Originally published at: In Scathing Senate Testimony, Whistleblower Warns Facebook a Threat to Children and Democracy
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Should Facebook even exist? In its present form, Facebook is a very dangerous company and becoming more so as time passes and the Moscow Mitch obstructionists prevent our laws from keeping pace with technology.
Facebook is a MEDIA company - period. It should be regulated just like the media broadcast networks. PERIOD! As should all the other social media and internet media companies and cable networks (especially Fox).
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Fascism from within is still fascism. Just ask the Italians.
" Fascism (/ËfĂŚĘÉŞzÉm/) is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy, which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. " - Wikipedia
Hmm, now who and what does this sound like today âŚ
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Whoops, this was supposed to be just a general reply to the article.
Another instance of guilty Russian troll farms? What it seems like. EricDJuly is probably just as much on point (though he doesnât seem to see Dr Minaâs light on mitigation). Who/what blows this recurring weather vane stuck-age? The beatdowns of Muslims in India (orchestrated on fb) were intolerable, but that didnât raise the ire thatâs here now. Karl Popper would say keep your minds open, but numbersâŚnumbers that are the least biased things aroundâŚMSM doesnât seem much interested in. Numbers from Israel. NoâŚsuddenly itâs just that thereâs a âwhistleblowerâ out there they can dig. I wonder why.
Beelzebubâs britches! We need more Haugens Heros!! Whistleblowers Unite!
Thank you Frances Haugen!
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Oops button strikes again!
If the ghost of Rachel Carson appeared to a roomful of Exxon investors and explained the whole thing; would they listen, turn turtle, and unite behind her? Would they even put any questions to the ghost? No, theyâd simply go pee, in hopes someone would remove the hologram. Zuboff exposed everything fb worth worrying about. Whereâs the ongoing MSM discussion bout that?
Indeed. Weâre proud of Frances Haugen. Born and raised in Iowa City, and a grad of West HS. MBA from Harvard Business School, in 2011.
Sheâs one of the good ones.
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iâve heard the argument that every generation has some new thing that parents freak out about, but the things my parents freaked out about (pot, punk rock, etc) made me objectively happier, whereas we know that social media makes kids anxious and depressed
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Not a rhetorical question: Why does CDâs and other âprogressiveâ web sites use and PROMOTE the use of FB?
Is it a primary source of funds? That seems like a faustian bargain.
What overall good has FB done for the world?
In 2013 The Guardian was accused of being hyperbolic when they wrote:
How algorithms rule the world
The NSA revelations highlight the role sophisticated algorithms play in sifting through masses of data. But more surprising is their widespread use in our everyday lives. So should we be more wary of their power?
Stephen Hawking warned of earth going the way of Venus due to AGW---- people scoffed at that years ago----now it is a serious possibility.
Hawking also warned artificial intelligence (which is dependent on algorithms) could end mankind
See BBC article By Rory Cellan-Jones
Technology correspondent
Published2 December 2014
This is serious. I do not understand why people still use FB given how harmful it is and given it is something that one can choose to use or not (unlike many other monumental things out of our control)
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Good point. Iâve overlooked this aspect. The purpose of such a platform should probably switch more from snark arena to alerting members to evolutionary jumps happening in the context of many debates currently going down. Iâve thought often there should be a committee composed of one left person, one between left & center, one âcenterâ personâŚand the other half mirroring this right-wise. The member could âweightâ whom s/he wants to hear from most in order of preference, but the committee would also have some weight/say (all 7, or all 9, or whatever) regarding what goes in ânewsfeed.â To make up for lost dough, they could get help like PBS gets help.
Good point and tragically true.
Opponents of Silent Spring attacked Rachel Carson personally. They accused her of being radical, disloyal, unscientific, and hysterical. In 1962, at the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, criticism of the United States struck many as unpatriotic or sympathetic with communism.
Excerpt from article in:
Environment & Society Portal
Rachel Carsonâs Silent Spring
The Personal Attacks on Rachel Carson as a Woman Scientist
Fifty Years After Silent Spring, Attacks on Science Continueâ
When Silent Spring was published in 1962, author Rachel Carson was subjected to vicious personal assaults that had nothing do with the science or the merits of pesticide use. Those attacks find a troubling parallel today in the campaigns against climate scientists who point to evidence of a rapidly warming world.
