Facebook (FB) CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg returned to Washington DC Capitol Hill the morning of April 11, 2018 to another round of questions prompted by the recently revealed “Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal.” Involving Cambridge Analytica’s collection of personally identifiable information of some 87 million Facebook users. Personal data used by Cambridge Analytica to influence voter opinion on behalf of politicians who hire them.
The day prior, April 10, Mr. Zuckerberg was “grilled” by 44 senators during a five-hour hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees. “Grilled” by politicians many if not most of whom have been willing recipients of untold thousands of dollars of FB political contributions and attention of FB lobbyists. “Grilled” by politicians that know about as much about the related technology as they do about rocket science and the origin of the universe. In any case, the whole ordeal makes for one heck of a show.
It is noteworthy that during his April 10 Washington appearance Mr. Zuckerberg stressed in words to the effect that FB’s aim is to offer a social media platform that facilitates togetherness between friends, families, communities, countries, etc. Which of course is just so much “business BS.” For, in reality, FB’s aim is to collect user-information that can be used for targeting advertisements to respective user-preferences (e.g., our respective “Likes”). Benefiting from the fact that the more personal information and other feedback we users freely provide FB, the more effective and dollar-valuable their targeted ads. Hence, FB is not about promoting togetherness, but, rather, everything to do with appealing to the fact that we humans are for the most part social beings that crave attention and acceptance in one fashion or another.
In any case, whether it be FB, Google, our phone calls, e-mail, or otherwise—“personal privacy” seems to no longer be a relevant issue. For, the technological cat has long ago been out of the bag and we are fooling ourselves to believe that any resemblance of “privacy” yet exists.
However, what continues to be an ever-growing threat to our liberty and freedom is the use of social media and Internet search platforms (such as FB, Google, etc.) to restrict and/or manipulate what we see and don’t see. Given the information-glut we are overwhelmed with today, truth versus falsehood is often difficult enough to distinguish—even without the help of technology beyond the comprehension of the majority of we lessor beings. Technology in the hands of an out of sight, uncontrolled, and potentially biased few, having the means and opportunity to carry out agendas that threaten our liberty and ultimately our nation’s survival. —William James Moore
No comments:
Post a Comment