bad? Nope. There are costs and benefits. How we choose to use any given technology determines whether or not the benefits outweigh the costs.

The teacher in charge of this particular kindergarden (from my perspective anyway) is God/the collective consciousness of the universe/my higher self (whatever you want to cal it). Today’s lesson is life on planet Earth in the 21st century- Mark Zuckerberg, Barack Obama, Kim Kardashian, Benjamin Fulford, Bill Ryan and all. Where you choose to focus your attention and how you interact with the other inhabitants of the environment will determine the content of your curriculum. Choose wisely.

[Limor Wolf]

Hawkwind, I sincerely don't know any enlightened masters and can't say what any such beings do or not do with regards to Facebook ( if to be a little cheeky here, perheps any who may consider themselves in par with this title may have a few more hills left to climb on :) )

There is no deliberate intention to cast any blame or fault to anybody who decide to use this platform, Bill has shared his concern on this matter in a very neutral way. It does not kill anybody, but it does enslave, it does ask people by it's characteristics to waive on their privecy and much else as a preperation for a global slavery world. I think there are positive elements in everything, we can also talk about credit cards and how they make our lives so much easier, aren't they? yes, benefits can be found in Facebook and some will say in vaccinations as well, no argument here - it has to be built on a solid social foundations (the way we were conditioned to believe it needs to be..) to attract the masses to spend our time and (much more importantly) our energy on the thing.

There is a whole energetic game that is the real reality of our existance in this 3D/4th dimensional place and how things come to frutation (manifestation) that are based on 'being on others game', they don't mind or care if you don't understand it as long as you vote your own fate with your energy.. give your permission, issue unseen contracts, make vows, decide between two failed choices you are given etc. No move they want to make can be done without our direct consent and without our energetic participation. These understandings are sipping greatly now to many, as we continue to awaken to the different layers of how things are done, and these days many of us feel as a spiritual requirment, the need for immense cleansing, canceling cords of attachments and agreements we unkowingly made, recognising both the multidimensional and human involvement in such things and how it all works. That is the real emphasis behind "we are being observed and reviewed to see the level of our maturity” - many are now waiting to see if we understand..


Originally posted by Hawkwind: "the use of technology tend to dehumanize people? Yep. Does the use of technology tend to be addictive? Yep. Is technology in general then, bad? Nope. There are costs and benefits. How we choose to use any given technology determines whether or not the benefits outweigh the costs."

Interesting view, but seeing only the 'device' without considering the whole context and it's purpose has proven not beneficial along human history, and there are plenty of examples to that. We have only this one more chance to understand things and how it works..

This link and post on the Sovereign kees website - may be of great interest-

http://www.sovereignkees.com/

And yes, that is the level we may want to look at things if we care about our freedom, our evolvement requires us to decide very well where we put our energies and to what we give our consent.


Originally posted by Hawkwind: "Today’s lesson is life on planet Earth in the 21st century- Mark Zuckerberg, Barack Obama, Kim Kardashian, Benjamin Fulford, Bill Ryan and all. Where you choose to focus your attention and how you interact with the other inhabitants of the environment will determine the content of your curriculum. Choose wisely."

Yes, choose wisely

Blessings

Limor

[TargeT]

Here's a few things to consider as well.

WXsNh7QV_4Y


New Study Links Facebook To Depression: But Now We Actually Understand Why.
The irony of Facebook is by now known to most. The “social” network has been linked to a surprising number of undesirable mental health consequences: Depression, low self-esteem, and bitter jealousy among them. Now, a new study in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology finds that not only do Facebook and depressive symptoms go hand-in-hand, but the mediating factor seems to be a well-established psychological phenomenon: “Social comparison.” That is, making comparisons, often between our most humdrum moments and our friends “highlight reels” – the vacation montages and cute baby pics – is what links Facebook time and depressive symptoms together. So is it time to cut down on Facebook? Maybe. Or maybe we should just adjust our attitude toward it.

In the new study from University of Houston, the researchers queried people about their Facebook use, how likely they were to make social comparisons (e.g., ”I always pay a lot of attention to how I do things compared with how others do things”), and how often they experienced depressive symptoms. It turned out that people who used Facebook more tended to have more depressive symptoms – but social comparison was a mediating factor only for men.
http://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/468906920/640x0.jpg?fit=scale
“It doesn’t mean Facebook causes depression, but that depressed feelings and lots of time on Facebook and comparing oneself to others tend to go hand in hand,” said study author and doctoral candidate Mai-Ly Steers.

The second part of the study went a little deeper. Previous, face-to-face research on social comparison had found that upward social comparisons (e.g., looking at someone more popular or attractive than yourself) tend to make people feel worse, whereas downward comparisons (comparing yourself to someone with lower grades than you) tend to make people feel better about themselves. The second part of the new study tried to tap into this difference, asking people exactly how they felt when they viewed other people’s posts (e.g., “Today, when I was on Facebook, I felt less confident about what I have achieved compared to other people.”).

It turned out that people who logged more Facebook time not only had more depressive symptoms, but that social comparison – in any direction – was the mediator, and for both sexes. In other words, it didn’t matter whether a person was making upward, downward, or neutral social comparison – they were all linked to a greater likelihood for depressive symptoms.So the study results may not be too surprising, but it does call out the mediating factor – making comparisons to your friends – in a new way. “Although other studies have established links between depressive symptoms and Facebook,” Steers says, “our study is the first of its kind to determine that the underlying mechanism between this association is social comparison. In other words, heavy Facebook users might be comparing themselves to their friends, which in turn, can make them feel more depressed.”

So should we all obliterate our Facebook accounts? It’s probably not totally necessary (although cutting down can’t hurt). Steers says the takeaway is larger than that – perhaps that our relationship with technology is often more nuanced than we think. For instance, as we’ve seen again and again, social networks aren’t purely social, and they may even veer into the realm of the anti-social.

“You should feel good after using Facebook,” says Steers. “However…the unintended consequence is that if you compare yourself to your Facebook friends’ ‘highlight reels,’ you may have a distorted view of their lives and feel that you don’t measure up to them, which can result in depressive symptoms. If you’re feeling bad rather than good after using Facebook excessively, it might be time to reevaluate and possibly step away from the keyboard.” She adds that people prone to depression may want to be aware of the connections, and think about how and when they log on to social media.

Steers also calls to mind Theodore Roosevelt’s belief that “Comparison is the thief of joy.” If that’s true (and science seems to confirm that it is), it may be partly up to us to try to stop making the comparisons between our dullest moments and our friends’ most momentous ones. And maybe our friends could keep in mind that life isn’t all about the highlight reel after all – and that it wouldn’t hurt to post about those quieter, less glamorous moments, too. That might actually go a long way in making people feel more connected, instead of just the opposite.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2015/04/08/new-study-links-facebook-to-depression-but-now-we-actually-understand-why/


Is Facebook’s “Celebrate Pride” tool a lame psychological experiment?
A few days ago, the US supreme court ruled that same-sex marriage was hence forth legal in all states. To mark the occasion, Facebook released the “Celebrate Pride” tool which overlays a low-opacity rainbow over your profile pic. More than a million people changed their profile photos just a couple of hours after the feature was integrated into the Facebook. While its intentions might seem noble, Cesar Hidalgo – an MIT network scientists – doesn’t buy it. He says it’s all in fact a huge social experiment whose end game is to see how long it takes for you to change your profile pic to something else.
http://cdn.zmescience.com/wp-content/uploads/cache/2015/06/Mark-Zuckerberg-Celebrate-Pride/4085159223.jpg
“This is probably a Facebook experiment!” said the MIT network scientist Cesar Hidalgo on Facebook yesterday.
“The question is, how long will it take for people to change their profile pictures back to normal.”
Other researchers seem to have caught on as well.

“This is one Facebook study I want to be included in!” wrote Stacy Blasiola, a communications Ph.D. candidate at the University of Illinois, when she changed her profile.
Facebook has denied the claim, however.

“This was not an experiment or test, but rather something that enables people to show their support of the LGBTQ community on Facebook. ”



“The point of this tool is not to get information about people.”
That may be true, but it’s entirely plausible that the enormously valuable data Facebook gets to index after the whole Celebrate Pride movement fades away will be used to learn more about user behavior. Actually, Facebook will definitely use this information. The question is whether the company purposely put the tool forward with this particular goal in mind.
http://cdn.zmescience.com/wp-content/uploads/cache/2015/06/511cd0ed0/1920398228.jpg
We might never learn, but it’s not like this is would be the first time Facebook did something like this. Only a couple of months ago Facebook actually published a study in which it analyzed the factors that predicted support for marriage equality on Facebook. Basically, the researchers looked at what prompted a user to change his or her profile photo to the red equals sign. The implications were much broader, though: it offered a great starting material to see how users rally on facebook and collective activity permeates the social network. That’s pretty powerful information. Just replace marriage equality with social unrest or political sympathy.

An important finding from the study was that users with more friends were more likely to change their profile pic to the equals sign. It wasn’t clear though whether this change of the profile pic was prompted by the exposure to more similar posts, given the user has more friends, or the user already had friends with similar views.

Nothing came close to the public outcry which ensued last year, though. It was revealed that Facebook intentionally manipulated the newsfeed of more than 700,000 users to basically toy with their emotions. The aim was to see if highlighting positive or negative posts could change the mood of the user. It did. People were more likely to post negative updates about their lives after positive posts in their Facebook feeds had been purposefully reduced by the researchers. No user was aware he was taking part in massive social experiment. Why act so surprised? Haven’t you read Facebook’s mile-long TOS? They’re legally allowed to do it.

Anyway, it’s not like this is something ground breaking in itself. Facebook is tracking your behavior based on what you like, browse or comment for ages, then uses this information to target better ads and, some say, sell it to companies. Some people have their whole lives up on facebook. Those are really worth a lot.
http://www.zmescience.com/science/psychology-science/facebook-celebrate-pride-psychological-experiment-053453/

[Hawkwind]

We have only this one more chance to understand things and how it works..

This link and post on the Sovereign kees website - may be of great interest-

http://www.sovereignkees.com/


Much of what you say and the information on the site you linked to rings true for me. I have a very hard time accepting that we have only this one more chance to understand things, however. Perhaps you're right, but that just hasn't been my experience with how the universe works. Moment to moment and day to day I try my best to do what seems right for me from my current level of understanding. The depth of which changes over time. For example, I first read the Tao Te Ching over 30 years ago, but it's not at all unusual for me to have an epiphany regarding a verse from it these days, "Oh, that's what that's referring to."

I can perfectly well understand why suffering, psychic pitfalls and energetic vampires exist along the path. They're all teachers and sign posts along the way. I can't, however, quite wrap my mind around why the universe might want us to incarnate on this planet at this time with the stipulation that we either figure it all out during this lifetime or become cosmic/karmic toast. I also can't imagine why any of us would have entered into such an agreement under those terms. It just doesn't feel right. I can also say that if it turns out I'm wrong about that, I'm likely to be really miffed at whoever set up the rules of this game. Does anyone have a link to customer support? :P

Blessings to you as well, my friend

[Limor Wolf]

Originally posted by Hakwind:" I can also say that if it turns out I'm wrong about that, I'm likely to be really miffed at whoever set up the rules of this game. Does anyone have a link to customer support?"

Hi Hawkwind, I think you may want to take a number, a good percentage of books from the National library near your home, the stockpile of food you stored for the whole of your neighborhood and join the line. We are searching for the adress via all satelites and technological means and will let you know :p

But in a more serious tone, the nature of our world may be different from what we think, we are only at the beginning of the discovery, and these discoveries seems to not only be limited to the 'white cells' of this body, but all may find that their role played so faithfully is not entirely their own intiative, but is the result of some other effect. Simliar to what you said -


I try my best to do what seems right for me from my current level of understanding.
I believe this seems to be true to everyone, no matter what 'godly creative powers' genetically or technologically they have. Freedom does not exist in the higher echelons, this understading may hit hard as consciousness now expands over the cosmos and we learn new things (if we want!) to the nature of this reality simulation which is sipping into all - even those who thought they 'are holding the secrets' for many years and confident as a stone they know it all.

A quest for freedom and avoidance of one's destruction depends on the ability to grant and respect the freedom of others. This chain is all so cleverly tied together

Breach others freedom and you breach your own, taking one piece at a time from yourself


Originally posted by Hawkwind "I can perfectly well understand why suffering, psychic pitfalls and energetic vampires exist along the path"

Yes, you become reliant on others energy and psychic means and lose your own back bone. Not quite the perfect long plan for longevity, is it? Nothing that can't be reversed forward should the clarity of this truth sips in. A different decision can always be taken. Stagination and habits not a good reciep

Anyway, I am sorry for moving away from the main subject, never am sure where the reply will lead me

Facebook or no Facebook, that's the question. The answer may be different to each and everyone. I think I know where I stand.

Thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts :)

Many blessings to you back, Hawkwind and good near future decisions to us all ~

Limor

[Mike Gorman]

I always think the term 'It Depends' covers so many human situations, and while it might be considered trite I think it all depends about Facebook. Intention is always behind the use of any tool or resource, and Facebook certainly can be used as a means to keep tabs on the global population, but the NSA, MI6, ASIO, and all the other alphabet agencies in different countries have access to everything they want in any case - Facebook is just another platform and online media, and it can be used in whatever way you wish. From a business point of view it enables doing business in a more 'human' way, engaging with people rather than pushing advertsing messages and narratives down their necks, it actually has a brilliant advertising platform built into it and enables you to target very precisely where your 'Dark Post' is directed. so it can be used as a means to communicate a variety of messages, from all kinds of groups, factions and merchants also. So yes, it can be insidious, and a big 'time suck' and it also wants too much information from you-but, you do not HAVE to give it - my own account reveals very little about me personally and I use the advertising system to direct what I need to, I am a professional Web Marketer, and this is but one of the platforms I use to help my clients. Of course we need to watch it, and be very wary, intentions vary so much!

[Limor Wolf]

As new understandings come knocking at our doors (the sign of the great opportunity of our times!), the lesson of how our energy is being used and abused is not fun one to be discovered, but it also provides us with immense growth and learning curve as to how and where we give our energies, supporting others creations for us to all it's unpleasent facets, removing the schckles and blinds from our eyes and recognising where it all leads (despite the heavy conditioning, remember the experiment with the boiling water and the frog?). The choice is ours. Always.

Our energetic consent is given under this guises

[cuitlahuac]

I was put on Facebook jail for 3 days.

I started to distribute an article and video of Lisa Haven commenting on the Obama move to confiscate fire arms and the Oregon standoff of ranchers with BLM, placing them in the FB groups I'm part of. And FB told me "you are posting too fast", and I was suspended from posting in groups for 3 days. Also, the groups I had created were suspended for 3 days. I was in Facebook a "NO PERSON" for 3 days for defending the 2nd amendment, an I'm not even from the USA!

Facebook is the matrix in internet. An alternative must be found fast.

Lisa Haven is constantly put in Fb jail for her articles. She said every person trying to post on the Oregon standoff was suspended till saturday (yesterday).

David Icke has had his memes deleted too.

[Savannah]

Zuckerberg is often referred to as being “socially awkward” which is sometimes a nice euphemism for Asperger’s Disorder or for people on the Autism Spectrum. It is a sad fact that 1-2 children per 10,000 c are born Autistic (and that may be a very low estimate). The cause is controversial but many in the alternative community believe it is environmental and not genetic. Those with ASD have difficulty interpreting social cues, understanding emotion and may lack empathy for others and have restricted emotional capacity. Thus Zuckerberg is comfortable with the buffering the computer places between him and the world. He can be rude, crude and heartless because those are aspects of his personality. Unfortunately he has tapped into a large portion of the population who are neurologically just like him and thus the instant appeal of FB. Of course not everyone on FB is ASD and those who are neurologically typical, capable of normative forms of social interaction, like FB because it keeps them in touch with their grandchildren or is a vehicle for posting political views. Never the less Zuckerberg’s original intent was to find an alternate way to socially interact that did not rouse anxiety in him. It is a tragedy what is happening to human bodies and how the change in our bodies is changing our world. It may not take Hybrids long to change the world as well.

[amor]

I use facebook to see pictures of my family as I live so far away I may never get an opportunity to meet with them. As I am old and they are young, it gives me an opportunity to give a little advice in a fun way. I think everyone knows the CIA is in on the deal and doesn't give a hoot. One way to revenge them is to choke them with rubbish if they are that petty. Facebook asked me not to friend people I did not actually know. Well that would be almost everyone. Even my CAT Tiger is still a mystery to me. Without intending it, I have become a hermit because life has given me adrenal exhaustion....I have already told God to stuff it! Reincarnation be damned. In revenge for posting some videos which information I thought should be shared, I moved one or two choice ones to my facebook page. In revenge, the operators of my page have allowed all sorts of people with all sorts of names to invade my page. Does someone know how to contact Facebook's customer service department? It seems that many of the people, family and their friends, using the sites to which I have access, are isolated, lonely, or bored with their locked in routine.

Thank you for the JOKE Bill, I had a very good long laugh which I needed.

[Verdilac]

I was put on Facebook jail for 3 days.

I started to distribute an article and video of Lisa Haven commenting on the Obama move to confiscate fire arms and the Oregon standoff of ranchers with BLM, placing them in the FB groups I'm part of. And FB told me "you are posting too fast", and I was suspended from posting in groups for 3 days. Also, the groups I had created were suspended for 3 days. I was in Facebook a "NO PERSON" for 3 days for defending the 2nd amendment, an I'm not even from the USA!

Facebook is the matrix in internet. An alternative must be found fast.

Lisa Haven is constantly put in Fb jail for her articles. She said every person trying to post on the Oregon standoff was suspended till saturday (yesterday).

David Icke has had his memes deleted too.

Good point Cuitlahuac. Its the thought police from 1984

The System only has power over you, if you decide to use the System.

There is an alternative, we have it here to a certain extent, facebook in my humble opinion is a vapid interaction to a very great extent for most of the people that use it, the sad thing is most people just cant see it.

[Flash]

Zuckerberg is often referred to as being “socially awkward” which is sometimes a nice euphemism for Asperger’s Disorder or for people on the Autism Spectrum. It is a sad fact that 1-2 children per 10,000 c are born Autistic (and that may be a very low estimate). The cause is controversial but many in the alternative community believe it is environmental and not genetic. Those with ASD have difficulty interpreting social cues, understanding emotion and may lack empathy for others and have restricted emotional capacity. Thus Zuckerberg is comfortable with the buffering the computer places between him and the world. He can be rude, crude and heartless because those are aspects of his personality. Unfortunately he has tapped into a large portion of the population who are neurologically just like him and thus the instant appeal of FB. Of course not everyone on FB is ASD and those who are neurologically typical, capable of normative forms of social interaction, like FB because it keeps them in touch with their grandchildren or is a vehicle for posting political views. Never the less Zuckerberg’s original intent was to find an alternate way to socially interact that did not rouse anxiety in him. It is a tragedy what is happening to human bodies and how the change in our bodies is changing our world. It may not take Hybrids long to change the world as well.

I do not know where you are from or your age, but your statistics on autims are waaaay waaaay off.

1-2 children born autistic per 10,000 was in the early 70's. It is now one in 60 in USA and some specialists think it will be on in two within 30 years.

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Here's a fascinating and eye-opening discussion with Mind Control researcher Neil Sanders, which aired recently in the UK on Richplanet TV. Anyone interested in Facebook, or has concerns with Social Media in general, needs to check this out:

****
Neil Sanders returns to the show to talk about social media. Most people's internet use has changed over the last ten years with more and more time being spent using social media. Neil Sanders compares behavioural tendancies on social media sites with psychological experiments and mind adherence strategies explored in the 1960's. He explains that the conditions created during a Facebook session are very similar. Neil doubts that this is an accident and explains that the types of behaviour people are corralled into exhibiting is both damaging and probably deliberate. Is your Facebook profile more popular than the real you? Then you might be in a continuous loop of reward seeking and narcissism resulting in smiling depression. Have you ever stopped to think who the hell REALLY set all this up and why?

Parts 1 to 4.

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[Savannah]

Zuckerberg is often referred to as being “socially awkward” which is sometimes a nice euphemism for Asperger’s Disorder or for people on the Autism Spectrum. It is a sad fact that 1-2 children per 10,000 c are born Autistic (and that may be a very low estimate). The cause is controversial but many in the alternative community believe it is environmental and not genetic. Those with ASD have difficulty interpreting social cues, understanding emotion and may lack empathy for others and have restricted emotional capacity. Thus Zuckerberg is comfortable with the buffering the computer places between him and the world. He can be rude, crude and heartless because those are aspects of his personality. Unfortunately he has tapped into a large portion of the population who are neurologically just like him and thus the instant appeal of FB. Of course not everyone on FB is ASD and those who are neurologically typical, capable of normative forms of social interaction, like FB because it keeps them in touch with their grandchildren or is a vehicle for posting political views. Never the less Zuckerberg’s original intent was to find an alternate way to socially interact that did not rouse anxiety in him. It is a tragedy what is happening to human bodies and how the change in our bodies is changing our world. It may not take Hybrids long to change the world as well.

I do not know where you are from or your age, but your statistics on autims are waaaay waaaay off.

1-2 children born autistic per 10,000 was in the early 70's. It is now one in 60 in USA and some specialists think it will be on in two within 30 years.




As of 2010 the rate of autism is estimated at about 1–2 per 1,000 people worldwide, and it occurs four to five times more often in boys than girls.

Autism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
I meant 1,000. thanks for the correction. My concern was more that I offend some people and my comment would not be very PC, but thanks for stats correction.

[Phoenix1304]

Thanks for that Carmody. I'm reminded of a story I came up with personally after watching The Matrix.

A brief synopsis: The main protaganist lived his life much like Neo, completely unaware of its virtual nature. Once we get used to watching him and get involved somewhat in his life the camera would blur and zoom out of screen to re-focus on a group of people watching him on a monitor. They're concerned, discussing how they can bring him out without mental damage. Turns out he was one of the original programmers of the VR world who had been the first to try an extended stay.

Now we are getting caught up in the new drama, how do they help him? They influence happenings that are just too strange, synchronicities, trying to trigger an 'awakening' etc. He notices them, and ponders for a moment or two but ultimately shakes off the feeling and continues his (unreal) life.

As this progresses the camera blur happens again and we zoom out to resolve on yet another level. Now these people, different, almost transparent, are discussing how interesting it is that their experiment, their creations, are re-creating the same story in their version of reality.

Level upon level upon level.

As I could never resolve a satisfactory ending though this is as far as it ever got.

Basically this new tech has the power to send asleep people even further into the labyrinth, can anyone see a power for good here?

Greetings Ewan, Bill and all,

I have a piece of writing along the very same lines Ewan, the idea of the watchers, being watched, being watched, as my prediction that reality TV will be the bulk of the entertainment produced for TV is manifesting. I imagine, for example that the TV show Gogglebox, that shows people watching TV (and is really quite entertaining) has a darker side, note the shows they are made to watch, certain programming gets hammered home repeatedly there, (just in case you missed it) and it occurred to me that today's TVs (we all had to go digital remember) are fully capable of recording the viewer and, for a price, the elites might be able to watch anyone they want, watching that or any other show, or not even watching anything so long as it's plugged in, without the subject's consent, of course it would make much better viewing than people that know they're being filmed. An amazing resource for assessing the zeitgeist and god knows what else. So it's interesting to me that I'm not having these ideas in isolation.

As for Facebook I stopped cold turkey a few years ago and, indeed, it was like coming off a drug. I missed my fascinating feed of all things that interested me and the constant updates of far flung family, pics of the growing babies et al. But it had become so very invasive. I posted mostly 'wake up and see the truth' kind of stuff and used it more as an activist platform, whether this was why my inbox was constantly flooded with friend requests from complete strangers or not, the whole thing had begun to give me the creeps. One morning I woke to 64 friend requests and just deleted it having been reluctant to do so for months before that, but thinking about it.

Later I saw the New Scientist article about the experiment on 700k users and knew I'd done the right thing. See Targets post here for more info, sorry don't know how to link to that without exiting this reply. We're all just Guinea pigs, but at least you can withdraw your cooperation if you become aware of it.

My piece of writing does not have a satisfactory ending either, maybe with a consciousness revolution, but one has to get a grip on where all these layers lead first, probably right back to between our own eyebrows.

meanwhile I can only watch as fabulous technological advances with fantastic potential for the human race get appropriated by the dark side over and again, to further our somnambulant slavery.

Nonetheless, as witnessed by this thread, an awful lot of us will not go so meekly into those dark dreams but work tirelessly to create a more positive outcome for ourselves and others by taking full responsibility for what we have created so far.

I joined Twitter after leaving Facebook and it's still my choice for activism and we have all seen how these tools can be used to out crimes against humanity and help to awaken the populace and maybe, Ewan, that's one of its powers for good. So trying to keep focussed on positive outcomes I continue with the assumption that everything I do, say or even think is observed by someone, somewhere. That's an interesting exercise in itself. If and when we can all face our own selves without shame we'll be well on our way to a better world.

[Mike]

this is a rather funny (and surreal) facebook story...

i don't have a facebook profile. but my friend Jay does. most days, with a certain amusement, he'll read me the updates of a man i'll call James. we went to high school with James, and while we were friendly superficially, neither of us really liked him.

it appears James has hit a mid life crisis: he's working out heavily, getting tattoos, eating an uber healthy diet, has changed his hair style dramatically and so forth. these arent bad things in and of themselves, but there is definitely a pattern. and we know this because he documents every f#cking detail of it on his facebook page, ie what he ate that day, how his workout went, how his tattoo is healing, do you like my new mohawk? etc etc etc

although we get a good laugh out of James, this has been grating us for the last year or so. probably best to simply ignore it, but honestly it has become a bit of a fascination. it is a wonderful study on just how much of a tool one can reveal themselves to be. we've considered commenting in the past, but the irritating thing about James is that he is so tacky and self absorbed ..yet so lacking in self awareness that i fear we'd only confuse him..and our well thought out insults would simply fly over his head.

one game James loves to play is the passive aggressive compliment game(of himself). for example, he recently posted something to the effect that men need to pay attention to their women...they need to get their faces out of their cell phones and engage their women lest they run off with another more interested man. he cites a moment that happened that very day when he arrived in a pizza shop, and as a phone distracted man was ignoring his girl, she was checking him(James) out with what he called "**** me eyes". see, its the ol self compliment wrapped in a disingenuous lesson. i know, it sounds harmless enough, but there are literally dozens of examples of this - he goes all confucius, but the lesson of the day inevitably ends up with 2 gorgeous babes in heat panting at his doorstep..

and he's not above exploiting his niece for a little attention either. "ive got a date with the most beautiful girl in the world" he'll say, and there will be a half dozen sickening pics of them both sharing a towering sundae out of a single straw. again, sounds harmless, right? see, but you gotta know this guy a little to know what he's up to. after he got a million pats on the back for his sweetness, he began taking his niece out everywhere - bowling, to the movies, to the mall, the park etc etc etc, all accompanied by some pathetically transparent thing like "well, the niece lost her basketball game tonight, had to lift her spirits.." it got to a point where i couldnt even hear about it anymore...the embarrassment i felt for this man sent shivers up and down my spine. but still, he was so utterly shameless!

even the death of a family member wouldnt stop him. this one takes the cake, i have to say. after James uncle had passed, he posted a pic of himself leaning up against his uncles grave in repose, eyes misty and looking off into the distance, one hand pointing at the heavens. it was simply astounding. it was as if he'd learned how to grieve by watching hollywood movies, and now he wanted to display his talent. i tried to imagine how the whole thing went down...it would have had to be planned! ("hang on, should i go arm to the heavens or not? head down or up? tears or no tears?.."). i know this fool!...he was thinking of his facebook page the whole time...

this guy will go to the ends of the earth for a little attention...even if involves exploiting dead relatives. its unreal. and these are just tip of the iceburg things too....

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ok, so several nights ago Jay calls me and says "i finally did it. i couldnt take it anymore.." i say "did what?" and he cryptically responds "just check out James facebook....look at the comments under such n such..."

now, there is nothing subtle about Jay. there is nothing particularly clever or witty about him. he's very, very direct. he doesnt cloak his speech or writing in gobbeldygook. and this msg he left poor James was one of the more devastating things ive ever read. in its simplicity and directness, it was practically art. he picked this guy apart with clinical grace, called him out on all his sh!t, and at the end even offered his services should James want therapy. it was everything James needed to hear...but i have to say, despite it all, i felt very very bad for him. this msg was absolutely crushing.

well, James had the msg down in record time. he must have something on his computer or laptop that alerts him to msg's and so forth.

within minutes he sent Jay a private msg, politely declining his offer of therapy..and closing with this (paraphrase): "...and why should i care what someone like you thinks about me, someone i havent seen or heard from in forever, SOMEONE WHO KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT ME.." (i italicized that, he didnt)...

jay: "know nothing about you??? i know what you eat every day, i know where you go, i know who youre with, i know how your workout went, i know.................."

i don't think it even made a dent with ol James tho....

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

here's the weirdest part...and i just don't know what to think of it..so odd....

that very night, around midnight, Jay gets a phonecall from James' Mom. she puts James Dad on the phone, who at first pretends to be James himself, before finally confessing to be James' Dad. nothing substantial is said, and they hang up after theyre found out...

now, let me remind you, James is 38 years old. a grown man. he actually called his parents at midnight on a thursday to explain to them what happened on facebook. i'm going to repeat that: a grown man of 38 actually called his parents at midnight on a thursday to tell them what happened on facebook..

and those parents, instead of driving over to James place to slap him with every ounce of energy they had, actually white paged Jay (who lives in Florida by the way) at midnight on a thursday, called him, and pretended to be james himself (why???) before hanging up in what i can only imagine was a bit of embarrassment...

the skinwalker ranch has nothing on this mystery....

anyhoo, ...Facebook..need i say more?

[Carmody]

In similar un-minced words, Mike: 'Well, if one puts their dick in a vice, takes pictures of the in-situ, and then posts it on the internet with full personal details, one just might get an answer back...'

[Carmody]

Limor Wolf says:

"There is possibly nothing wrong with a kindergarten, but it does matter who is the teacher in charge"

This is a brilliant statement, Limor Wolf!! Sums up the whole human experience on this planet!!

Thank you! (and thank you for expressing your thoughts so gently - I tend to be a bit more ascerbic and hence have made careful comments earlier)

much love
Callista


Yes, this is very critical. We can see it even in our individual given local (to the reader) businesses. The owners do the hiring and then the employees emulate the mood, Stance, and psychology ----that the owners live via.

That so-called Jesuit line, which turns out to come from Aristotle (Aristotle is like the 'Koch/Neocon/Ayn Rand' version of a neutral and correct Plato): “Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.”

[Mike]

Ive never bumped myself before. It's a pretty obnoxious thing to do. But i'm bumping this. Shameless, I know...but I don't care. I think this post slipped thru the cracks...which is unfortunate because it's a decent story and it took me 20 mins to write the damn thing. I think some of you will enjoy it. Sums up facebook pretty well.



this is a rather funny (and surreal) facebook story...

i don't have a facebook profile. but my friend Jay does. most days, with a certain amusement, he'll read me the updates of a man i'll call James. we went to high school with James, and while we were friendly superficially, neither of us really liked him.

it appears James has hit a mid life crisis: he's working out heavily, getting tattoos, eating an uber healthy diet, has changed his hair style dramatically and so forth. these arent bad things in and of themselves, but there is definitely a pattern. and we know this because he documents every f#cking detail of it on his facebook page, ie what he ate that day, how his workout went, how his tattoo is healing, do you like my new mohawk? etc etc etc

although we get a good laugh out of James, this has been grating us for the last year or so. probably best to simply ignore it, but honestly it has become a bit of a fascination. it is a wonderful study on just how much of a tool one can reveal themselves to be. we've considered commenting in the past, but the irritating thing about James is that he is so tacky and self absorbed ..yet so lacking in self awareness that i fear we'd only confuse him..and our well thought out insults would simply fly over his head.

one game James loves to play is the passive aggressive compliment game(of himself). for example, he recently posted something to the effect that men need to pay attention to their women...they need to get their faces out of their cell phones and engage their women lest they run off with another more interested man. he cites a moment that happened that very day when he arrived in a pizza shop, and as a phone distracted man was ignoring his girl, she was checking him(James) out with what he called "**** me eyes". see, its the ol self compliment wrapped in a disingenuous lesson. i know, it sounds harmless enough, but there are literally dozens of examples of this - he goes all confucius, but the lesson of the day inevitably ends up with 2 gorgeous babes in heat panting at his doorstep..

and he's not above exploiting his niece for a little attention either. "ive got a date with the most beautiful girl in the world" he'll say, and there will be a half dozen sickening pics of them both sharing a towering sundae out of a single straw. again, sounds harmless, right? see, but you gotta know this guy a little to know what he's up to. after he got a million pats on the back for his sweetness, he began taking his niece out everywhere - bowling, to the movies, to the mall, the park etc etc etc, all accompanied by some pathetically transparent thing like "well, the niece lost her basketball game tonight, had to lift her spirits.." it got to a point where i couldnt even hear about it anymore...the embarrassment i felt for this man sent shivers up and down my spine. but still, he was so utterly shameless!

even the death of a family member wouldnt stop him. this one takes the cake, i have to say. after James uncle had passed, he posted a pic of himself leaning up against his uncles grave in repose, eyes misty and looking off into the distance, one hand pointing at the heavens. it was simply astounding. it was as if he'd learned how to grieve by watching hollywood movies, and now he wanted to display his talent. i tried to imagine how the whole thing went down...it would have had to be planned! ("hang on, should i go arm to the heavens or not? head down or up? tears or no tears?.."). i know this fool!...he was thinking of his facebook page the whole time...

this guy will go to the ends of the earth for a little attention...even if involves exploiting dead relatives. its unreal. and these are just tip of the iceburg things too....

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ok, so several nights ago Jay calls me and says "i finally did it. i couldnt take it anymore.." i say "did what?" and he cryptically responds "just check out James facebook....look at the comments under such n such..."

now, there is nothing subtle about Jay. there is nothing particularly clever or witty about him. he's very, very direct. he doesnt cloak his speech or writing in gobbeldygook. and this msg he left poor James was one of the more devastating things ive ever read. in its simplicity and directness, it was practically art. he picked this guy apart with clinical grace, called him out on all his sh!t, and at the end even offered his services should James want therapy. it was everything James needed to hear...but i have to say, despite it all, i felt very very bad for him. this msg was absolutely crushing.

well, James had the msg down in record time. he must have something on his computer or laptop that alerts him to msg's and so forth.

within minutes he sent Jay a private msg, politely declining his offer of therapy..and closing with this (paraphrase): "...and why should i care what someone like you thinks about me, someone i havent seen or heard from in forever, SOMEONE WHO KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT ME.." (i italicized that, he didnt)...

jay: "know nothing about you??? i know what you eat every day, i know where you go, i know who youre with, i know how your workout went, i know.................."

i don't think it even made a dent with ol James tho....

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

here's the weirdest part...and i just don't know what to think of it..so odd....

that very night, around midnight, Jay gets a phonecall from James' Mom. she puts James Dad on the phone, who at first pretends to be James himself, before finally confessing to be James' Dad. nothing substantial is said, and they hang up after theyre found out...

now, let me remind you, James is 38 years old. a grown man. he actually called his parents at midnight on a thursday to explain to them what happened on facebook. i'm going to repeat that: a grown man of 38 actually called his parents at midnight on a thursday to tell them what happened on facebook..

and those parents, instead of driving over to James place to slap him with every ounce of energy they had, actually white paged Jay (who lives in Florida by the way) at midnight on a thursday, called him, and pretended to be james himself (why???) before hanging up in what i can only imagine was a bit of embarrassment...

the skinwalker ranch has nothing on this mystery....

anyhoo, ...Facebook..need I say more?

