Facebook, Advertising, the CIA, Microchip implants and the end of Privacy

Protests force Facebook to change its new beacon advertising program so that it is now an opt-in rather than an opt-out system. A mild victory to the many users of the social networking site rightly concerned that Facebook Beacon was going to be a Privacy nightmare. However the public terms and conditions are presented, it still is a privacy nightmare. One only has to investigate the Murky history of Facebook and it's links to the CIA: Facebook the CIA conspiracy:

Facebook has 20 million users worldwide, is worth billions of dollars and, if internet sources are to be believed, was started by the CIA. The social networking phenomenon started as a way of American college students to keep in touch. It is rapidly catching up with MySpace, and has left others like Bebo in its wake.

But there is a dark side to the success story that's been spreading across the blogosphere. A complex but riveting Big Brother-type conspiracy theory which links Facebook to the CIA and the US Department of Defence.

Facebook Shatters dreams

There are many real life stories how Facebook has had a negative impact on the lives of individuals:

• Halloween Fallout: 'Fairy tale' ruined by Facebook A US man (see Kevin below) who lied to his boss about a family emergency has been caught out after a photograph of him dressed as a fairy in a tutu at a Halloween party appeared online.

  

• instances of employers rejecting candidates or firing employees based on information obtained from social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook
• Ruined Christmases. Yes it is serious to some people!!!:

  "I saw my girlfriend bought an item i had been saying i wanted...so now part of my christmas gift has been ruined. Facebook is ruining christmas!"

The dangers of a Centralised Database

The beacon advertising system is just one way in which consumer purchases are traced and utilised to influence and target individuals. A description is given in the Huffington post:

The new ad infrastructure enables Facebook to extend their reach onto other companies' sites. For example, if you rent a copy of "Biodome" from Blockbuster.com, Blockbuster will look for a Facebook cookie on your computer. If it finds one, it will send a ping to Facebook. The Blockbuster site will pop up a "toast" (= popup) asking if you want to let your friends at Facebook know that you rented "Biodome." If you say yes, next time you log into Facebook, Facebook will ask you to confirm that you want to let your friends know of your recent rental. If you say yes, that becomes an event that's propagated in the news feed going to your friends.

As the data net becomes larger, with more companies and Government agencies involved in farming data from social networking sites, the following Satire entitled 'pizza palace' is perfectly believable. It highlights some of the privacy issues should (or should I say 'when' or even 'now that') individual data becomes centralised.

The extended version below is in the context of this data being linked to a microchip implant. It comes from the film, America from Freedom to Fascism by Russo. It presents the scenario of companies being able to determine who buys what and where they take those things using microchips. Currently these chips are used in Kraft cheese and Gillette razors without consumer knowledge but soon they'll be put into passports, into cash and under your skin!


The danger with any data is who controls it and what they do with it. Who can we trust if we cannot even trust ourselves to keep potentially self-destructive information to ourselves? We are not that far away from having no Privacy whatsoever and the sad thing is it is us who are letting it happen.

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