BY FRANK GRAHAM, JR. ⢠JUNE 21, 2012
that article is from 2012 but not much has changed.
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There are also social media evaluators and managers that special interests groups at various levels use to police social media. These are privately paid services that also advise governments. Recently in the news from a European country a far-right rapper was convicted on criminal charges for lyrics that were considered hate speech because it was posted on you tube. All social media is being held up for examination, not just facebook.
Hereâs the comment I submitted many times today to âthese âTimesâ they are a changinâ but slowly.
While the âTimesâ is censoring my radical, but accurate comment, at least the âWashington Postâ has not censored it â and allows free speach:
The real âOutageâ is going to be going forward from today on:
Facebook is the greatest âNegative Externality Costâ pumping and dumping scheme in global history. [Full stop]
Unlike the moral and ethical resistance to past âNegative Externality Costâ dumping scams which were designed to provide âAccumulation by Dispossessionâ [David Harvey] and which always drove the âcurve of history toward Empireâ â many principled âtruth tellersâ, whistle-blowers, and Anti-War/Anti-Empire; authors, academics, scientists, and âdemocracy-thinkersâ, from; J Robert Oppenheimer, Norbert Wiener, Albert Einstein, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Joseph Stiglitz, Henry Wallace, Earl Shorris, Cornel West, and many thousand of other moral and ethical beacons have lead the path forward to âbending the curve of history away from Empireâ.
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Whistleblowers typically are the ones who land in jail or on the run, while those they expose walk away scot-free.
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Thanks for those thoughts. I once fancied myself monitoring Limbaugh. I remember clearly him saying if humans tried to kill nature in ernest, they couldnât. The experts and
non-experts these days are facing some tough questions. Get this, Iâve seen an article [I think there might be more than one] at Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists critical of a lab origin theory for SARS-2, and also a couple articles there saying the idea should be looked into. As a group they donât take any absolutist position. Likewise there are super articulate positions against mandates on the part of people for vaccines, but itâs risky (on our end) to even talk about the sociological/scientific/logical aspects of the mandates, let alone the numbers coming out of Israel. Zuboff has talked about the totalitarian aspects of social media. Obviously, this kind of media cannot even begin to handle difficult questions coming out of the realm of straight science. What FB creates is more like a Girardian [RenĂŠ Girard] âwar of all against all.â Itâs not on the basis of they are too rich or they are too poor; itâs based on their-ideas-are-wrong. So, to me it makes things somewhat different than in Marxâs time.
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To continueâŚI think the contest is more âintellectualâ these days in this electronic social media milieu. More about ideas (and yes the right is very serious about considering itself intellectual, or at least tops smarts/savy-wise). At any rate, when one loses faith that others will be rational, itâs like creating an anarchic/war zone where you can transship dopeâŚsell stuff. All of this I guess is why the committee idea popped into my head a while back.
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[The software here has gotten more confusing since Iâve been away. First it told me my above post was too old to edit. Then it went ahead and added the edit anyway. But Iâll leave this re-draftâŚit might be a little clearer]
To make things even more complicated itâs not a classic Girardian scenario. Itâs really not so much (IMO) that many are modelling Trump, or OTOH that many are modelling
R WolffâŚand that thereâs mutual envy amongst respective members of both camps on both ends. Itâs a special case where people are modelling no-modelling. Each person strikes out on her/his own, and is THE authority (I am privy to THE WISDOM, and I will dispense it on social media). Girard actually mentioned this [not in connection with social media] in his CBC interview with David Cayley.
This whole fiasco is a setup and a trap on all of YOU, the people, they want you SILENCED! This is their attempt to frighten all of you from free speech. Mark Zuckerberg is in on this, both the Dems and Repubs are together on this AGAINST YOU!, basically the New World Order is on this. There is only ONE way to verify the age of a computer user, and what form do you think that is? This is an evil plot to know exactly WHO is pecking away on your keyboard, itâs more about monitoring every single one of you. If youâre falling for this plot then you will happily give away more of your rights, privacy, and liberty. Theyâre going to pass a law making video camera, face recognition, and other ID methods REQUIRED in order to use Social Media, itâs also an attempt to legally put GAB.COM out of business before they become too popular.
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