[ulli]

Not the fault of FB, Mike. I think it's a phase immature adults need to go through, and where these phases might have spanned several lifetimes in the past, they can now be shortened, as with FB people will eventually be given a mirror to see themselves, the way Jay did to James.
And James may be 38, yet still need his parents approval and backing. Some are much older than that.

[Shannon]

lol.classic, mike... ^
I think I know a few James' too.

[mojo]

I wonder how many members have facebook account? Don't use fb or twitter and was sad how Google made youtube adding a google plus which you need to have to make yoytube comments. My Google plus is minimized to bare bones though... It's nice to have an outlet though so a forum satisfies that for me. Even so many of a thread made on Avalon ends up as a search result on Google. Especially the ufo ones. I wonder how that happens with some Avalon threads?

[Caliban]

I wonder how many members have facebook account? Don't use fb or twitter and was sad how Google made youtube adding a google plus which you need to have to make yoytube comments. My Google plus is minimized to bare bones though... It's nice to have an outlet though so a forum satisfies that for me. Even so many of a thread made on Avalon ends up as a search result on Google. Especially the ufo ones. I wonder how that happens with some Avalon threads?

Mojo, those threads end up as Google results because the aliens love to see how popular they are :rolleyes:
I think they reversed that needing Google plus to make YT comments -- I don't have that and can make them. Try it.

[Caliban]

the skinwalker ranch has nothing on this mystery.... anyhoo, ...Facebook..need I say more?


Absolutely hilarious Mike. I especially loved "he picked this guy apart with clinical grace". Wish I could have written that line myself. I was larfing out loud.

FB lets people play out their unceasing adolescences. I would say this is an American phenomenon but what's not American anymore ?

[mojo]

Wow that would be great if I could delete Google plus and still make comments on Youtube. They made it mandatory at one time to link google and youtube. This is the first anyone mentioned that. If they did, they sure didn't tell anyone.... I bet many others don't know and I was a holdout for so long but friends on youtube missed hearing comments so I gave in. Before clicking delete are you sure?

[earthdreamer]

I also have avoided Facebook entirely. I remembered that the Consumer Reports article (a link I posted in Bill's thread about past-life facial recognition) had more info on how Facial Recognition was enhanced and developed by FB without consent of its users:

http://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/facial-recognition-who-is-tracking-you-in-public1

>>>"The scale is entirely different online. In 2014, Facebook published a paper on a research project it calls DeepFace (read “How Facial Recognition Works: The Ghost in the Camera”*), a system said to be 97.35 percent accurate in comparing two photos and deciding whether they depicted the same person—even in varied lighting conditions and from different camera angles. In fact, the company’s algorithms are now almost as adept as a human being at recognizing people based just on their silhouette and stance.

How did Facebook get so good? Partly by harnessing the photos uploaded and manually tagged by many of its 1.5 billion users. And some privacy experts consider that a misuse of personal data.

“Entities like Facebook hold vast collections of facial images,” says Gates, the UC, San Diego professor. “People have voluntarily uploaded millions of images, but for their own personal photo-sharing activities, not for Facebook to develop its facial recognition algorithms on a mass scale.”

Last spring Carlo Licata, a resident of Illinois, sued Facebook, claiming that the company broke a state law, the Biometric Information Privacy Act, by failing to get his consent to storing, using, and sharing the data. Two other men later joined the suit, which is still progressing through the legal system.

It’s not apparent what effect such lawsuits might someday have on Facebook and other companies that use facial recognition. What is clear, though, is that just a couple of states have been ahead of the rest of the country in grappling with the implications of the technology. “Illinois is on the forefront,” Licata’s lawyer, Jay Edelson, says. “Texas has a similar statute, although it doesn’t allow consumers the right to bring lawsuits if their rights are violated. Unless there is a new law that’s enacted, people in other states don’t really have many rights protecting the collection and use of their faceprints.” >>>"

--------------------------------

* http://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/how-facial-recognition-works-the-ghost-in-the-camera

<<<"A facial recognition research project called DeepFace that was conducted by Facebook and described in a paper in summer 2014 used a computing architecture called a deep neural network. The project was an example of “machine learning.” Researchers didn’t tell the computer to take a predetermined set of measurements of each photo. Instead, they built a system that automatically analyzed millions of images, turned them into 3D models, and then figured out on its own how to pick out which photographs matched.

The system was 97.35 percent accurate when applied to a publicly available dataset of more than 13,000 photographs collected from online news stories with uneven lighting, shot from a variety of angles.

That kind of work has the potential to make facial recognition systems faster, more accurate, and easier to scale up to handle huge numbers of images. The computer would know which individuals appeared in almost any photo, taken almost anywhere—and do it almost instantly. >>>"




Wow. We're now tolerant, or have become well-adjusted (maybe maladjusted) of no rights to privacy and insidious ubiquitous mass surveillance. Drip drip.

[mojo]

Wow. We're now tolerant, or have become well-adjusted (maybe maladjusted) of no rights to privacy and insidious ubiquitous mass surveillance. Drip drip.

Yes the masses are, but like yourself there are some that are not tolerant to the elitist plans and nefarious agendas...Lets keep waking some up person by person...;)

[Mike]

If one cannot see how distorted and uncool taking and then posting 2 dozen pics of oneself (look at me!) is when doing this, then we have very little chance of convincing them of this fact.

The very definition of "cool" has been changed - for the worse - with Facebook and this look-at-me reality show culture. It embarrasses me to my bones to be a human sometimes. I'm eager to personally introduce myself to the aliens and emphasize that I have nothing...repeat *nothing* to do with current cultural trends..so please spare me the anal probes

And I don't mean "cool" as a superficial thing either....I mean it more as an umbrella term for all things original, tasteful, creative so forth

"Cool" also used to mean mysterious. It meant calmly and quietly knowing ones talents without feeling a compulsive need to splay them all over the internet. Remember when media stars were mysterious and a bit distant? When you didn't know all the details of their personal lives? Now, so called "stars" (reality) are famous for the exact opposite reasons - theyve sold out their privacy and exploited friends n family to make a buck and become "known". And the public has eaten it up....they wanna be stars too....so.they exploit their private lives as well on things like facebook. IT'S A COLLECTIVE SOUL ROT. FACEBOOK IS A SYMPTOM OF THIS DISEASE...

Now, I s'pose there is a reasonable way to use facebook...but very few of us are capable of this. My Dad is on facebook. He's not obsessed with it. He'll use it now n then to tell friends when his band is playing etc. He has a few family pics up. Thats it. And there are many others like this. They use it to network, stay in touch with old friends, so forth. And thats ok. Thats cool. But the majority...

I'll confess to playing voyeur now n again. It's interesting to see what old friends and classmates are up to now, how poorly theyve aged etc. I have my friends password and i'll sign in sometimes and look around...but rarely. The novelty is over. Here's the deal: everyone has the same exact life! ...went to school, got married, had kids, took a few vacations etc. Same thing, every time. The homogeny is staggering. Theres no risk, no gamble. It's all very stale and sterilized. Theres a mind numbing sameness that is massive in its implications. But mostly it's just really depressing...

I see some old friends n classmates have been pretty successful...but even at my worst, health wise and financially, I wouldn't want to change places with any of them. Once you become interested in the bigger picture, theres no turning back...there no conventional life, no "selfies", no family photo in the burbs' etc. The red pill is the pill for me. The "cool" pill;)

[Caliban]

Wow that would be great if I could delete Google plus and still make comments on Youtube. They made it mandatory at one time to link google and youtube. This is the first anyone mentioned that. If they did, they sure didn't tell anyone.... I bet many others don't know and I was a holdout for so long but friends on youtube missed hearing comments so I gave in. Before clicking delete are you sure?

Here you go Mojo - you still need a gmail acct. (I think) but not "plus." Now get that Mojo workin' on YT once again

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/07/27/google_plus_dying_youtube_comments_no_longer_require_social_login.html

[ulli]

Just found this on FB
https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtp1/v/t1.0-9/12654278_10153811934855482_3454377284022768994_n.jpg?oh=7f2fb3ea6d682d8d371f000debb34750&oe=57372107

[Callista]

Wonderfully ironic that you found it on FB!! :flypig:

[mojo]

Oops double post.

[mojo]

Hi Caliban thank you for the link.


Google is finally going to stop trying to make Plus happen.
The company announced in a blog post Monday that it will no longer force people to use a Google Plus account to log in to other, more popular Google services. That includes YouTube, whose users have been howling for years about the Google Plus requirement. Soon they’ll be able to log in with a plain old Google account.

[Hym]

Very cool Mike. It's kind of a rhetorical question, asking what's wrong with In-Your-Facebook, but it is well worth bringing up because it is such a massive manipulation of so many social and personal issues. Like more than a few here I saw the b.s. from the concept alone and have never visited the intel site. Not surprised with all of the disconnect some have created that has caused the insecurities, the loneliness, the superficial construct with an emotional pull to it, drawing some into the unbelievable nature of such shallow self-absorption .

What a boring life filled with the details of someone else's life, just as it would be creepy to have someone I do or don't know looking at the mundane details of my life, things I'm not even interested in. Those media creations are activities produced to draw awareness away from really knowing your own power, a process that often involves taking yourself out of the equation.

Just the words alone are annoying. I-Phone, looking at the Twit twitting, it's my face on face-book, it's my space-not yours. If i ask someone to look at me and not at the soul looking out from my eyes they won't be looking inside of themselves, and that's usually the only thing I find worthy of both of our attentions, our shared inner truths or our pains in need of healing. That form of data collection is not called Inner Truths or True Self-Ease (selfies) for just these reasons. It is meant not to look for value. It is only the false face of the temporal world cloaked in some false show of immediacy. Yes it has caught your "I", but can you truly see anything from inside of that electronic shell?

Maybe I should change my name here on this forum to some initials or a couple of numbers to insure that there is no 'me' in the sharing. I used the 'Hey it's me' as a form of one friend talking with another, like Hey, Friend, it's just me. A form of intimacy in a non-descript format......
Naah....no need to do that. Ya'll here are much more aware than me going off bein' all over thoughty and such.

On some meaningful level our exteriors are robotic in their precious time containment and not fully reflective of our creative, infinite loving selves, what with all of the social correctness directed on outward appearances and the whims of corporate fashion's greed for unending profitability.

Did anyone ever think they'd be conned into sharing such trivial details about their lives when they were young? When Bill Hicks said he wanted all in the advertising industry, the Bernaysian-spawned genetic progenitors of social media in forms like FB, to kill themselves, he was spot on in so many ways. No, seriously, kill yourselves. That's the only ghandian thing to do, even the buddha would let you sit on the thousand petal lotus for a moment, just to alleviate the world of the pain you've created, you more than useless f***s.

Saw a picture of a childhood schoolmate and neighbor years ago, on a high school yearbook site. He looked just like I thought he'd be when we were both young. I didn't spend much time with him then and I doubt that I'd be much more than a counselor to him now. He had let himself go and society didn't do him or his health any good at all. I realistically understand that there is good cause to not have had any contact with many from my past, even with the many genetic siblings out there. Without judging, and thinking of them in the only ways I could do in a positive manner, I see that is much better to have no contact than telling them I told you so. The divide, tho not in my thoughts now, would be even greater and would be of no good service to them.


I would have named the organization Superficial Book. It will hold you so close in it's embrace and look so far up your ass that it'll make you cringe, or smile, just thinking about it.

[Carmody]

New data emergent:

Apparently the penetration of Facebook in the 18-34 demographic is complete.

It is considered to be very near 100% in the US. This sort of data makes me recall the speculation as to it's origins.


Re/code's Kurt Wagner, senior editor, social media, said "Turns out that while investors (and the media) panicked that Facebook would experience a mass exodus of young people, nearly every Internet-wielding millennial in America still uses Facebook on a regular basis."

The comScore report found that nearly 100 percent of people ages 18 to 34 in the US used the social network as of December 2015. "Coming in a distant second, with under 65%, is Instagram—which is owned by Facebook," said Rob Price, technology reporter for Business Insider UK

The numbers would not hold much water if it were just a case of counting people who were signed up for Facebook but using their online minutes on other sites. Price said that was not the case. (The comScore effort researched both the percentage of 18- to 34-year-old Internet users who frequent each major social network each month and the time users spent with each service.)

"And it's not as if millennials are signed up for Facebook but not using it. Take a look at the y-axis: Facebook absolutely smashes it on the average amount of time users spend on the site each month, too. Facebook users are on the site (or app) for more than 1,000 minutes a month on average; Snapchat, in second place, is under 400." (http://techxplore.com/news/2016-04-facebook-muscle-young.html)


to add, from another thread:


regarding priority threads:

I have a relative who worked in a place where they tried to organize the place with respect to things that were urgent. They put red stickers on the priority tasks.

Within a week or two, everything had priority stickers on it.

That an effectual forum with a future.... possibly (for your consideration)... is a group consensus (averaged) system of data sharing and support, not a vehicle of personal unfolding foisted on all others as a overlay in those given individual personal hopes and desires.

The very reason that 7 billion people cannot possibly live the life of tasting billionaire success in forms of excess that are both subtle and gross. The body may pressure us individually into such a direction of self as expression, but the world cannot handle even a hundredth of that desire ever coming true.

This sort of thing, which is steeped in our individualism... as individual 'mostly closed' (external feedback loops are limited) buckets of mind and organics in situ and in motion, tends to cause frictive intrusion on some level or another.

Ie, all 7 billion individual balloons cannot expand fully, in exploration of all, in a space that cannot accommodate it. The result in the given attempt is a more complex, varied and expanded noise level and far less societal cohesion (in some 'historical norm' ways).

Facebook is a natural and expected 'pressure release area' exploration of the given individual and overall group's deep desires in such direction.

[TargeT]

New data emergent:

Apparently the penetration of Facebook in the 18-34 demographic is complete.

It is considered to be very near 100% in the US. This sort of data makes me recall the speculation as to it's origins.


Just wait till VR is included... a WHOLE NEW data set to parse....

It starts:


There Are Some Super Shady Things in Oculus Rift's Terms of Service

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--A0JFtGAp--/kn72pfc9cjbt6seney8t.jpg
The Oculus Rift is starting to ship, and we’re pretty happy with it. While it’s cool, like any interesting gadget, it’s worth looking through the Terms of Service, because there are some worrisome things included.

Quite a few of the items in the document are pretty typical in any sort of Terms of Service agreement. These include details like waiving your right to a juried trial and agreeing to go into arbitration instead. Oculus can also terminate your service for myriad reasons, and third parties can collect information on you. However, there are some even more devilish details in the Rift’s full Terms of Service.
Oculus (and basically Facebook) owns creative content

If you create something using Oculus’ services, the Terms of Service say that you surrender all rights to that work and that Oculus can use it whenever it wants, for whatever purposes:

By submitting User Content through the Services, you grant Oculus a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual (i.e. lasting forever), non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free and fully sublicensable (i.e. we can grant this right to others) right to use, copy, display, store, adapt, publicly perform and distribute such User Content in connection with the Services. You irrevocably consent to any and all acts or omissions by us or persons authorized by us that may infringe any moral right (or analogous right) in your User Content.

Basically, if you create something and then blast it out into the world using the pipelines that Oculus provides, the company can use it—and they don’t have to pay you for using it. Oculus can use it even if you don’t agree with its use. Oculus does not go as far as saying that it owns the content—but it can does want access to it in ways that some creators might find intrusive.

This probably doesn’t matter much if you’re using the device as a gaming platform, but with a new type of device that’s out there, there are a whole range of unforeseen uses. Based on the wording of the Terms of Service, a creative developer could make a piece of interactive artwork that Oculus could then use for an Oculus ad without the artist’s permission.

Who knows what else VR might allow people to create. But to do so—at least initially with the Oculus Rift—you might lose out on exclusivity with your work, something that’s important for writers and artists.
Oculus can collect data from you while you’re using the device

This next caveat is more obvious but also more worrisome. The Terms of Service document reads:

Information about your interactions with our Services, like information about the games, content, apps or other experiences you interact with, and information collected in or through cookies, local storage, pixels, and similar technologies (additional information about these technologies is available at https://www.oculus.com/en-us/cookies-...);
Information about how you access our Services, including information about the type of device you’re using (such as a headset, PC, or mobile device), your browser or operating system, your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, and certain device identifiers that may be unique to your device;
Information about the games, content, or other apps installed on your device or provided through our Services, including from third parties;
Location information, which can be derived from information such as your device’s IP address. If you’re using a mobile device, we may collect information about the device’s precise location, which is derived from sources such as the device’s GPS signal and information about nearby WiFi networks and cell towers; and
Information about your physical movements and dimensions when you use a virtual reality headset.’

Furthermore, the information that they collect can be used to directly market products to you:

To market to you. We use the information we collect to send you promotional messages and content and otherwise market to you on and off our Services. We also use this information to measure how users respond to our marketing efforts.

This is kind of creepy! Given that Oculus can collect information about how you move and how you’re shaped. The Facebook-owned company can use your location and log your activity, and it can even do so automatically.

And on a related note, given that Facebook owns Oculus, it’s not surprising that the Terms of Service also include language that allows the company to monetize your experience: that is, after all, what the Facebook platform has been historically extremely good at.

What’s most worrisome here is that the emergence of VR technology opens up an new type of data for companies to mine en masse which can be collected efficiently. The fact that Oculus, the clear leader in the new VR marketplace, is setting this precedent could be dangerous for the future of the technology. Furthermore, as UploadVR noted, the Oculus Rift is a device that is always on (much like Microsoft’s Xbox One Kinect feature) which leads to further concerns about when the information will be collected. Who the hell knows when and where the NSA will get involved.

We’ve reached out to Oculus for more details about its new Terms of Service and will update this post if we hear back.
http://gizmodo.com/there-are-some-super-shady-things-in-oculus-rifts-terms-1768678169

[Carmody]

I was going to get into that part.

I edited my post to add some interesting thoughts, which have some strong and deep truths to them.

What this means that that "systems of Facebook" are not going away any time soon.

Nay, they will expand and that VR will take off, it will explode in popularity and in excess in unfathomable intensity... due to those internal pressures finally finding release.

"We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Can_Remember_It_for_You_Wholesale)

[Mike Gorman]

Facebook is absolutely enormous, and it seems 87% of users are outside the USA-so this really is becoming a global civilization 'mirror'-really it is now just a default communications platform that marketers are going to increasingly exploit, rather like an interactive version of television (T.V2.0) the original 'black ops' version of the internet is rapidly disappearing and the 'The Net' is now just another media, a default location for human consciousness to hang out...I'm going to bed I'm becoming cynical.

[Carmody]

Essentially, people are wired to procreate, and in a situation where such deepest prioritization is lacking, they masturbate. I recall reading of a study done about such things, in the Detroit area. a recent study, which would, of course, include the modern effects of internet pornography. The level of daily masturbation in the males was nearly complete. Females in the study? Not far behind.

Comparatively, the drive to be all and of all, to expand in and of all, in the individual...--those pressures are the same. The reality is that societal cohesion and interactions control such urgings.

Facebook and VR are the removal, well..not removal, but the alteration.... of such barriers which are built out of societal cohesion and interaction.

Like a hole punched into the side of a highly charged and over-pressured containment/body/vehicle..... the mass of gas will expand into it. (out from the pressurized original contained and constrained area)

You should be horrified and also, relieved.

For humanity requires this release if it is to settle down.

To be more to the realistic point -------Your worry should be centered around who and what is driving; what parasitical action is being enacted behind the closed programming which is part and parcel of this venting structure called Facebook and VR. (there are other pressure vents, not just these two...)

(to release the pressure (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6Gs0n8Hig8) also means the loss of the pressure to break free from envisioned structures, the dark side of the venting issue)

[Jay Freeman]

Facebook has been a bitter/sweet pill. What I like is the free flow of information. What I don't like is that they are now RANDOMLY forcing people to prove who they are (show them their ID) and requiring that those random individuals use their "legal" names (while others remain free to use obvious fake names). (I actually have two "legal" names, so I wonder which one they would prefer?) When Facebook first came out, the idea was that people would only interact with people they actually knew in real life. So using one's real name was not a problem. However, many soon discovered that it was a great way to get to meet and become acquainted with others from around the world. Once you get to know someone, then it becomes your choice as to how much personal information you wish to share with that person. After many years of participation on Facebook (eight, to be exact), the administrators contacted me a few days ago with the threat that if I don't provide them with my ID, my account will be suspended. I'm not one who will be bullied, so about Tuesday, I expect I will be locked out because I'm not going to give them any ID. I have long believed it is a good idea to hold onto things lightly. That way, when someone gives you an ultimatum to either buckle to their will or they will take something from you, it is much easier to let them have it and walk away (which is exactly what I intend to do). The Universe itself provided me with this forum instead, and I have a pretty good idea it will become my new "home." I'm very excited to be here!

[Daozen]

Question: What would people like to see in the ideal social site? In terms of login, etc

I'm aware there may be a lot of tracking going on at FB, but in my view, they have still done more good than harm. Zuck has quietly disrupted the media, and the pharamaceutical complex, and the military industrial complex... destroyed them all beyond repair. He did it all from within the system. He's not perfect, but I see him as a light grey hat. It would be healthier if social media was distributed among more platforms, to break up monopolies, but that's our fault, not his.

I am developing a niche site with an increased social media content (partially inspired by this thread), and I would ask people to look at things from the developers point of view. FB insists on photos and real names, this is one factor that keeps people polite in FB group conversations. First names is a powerful social force. Kaume, I think it's OK that they ask people with weird names to prove who they are. It's fair on everyone else... Project Avalon has their own way of keeping people polite, by providing an entry form which effectively dissuades trolls from signing up.

I am considering only allowing signups with Facebook, Twitter, Google Circles and other 3rd party authentication apps, just because it means there will be less disruptors and bad vibes. I have actually turned the issue over in my head for months, and still haven't come up with an answer that keeps everyone happy. Maybe I will also include a signup form which is similar to Avalon. Reddit solved freedom of speech issues with a 'downvote' system, so people can mediate their own conversations. Reddit became popular because downvoting partially eliminates the need for moderators. The point is, signup policies are not easy, and one of the biggest headaches for anyone building a site.

Photos keeps people friendly, on the other hand, anonymous posting can give a real edge to a site. 2channel in Japan is based on anon coversations. GLP has a raucous energy, with a hell of a lof of garbage, but also a high proportion of insiders, because whistelblowers can log on freely, drop their info, and leave. For this reason I suggest that Avalon has a subforum where anonymus insiders can post with no logon. It would bring a new energy to the site. If members could collapse troll comments you could hit a balance between freedom of speech, and freedom not to read rubbish.

There are many subtle social dynamics going on when you analyse authentication policies.

Signup policies can make or break a site. How many times have you clicked off a sign up form with too many fields? What's App rose to become the number 1 communcation app in the world, because their sign up policy (use you phone number) was so easy. If a sign up is too difficult, you lose users. If it's too easy, trolls slip in.

When a site becomes as big as FB, there has to be a degree of automation, which means someone, somewhere, will be on the raw end of a policy. So the question at the end of all that meandering is: How would you set the authentication bar of your own site if you hit hockey stick growth?

[Debra]

Hmmm Facebook
Some great perspectives on this thread. Thank you Mike for your research paper on case study James .. :bigsmile:

And Daozen, wow I would like to get inside your head. I also think FB has been a tool for change and maybe - I don't know - Zuckerberg has been instrumental

But ... after some interesting FB interventions a couple f years ago when I was on A mission to expose and demonise Monsanto, I think absolutely not. Out of nowhere, I received a personal DM from an old friend asking me to take down the photo I was using, and I was in that awkward moment of thinking how to field her question when she bolted into the chat box with: I didn't write that! Facebook must have. I can't believe this ...

It was an insight, the nose of the beast showed itself.

I work Facebook for a number of reasons, use it as a tool but to trust i? hmmm .. and I don't think it is a polite place either. Trolls are everywhere and to bring your political interests into even your own diverse social network can be a minefield. Sometimes a pure moment of authenticity will bloom and it can be a wonderful place too, just like here.

But :) that I cant reach Zuckerberg for a question tells me something. I probably could if I really tried to get a conversation with him but .. It's a corporation like McDonald's .. Ever tried contacting McDonald's with a complaint? It's like they don't exist, they're so secret.

What an interesting world ..

[Daozen]

And Daozen, wow I would like to get inside your head.


Are you sure? Try listening to both these songs at the same time with the volume turned up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZZTfu4jWcI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTTzcXSLjhI


But ... after some interesting FB interventions a couple of years ago when I was on A mission to expose and demonise Monsanto, I think absolutely not. Out of nowhere, I received a personal DM from an old friend asking me to take down the photo I was using, and I was in that awkward moment of thinking how to field her question when she bolted into the chat box with: I didn't write that! Facebook must have. I can't believe this ...

It was an insight, the nose of the beast showed itself.

I don't deny this goes on. I have seen people shadowbanned and other things. I've been shadowbanned myself, I think. But the sheer amount of positive memes just cannot be stopped. If there is a group like that, they are only reaching 1-5 percent of "dissident memes"

[Debra]

And Daozen, wow I would like to get inside your head.


Are you sure? Try listening to both these songs at the same time with the volume turned up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZZTfu4jWcI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTTzcXSLjhI


33404

I love it even more Daozen LOL

[/QUOTE]I don't deny all these things go on. I have seen people shadowbanned and other things. I've been shadowbanned myself, I think. But the sheer amount of positive memes just cannot be stopped. If there is a group like that, they are only reaching 1-5 percent of "dissident memes"[/QUOTE]

This is the language, data and insight I want to know more about -

[Daozen]

This is the language, data and insight I want to know more about -

I can't prove those figures, of course, but the Svali testimonial, deduction, and the fact that my feed is full of anti-Monsanto memes etc shows me that they are overwhelmed. We can either walk away, or flood FB with positivity, and we chose the latter. I definitely understand how people feel about the "superficiality" of FB, as Hym said. I think they need to integrate with crowdfunding. When one billion people work out that they can fund useful projects with just a mouse click, that has the potential to change the Earth. It would be more healthy if this market share was spread around multiple sites, as I said.

Again, it's our fault that it's superficial. There is nothing in the terms and conditions of FB that states it must be used to share photos of bowls of noodles. A telephone or a page can be used for useless nattering, or organizng something genuinely useful. I had a colleague who organized a march 9 years ago. Something about Burma. He started it alone and it reached 50,000 members in a few days.

So I'm not so much saying how awesome FB is... just that we can look at the psychological terrain disspassionately; walk away, or lightly engage the merry-go-round of subversion and resubversion like an etheric waltz in Eyes Wide Shut.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXhYAS1Kyp8

[CD7]

FACEBOOK ME..... ------> Christine Angela Mancuso from Jensen beach florida <-------

I love to network with people who want to help change the world :)

[KizzyServan]

that's strange





Mod edit from Bill: please make clear what you're referring to, by quoting the original message when the reply is a simple one like that. From a reader's point of view, you might be referring to any comment on the thread. Thanks. :thumbsup:

[Bill Ryan]

.
This may have been posted elsewhere here — and many Facebook users will surely be aware of this.

From Gizmodo, 9 May 2016: (and widely reported elsewhere)

http://gizmodo.com/former-facebook-workers-we-routinely-suppressed-conser-1775461006

Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News


https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--Hd-GwECp--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/fzgcncgtbjvssokiynau.png

Facebook workers routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers from the social network’s influential “trending” news section, according to a former journalist who worked on the project. This individual says that workers prevented stories about the right-wing CPAC gathering, Mitt Romney, Rand Paul, and other conservative topics from appearing in the highly-influential section, even though they were organically trending among the site’s users.


https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--nW_jrK8v--/wnoxkbpgvqqobyqlkgex.jpg


Several former Facebook “news curators,” as they were known internally, also told Gizmodo that they were instructed to artificially “inject” selected stories into the trending news module, even if they weren’t popular enough to warrant inclusion—or in some cases weren’t trending at all. The former curators, all of whom worked as contractors, also said they were directed not to include news about Facebook itself in the trending module.

In other words, Facebook’s news section operates like a traditional newsroom, reflecting the biases of its workers and the institutional imperatives of the corporation. Imposing human editorial values onto the lists of topics an algorithm spits out is by no means a bad thing—but it is in stark contrast to the company’s claims (https://www.facebook.com/help/737806312958641) that the trending module simply lists “topics that have recently become popular on Facebook.”

These new allegations emerged after Gizmodo last week revealed (http://gizmodo.com/want-to-know-what-facebook-really-thinks-of-journalists-1773916117) details about the inner workings of Facebook’s trending news team—a small group of young journalists, primarily educated at Ivy League or private East Coast universities, who curate the “trending” module on the upper-right-hand corner of the site. As we reported last week, curators have access to a ranked list of trending topics surfaced by Facebook’s algorithm, which prioritizes the stories that should be shown to Facebook users in the trending section. The curators write headlines and summaries of each topic, and include links to news sites. The section, which launched in 2014, constitutes some of the most powerful real estate on the internet and helps dictate what news Facebook’s users—167 million in the US alone—are reading at any given moment.
“I believe it had a chilling effect on conservative news.”

“Depending on who was on shift, things would be blacklisted or trending,” said the former curator. This individual asked to remain anonymous, citing fear of retribution from the company. The former curator is politically conservative, one of a very small handful of curators with such views on the trending team. “I’d come on shift and I’d discover that CPAC or Mitt Romney or Glenn Beck or popular conservative topics wouldn’t be trending because either the curator didn’t recognize the news topic or it was like they had a bias against Ted Cruz.”

The former curator was so troubled by the omissions that they kept a running log of them at the time; this individual provided the notes to Gizmodo. Among the deep-sixed or suppressed topics on the list: former IRS official Lois Lerner, who was accused by Republicans of inappropriately scrutinizing conservative groups; Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker; popular conservative news aggregator the Drudge Report; Chris Kyle, the former Navy SEAL who was murdered in 2013; and former Fox News contributor Steven Crowder. “I believe it had a chilling effect on conservative news,” the former curator said.

Another former curator agreed that the operation had an aversion to right-wing news sources. “It was absolutely bias. We were doing it subjectively. It just depends on who the curator is and what time of day it is,” said the former curator. “Every once in awhile a Red State or conservative news source would have a story. But we would have to go and find the same story from a more neutral outlet that wasn’t as biased.”

Stories covered by conservative outlets (like Breitbart, Washington Examiner, and Newsmax) that were trending enough to be picked up by Facebook’s algorithm were excluded unless mainstream sites like the New York Times, the BBC, and CNN covered the same stories.

Other former curators interviewed by Gizmodo denied consciously suppressing conservative news, and we were unable to determine if left-wing news topics or sources were similarly suppressed. The conservative curator described the omissions as a function of his colleagues’ judgements; there is no evidence that Facebook management mandated or was even aware of any political bias at work.

Managers on the trending news team did, however, explicitly instruct curators to artificially manipulate the trending module in a different way: When users weren’t reading stories that management viewed as important, several former workers said, curators were told to put them in the trending news feed anyway. Several former curators described using something called an “injection tool” to push topics into the trending module that weren’t organically being shared or discussed enough to warrant inclusion—putting the headlines in front of thousands of readers rather than allowing stories to surface on their own. In some cases, after a topic was injected, it actually became the number one trending news topic on Facebook.

“We were told that if we saw something, a news story that was on the front page of these ten sites, like CNN, the New York Times, and BBC, then we could inject the topic,” said one former curator. “If it looked like it had enough news sites covering the story, we could inject it—even if it wasn’t naturally trending.” Sometimes, breaking news would be injected because it wasn’t attaining critical mass on Facebook quickly enough to be deemed “trending” by the algorithm. Former curators cited the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 and the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris as two instances in which non-trending stories were forced into the module. Facebook has struggled to compete (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/aug/12/facebook-testing-breaking-news-app-twitter) with Twitter when it comes to delivering real-time news to users; the injection tool may have been designed to artificially correct for that deficiency in the network. “We would get yelled at if it was all over Twitter and not on Facebook,” one former curator said.

“Facebook got a lot of pressure about not having a trending topic for Black Lives Matter.”

In other instances, curators would inject a story—even if it wasn’t being widely discussed on Facebook—because it was deemed important for making the network look like a place where people talked about hard news. “People stopped caring about Syria,” one former curator said. “[And] if it wasn’t trending on Facebook, it would make Facebook look bad.” That same curator said the Black Lives Matter movement was also injected into Facebook’s trending news module. “Facebook got a lot of pressure about not having a trending topic for Black Lives Matter,” the individual said. “They realized it was a problem, and they boosted it in the ordering. They gave it preference over other topics. When we injected it, everyone started saying, ‘Yeah, now I’m seeing it as number one’.” This particular injection is especially noteworthy because the #BlackLivesMatter movement originated on Facebook, and the ensuing media coverage of the movement often noted its powerful social media presence.

(In February, CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressed his support for the movement (http://gizmodo.com/mark-zuckerberg-asks-racist-facebook-employees-to-stop-1761272768) in an internal memo chastising Facebook employees for defacing Black Lives Matter slogans on the company’s internal “signature wall.”)

When stories about Facebook itself would trend organically on the network, news curators used less discretion—they were told not to include these stories at all. “When it was a story about the company, we were told not to touch it,” said one former curator. “It had to be cleared through several channels, even if it was being shared quite a bit. We were told that we should not be putting it on the trending tool.”

(The curators interviewed for this story worked for Facebook across a timespan ranging from mid-2014 to December 2015.)

“We were always cautious about covering Facebook,” said another former curator. “We would always wait to get second level approval before trending something to Facebook. Usually we had the authority to trend anything on our own if it was something involving Facebook, the copy editor would call their manager, and that manager might even call their manager before approving a topic involving Facebook.”

Gizmodo reached out to Facebook for comment about each of these specific claims via email and phone, but did not receive a response.

Several former curators said that as the trending news algorithm improved, there were fewer instances of stories being injected. They also said that the trending news process was constantly being changed, so there’s no way to know exactly how the module is run now. But the revelations undermine any presumption of Facebook as a neutral pipeline for news (http://recode.net/2015/08/21/how-facebook-decides-whats-trending/), or the trending news module as an algorithmically-driven list of what people are actually talking about.

Rather, Facebook’s efforts to play the news game reveal the company to be much like the news outlets it is rapidly driving toward irrelevancy: a select group of professionals with vaguely center-left sensibilities. It just happens to be one that poses as a neutral reflection of the vox populi, has the power to influence what billions of users see, and openly discusses (http://gizmodo.com/facebook-employees-asked-mark-zuckerberg-if-they-should-1771012990) whether it should use that power to influence presidential elections.

“It wasn’t trending news at all,” said the former curator who logged conservative news omissions. “It was an opinion.”

[Disclosure: Facebook has launched a program that pays publishers, including the New York Times and Buzzfeed, to produce videos for its Facebook Live tool. Gawker Media, Gizmodo’s parent company, recently joined that program.]

[B]Update: Several hours after this report was published, Gizmodo editors started seeing it as a topic in Facebook’s trending section. Gizmodo’s video was posted under the topic but the “Top Posts” were links to RedState.com and the Faith and Freedom Coalition.


https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--mLQ_hUpY--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_320/jzrbpkhgqijwnbbv6xp9.png


Update 4:10 p.m. EST: A Facebook spokesperson has issued the following statement to outlets including BuzzFeed and TechCrunch (http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/09/facebook-workers/). Facebook has not responded to Gizmodo’s repeated requests for comment.




