The Weird DARPA/Facebook "Coincidence" You Never Heard About

corbett report

Ready to #DeleteFacebook? Follow these 7 steps

The Parallex

Like a lot of people lately, I’ve decided to #DeleteFacebook.

I feel that I’m giving up too much data for too little in return. The Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the shady consulting firm managed to steal information from as many as 87 millionunsuspecting Facebook users and use it for political purposes, was just the latest in a long series of egregious data privacy violations (like here, here, here, here, and here).

Granted, Facebook is the only Internet access some people have. But I’ve had enough. If I hear one more Facebook executive claim to respect its users, I’m going to have an aneurism. And despite the new limits Facebook just put on the data its application programming interfaces (APIs) can access, it’s time to say goodbye.

I’m not leaving Facebook rashly. I’m giving myself time to do it properly, making sure that I don’t lose anything valuable—like photos, videos, or the contact details of my gracefully aging high-school friends—in the process. Here’s how you can do it too.

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Zuckerberg Admits He’s Developing Artificial Intelligence to Censor Content

The Anti Media 

 

This week we were treated to a veritable carnival attraction as Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of one of the largest tech companies in the world, testified before Senate committees about privacy issues related to Facebook’s handling of user data. Besides highlighting the fact that most United States senators — and most people, for that matter — do not understand Facebook’s business model or the user agreement they’ve already consented to while using Facebook, the spectacle made one fact abundantly clear: Zuckerberg intends to use artificial intelligence to manage the censorship of hate speech on his platform.

 

Over the two days of testimony, the plan for using algorithmic AI for potential censorship practices was discussed multiple times under the auspices of containing hate speech, fake news, election interference, discriminatory ads, and terrorist messaging. In fact, AI was mentioned at least 30 times. Zuckerberg claimed Facebook is five to ten years away from a robust AI platform. All four of the other Big 5 tech conglomerates — Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft — are also developing AI, many for the shared purposes of content control. 

 

For obvious reasons, this should worry civil liberty activists and anyone concerned about the erosion of first amendment rights online. The encroaching specter of a corporate-government propaganda alliance is not a conspiracy theory. Barely over a month ago, Facebook, Google, and Twitter testified before Congress to announce the launch of a ‘counterspeech’ campaign in which positive and moderate posts will be targeted at people consuming and producing extremist or radical content. 

 

Like the other major social networks, Facebook has already been assailed by accusations of censorship against conservative and alternative news sources. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) outlined some other examples of the company’s “overzealous censorship” in just the last year: 

 

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The Guardian pushes for a Facebook break-up

Alex Christoforou
The Duran

Is it time to break up Facebook?

Now that Facebook has been outed for selling user data to help Trump target voters (Obama did the same exact thing and the media seemed to have no problem with it), the liberal left media is now turning on the liberal left social network.

The Trump effect is tearing apart the largest social network.
The Guardian is hot and bothered by Facebook's indirect "collusion" with the Trump campaign, as the UK based newspaper is calling for the FTC to break apart Zuckerberg's spy apparatus, in much the same way Microsoft was "ordered" to split apart in 2000...

Since news broke that a data analysis firm with ties to the Trump campaign harvested personal information from tens of millions of Facebook users, much of the speculation has focused on whether the Federal Trade Commission will fine the corporation for violating a 2011 deal to protect user privacy.

But the pressing nature of America's Facebook problem, especially the way the corporation's actions have endangered basic democratic institutions, means the FTC should go much further.

Rather than simply carve away some of Facebook's huge profits, the FTC should immediately move to restructure the corporation to ensure this now essential medium of communication really serves the political and economic interests of American citizens in the 21st century.

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WhatsApp co-founder calls on users to #DeleteFacebook

RT

As Facebook roils from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the private data of 50 million users was leaked, the #DeleteFacebook movement is gathering momentum. Even WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton has given his support. 

The campaign calls on social-media users to unsubscribe from not only Facebook, but also Instagram and WhatsApp, which are owned by the same company. Facebook shares have fallen by over nine percent in the last two days alone, shaving roughly $50 billion off the company's valuation.

The social-media giant bought WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014, but Acton had already invested $50 million into WhatsApp competitor Signal in February before joining the reactionary movement to boycott Facebook. He tweeted on Tuesday: "It's time. #DeleteFacebook."

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Your privacy up for sale: Facebook is a surveillance company rebranded as 'social media'

Daniel Chaitin
Washington Examiner

Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden ripped Facebook in a tweet Saturday after the social media giant suspended Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics firm which worked worked for President Trump's campaign.

Facebook accused the firm on Friday of not deleting data it had improperly harvested from Facebook users, which number in the tens of millions, but Snowden pinned the blame squarely on Facebook and lumped in other social media companies for being just as reckless.

