During the dark ages of the 1970s, 80s and into the 90s people who refrained from drinking soda, living on fast food and cooked for themselves, instead of relying on the convenience of processed foods, were disparaged.

I know, because I was one of them. We were called “health food nuts.”

That changed with the advent of research into sugar, the value of veggies and a more general understanding that health wasn’t an accident, but a personal responsibility based on your own choices.

In the 1980s the World Wide Web became ubiquitous and existing bulletin board systems, such as AOL, migrated to the web. The dot com boom saw the birth and growth of social media communities that were free — and everybody loves free.

The contemporary internet was built on a bargain: Show us who you really are and the digital world will be free to search or share.

People detailed their interests and obsessions on Facebook and Google, generating a river of data that could be collected and harnessed for advertising. The companies became very rich. Users seemed happy. Privacy was deemed obsolete, like bloodletting and milkmen.

That bargain led to a new kind of nut.

“Privacy nuts;” I’m one of those, too.

As with health food nuts, privacy nuts were pooh-poohed as Luddites, anti-progressive, alarmist party-poopers.

But as they say, that was then and this is now.

Most people, no matter how they access their news, are aware of the stunning breaches in Facebook’s security, especially the current Cambridge Analytica fiasco.

That also seemed to wake people up to what the privacy nuts have been warning about all along.

Zuckerberg, of course, claims he supports the privacy law Congress is considering, but covertly Facebook is lobbying against it, so his statement that he would offer EU controls globally is highly unlikely.

Never forget that for Facebook it’s all about money.

The power of the company’s ad platform comes from the ability it gives politicians, brands, real estate agents, nonprofits and others to precisely target people on its social networks.

Of course, it’s not just Facebook.

And while Congress runs hearings and the public freaks out Zuck, as he is called, still seems to believe that it’s not Facebook’s fault and what happened should be excused because the his vision is for it to be a force for good.

but change is unlikely to happen, since greed still rules.

After two days of questioning by American lawmakers, Facebook’s share price rose more than 5%—mostly on the first day of Zuckerberg’s testimony—boosting the tech company’s market value by more than $24 billion.

Finally, NEWYORKMAG.COM provided commentary from people who are far closer to both Zukerberg and Facebook. The interviews are a real wakeup call (if you still need one).

A Propaganda Engine ‘Unlike Any in History’: Q&A With Early Facebook Investor

A conversation with early Facebook investor Roger McNamee on propaganda, early warning signs, and why outrage is so addictive.

• Former Facebook manager Sandy Parakilas on privacy, addiction, and why Facebook must “dramatically” change its business model.

• Former Facebook designer Soleio Cuervo on Facebook’s commitment to users, what the media gets wrong, and why regulation is unnecessary.

• Former Zuckerberg speechwriter Kate Losse on how the Facebook founder thinks and what is hardest for him to wrap his mind around.

• Former Facebook product manager Antonio Garcia Martinez on the “sociopathic scene” of Silicon Valley and Mark Zuckerberg’s “disingenuous and strange” reaction to the election.

Image credit: Marco Paköeningrat

Have you ever been to a post-holiday potluck? As the name implies, it’s held within two days of any holiday that involves food, with a capital F, such as Thanksgiving, Christmas and, of course, Easter. Our group has only three rules, the food must be leftovers, conversation must be interesting and phones must be turned off. They are always great parties, with amazing food, and Monday’s was no exception.

The unexpected happened when a few of them came down on me for a recent post terming Mark Zukerberg a hypocrite. They said that it wasn’t Facebook’s or Google’s fault a few bad actors were abusing the sites and causing problems. They went on to say that the companies were doing their best and that I should cut them some slack.

Rather than arguing my personal opinions I said I would provide some third party info that I couldn’t quote off the top of my head and then whoever was interested could get together and argue the subject over a bottle or two of wine.

I did ask them to think about one item that stuck in my mind.

How quickly would they provide the location and routine of their kids to the world at large and the perverts who inhabit it? That’s exactly what GPS-tagged photos do.

I thought the info would be of interest to other readers, so I’m sharing it here.

Facebook actively facilitates scammers.

The Berlin conference was hosted by an online forum called Stack That Money, but a newcomer could be forgiven for wondering if it was somehow sponsored by Facebook Inc. Saleswomen from the company held court onstage, introducing speakers and moderating panel discussions. After the show, Facebook representatives flew to Ibiza on a plane rented by Stack That Money to party with some of the top affiliates.