“We take allegations of bias very seriously. Facebook is a platform for people and perspectives from across the political spectrum. Trending Topics shows you the popular topics and hashtags that are being talked about on Facebook. There are rigorous guidelines in place for the review team to ensure consistency and neutrality. These guidelines do not permit the suppression of political perspectives. Nor do they permit the prioritization of one viewpoint over another or one news outlet over another. These guidelines do not prohibit any news outlet from appearing in Trending Topics.”

Update May 10, 8:50 a.m. EST: The following statement was posted by Vice President of Search at Facebook, Tom Stocky, late last night. It was liked by both Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg:




My team is responsible for Trending Topics, and I want to address today’s reports alleging that Facebook contractors manipulated Trending Topics to suppress stories of interest to conservatives. We take these reports extremely seriously, and have found no evidence that the anonymous allegations are true.

Facebook is a platform for people and perspectives from across the political spectrum. There are rigorous guidelines in place for the review team to ensure consistency and neutrality. These guidelines do not permit the suppression of political perspectives. Nor do they permit the prioritization of one viewpoint over another or one news outlet over another. These guidelines do not prohibit any news outlet from appearing in Trending Topics.

Trending Topics is designed to showcase the current conversation happening on Facebook. Popular topics are first surfaced by an algorithm, then audited by review team members to confirm that the topics are in fact trending news in the real world and not, for example, similar-sounding topics or misnomers.

We are proud that, in 2015, the US election was the most talked-about subject on Facebook, and we want to encourage that robust political discussion from all sides. We have in place strict guidelines for our trending topic reviewers as they audit topics surfaced algorithmically: reviewers are required to accept topics that reflect real world events, and are instructed to disregard junk or duplicate topics, hoaxes, or subjects with insufficient sources. Facebook does not allow or advise our reviewers to systematically discriminate against sources of any ideological origin and we’ve designed our tools to make that technically not feasible. At the same time, our reviewers’ actions are logged and reviewed, and violating our guidelines is a fireable offense.

There have been other anonymous allegations — for instance that we artificially forced ‪#‎BlackLivesMatter‬ to trend. We looked into that charge and found that it is untrue. We do not insert stories artificially into trending topics, and do not instruct our reviewers to do so. Our guidelines do permit reviewers to take steps to make topics more coherent, such as combining related topics into a single event (such as ‪#‎starwars‬ and‪#‎maythefourthbewithyou‬), to deliver a more integrated experience.

Our review guidelines for Trending Topics are under constant review, and we will continue to look for improvements. We will also keep looking into any questions about Trending Topics to ensure that people are matched with the stories that are predicted to be the most interesting to them, and to be sure that our methods are as neutral and effective as possible.

[norman]

Richie Allen "Facebook Has Kettled The Alternative Media Into A Place Where We Can Be Controlled Easily."http://i1371.photobucket.com/albums/ag289/mclies2/Likevolutionmedium_zpskt8gnjdz.jpg
* Spicy language warning *

8cmVZkUdYFE

[Chris Gilbert]

I try to limit my weekly Facebook posts, focusing on what is most useful and edifying for the things me and my closest companions in spirit resonate on. It's very easy to waste time on social media, and it's really not a good format for discussing things in depth either.

[DebJoy]

I'm quitting Facebook for several months, probably permanently. As I posted in another thread (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?95316-How-To-Wake-Up-When-You-Don-t-Even-Know-You-re-Asleep) recently,

"Take action of correcting what we've already woken up to. I had a dream a while back, and at the end of remembering the dream, this message came through loud and clear, "You're complicit in agreeing to stay asleep when you agree to go along with the insanity"."

I've woken up to the insanity of Facebook even though I see the some value of activism on Facebook - I'd been active in several groups that had topics/issues/causes that were very important to me and I believe have been instrumental in creating powerful momentum. It was a nice way to stay in touch with many friends, sharing photos and updates, by being able to connect with all of them in one post. However, Facebook can be a time-suck and addictive and attracts too much triviality. The trolls are obnoxious, persistent and they are everywhere spouting idiocy - the infestation is calculated, controlled and paid for. Facebook has become more intrusive into our privacy (did you know that Facebook still collects information about you and your computer activities EVEN by operating in the background when you've signed off Facebook), and exercises inappropriate censorship (many of the groups I follow have been banned from Facebook for 30 days etc. and it's obvious that the only reason is censoring non-preferred communication. Plus it censors inappropriately what actually shows on my feed). And since you are continuing to use Facebook, you are continuing to agree to their "non-privacy" policies - Facebook has revamped many of their privacy (non-privacy) standards in the past, and not notified their users; when they were called on it, their response was simply a "whoops" and they never withdrew their intrusions. Did you know that they have often reset any of your chosen privacy protocols and never notified you?

Facebook makes you think you are "connected" with people but in many ways you are NOT - it is a mockery of what true connection is. (I could go on regarding this - sad to see people together in a group, not talking with each other, and simply Facebooking/texting. Really?) Facebook's also a large part of MSM, with its aggressive posturing with ads, preferred posting, censorship, etc. I see the effects of the MSM's relentless campaign (including Facebook) against Donald Trump during this past year, and the current hysteria being expressed by so many is strong evidence that their ad (mind control) campaign worked on too many people, who are totally clueless how they are being manipulated.

So there are pluses and minuses. I could go crazy analyzing it all. Yes, stay for these reasons. No, leave for these reasons. Back and forth I could go.

But the other day, I had a sudden intuitive urge to leave so I'm leaving. For now. I'll reassess in several months. But give myself plenty of time to detox, and reorder how I communicate online. Project Avalon will be a vital part of that connection. Most of you seem reasonable... :happythumbsup: And I'll be alert to not substituting one addiction for another - darn, I guess chocolate is off the list (except for some nibbles of that gorgeous, sugar-free dark chocolate we get here in Ecuador).

I'm collecting my info off of Facebook, connecting with groups/causes by subscribing to their website email notifications, and asking for friends' updated emails. I will also be asking my husband (IT proficient) to go in and remove all the hooks and ways that Facebook is sucking my private information off of my computer / Kindle / phone. And I will ask him to recheck that those insidious hooks are still removed after my next Windows update.

This thread was started some time ago. I'm very curious where many of you are at now, and get your updates regarding your Facebook participation/non-participation.

[Bill Ryan]

Facebook makes you think you are "connected" with people but in many ways you are NOT - it is a mockery of what true connection is.

Exactly, and Amen. :)

[Eram]

Facebook makes you think you are "connected" with people but in many ways you are NOT - it is a mockery of what true connection is.

Exactly, and Amen. :)

Not agreed.

Facebook, just as this Project avalon website enables people to connect. for real!

Yes, it is different than real life connections, since you don't smell the sweat, see the subtle body language that transfers about .. I don't know.. 80% of communication between people?, see the clothes that they wear, and all other imput that activate the senses.
Yet... it is real, just in another fashion.

On top of that, the way that facebook is set up, combined with the drive that is most dominant in most people, .... it invites for very superficial communications. Still, they are real.

People connect through the internet in ways that were impossible before.

In many ways, synthetic telepathy is being born.

[DebJoy]

Facebook makes you think you are "connected" with people but in many ways you are NOT - it is a mockery of what true connection is.

Exactly, and Amen. :)


Not agreed.

Facebook, just as this Project avalon website enables people to connect. for real!

Yes, it is different than real life connections, since you don't smell the sweat, see the subtle body language that transfers about .. I don't know.. 80% of communication between people?, see the clothes that they wear, and all other imput that activate the senses.
Yet... it is real, just in another fashion.

On top of that, the way that facebook is set up, combined with the drive that is most dominant in most people, .... it invites for very superficial communications. Still, they are real.

People connect through the internet in ways that were impossible before.

In many ways, synthetic telepathy is being born.


I agree with you that there is connection, but at a VERY superficial level. And that we are connected in ways we couldn't be before. I don't want superficial connections. I also feel it's connection at the expense of not having REAL in-person connection. I think it's a trap, that too many will not navigate well, so they gain the benefits without being sucked into the negatives. To be more specific, too many people have too much Facebook so-called "connection" and don't connect with REAL people in REAL-life situations. They can post, with impunity, things that they would never say to someone in person. They haven't really CONNECTED (most of the time) with someone when it's just witty memes, tirades, insults or compliments.

I feel like I'm trading in Facebook for a challenge to really connect in-person and online, without my privacy invaded, without censorship invoked. And it's an experiment - I'm curious what the experience will be, and how awakened I will become to other possibilities and what Facebook has been truly about for me. And then I will INTUITIVELY take the next step to return to Facebook in some capacity or continue my alternative path.

I don't like the idea of "synthetic telepathy" - feels fake to me, as though we've substituted that for the real spiritual growth that would enable true telepathy to blossom.

[Eram]

I agree with you that there is connection, but at a VERY superficial level. And that we are connected in ways we couldn't be before. I don't want superficial connections. I also feel it's connection at the expense of not having REAL in-person connection. I think it's a trap, that too many will not navigate well, so they gain the benefits without being sucked into the negatives. To be more specific, too many people have too much Facebook so-called "connection" and don't connect with REAL people in REAL-life situations. They can post, with impunity, things that they would never say to someone in person. They haven't really CONNECTED (most of the time) with someone when it's just witty memes, tirades, insults or compliments.

I feel like I'm trading in Facebook for a challenge to really connect in-person and online, without my privacy invaded, without censorship invoked. And it's an experiment - I'm curious what the experience will be, and how awakened I will become to other possibilities and what Facebook has been truly about for me. And then I will INTUITIVELY take the next step to return to Facebook in some capacity or continue my alternative path.

I don't like the idea of "synthetic telepathy" - feels fake to me, as though we've substituted that for the real spiritual growth that would enable true telepathy to blossom.


I see now that I did not read your post correct when I wrote a reply to it.
I read: "facebook makes you think you are connected to people, but you are not".

so, my strong objection was based on wrong conclusions.
my apologies.


Still, it is my experience that real connections that we also make here on Avalon are possible on facebook.

You just have to be at the right place.
There are many "groups" there where people meet who seek deeper contact then just share what kind of cake you baked for your kid who has its birthday I
(and even that is of some value imo).

I am aware of the dangers of facebook, but don't want to succumb to demonization.
Humanity seems to be doing that at a growing pace every day now. :o

[DebJoy]

Thanks Eram, for your post, and your clarifications. And I agree with you, that in persuing online connections, that it is good to aim for deeper contact. And I too like the lighter frivolous stuff.

Do you think it's demonization to call out the negative foundations/ground rules upon which Facebook is built (privacy invasion, slanted censorship to name just 2) and refuse to participate? I think good people are very hesitant to call out "crap" (best short term I could come up with) because they wish to allow all to have the freedoms they enjoy. However, I believe it is also important for good people to call the "spade a spade" or a "shovel a shovel" (which is what I always thought it meant - to call it for what it is), and refuse to be compromised slowly (like the frog in water example, with the temp slowly raised, until the frog is cooked, but unaware it's happening til too late). Too many people have agreed to have their privacy compromised (do you REALLY want Facebook to have access to your private information stored on your computer - read the Terms of Agreement) and brush off the blatant censorship because it's more important for them to have the birthday cake photos, and easy updates with their friends, and the all-important activism communications - so then WE are complicit in allowing it all to continue without protest.

[Bill Ryan]

:bump:

I do think this thread might be usefully bumped.

I was listening to Owen Shroyer hosting the Infowars radio show a few minutes ago. He and his guest shared a story about a couple who were suspicious about how Facebook monitored people. So they did an experiment.

They didn't have a cat — and had never posted or e-mailed anyone about a cat, or any cat. So they started talking to each other about their [fictitious] cat, in their home. "Our cat is almost out of cat food", "We've got to go buy more food for the cat" — etc, etc.

Next day, they were being shown advertisements for cat food on Facebook.

Listen here: :)


http://projectavalon.net/Facebook_monitoring.mp3 (90 seconds, 1 Mb)

This was an anecdote told on air, so it might not be exact. Can anyone find a definitive reference?

[Michelle Marie]

The guys in the audio said one guy hadFacebook on his phone. I wonder if you have to be logged in?

Also, they said you gave permission for Facebook to have access to you other apps. I don't have any apps. Does that help?

I have a Facebook account, but rarely log in or use it. It seems almost impossible to delete it. Also, I've had a strong influence to use it for marketing, which I did in the past, but have stopped that. It might be useful, though, and with Google and other Internet use age such as YouTube or Skype, it seems that the information gets out there anyway. Their data mining and fusion centers are quite insidious.

How can one really withdraw or be protected from all of that? What is the best security advice?

(I will go back and review the thread, as I haven't been on it for awhile.)

Thanks, Bill.
Michelle Marie

[Noelle]

:bump:

I do think this thread might be usefully bumped.

I was listening to Owen Shroyer hosting the Infowars radio show a few minutes ago. He and his guest shared a story about a couple who were suspicious about how Facebook monitored people. So they did an experiment.

They didn't have a cat — and had never posted or e-mailed anyone about a cat, or any cat. So they started talking to each other about their [fictitious] cat, in their home. "Our cat is almost out of cat food", "We've got to go buy more food for the cat" — etc, etc.

Next day, they were being shown advertisements for cat food on Facebook.

Listen here: :)


http://projectavalon.net/Facebook_monitoring.mp3 (90 seconds, 1 Mb)

This was an anecdote told on air, so it might not be exact. Can anyone find a definitive reference?

That just happened to me about two weeks ago. I don't really use Facebook. I deactivated my account a while ago but activated it again to connect with a local lost and found pet group to help my daughter's boyfriend find his missing cat. Anyhow, one evening in October, my husband came back from his jog. He was upset because his Bluetooth headset broke and now he had to get a new one. Neither one of us were on a device. We were just standing in the kitchen talking. The next morning, I went on FB to scan the new found cat posts in that group, and I saw ads for Bluetooth headsets. My husband does not have a FB account, never has, and I have never shopped for any Bluetooth device. A few days later, he was online window shopping for biking gear; the next day, I saw ads for the same products he was looking at.

[sunwings]

The other day I was discussing my friends legal problems over the coffee table. The following day my sidebar in Facebook was full of Lawyer adverts. I freaked out.

https://www.vpnranks.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/NSA-MEME1.jpg

[Charles Harris]

My wife has been saying for years how her Phone is listening to her.

[Bill Ryan]

I thought it was appropriate to post this:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGEQmFL9McU

It's a good video, with a huge amount of truth that we might all benefit from meditating on.

But here's the irony. :)

It came to my attention because the guy who made it contacted me yesterday with this marketing e-mail:





My name is Peter McBryde, I'm the main editor over at VPN Streamer.

I'm getting in touch because I really liked your article (this one: http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?90241-You--ve-Woken-Up--Now-What&p=1063189) and was keen to share it on my social media. I have 2k+ Facebook, 2k+ Twitter, 3k Pinterest followers

I also noticed that in your article you link out to a page from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGEQmFL9McU. I've actually published a similar post on deleting Facebook. If you check it out, I think you'll find that my post is a lot more comprehensive and updated.

So I was thinking that my post might make a great addition to your article.

If you were willing to add a link to my post, I'd be more than happy to feature your post on my social media accounts in exchange. I'm sure you'd get some nice publicity.

Here is the link for your review:
https://vpnstreamer.com.au/delete-facebook (https://vpnstreamer.com.au/delete-facebook/)

Maybe he forgot his message. We should all be on guard against becoming what we so much dislike.

[gaiagirl]

Slightly off topic in that Facebook was not involved (feel free to move mods) but about a month ago a girlfriend of mine gave me a sofa...we never texted about it but did speak over the phone and in the presence of our phones (her iPhone, my Android)

The day she dropped it off at my apartment my phone started showing me advertisements (during a game I play) for upholstery...completely freaked me out...

[lloyds]

i had the same thing happen to me and a mate. we were talking about rain water tanks for his farm, i never googled or searched anything and my phone started hammering me with water starage and rain water tank ads.

:peep:

[Skapegoat]

I became a targeted individual because of Facebook. A warning it can be a dangerous social media site if you are not careful.

[Bill Ryan]

I became a targeted individual because of Facebook. A warning it can be a dangerous social media site if you are not careful.

Thanks... but maybe not all that useful a warning unless you can spell out in detail how you think that happened. Can you say more?

(Note: I'm no fan of Facebook, don't use it, and am 100% distrustful of it. But hard information is what will set us free.)

[silverfish]

I have recently created an instagram account to promote an oracle deck that I have created. I am using it more as a gallery of the art work so as I was posting the images and writing up the words that accompany them I became very aware that I was feeding the machine (or feeding something ) i could see my phone responding in changes in predictive text and it felt like my words were little seeds being dropped into an abiss and i saw them land and grow . it felt very strong that we have an opportunity here. I don't really know how to say this but the people who run these systems of monitoring are not the systems themselves and if we back away with our input the system is only fed by one side as it were (there side) ....
sorry am struggling to say what I mean it just felt important to say that we are the ones feeding this system so maybe we can guide this somewhat ??

[petra]

I could guess where it's going? Thinking into the computer just sounds like a bad idea to me.

[sllim11]

a girlfriend of mine had ordered a top online and i was with her when she got the package. she took it out tried it on... blah blah blah.. decided she would send it back. the next time i went on my ipad there was an advert for the exact top from the same place she got hers from.... super creepy.

[BMJ]

And just as an aside, in Australia we have "Google Home", ( I do not know if this has gone global yet), now for a mere $199.00 you can have the privilege of big brother/Cyberdyne Systems constant presence in your home.

Google Home will answer all your questions, give you the news, play your favourite tunes, remind you of appointments, interface with your Smart Home and allow you to easily and comfortably to slip further into a comatose state and stop wasting your brain cells on thought.

All the while gathering intel on every aspect of your life, and only for a mere $199.00 excluding tax and delivery charges.

Link: https://store.google.com/product/google_home

[Bill Ryan]

From https://infowars.com/ex-facebook-president-warns-app-exploits-psychological-vulnerability

Ex-Facebook President Warns App Exploits Psychological ‘Vulnerability’

The Facebook social networking website is designed to prey on a psychological “vulnerability,” the company’s former president recently warned.

Speaking at an Axios (https://www.axios.com/sean-parker-unloads-on-facebook-2508036343.html) event Wednesday, Facebook’s first president, Sean Parker, said the app used by over two billion people around the world takes advantage of human psychology and the need for social-validation, and is possibly re-wiring human brains.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN8I9bl3Nvk“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?'” Parker said.

The billionaire also revealed the company proceeded with their exploitation of the human mind despite signs the website altered one’s “relationship with society,” and could be negatively affecting children.

“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 app, Parker explained, plays off human psychological needs, effectively exploiting a feedback loop every time a person’s content receives likes, shares or comments, encouraging them to use the app more frequently.

“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.”

While Facebook developers and creators, including company CEO Mark Zuckerberg, were aware of the website’s potential to essentially control one’s mind, Parker says they did nothing to change it.

“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.”

Parker now heads up a cancer research institute and claims he’s become a social media “conscientious objector.”

[bluestflame]

like they been caught out in the past manipulating news feed stories to filter out positive under guise of "research"


( but facebook will always be freeeee)

¤=[Post Update]=¤


I have recently created an instagram account to promote an oracle deck that I have created. I am using it more as a gallery of the art work so as I was posting the images and writing up the words that accompany them I became very aware that I was feeding the machine (or feeding something ) i could see my phone responding in changes in predictive text and it felt like my words were little seeds being dropped into an abiss and i saw them land and grow . it felt very strong that we have an opportunity here. I don't really know how to say this but the people who run these systems of monitoring are not the systems themselves and if we back away with our input the system is only fed by one side as it were (there side) ....
sorry am struggling to say what I mean it just felt important to say that we are the ones feeding this system so maybe we can guide this somewhat ??

yeah i rekon "jadehelm" was already global before the more localised event ( indicating the problem is far worse than we've been lead to believe)

[Spellbound]

Facebook is the devil I tell yas. Up there with Twitter...and i-phones.

Dave - Toronto

[Spellbound]

I thought it was appropriate to post this:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGEQmFL9McU

It's a good video, with a huge amount of truth that we might all benefit from meditating on.

But here's the irony. :)

It came to my attention because the guy who made it contacted me yesterday with this marketing e-mail:





My name is Peter McBryde, I'm the main editor over at VPN Streamer.

I'm getting in touch because I really liked your article (this one: http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?90241-You--ve-Woken-Up--Now-What&p=1063189) and was keen to share it on my social media. I have 2k+ Facebook, 2k+ Twitter, 3k Pinterest followers

I also noticed that in your article you link out to a page from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGEQmFL9McU. I've actually published a similar post on deleting Facebook. If you check it out, I think you'll find that my post is a lot more comprehensive and updated.

So I was thinking that my post might make a great addition to your article.

If you were willing to add a link to my post, I'd be more than happy to feature your post on my social media accounts in exchange. I'm sure you'd get some nice publicity.

Here is the link for your review:
https://vpnstreamer.com.au/delete-facebook (https://vpnstreamer.com.au/delete-facebook/)

Maybe he forgot his message. We should all be on guard against becoming what we so much dislike.

Great video here. I've never had a Facebook account and I never will. Thx for posting, Bill.

Dave - Toronto

[DNA]

I did facebook for a little while and dropped it about a year and a half ago.
There are of course a plethora of reasons for doing so, but the most important reason for myself is rather nebulous.
I just didn't like the way facebook made me feel.
I would sit down and intend on just spending a few minutes only to look up and see that hours had gone by.
I would also find myself getting irrationally upset when I was interrupted while on it.
I'm of the opinion that something nefarious involving brainwave manipulation is going on here.
This is a completely unfounded opinion, but there it is. :)

[happyuk]

What turns me off Facebook is more mundane - it's the observation of its average protagonist being a shallow vacuous moron. To hell with Facebook, not doing it

[Bill Ryan]

...it's the observation of its average protagonist being a shallow vacuous moron.

That begs a comment which I should maybe better redact! :bigsmile:

:focus:

[happyuk]

...it's the observation of its average protagonist being a shallow vacuous moron.

That begs a comment which I should maybe better redact! :bigsmile:

:focus:

The net has tons of examples like these. Please have a gander if you ever need cheering up (or maybe the opposite...). No. 4 really takes the biscuit.

http://www.collegehumor.com/post/7041262/16-moronic-facebook-posts-that-prove-not-everyone-should-breed

Seriously, while Facebook is a "platform" for flummery, foolishness and flim-flam, my main source of displeasure, what is more concerning is the way Facebook censors content which leads to written discussions:

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/05/21/facebook-bans-canadian-commentator-for-saying-it-targets-conservatives/

This trend towards non-reading is only being encouraged by this dismal company. A librarian at a major American university confirmed that students who amble down to the "learning center" do not do so to study books, but to engage with their "devices" in pleasant surroundings. Trendy educational theory has been discouraging real books and critical thinking for some time,

[Mutchie]

I live in Aberdeen / Scotland if i get on public transport no one is talking infact most people have their heads fixed on a SMART PHONE & some sad individuals will text you when your sitting within earshot... And then we have facebook some people live their whole lives on social media they even post what they have for dinner etc its something which is not really bringing us closer its changing society and not for the better !!!! im just living in one small city this repeats itself the world over ....WOW WHAT ARE WE BECOMING ? Artificial intelligence will we bond with machine ? Is this our destiny ?

[mojo]

Interesting always wished to keep a small electronic footprint therefore avoided FB even though there was a push by others to be a part. Already had plenty of public exposure with youtube and the forum provided more than enough offerings to fulfill any other desire of social media. The forum even has a members only section that is really nice and thank you Bill, et al. It's been a mixed bag in terms of positive and negative experience and if personally had to start over would have sent all the video evidence to another well known researcher to be spokesperson rather than being a part of the story. I truly understand why some would keep their experiences private yet if that would be the case we would not understand all about the universe and life and people. Now there are new studies out about how people have become addicted affected negatively in their mental well being. The article reported even the inventors knew of the dangers.

[Flash]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HffWFd_6bJ0

[sllim11]

S y n o p s i s

"Are we living in a social dystopian future where our lives are molded into a digital connection where everyone is constantly rating everyone else and a person's average rating ends up dictating how they're in turn treated by the people around them? Are we becoming addicted to social media validation. Did you know only 4% of the information on the world wide web is available to a search engine? Where is the other 96%.? Did you know artificial intelligence is learning to read your mind and display what it sees: A computer guesses what people are watching based on brain activity. Let's muse the possibilities when we combine intuition, digital age technologies and human consciousness."

eF7dZ5U1TOg

[Spiral]

If you are on facebook, as your self or using a fake name (oh yes you can do this) then you really need to ad something like ghostery to your browser to stop fb following you around the internet.

https://www.ghostery.com/

The social meja aspect I really don't get at all, the groups kinda make sense for some things, but anyway it's almost certain the likes of the NSA are following all of us regardless, we all have ip addresses & internet providers.

[Spellbound]

I don't have a Facebook account but I do use Ghostery. I certainly don't trust Facebook...but I don't trust Google either.

Dave - Toronto

[sunwings]

This was posted by a popular comical Instagramer to his 14 million followers. (side note he posts the funniest things.) Anyway this is exactly what we are talking about here. What is interesting are the 17,000 comments all confirming this phenomena . Obviously I have not gone through them all (17,000):sherlock: but here are a few I picked out.

what we always talk about lol creepy

true, but not cool 😎

this was it haha.. still has me ****ed up

his happens all the time!

How appropriate timing all these people laughing, ****'s not funny, ****'s serious. We're being spied on, we're being manipulated. #****Zuck


36447

https://www.instagram.com/p/BbUsHCmFJBf/?hl=en&taken-by=****jerry

[sunwings]

Is Facebook Spying on us via listening to our Conversations?

This is the Cat food experiment which was mentioned earlier on the thread.

Mc790cKEBmQ

[Flash]

Facebook definitely, in my opinion, has algorithms to spy on our written words. However, there is definitely a much farther reach that facebook and google have.

One week ago, i wrote in a private thread here that I was newly retired. No where else did I write this. Not even private handwriting in my personal journal for example.

Well, guess: I started receiving adds on my facebook page on retirement. I had never mention this on my facebook page. Nor anywhere else.

Absolutely scary this incredible reach in one’s private life!!

It also told me that our lovely forum is under surveillance. They are just not bright enough not to let us know.

It also told me that the information gathered by three letters agencies are not stored until retrieved only if we do something wrong, laying dormant for most of us.

It told me that the information gathered on each of us is immediately transfered for commercial use. So, facebook pays to get it and makes billions selling it. Same with google and all.

We are milked from all possible sides.


Is Facebook Spying on us via listening to our Conversations?

This is the Cat food experiment which was mentioned earlier on the thread.

Mc790cKEBmQ

[Hervé]

[...]
One week ago, i wrote in a private thread here that I was newly retired. No where else did I write this. Not even private handwriting in my personal journal for example.

Well, guess: I started receiving adds on my facebook page on retirement. I had never mention this on my facebook page. Nor anywhere else.
[...]
Not that "their" snooping-around abilities is to be underestimated (private fora are not "Google searchable"), but, to ascertain there are no other "trails", could it also be that said retirement news/info comes from official/government paperwork/filing (or any phone conversation (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?88051-The-Problems-with-Facebook&p=1194352&viewfull=1#post1194352)?)?

[Noelle]

Facebook definitely, in my opinion, has algorithms to spy on our written words. However, there is definitely a much farther reach that facebook and google have.

One week ago, i wrote in a private thread here that I was newly retired. No where else did I write this. Not even private handwriting in my personal journal for example.

Well, guess: I started receiving adds on my facebook page on retirement. I had never mention this on my facebook page. Nor anywhere else.

Absolutely scary this incredible reach in one’s private life!!

It also told me that our lovely forum is under surveillance. They are just not bright enough not to let us know.

It also told me that the information gathered by three letters agencies are not stored until retrieved only if we do something wrong, laying dormant for most of us.

It told me that the information gathered on each of us is immediately transfered for commercial use. So, facebook pays to get it and makes billions selling it. Same with google and all.

We are milked from all possible sides.


Is Facebook Spying on us via listening to our Conversations?

This is the Cat food experiment which was mentioned earlier on the thread.



Although not related to Facebook but definitely connected to your post, Microsoft must be spying on our written words too. Why do I think this? A couple of years ago, I had an OBE in which I came out of some underground passage way (or portal), along with a small group of others in Dubai City. Mind you, at that time, I knew almost zero about this city. At one point in my experience, I am trying to find Burj Khalifa, the city's tallest building, which, like the city, I knew almost nothing about -- not even its name -- up until this experience. But I am having trouble seeing it. It was very foggy, making it hard for me to see anything.

After the experience, I recorded what I remembered in my journal, which is a MS Word document. One day maybe a year later, after getting the Windows 10 update for the first time, the background image on the password/sign-in screen showed a photo of a modern city with tall skyscrapers shrouded in fog. It was an aerial photo, probably taken from a helicopter. It looked familiar, and, after digging, I discovered it was Dubai City. Only within the last few months have I questioned how and why I was delivered that photo. Something reading my journal?

[Flash]

[...]
One week ago, i wrote in a private thread here that I was newly retired. No where else did I write this. Not even private handwriting in my personal journal for example.

Well, guess: I started receiving adds on my facebook page on retirement. I had never mention this on my facebook page. Nor anywhere else.
[...]
Not that "their" snooping-around abilities is to be underestimated (private fora are not "Google searchable"), but, to ascertain there are no other "trails", could it also be that said retirement news/info comes from official/government paperwork/filing (or any phone conversation (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?88051-The-Problems-with-Facebook&p=1194352&viewfull=1#post1194352)?)?

NOOOO - nothing is filled yet, and it won't for a while until my unemployment insurance runs off. However, the chance of getting a job at my age are about nil for one, and second, my Facebook page list me as being 10 years younger - I did this in order to have jobs and contracts, knowing that Facebook pages are checked.
( and yes, I do look 10 years younger and my brain is still sharp - chuckle chuckle)

So no, it cannot be paperwork or my age on Facebook.

Phone conversations, yes.... it could be the source, on Apple IPhone though - not google Android, but if it is the source, it is still very scary this cross information given to private enterprise for corporate advertising..

[Foxie Loxie]

LadyM....I still use pen & paper for my own journal!!! :ROFL: That IS weird about the photo! :crazy:

[Noelle]

LadyM....I still use pen & paper for my own journal!!! :ROFL: That IS weird about the photo! :crazy:

I am in the process of going back to paper/pen. :sad:

[Franny]

That reminds me of an old, now defunct website called f***microsoft.com from 2003 or 04 perhaps. It was a very disgruntled ex-employee that said he knew for certain that when updating windows that MS would scan your Documents folder. He also mentioned some files that could be removed from windows libraries that would prove and stop this. He advised to place all documents in your own created folder rather than the MS provided official "Documents" folder, and many others tidbits of info long forgotten.

He also mentioned that Windows had a 'backdoor' for govt agencies from Win95 on, and other systems quickly added them. It's everywhere as we know by now.

BTW, I tried the cat food test only I mentioned dog food several times. I stated seeing dog food ads after 2 days.




Although not related to Facebook but definitely connected to your post, Microsoft must be spying on our written words too. Why do I think this? A couple of years ago, I had an OBE in which I came out of some underground passage way (or portal), along with a small group of others in Dubai City. Mind you, at that time, I knew almost zero about this city. At one point in my experience, I am trying to find Burj Khalifa, the city's tallest building, which, like the city, I knew almost nothing about -- not even its name -- up until this experience. But I am having trouble seeing it. It was very foggy, making it hard for me to see anything.

After the experience, I recorded what I remembered in my journal, which is a MS Word document. One day maybe a year later, after getting the Windows 10 update for the first time, the background image on the password/sign-in screen showed a photo of a modern city with tall skyscrapers shrouded in fog. It was an aerial photo, probably taken from a helicopter. It looked familiar, and, after digging, I discovered it was Dubai City. Only within the last few months have I questioned how and why I was delivered that photo. Something reading my journal?

[Noelle]

That reminds me of an old, now defunct website called f***microsoft.com from 2003 or 04 perhaps. It was a very disgruntled ex-employee that said he knew for certain that when updating windows that MS would scan your Documents folder. He also mentioned some files that could be removed from windows libraries that would prove and stop this. He advised to place all documents in your own created folder rather than the MS provided official "Documents" folder, and many others tidbits of info long forgotten.

He also mentioned that Windows had a 'backdoor' for govt agencies from Win95 on, and other systems quickly added them. It's everywhere as we know by now.

BTW, I tried the cat food test only I mentioned dog food several times. I stated seeing dog food ads after 2 days.




Although not related to Facebook but definitely connected to your post, Microsoft must be spying on our written words too. Why do I think this? A couple of years ago, I had an OBE in which I came out of some underground passage way (or portal), along with a small group of others in Dubai City. Mind you, at that time, I knew almost zero about this city. At one point in my experience, I am trying to find Burj Khalifa, the city's tallest building, which, like the city, I knew almost nothing about -- not even its name -- up until this experience. But I am having trouble seeing it. It was very foggy, making it hard for me to see anything.

After the experience, I recorded what I remembered in my journal, which is a MS Word document. One day maybe a year later, after getting the Windows 10 update for the first time, the background image on the password/sign-in screen showed a photo of a modern city with tall skyscrapers shrouded in fog. It was an aerial photo, probably taken from a helicopter. It looked familiar, and, after digging, I discovered it was Dubai City. Only within the last few months have I questioned how and why I was delivered that photo. Something reading my journal?

Thank you, Latte. Good to know info.

[Bill Ryan]

A fascinating interview with former Facebook Vice President Chamath Palihapitiya. Highly recommended, the whole thing.

