“Dumb F*cks”?

“Dumb F*cks”?

“Dumb fucks.” That’s how Mark Zuckerberg described users of Facebook for trusting him with their personal data back in 2004.  If the last week is anything to go by, he was right.

-       A grand illusion: seven days that shattered the Facebook façade – The Guardian

By JM Hamilton (4-2-2018)

Happy Birthday Jack.

All that glitters is not gold.  In fact shiny objects all too often turn out to be distractions and a colossal waste of precious energy and time. 

Facebook being a case in point.  

Facebook also reminds its users - and nonusers - that there is no free lunch.  The social media platform requires no fees from its users for a reason, and that is because the platform is not the product, but rather, it’s the bait.  

The product is Facebook junkies, participants, users, friends of same, and their data.  Their data is hoovered up in a privatized version of the surveillance state, and quite often used for very bad ends.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal is just Facebook’s latest in very long list of social media - and Internet giant - scandals.  

Then again, at this point, why is anybody surprised?  

Mr. Zuckerberg himself, the multi-billionaire founder of Facebook, was said to have quipped in 2004 that he couldn’t believe all these “dumb f*cks” were allowing him access to all their data.

And what have hundreds of millions of Facebook users, and their data, beget?  Let’s run down the list shall we:

An increasingly insular society, cut off from each other, and fed a steady diet of distractions - tailored news, and faux-news, stories - that no longer unite us, but divide us as a nation and a people.  The plutocracy couldn’t dream up a better tool to keep the citizenry distracted & divided.

A social media platform used by foreign governments, and their agents, to send targeted advertisements & fake news through to a sellected audience, w/ the goal of swaying elections and their outcomes.  That is to say, Facebook may very well be a threat to our democracy, election outcomes, and our government.

Facebook is just another tool of the surveillance state, whereby the NSA, CIA, FBI, and multinationals hoover up data.  Together - along w/ banking, search engine activity, and travel records - an online dossier can be created on any individual (certainly upon the 90% of Americans who now use the web).  Hence, threatening our very civil liberties, freedoms, and The Constitution.

Bloomberg recently released a piece, that the media platform is utilized by scam artists.  Moreover, Facebook has not only played fast and loose in allowing targeted selling by said scam artists, but has actually facilitated and participated in the scam, costing Americans and the legitimate economy billions.

No less insidious, Facebook has been utilized all too often as a means of cyber-bullying, which have led to fatalities and teen suicide.

Social media platforms – like Facebook - can lead to a form of addiction, essentially making some users slaves to their sites.  This Facebook addiction, or slavery, can cause family, social, and workplace dysfunction (and even child neglect).

And the list goes on.

So why should we allow such a dangerous tool to continue to exist?   A media platform that facilitates, or is utilized to support terrorism; mass surveillance (that only a Nazi or Stasi could love); teen suicide; billions in fraud; a gross invasion of privacy; a nefarious economic drain; and the steady erosion of our civil liberties, the Constitution, and our democracy.

The answer, per the usual, is money. 

Some would argue that Facebook has become too big to fail (TBTF), that it employs too many people, directly and indirectly, to let it go.  And Facebook is, of course, a FANG stock, which up until recently, had produced terrific results for it shareholders, and index funds.  Unfortunately, the exposed Facebook business model more recently cost a $60 billion loss in market cap, and this may fall further still as the revelations continue to snowball.

Multinationals love Facebook because it has become an indispensable employee surveillance tool.  And if there’s one thing multinationals and the oligarchy love, it’s big data analytics and mass surveillance.  There’s a reason why Facebook and Google, combined, suck in the vast majority of online ad revenue.

Even government surveillance - which taps directly into social media platforms, like Facebook - has become, increasingly, privatized; that is to say, government surveillance has become just another money making venture (the efficacy of which is continuously in doubt).

My own experiences w/ the enterprise are rather limited.  When the JMH blog was established, Facebook was visited in hopes of drawing attention to my writing.