"Businesses that make money by collecting and selling detailed records of private lives were once plainly described as 'surveillance companies,'" Snowden said. "Their rebranding as 'social media' is the most successful deception since the Department of War became the Department of Defense."

"Facebook makes their money by exploiting and selling intimate details about the private lives of millions, far beyond the scant details you voluntarily post," Snowden said earlier in the day. "They are not victims. They are accomplices."

Cambridge Analytica on Saturday denied any wrongdoing, issuing a statement that said the firm "fully complies" with Facebook's terms of service,

The ensuing uproar has prompted at least one lawmaker, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., to call on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

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Meet IDI: The Company That Has "Weaponized" Profiles On Every American Adult

Zero Hedge

 

"Every move you make. Every click you take. Every game you play. Every place you stay. They’ll be watching you."

If the government's all-seeing eye was not worrying enough for the privacy-deprived American citizenry, 'profiling' has now gone mainstream as IDI, a year-old company in the so-called data-fusion business, is the first to centralize and weaponize all that information for its customers. As Bloomberg explains,

For more than a decade, professional snoops have been able to search troves of public and nonpublic records—known addresses, DMV records, photographs of a person’s car—and condense them into comprehensive reports costing as little as $10.

Now they can combine that information with the kinds of things marketers know about you, such as which politicians you donate to, what you spend on groceries, and whether it’s weird that you ate in last night, to create a portrait of your life and predict your behavior.

The Boca Raton, Fla., company’s database service, idiCORE, combines public records with purchasing, demographic, and behavioral data... (Bloomberg continues)

Chief Executive Officer Derek Dubner says the system isn’t waiting for requests from clients - it’s already built a profile on every American adult, including young people who wouldn’t be swept up in conventional databases, which only index transactions.

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How The Repo Industry Is Tracking You And Selling Data About You To, Well, Everyone

Tech Dirt

Recently, we've covered a series of stories centered around license plate scanners and the way such information is stored. Despite the protests of the ACLU, local law enforcement agencies have widely deployed the technology and there have also been requests from federal agencies to build a central database of information based on plate scans. If the latest reports are to be believed, however, these would simply be attempts to nationalize an endeavor that has already been undertaken by private industry.

According to the Boston Globe, the helpful groups building this database of license plate scans and providing it to banks, creditors, private investigators and law enforcement agencies are the repo industry and data brokers. And it's far worse than you might think.

While public debate about the license reading technology has centered on how police should use it, business has eagerly adopted the $10,000 to $17,000 scanners with remarkably few limits. At least 10 repossession companies in Massachusetts say they mount the scanners on spotter cars or tow trucks, and Digital Recognition Network of Fort Worth, Texas, claims to collect plate scans of 40 percent of all US vehicles annually.

And that's just one company. The article goes on to note that there are other groups in the data brokerage business that otherwise claim to collect a large majority of US vehicles every year. Those groups freely admit to providing those scan databases to a variety of third parties. 

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US Agencies Put Together ‘McCarthy-esque’ List With Americans’ Personal Data to Find ‘Untrustworthy’ Workers

The Dissenter


Thousands of Americans had their personal data passed on to US agencies like the Central Intelligence Agency, Internal Revenue Service and National Security Agency as part of an effort to uncover “untrustworthy federal workers,” according to a new report from McClatchy Newspapers.

The report from Marisa Taylor describes the creation of an “unprecedented” list of Americans that was disseminated widely with ease when there was no clear reason for sharing this data at all.

According to Taylor, two men are under criminal investigation for “purportedly teaching people how to pass lie detector tests.” The government sought to uncover information on government employees, who may have been using polygraph-beating techniques (which are unproven to work), while trying to obtain their security clearances. The result was “4,904 people—along with many of their Social Security numbers, addresses and professions – to nearly 30 federal agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service, the CIA, the National Security Agency and the Food and Drug Administration.”

“Nurses, firefighters, police officers and private attorneys” all had their personal information handed over. Additionally, a “psychologist, a cancer researcher, and employees of Rite Aid, Paramount Pictures, the American Red Cross and Georgetown University” all had their data shared.

Most of the individuals had never received any one-on-one training from “one of the men being investigated.” They had bought his books or DVDs. The reason for training, in some cases, was also to find out if their spouses had been unfaithful. However, federal agencies passed on the data of thousands of Americans, which they intended to keep in case one of those individuals applied for a job with the agency in the future.

One lawyer, whose husband’s name ended up on the list, told McClatchy, “It’s very alarming and McCarthy-esque in its zeal. To put a person on a secret list because they bought the ‘wrong book’ or are associated with someone who did is overly paranoid.”

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