I can't endorse all his views, but he's a very honest man. He talks about his Facebook guilt starting at about 21:30.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMotykw0SIk
Adan Salazar, from Infowars, wrote this summary (https://www.infowars.com/former-facebook-vp-social-media-ripping-apart-the-social-fabric-of-society/):

~~~

A former Facebook executive believes social media networks are employing tools that are destroying society’s “social fabric,” the rules of conduct by which people interact in real life.

In a November discussion at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Former Facebook Vice President Chamath Palihapitiya revealed he feels “tremendous guilt” over his role in heading a company which is aiding the destruction of society.

“The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works,” Palihapitiya said, pointing to the insatiable need for “hearts, likes, thumbs-up.”

“No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth. And it’s not an American problem — this is not about Russian ads. This is a global problem,” the venture capitalist stated. “So we are in a really bad state of affairs right now, in my opinion. It is eroding the core foundations of how people behave by and between each other.”

Palihapitiya also highlighted the way social media is able to manipulate mob mentality by referring to an incident in which seven Indian people were lynched due to a WhatsApp hoax.

“That’s what we’re dealing with,” he said. “And imagine taking that to the extreme, where bad actors can now manipulate large swathes of people to do anything you want. It’s just a really, really bad state of affairs.”



“And we compound the problem, right? We curate our lives around this perceived sense of perfection, because we get rewarded in these short-term signals – hearts, likes, thumbs up – and 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 that leaves you even more – and admit it – vacant and empty before you did it, because then it forces you into this vicious cycle where you’re like, ‘What’s the next thing I need to do now? Because I need it back.’ Think about that compounded by two billion people, and then think about how people react then to the perceptions of others.”
“Your behaviors, you don’t realize it, but you are being programmed,” Palihapitiya said. “It was unintentional, but now you got to decide how much you are willing to give up, how much of your intellectual independence.

Similar to how Apple’s Steve Jobs didn’t allow his children to use Ipads (https://www.infowars.com/steve-jobs-to-his-kids-dont-use-ipads/), Palihapitiya referring to Facebook said his children “aren’t allowed to use that sh*t.”

The former Facebook executive’s thoughts follow comments from the network’s first president Sean Parker, who in November revealed he believed the constant need for validation via social media was possibly re-wiring human brains (https://www.infowars.com/ex-facebook-president-warns-app-exploits-psychological-vulnerability/).

“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?’” Parker said at an Axios event.

“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.”

Amid slamming Facebook’s psychological model, Palihapitiya underscored the company “overwhelmingly does good in the world,” while at the same time highlighting the need for users to take “hard breaks” from the app.

[Valerie Villars]

The easiest way to revolutionize society and get rid of Facebook would be to pull the plug. Literally. If there is no electricity, there is no Facebook. That's why books are so valuable.

[happyuk]

No need to break up faecesbook or get rid of it , just get someone with sufficient political clout to get them to use a standard with an open API. Much like browsers, email and everything else internet related before these people got involved who see it as their life's mission to make their company the de-facto web starting silo services.

So, a person who chooses to use Diaspora could add in a contact that they know is a Faecesbook user, and vice versa and continue to see their updates.

[norman]

The BBC just broadcast a program that takes a look at Facebook and talks about the algorythm it uses to provide the news feed users get.

I recorded it and here it is as an mp3 file:

MP3
https://app.box.com/s/g4fnq2zpzb25hoqzpk0m5zv9huntx2ss

[Valerie Villars]

I get icky feelings from any being who uses algorithms to create "a life or lives" so to speak. Totally left brained and demonic. They leave no room for humanity, which of course, they want to destroy. I mean the real humanity of creativity, independence, love, etc.

Father forgive them.

[Hervé]

Ex-CIA Officer: Facebook 'Routinely' Blocking Accounts at US, Israel's Requests (https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201801021060476051-facebook-us-israel-censorship/)

Sputnik Opinion (https://sputniknews.com/analysis/)
16:24 02.01.2018
(updated 16:44 02.01.2018)


https://cdn4.img.sputniknews.com/images/104762/82/1047628240.jpg
© REUTERS/ Mariana Bazo


Facebook and other Silicon Valley firms choose to comply with the requests of Washington and Tel Aviv to delete undesired accounts because they fear US and Israeli influential political elites, Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, has told Sputnik, adding that the practice, which he described as "illegal," has become routine.

Glenn Greenwald's article (https://theintercept.com/2017/12/30/facebook-says-it-is-deleting-accounts-at-the-direction-of-the-u-s-and-israeli-governments/) is completely accurate, Philip Giraldi, a former counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer at the CIA, told Sputnik, commenting on the Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist's recent op-ed which shed light on Facebook's controversial practice of blocking accounts of individuals at the request of the US and Israeli governments.
"The blocking of accounts of people who are on lists maintained by the US government has become routine," Giraldi said. "It is also illegal as the account holders have broken no laws and are in compliance with the rules set up by the sites themselves."
Greenwald raised the alarm over the supposed state censorship exercised by the social networking service against Palestinian activists and Russian officials.

Citing Al Jazeera and The New York Times, the investigative journalist emphasized the alleged mutual consent reached by the Israeli government and Facebook (https://sputniknews.com/science/201712301060438026-dangers-of-facebook-censorship/) which resulted in the closure of numerous accounts and pages of Palestinian individuals and media outlets deemed as "inciting violence."
"That means that Israeli officials have virtually unfettered control over a key communications forum of Palestinians," Greenwald concluded, suggesting that at the same time "calls by Israelis for the killing of Palestinians are commonplace on Facebook, and largely remain undisturbed."
According to the journalist, Facebook's decision to close the account of Ramzan Kadyrov (https://sputniknews.com/world/201712271060354756-kadyrov-facebook-us-sanctions/), the leader of the Chechen Republic, Russia, is similarly "disturbing and dangerous." Greenwald highlighted that while the social media service claims that "Mr. Kadyrov's [Facebook and Instagram] accounts were deactivated because he had just been added to a United States sanctions list and that the company was legally obligated to act," Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro remains active on both platforms despite the fact he is on the same sanctions list.
"Does anyone trust the Trump administration — or any other government — to compel social media platforms to delete and block anyone it wants to be silenced?" Greenwald asked rhetorically.
The CIA veteran says that there is nothing new in what the investigative journalist is describing:

"Those of us in the activist community have long been observing how some articles have been blocked or made to disappear."
"Israel and Jewish groups in the United States have led discussions with Facebook, Google and other sites to restrict what they choose to describe as hate speech. They have been successful, obtaining the agreement of those companies to set up standards that will in effect limit any criticisms of Israel and permit criticism of the Palestinians and other Arabs," Giraldi explained.
He noted that
"the companies can, in fact, do what they want as they are private entities. However, "if the public begins to understand that they are cooperating with governments to censor their product it will hurt their bottom lines as advertisers will go elsewhere," he pointed out.
Commenting on what is behind the Silicon Valley giant's apparent pliability to Washington and Tel Aviv, the ex-CIA officer opined that
"the companies for the most part go along with Israel and the US government because they are fearful that the US government will intervene to regulate the system."

"In the case of Israel, they fear lawsuits from Israel's many and powerful friends in the United States," Giraldi suggested.
Regardless of Donald Trump's assuming office, the United States government has been doing much of the same since the time of the Obama administration, the former intelligence official underscored.


Related:
Pulitzer Winner Exposes Facebook's 'Disturbing, Dangerous Censorship Rampage' at US & Israel's Behest (https://sputniknews.com/science/201712301060438026-dangers-of-facebook-censorship/)

Ex-CIA Officer Explains Why US Media Inflates Impact of Facebook 'Russian Ads' (https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201710041057921429-cia-explains-russia-facebook-ads/)

State Censorship? Silicon Valley Giants Playing Own Game With Trump Administration, Israel (https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201712311060446278-facebook-trump-israel-censorship/)

[Bill Ryan]

From The New York Post, yesterday:


https://nypost.com/2018/01/16/too-much-time-on-facebook-is-ruining-your-mental-health


Too much time on Facebook is ruining your mental health

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg wants to prioritize family and friends over brands. But, he says, that could result in lower user engagement. That’s potentially bad news for investors, but could be good news for excessive Facebook users.

“We’re making a major change to how we build Facebook,” Zuckerberg announced in a blog post on Thursday. (https://www.marketwatch.com/story/facebook-announces-big-changes-that-will-put-friends-ahead-of-business-2018-01-11) “I’m changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions.”

He added, “By making these changes, I expect the time people spend on Facebook and some measures of engagement will go down. But I also expect the time you do spend on Facebook will be more valuable.”

Facebook’s 2 billion users can’t seem to get enough of themselves — or each other. People stay connected with friends and family near and far, share intimate photos, reconnect with friends from college and high school and even rekindle relationships. (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/love-digitally/201507/does-social-media-help-or-hurt-relationships) Last year, the most popular social network on the planet even rolled out (https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/11/getting-our-community-help-in-real-time/) an artificial intelligence suicide prevention program. It aims to detect posts or live videos in which someone might be expressing thoughts of suicide.

But a slew of other studies have said too much Facebook is bad for you. Here are some of the effects of excessive engagement on the site:

So how much time do people spend on Facebook?

American users spend an average of 50 minutes (https://techcrunch.com/2016/04/27/facediction/) a day browsing Facebook, Instagram and Messenger, the company has said. And all that time adds up. Marketing site Mediakix calculated (http://mediakix.com/2016/12/how-much-time-is-spent-on-social-media-lifetime/#gs.Y9y1PiY) all the time spent online for an average user with Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube. Over the course of a person’s life, they would spend 5 years and 4 months on social media instead of interacting with the real world. That only comes second to the 7 years and 8 months people spend watching television in their lifetime.

How does all of that endless scrolling make you feel?

“The use of Facebook was negatively associated with overall well-being,” a 2017 study (https://hbr.org/2017/04/a-new-more-rigorous-study-confirms-the-more-you-use-facebook-the-worse-you-feel) by researchers at Global Public Health at UC San Diego and Human Nature Lab at Yale University found. “These results were particularly strong for mental health; most measures of Facebook use in one year predicted a decrease in mental health in a later year. We found consistently that both liking others’ content and clicking links significantly predicted a subsequent reduction in self-reported physical health, mental health and life satisfaction.”

The researchers looked at data from more than 5,200 adults and examined how their well-being changed depending on their Facebook usage. They looked at life satisfaction, self-reported mental health, self-reported physical health and body-mass index. They measured Facebook use in terms of liking other people’s posts, creating one’s own posts and clicking on links. The researchers then compared this to “real-world social networks” or four friends with whom they spent their free time. Each person could pick up to eight people.

What does excessive Facebook use do to your personality?

This 2017 study published (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166432817305090) in “Behavioral Brain Research” looked at 62 participants over a five-week period and found that a higher daily frequency of checking Facebook was “robustly linked” with smaller gray matter in the nucleus accumbens, which is located in the area of the hypothalamus. This is one area of the brain associated with rewards and, research shows, (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3130622/) “has been implicated in aspects of human drug addiction, including the ability of drug-paired cues to control behavior.” In other words, there’s a theory as to why some people say checking Facebook is addictive.

That’s the question this 2014 study asked. These findings are supported by yet another study published the previous year in “Social Networking,” (http://file.scirp.org/pdf/SN_2014042316520277.pdf) a quarterly academic journal. Posting, tagging and commenting on photos on Facebook were associated with respondents’ self-reported narcissism for both men and women. And posting frequent status updates and sharing links with a greater frequency were specifically linked with more narcissistic tendencies in women. The participants were rated on the Narcissistic Personality Index, a standard psychological test.

[Mike Gorman]

As someone who has been genuinely involved with IT, and the WWW since 1996 I have made a comprehensive study of the internet as a whole. I have made my living from my understanding and abilities with IT- I can provide my full credentials for anyone who is interested.

For me the internet has the potential to completely remove the old power elite, I think we simply don't understand the internet as a society, to me it seems people take it very much for granted already, and they barely know anything about it, and its full potential.

We have a global network. Tim Berners-Lee enabled us to access the power of this network through his invention of linked pages, literally the world-wide-web. He gained no monetary return on his invention, he donated it to humanity. We are ingrates, and dopes if we do not understand the great gift that the internet is.

Communications, this is the principal currency of the internet. We can reach highly specific groups of people on a global scale. This used to be forbidden. Only the favored, mass-media barons had the power to do this, and it used to cost millions!

The mistake we have made, and this is significant, is that we have allowed the same dominance to arise, the same monopolies which gained their power in the 'Broadcast era' to gain communications power through our own stupidity, and sheep-like tendencies.

So, the private ownership of large internet concerns have both shielded it from official control, but also provided the means for us to be once again dominated by wealthy groups & investor power blocs.

The situation is, we can still claw this power back, the wheels are still very much in motion, but we must understand the true nature of the internet, that it allows us to build, and promote our own projects.

The market works to determine if you are successful, but unless you try, and execute on ideas, nothing happens.

Social media, and Facebook is now the largest company/platform is enormously powerful. We have shifted something which was considered 'unshiftable' with it.

The geo/political events since 2016 have finally alerted the power/elite to the real power of alternative/internet based communications. It is up to us to recognize this potential, this latent power and build our own media, promote our own ideas.

Facebook might be all that people are saying, but it is powerful, and it represents a model which we could leverage, we are not powerless, we are not helpless. We can access and use the internet.

[jagman]

Well FB finally pulled me in. I joined fb last week just to find and check up on old friends and family but i already want to leave. So much drama and i only have 16 friends so far.I also dont know FB edicate. Like if someone likes my posts or pics, am I required to like thiers? Plus i find some of the language they use abysmal & raunchy. Not all my friends just some & their friends.plus all the lying, boasting and neediness that takes place.

[Valerie Villars]

Well FB finally pulled me in. I joined fb last week just to find and check up on old friends and family but i already want to leave. So much drama and i only have 16 friends so far.I also dont know FB edicate. Like if someone likes my posts or pics, am I required to like thiers? Plus i find some of the language they use abysmal & raunchy. Not all my friends just some & their friends.plus all the lying, boasting and neediness that takes place.

The biggest lie in your facebook face is that almost everyone is 25 in their photos, with stellar bodies, even when they're 55. It's ridiculous.

[Michelle Marie]

The easiest way to revolutionize society and get rid of Facebook would be to pull the plug. Literally. If there is no electricity, there is no Facebook. That's why books are so valuable.

I'm in book heaven.

If the plug got pulled, I'd just read more than I already do. I was collecting and reading books for 3.5 years with no internet except for coffee shop visits.

My time on FB would not change...ZERO time now; ZERO time then.

I just like PA and email.

Other than that, reading, writing, walking, bike riding, visiting with friends, prayer and meditation time.

It's peaceful. I feel good.

I've been told by a few how valuable FB is like for marketing and stuff, but I just don't feel like going there.

The info on this thread is confirmation for that choice.

Yay! Books!
MM :waving:

[Michelle Marie]

That reminds me of an old, now defunct website called f***microsoft.com from 2003 or 04 perhaps. It was a very disgruntled ex-employee that said he knew for certain that when updating windows that MS would scan your Documents folder. He also mentioned some files that could be removed from windows libraries that would prove and stop this. He advised to place all documents in your own created folder rather than the MS provided official "Documents" folder, and many others tidbits of info long forgotten.

He also mentioned that Windows had a 'backdoor' for govt agencies from Win95 on, and other systems quickly added them. It's everywhere as we know by now.

BTW, I tried the cat food test only I mentioned dog food several times. I stated seeing dog food ads after 2 days.




Although not related to Facebook but definitely connected to your post, Microsoft must be spying on our written words too. Why do I think this? A couple of years ago, I had an OBE in which I came out of some underground passage way (or portal), along with a small group of others in Dubai City. Mind you, at that time, I knew almost zero about this city. At one point in my experience, I am trying to find Burj Khalifa, the city's tallest building, which, like the city, I knew almost nothing about -- not even its name -- up until this experience. But I am having trouble seeing it. It was very foggy, making it hard for me to see anything.

After the experience, I recorded what I remembered in my journal, which is a MS Word document. One day maybe a year later, after getting the Windows 10 update for the first time, the background image on the password/sign-in screen showed a photo of a modern city with tall skyscrapers shrouded in fog. It was an aerial photo, probably taken from a helicopter. It looked familiar, and, after digging, I discovered it was Dubai City. Only within the last few months have I questioned how and why I was delivered that photo. Something reading my journal?

Thank you, Latte. Good to know info.

Wow, I never heard that before, but I've never used their documents folder. I set up my own file management system. I don't use their "libraries" either.

More confirmation.

Weird about your journal entry and that picture, LadyM.

I never had the false notion of any sort of privacy, and I don't allow automatic updates. Supposedly updates are good, but I've always had mixed feelings about them.

Thanks for this info.
MM :flower:

[jagman]

I deleted my facebook acc but they said that it would take 14 days. They also said my account would be deactivated immediately but i could log in during the 14 days if i decided tochange my mind. Man those ppl just wont let you go!

[Valerie Villars]

The easiest way to revolutionize society and get rid of Facebook would be to pull the plug. Literally. If there is no electricity, there is no Facebook. That's why books are so valuable.

I'm in book heaven.

If the plug got pulled, I'd just read more than I already do. I was collecting and reading books for 3.5 years with no internet except for coffee shop visits.

My time on FB would not change...ZERO time now; ZERO time then.

I just like PA and email.

Other than that, reading, writing, walking, bike riding, visiting with friends, prayer and meditation time.

It's peaceful. I feel good.

I've been told by a few how valuable FB is like for marketing and stuff, but I just don't feel like going there.

The info on this thread is confirmation for that choice.

Yay! Books!
MM :waving:

Me too MM. I had to move my VERY extensive library of books and albums, which I started collecting in the 70's, recently. Those items are the biggest pain and the hardest things to move, but I REFUSE to let my books and albums go. My books have always been my best friends. I have a penchant for older, (like 100 years old books) and I have found some astonishing information in some of them. Talk about lost knowledge.

[Foxie Loxie]

Let's hear it for Libraries & books!! :clapping::clapping: Why do you think libraries have been burned or buried down through the centuries?!! :Angel:

[Valerie Villars]

There is something else books have they don't want you to know. Books, ink on paper, often have a spiritual light which infuses the reader. The computer doesn't have it. It goes way back to the original God. Not all the b.s. gods they keep trying to shove down our throats. If trees hold energy, then so do pages of paper and ink. And the words can't be changed in the older books, after the fact. Sort of a reverse mandela effect.

[Hervé]

Download your Facebook user data - you will be surprised by how much informaton they have about you. (https://www.rt.com/news/422268-facebook-data-download-phone-messages/)

RT (https://www.rt.com/news/422268-facebook-data-download-phone-messages/)
Sun, 25 Mar 2018 10:19 UTC


https://www.sott.net/image/s22/458372/large/facebook.jpg (https://www.sott.net/image/s22/458372/full/facebook.jpg)
© Regis Duvignau / Reuters


People are being encouraged to download their Facebook data following concerns about the information the social media giant collects on its users. It seems to include phone calls, text messages and other non-Facebook activity.

New Zealand software developer Dylan McKay highlighted the issue after he downloaded his data from Facebook and found that the company had recorded his text and call data. McKay posted the information to his Twitter feed.




Dylan McKay‏ @dylanmckaynz (https://twitter.com/dylanmckaynz)

Downloaded my facebook data as a ZIP file Somehow it has my entire call history with my partner's mum


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DYzCJV-VAAEeaeG.jpg

1:04 AM - 21 Mar 2018
1,596 replies 38,146 retweets 49,137 likes
The New Zealander said he became curious about how much of his private information the platform had stored following allegations that Cambridge Analytica used the personal data of 50 million Facebook users to target voters during the US presidential election in 2016. Trawling through his files, McKay learned that Facebook had about two years' worth of phone call metadata from his Android phone.




Dylan McKay‏ @dylanmckaynz (https://twitter.com/dylanmckaynz) Mar 21 (https://twitter.com/dylanmckaynz/status/976368845635035138)

Downloaded my facebook data as a ZIP file Somehow it has my entire call history with my partner's mum


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DYzCJV-VAAEeaeG.jpg

1,596 replies 38,147 retweets 49,140 likes


Dylan McKay‏ @dylanmckaynz (https://twitter.com/dylanmckaynz) Mar 21 (https://twitter.com/dylanmckaynz/status/976369275324678145)

a historical record of every single contact on my phone, including ones I no longer have


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DYzCqL_UQAAFTd2.jpg

40 replies 2,422 retweets 4,303 likes


Dylan McKay‏ @dylanmckaynz (https://twitter.com/dylanmckaynz)

metadata about every text message I've ever received or sent spoiler: I don't use messenger for SMS


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DYzC8Q4UMAA6vrC.jpg



https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DYzC8QqU8AA6uG8.jpg



https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DYzC8QqVMAAp-Q4.jpg

1:07 AM - 21 Mar 2018
58 replies 2,657 retweets 4,701 likes
The furor led Julian Assange to post instructions Saturday about how to access the data online. In a follow-up post, the WikiLeaks founder called the company's CEO Mark Zuckerberg a "megalomaniac" and told his followers he had deleted (https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/977324471215378432) his Facebook account, and then said he never had one to begin with.




https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/841283762914656256/2AyBiX8E_bigger.jpg Julian Assange (https://twitter.com/JulianAssange)⌛‏ @JulianAssange (https://twitter.com/JulianAssange)

What to see what Facebook has on you (at a minimum)?
1. Goto https://facebook.com/settings (https://t.co/UFPfcZwJw7)
2. Click "Download a copy of your Facebook data"
3. Wait for automatic email from Facebook
4. Download the ZIP file link in the email
5. Extract it and open 'html/index.htm'
12:30 AM - 24 Mar 2018
362 replies 7,980 retweets 8,786 likes
Many people are now taking to Twitter to express their shock after downloading their own data. Some said they were dismayed at the level of detail Facebook had collected about their lives, including logged calls with people who don't have Facebook profiles. However, others were less sympathetic.



https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/826813602552229888/6IfVx8_v_bigger.jpg Emma Kennedy‏Verified account @EmmaKennedy (https://twitter.com/EmmaKennedy)

I’ve just looked at the data files I requested from Facebook and they had every single phone number in my contacts. They had every single social event I went to, a list of all my friends (and their birthdays) and a list of every text I’ve sent.
12:37 AM - 25 Mar 2018
119 replies 806 retweets 669 likes
Speaking to Ars Technica, Facebook said that phone contacts are uploaded to the messaging or social app after it is downloaded. The app also explicitly requests permission for access. "It's a widely used practice to begin by uploading your phone contacts," a spokesperson for the firm told the website..

Some on social media have pointed out that Facebook asks for permission to upload your contacts to the app and this could explain the level of data contained in the downloads. However that in turn raises a separate question, if one user gives permission for their contacts to be uploaded, what does that mean for those people whose details are filed as a result? RT.com has contacted Facebook for comment.

In the wake of this latest revelation the finger's also being pointed at Google, accusing the company of deliberately not fixing a number of known security issues with Android phones. In November, a Quartz report claimed that Google still collects the location data of Android phone users even if they turn off their location services settings, take out their SIM card or restore their device to factory settings.




Matthew Green‏ @matthew_d_green (https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green) 20h20 hours ago (https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/977654219825143808)
An underreported detail from these “I got my Facebook data” stories: combining Facebook with the (non)-privacy-protections of Android is like setting wild dogs loose on a buffet.
14 replies 295 retweets 489 likes

Matthew Green‏ @matthew_d_green (https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green) 20h20 hours ago (https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/977654913605005315)
There’s a difference between intentional data harvesting and just severe negligence in protecting your customers, but Google still bears a little responsibility for allowing Android to become such a privacy nightmare.

9 replies 118 retweets 238 likes

Matthew Green‏ @matthew_d_green (https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green) 20h20 hours ago (https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/977655861865865217)
I’m also a little bit unclear about *why* Google allowed this. They can’t have been unaware that one of their most popular apps was harvesting and uploading call and SMS history to Facebook’s servers. I refuse to believe that.

15 replies 121 retweets 216 likes

Matthew Green‏ @matthew_d_green (https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green)
Which means this wasn’t just a question of Google accidentally leaving (every) barn door open. It was a willful decision to leave this door open while the horses streamed out two by two.

2:19 PM - 24 Mar 2018
10 replies 64 retweets 136 likes
Facebook is also not the only app accused of surreptitiously collecting its users' data. Last year, a joint study from Yale Privacy Lab and French non-profit research group Exodus Privacy, found that there were 25 trackers hidden in popular Google Play apps such as Uber, Tinder, Skype, Twitter, Spotify and Snapchat.

[ramus]

A couple of days ago they passed the Cloud Act :
This week, Senators Hatch, Graham, Coons, and Whitehouse introduced a bill that diminishes the data privacy of people around the world.

The Clarifying Overseas Use of Data (CLOUD) Act expands American and foreign law enforcement’s ability to target and access people’s data across international borders in two ways. First, the bill creates an explicit provision for U.S. law enforcement (from a local police department to federal agents in Immigration and Customs Enforcement) to access “the contents of a wire or electronic communication and any record or other information” about a person regardless of where they live or where that information is located on the globe. In other words, U.S. police could compel a service provider—like Google, Facebook, or Snapchat—to hand over a user’s content and metadata, even if it is stored in a foreign country, without following that foreign country’s privacy laws.[1]

Second, the bill would allow the President to enter into “executive agreements” with foreign governments that would allow each government to acquire users’ data stored in the other country, without following each other’s privacy laws.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/02/cloud-act-dangerous-expansion-police-snooping-cross-border-data

[onawah]

I tried this:
What to see what Facebook has on you (at a minimum)?
1. Goto https://facebook.com/settings
2. Click "Download a copy of your Facebook data"
3. Wait for automatic email from Facebook
4. Download the ZIP file link in the email
5. Extract it and open 'html/index.htm'
and so far, it hasn't worked. I also tried doing it from my Facebook page, clicking Settings, then "Download a copy of your Facebook data', but it just went around in circles, with no data shown. ???

[Tintin]

Here's an offering from Craig Murray's blog today:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Blocked By Facebook and the Vulnerability of New Media (https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/04/blocked-by-facebook-and-the-vulnerability-of-new-media/)

26 Apr, 2018 in Uncategorized by craig | View Comments


This site’s visitor numbers are currently around one third normal levels, stuck at around 20,000 unique visitors per day. The cause is not hard to find. Normally over half of our visitors arrive via Facebook. These last few days, virtually nothing has come from Facebook.

37641

What is especially pernicious is that Facebook deliberately imposes this censorship in a secretive way. The primary mechanism when a block is imposed by Facebook is that my posts to Facebook are simply not sent into the timelines of the large majority of people who are friends or who follow. I am left to believe the post has been shared with them, but in fact it has only been shown to a tiny number. Then, if you are one of the few recipients and do see the post and share it, it will show to you on your timeline as shared, but in fact the vast majority of your own friends will also not receive it.

Facebook is not doing what it is telling you it is doing – it shows you it is shared – and Facebook is deliberately concealing that fact from you.

Twitter have a similar system known as “shadow banning”. Again it is secretive and the victim is not informed. I do not appear to be shadow banned at the moment, but there has been an extremely sharp drop – by a factor of ten – in the impressions my tweets are generating.

I am among those who argue that the strength of the state and corporate media is being increasingly and happily undermined by our ability to communicate via social media. But social media has developed in such a way that the channels of communication are dominated by corporations – Facebook, Twitter and Google – which can in effect turn off the traffic to a citizen journalism site in a second.

The site is not taken down, and the determined person can still navigate directly to it, but the vast bulk of the traffic is cut off. What is more this is done secretly, without your being informed, and in a manner deliberately hard to detect. The ability to simply block the avenues by which people get to see dissenting opinions, is terrifying.

Furthermore neither Facebook nor Twitter contact you when they block traffic to your site to tell you this is happening, let alone tell you why, and let alone give you a chance to counter whatever argument they make. I do not know if I am blocked by Facebook as an alleged Russian bot, or for any other reason. I do know that it appears to have happened shortly after I published the transcript of the Israeli general discussing the procedures for shooting children (https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/04/condemned-by-their-own-words/). [<<< an interesting and revealing article this and worth absorbing: "Condemned By Their Own Words" (https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/04/condemned-by-their-own-words/) - Tintin Q]

[ramus]

Health insurer: More Americans depressed Brett Molina


http://usatoday.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/viewer.aspx

New data from insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield says major depression among Americans is on the rise.

The report released Thursday finds more than 9 million commercially insured people in the U.S. suffer from major depression, a 33% jump from 2013 through 2016.

Millennials and teenagers have experienced even faster rates of depression. According to the data, it’s up 47% for Millennials and 63% for teens.

“The high rates for adolescents and Millennials could have a substantial health impact for decades to come,” said Trent Haywood, senior vice president and chief medical officer for Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, in a statement.

One potential factor for the quick jump in major depression rates among teens and kids is increased screen time. Last year, a study from researchers at San Diego State and Florida State universities found nearly half of teens who spent five or more hours in front of screens daily experienced thoughts of suicide or prolonged periods of hopelessness or sadness.

“In preliminary literature, high users of social media have been linked with higher rates of social isolation than low users,” Haywood added. “It is important to further explore this relationship.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics updated its guidelines this year on treating teen depression, including endorsing universal screening for children 12 and older.

Another factor contributing to more depression: other chronic health conditions. The data found 85% of people who reported major depression had another serious chronic condition.

[Bill Ryan]

Did anyone catch this?


https://infowars.com/facebook-send-us-your-nudes-to-stop-revenge-porn





Facebook: Send Us Your Nudes to Stop “Revenge Porn”
May 23, 2018

Zuckerberg wants your nude photos for “safe keeping”

Facebook is asking users to send nude pictures of themselves to “prevent” them from being shared publicly on the company’s various platforms.

“We’re now partnering with safety organizations on a way for people to securely submit photos they fear will be shared without their consent, so we can block them from being uploaded to Facebook, Instagram and Messenger,” Facebook said in a statement. “This pilot program, starting in Australia, Canada, the UK and US, expands on existing tools for people to report this content to us if it’s already been shared.”

In the UK, Facebook users will call the “Revenge Porn Hotline” which will allow them to submit nude photos of themselves that Facebook will then flag as “not for distribution.”

In other words, Facebook wants to see your nude pics to “block” them from being spread on-line.

That’s right, Facebook, whose CEO once famously called his users “dumb f*cks” for trusting him with their secrets (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/14/facebook_trust_dumb/), now expects you to submit your nudes for “safe keeping.”

Back in March, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden said Facebook was a surveillance company rebranded as social media (https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/edward-snowden-facebook-is-a-surveillance-company-rebranded-as-social-media).

“Businesses that make money by collecting and selling detailed records of private lives were once plainly described as ‘surveillance companies,'” he said. “Their rebranding as ‘social media’ is the most successful deception since the Department of War became the Department of Defense.”

“Facebook makes their money by exploiting and selling intimate details about the private lives of millions, far beyond the scant details you voluntarily post,” Snowden said earlier in the day. “They are not victims. They are accomplices.”
~~~

Here's the Facebook statement, posted on 22 May:


https://facebook.com/fbsafety/posts/1666174480087050





People shouldn’t be able to share intimate images to hurt others
By Antigone Davis, Global Head of Safety

It’s demeaning and devastating when someone’s intimate images are shared without their permission, and we want to do everything we can to help victims of this abuse. We’re now partnering with safety organizations on a way for people to securely submit photos they fear will be shared without their consent, so we can block them from being uploaded to Facebook, Instagram and Messenger. This pilot program, starting in Australia, Canada, the UK and US, expands on existing tools for people to report this content to us if it’s already been shared.

My team and I have traveled to nine countries across four continents, listening to stories about the abuse and cruelty that women face online. From Kenya to Sweden, women shared their painful, eye-opening experiences about having their most intimate moments shared without permission. From anxiety and depression to the loss of a personal relationship or a job, this violation of privacy can be devastating. And while these images, also referred to as “revenge porn” or “non-consensual pornography,” harm people of all genders, ages and sexual-orientations, women are nearly twice as likely as men to be targeted.

Today, people can already report if their intimate images have been shared without their consent, and we will remove each image and create a unique fingerprint known as a hash to prevent further sharing. But we can do more to help people in crisis prevent images from being shared on our services in the first place. This week, Facebook is testing a proactive reporting tool in partnership with an international working group of safety organizations, survivors, and victim advocates, including the Australian Office of the eSafety Commissioner (https://www.facebook.com/eSafetyOffice/?fref=mentions), the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative (https://www.facebook.com/CyberCivilRightsInitiative/?fref=mentions) and The National Network to End Domestic Violence (https://www.facebook.com/NNEDV/?fref=mentions) in the US, the UK Revenge Porn Helpline, and YWCA Canada (https://www.facebook.com/ywcacanada/?fref=mentions).

People who worry that someone might want to harm them by sharing an intimate image can proactively upload it so we can block anyone else from sharing it on Facebook, Instagram, or Messenger:


Anyone who fears an intimate image of them may be publicly can contact one of our partners to submit a form
After submitting the form, the victim receives an email containing a secure, one-time upload link
The victim can use the link to upload images they fear will be shared
One of a handful of specifically trained members of our Community Operations Safety Team will review the report and create a unique fingerprint, or hash, that allows us to identify future uploads of the images without keeping copies of them on our servers
Once we create these hashes, we notify the victim via email and delete the images from our servers – no later than seven days
We store the hashes so any time someone tries to upload an image with the same fingerprint, we can block it from appearing on Facebook, Instagram or Messenger

This is one step to help people who fear an intimate image will be shared without their consent. We look forward to learning from this pilot and further improving our tools for people in devastating situations like these.

[Tintin]

Did anyone catch this?


https://infowars.com/facebook-send-us-your-nudes-to-stop-revenge-porn





Facebook: Send Us Your Nudes to Stop “Revenge Porn”
May 23, 2018

Zuckerberg wants your nude photos for “safe keeping”

Facebook is asking users to send nude pictures of themselves to “prevent” them from being shared publicly on the company’s various platforms.

“We’re now partnering with safety organizations on a way for people to securely submit photos they fear will be shared without their consent, so we can block them from being uploaded to Facebook, Instagram and Messenger,” Facebook said in a statement. “This pilot program, starting in Australia, Canada, the UK and US, expands on existing tools for people to report this content to us if it’s already been shared.”

In the UK, Facebook users will call the “Revenge Porn Hotline” which will allow them to submit nude photos of themselves that Facebook will then flag as “not for distribution.”

In other words, Facebook wants to see your nude pics to “block” them from being spread on-line.

That’s right, Facebook, whose CEO once famously called his users “dumb f*cks” for trusting him with their secrets (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/14/facebook_trust_dumb/), now expects you to submit your nudes for “safe keeping.”

Back in March, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden said Facebook was a surveillance company rebranded as social media (https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/edward-snowden-facebook-is-a-surveillance-company-rebranded-as-social-media).

“Businesses that make money by collecting and selling detailed records of private lives were once plainly described as ‘surveillance companies,'” he said. “Their rebranding as ‘social media’ is the most successful deception since the Department of War became the Department of Defense.”