No sooner had Facebook’s terms of use, or agreement, been clicked, when before my very eyes, it began to hoover up every contact, email address, and phone number on my computer.  Let’s just say, the plug on my computer was immediately pulled; my guess is, it was too late.  From that moment on, JMH refrained from utilizing the site, and the account is now in the process of being deleted, altogether.   

As an avowed non-Facebook user, my readers should know there are dozens of ways to share your baby, birthday, and vacation pictures with family & friends, via the World Wide Web.  There are also ways to meet new friends, and be liked by said friends (and better use one’s time), via old-school human contact and the donation of one’s time to philanthropic pursuits.  

How quaint, and yet, how very timely.

All this is to say, you don’t have to be a participant in Facebook’s scam, nor do we have to be one of Mr. Zuckerberg’s “dumb f*cks.”

Last week, former Supreme Court Associate Justice, Stevens, wrote an op-ed piece in the NY Times.  In the editorial, Mr. Stevens proposed the repeal of the 2nd Amendment, which - initially - one might consider to be rather extreme.  But when we factor in an ever growing body count - particularly among young people & the NRA’s chokehold over our cowardly and ineffective Congress - Mr. Stevens' recommendation seems hardly novel at all.  

In fact, the repeal of the 2^nd Amendment sounds positively prudent, given that our government is now controlled - and run for - monied interests, among them the NRA.

Likewise, if anybody is expecting real reforms out of Congress, in the wake of successive data theft & privacy invasion scandals (from the Snowden revelations to Equifax and most recently, Facebook) … dream on.

Facebook has already hired an army of lobbyist. And if past is prologue, it’s a very safe bet that the lackeys in Congress will hold hearings - complete w/ stern admonishments - order a committee study… and drag the process out, so that the Facebook scandal is off the front pages before they act.  The Congress’ actions, if any, of course, in response to the Facebook criminal enterprise, will be completely unacceptable.

That is to say, Facebook will have gotten its money’s worth from K Street.

Some still believe that it’s better to have the private sector run the United States, than a truly democratic government (that is to say, a government that is not owned by special interests).  But in allowing the private sector - multinationals & the plutocracy – to own and run our government, what has it yielded (?): our children are not safe at school, and thanks to the NRA, risk being gunned down in a hail of lead; our democratic institutions are under threat by social media platforms, like Facebook, and an oligarchy bent upon owning the government (and Mr. Zuckerberg’s billions means that he very much is a part of said oligarchy); multinationals evade rules, regs, taxation, and paying a living wage, thanks to free trade agreements and globalization; because of the MIC, America is caught in never ending - bankrupting - wars; and post-Wall Street bailout, the banks have driven & led consolidation throughout the U.S. economy (which has fueled wage & wealth inequality, political instability, crony government, economic stagnation, and a lack of innovation & growth).

Many of these institutions, like Facebook, are considered to be too big to fail.  But in reality none of them are.  Just as too many Americans are slaves to, allegedly, TBTF social media, circa 2018, there was a time when another institution w/in the American economy was considered TBTF throughout the Southern states, circa 1860.  

It was called slavery.

Hopefully, it won’t take a Civil War to end the degradation, destruction, & tyranny of soul sucking monopolies and cartels - like Facebook.  As a result of the Civil War, America produced the 13^th, 14^th and 15^th Amendments: which ended slavery; provided equal protections to all citizens under the law; and gave all male Americans the right to vote.

Hopefully, it won’t take a Civil War to repeal the 2nd Amendment, and add additional Amendments, protecting privacy and personal digital data integrity (that is to say, our very lives).

Increasingly, the billionaire class & multinationals (i.e. the 1%) are finding themselves alone on some of these issues.

Given how the U.S. Congress is completely inept and owned - at least presently - it may take a Constitutional Convention to save our democracy and our personal freedoms, from further encroachment by the kleptocracy and the likes of Facebook.  

A Constitutional Convention could also allow Americans to sort out other issues, like: term limits for Congress; popularly electing the Fed Chairman and SCOTUS members; and enacting & enforcing true campaign finance reform.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2018