Slashdot Mirror
How Facebook's Political Unit Enables the Dark Art of Digital Propaganda (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Under fire for Facebook Inc.'s role as a platform for political propaganda, co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has punched back, saying his mission is above partisanship. "We hope to give all people a voice and create a platform for all ideas," Zuckerberg wrote in September after President Donald Trump accused Facebook of bias. Zuckerberg's social network is a politically agnostic tool for its more than 2 billion users, he has said. But Facebook, it turns out, is no bystander in global politics. What he hasn't said is that his company actively works with political parties and leaders including those who use the platform to stifle opposition -- sometimes with the aid of "troll armies" that spread misinformation and extremist ideologies.
The initiative is run by a little-known Facebook global government and politics team that's neutral in that it works with nearly anyone seeking or securing power. The unit is led from Washington by Katie Harbath, a former Republican digital strategist who worked on former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's 2008 presidential campaign. Since Facebook hired Harbath three years later, her team has traveled the globe helping political clients use the company's powerful digital tools. In some of the world's biggest democracies -- from India and Brazil to Germany and the U.K. -- the unit's employees have become de facto campaign workers. And once a candidate is elected, the company in some instances goes on to train government employees or provide technical assistance for live streams at official state events.
The initiative is run by a little-known Facebook global government and politics team that's neutral in that it works with nearly anyone seeking or securing power. The unit is led from Washington by Katie Harbath, a former Republican digital strategist who worked on former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's 2008 presidential campaign. Since Facebook hired Harbath three years later, her team has traveled the globe helping political clients use the company's powerful digital tools. In some of the world's biggest democracies -- from India and Brazil to Germany and the U.K. -- the unit's employees have become de facto campaign workers. And once a candidate is elected, the company in some instances goes on to train government employees or provide technical assistance for live streams at official state events.
How many reasons and examples do we need to see that FB is an out of control behemoth of global control and influence?
Do we need anymore reasons to see that FB is wrong on so many levels.
His mission is for power and wealth first, but ultimately he wants to push his ideas of what you should think, believe and do. His track record of extreme political bias and invasion of your privacy speaks for itself.
Net neutrality has been a big issue lately. But the problem is that the 2015 approach to "net neutrality" that is being promoted is limited to only the bottom 3 of the 7 layers of the OSI model. That's only about 43% of the layers!
So while neutrality is being forced on the providers of the physical telecom infrastructure, those organizations offering communication services on top of this physical infrastructure resist the idea of themselves having to act in a neutral manner regarding the comments, submissions and users communicating via their communication platforms.
What we need is 100% net neutrality that extends from layer 1 of the OSI model up to layer 7.
That means there would be neutrality at the Network layer, when it comes to packets. It would also mean that there'd be neutrality at the Application layer, as well, where we classify social media platforms.
This in turn means that social media platforms would not be allowed to delete, hide or censor any comments/articles/submissions that are legal. Likewise, they would not be allowed to ban, shadow-ban, or censor users who aren't violating any laws.
A social media discussion platform shouldn't be treated any differently than a physical Internet connection. The expectations are the same for both: content is put into the network, and it's expected to reach any and all destinations without any special consideration or treatment from the service provider(s) involved.
Just as ISPs should be neutral conduits for moving data from one computer to another, social media platforms should be neutral conduits for moving ideas from one user to another.
We do need net neutrality. But we need real net neutrality that covers 100% of the OSI model, not this flawed 2015 approach that only covers the bottom 43%, while leaving the top layers vulnerable to partiality and censorship.
So....Facebook basically offers a service to organizations that will guide and train them to use features of Facebook. Don't a lot of large companies offer training services to users of their product(s)?
Leftists - Get in a snit over IBM selling punch card tabulators that wound up used by Nazis, but excuse any organization that leans "progressive" - even if it kills millions. Literally.
If everyone were to download adblock plus and use it, companies like Facebook wouldn't have the power that they think they have.
Same goes for every other company whose lifeblood is advertising. Stop giving them attention and block their crap.
So....Facebook basically offers a service to organizations that will guide and train them to use features of Facebook. Don't a lot of large companies offer training services to users of their product(s)?
(Customer) "How does your product work?"
(Facebook) "Your advertising will be seen by 2 billion idiots daily, the largest in the known universe. We specialize in viral manipulation of the masses. Fact-checking is optional."
(Customer) "I believe a blank check is too slow. Here's my bank routing number, account number, and password. Take whatever you need."
Evil is subjective, but when revenue is all that matters, ethics goes out the fucking window.