“Facebook makes their money by exploiting and selling intimate details about the private lives of millions, far beyond the scant details you voluntarily post,” Snowden said earlier in the day. “They are not victims. They are accomplices.”
~~~

Here's the Facebook statement, posted on 22 May:


https://facebook.com/fbsafety/posts/1666174480087050





People shouldn’t be able to share intimate images to hurt others
By Antigone Davis, Global Head of Safety

It’s demeaning and devastating when someone’s intimate images are shared without their permission, and we want to do everything we can to help victims of this abuse. We’re now partnering with safety organizations on a way for people to securely submit photos they fear will be shared without their consent, so we can block them from being uploaded to Facebook, Instagram and Messenger. This pilot program, starting in Australia, Canada, the UK and US, expands on existing tools for people to report this content to us if it’s already been shared.

My team and I have traveled to nine countries across four continents, listening to stories about the abuse and cruelty that women face online. From Kenya to Sweden, women shared their painful, eye-opening experiences about having their most intimate moments shared without permission. From anxiety and depression to the loss of a personal relationship or a job, this violation of privacy can be devastating. And while these images, also referred to as “revenge porn” or “non-consensual pornography,” harm people of all genders, ages and sexual-orientations, women are nearly twice as likely as men to be targeted.

Today, people can already report if their intimate images have been shared without their consent, and we will remove each image and create a unique fingerprint known as a hash to prevent further sharing. But we can do more to help people in crisis prevent images from being shared on our services in the first place. This week, Facebook is testing a proactive reporting tool in partnership with an international working group of safety organizations, survivors, and victim advocates, including the Australian Office of the eSafety Commissioner (https://www.facebook.com/eSafetyOffice/?fref=mentions), the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative (https://www.facebook.com/CyberCivilRightsInitiative/?fref=mentions) and The National Network to End Domestic Violence (https://www.facebook.com/NNEDV/?fref=mentions) in the US, the UK Revenge Porn Helpline, and YWCA Canada (https://www.facebook.com/ywcacanada/?fref=mentions).

People who worry that someone might want to harm them by sharing an intimate image can proactively upload it so we can block anyone else from sharing it on Facebook, Instagram, or Messenger:


Anyone who fears an intimate image of them may be publicly can contact one of our partners to submit a form
After submitting the form, the victim receives an email containing a secure, one-time upload link
The victim can use the link to upload images they fear will be shared
One of a handful of specifically trained members of our Community Operations Safety Team will review the report and create a unique fingerprint, or hash, that allows us to identify future uploads of the images without keeping copies of them on our servers
Once we create these hashes, we notify the victim via email and delete the images from our servers – no later than seven days
We store the hashes so any time someone tries to upload an image with the same fingerprint, we can block it from appearing on Facebook, Instagram or Messenger

This is one step to help people who fear an intimate image will be shared without their consent. We look forward to learning from this pilot and further improving our tools for people in devastating situations like these.


Kind of ironic when you consider this line in the 'Terms of Service' agreement: https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms

3. Safety


7. You will not post content that: is hate speech, threatening or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.

[Elpis]

Did anyone catch this?


https://infowars.com/facebook-send-us-your-nudes-to-stop-revenge-porn





Facebook: Send Us Your Nudes to Stop “Revenge Porn”
May 23, 2018

Zuckerberg wants your nude photos for “safe keeping”

Facebook is asking users to send nude pictures of themselves to “prevent” them from being shared publicly on the company’s various platforms.

“We’re now partnering with safety organizations on a way for people to securely submit photos they fear will be shared without their consent, so we can block them from being uploaded to Facebook, Instagram and Messenger,” Facebook said in a statement. “This pilot program, starting in Australia, Canada, the UK and US, expands on existing tools for people to report this content to us if it’s already been shared.”

In the UK, Facebook users will call the “Revenge Porn Hotline” which will allow them to submit nude photos of themselves that Facebook will then flag as “not for distribution.”

In other words, Facebook wants to see your nude pics to “block” them from being spread on-line.

That’s right, Facebook, whose CEO once famously called his users “dumb f*cks” for trusting him with their secrets (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/14/facebook_trust_dumb/), now expects you to submit your nudes for “safe keeping.”

Back in March, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden said Facebook was a surveillance company rebranded as social media (https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/edward-snowden-facebook-is-a-surveillance-company-rebranded-as-social-media).

“Businesses that make money by collecting and selling detailed records of private lives were once plainly described as ‘surveillance companies,'” he said. “Their rebranding as ‘social media’ is the most successful deception since the Department of War became the Department of Defense.”

“Facebook makes their money by exploiting and selling intimate details about the private lives of millions, far beyond the scant details you voluntarily post,” Snowden said earlier in the day. “They are not victims. They are accomplices.”
~~~

Here's the Facebook statement, posted on 22 May:


https://facebook.com/fbsafety/posts/1666174480087050





People shouldn’t be able to share intimate images to hurt others
By Antigone Davis, Global Head of Safety

It’s demeaning and devastating when someone’s intimate images are shared without their permission, and we want to do everything we can to help victims of this abuse. We’re now partnering with safety organizations on a way for people to securely submit photos they fear will be shared without their consent, so we can block them from being uploaded to Facebook, Instagram and Messenger. This pilot program, starting in Australia, Canada, the UK and US, expands on existing tools for people to report this content to us if it’s already been shared.

My team and I have traveled to nine countries across four continents, listening to stories about the abuse and cruelty that women face online. From Kenya to Sweden, women shared their painful, eye-opening experiences about having their most intimate moments shared without permission. From anxiety and depression to the loss of a personal relationship or a job, this violation of privacy can be devastating. And while these images, also referred to as “revenge porn” or “non-consensual pornography,” harm people of all genders, ages and sexual-orientations, women are nearly twice as likely as men to be targeted.

Today, people can already report if their intimate images have been shared without their consent, and we will remove each image and create a unique fingerprint known as a hash to prevent further sharing. But we can do more to help people in crisis prevent images from being shared on our services in the first place. This week, Facebook is testing a proactive reporting tool in partnership with an international working group of safety organizations, survivors, and victim advocates, including the Australian Office of the eSafety Commissioner (https://www.facebook.com/eSafetyOffice/?fref=mentions), the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative (https://www.facebook.com/CyberCivilRightsInitiative/?fref=mentions) and The National Network to End Domestic Violence (https://www.facebook.com/NNEDV/?fref=mentions) in the US, the UK Revenge Porn Helpline, and YWCA Canada (https://www.facebook.com/ywcacanada/?fref=mentions).

People who worry that someone might want to harm them by sharing an intimate image can proactively upload it so we can block anyone else from sharing it on Facebook, Instagram, or Messenger:


Anyone who fears an intimate image of them may be publicly can contact one of our partners to submit a form
After submitting the form, the victim receives an email containing a secure, one-time upload link
The victim can use the link to upload images they fear will be shared
One of a handful of specifically trained members of our Community Operations Safety Team will review the report and create a unique fingerprint, or hash, that allows us to identify future uploads of the images without keeping copies of them on our servers
Once we create these hashes, we notify the victim via email and delete the images from our servers – no later than seven days
We store the hashes so any time someone tries to upload an image with the same fingerprint, we can block it from appearing on Facebook, Instagram or Messenger

This is one step to help people who fear an intimate image will be shared without their consent. We look forward to learning from this pilot and further improving our tools for people in devastating situations like these.


Kind of ironic when you consider this line in the 'Terms of Service' agreement: https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms

3. Safety


7. You will not post content that: is hate speech, threatening or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.


Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Yea, I think I'll pass on giving Facebook any further personal information.

[Carmody]

Facebook and twitter descend into noise (study) (https://phys.org/news/2015-03-content-creators-social-networks-messaging.html#nRlv):



It's not much harder or more expensive to send a tweet or a Facebook post to hundreds or even thousands of people than to just a handful. So you'd think that the ease of communicating with lots of people via social networks would result in more and more people sharing their thoughts, political views, and cat videos.

But that's not the case, says Associate Professor Zsolt Katona at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business (pictured, left). The flood of tweets and posts washing across cyberspace has created a huge imbalance in the number of people creating content and the number of people who receive it. That imbalance stems from some content creators giving up on actively contributing to social networks, while others choose to send out more and more messages to users in an effort to be noticed.

In a new research paper, Competing for Attention in Social Communication Markets, Katona and co-author Ganesh Iyer, Edgar F. Kaiser Chair in Business Administration at Berkeley-Haas, (pictured, right) suggest a seemingly counter-intuitive thesis: The cheaper and easier it becomes to reach large numbers of people via social media, the fewer "content creators" choose to participate and the more cluttered the networks become. If it were as difficult to post messages to large numbers of people as it was just a few years ago - before the rise of mobile messaging apps—more users would create content.

Although more and more people are participating in social networking, a smaller percentage of users are actively creating and sharing content. Industry reports estimate that just 10 percent of Twitter users broadcast 90 percent of the network's tweets, while only a tiny fraction of the 55 million users who blog post daily, notes Katona.

The relative scarcity of message creators has been noticed before. But what hasn't been understood are the mechanisms responsible for the imbalance of senders and receivers and the implications for the social networking industry.

The research suggests that social networking is a bit like a market: People who create and send content are investing effort to win customers—in this case the "receivers" who will view their content.

But unlike businesses that use social networking as a marketing tool, individual senders aren't looking for a definable economic reward. They want status, or the satisfaction of being heard. Instead of actual sales, senders measure their payoff by the number of receivers who listen to her, while the effort required to reach them is the cost of sales, say the researchers.

Social distance between senders and receivers largely determines the effort required to reach them. If a social network is small, and each sender targets just a few receivers, there's not much competition for attention; receivers aren't getting many messages. On the other hand, senders aren't getting a large payoff so they only make a minimal effort to be heard.

That changes when senders attempt to increase their payoff by targeting people who are more socially distant. Receivers, who once were the recipient of messages from only a few senders, are now targeted by many senders, leading to increased competition for attention. And the more distant the receiver, the harder it is for the sender to craft relevant messages, say the researchers.

As competition grows, some senders decide the payoff isn't worth the trouble and drop out, and others decide not to enter the market, which explains why the proportion of senders to receivers is so low. It may also explain why some users turn away from popular social networks and are looking for more intimate places to share items with just a handful of people, say the researchers.

Facebook recognized this trend and modified its algorithms to present users with more news from people who are close to them. There have even been attempts to create new, more intimate social networks from scratch, although they have so far met with limited success.

When messaging costs go down, senders decide they can target more and more people and compete with other senders by sending messages more frequently. "But what is interesting is senders are worse off by making this choice," say Iyer and Katona. Too much messaging creates clutter and lowers payoffs for everyone in the market.

When the cost and difficulty of messaging increases, senders have less incentive to compete by creating a flood of messages. That, in turn, makes it more likely that users will read a sender's message, meaning his or her payoff is higher and senders are more likely to stay in the network.

The paper's conclusions are based on mathematical modeling of social networking behavior along with an analysis of empirical data from a 2011 study of real-world social networks in a French primary school. It will be published in Management Science later this year.

the greater the number of users or involved people in the given system, the less relevant it is, is kinda how it works. "Relevance" is defined, in this case, around the idea of change or societal motion. In this case, the noise is the corral, it's the bushes that hide the walls of the box and make it (the box) look infinite, when it is the opposite of that. It's the death of intelligence, not it's aid, or creation, or even it's maintenance. Nay, it is the crushing of intelligence, the death of intelligence, the lowering of intelligence. More on that later.

That trend and condition was easy to see at the outset, which is why I declined to be involved, right from the first moment I heard about Facebook.

[ThePythonicCow]

the greater the number of users or involved people in the given system, the less relevant it is, is kinda how it works. "Relevance" is defined, in this case, around the idea of change or societal motion. In this case, the noise is the corral, it's the bushes that hide the walls of the box and make it (the box) look infinite, when it is the opposite of that. It's the death of intelligence, not it's aid, or creation, or even it's maintenance. Nay, it is the crushing of intelligence, the death of intelligence, the lowering of intelligence. More on that later.

That trend and condition was easy to see at the outset, which is why I declined to be involved, right from the first moment I heard about Facebook.
The "Social Contract" works in traditional villages, communities and families. Humans, as social animals, are tuned to honor this "Social Contract". We learn to share what we can offer, and not to receive in excess proportion. We learn not to be "Chicken Littles" or "Attention Whores" or "Loud Mouths". We speak, we listen, we converse ... in some semblance of a balance.

The "Social Contract" breaks down, when a small effort of one person to create a message can generate an immense effort, when summed up over thousands or millions of people people, each reading or listening to that message, even if for just a few seconds each, and when, moreover, the size of the audience depends on superficial "click bait" characteristics of the message, not on the quality of its truth, accuracy, caring, good intentions, or insight.

We end up with variants of Edward Bernays manipulation of the masses instead, mixed in with tons of garbage.

It's like a 10,000 watt power amplifier plugged into a 1000 big speakers, with the sound source being someone singing into a single, cheap, microphone, in the midst of the speakers, feeding the amplifier. The screeching feedback overwhelms the song. Fortunately, the microphone has "push to talk" button, thus stopping the feedback loop whenever the would-be singer lets off the button. But with a thousand such singers and a thousand such microphones, the cacophony never ceases.

[Yetti]

Thanks Callista I like your response to the post and I feel the same, I just want to add : many of us had being forced to go thru FB do to the fact that many of our relatives and friends overseas had quit the e-mail tho I think is a very private and secure method to communicate each other. Even worst , now many are using tweeter or wasap, I don't.
I refuse to go thru this market drive technology crap ! that make people to adopt a new communication toy every year keeping the business rolling and waisting money in unesesary devices.

[ramus]

Facebook Scandal --

IT JUST KEEPS GETTING WORSE : What will we find next ?


Facebook made deals with 60 device makers that gave them access to users’ data

Published: June 4, 2018 3:29 p.m. ET

By
Ciara
Linnane
Corporate news editor

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fa...ata-2018-06-04

Facebook Inc. made agreements with at least 60 makers of phones and other devices that gave them access to the personal information of users’ friends without their consent, the New York Times reported Monday, citing company officials.

The companies involved include Apple Inc. AAPL, +0.87% BlackBerry Ltd. BB, +2.32% Microsoft Corp. MSFT, +0.86% and Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, +1.35% the paper reported. The agreements allowed Facebook to expand its reach and let device makers offer customers features, such as messaging, “like” buttons and address books.

The scope of the partnerships has not been reported before and raises concerns about the company’s privacy protections, as well as compliance with a 2011 consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission.

Most of the agreements are still in place, though Facebook FB, -0.30% began to wind them down in April, after coming under scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators over data used by Cambridge Analytica, which has declared bankruptcy.

Read now: The sad truth about how much your Facebook data is worth on the dark web:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/spooked-by-the-facebook-privacy-violations-this-is-how-much-your-personal-data-is-worth-on-the-dark-web-2018-03-20

Facebook has said that the access granted to Cambrdige Analytica, a political consultancy, in 2014 was cut off by 2015, when the company explicitly banned developers from collecting data on users’ friend. But it did not disclose that the makers of phones and tablets were excluded from the ban.


Read now: Facebook reveals the 87 million accounts affected by privacy violation — what to do if you’re one of them:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/facebook-prepares-to-reveal-the-87-million-accounts-affected-by-privacy-violation-what-to-do-if-youre-one-of-them-2018-04-09

Related: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says he’s quitting Facebook: ‘You are the product’

Facebook said Monday in a blog post that it “controlled [APIs] tightly from the get-go” and that the device makers it partnered with “signed agreements that prevented people’s Facebook information from being used for any other purpose than to recreate Facebook-like experiences.”

Facebook also said that its team had to approve these new “experiences” and that device partners like Apple Iand Amazon could not “integrate the user’s Facebook features with their devices without the user’s permission.”

See: What Facebook and other tech leaders must do now to win back our trust
Mark Zuckerberg’s Face-Off With European Parliament: The Highlights

Facebook said that the private APIs in question were “very different from the public APIs used by third-party developers, like Aleksandr Kogan” of Cambridge Analytica.

The New York Times said that one of its reporters, Michael LaForgia, used the Hub app on a blackberry Z10 to log into Facebook and found the app was able to retrieve detailed data on 556 of his friends. The data included relationship status, religious and political leanings and events they planned to attend.

Twitter was predictably unhappy about the news.

Shares of Facebook were down 1% in early trade, but are up 26% over the past 12 months, while the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.44% has gained 12% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.74% has added 17%.

[Theresa]

This is common and in just about every single app you have on your phone currently. They have the right the moment you get an app to record you, listen to you, bounce signal off you, shut you off etc, check the permissions, this is standard operating procedure right now. This does not make it right. I am just stating this incase you were not aware that this is not new or unique. I am not sure how different "We can access everything you do on your phone" can be. You can shut off these options or just not use those apps. Even your emergency light app could turn your phone on and record you picking your nose. You might want to take a look at the access your apps have.

Always know the difference between what can be posted as public and in closed groups. The rules are different. Facebook is a tool when you use it, understand what that tool is going to do. We are not accidental victims that often. Being attentive about ever changing guidelines in a young technology should be a personal priority.

[onawah]

Here is the New York Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/03/technology/facebook-device-partners-users-friends-data.html?link_id=2&can_id=4870e31ee9d2b4c95e94bdd1b8471b48&source=email-sure-looks-like-zuckerberg-lied&email_referrer=email_364755___subject_449390&email_subject=facebook-secretly-gave-device-makers-deep-access-to-user-data
By GABRIEL J.X. DANCE, NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and MICHAEL LaFORGIA JUNE 3, 2018
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/05/30/us/00facebook1/00facebook1-superJumbo-v2.jpg
Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, at a Senate hearing in April. The company gave at least 60 phone and other device makers access to large amounts of user data. Leah Millis/Reuters

As Facebook sought to become the world’s dominant social media service, it struck agreements allowing phone and other device makers access to vast amounts of its users’ personal information.

Facebook has reached data-sharing partnerships with at least 60 device makers — including Apple, Amazon, BlackBerry, Microsoft and Samsung — over the last decade, starting before Facebook apps were widely available on smartphones, company officials said. The deals allowed Facebook to expand its reach and let device makers offer customers popular features of the social network, such as messaging, “like” buttons and address books.

But the partnerships, whose scope has not previously been reported, raise concerns about the company’s privacy protections and compliance with a 2011 consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission. Facebook allowed the device companies access to the data of users’ friends without their explicit consent, even after declaring that it would no longer share such information with outsiders. Some device makers could retrieve personal information even from users’ friends who believed they had barred any sharing, The New York Times found.

[Here’s what we know about Facebook’s partnerships with device makers.]

Most of the partnerships remain in effect, though Facebook began winding them down in April. The company came under intensifying scrutiny by lawmakers and regulators after news reports in March that a political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, misused the private information of tens of millions of Facebook users.

In the furor that followed, Facebook’s leaders said that the kind of access exploited by Cambridge in 2014 was cut off by the next year, when Facebook prohibited developers from collecting information from users’ friends. But the company officials did not disclose that Facebook had exempted the makers of cellphones, tablets and other hardware from such restrictions.

“You might think that Facebook or the device manufacturer is trustworthy,” said Serge Egelman, a privacy researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies the security of mobile apps. “But the problem is that as more and more data is collected on the device — and if it can be accessed by apps on the device — it creates serious privacy and security risks.”

In interviews, Facebook officials defended the data sharing as consistent with its privacy policies, the F.T.C. agreement and pledges to users. They said its partnerships were governed by contracts that strictly limited use of the data, including any stored on partners’ servers. The officials added that they knew of no cases where the information had been misused.

The company views its device partners as extensions of Facebook, serving its more than two billion users, the officials said.

“These partnerships work very differently from the way in which app developers use our platform,” said Ime Archibong, a Facebook vice president. Unlike developers that provide games and services to Facebook users, the device partners can use Facebook data only to provide versions of “the Facebook experience,” the officials said.

Some device partners can retrieve Facebook users’ relationship status, religion, political leaning and upcoming events, among other data. Tests by The Times showed that the partners requested and received data in the same way other third parties did.


Facebook’s view that the device makers are not outsiders lets the partners go even further, The Times found: They can obtain data about a user’s Facebook friends, even those who have denied Facebook permission to share information with any third parties.

In interviews, several former Facebook software engineers and security experts said they were surprised at the ability to override sharing restrictions.

“It’s like having door locks installed, only to find out that the locksmith also gave keys to all of his friends so they can come in and rifle through your stuff without having to ask you for permission,” said Ashkan Soltani, a research and privacy consultant who formerly served as the F.T.C.’s chief technologist.

How One Phone Gains Access to Hundreds of Thousands of Facebook Accounts
ce
Gabriel J.X. Dance
606 friends
of Mr. Dance

Michael LaForgia, a New York Times reporter, used the Hub app on a BlackBerry Z10 to log into Facebook.

After connecting to Facebook, the BlackBerry Hub app was able to retrieve detailed data on 556 of Mr. LaForgia's friends, including relationship status, religious and political leanings and events they planned to attend. Facebook has said that it cut off third parties' access to this type of information in 2015, but that it does not consider BlackBerry a third party in this case.

The Hub app was also able to access information — including unique identifiers — on 294,258 friends of Mr. LaForgia's friends.

By Rich Harris and Gabriel J.X. Dance

Details of Facebook’s partnerships have emerged amid a reckoning in Silicon Valley over the volume of personal information collected on the internet and monetized by the tech industry. The pervasive collection of data, while largely unregulated in the United States, has come under growing criticism from elected officials at home and overseas and provoked concern among consumers about how freely their information is shared.

In a tense appearance before Congress in March, Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, emphasized what he said was a company priority for Facebook users.“Every piece of content that you share on Facebook you own,” he testified. ”You have complete control over who sees it and how you share it.”

But the device partnerships provoked discussion even within Facebook as early as 2012, according to Sandy Parakilas, who at the time led third-party advertising and privacy compliance for Facebook’s platform.

“This was flagged internally as a privacy issue,” said Mr. Parakilas, who left Facebook that year and has recently emerged as a harsh critic of the company. “It is shocking that this practice may still continue six years later, and it appears to contradict Facebook’s testimony to Congress that all friend permissions were disabled.”

The partnerships were briefly mentioned in documents submitted to German lawmakers investigating the social media giant’s privacy practices and released by Facebook in mid-May. But Facebook provided the lawmakers with the name of only one partner — BlackBerry, maker of the once-ubiquitous mobile device — and little information about how the agreements worked.

The submission followed testimony by Joel Kaplan, Facebook’s vice president for global public policy, during a closed-door German parliamentary hearing in April. Elisabeth Winkelmeier-Becker, one of the lawmakers who questioned Mr. Kaplan, said in an interview that she believed the data partnerships disclosed by Facebook violated users’ privacy rights.

“What we have been trying to determine is whether Facebook has knowingly handed over user data elsewhere without explicit consent,” Ms. Winkelmeier-Becker said. “I would never have imagined that this might even be happening secretly via deals with device makers. BlackBerry users seem to have been turned into data dealers, unknowingly and unwillingly.”


In interviews with The Times, Facebook identified other partners: Apple and Samsung, the world’s two biggest smartphone makers, and Amazon, which sells tablets.

An Apple spokesman said the company relied on private access to Facebook data for features that enabled users to post photos to the social network without opening the Facebook app, among other things. Apple said its phones no longer had such access to Facebook as of last September.

Samsung declined to respond to questions about whether it had any data-sharing partnerships with Facebook. Amazon also declined to respond to questions.

Usher Lieberman, a BlackBerry spokesman, said in a statement that the company used Facebook data only to give its own customers access to their Facebook networks and messages. Mr. Lieberman said that the company “did not collect or mine the Facebook data of our customers,” adding that “BlackBerry has always been in the business of protecting, not monetizing, customer data.”

Microsoft entered a partnership with Facebook in 2008 that allowed Microsoft-powered devices to do things like add contacts and friends and receive notifications, according to a spokesman. He added that the data was stored locally on the phone and was not synced to Microsoft’s servers.

Facebook acknowledged that some partners did store users’ data — including friends’ data — on their own servers. A Facebook official said that regardless of where the data was kept, it was governed by strict agreements between the companies.

“I am dumbfounded by the attitude that anybody in Facebook’s corporate office would think allowing third parties access to data would be a good idea,” said Henning Schulzrinne, a computer science professor at Columbia University who specializes in network security and mobile systems.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed how loosely Facebook had policed the bustling ecosystem of developers building apps on its platform. They ranged from well-known players like Zynga, the maker of the FarmVille game, to smaller ones, like a Cambridge contractor who used a quiz taken by about 300,000 Facebook users to gain access to the profiles of as many as 87 million of their friends.

Those developers relied on Facebook’s public data channels, known as application programming interfaces, or APIs. But starting in 2007, the company also established private data channels for device manufacturers.

At the time, mobile phones were less powerful, and relatively few of them could run stand-alone Facebook apps like those now common on smartphones. The company continued to build new private APIs for device makers through 2014, spreading user data through tens of millions of mobile devices, game consoles, televisions and other systems outside Facebook’s direct control.

Facebook began moving to wind down the partnerships in April, after assessing its privacy and data practices in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Mr. Archibong said the company had concluded that the partnerships were no longer needed to serve Facebook users. About 22 of them have been shut down.


The broad access Facebook provided to device makers raises questions about its compliance with a 2011 consent decree with the F.T.C.

The decree barred Facebook from overriding users’ privacy settings without first getting explicit consent. That agreement stemmed from an investigation that found Facebook had allowed app developers and other third parties to collect personal details about users’ friends, even when those friends had asked that their information remain private.

After the Cambridge Analytica revelations, the F.T.C. began an investigation into whether Facebook’s continued sharing of data after 2011 violated the decree, potentially exposing the company to fines.

Facebook officials said the private data channels did not violate the decree because the company viewed its hardware partners as “service providers,” akin to a cloud computing service paid to store Facebook data or a company contracted to process credit card transactions. According to the consent decree, Facebook does not need to seek additional permission to share friend data with service providers.

“These contracts and partnerships are entirely consistent with Facebook’s F.T.C. consent decree,” Mr. Archibong, the Facebook official, said.

But Jessica Rich, a former F.T.C. official who helped lead the commission’s earlier Facebook investigation, disagreed with that assessment.

“Under Facebook’s interpretation, the exception swallows the rule,” said Ms. Rich, now with the Consumers Union. “They could argue that any sharing of data with third parties is part of the Facebook experience. And this is not at all how the public interpreted their 2014 announcement that they would limit third-party app access to friend data.”

To test one partner’s access to Facebook’s private data channels, The Times used a reporter’s Facebook account — with about 550 friends — and a 2013 BlackBerry device, monitoring what data the device requested and received. (More recent BlackBerry devices, which run Google’s Android operating system, do not use the same private channels, BlackBerry officials said.)

Immediately after the reporter connected the device to his Facebook account, it requested some of his profile data, including user ID, name, picture, “about” information, location, email and cellphone number. The device then retrieved the reporter’s private messages and the responses to them, along with the name and user ID of each person with whom he was communicating.

The data flowed to a BlackBerry app known as the Hub, which was designed to let BlackBerry users view all of their messages and social media accounts in one place.

The Hub also requested — and received — data that Facebook’s policy appears to prohibit. Since 2015, Facebook has said that apps can request only the names of friends using the same app. But the BlackBerry app had access to all of the reporter’s Facebook friends and, for most of them, returned information such as user ID, birthday, work and education history and whether they were currently online.

The BlackBerry device was also able to retrieve identifying information for nearly 295,000 Facebook users. Most of them were second-degree Facebook friends of the reporter, or friends of friends.

In all, Facebook empowers BlackBerry devices to access more than 50 types of information about users and their friends, The Times found.

[Joe from the Carolinas]

Zuckerberg is saying he wants users to send nudes in to protect themselves? Isn't that kind of like the mafia?

Also another thought. Lots of users of facebook, I assume, are underage. Is zuckerberg wanting ALL users nude photos now? Isn't that against the law?

Wouldn't someone like that, asking people for their nude photographs in public, be charged with soliciting as well as sexual harassment?

[Michelle Marie]

In this video, an article is reviewed that reports FaceBook is deleting pages having to do with Health, Wellness, Organic and Natural Living accounts in the name of Fake News.

IkAs9RzgtU4

That part starts at 10:12.
_______________________
And here is an article that lists pages that have been deleted.

http://www.inspiretochangeworld.com/2018/06/facebook-deletes-health-wellness-organic-and-natural-living-accounts-in-the-name-of-fake-news/
_________________________
And the original article came from
Www.healthfreedomidaho.org

June 24, 2018

https://healthfreedomidaho.org/facebook-fake-news

Deleted accounts include:

* Natural Cures Not Medicine
* Collectively Conscious
* Viral Alternative News
* Organic Health
* Natural Cures from Food
* Organic Wellness
* Meditation Masters

And many more.

MM

[Hervé]

From Jim Stone (http://82.221.129.208/.yo3.html):


DELETE YOUR FACEBOOK IF YOU STILL HAVE IT. (http://82.221.129.208/.yo3.html)

At the same time they appeared to be attempting to legitimize pedophelia with a STAFF POSTED survey, they deleted alt health pages with a total of 26.5 million followers, and that's just what is known of at this point in time.

FACEBOOK DELETED THE FOLLOWING ALT HEALTH SITES, CLAIMING THEY WERE "FAKE NEWS" AND THEREFORE HAD INAPPROPRIATE CONTENT:

The following list was compiled by Health Freedom Idaho (https://healthfreedomidaho.org/facebook-fake-news)

Health Freedom Idaho started 7 years ago, warning people Facebook was going to do this. This list was possible because Health Freedom Idaho had contact with the following Facebook sites, and they notified Health Freedom Idaho that they had been deleted. Absent this, it would never have been known, and this list is also, as a result, not complete because not everyone knew they could report they had been deleted here. Groups Deleted by Facebook as "Fake"

Natural Cures Not Medicine (2.3M followers) - Deleted on June 11th, 2018.
I Want to Be 100% Organic (700K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Collectively Conscious (915K followers) – Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Viral Alternative News (500K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Organic Health (230K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Natural Cures From Food (120K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Heart Centered Rebalancing (3.9M followers) -
Living Traditionally (570K followers) - Unpublished on June 5th, 2018.
Organic Wellness (600K followers) - Unpublished on June 5th, 2018.
Chocolate Socrates (608K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Meditation Masters - Deleted in early June, 2018
Global Freedom Movement (27K followers) - Deleted on June 19th, 2018.
Health & Alternative Medicine (550K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Pure Nature (1.7M followers) - Deleted on June 3rd, 2018.
Nature Gallery (654K followers) - Deleted on June 3rd, 2018.
Mesmerizing Nature (912K followers) - Deleted on June 3rd, 2018.
Nature’s Touch (150K followers) - Deleted on June 3rd, 2018.
Healthy Life Box (1.8M followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Healthy Food House (3.4M followers) -
Health Awareness (2.5M followers) -
Healthy Life And Food (350K followers) - Deleted on May 23rd, 2018.
Check These Things (80K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Health Care Above All (90K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Health and Healthy Living (450K followers) -
Health & Alternative Medicine (550K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Healthy Living Motivation (644K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Alternative Health Universe (420K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Natural Medicine Corner (411K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Organic Health Team (490K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Global Health Care (130K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Healthy Alternative Medicine (140K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Natural Healthy Team (190K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Organic Food Medicine (30K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Love, Health and Happiness (10K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Healthy Organic Life (25K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Healthy Lifestyle (55K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Guardian of Health (160K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Daily Health Keeper (190K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Health & Love Page (720K followers) - Deleted on June 5th, 2018.
Diabetes Health Page (180K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
The Beauty of Power (170K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Nutrition Facts and Analysys (170K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
Deeper Perspectives (32K followers) - Deleted on June 13th, 2018.
My Own Little World (1.5m) - Deleted on June 21, 2018
Brighten Your Soul (100k plus) - Deleted on June 21, 2018
Essence OF Spirit ( 12k) - Deleted on June 21, 2018
We really like animals (544k) - Deleted on June 21, 2018
Nature's Majesty (191k) - Deleted on June 21, 2018
Nature Magic (33k) - Deleted on June 21, 2018


Jim's comment:

If Facebook is going to behave like this, only a fool would bother with an account. Once again, Health Freedom Idaho, which compiled this list is HERE, (https://healthfreedomidaho.org/facebook-fake-news) so you can keep an eye on this list, or help build it by letting them know something that vanished is not listed.

[Valerie Villars]

I have (had) an account that I used to out a rapist and then as a way to log in and check in on other people. I just deleted it, but not before I read an article about the difference between deactivating and permanently deleting the account.

The article talked about how serious it was to delete an account and how you might not have access for weeks, etc. if you decided to join again. It's amazing the language they used to try and dissuade me from doing so.

It reminded me of the scary tactics creditors and the IRS use. They try to corral you by using fear.

[ThePythonicCow]

It reminded me of the scary tactics creditors and the IRS use. They try to corral you by using fear.
So ... does that imply that there is a way to delete my IRS account?

I could have used such a way, back when I was a salaried man :).

[Valerie Villars]

Yeah, me too. Back when I was a salaried woman. Now, it's all taken care of because "when you got nothing, you've got nothin left to lose."

I have thought of every which way but Sunday to delete my IRS account. Now I just laugh because I have no way of paying them. And nothing they can seize. It's grand to be free.

[ThePythonicCow]

One potential factor for the quick jump in major depression rates among teens and kids is increased screen time.
How about vaccines, drugs (including prescribed anti-depressants), toxins in our food and water, collapsed opportunities for good work, depressing Common Core academic studies, mass propaganda (including Facebook, to return to this thread's topic), ...?

[Michelle Marie]

ZeroHedge
7/5/18

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-05/facebook-algorithm-flags-declaration-independence-hate-speech

Facebook flags the Declaration of Independence as Hate Speech

38442

MM

[Foxie Loxie]

Whaaaaat?! :faint:

[Hervé]

Facebook flags then removes NPR report on inflated government school shooting statistics (https://fee.org/articles/facebook-flags-censors-npr-report-on-inflated-government-school-shooting-statistics/)

Jon Miltimore Foundation for Economic Education (https://fee.org/articles/facebook-flags-censors-npr-report-on-inflated-government-school-shooting-statistics/)
Thu, 30 Aug 2018 10:22 UTC


https://www.sott.net/image/s23/474858/large/facebook_dislike_929x309.png (https://www.sott.net/image/s23/474858/full/facebook_dislike_929x309.png)


Earlier this week, NPR reported (https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/08/27/640323347/the-school-shootings-that-werent?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=politics&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20180828) on the high number of school shootings alleged by the U.S. Department of Education. The 240 school shootings detailed in the department's report on the 2015-2016 school year was significantly higher than other estimates. So NPR, with the assistance of the non-profit group Child Trends (https://www.childtrends.org/data-sources-make-it-difficult-to-know-whether-school-shootings-are-happening-more-often), began doing what good journalists do: they collected data.

Over a period of several months, they contacted every school. What NPR found was startling.

"[More] than two-thirds of these reported incidents never happened," NPR reported (https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/08/27/640323347/the-school-shootings-that-werent?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=politics&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20180828).

A colleague of mine, Sean Malone, shared NPR's article - which carried the headline "The School Shootings That Weren't" - with a few thousand Facebook friends and followers on Tuesday.

It was flagged as spam and removed.

Facebook's crackdown on fake news (https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2017/08/02/its-hurt-my-wallet-how-one-fake-news-publisher-faring-after-facebook-crackdown/486720001/) and "hate speech (http://theweek.com/speedreads/788787/facebook-finally-cracks-down-alex-jones-infowars)" has been well chronicled.

There are many reasons to be wary of such censorship: Who decides what's true? Who decides what's fake? Who decides what's hateful?

What's most troubling about this case is that it strongly suggests that Facebook is censoring information that conflicts with particular political narratives. This is dangerous.

Social media tech giants have claimed in court (https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/twitter-loses-round-one-anti-censorship-suit-brought-supremacist) the right to censor users for any reason - even "on the basis of religion, or gender, or sexual preference, or physical disability, or mental disability." During an April court hearing, attorneys for Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey assured California Superior Court Judge Harold Kahn the power would be used judiciously.

Recent events suggest otherwise.

Silicon Valley's clumsy and partisan censorship practically invites intervention from Washington, D.C. This would be the worst case scenario.

Matt Taibbi, writing in Rolling Stone earlier this month, warned (https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/facebook-censor-alex-jones-705766/) about where the slippery slope of social media censorship would take us.
[P]oliticians are more interested in using than [in] curtailing the power of these companies. The platforms, for their part, will cave rather than be regulated. The endgame here couldn't be clearer. This is how authoritarian marriages begin, and people should be very worried. The solution isn't for lawmakers and Silicon Valley whiz kids to decide what speech is appropriate. The solution is for Facebook and Twitter to return to being open platforms faithful to their original visions.

Related:

Facebook abusing monopoly of power for profit and working with US Deep State to censor news (https://www.sott.net/article/365336-Facebook-abusing-monopoly-of-power-for-profit-and-working-with-US-Deep-State-to-censor-news)



Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter become the gatekeepers (https://www.sott.net/article/336132-Google-Facebook-Microsoft-and-Twitter-become-the-gatekeepers)



Alternative News Sites censored via Social Media "Ghost Bans" (https://www.sott.net/article/337954-Alternative-News-Sites-censored-via-Social-Media-Ghost-Bans)

[Hym]

I was listening to the radio driving to town recently and had a laugh when listening to NPR, National Public Radio. On the short portion of the broadcast I caught while changing stations the program said it was sponsored by the department of homeland security, an admission of sponsorship, and thus influence from a governmental and not a public organization.

