Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard

Zuck: Just ask

Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS

[Redacted Friend’s Name]: What? How’d you manage that one?

Zuck: People just submitted it.

Zuck: I don’t know why.

Zuck: They “trust me”

Zuck: Dumb fucks (1)

Facebook Has Been Giving Your Private Messages To Other Corporations

As 2018 draws to a close a vivid picture of our corporate dystopia shows how the Big Tech Firms have taken amazing communication technology & turned it into a vomit inducing ad covered, spying and disinformation hell.

The ‘Internet’ for a vast majority of people has been dumbed down to a handful of websites or apps where people get their information. And by participating in their “communities” have handed over their entire privacy to unaccountable mega-corps that can’t even be bothered to pay taxes.(2)

The latest revelations from Facebook reveal that facebook has been giving away users private messages to Netflix and Spotify. What possible reason could Netflix and Spotify want users personal private messages?

How Your Data Is Being Used To Control You

Cambridge Analytica, a shady corporation specialising in analysing data of users to attempt to influence their political decisions, was basically gifted data on users from Facebook. The company had unauthorised access to fifty million of facebook users private information.(3) Using this data they used highly targeted methods in sending advertisements to particular areas of users.

“We did all the research, all the data, all the analytics, all the targeting. We ran all the digital campaign, the digital campaign, the television campaign and our data informed all the strategy,” he told reporters who were posing as potential clients from Sri Lanka.- Alex Tayler, Head of Data at Cambridge analytica(4) “He won by 40,000 votes in three states. The margins were tiny.”- Mark Turnbull, managing director of Cambridge Analytica’s political division(5)

Cambridge Analytica were backed by the Mercer family in the United States who threw their weight behind Donald Trump.(6) In the UK the company is linked to the SCL Group with the SCL Group being the “parent company”.(7) The SCL Group has investors and top shareholders among them which are Tory donors and a peer who was a business Minister under David Cameron.(8)

The above shows a clear link between corrupt right wing demagogues trying to further the hell of free market capitalism.

Disappearing Left Wing News Sites

The disappearance of left wing news sites by companies that now control how we receive information has been another well documented phenomena of this year. After Google doctored their alogorithm hits for the World Socialist Web Site fell by about 70 percent.

Googles claim to be protecting users from “fakes news” is a lie covering a political motivation to not have left wing points put forward on issues.

Based on information available on Alexa analytics, other sites that have experienced sharp drops in ranking include WikiLeaks, Alternet, Counterpunch, Global Research, Consortium News and Truthout. Even prominent democratic rights groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International appear to have been hit. “The actions of Google constitute political censorship and are a blatant attack on free speech,” North stated. “At a time when public distrust of establishment media is widespread, this corporate giant is exploiting its monopolistic position to restrict public access to a broad spectrum of news and critical analysis.”(9)

As is typical under ‘free market capitalism’(TM) a handful of monopolies have emerged from ruthless free market competition and instead of utilising this new communication network in a way that furthers or betters humanity it has come under the leash of finance capital. The masters it now serves are degenerates like Donald Trump and his lackeys who’s only motivation in life is more wealth. Which is why at a recent climate conference Donald Trump sent a guy to shill for the coal industry.(10)

Never before have the big Tech Firms provided a case to be nationalised, broken apart and run by the people that work in them. Not corporate executives & shareholders wishing to further their grip and control of people in the world.

How A Fife Based Company Was Paid By The UK Government To Spread Anti-Corbyn And Anti-Labour Propaganda

The UK government has been funding a propaganda outfit in Fife, Scotland to spread Anti-Labour propaganda.

The Institute for Statecraft, based in Fife, received hundreds of thousands of pounds in Foreign Office money. According to the Sunday Mail, leaked documents show it tried to promote tweets calling the Labour leader a “useful idiot” who helped the Kremlin cause, and attacked members of his staff.(11)

The Good News

While news regarding Tech (particulary Big Tech) has been overwhelmingly terrible in the last few years: the stripping of freedom from the web, using the users data as “datapoints” to hijack elections in favour of corrupt far right demagogues and the “de-listing” of news sources that don’t enable or agree with the capitalist status quo there is good news on the horizon.

Alternatives are being created where you can host your own instance on your own server (therefore you’re fully in control of the data and not at the whims of some private corporation). As an “instance” you can then be part of a federated network to join larger groups.

Mastodon (an open source version of Twitter essentially) has shown it can be done.

Peertube is also trying to get off the ground as an alternative to youtube. Again enabling users to host their servers and connect to the federated network.

The egg and chicken situation of users not moving to other sites/applications due to the userbase will rear it’s ugly head however.

The 2nd problem will be simplifying the setup for most users who will find the idea of running their own server to be far too complex a task to be worth considering.

However if we wish to keep any kind of semblance of freedom not directly controlled by totalitarian corporations that see their userbase as “datapoints” to be advertised to, data sold to analytical companies to influence their political decisions then perhaps we had better start learning.

References

(1) https://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims-wont-help-facebooks-privacy-problems-2010-5?r=US&IR=T

(2)https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/04/facebook-uk-corporation-tax-profit

(3)https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/cambridge-analytica-facebook-influence-us-election

(4)https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/20/cambridge-analytica-execs-boast-of-role-in-getting-trump-elected

(5)Ibid

(6)https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/22/cambridge-analytica-scandal-the-biggest-revelations-so-far

(7)https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/21/tory-donors-among-investors-in-cambridge-analytica-parent-firm-scl-group

(8)https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/21/tory-donors-among-investors-in-cambridge-analytica-parent-firm-scl-group

(9)https://mronline.org/2017/07/28/new-google-algorithm-restricts-access-to-left-wing-progressive-web-sites/

(10) https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/that-was-awkward--at-worlds-biggest-climate-conference-us-promotes-fossil-fuels/2018/12/10/aa8600c4-f8ae-11e8-8642-c9718a256cbd_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.989def51e874

(11)https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/10/foreign-office-investigates-report-state-funded-body-targeted-corbyn

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