Facing Up to the Reality of Facebook.....

[KoKo]

Facing Up to the Reality of Facebook
By Katherine Acosta
Created Oct 15 2010 - 10:19am

My favorite quote from the dozens of reviews and commentaries I’ve read about the Facebook film has to be Melissa Silverstein’s conclusion: <1> “The Social Network proves that assholes pretty much run the world. As if we needed a reminder.”

That about sums it up. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is just the latest in a long line of predatory capitalists, a latter day robber baron, if you will, ruthlessly annihilating the competition with single-minded ferocity. Instead of building an empire from railroads across the American geographical frontier, Zuckerberg builds his on the frontier of social networking in cyberspace. Where 19th century robber barons exacted a physical toll from an exploited immigrant workforce, (giving rise to sayings such as, “There is an Irishman buried under every railroad tie”), Facebook profits from the commodification of human relationships.

Under the guise of “helping people to connect and communicate more efficiently,” as Zuckerberg likes to repeat over and over in interviews <2>, the greatest market research scheme ever devised entices users into freely offering up a wealth of personal information about their habits, preferences, and activities in a form that can be mined, manipulated, packaged, and sold to third parties. Helping people to “communicate more efficiently” apparently also involves continually changing the rules about what information users will be allowed to keep private. More ominously, given our post 9-11, post Patriot Act political environment, Facebook attracted the attention early on of individuals interested in funding high-tech startups that might prove useful for intelligence gathering.

------snip-----(Article talks about the actions against Facebook by Move On and others for violations of privacy and extreme data mining..tracking.)--snip---

It should be obvious by now that Facebook is committed to the erosion of privacy and increased surveillance of user activity – both on and off the web. The beauty of the system is that users cooperate in providing ever more data on themselves and those they have “friended.” Facebook’s data silos are potential gold mines for market researchers – and the intelligence community.

Several of Facebook’s early investors are connected to the venture capitalist firm In-Q-Tel, which is run for the CIA, through a series of interlocking directorates <9>. The mission of In-Q-Tel is to fund start-up companies <10> that are developing technologies useful for intelligence gathering; specifically, “to help companies add capabilities that the Intelligence Community customers need.”

In its second round of funding in 2005, Facebook received $12.7 million from Accel Partners <11>. James Breyer, managing partner of Accel, described the Facebook team at the time as “intellectually honest and breathtakingly brilliant.” Breyer today is a board member of Facebook. Breyer is also a past board member and chairman of the National Venture Capital Association, where he served with Gilman Louie, founder of In-Q-Tel.

In its third round of funding in 2006, Facebook received $25 million from Greylock Partners. Howard Cox, Greylock advising partner, also sits on the board of In-Q-Tel.

These are just a couple of linkages that are publicly available and easily obtained. How those representing the intelligence community may have influenced or advised Facebook is unknown – at least to me. But it’s naïve to discount the potential for domestic spying that Facebook presents. Of course, Facebook is not the only or first internet company linked to In-Q-Tel. Google, for example, has a history of partnering with In-Q-tel. <12>

The point is that Facebook is more than just a fun social networking site invented by a brilliant but misunderstood anti-hero. And, the world is pretty much run by assholes.

Article at.......
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/katherine-acosta/31894/facing-up-to-the-reality-of-facebook

[RandomThoughts]

1. Don't confuse Thomas Covenant the unbeliever

For Derek Halfhand. The assholes do not run my life.


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