It is a huge conflict of interest, but not an ironic fact to those of us, from the origin of the first human "government", who have seen the use of reporting as propaganda and influence from those who do not have the interest of the public at heart. Omission, Emotional Influencing and Redirect are the real mandates of the controlled opposition. This is also the obvious, original intent of most social forums from their inception. Why is anyone surprised about the banning of those who reveal the truth about governmental corruption from those forums?

It's good to know that some real investigative reporting, showing the government's lie about attacks, snuck thru the bias that NPR is known for. Their narrative is one of controlled opposition, heavily laden with real human interest stories to coddle the attention of those who lack deep critical thinking and the heart centered insight that drives us to take the actions that really change things. With this rare example, we'll take the truth wherever it comes from. However, knowing the slant of their reporting, it's best to be prompted to dig even deeper.

This great conflict of interest is exactly why most social forums exist, beyond the profit motive and the gathering of private details to be used for coercion . Why most well-intended people and organizations didn't recognize from the beginning, as well as the contract that each forum requires for it's use, the inherent loss of privacy and funding from malicious intel groups of those forums is beyond me. The internet itself was and is a government (darpa) created and funded tool intended to gather and control information from and to the public. Since the advent of most communication devices, it has never allowed a single device to be sold without a back door for access, influence, manipulation or removal. It is called the company because it has always been a company and not a government.

NPR is actually both a private and publicly funded non-profit organization, which is understandable if non-profits were all ethical and devoid of outside, negative influence, which they are not. NPR is often referred to amongst those I know as the National Petroleum Report since it rarely confronts the power elites' influence on the control of governmental regulations and policies, contrary to their publicly chartered mandates.

[Tintin]

Great Matt Taibbi article :sun: - I picked it up yesterday via Craig Murray's blog and it is a must read for sure.

Thanks Hervé (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?88051-The-Problems-with-Facebook&p=1245160&viewfull=1#post1245160) :thumbsup:

[Hervé]

Inspired by the Atlantic Council and Ben Nimmo, Facebook deletes Craig Murray's posts since July 2017 - apparently cause he's a 'Russian bot' (https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/08/facebook-censorship-mad-ben-nimmo-and-the-atlantic-council/)

Craig Murray Craigmurray.org.uk (https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/08/facebook-censorship-mad-ben-nimmo-and-the-atlantic-council/)
Tue, 28 Aug 2018 11:47 UTC


https://www.sott.net/image/s24/486009/large/Herald_McBots.jpg (https://www.sott.net/image/s24/486009/full/Herald_McBots.jpg)
© Herald


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 (https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/facebook-censor-alex-jones-705766/) 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 (http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/about/board-of-directors).

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 (http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/16601798.meet-the-mcbots-how-scottish-cyber-activists-try-to-game-twitter/) 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 (https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-sad-sad-robot-all-alone/), 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 (https://www.digitalsherlocks.org/)".


https://www.sott.net/image/s24/486010/large/Screenshot_533.png (https://www.sott.net/image/s24/486010/full/Screenshot_533.png)
© Ben Nimmo / Twitter


Nimmo's track record is simply appalling. In this report (https://medium.com/dfrlab/trolltracker-disinformation-surge-from-skripal-to-syria-f44f92a476cd) for the Atlantic Council website, he falsely identified British pensioner @Ian56789 as a "Russian troll farm", which led to Ian being named as such by the British government, and to perhaps the most surreal Sky News interview of all time. Perhaps still more remarkably, Nimmo searches for use of the phrase "cui bono?" in reference to the Skripal and fake Douma chemical weapons attacks. Nimmo characterises use of the phrase cui bono as evidence of pro-Assad and pro-Kremlin bots and trolls - he really does. Most people would think to consider cui bono indicates a smattering more commonsense than Nimmo himself displays.


EJogpc3Uy34

It is at least obvious cui bono from Nimmo's witchfinding - the capacious, NATO and CIA stuffed pockets of Ben Nimmo himself. That Facebook allows this utterly discredited neo-conservative charlatan the run of its censorship operations needs, given Facebook's pivotal role in social media intercourse, to concern everybody. The freedom of the internet is under fundamental attack.


Related:


BBC stonewalls ex-ambassador Craig Murray over Newsnight editor Mark Urban's relationship with Sergei Skripal (https://www.sott.net/article/394727-BBC-stonewalls-ex-ambassador-Craig-Murray-over-Newsnight-editor-Mark-Urbans-relationship-with-Sergei-Skripal)



Craig Murray: British state's treatment of Jeremy Corbyn as 'anti-semite' illustrates the ubiquity of evil (https://www.sott.net/article/392331-Craig-Murray-British-states-treatment-of-Jeremy-Corbyn-as-anti-semite-illustrates-the-ubiquity-of-evil)



Ex-diplomat Craig Murray: Prosecute Blair govt officials at ICC after torture report (https://www.sott.net/article/389759-Ex-diplomat-Craig-Murray-Prosecute-Blair-govt-officials-at-ICC-after-torture-report)



Craig Murray: When is a massacre not a massacre? (https://www.sott.net/article/385777-Craig-Murray-When-is-a-massacre-not-a-massacre)



Craig Murray: Freedom no more (https://www.sott.net/article/384759-Craig-Murray-Freedom-no-more)



Craig Murray: Complete disillusionment with the UK Establishment (https://www.sott.net/article/383749-Craig-Murray-Complete-disillusionment-with-the-UK-Establishment)

[Bill Ryan]

In his recent interview with Richard Dolan, filmmaker Jeremy Corbell explains how all the marketing and promotion for his new documentary Hunt for the Skinwalker was removed by Facebook. Corbell plays it down, but Richard is incredulous. Listen at 30:02.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB_Sj-zgJXw

[Hervé]

Facebook Sells Your Personal Information (https://www.henrymakow.com/2018/11/Facebook-Was-Forced-to-Begin-Censoring.html)

by Henry Makow PhD
November 1, 2018


jH87fxGtk_g

They provide a service. How do they monetize it?
By selling your personal information to anyone who wants to manipulate you.

There is a stunning scene in the PBS Frontline (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/watch-inside-facebooks-early-days/)documentary broadcast (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/watch-inside-facebooks-early-days/) Tuesday and Wednesday where a lawyer demands to see his personal information stored by Facebook. He is given thousands of pages covering everything he has ever posted. Facebook has 2.25 billion users worldwide.

They provide a service. How do they monetize it? By selling your personal data to anyone who wants to manipulate you into buying a product or demonstrating or voting for a candidate. It makes $20 billion a year and has a market cap of $440 billion.


https://www.henrymakow.com/upload_images/zuck.jpg



We tend to see Facebook in terms of their left-wing bias. For example, they recently scrubbed "proud boy" accounts (https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10-31/facebook-purges-proud-boys-after-new-york-scuffle-antifa) while letting Antifa function with impunity. But this is part of a much bigger picture in which Facebook has been criticized for allowing the site to be used for many nefarious causes.


For example, it was used to stir up hatred against the Muslim minority in Myanmar which led to genocide. It was also used to instigate the "Arab Spring" for the Muslim Brotherhood. A former employee of the Russian "Internet Research Agency" in St. Petersburgh confirmed that Russians used it to advance their political interests in Ukraine and to help Trump get elected. During his campaign, Trump had held out an olive branch to Russia, which has turned out to be an outright lie.

Russia trolls are engaged in a campaign to demoralize Americans, a longtime Communist goal. Maybe not so much has changed there.

Cambridge Analytica used FB data to help Trump's campaign target specific voters with $100 million worth of ads. Needless to say, FB did not discourage this bonanza even though the data breach was not authorized. Until recently any developer could access everyone's personal information.

Facebook has about 40,000 employees and the majority are now engaged in trying to ferret out these "bad actors." Facebook executives were interviewed and most of them are millennials in over their head. They are mostly interested in increasing "engagement." More "polarization" has this effect. Before becoming the brunt of criticism, Facebook touted itself as a technology company, and not a media company. It was loath to interfere with free speech. Obviously, they have had to change.

Facebook started as a way to help Harvard students get laid but Zuckerberg soon realized he was sitting on a gold mine. Zuckerberg, 34, is worth $53 billion. Like liberals everywhere, he shrouds himself in piety and self-righteousness. He claims the goal is to make the world "a more connected and open" place. That means it's really about money.


https://www.henrymakow.com/upload_images/The-Social-Media-Monster-More-Than-Half-of-Americans-Will-Log-into-Facebook-This-Year-300x180.jpeg


Mark Zuckerburg has created a monster. Billions of people are addicted to a surveillance and manipulation machine.

A powerful weapon, FB can be used for good or bad. But who decides?

--------

Related:
Social Media Monster (https://mobilemarketingwatch.com/the-social-media-monster-more-than-half-of-americans-will-log-into-facebook-this-year-65166/)

FB loses a million European Users in last 3 mos (https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/facebook-users-europe-drop-mark-zuckerberg-cambridge-analytica-a8609716.html?utm_source=reddit.com)

[Bill Ryan]

Here are the two parts of the new PBS documentary, The Facebook Dilemma, released just a few days ago in two installments. HIGHLY recommended.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T48KFiHwexM


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuA4qxPbpQE

[norman]

Bill, it says "this video is not available". Did you grab them for the library?






From Bill: Yes, I did, but the YouTube videos definitely still work. They were uploaded by PBS themselves.

They can also be streamed from the PBS site:


https://pbs.org/video/the-facebook-dilemma-part-one-voajnk
https://pbs.org/video/the-facebook-dilemma-part-two-i7efro

[happyuk]

I found it quite amusing that Facebook have recruited former British deputy PM Nick Clegg to head up its global affairs. Presumably because this is the point at which Facebook is really needing a person synonymous with trust, kept promises and public confidence? Specifically I'm amused that on the face of it, Facebook appears to have been sold a pup. I'm sure at the interview Clegg sold Zuckerberg a great tale about being one of the most formidable former politicians in the world with regard to privacy and honesty.

Quite frankly, I'm rather glad Clegg is leaving the UK entirely - for all the values the Lib Dem's supposedly hold, here is Clegg working for Facebook! This ought to tell you everything you need to know about modern politics (or just politics), regardless of party.

I would say Facebook know full well that anybody who has held significant office retains residual door-opening abilities to governments, oppositions, civil servants and regulators. They shouldn't, but in the real world they do. It could even be that they're [gasp!] making a genuine attempt to change their culture - and have roped someone in to help them show governments they're actually doing that. But I don't believe that Zuckerberg or Clegg are capable of that or wired that way.

It's fashionable to be massively rude about politicians, but it'll be interesting to see if Clegg has any positive effect at Facebook. Or if he is just a shallow, money-grabbing bar steward.

[Hervé]

Here are the two parts of the new PBS documentary, The Facebook Dilemma, released just a few days ago in two installments. HIGHLY recommended.
[...]
It looks like I am in the same blind hole as Norman, here: "Not available."


Thanks for the alternate :)

Well that was short lived, too:


We're sorry, but this video is not available in your region due to rights restrictions.

[norman]

Here are the two parts of the new PBS documentary, The Facebook Dilemma, released just a few days ago in two installments. HIGHLY recommended.
[...]
It looks like I am in the same blind hole as Norman, here: "Not available."


Thanks for the alternate :)

The alternate is more polite and informative, but it says the same thing.


We're sorry, but this video is not available in your region due to rights restrictions.

[Bill Ryan]

Here are the two parts of the new PBS documentary, The Facebook Dilemma, released just a few days ago in two installments. HIGHLY recommended.
[...]
It looks like I am in the same blind hole as Norman, here: "Not available."

Thanks for the alternate :)

The alternate is more polite and informative, but it says the same thing.


We're sorry, but this video is not available in your region due to rights restrictions.

Okay, Wow. Here's a WeTransfer download link. (Two files, 549 Mb, valid till 23 November 2018)


https://we.tl/t-hIwzKLDdJh

[Valerie Villars]

Well, I'm watching it and well into the second video. I wish everyone could see the videos. What an incredible fable type story of getting what you wished for. The devil is in the details, though. I guess Suckerberg just didn't see past his too often repeated mantra of wanting an open world where everyone communicates with each other.

He and his company have become tools for chaos and polarization in the worst way. Not understanding he is being used for nefarious purposes is very disturbing to see. He doesn't have a clue. He's just not smart.

Most of the employees, except for the ones who saw it coming and resigned, seemed to have drunk a very potent kool-aid which blinds them from reality.

Another huge problem is that most of his employees are too young to have any kind of real life experience or hindsight understanding, which generally comes with age and experience. This is a recipe for disaster with a company of this kind of influence.

[norman]

Well, I'm watching it and well into the second video. I wish everyone could see the videos. What an incredible fable type story of getting what you wished for. The devil is in the details, though. I guess Suckerberg just didn't see past his too often repeated mantra of wanting an open world where everyone communicates with each other.

He and his company have become tools for chaos and polarization in the worst way. Not understanding he is being used for nefarious purposes is very disturbing to see. He just doesn't have a clue. He's just not smart.

Whaw Valerie. Now you are firing on all cylinders.

[happyuk]

I'm getting into this right now, its a very revealing video.

This bit at ~29.01 stood out for me

"If you're off Facebook its using tracking pixels to collect what you're browsing"

"For its micro-targeting to work, for its business model to work it has to remain a surveillance machine"

[norman]

If the Facebook stock value isn't tanking, why not?

The 'market' must feel the exposure of Silicon Valley either isn't going to happen or that it will be spun very favorably.

[Bill Ryan]

Yes, it's a VERY good documentary.

Now also uploaded to the Avalon Library. If you want to download it, though, please use the WeTransfer link https://we.tl/t-hIwzKLDdJh, valid till 23 November, or download it from YouTube if you can.

If NOT, then it's in the Library as a backup. The request to use the other resources first is simply that we have to be just a little careful with the Library bandwidth usage.


http://avalonlibrary.net/The_Facebook_Dilemma_Part_1.mp4
http://avalonlibrary.net/The_Facebook_Dilemma_Part_2.mp4

[Bill Ryan]

Here's a short (and very interesting) 4 minute video about the data that Facebook collects about YOU.

Even if you don't have a Facebook account.

I'll say that again.

Even if you don't have a Facebook account.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbdXaBE7tqg

[Bill Ryan]

I've just finished watching Part 2 of the new PBS documentary The Facebook Dilemma. It was fascinating (as was Part 1) — but My God, there are major problems here with (e.g.) using A.I. to filter out 'hate speech' and 'fake news'.

I'm sure I'm not alone in detecting a marked Liberal leaning to the entire documentary — factually based though it appears, or presents itself, to be.

(At this point, these questions of course spill over to other threads and discussions.)

[Spellbound]

I've never been on Facebook, nor will I ever be. It's the devil.

Dave - Toronto

[norman]

I've just finished watching Part 2 of the new PBS documentary The Facebook Dilemma. It was fascinating (as was Part 1) — but My God, there are major problems here with (e.g.) using A.I. to filter out 'hate speech' and 'fake news'.

I'm sure I'm not alone in detecting a marked Liberal leaning to the entire documentary — factually based though it appears, or presents itself, to be.

(At this point, these questions of course spill over to other threads and discussions.)

Left leaning is an understatement. Considering the timing, it's really a thinly disguised party political broadcast that says "understand why you voted for Trump, and don't be fooled again".

On the plus side, it shows very well what a complete idiot Zuckerberg is, but then it ( fraudulently ) lines up all the wrong reasons to 'smack his backside'.

[Bill Ryan]

Yes, it's a VERY good documentary.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T48KFiHwexM

Amazingly, here's a piece about this from Dr Mercola. Kudos to him. :highfive:


https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/11/17/facebook-data-collection.aspx

The Facebook Dilemma

Story at-a-glance


As of the third quarter of 2018, 2.27 billion people actively used Facebook, the world’s largest social media site, up from 1 billion in 2012
Facebook is unique in its ability to monetize the time people spend on its platform. During the third quarter of 2018, the site generated more than $6 per user
Ninety-eight percent of Facebook’s revenue comes from advertising, which totaled $39.9 billion in 2017
The addition of the “Like” button in 2009 revolutionized the company’s ability to gather personal data — information about your preferences that can then be sold
The significant danger with giving out personal data is that you’re opening yourself up to be a target of manipulation — whether you’re being manipulated to buy something you don’t need or believe something that isn’t true.

As of the third quarter of 2018, 27 billion people actively used Facebook, the world's largest social media site, up from 1 billion in 2012. On average, each user spends about 41 minutes using the site daily, down from 50 minutes average in 2016.

Some, of course, spend far more. Teens, for instance, may spend up to nine hours (https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/12/16/teens-media-usage.aspx) perusing the site, the consequences of which are only beginning to be understood.

As noted by The Motley Fool, Facebook is unique in its ability to monetize the time people spend on its platform. During the third quarter of 2018, the site generated more than $6 per user. For the fourth quarter of 2017, Facebook raked in a total of $12.97 billion, $4.3 billion of which was net profit.

Most of this revenue — $11.4 billion for the fourth quarter alone — came from mobile ads,5 which are customized to users' preferences and habits. According to CNN Money,6 98 percent of Facebook's revenue comes from advertising, totaling $39.9 billion in 2017.

Facebook's Primary Business Is Collecting and Selling Your Personal Data

Facebook has repeatedly been caught mishandling users' data and/or lying about its collection practices. The fact is, its entire profit model is based on the selling of personal information that facilitates everything from targeted advertising to targeted fraud.

Like Google (https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/01/24/eliminate-google-from-your-life.aspx), Facebook records, tracks and stores every single thing you do on Facebook: every post, comment, "like," private message and file ever sent and received, contacts, friends lists, login locations, stickers and more. Even the recurrent use of certain words is noted and can become valuable currency for advertisers.

For individuals who start using Facebook at a young age, the lifetime data harvest could be inconceivably large, giving those who buy or otherwise access that information a very comprehensive picture of the individual in question.

Facebook also has the ability to access your computer or smartphone's microphone without your knowledge. If you suddenly find yourself on the receiving end of ads for products or services you just spoke about out loud, chances are one or more apps are linked into your microphone and are eavesdropping.

In the featured video, "The Facebook Dilemma," Frontline PBS correspondent James Jacoby investigates Facebook's influence over the democracy of nations, and the lax privacy parameters that allowed for tens of millions of users' data to be siphoned off and used in an effort to influence the U.S. elections.

The Early Days of Facebook

The Frontline report starts out showing early video footage of Zuckerberg in his first office, complete with a beer keg and graffiti on the walls, talking about the success of his social media platform. At the time, in 2005, Facebook had just hit 3 million users.

In an early Harvard lecture, Zuckerberg talks about how he believes it's "more useful to make things happen and apologize later than it is to make sure you dot all your i's now, and not get stuff done." As noted by Roger McNamee, an early Facebook investor, it was Zuckerberg's "renegade philosophy and disrespect for authority that led to the Facebook motto, 'Move fast and break things.'"

While that motto speaks volumes today, "It wasn't that they intended to do harm, as much as they were unconcerned about the possibility that harm would result," McNamee says. As for the sharing of information, Zuckerberg assured a journalist in an early interview that no user information would be sold or shared with anyone the user had not specifically given permission to.

In the end, Zuckerberg’s quest to “Give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected,” has had far-reaching consequences, affecting global politics and technology, and raising serious privacy issues that have yet to be resolved.

For years, however, employees firmly believed Facebook had the power to make the world a better place. As noted by Tim Sparapani, Facebook director of public policy from 2009 to 2011, Facebook "was the greatest experiment in free speech in human history," and a "digital nation state."

However, the company — with its largely homogenous workforce of 20-something tech geeks — has proven to be more than a little naïve about its mission to improve the world through information sharing. Naomi Gleit, vice president of social good, the company's growth team, says they were slow to understand "the ways in which Facebook might be used for bad things."

The Facebook News Feed

One of the key features of Facebook that keeps users engaged is the news feed, described by former product manager on Facebook's advertising team, Antonio Garcia Martinez, as "Your personalized newspaper; your 'The New York Times' of you, channel you. It is your customized, optimized vision of the world."

However, the information that appears in your newsfeed isn't random. From the very beginning, it was driven by a secret algorithm, a mathematical formula that ranked stories in terms of importance based on your individual preferences. This personalization is "the secret sauce," to quote Martinez, that keeps users scrolling and sharing.

The addition of the "Like" button in 2009 revolutionized the company's ability to gather personal data — information about your preferences that can then be sold for cold hard cash. It also "acted as a social lubricant" and a "flywheel of engagement," Soleio Cuervo, a former product manager for the company, says.

The ability to get feedback through "likes" made people feel like they were being heard, and this ultimately became "the driving force of the product," Cuervo says. However, the "Like" button also suddenly allowed Facebook to determine who you care about most among your friends and family, what kind of content makes you react or take action, and which businesses and interests are truly important to you — information that helps build your personality profile and can be sold.

The Legal Provision That Allowed Facebook to Exist and Flourish

The Facebook news feed was made possible by laws that do not hold internet companies liable for the content posted on their website. As explained by Sparapani, "Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is the provision which allows the internet economy to grow and thrive. And Facebook is one of the principal beneficiaries of this provision."

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act basically says an internet provider cannot be held responsible if someone posts something violent, offensive or even unlawful on their site. According to Sparapani, Facebook “took a very libertarian perspective” with regard to what it would allow on its site.

Aside from a few basic common decency rules, the company was “reluctant to interpose our value system on this worldwide community,” Sparapani says. Were they concerned about truth becoming obfuscated amid a flood of lies? Jacoby wonders. “No,” Sparapani says. “We relied on what we thought were the public’s common sense and common decency to police the site."

Real-World Impacts of Social Media

The tremendous impact of social media (https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/03/09/social-media-negative-effects.aspx), the ability to share information with like-minded individuals, became apparent during the so-called “Arab Spring” in 2011, when a Facebook page created by Wael Ghonim, a Google employee in the Middle East, literally sparked a revolution that led to the resignation of Egyptian President Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak, just 18 days after a Facebook call-out for protest resulted in hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets.

Around the world, it became clear that Facebook could be used to create democratic change; that it has the power to change society as we know it. Alas, with the good comes the bad. After the revolution, conflict in the Middle East spiraled out of control as the polarization between opposing sides grew — and the social media environment both bred and encouraged that polarization.

What's worse, Facebook's news feed algorithm was actually designed to reward polarizing material with greater distribution. The end result played out in the streets, where sectarian violence led to bloodshed.

"The hardest thing for me was seeing the tool that brought us together tearing us apart,” Ghonim says, adding, “These tools are just enablers for whomever; they don’t separate between what’s good and bad. They just look at engagement metrics.” Since the Arab Spring, the rise of fake news has been relentless.

"Everything that happened after the Arab Spring should have been a warning sign to Facebook,” says Zeynep Tufekci, a researcher and former computer programmer. One major problem, she believes, is that Facebook was unprepared to monitor all of the content coming from every corner of the globe.

She urged the company to hire more staff, and to hire people who know the language and understand the local culture in each region Facebook is available. Still, it's unlikely that any company, at any size, would be able to police the content of a social network with more than 2 billion users.

Privacy — What Privacy?

In order for Facebook to go public, it had to be profitable, which is where the selling of user data comes in. By selling the information the platform has collected about you as you move through content and even web pages outside of Facebook, "liking" and commenting on posts along the way, marketers are able to target their chosen market.

While this seems innocuous enough at first glance, this data harvesting and selling has tremendous ramifications, opening people up to be purposely deceived and misled.

Zuckerberg, whose experience with advertising was limited, hired former Google vice president of global online sales and operations, Sheryl Sandberg, as chief operating officer. In one interview, Sandberg stresses that Facebook is "focused on privacy," and that their business model "is by far the most privacy-friendly to consumers."

"That's our mission," Zuckerberg chimes in, adding "We have to do that because if people feel like they don't have control over how they're sharing things, then we're failing them." "It really is the point that the only things Facebook knows about you are things you've done and told us," Sandberg says.

Internally, however, Sandberg demanded revenue growth, which meant selling more ads, which led to data harvesting that today exceeds people’s wildest imagination.

How to Build an Orwellian Surveillance Machine

By partnering with data brokering companies, Facebook has access to an incredible amount of data that has nothing to do with what you post online — information on your credit card transactions, where you live, where you shop, how your family is spending its time, where you work, what you eat, read, listen to and much more.

Information is also being collected about all other websites you’re perusing, outside of Facebook’s platform. All of this information, obtained by companies without your knowledge, is shared with Facebook, so that Facebook can sell ads that target specific groups of users. As noted by Tufekci, in order for Facebook’s business model to work, “it has to remain a surveillance machine."

In short, it’s the ultimate advertising tool ever created. The price? Your privacy. Sparapani was so uncomfortable with this new direction of Facebook, he resigned before the company’s partnering with data brokers took effect.

The extent of Facebook's data collection remained largely unknown until Max Schrems, an Austrian privacy advocate, filed 22 complaints with the Irish Data Protection Commission, where Facebook's international headquarters are located.

Schrems claimed that Facebook’s personal data collection violated European privacy law, as Facebook was not telling users how that data was being used. In the end, nothing happened. As noted by Schrems, it was obvious that “even if you violate the law, the reality is it’s very likely not going to be enforced.” In the U.S., the situation is even worse, as there are no laws governing emerging technologies which utilize9 the kinds of data collection done by Facebook.

Federal Trade Commission Investigates Privacy Concerns

A 2010 investigation of Facebook's data collection by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) revealed the company was sharing user data with third party software developers without the users' consent — conduct the FTC deemed deceptive.

The FTC also grew concerned about the potential misuse of personal information, as Facebook was not tracking how third parties were using the information. They just handed over access, and these third parties could have been absolutely anyone capable of developing a third-party app for the site. Facebook settled the FTC's case against them without admitting guilt, but agreed by consent order to "identify risk to personal privacy" and eliminate those risks.

Internally, however, privacy issues were clearly not a priority, according to testimony by Sandy Parakilas, Facebook's platform operations manager between 2011 and 2012 who, during his time with the company, ended up in charge of solving the company's privacy conundrum — a responsibility he felt significantly underqualified for, considering its scope.

The Cambridge Analytica Scandal

Facebook, with founder Mark Zuckerberg at its helm, faced a firestorm after The New York Times and British media outlets reported Cambridge Analytica used "improperly gleaned" data from 87 million Facebook users to influence American voters during the 2016 presidential election.

Cambridge Analytica data scientist Christopher Wylie, who blew the whistle on his employer, revealed the company built "a system that could profile individual U.S. voters in order to target them with personalized political advertisements" during the presidential campaign.

Parakilas insisted Facebook could have prevented the whole thing had they actually paid attention to and beefed up their internal security practices. Indeed, Cambridge Analytica used the very weakness the FTC had identified years before — a third-party personality quiz app called "This Is Your Digital Life."

The Dark Side of Social Media Rears Its Ugly Head Again

Indeed, the U.S. Department of Defense has also expressed its concerns about Facebook, noting the ease with which it can spread disinformation. As noted by former Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency program manager, Rand Waltzman, the significant danger with giving out personal data is that you’re opening yourself up to be a target of manipulation — whether you’re being manipulated to buy something you don’t need or believe something that isn’t true.

Between 2012 and 2015, Waltzman and colleagues published 200 scientific papers on the potential threats posed by social media, detailing how Facebook and other platforms could be used for nefarious purposes. According to Waltzman, disinformation can be turned "into a serious weapon" on Facebook, as you have the ability to mislead enormous amounts of people with very little effort.

Essentially, Facebook allows for the propagation of propaganda at an enormous scale. "It's the scale that makes it a weapon," Waltzman says. Jacoby interviews a young Russian who claims to have worked as a paid social media propagandist for the Russian government, using fake Facebook profiles to spread false information and sow distrust of the Ukranian government.

The reach of this disinformation was made all the greater by the fact that you can pay to promote certain posts. In the end, all of the tools created by Facebook to benefit advertisers work equally well as government propaganda tools. The end result is tragic, as fake news has mushroomed to incomprehensible levels. Taking anything at face value these days is risky business, no matter how legitimate it may appear.

Understand the Risks of Social Media Use

Social media has many wonderful benefits. But there’s a dark side, and it’s important to be aware of this. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) has actually drafted legislation to protect consumer information by enforcing strict punishments, including jail time for up to 20 years, for senior company executives who fail to follow the guidelines to protect user data. As reported by Endgadget:



"The FTC would add 175 new members to its staff to carry out enforcement and would be given the ability to penalize a company up to four percent of its revenue for its first violation. Companies would also be required to submit regular reports to the FTC to disclose any privacy lapses that have occurred.

Companies making more than $1 billion in revenue and handling information from more than 1 million people and smaller companies handling the data of more than 50 million people would be subject to the regular check-ins. Failure to comply would care a punishment of potential jail time for executives.

The legislation would also institute a Do Not Track list. When a consumer joins the list, companies would be barred from sharing their data with third parties or using it to serve up targeted advertisements … Even if consumers don't choose to join the list, they would be granted the ability to review information collected about them, see who it has been shared with or sold to and challenge any inaccuracies."
Aside from privacy concerns and fake news, Facebook lurking has also been linked to decreased emotional well-being (https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/01/05/facebook-negative-health-effects.aspx), and online bullying, social isolation and depression have all become serious problems among our youth.

The obvious answer to all of these issues is to minimize your use of Facebook, and be mindful of what you post, click on and comment on while there. Information is still being gathered on your personal life by other data brokers, but at least it won’t be as effectively “weaponized” against you if it’s not tied to your Facebook profile.

[Flash]

I am actually using messenger to communicate with two friends about a trip we plan to do. No facebooking on it, no research on my side on google about 2 hotels we were looking at.

Well, next day, I open my facebook to have advertising from the two hotels we had chatted about. Private conversation, used to pull advertising on us. Everyting is registered, used and abuse. No private conversations on messenger, ever.

It really felt like I had been spied on, and it is spying on us actually. I told my friend and they were also feeling aggravated and spied on. Very uncomfortable.

- no more sex talk on messenger - lol just kidding.

[Flash]

That is it, its official, I hate facebook!! The exchanges are at the lowest possible denominator: rude, stupid people overtaking any chat, most are not even able to read, and most never ever admit anything they wrote that could be wrong. Nor that others do not always have bad intentions

But the unbelievable lack of basic civility still astonishes me. Usually I only repost some information, the only usefulness is to contact some friends and even there, you are pursued with advertising because your private conversations are read by facebook.

Of course someone was rude to me today and for one of the rare times I answered back, the stupidity was too much to keep silent.

I also was acquainted with someone with a real low but deemed normal IQ coupled with zero heart, just a miserable despisable being similar to the one commenting today on facebook.

It discourages me to ever imagine that humanity can survive, if what I saw are average humans.

Ok my rant is over, it was quite needed to blow up some steam a bit.

[onawah]

You might want to try Facebook Purity. It gives you more options for managing your FB page.
That is it, its official, I hate facebook!!

[avid]

Thanks for this Flash, I have tried to fathom the privacy settings - which keep changing - for ages. Any search on Google is spotted on Facebook, therefore advertising et al...
Our searches are filed into our history - however much we try to switch off/log out. Any conversations linked to other platforms are documented and archived. There is little space left for privacy. An innocent telephone call is recorded. Let’s face it - we are encompassed by vile interfaces, so is the future ‘snail-mail’? I still keep my FB account as I use it for disseminating links to health-related info, such as Fluoride Action Network, devices to stop weather manipulation, and to try to assure folk this is not just my paranoia - with evidentials.
Don’t despair, who cares if some stupid spy wants to see where you are going on holiday - it’s pathetic, they’ll miss out on your enjoyment 😉

[avid]

You might want to try Facebook Purity. It gives you more options for managing your FB page.
That is it, its official, I hate facebook!!

Agreed, once my iMac back up to date, my fb purity was great, no ads etc etc... Just relied on ipad/iphone for past 2 years, so upgrade iMac here I come. The cd drive failed, and couldn’t upload new system upgrades... 🙄

[Bill Ryan]

From https://cnbc.com/2019/01/08/facebook-culture-cult-performance-review-process-blamed.html

Inside Facebook's 'cult-like' workplace, where dissent is discouraged and employees pretend to be happy all the time
8 Jan 2019


More than a dozen former Facebook employees detailed how the company's leadership and its performance review system has created a culture where any dissent is discouraged.
Employees say Facebook's stack ranking performance review system drives employees to push out products and features that drive user engagement without fully considering potential long-term negative impacts on user experience or privacy.
Reliance on peer reviews creates an underlying pressure for Facebook employees to forge friendships with colleagues for the sake of career advancement.

At a company-wide town hall in early October, numerous Facebook (https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=FB) employees got in line to speak about their experiences with sexual harassment.

The company called the special town hall after head of policy Joel Kaplan caused an internal uproar (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/04/facebook-employees-reportedly-outraged-at-exec-at-kavanaugh-hearing.html) for appearing at the congressional hearing for Judge Brett Kavanaugh. A young female employee was among those who got up to speak, addressing her comments directly to COO Sheryl Sandberg.

"I was reticent to speak, Sheryl, because the pressure for us to act as though everything is fine and that we love working here is so great that it hurts," she said, according to multiple former Facebook employees who witnessed the event.

"There shouldn't be this pressure to pretend to love something when I don't feel this way," said the employee, setting off a wave of applause from her colleagues at the emotional town hall in Menlo Park, California.

The episode speaks to an atmosphere at Facebook in which employees feel pressure to place the company above all else in their lives, fall in line with their manager's orders and force cordiality with their colleagues so they can advance. Several former employees likened the culture to a "cult."

This culture has contributed to the company's well-publicized wave of scandals over the last two years, such as governments spreading misinformation to try to influence elections and the misuse of private user data, according to many people who worked there during this period. They say Facebook might have have caught some of these problems sooner if employees were encouraged to deliver honest feedback. Amid these scandals, Facebook's share price fell nearly 30 percent in 2018 and nearly 40 percent since a peak in July, resulting in a loss of more than $252 billion in market capitalization.

Meanwhile, Facebook's reputation as being one of the best places in Silicon Valley to work is starting to show some cracks. According to Glassdoor, which lets employees anonymously review their workplaces, Facebook fell from being the best place to work in the U.S. to No. 7 in the last year (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/04/facebook-is-no-longer-glassdoors-best-place-to-work.html).

But employees don't complain in the workplace.

"There's a real culture of 'Even if you are f---ing miserable, you need to act like you love this place,'" said one ex-employee who left in October. "It is not OK to act like this is not the best place to work."

This account is based on conversations with more than a dozen former Facebook employees who left between late 2016 and the end of 2018. These people requested anonymity in describing Facebook's work culture, including its "stack ranking" employee performance evaluation system and their experiences with it, because none is authorized by Facebook to talk about their time there. This stack ranking system is similar to the one that was notoriously used by Microsoft before the company abandoned it in 2013, the former Facebook employees said.

Facebook declined to comment on former employees' characterization of the work place as "cult-like."

Inside the bubble

Former employees describe a top-down approach where major decisions are made by the company's leadership, and employees are discouraged from voicing dissent — in direct contradiction to one of Sandberg's mantras, "authentic self."

For instance, at an all-hands meeting in early 2017, one employee asked Facebook Vice President David Fischer a tough question about a company program. Fischer took the question and answered, but within hours, the employee and his managers received angry calls from the team running that program, this person said.

"I never felt it was an environment that truly encouraged 'authentic self' and encouraged real dissent because the times I personally did it, I always got calls," said the former manager, who left the company in early 2018.

The sentiment was echoed by another employee who left in 2017.

"What comes with scale and larger operations is you can't afford to have too much individual voice," said this person. "If you have an army, the larger the army is, the less individuals have voice. They have to follow the leader."

In this employee's two years at Facebook, his team grew from a few people to more than 50. He said "it was very much implied" to him and his teammates that they trust their leaders, follow orders and avoid having hard conversations.

