In an innocuously titled article "Water parks and resorts using RFID to capture precious memories", RFID News reported some weeks ago that a chain of North American indoor water park hotels are using RFID wristbands to allow guests to take photos at kiosks, which are then automatically uploaded to their Facebook profiles.
Though this method of taking a family photo while on vacation may seem harmless, the article also adds, "...the wristbands also serve as guests' room keys and in-house charge accounts".
This is just one example of how Facebook is being used to acclimate the public to the surveillance state, with some people excitedly (and unknowingly) embracing it and others surrendering to it merely for the sake of convenience.
Facebook has been partnering with companies to promote RFID technology for years in an attempt to market wristbands that track you, (a step before microchips being placed under your skin), as somehow being the next step in societal evolution instead of an elaborately maintained invisible chain yanking civilization backwards into a new form of slavery.
Though this method of taking a family photo while on vacation may seem harmless, the article also adds, "...the wristbands also serve as guests' room keys and in-house charge accounts".
This is just one example of how Facebook is being used to acclimate the public to the surveillance state, with some people excitedly (and unknowingly) embracing it and others surrendering to it merely for the sake of convenience.
Facebook has been partnering with companies to promote RFID technology for years in an attempt to market wristbands that track you, (a step before microchips being placed under your skin), as somehow being the next step in societal evolution instead of an elaborately maintained invisible chain yanking civilization backwards into a new form of slavery.
Facebook has altered society's collective mind.
By playing on the desires of people, (mostly teenagers and young adults) to socialize and share themselves with others in a way that is more controlled and feels private (though it is not), social networks have become a powerful force in the changing world, and an endless well from which to gather information on individuals like never before.
With Facebook as the current leader of the industry, social networks have so successfully lured people from all over the globe into sharing information about themselves–from the private details of their personal lives to the momentary mental chatter between their ears– that a person from only a decade ago if placed here today would shiver when first exposed to the new norms of our more socially open culture.
Facebook is a tool used not only by its subscribers to meet new people and monitor the activities of friends, but also by law enforcement when investigating crimes, and by employers to screen potential hires.
Companies today view the Facebook profiles of applicants. This fact is already widely known and accepted as "normal". It is likely that in the near future it will be next to impossible to get a professional job without having a Facebook profile.
Thanks to the continuing implosion of the world economy, employers hold a greater advantage over their workforces and are obsessed with analysis, numbers, and categorization more now than ever before.
Companies can afford to be as discriminating as they want when selecting new employees. Of course Facebook is only one part of this process.
Other technological means are also used, such as computerized “personality” tests (mental submission probability gauges) which ask questions such as “how do you feel about the direction the world is headed in?” that have nothing to do with the jobs themselves.
Employers look at Facebook profiles to judge an applicant’s personal habits, friends, and political correctness. Everything else being equal, an employer choosing between two applicants– one with a public Facebook profile that reflects a “model life’, and another who either has their Facebook profile set to private, or who has no a profile at all– will most likely choose the one whose personal life they’ve scouted out and been assured fits into their hiring model rather than the one whose personal life remains a mystery.
Whether employers will admit to this bias or not is another question, however an honest, common sense look at human nature and the importance companies already place on an applicant’s Facebook profile and web footprint reveal that it already exists. People have been asked to bring up their Facebook profiles during job interviews, and people applying for jobs in the city of Bozemont, MT have even been asked for their social networking passwords.
Since money is the means for survival in any modern society, the requirement for one to have a Facebook profile (or whatever future incarnation the leading social tracking database takes) will be initially implemented not through legislation, but through social and economic pressure. [...]
By playing on the desires of people, (mostly teenagers and young adults) to socialize and share themselves with others in a way that is more controlled and feels private (though it is not), social networks have become a powerful force in the changing world, and an endless well from which to gather information on individuals like never before.
With Facebook as the current leader of the industry, social networks have so successfully lured people from all over the globe into sharing information about themselves–from the private details of their personal lives to the momentary mental chatter between their ears– that a person from only a decade ago if placed here today would shiver when first exposed to the new norms of our more socially open culture.
Facebook is a tool used not only by its subscribers to meet new people and monitor the activities of friends, but also by law enforcement when investigating crimes, and by employers to screen potential hires.
Companies today view the Facebook profiles of applicants. This fact is already widely known and accepted as "normal". It is likely that in the near future it will be next to impossible to get a professional job without having a Facebook profile.
Thanks to the continuing implosion of the world economy, employers hold a greater advantage over their workforces and are obsessed with analysis, numbers, and categorization more now than ever before.
Companies can afford to be as discriminating as they want when selecting new employees. Of course Facebook is only one part of this process.
Other technological means are also used, such as computerized “personality” tests (mental submission probability gauges) which ask questions such as “how do you feel about the direction the world is headed in?” that have nothing to do with the jobs themselves.
Employers look at Facebook profiles to judge an applicant’s personal habits, friends, and political correctness. Everything else being equal, an employer choosing between two applicants– one with a public Facebook profile that reflects a “model life’, and another who either has their Facebook profile set to private, or who has no a profile at all– will most likely choose the one whose personal life they’ve scouted out and been assured fits into their hiring model rather than the one whose personal life remains a mystery.
Whether employers will admit to this bias or not is another question, however an honest, common sense look at human nature and the importance companies already place on an applicant’s Facebook profile and web footprint reveal that it already exists. People have been asked to bring up their Facebook profiles during job interviews, and people applying for jobs in the city of Bozemont, MT have even been asked for their social networking passwords.
Since money is the means for survival in any modern society, the requirement for one to have a Facebook profile (or whatever future incarnation the leading social tracking database takes) will be initially implemented not through legislation, but through social and economic pressure. [...]
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