Granted anonymity, affiliates were happy to detail their tricks. They told me that Facebook had revolutionized scamming. The company built tools with its trove of user data (…) Affiliates hijacked them. Facebook’s targeting algorithm is so powerful, they said, they don’t need to identify suckers themselves—Facebook does it automatically. And they boasted that Russia’s dezinformatsiya agents were using tactics their community had pioneered.

Scraping Android.

Android owners were displeased to discover that Facebook had been scraping their text-message and phone-call metadata, in some cases for years, an operation hidden in the fine print of a user agreement clause until Ars Technica reported. Facebook was quick to defend the practice as entirely aboveboard—small comfort to those who are beginning to realize that, because Facebook is a free service, they and their data are by necessity the products.

I’m not just picking on Facebook, Amazon and Google are right there with it.

Digital eavesdropping

Amazon and Google, the leading sellers of such devices, say the assistants record and process audio only after users trigger them by pushing a button or uttering a phrase like “Hey, Alexa” or “O.K., Google.” But each company has filed patent applications, many of them still under consideration, that outline an array of possibilities for how devices like these could monitor more of what users say and do. That information could then be used to identify a person’s desires or interests, which could be mined for ads and product recommendations. (…) Facebook, in fact, had planned to unveil its new internet-connected home products at a developer conference in May, according to Bloomberg News, which reported that the company had scuttled that idea partly in response to the recent fallout.

Zukerberg’s ego knows no bounds.

Zuckerberg, positioning himself as the benevolent ruler of a state-like entity, counters that everything is going to be fine—because ultimately he controls Facebook.

There are dozens more, but you can use search as well as I.

What can you do?

Thank Firefox for a simple containerized solution to Facebook’s tracking (stalking) you while surfing.

Facebook is (supposedly) making it easier to manage your privacy settings.

There are additional things you can do.

How to delete Facebook, but save your content.

The bad news is that even if you are willing to spend the effort, you can’t really delete yourself from social media.

All this has caused a rupture in techdom.

I could go on almost forever, but if you’re interested you’ll have no trouble finding more.

Image credit: weisunc

The number tech CEOs who have been caught manipulating, lying, cheating, and other bad actions, all while claiming to be good guys, has skyrocketed.

Perhaps the result should be an additional title: CHO

While there are many (at all levels) who deserve the title, none has a higher profile than Mark Zukerberg.

His talk about caring for user privacy, security, etc., is common and constant, although results are negligible.

Hopefully, this time his blatant hypocrisy will come back and savagely bite him and Facebook.

Zukerberg stayed silent after the news broke that Cambridge Analytica covertly gathered data on 50 million Facebook users that was used by the Trump campaign for targeted advertising.

Then, on March 21, in a CNN interview he said, “I’m not sure we shouldn’t be regulated…”

He was referring to pending congressional legislation,

Honest Ads Act, a bill proposed in October 2017 that would require social media companies with more than 50 million monthly users to disclose information about any political advertiser that spends more than $500 pushing ads on their sites.

However, that statement, along with his similar comments in Wired, are pure poop, as the money spent lobbying against it proves.

Lobbyists for the company have been trying to dissuade senators from moving the Honest Ads Act forward, some Congressional aides say.

Facebook’s argument to Congress behind the scenes has been that they are “voluntarily complying” with most of what the Honest Ads Act asks, so why pass a law, said one Congressional staffer working on the bill. Facebook also doesn’t want to be responsible for maintaining the publicly accessible repository of political advertising, including funding information, that the act demands, the staffer said.

Facebook spent nearly $3.1 million lobbying Congress and other US federal government agencies in the last quarter of 2017, on issues including the Honest Ads Act according to its latest federal disclosure form. It also signed on Blue Mountain Strategies, a lobbying firm founded by Warner’s former chief of staff, an Oct. 30, 2017 filing shows.

Per normal, Zuk says, “I’m really sorry that this happened.”

So.

Apologize, say “it’s hard” and “not really our fault.”

Tell the public you support political transparency legislation.

Simultaneously spend millions to defeat it.

Hyper-pure hypocrisy.

Mark Zukerberg, Chief Hypocrisy Officer.

Fight back in the only way that matters: money. #deletefacebook, here’s how

Image credit: Ludovic Toinel