The company's culture of no-dissent prevented employees from speaking up about the impact that News Feed had on influencing the 2016 U.S. election, this person added.

https://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/img/editorial/2018/11/19/105582445-Cramer.600x337.jpg?v=1542639468
(https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/11/19/facebook-is-obviously-in-disarry-says-jim-cramer.html) Facebook is obviously in disarray, says Jim Cramer 9:58 AM ET Mon, 19 Nov 2018 | 04:52
(https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/11/19/facebook-is-obviously-in-disarry-says-jim-cramer.html)
The message was clear in August 2016 when the company laid off the editorial staff of its trending news team (https://www.forbes.com/sites/leifwalcutt/2016/08/26/facebook-lays-off-journalists-from-trending-topics-replaces-with-algorithm/#2d7e6ec34f8c), shortly after some workers on that team leaked to the press that they were suppressing conservative-leaning stories. Employees were further discouraged from speaking up following the election, when CEO Mark Zuckerberg brushed off (https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/10/13594558/mark-zuckerberg-election-fake-news-trump) the accusation that Facebook could have impacted the election, calling that idea "crazy."

The former employee described "a bubble" at the company in which employees are dissuaded from giving managers critical feedback or challenging decisions.

"I'm pretty disappointed in that because I have a lot of respect for Sheryl, and she preaches about giving hard feedback," the employee said.

"All the things we were preaching, we weren't doing enough of them. We weren't having enough hard conversations. They need to realize that. They need to reflect and ask if they're having hard conversations or just being echo chambers of themselves."

Show no weakness

Many former employees blamed the cult-like atmosphere partly on Facebook's performance review system, which requires employees to get reviews from approximately five of their peers twice a year. This peer review system pressures employees to forge friendships with colleagues at every possible opportunity, whether it be going to lunch together each day or hanging out after work.

"It's a little bit of a popularity contest," said one manager who left the company in 2017. "You can cherry-pick the people who like you — maybe throw in one bad apple to equalize it."

Peers can provide feedback directly to their colleagues, or they can send the reviews to the employee's manager. That feedback is typically treated as anonymous and cannot be challenged.

"You have invisible charges against you, and that figures mightily into your review," said an employee who left in October. "Your negative feedback can haunt you for all your days at Facebook."

Several former employees said that peers and managers iced them out because they had personal commitments or problems that required significant attention outside of work.

For instance, one employee who left in recent weeks said a manager was critical in a public team meeting because the employee didn't attend a team-building event outside work. At the time, this person was going through a divorce.

"She definitely marked me down for not attending those team-building events, but I couldn't attend because I was going through my own issues and needed work-life balance," said the employee.

Employees are not required to attend after-hours events, according to a Facebook spokeswoman, adding that collaboration is important at the company.

Another manager who also left the company in recent weeks said she once took multiple weeks of vacation instead of going on medical leave to treat a major illness. She says she did this based on advice from her supervisor.

"I was afraid that if I told too many people or took too much time off, I would be seen as unable to do my job," the former manager said. "I was scared that if I let up in any way, shape or form they would crumble me, and they did."

https://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/img/editorial/2018/12/20/105640278-5ED5-PL-Facebook-122018.600x337.jpg?v=1545333134
(https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/12/20/facebooks-costs-mount-as-data-scandals-deepen.html) Facebook's costs mount as data scandals deepen 2:13 PM ET Thu, 20 Dec 2018 | 01:37
(https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/12/20/facebooks-costs-mount-as-data-scandals-deepen.html)
Ironically, one of the best ways to see the desperation to be liked is to follow Facebook employees on Facebook itself.

Employees parade the company's projects and post any report on the benefits of working at the company or the positive impact the company is making on the world. This is in part a show for peers and managers, former employees said.

"People are very mindful about who they're connected with on Facebook who they also work with and how what they're posting will put them in a favorable light to their managers," an employee who left in 2016 said.

As with many social media users, the online content does not always reflect the offline emotions.

"There's so many people there who are unhappy, but their Facebook posts alone don't reflect the backdoor conversations you have with people where they're crying and really unhappy," she said.

How employees are graded

Twice a year, this peer feedback comes into play in so-called calibration meetings, where employees are given one of seven grades.

Managers deliberate with their peers to grade employees in all levels below them. As the review process moves up the chain over the course of multiple weeks, lower-level managers gradually leave the room, until the company's vice presidents finish the calibration. At this point, Zuckerberg and Sandberg sign off that their vice presidents have done due diligence, and each employee's grade for the past six months is finalized.

But there's a companywide limit on the percentage of employees who can receive each grade. So during the reviews process, managers compete against their peer managers to secure strong grades for their direct reports. Managers are compelled to vouch fiercely for their favorite employees, but don't speak up for employees they don't like or who have previously received poor ratings.

"There's a saying at Facebook that once you have one bad half, you're destined for bad halves the rest of your time there. That stigma will follow you," said a manager who left in September.

According to two former executives, the grade breakdown is approximately as follows:


"Redefine," the highest grade, is given to fewer than 5 percent of employees
"Greatly exceeds expectations": 10 percent
"Exceeds": 35 percent
"Meets all": 35 to 40 percent
"Meets most," a low grade that puts future employment at risk, goes to most of the remaining 10 to 15 percent
"Meets some" grades are extremely rare and are seen as an indication that you're probably getting fired, according to multiple employees.
"Does not meet" are exceptionally rare, as most employees are fired before they get to that level.

The distribution of these grades are not a hard limit but rather a recommended guidance for managers to follow, according to a Facebook spokeswoman.

Facebook isn't the only tech company to use a performance evaluation system where a percentage of employees is pegged to each performance grade, meaning that there's always a fixed population at risk of being fired. Pioneered by Jack Welch at General Electric in the 1990s and sometimes known as "stack ranking," this method is fairly common in Silicon Valley and was most notoriously used by Microsoft (https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=MSFT) until the company got rid of it in 2013 (https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-abandons-8216stack-ranking8217-of-employees-1384279446) after widespread employee complaints.

https://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/img/editorial/2018/12/12/105624211-4ED2-CB-Bickert-121218.600x337.jpg?v=1544652887
(https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/12/12/facebook-vp-bickert-discusses-efforts-to-combat-hate-speech.html) Facebook VP Bickert discusses efforts to combat hate speech 6:11 PM ET Wed, 12 Dec 2018 | 03:03
(https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/12/12/facebook-vp-bickert-discusses-efforts-to-combat-hate-speech.html)
Stack ranking systems work well at companies with competitive environments that compare employees on objectively measurable performance, according to Alexandra Michel, professor at the University of Pennsylvania who studies work culture. However, the system tends to break down and cause distrust among employees and create a political atmosphere when applied by companies that measure performance subjectively, or companies that demand employee loyalty in exchange for benefits and the promise of career advancement, Michel said.

"If you have an environment that is completely cutthroat like Wall Street, this system works pretty well," Michel said. "But if you have employees who come in and want to be taken care of, want to learn, want to be part of a warm group and people who care about them — that's a very jarring mismatch."

Since early 2017, Facebook has become more rigorous in distributing grades by specific percentages, according to multiple former employees.

"I had a boss literally say to me 'You don't have enough people in 'meets some,' 'meets most,' and 'meets all,'" said a former director who left earlier this year. "I was finding myself making up things to be hypercritical of employees to give them lower ratings than they really deserved."

These twice-yearly reviews encourage employees to be particularly productive around June and December, working nights and weekends as they race to impress bosses before reviews, which are typically completed in August and February. It's especially true in December, the half Facebook predominantly uses to determine which employees will receive promotions.

This rush causes employees to focus on short-term goals and push out features that drive user engagement and improve their own metrics without fully considering potential long-term negative impacts on user experience or privacy, multiple former employees said.

"If you're up for promotion, and it's based on whether you get a product out or not, you're almost certainly going to push that product out," a former engineer said. "Otherwise you're going to have to wait another year to get that promotion."

As employees begin gathering peer reviews and buckling up for their next round of calibrations in February, the process will reveal how employees are thinking of the company after a bruising 2018, according to employees who left recently.

There will be an extra level of anxiety around the process this time, one person said. Folks who have been wanting to leave will be hoping to notch a high rating so they can depart on good terms. Others who are committed to the company will be torn between speaking up about their concerns or staying in line for the sake of their careers. Any changes to company's grading process this time could reveal whether Facebook is taking special steps to keep valued employees around, or continuing along the same lines.

"This review cycle will be particularly colorful for them," according to a director who left recently.

WATCH: Here's how to see which apps have access to your Facebook data — and cut them off (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/20/how-to-see-which-facebook-apps-have-access-to-your-data.html)

https://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/img/editorial/2018/03/22/105083747-Sequence_01.00_00_02_01.Still001.600x337.jpg?v=1521755292
(https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/03/22/how-to-see-which-facebook-apps-have-access-to-your-data.html) (https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/03/22/how-to-see-which-facebook-apps-have-access-to-your-data.html)Here's how to see which apps have access to your Facebook data — and cut them off 8:19 PM ET Thu, 22 March 2018 | 01:10
(https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/03/22/how-to-see-which-facebook-apps-have-access-to-your-data.html)

[avid]

Thanks, got rid of change.org and gofundme, the only 2 that could access me. 👍

[norman]

From https://cnbc.com/2019/01/08/facebook-culture-cult-performance-review-process-blamed.html

Inside Facebook's 'cult-like' workplace, where dissent is discouraged and employees pretend to be happy all the time
8 Jan 2019




I've posted a link to an edited audio recording of Alex Jones expanding very much more broadly the extent of what's going on with social media and what's about to hit us in the next few months. It's a huge operation that was originated by Obama even before they knew Hillary was not going to be the President. It seems little has slowed or prevented their plan from coming into being.

Get ready folks, it's all about to notch up to the next level.

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?103766-YouTube-Facebook-Apple-and-Spotify-all-ban-Alex-Jones-Infowars&p=1269061&viewfull=1#post1269061

[sunwings]

The most recent craze on Facebook is the ten year challenge. However many people are asking Was The Facebook '10 Year Challenge' A Way To Mine Data For Facial Recognition AI?

Last week a new Facebook challenge went viral asking users to post a photo from 10 years ago and one from today captioning “how did aging effect you?” Now being called the “10-Year Challenge.” Over 5.2 million, including many celebrities, participating in this challenge.

“Imagine that you wanted to train a facial recognition algorithm on age-related characteristics and, more specifically, on age progression (e.g., how people are likely to look as they get older). Ideally, you'd want a broad and rigorous dataset with lots of people's pictures. It would help if you knew they were taken a fixed number of years apart—say, 10 years,” said O’Neill.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicolemartin1/2019/01/17/was-the-facebook-10-year-challenge-a-way-to-mine-data-for-facial-recognition-ai/#73c514975859

[Flash]

The most recent craze on Facebook is the ten year challenge. However many people are asking Was The Facebook '10 Year Challenge' A Way To Mine Data For Facial Recognition AI?

Last week a new Facebook challenge went viral asking users to post a photo from 10 years ago and one from today captioning “how did aging effect you?” Now being called the “10-Year Challenge.” Over 5.2 million, including many celebrities, participating in this challenge.

“Imagine that you wanted to train a facial recognition algorithm on age-related characteristics and, more specifically, on age progression (e.g., how people are likely to look as they get older). Ideally, you'd want a broad and rigorous dataset with lots of people's pictures. It would help if you knew they were taken a fixed number of years apart—say, 10 years,” said O’Neill.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicolemartin1/2019/01/17/was-the-facebook-10-year-challenge-a-way-to-mine-data-for-facial-recognition-ai/#73c514975859

spot on, I am sure this is it

[Bluegreen]

Internal Facebook Leak Reveals Global Bribery Scheme

. . . . . . . . .To Soften Data Privacy Laws

www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-05/internal-facebook-leak-reveals-global-bribery-scheme-soften-data-privacy-laws


. . . . . . . . http://s3.amazonaws.com/media.mediapost.com/images/inline_image/2011/11/30/ZuckerbergBigbrother-is-watching-B.jpg

[Hervé]

...


The real problem with Facebook:



https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D8vaPmEU0AYIr7V.jpg

[Hervé]

...

The real problem with all of 'em:


How NeoCon Billionaire Paul Singer Is Driving the Outsourcing of US Tech Jobs to Israel (https://www.mintpressnews.com/neocon-billionaire-paul-singer-driving-outsourcing-us-tech-jobs-israel/259147/)

by Whitney Webb (https://www.mintpressnews.com/author/whitney-webb/)
June 11th, 2019


https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Screenshot-261_edited.jpg
Paul Singer | AP photo archive


Several U.S. tech giants including Google, Microsoft and Intel Corporation have filled top positions with former members of Israeli military intelligence and are heavily investing in their Israeli branches while laying off thousands of American employees, all while receiving millions of dollars in U.S. government subsidies funded by American taxpayers.
WASHINGTON — With nearly 6 million Americans unemployed (https://www.deptofnumbers.com/unemployment/us/) and regular bouts of layoffs in the U.S. tech industry, major American tech companies like Google, Microsoft and Intel Corporation are nonetheless moving key operations, billions in investments, and thousands of jobs to Israel — a trend that has largely escaped media attention or concern from even “America first” politicians. The fact that this massive transfer of investment and jobs has been so overlooked is particularly striking given that it is largely the work of a single leading neoconservative Republican donor who has given millions of dollars to President Donald Trump.

To make matters worse, many of these top tech companies shifting investment and jobs to Israel at record rates continue to collect sizable U.S. government subsidies for their operations while they move critical aspects of their business abroad, continue to layoff thousands of American workers, and struggle to house their growing company branches in Israel. This is particularly troubling in light of the importance of the tech sector to the overall U.S. economy, as it accounts for (https://www.comptia.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/2016/03/01/u.s.-tech-industry-employment-surpasses-6.7-million-workers) 7.1 percent of total GDP and 11.6 percent of total private-sector payroll.

Furthermore, many of these companies are hiring members of controversial Israeli companies — known to have spied on Americans, American companies, and U.S. federal agencies — as well as numerous members of Israeli military intelligence as top managers and executives.

This massive transfer of the American tech industry has largely been the work of one leading Republican donor — billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer, who also funds the neoconservative think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Islamophobic and hawkish think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), and also funded the now-defunct Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI).

Singer’s project to bolster Israel’s tech economy at the U.S.’ expense is known as Start-Up Nation Central, which he founded in response to the global Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to use nonviolent means to pressure Israel to comply with international law in relation to its treatment of Palestinians.

This project is directly linked to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who in recent years has publicly mentioned that it has been his “deliberate policy” to have former members of Israel’s “military and intelligence units … merge into companies with local partners and foreign partners” in order to make it all but impossible for major corporations and foreign governments to boycott Israel.

In this report, MintPress identifies dozens of former members of an elite Israeli military intelligence unit who now hold top positions at Microsoft, Google and Facebook.

Singer’s nonprofit organization has acted as the vehicle through which Netanyahu’s policy has been realized, via the group’s close connections to the Israeli PM and Singer’s long-time support for Netanyahu and the Likud Party. With deep ties to Netanyahu, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and controversial tech companies — like Amdocs — that spied on the American government, this Singer-funded organization has formed a nexus of connections between the public and private sectors of both the American and Israeli economies with the single goal of making Israel the new technology superpower, largely at the expense of the American economy and government, which currently gives $3.2 billion (https://explorer.usaid.gov/cd/ISR) in aid to Israel annually.

Researched and developed in Israel
In recent years, the top U.S. tech companies have been shifting many of their most critical operations, particularly research and development, to one country: Israel. A 2016 report (https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-google-microsoft-israel-rd-2016-10) in Business Insider noted that Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple had all opened up research and development (R&D) centers in recent years, with some of them having as many as three such centers in Israel, a country roughly the size of New Jersey. Other major tech companies that have also opened (https://finder.startupnationcentral.org/multinationals/search) key operation and research centers in Israel include Sandisk, Nvidia, PayPal, Palantir and Dell. Forbes noted (https://www.forbes.com/sites/startupnationcentral/2018/02/20/what-the-worlds-top-10-tech-firms-have-in-common/#397518502b3a) last year that the world’s top 10 tech companies were now “doing mission-critical work in Israel that’s core to their businesses back at HQ.”

Yet, some of these tech giants, particularly those based in the U.S., are heavily investing in their Israeli branches while laying off thousands of American employees, all while receiving millions of dollars in U.S. government subsidies funded by American taxpayers.

For example, Intel Corporation, which is the world’s second largest manufacturer of semiconductor computer chips and is headquartered in California, has long been a major employer in Israel, with over 10,000 employees in the Jewish state. However, earlier this year, Intel announced that it would be investing $11 billion (https://www.timesofisrael.com/intel-confirms-kiryat-gat-plant-plan-which-ministers-say-is-worth-11-billion/) in a new factory in Israel and would receive around $1 billion in an Israeli government grant for that investment. Just a matter of months after Intel announced its major new investment in Israel, it announced a new round of layoffs (http://www.fortune.com/2019/03/29/intel-layoffs-oregon-2019/) in the United States.

Yet this is just one recent example of what has become a trend for Intel. In 2018, Intel made public its plan to invest $5 billion (https://www.timesofisrael.com/intel-green-lights-5-billion-investment-in-israel-plant/) in one of its Israeli factories and had invested (https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Intel-CEO-We-think-of-ourselves-as-an-Israeli-company-as-much-as-a-US-company-484209) an additional $15 billion in Israeli-created autonomous driving technology a year prior, creating thousands of Intel jobs in Israel. Notably, over that same time frame, Intel has cut nearly 12,000 jobs (http://www.fortune.com/2019/03/29/intel-layoffs-oregon-2019/) in the United States. While this great transfer of investment and jobs was undermining the U.S. economy and hurting American workers, particularly in the tech sector, Intel received over $25 million dollars (https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/prog.php?parent=intel&order=sub_year&sort=asc&page=2) in subsidies from the U.S. federal government.

A similar phenomenon has been occurring at another U.S.-based tech giant, Microsoft. Beginning in 2014 and continuing into 2018, Microsoft has laid off well over 20,000 employees (https://www.techtimes.com/articles/193774/20170121/microsoft-layoffs-700-employees-reportedly-getting-axed-next-week.htm), most of them Americans, in several different rounds of staff cuts. Over that same time period, Microsoft has been on a hiring spree in Israel, building new campuses (https://hamodia.com/2017/08/08/microsoft-build-new-campus-israel/) and investing billions of dollars annually (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tech-cyber-microsoft-idUSKBN15A1GA) in its Israel-based research and development center and in other Israeli start-up companies (http://www.thetower.org/4138-microsoft-tel-aviv-university-start-20-million-fund-to-invest-in-israeli-startups/), creating thousands of jobs abroad. In addition, Microsoft has been pumping millions of dollars into technology programs at Israeli universities and institutes, such as the Technion Institute (https://www.israel21c.org/microsoft-to-invest-1-5-in-technion/). Over this same time frame, Microsoft has received (https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/prog.php?parent=microsoft&order=sub_year&sort=asc) nearly $197 million in subsidies from the state governments of Washington, Iowa and Virginia.

Though Israeli politicians and tech company executives have praised this dramatic shift as the result of Israel’s tech prowess and growing reputation as a technological innovation hub, much of this dramatic shift has been the work of the Netanyahu-tied Singer’s effort to counter a global movement aimed at boycotting Israel and to make Israel a global “cyber power.”

Start-Up Nation Central and the Neocons


https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/paul-singer-800x449.jpg (https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/paul-singer.jpg)
Paul Singer | AP photo archive


In 2009, a book titled Start Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle, written by American neoconservative Dan Senor and Jerusalem Post journalist Saul Singer (unrelated to Paul), quickly rose to the New York Times bestseller list for its depiction of Israel as the tech start-up capital of the world. The book — published by (https://www.cfr.org/book/start-nation) the Council on Foreign Relations, where Senor was then serving as Adjunct Senior Fellow — asserts that (http://freakonomics.com/2009/12/04/how-did-israel-become-start-up-nation/) Israel’s success in producing so many start-up companies resulted from the combination of its liberal immigration laws and its “leverage of the business talents of young people with military experience.”

“The West needs innovation; Israel’s got it,” wrote Senor and Singer. In a post-publication interview with the blog Freakonomics (http://freakonomics.com/2009/12/04/how-did-israel-become-start-up-nation/), Senor asserted that service in the Israeli military was crucial to Israel’s tech sector success, stating that:
“Certain units have become technology boot camps, where 18- to 22-year-olds get thrown projects and missions that would make the heads spin of their counterparts in universities or the private sector anywhere else in the world. The Israelis come out of the military not just with hands-on exposure to next-gen technology, but with training in teamwork, mission orientation, leadership, and a desire to continue serving their country by contributing to its tech sector — a source of pride for just about every Israeli.”
The book, in addition to the many accolades it received from the mainstream press, left a lasting impact on top Republican donor Paul Singer, known for funding (https://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/paul-singer/) the most influential neoconservative think tanks in America, as noted above. Paul Singer was so inspired by Senor and Singer’s book that he decided to spend $20 million (https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/business/ngo-to-counter-bds-by-promoting-israeli-high-tech-1.5405870) to fund and create an organization with a similar name. He created the Start-Up Nation Central (SUNC) just three years after the book’s release in 2012 (https://williamdavidson.org/featured-grants/start-up-nation-central/).

To achieve his vision, Singer – who is also a top donor to the Republican Party and Trump – tapped Israeli economist Eugene Kandel, who served as (https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/business/ngo-to-counter-bds-by-promoting-israeli-high-tech-1.5405870) Netanyahu’s national economic adviser and chaired the Israeli National Economic Council from 2009 to 2015.

Senor was likely directly involved in the creation of SUNC, as he was then employed (https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/business/ngo-to-counter-bds-by-promoting-israeli-high-tech-1.5405870) by Paul Singer and, with neoconservatives Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan, co-founded the FPI, which Singer had long funded before it closed in 2017. In addition, Dan Senor’s sister, Wendy Singer (https://www.startupnationcentral.org/management/) (unrelated to either Paul or Saul), long-time director of Israel’s AIPAC office, became the organization’s executive director.

SUNC’s management team, in addition to Eugene Kandel and Wendy Singer, includes Guy Hilton as the organization’s general manager. Hilton is a long-time marketing executive at Israeli telecommunications company Amdocs, where he “transformed” the company’s marketing organization. Amdocs was once highly controversial in the United States after it was revealed by a 2001 Fox News investigation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H20Naj176M0) that numerous federal agencies had investigated the company, which then had contracts with the 25 largest telephone companies in the country, for its alleged role in an aggressive espionage operation that targeted the U.S. government. Hilton worked at Microsoft prior to joining Amdocs.

Beyond the management team, SUNC’s board of directors includes Paul Singer, Dan Senor and Terry Kassel — who work for Singer at his hedge fund, Elliott Management — and Rapheal Ouzan. Ouzan was an officer (https://www.americanbanker.com/news/analytics-startup-billguard-has-flagged-50m-in-suspect-charges) in the elite foreign military intelligence unit of Israel, Unit 8200, who co-founded BillGuard the day after he left that unit, which is often compared to the U.S.’ National Security Agency (NSA). Within five months of its founding, BillGuard was backed by (https://www.pehub.com/2011/10/billguard-gets-10m-from-khosla-ventures-founders-fund-innovation-endeavors-others/) funding from PayPal founder Peter Thiel and former CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt. Ouzan is also connected to U.S. tech companies that have greatly expanded their Israeli branches since SUNC’s founding — such as Microsoft, Google, PayPal and Intel, all of which support (https://www.haaretz.com/haaretz-labels/essence/1.5724015) Ouzan’s non-profit Israel Tech Challenge.

According to reports from the time published in Haaretz and Bloomberg, SUNC was explicitly founded to serve as “a foreign ministry for Israel’s tech industry (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-06/paul-singer-embraces-startup-nation-in-battle-for-israel-economy)” and “to strength Israel’s economy (https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/business/ngo-to-counter-bds-by-promoting-israeli-high-tech-1.5405870)” while also aiming to counter (https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/business/ngo-to-counter-bds-by-promoting-israeli-high-tech-1.5405870) the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to use a nonviolent boycott to end the illegal military occupation of the West Bank and Israeli apartheid, as well as the growth of illegal Jewish-only settlements in occupied Palestinian territory.

Since its founding, SUNC has sought to transfer tech jobs from foreign companies to Israel by developing connections and influence with foreign governments and companies so that they “deepen their relationship with Israel’s tech industry.” Though SUNC has since expanded to include other sectors of the Israeli “start-up” economy, its focus has long remained on Israel’s tech, specifically its cybersecurity industry. Foreign investment in this single Israeli industry has grown (https://www.startupnationcentral.org/sector/cybersecurity/) from $227 million in 2014 to $815 million in 2018.

In addition to its own activities, SUNC appears to be closely linked to a similar organization, sponsored by Coca Cola (https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/society/2017/5/7/coca-cola-donated-thousands-of-dollars-to-extremist-zionist-group) and Daimler Mercedes Benz, called The Bridge (https://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/the-bridge-by-coca-cola-supporting-software-technology-startups), which also seeks to connect Israeli start-up companies with large international corporations. Indeed, SUNC, according to its website (https://www.startupnationcentral.org/engagements/), was actually responsible for Daimler Mercedes Benz’s decision to join The Bridge, thanks to a delegation from the company that SUNC hosted in Israel and the connections made during that visit.

Teaming up with Israel’s Unit 8200


https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/1018316866_edited-800x534.jpg (https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/1018316866_edited.jpg)
Members of Israel’s signals intelligence Unit 8200 work under a Saudi flag. Photo | Moti Milrod


Notably, SUNC has deep ties to Israel’s military intelligence unit known as Unit 8200 and, true to Start Up Nation’s praise of IDF service as key to Israel’s success, has been instrumental in connecting Unit 8200 alumni with key roles in foreign companies, particularly American tech companies. For instance, Maty Zwaig (https://www.linkedin.com/in/maty-zwaig-6476113/), a former lieutenant colonel in Unit 8200, is SUNC’s current director of human capital programs, and SUNC’s current manager of strategic programs, Tamar Weiss (https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamar-weiss-6369ab51/), is also a former member of the unit.

One particularly glaring connection between SUNC and Unit 8200 can be seen in Inbal Arieli (https://www.linkedin.com/in/inbalarieli/), who served as SUNC’s Vice President of Strategic Partnerships from 2014 to 2017 and continues to serve as a senior adviser to the organization. Arieli, a former lieutenant in Unit 8200, is the founder and head of the 8200 Entrepreneurship and Innovation Support Program (EISP), which was the first start-up accelerator in Israel aimed at harnessing “the vast network and entrepreneurial DNA of [Unit] 8200 alumni” and is currently one of the top company accelerators in Israel. Arieli was the top executive at 8200 EISP while working at SUNC.

Another key connection between SUNC and Unit 8200 is SUNC’s promotion (https://www.startupnationcentral.org/sector/cybersecurity/) of Team8, a company-creation platform whose CEO and co-founder is Nadav Zafrir, former commander of Unit 8200. In addition to prominently featuring (https://www.startupnationcentral.org/sector/cybersecurity/) Team8 and Zafrir on the cybersecurity section of its website, SUNC also sponsored a talk (https://www.team8.vc/press/israeli-cyber-warrior-puts-scare-ceos-davos/) by Zafrir and an Israeli government economist at the World Economic Forum, often referred to as “Davos,” that was attended personally by Paul Singer.

Team8’s investors include Google’s Eric Schmidt, Microsoft (https://www.mintpressnews.com/microsoft-electionguard-a-trojan-horse-for-a-military-industrial-takeover-of-us-elections/258732/), and Walmart (https://worldisraelnews.com/walmart-ceo-in-israel-to-meet-with-israeli-startups/) — and it recently hired former head of the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command, retired Admiral Mike Rogers. Team8 described the decision to hire Rogers as being “instrumental in helping strategize” Team8’s expansion in the United States. However, Jake Williams, a veteran of NSA’s Tailored Access Operations hacking unit, told CyberScoop (https://www.cyberscoop.com/mike-rogers-team8-nsa-board-criticism-unit-8200/):
“Rogers is not being brought into this role because of his technical experience. …It’s purely because of his knowledge of classified operations and his ability to influence many in the U.S. government and private-sector contractors.”
In addition to connections to Unit 8200-linked groups like Team8 and 8200 EISP, SUNC also directly collaborates with the IDF in an initiative aimed at preparing young Israeli women to serve in Unit 8200. That initiative, called the CyberGirlz Club (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/252448), is jointly funded by Israel’s Defense Ministry, SUNC and the Rashi Foundation, the philanthropic organization set up by the Leven family of Perrier-brand water, which has close ties (https://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Discreet-philanthropy-396456) to the Israeli government and IDF.

“Our aim is to bring the girls to this process already skilled, with the knowledge needed to pass the exams for Unit 8200 and serve in the military as programmers,” Zwaig told Israel National News (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/252448).

Seeding American tech
The connections between SUNC and Unit 8200 are troubling for more than a few reasons, one of which being that Unit 8200, often likened to the U.S.’ NSA, closely coordinates with Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, and is responsible for 90 percent of the intelligence material obtained by the Israeli government, according to its former commander Yair Cohen. Cohen told Forbes (https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardbehar/2016/05/11/inside-israels-secret-startup-machine/) in 2016, that “there isn’t a major operation, from the Mossad or any intelligence security agency, that 8200 is not involved in.” For obvious reasons, the fact that an organization founded by an American billionaire is actively promoting the presence of former military intelligence officers in foreign companies, specifically American companies, while also promoting the transfer of jobs and investment to that same country, is very troubling indeed.

Particularly troubling is the fact that, since SUNC’s founding, the number of former Unit 8200 members in top positions in American tech companies has skyrocketed. Based on a non-exhaustive analysis conducted by Mintpress of over 200 LinkedIn accounts of former Israeli military intelligence and intelligence officers in three major tech companies, numerous former Unit 8200 alumni were found to currently hold top managerial or executive positions in Microsoft, Google and Facebook.

At Microsoft, managers for at least 15 of the company’s products and programs — including Microsoft’s lead managers for engineering, product strategy, threat analytics and cloud business intelligence — publicly listed their affiliation with Unit 8200 on their LinkedIn accounts. In addition, the general manager (https://www.linkedin.com/in/assafrappaport/) of Microsoft’s Israeli Research and Development Center is also a former member of Unit 8200. In total, of the 200 accounts analyzed, 50 of them currently worked for Microsoft.

Similarly, at Google, 28 former Unit 8200 members at the company were identified from their LinkedIn accounts. Among them are Google’s Engineering Director, its strategic partner manager, two growth marketing leads, its lead technical manager, and six product and program managers, including Google’s manager for trust and safety search.

Facebook also has several Unit 8200 members in prominent positions, though fewer than Google and Microsoft. MintPress identified at least 13 Unit 8200 alumni working for Facebook, including its director of engineering, lead manager for express wi-fi, and technical program manager. Notably, Facebook has spent (https://theintercept.com/2016/09/12/facebook-is-collaborating-with-the-israeli-government-to-determine-what-should-be-censored/) the last several years collaborating with Israel’s government to censor Israel’s critics.

Of course, there is likely much more influence of Unit 8200 on these companies than this non-exhaustive analysis revealed, given that many of these companies acquired several Israeli start-ups run by and staffed by many Unit 8200 alumni who subsequently went on to found new companies and start-ups a few years or shortly after acquisition. Furthermore, due to the limitations of LinkedIn’s set-up, MintPress was not able to access the complete list of Unit 8200 alumni at these three tech companies, meaning that the eye-opening numbers found were generated by a relatively small sample.

This jump in Unit 8200 members in top positions in tech companies of global importance is actually a policy long promoted by Netanyahu, whose long-time economic adviser is the chief executive at SUNC. During an interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJs-1yQMD-o) with Fox News last year, Netanyahu was asked by Fox News host Mark Levin if the large growth seen in recent years in Israel’s technology sector was part of Netanyahu’s plan. Netanyahu responded, “That’s very much my plan … It’s a very deliberate policy.” He later added that “Israel had technology because the military, especially military intelligence, produced a lot of capabilities. These incredibly gifted young men and women who come out of the military or the Mossad, they want to start their start-ups.”

Netanyahu further outlined (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1uiwJ3m9KM) this policy at the 2019 Cybertech conference in Tel Aviv, where he stated that Israel’s emergence as one of the top five “cyber powers” had “required allowing this combination of military intelligence, academia and industry to converge in one place” and that this further required allowing “our graduates of our military and intelligence units to merge into companies with local partners and foreign partners.” The direct tie-ins of SUNC to Netanyahu and the fact that Paul Singer has also been a long-time political donor and backer (https://www.rt.com/usa/426720-israel-jerusalem-gaza-blumenthal/) of Netanyahu suggest that SUNC is a key part of Netanyahu’s policy of placing former military intelligence and intelligence operatives in strategic positions in major technology companies.

Notably, just as SUNC was founded to counter the BDS movement, Netanyahu has asserted that this policy of ensuring Israel’s role as a “cyber power” is aimed at increasing (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-boycott-idUSBREA1G1CK20140217) its diplomatic power and specifically undermining (https://www.timesofisrael.com/top-netanyahu-aide-world-wont-boycott-our-high-tech-for-palestinians/) BDS as well as the United Nations, which has repeatedly condemned Israel’s government for war crimes and violations of international law in relation to the Palestinians.

Building the bi-national surveillance state


https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/AP289325977938.jpg (https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/AP289325977938.jpg)
A Google data center in Hamina, Finland. (AP/Google)


Top U.S. tech companies have filled top positions with former members of Israeli military intelligence and moved strategic and critical operations to Israel, boosting Israel’s economy at the expense of America’s, and SUNC’s role in this marked shift merits scrutiny.

A powerful American billionaire has built an influential organization with deep connections to the U.S.-Israel lobby (AIPAC), an Israeli company that has been repeatedly investigated for spying on the U.S. government (Amdocs), and the elite Israeli military intelligence unit (Unit 8200) that has used its influential connections to the U.S. government and the U.S. private sector to dramatically shift the operations and make-up of major companies in a critical sector of the U.S. economy.

Further consider that U.S. government documents leaked by Edward Snowden have flagged Israel as “leading threat” to the infrastructure of U.S. financial and banking institutions, which use much of the software produced by these top tech companies, and have also flagged Israel as a top espionage threat. One U.S. government document cited Israel as the third most aggressive intelligence service against the U.S. behind Russia and China. Thus, Paul Singer’s pet project in Start-Up Nation Central has undermined not only the U.S. economy but arguably U.S. national security as well.

This concern is further exacerbated by the deep ties connecting top tech companies like Microsoft and Google to the U.S. military. Microsoft and Google are both key military contractors — Microsoft in particular, given that it is set to win a lucrative contract for the Pentagon’s cloud management and has partnered with the Department of Defense to produce a “secure” election system known as ElectionGuard (https://www.mintpressnews.com/microsoft-electionguard-a-trojan-horse-for-a-military-industrial-takeover-of-us-elections/258732/) that is set to be implemented in some U.S. states for the 2020 general election.
Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.
=====================================


MintPress identifies dozens of former members of an elite Israeli military intelligence unit who now hold top positions at Microsoft, Google and Facebook.
Voilà... why 'em monopolies ain't following "New Testament" nor even Torah's "old testament" ethic and values but only the ever shifting Talmudic precepts of the Sabbatean Frankists (https://www.henrymakow.com/2018/06/sabbatean-frankist-illuminati.html)...

[Hervé]

Via Jim Stone:


File the following under "you can't make this stuff up"

Facebook denies shadow banning, then receives patent for it's proprietary shadow banning methods (http://82.221.129.208/.we9.html)

From The New American (https://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/computers/item/32995-facebook-denies-shadow-banning-receives-patent-for-shadow-banning):

"Facebook has continually denied that it participates in the practice of shadow banning - a method of blocking a users' posts or comments from everyone except the user who made the post or comment. But a newly granted patent shows that Facebook not only does practice shadow banning, but wants to protect - by patent - the method it uses for doing so.

"Despite the fact that Facebook executives denied the practice in congressional testimony in April, the company was awarded a patent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) earlier this month for an automated system that would

"receive a list of proscribed content and block comments containing the proscribed content by reducing the distribution of those comments to other viewing users" while continuing to "display the blocked content to the commenting user such that the commenting user is not made aware that his or her comment was blocked."

A better definition of shadow banning would be hard to write.
"And since Facebook would use the patented system to shadow ban "proscribed" (read: banned) content, one can safely assume that would include political speech deemed unacceptable by the social-media behemoth. After all, Facebook recently slapped down a post by this magazine's parent organization, The John Birch Society as "hate speech." That post consisted of the cover of the July 8 issue of the print edition of The New American. That cover showed a real picture of an illegal border crossing and carried the caption, "Immigrant Invasion."
[...]
"With a newly patented automatic system for shadow banning anything "proscribed�" by Facebook, the company would have no trouble pressing the digital mute button on JBS or any other user whose posts run counter to accepted liberal norms."
Jim Stone's comment: Well Well Well, Facebook got caught lying. Again. More at the link.

[Bill Ryan]

On 13 August 2019,

Mercola.com leaves Facebook today (https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2019/08/13/mercola-leaving-facebook.aspx)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T48KFiHwexM
Story at-a-glance


As of today, Mercola.com will no longer maintain an active Facebook page. The page will remain, but no further posts will be made. Anyone who has been following me on Facebook is urged to sign up as a subscriber to my newsletter instead
Earlier this year I issued a poll to see how you would feel about my leaving Facebook. The results arrived in late March, 2019, with just over 65% agreeing with my decision to withdraw from the platform
July 24, 2019, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced Facebook will pay a $5 billion fine to settle some of the known privacy breaches, including that of Cambridge Analytica
Corporate changes are also required under the FTC order. As CEO, Zuckerberg will be required to provide the FTC with a quarterly statement guaranteeing Facebook’s privacy program complies with the order, and “a false certification could trigger civil or even criminal penalties”
$5 billion is only one month's worth of revenue for Facebook, and its planned integration of Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp will turn it into a global super-monopoly with unprecedented data mining capabilities

As you probably know, Facebook has promised to combat "fake news" on its platform, but its censorship (https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2019/06/25/google-broad-core-algorithm-update-buries-mercola.aspx) doesn't end at blatantly fake news articles — far from it. Information that is unfavorable to Facebook (or its advertisers) keeps getting censored out as well.

One example was the censoring of U.S. presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. Warren is an outspoken proponent of breaking up monopolies such as Amazon, Facebook and Google (https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/04/18/google-and-facebook.aspx), and has vowed to introduce "sweeping new regulation of Silicon Valley," should she be elected president.

Three of Warren's ads were reportedly removed by Facebook in March 2019, with a message saying the ads were deleted because they went "against Facebook's advertising policies." Warren took to Twitter to comment on the removal, saying this is an example of why her proposal is so sorely needed.

Facebook is also "hiding" content that is critical of vaccines, and has barred "ads that contain "misinformation" about vaccines."3 It's likely only a matter of time before the platform starts censoring other health-related content as well — anything that doesn't parrot the drug industry's propaganda — as is already being done by Google.

In May 2019, Google updated its quality rater guidelines in such a way that even expert views are now buried if deemed "harmful to the public." Google used to rank pages based on whether an author could prove their expertise based on how many people visited a page or the number of other reputable sites that linked to that page. It no longer works that way. Now, if a page is deemed harmful to the public, it gets the lowest possible rating regardless of expertise.

Mercola.com will no longer maintain a Facebook presence

Earlier this year I issued a poll to see how you would feel about my leaving Facebook. The results arrived in late March 2019, with just over 65% agreeing with my decision to withdraw from the platform.
https://media.mercola.com/ImageServer/Public/2019/March/facebook-survey.jpg So, as of today, Mercola.com will no longer maintain an active Facebook page. The page will remain, but no further posts will be made. Anyone who has been following me on Facebook is urged to sign up as a subscriber to my newsletter instead.

If you have any friends or relatives who are seriously interested in their health, please share important articles with them and encourage them to subscribe to our newsletter as well. Here's how to make sure you continue receiving (https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2019/08/13/where-to-find-mercola-info.aspx) your Mercola Newsletter subscription.

Why I'm leaving Facebook

As described in previous articles, Facebook has repeatedly been caught subverting users' privacy. Your hobbies, habits and preferences are meticulously tracked by the site, and your personal data is then sold to whomever wants access to it.

This is ostensibly done for the sole purpose of creating targeted marketing, but there have been no real safeguards in place to prevent scammers and even political agents from using the data, as detailed in Frontline's "The Facebook Dilemma," featured above.

In it, Frontline PBS correspondent James Jacoby investigates Facebook's influence over the democracy of nations, and the lax privacy parameters that allowed for tens of millions of users' data to be siphoned off and used in an effort to influence the U.S. elections.

The entire profit model of Facebook is based on the selling of your personal information. For individuals who start using Facebook at a young age, the lifetime data harvest is likely to be inconceivably large, giving those who buy or otherwise access that information an extraordinarily comprehensive picture of the individual in question.

Facebook even has the ability to access your computer or smartphone's microphone without your knowledge. If you suddenly find yourself on the receiving end of ads for products or services you just spoke about out loud, chances are one or more apps are linked into your microphone and are eavesdropping.

The idea that I'm contributing to the invasive data mining of my 1.8 million Facebook followers has never sat well with me, and I feel leaving the platform and going back to depending on email is the most responsible way to move forward.

Facebook fact-checkers protect advertisers

Like Google, Facebook employs fact-checkers such as Snopes (https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/01/03/snopes-outed-unfit-arbiter-truth.aspx) in an effort to prevent the proliferation of fake news. Their fact-checking is far from unbiased, however, and the bias appears to be directed by Facebook leadership.

According to a December 2018 report by The Guardian, Brooke Binkowski, former managing editor for Snopes, stated that "it appeared that Facebook was pushing reporters to prioritize debunking misinformation that affected Facebook advertisers."

At that point, "You're not doing journalism any more. You're doing propaganda," Binkowski told The Guardian. I couldn't agree more, and my site has been on the receiving end of that agenda.

Below is a screen shot of a Facebook post for one of my Splenda (https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/09/05/artificial-sweetener-splenda.aspx) articles, which based on "fact-checking" by Snopes was classified as "False," thereby reducing its potential views by an average of 80%.10 This despite the fact that I'm reporting published, peer-reviewed science.

https://media.mercola.com/ImageServer/public/2019/August/fb-post-snopes.jpg

Snopes also bungled its fact-checking of a vaccine injury report (https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2019/02/05/snopes-fact-check-gets-failing-grade.aspx) by former CBS correspondent Sharyl Attkisson. Snopes clearly had an agenda, which was to discredit Attkisson's report, as they simply didn't look at the facts presented. According to Attkisson:
"[T]he Snopes article debunks claims that were never made and uses one-sided references as its sources — other propagandists — without disclosing their vaccine industry ties."
The fact of the matter is, Snopes engages in massive censorship of natural health, and promotes industry talking points regardless of what the scientific reality is.

Indeed, I would argue there's simply no way one can trust any given organization or company to dictate credibility and preside over what's true and what's not. There are typically two or more sides to any story, and money can easily tip the scales on which side gets to be "true" and which is deemed "false."

Facebook's $5 billion fine should have been $2 trillion

Facebook is currently facing a number of legal probes and lawsuits regarding its controversial data-sharing practices and poor security measures. July 24, 2019, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced Facebook will pay a $5 billion fine to settle some of the known privacy breaches, including that of Cambridge Analytica.

While $5 billion may seem like a lot of money, their stock actually rose after the announcement. Facebook should have paid $2 trillion (https://slate.com/technology/2019/07/ftc-facebook-fine-5-billion.html) in fines for their serious privacy violations.

The federal government gave Facebook a sweetheart deal despite what they reported:
"If you've ever wondered what a paradigm shift looks like, you're witnessing one today. The FTC's $5 billion civil penalty against Facebook for violations of an earlier FTC order is record-breaking and history-making.

In addition, the settlement requires Facebook to implement changes to its privacy practices, its corporate structure, and the role of CEO Mark Zuckerberg that are seismic in scope. Simply put, when it comes to the business of consumer privacy, it's no longer business as usual at Facebook."
Facebook faces corporate restructuring

The new corporate structure of Facebook "will hold the company accountable for the decisions it makes about its users' privacy," the FTC notes. However, while this is the largest-ever penalty imposed on a company found to be in violation for consumer privacy violations, it still only amounts to one month's worth of revenue.

In fact it was so small that Facebook's stock went up MORE than $5 billion the day the fine was announced. The fine should have been at least $50 billion but more likely $500 billion. So, while the FTC tries to trump the fine as a considerable win, skepticism may still be warranted.

The agency had originally considered holding Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, personally accountable, but that didn't happen. And, considering how little $5 billion actually means to Facebook, without personal accountability, the likelihood of marked change could be minimal. As reported by ARS Technica:
"Democratic members of Congress blasted the settlement. 'This reported $5 billion penalty is barely a tap on the wrist, not even a slap,' Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said in a statement.

'Such a financial punishment for purposeful, blatant illegality is chump change for a company that makes tens of billions of dollars every year. Will Facebook be compelled to alter its present, systematic abuse of privacy? Based on the reported settlement, the answer is sadly, no.'

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) agreed. 'Despite Republicans' promises to hold big tech accountable, the FTC appears to have failed miserably at its best opportunity to do so,' Wyden said.

'No level of corporate fine can replace the necessity to hold Mark Zuckerberg personally responsible for the flagrant, repeated violations of Americans' privacy. That said, this reported fine is a mosquito bite to a corporation the size of Facebook.'"
Will Facebook change?

Zuckerberg has repeatedly demonstrated a complete lack of integrity when it comes to fulfilling his promises of privacy.

In fact, in a 2010 talk given at the Crunchie awards, he stated that "privacy is no longer a social norm," implying that using social media (https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/08/03/social-media-use.aspx) automatically strips you of the right to privacy, and that is why they do not respect it. Will any of this change? According to the FTC, the new order requires Facebook to:
"… implement a stringent program to monitor third-party developers and terminate access to any developer that doesn't follow the rules. In addition, Facebook can't use for advertising purposes the phone numbers it obtained specifically for security.

When it comes to facial recognition technology, the order requires Facebook to give clear notice of how it uses that information and it must get consumers' express consent before putting that data to a materially different use.

Facebook also will have to encrypt passwords and can't ask people for their passwords to other services, and must report any privacy incident to the FTC within 30 days. On top of everything Facebook will have to do to protect consumers' privacy, it also has to implement a comprehensive data security program.

Another important consideration: These new accountability provisions don't just apply to Facebook. They also apply to companies Facebook controls, like Instagram, WhatsApp, and other Facebook-owned affiliates that it shares consumers' information with between now and 2039."
Facebook faces privacy oversight

While Zuckerberg escaped personal accountability for his decisions up to this point, his job description is being overhauled by the FTC's new order. FTC writes:
"The order explains in detail a new system of independent control, multi-layer accountability, and personal responsibility over Facebook's practices, and substantially limits Mr. Zuckerberg's unfettered say in privacy decisions.

In fact, for the next 20 years, anytime Facebook makes a privacy decision, multiple independent watchdogs will be looking over its shoulder … Facebook's Board of Directors will name a new subgroup that will serve as an Independent Privacy Committee.

Facebook officers and employees — including Mr. Zuckerberg — are disqualified from membership. The Committee will be briefed about all material privacy risks and issues at the company, and has approval-and-removal authority over a new cadre of designated compliance officers and a third-party assessor that will not answer to Facebook."
Designated compliance officers approved by the Independent Privacy Committee with oversee Facebook's day-to-day privacy program, and "a third-party assessor with broad monitoring powers" will be appointed (and approved by the FTC) to evaluate Facebook's privacy practices on a biannual basis.

Zuckerberg himself will have no control over any of these parties (the Independent Privacy Committee, the compliance officers or the third-party assessor), and he will henceforth also have some of his own skin in the game.

As CEO, Zuckerberg will be required to provide the FTC with a quarterly statement guaranteeing Facebook's privacy program complies with the order, and "a false certification could trigger civil or even criminal penalties," the FTC states.

The FTC will also have "unparalleled access to Facebook's decision-making" and can at any time request documentation pertaining to any decision made without running into red tape that might limit its right to discovery.

Facebook still has unprecedented data mining capabilities

According to the FTC, its goal with this settlement "is the creation of a new culture at Facebook where the company finally lives up to the privacy promises it has made to the millions of American consumers who use its platform."

Whether this intention turns into reality remains to be seen. The fact of the matter is, Facebook is still a global monopoly, and its plan to integrate Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp will turn it into a global super-monopoly.

This merger has been criticized by tech experts, as it robs users of their ability to choose between messaging services, leaving them virtually no choice but to submit to Facebook's invasive privacy settings. Even if privacy is improved through the FTC's new order, it still gives Facebook unprecedented data mining capabilities.

February 7, 2019, Forbes27 reported the German antitrust regulator, Bundeskartellamt, has become the first to prohibit "the cross-application data sharing that underpins Facebooks's advertising business model."

Facebook's services will be banned in Germany if it integrates the three messaging platforms, Bundeskartellamt warns. If other countries follow suit, the merger would fall through, as it probably should. Facebook's data mining already poses a large enough threat.

Whether you worry about data mining or not, if you're a chronic user of Facebook, you may still want to consider unplugging from time to time for your psychological health. According to a study by researchers at New York University and Stanford, Facebook users report feeling happier and more satisfied with life after leaving the platform for a month.

They were also less likely to report feelings of anxiety (https://articles.mercola.com/anxiety.aspx), depression (https://articles.mercola.com/depression.aspx) and loneliness — a finding that supports the idea that social media is a poor substitute for actual face-to-face interactions.

[Carmody]

Still not a member of Facebook.......

Even though I should be, for commercial reasons (it is literally costing me money), the answer is still no, and is likely to remain that way.

Secondly, I don't trust them to take their hooks out of me, if I was a member and then quit.

I suspect the agreement, or their interpretation of the agreement... is that they have the rights to follow me and collect and use data from me...forever.

[Cara]

Facebook steps into the role of the judiciary.... this may be a precedent for corporate managed and controlled law in other spheres of social life.

As quoted in the article below, Mark Zuckerberg:
“We expect the board will only hear a small number of cases at first, but over time we hope it will expand its scope and potentially include more companies across the industry as well”


Facebook will bankroll an ‘independent supreme court’ to moderate your content & set censorship precedents
Published time: 18 Sep, 2019 01:43

Facebook has unveiled the charter for its ‘supreme court,’ a supposedly independent content moderation board that will take money from, and be appointed by, Facebook itself – while making binding decisions. What could go wrong?

Facebook has released preliminary plans for an “Oversight Board” tasked with reviewing content disputes. The 40-member body, referred to previously as Facebook’s “supreme court,” will have the authority to make binding decisions regarding cases brought to it by users or by the social media behemoth itself, according to a white paper released Tuesday, which stresses that the new board will be completely independent of Facebook, by popular request.

The company has clearly taken pains to make this new construct look independent, the sort of place a user might be able to go to get justice after being deplatformed by an algorithm incapable of understanding sarcasm or context. But board members will be paid out of a trust funded by Facebook and managed by trustees appointed by Facebook, while the initial board members will also be appointed by Facebook.

“We agreed with feedback that Facebook alone should not name the entire board,” the release states, proceeding to outline how Facebook will select “a small group of initial members,” who will then fill out the rest of the board. The trustees – also appointed by Facebook – will make the formal appointments of members, who will serve three-year terms.

Facebook insists it is “committed to selecting a diverse and qualified group” – no current or former Facebook employees or spouses thereof, current government officials or lobbyists (former ones are apparently OK), high-ranking officials within political parties (low-ranking is apparently cool), or significant shareholders of Facebook need apply. A law firm will be employed to vet candidates for conflicts of interest, but given Facebook’s apparent inability to recognize the conflict of interest inherent in paying “independent” board members to make binding content decisions, it’s hard to tell what would qualify as a conflict.

How will Facebook decide which cases get the democracy treatment? Cases with significant real-world impact – meaning they affect a large number of people, threaten “someone else’s voice, safety, privacy, or dignity,” or have sparked public debate – and are difficult to parse with regard to existing policy will be heard first. “For now,” only Facebook-initiated cases will be heard by the board – Facebook users will be able to launch their own appeals by mid-2020. Is the company merely reaching for an “independent” rubber-stamp to justify some of its more controversial decisions as the antitrust sharks start circling? Decisions will not only be binding, but also applicable to other cases not being heard, if they’re deemed similar enough – potentially opening a Pandora’s box of far-reaching censorship.

In a letter accompanying the white paper, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg claims the company’s moderators take into account “authenticity, safety, privacy, and dignity – guided by international human rights standards” when they make a decision to take down content. Given that the company’s own lawyers have questioned the very existence of users’ privacy, what does this bode for the other “values,” let alone international human rights standards?

Perhaps most ominously, Zuckerberg seems to have bigger things in mind for his Oversight Board than merely weighing in on Facebook content moderation decisions. “We expect the board will only hear a small number of cases at first, but over time we hope it will expand its scope and potentially include more companies across the industry as well” (emphasis added). Not exactly a throwaway line from the man who said he wanted Facebook to become an internet driver’s license. The private-sector social credit score may be closer than we think – and Zuckerberg would very much like to be the scorekeeper.

By Helen Buyniski, RT
From: https://www.rt.com/news/469041-facebook-supreme-court-democracy-fail/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

[Cara]

Facebook enters the mind control tech sector:


Facebook to buy startup that lets people control computers with their mind
Published time: 24 Sep, 2019 09:57

Social media giant Facebook has agreed to acquire New York neural interface startup CTRL-Labs for up to a reported $1 billion. The company develops software allowing users to control computer devices with their brain.

Facebook is seeking “more natural, intuitive ways” to work with different devices and wants to build “this kind of technology at scale,” the company’s vice-president of augmented reality and virtual reality divisions, Andrew Bosworth, said in a post on Monday announcing the acquisition. CTRL-Labs will join the company’s Reality Labs team, a division formerly known as Oculus Research, which focuses on AR and VR technology.

While the financial terms of the deal have not been revealed, media reports claim that the tech startup cost the social media giant between $500 million and $1 billion, which could make it one of Facebook’s most substantial acquisitions in the last 5 years.

In his post, Bosworth mentioned CTRL-Labs’ flagship product - a wristband that measures neuron activity to transmit it into computer input. However, the device does not exactly read your mind, it decodes electrical impulses that come from muscle fibers as they move and translates them into a digital signal your device can understand.

“Technology like this has the potential to open up new creative possibilities and reimagine 19th century inventions in a 21st century world,” the vice-president said. “This is how our interactions in VR and AR can one day look. It can change the way we connect.”

CTRL-Labs was founded in 2015 by Thomas Reardon and Patrick Kaifosh, both PhDs in neuroscience. Reardon told Forbes that he considered the bracelet a “universal controller for all your interactions with technology.” In February, the startup drew interest from other tech giants, as it raised $28 million from Alphabet GV and Amazon Alexa Fund.
From: https://www.rt.com/business/469486-facebook-brain-computing-startup/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

[Mike]

I met this woman while I was working at a hospital, and a mild flirtation began. One day she suggested I start a FB account. FB, what's that? I asked. She said, it's like MySpace for adults.

I hadn't fallen for the social media trap yet, and I was quietly proud of it. She reassured me that it was quite new and I wouldn't be bothered by friend requests and so forth. The implication was that one could remain quite anonymous. She also said that she had all sorts of pics of herself frolicking on the beach in a skimpy bikini, but i had to sign up to see them. those were the 2 biggest fattest lies of the century....

...instead, she had about 10,000 face shots...all taken on the same day it seemed. Pages and pages of them. there she was..grinning from asshole to eyebrow..over and over and over again. It was astounding. all I wanted to see was one picture of her ass. just one. i felt I deserved it after enduring all those face shots. But no...

..Over the years I've come across many of the face shot freaks; usually they include one grainy full body shot, taken from 50 yards away on a camera made in 1982. It's discouraging for perverts like me. but of course what they're confessing, thru omission, is that they're too fat to be sharing current photos of anything below the neck. and fair enough. but spare us all the head shots, ok?

Moving on...
so I attempted to start a FB acct. But I was convinced I was doing it incorrectly, so i kept starting over. Turns out I was doing it correctly after all, and in the process I created something like 20 profiles for myself. over the years people have expressed shock at just how many Mike *******'s there are. My last name isn't exactly common. dude I tried to find you on FB but there's a million Mike *******'s, all nondescript...no pics or anything they'll say.

huh...weird, I'll reply

yeah....weird..

I do use one of those accounts occasionally, for the messenger option, to chat with my friends overseas. The first year I'd get drunk and stalk old classmates..but that got old really quick. They all have the same exact life: family, kids, job, so forth. I kept waiting for someone to show a little guts, a little gamble..but it never happened. Same life, over and over again.

When I do sign on now, there is one person I do follow: this guy named Mario. An old friend and classmate.

Mario fascinates me. The details vary, but he operates in 4 or 5 rotating themes with his FB posts. They go something like this:

1) the family man: these posts are designed to depict him as dedicated son, brother, uncle, and grandson. They will often include pictures: there he is, in repose, next to grandma's grave, celebrating her life with the world on the anniversary of her death....a single tear falling from his eye.

Next he's shopping with his nephew, careful to point out that he's spending the money he gave him for Christmas.

Next he's at his nieces high school volleyball game, cheering maniacally with a home made t-shirt featuring her name and photo on it.

Look out, there he is again, at his nephew's first communion, handing a large gift to the little guy.

Etc.

2) the concerned citizen: he's always first to alert folks of an approaching snowstorm, a murderer on the loose, or the current virus going round. There are also several pics of him handing out water and gift cards to the homeless. Things like that. It's as if he's running for office. I doubt the guy has ever done an anonymous favor for anyone.

3) the aloof ladies man: his posts in this arena will often begin, "Hey ladies, don't ya hate it when..." etc etc etc. It's usually something to do with men being fools. And we can be , sure, but that's not the point. Mario paints himself as a detached narrator in all this, as if he's immune to being a fool himself. He's pandering, and trying to appear to relate...all in a phony attempt to get female attention. He'll also say things like, "guys, when you're out on a date with your lady, be courteous and stay off your cell phone. It's not cool. Plus, yesterday I walked into a pizza shop, and this dude was on a cell, and his girl was checking me out..." etc etc. It's all masquerading weakly as sage advice, but is really designed to make him appear as this handsome and irresistible dude who understands your needs....as if he'd just read a column in Cosmo and a light went off in his head.

4) the arbiter of morality: one of his latest posts read something like this: "I see all these kids talking about which teacher they like and which they don't,...but please try to remember: teachers are people too.."

What's wrong with that, you may be wondering. What's wrong is that's it's formulaic. It's phony. It's all designed to make him look like a "nice guy". Hes single btw.

Another post of his, on father's day, said something like this: "hey everyone, i know its fathers day, but single mothers are father's too...so don't forget to give them credit today too.."

After I read that I imagined myself climbing a poll, unzipping my fly, and pissing all over his head.


On the recent anniversary of 9-11, he put up a Zoolander'ish selfie of himself after a haircut, pouting whilst displaying his fresh new fade. "We remember" was scrawled across the top. He really did. I'm not making it up.

5) the political sage: he goes for the low hanging fruit when no one is giving him attention: Trump. I can't recall any posts specifically, but they're all on par with, " hey that Hitler was a really bad guy, wasn't he?" And then he sits back and plays the moderator, feeling important as everyone idiotically chimes in.


....he rotates all these themes, as predictably as can be. You can set your calender by it. And people respond to him. That's what's wrong with facebook.

[Tintin]

PROJECT VERITAS exposé
June 18th 2020

Release: 1
The problems for Facebook could be about to mount up somewhat for them depending upon whether their hiring practices in the leaked document are proven to be actually embedded in their recruitment policies, being enacted, and in breach of employment law. This would apply presumably to California employment law.

The Diversity Initiative is the document in question which appears to be applying H-1B protocols in a discriminatory way, where it (Facebook) provides for prioritising employing workers from overseas, over American workers.

Here's the undercover film:

zgM84JkAxww

[Tintin]

...and just when I thought it was nearly time for Tintin to turn in...zzzzzz.....

along came this (follow-up to the above Project Veritas exposé)

https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1273410294077960196/vid/1280x720/3tJE-1alHm5ZFFpy.mp4?tag=13

1273688565487144960

[norman]

Facebook Content Moderator: 'If Someone’s Wearing MAGA Hat, I'm Going to Delete Them for Terrorism'



l7o4A16QCxE
Project Veritas

[Tintin]

Expose Facebook continued: Another Facebook Insider Details Political Censorship; Current HR Exec 'No One Has White Man’s Back'

Ryan Hartwig, former sub-contractor with Facebook provides evidence of blatant anti-"white" male discrimination at the company.

9O8p4zK8ywY

[ExomatrixTV]

Facebook Sued for SPYING! Lawyer Explains Class Action Suit:
LzBFByOzIrs


Facebook and instagram are being sued for allegedly spying on their users by accessing smartphone cameras WHEN THE APP IS NOT IN USE. The lawsuit is compelling and scary. And eerily reminiscent of George Orwell's 1984.


⚠️ Play speed 0.75 of this video is near perfect ... download (rip) this mp4 video then use Free VLC Player 0.85 speed = perfect! (via Tab "View" then mark : "Status Bar" you see below the video you can change the play speed to 0.85) ... Which Youtube can not do it only allows you to play limited play-speed choices: 0.25 - 0.5 - 0.75 - 1.0 - 1.25 etc. ... Download Free VLC Player here: videolan.org (http://videolan.org)

🌐 I use "y2mate(dot)com/en60" or en.savefrom(dot)net/1-youtube-video-downloader-3 ... on PC only (not smartphone) but do NOT click on any pop-under & pop-over adds just use Alt-F4 or click it away safely if you know how!

🌐 I noticed that the maker of this very important video uses a video-edit software that CUTS OUT any short silent pauses we humans normally use ... Those pauses are NEEDED & NECESSARY to allow people to digest what is shared and to let it sink in ... But due to the almost robotic-like barrage of information overflow, some may feel highly annoyed and stop watching even if it is 100% legit & important to watch. Adding the "ADHD speed-talk" it makes it only worse! ... I may re-edit this video with the correct speed & pauses upload it to bitchute or brandnewtube (giving full credits to the owner of the video) to make my case and test neutral people which version they like the most!

cheers,
John

[EFO]

.
Hi, Everyone — I'll start this thread with a joke. But it's actually a serious subject.

http://projectavalon.net/Making_friends_outside_of_Facebook.gif

:rofl:
:rofl:EPIC!!! :rofl:
:rofl:

[haroldsails]

Oh boy, now I can't look at myself in the mirror. This is so right on.

[ExomatrixTV]

EXPOSED: Facebook is ready for unrest after election, preparing to aggressively 'restrict' content:
hhtZCVPOkCo

[ExomatrixTV]

1309598474648907777

[happyuk]

Facebook have pig-ignorantly closed 100s of UK accounts with any link to skinhead culture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinhead), including Neville Staple (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Staple)'s!

They clearly know nothing about the origins of 2-Tone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-tone_(music_genre)) as a music genre.

If you judge people purely by their clothes & haircut isn’t that a sign of bigotry? Perhaps someone ought to shut Facebook down.

[onawah]

Parler Tutorial
How To Use Parler 2020 App Tutorial
1,329,817 views•Aug 7, 2020
LaLas World
24.1K subscribers

"How To Use Parler (2020 App Tutorial) is a tutorial video that shows step by step how to use the Parler app

Topics covered in this video are
What is Parler
Creating an account
Menu options
How to post
Posting options
Dark mode
Comment options
And following

So what is PARLER? According to their website Parler is an unbiased social media platform focused on open dialog and user engagement. They allow free speech and do not censor ideas, political parties, or ideology .

If you are wondering How does Parler work it is very similar to twitter. It is basically a conservative twitter alternative app.

You have the options to follow accounts and echo/ retweet the posts and tailor your news feed homepage to the information you want and like."

sGMQYLNmo5w
**********************

Parler CEO: Social media is supposed to be a community forum
216,170 views•May 28, 2019
Fox News
6.62M subscribers
"Parler CEO John Matze discusses social media's war on free speech and the rise of censorship."
j6iyAt1Ydpc

[norman]

Facebook announces removal of religious views on personal profiles

plus more
11/22/2022 / By Arsenio Toledo

https://www.newstarget.com/2022-11-22-facebook-removes-religious-views-personal-profiles.html


https://www.newstarget.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/43/2022/11/Censored-Facebook-Social-Media.jpg


Beginning Dec. 1, Facebook will no longer allow user profiles to feature their religious views. (https://newspunch.com/facebook-any-religious-views-shared-on-your-profile-will-be-removed/)

“Some profile info is going away soon,” reads a warning sent to Facebook users (https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-profile-bios-removing-religious-political-views-address-fields-2022-11) who have filled in their profiles, including their religious views and affiliations. “Starting from 1 December 2022, the following info that you shared on your profile in About > Contact and basic info will be removed… Your other information will remain on your profile, along with the rest of your contact and basic info.”

The warning also provides Facebook users the option to download a copy of the data before the company scrubs it completely from people’s profiles.

Facebook is also deleting other fields on user profiles starting Dec. 1. These fields include “Interested in,” which indicates a user’s sexual orientation, “Political views” and “Address.” All other information, including contact information, will remain. (Related: Meta employees, contractors fired for HIJACKING user accounts (https://naturalnews.com/2022-11-18-meta-employees-contractors-fired-hijacking-user-accounts.html).)

A Facebook spokesperson confirmed the situation in a statement to TechCrunch.

“As part of our efforts to make Facebook easier to navigate and use, we’re removing a handful of profile fields: Interested In, Religious Views, Political Views and Address,” wrote the spokesperson in a statement. “We’re sending notifications to people who have these fields filled out, letting them know these fields will be removed. This change doesn’t affect anyone’s ability to share this information (https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/17/facebook-removing-profile-information-fields-religious-political-views/) about themselves anywhere else on Facebook.”

1592886209315246082

Spokesperson: Removal aims to help “streamline” platform

The Facebook spokesperson claimed the decision to get rid of these specific profile fields is part of an effort to streamline the platform, which currently consists of several features that are outdated. These fields, especially the “Interested In” part, helped propel Facebook to global popularity in its early days.

But Aisha Malik, writing for TechCrunch, noted that these fields are no longer present in other major social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, the latter of which is also owned by Facebook’s parent company Meta.

“Platforms like Instagram and TikTok have simple bios that let users share a little bit about themselves without going into specific details, such as political or religious views,” wrote Malik. “In the past, people may have been interested in filling out their profiles with additional information, but as privacy infringements have come to light (https://privacywatch.news/), users may no longer want to share extra details about themselves online.”

Thomas Germain, writing for Gizmodo, agrees and believes the changes are part of the company’s attempt to make the platform more appealing to younger users (https://gizmodo.com/facebook-cuts-interested-in-religion-address-politics-1849796195).

“Facebook is working to streamline a platform that’s filled with barely used features and cluttered, confusing interfaces,” he wrote. “Facebook earned a poor reputation, not just for causing societal problems, but because it’s just not cool anymore. Users have been leaving the platform in droves, and even Instagram, Facebook’s younger and slightly hipper sibling, has seen its cache decline.”

“Dialing back the ways you can update your profile is, in a way, admitting defeat,” concluded Germain. “The world moved on, and Facebook once again needs to move fast if it wants to stay relevant.”

This mass exodus of users has left the company in dire financial straits, causing CEO Mark Zuckerberg to lay off 11,000 employees and shifting the entire future of the company away from social media and towards the ludicrous goal of creating the “metaverse,” a world created with a mix of virtual and augmented reality that is yet to become profitable for Meta.

Read more news about Facebook’s recent actions at FacebookCollapse.com (https://facebookcollapse.com/).

This change to Facebook comes as the company implodes following CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to fire 11,000 of his employees (https://www.brighteon.com/5df15a4c-54d1-4d37-891c-e51bf042d031). His farewell address to the employees he just axed can be seen in the video below.

https://www.brighteon.com/5df15a4c-54d1-4d37-891c-e51bf042d031



More related stories:

Facebook to start censoring all climate-related posts that fail to parrot the official LIES (narrative) of the ruling class. (https://facebookcollapse.com/2022-11-14-facebook-censorsing-climate-posts-lies-ruling-class.html)

Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg fires more than 11K employees, takes blame for overestimating company’s growth prospects. (https://technocrats.news/2022-11-11-meta-ceo-zuckerberg-fires-11k-talented-employees.html)

DHS engaged in treasonous collusion with Twitter and Facebook to censor Americans, bombshell report reveals. (https://bigtech.news/2022-11-02-dhs-treasonous-collusion-twitter-facebook-censor-americans.html)

Facebook shuts down page with positive and inspirational messages for US border agents, as “suicidologists” are brought in to help deal with border agent suicide numbers not seen since Obama era. (https://fakebook.news/2022-10-07-facebook-shuts-down-page-with-inspirational-messages.html)

Facebook shuts down 100,000-member group for using carrot emoji to refer to COVID vaccines, because no discussion of vaccine injuries shall be allowed. (https://markzuckerberg.news/2022-09-22-facebook-bans-group-carrot-emoji-covid-vaccines.html)

[Tintin]

House Judiciary GOP 'X' account has posted a letter (https://x.com/JudiciaryGOP/status/1828201780544504064) from Mark Zuckerberg (Meta) dated yesterday, August 26th, addressed to Jim Jordan Committee Chair on the Judiciary, wherein he basically admits to, and reveals, the following:



1. Biden-Harris Admin "pressured" Facebook to censor Americans.

2. Facebook censored Americans.

3. Facebook throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story.

Concerning 3. > "It's since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation." Well, yes, we knew that and it's always good to see this in print :)

Here it is in full:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GV8Rlp9XMAAGCgI?format=jpg&name=4096x4096
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GV8Rlp9W8AAtBAN?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

[TravelerJim]

Everybody has known he was censoring. I saw censorship in some of my FB posts going back to 2014 and that is why I stopped using FB. He did this, and he also funded all sorts of most probably illegal get-out-the-vote/ballot harvesting schemes in 2024 in the battleground states in favor of Biden. It seems FB was at partially funded by some sort of deep state/CIA shell companies when founded.

So....the question is why is admitting some of this now?

Are we now looking at some sort of split in the power structure here? Or does this guy see a Trump victory and wants to get on the right side now? Or is it possible he is actually worried about the country if Harris/Walz gets free reign?

Hmmmmmm.....

[ExomatrixTV]

Joe Rogan Experience - Mark Zuckerberg:

7k1ehaE0bdU
Mark Zuckerberg is the chief executive of Meta Platforms Inc., the company behind Facebook, Instagram, Threads, WhatsApp, Meta Quest, Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, Orion augmented reality glasses, and other digital platforms, devices, and services.