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Just a weird thought,..

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Golemfrost

Golemfrost

Armchair hero
I just saw something on TV about Facebook (which i don´t use, nor do i have an account) and a strange thought just came up,
with Facebook having +800 million users, millions of gigabytes of data, Metadata, the timeline option and God knows what other personal information,
What if Facebook isn´t what it seems to be, what if it isn´t just a social networking system that´s grown a bit out of proportion, but what if it´s actually a program designed to keep track of humanity (a large portion) maybe for something like after a post apocalyptic usage?
Any thoughts ?
 
What type of 'usuage' were you thinking of? Some kind of computer savvy census having the ability to seek out those to survive?

If so, I better beef-up my facebook bio.

"...can use sound card and flint to make fire..."
 
Golemfrost said:
I just saw something on TV about Facebook (which i don´t use, nor do i have an account) and a strange thought just came up,
with Facebook having +800 million users, millions of gigabytes of data, Metadata, the timeline option and God knows what other personal information,
What if Facebook isn´t what it seems to be, what if it isn´t just a social networking system that´s grown a bit out of proportion, but what if it´s actually a program designed to keep track of humanity (a large portion) maybe for something like after a post apocalyptic usage?
Any thoughts ?
Click to expand...

There are agencies out there that monitor facebook posts, and there is a great deal of facebook profiling as well. It's an easy way to tie someone to an email address, a group of known associates, and to track whereabouts as well. I'll have to look to be certain, but I believe that it (Facebook) has been used as evidence in some criminal cases.
 
Golem,
I watched an indie documentary on Netflix recently in which a British fellow challenged two top notch private investigators to locate him within a month after he tried to drop out of sight. They nabbed him in well under three weeks. It was a harmless game with a moral.

Part of the documentary was an interview with an elderly East German man who had lived under the Stasi. The old man stated unequivocally that any police state possessing detailed enough info on its citizens need almost never resort to large scale force to control them. Correctional pressure on a much smaller scale (often brutal) would suffice. Very scary stuff.
 
There was a very funny bit, maybe on Onion News, not sure, a supposed interview with a member of the Facebook department of the FBI. The guy says how the FBI used to work so hard to collect data on the citizens of the US, who knew that if they put up a social networking site we would gladly give them everything they needed, with pictures! Funny and terrifying at the same time.
 
Here's why I don't have a Facebook account ( the "us" is Facebook" ):
  • If anyone brings a claim against us related to your actions, content
    or information on Facebook, you will indemnify and hold us harmless
    from and against all damages, losses, and expenses of any kind
    (including reasonable legal fees and costs) related to such claim.
So in layman's terms, someone you may not even know could bring a lawsuit against Facebook because they didn't like something you said, or some nebulous thing "related to your actions" ... so pretty much anything goes ... and suddenly you are now going to have to pay Facebook's lawyers to take care of it ... whether you actually did anything wrong or not isn't even relevant to this clause.

On Google, the quoted keyword phrase "lawsuits against facebook" returned 195,000 results.

If anything they should be indemnifying us because we're all that make the website worth anything in the first place. Imagine if you went to a store to buy something and before they let you have it you had to agree to indemnify the store against any and all claims that could arise ... well folks, you really should wake up because that's what they're doing on the net and it's creeping into retail as well. Chances are that your cell-phone contract has a similar indemnification clause. It's insideous legal weaselese. So no thanks. I deleted my Facebook account.
 
I think people need to remember, if you use something for free, and money is being made,
then the chances are rather high that you are what's being sold.
 
Golemfrost said:
I think people need to remember, if you use something for free, and money is being made,
then the chances are rather high that you are what's being sold.
Click to expand...


Good point, similarly it's not just that people are using the service for free ... the service is using the people and paying them nothing and making them legally liable for damages at the same time. Why do we stand for it? Because the age of instant gratification makes people into helpless zombies, each with their personal little zombie bluetooth control devices attached to their heads, marketed as "hands-free" ... woo hoo ! Now we don't even have to pick up the phone when the boss calls ... he's just wired directly into our brains. Not only do I not have a Facebook account ... I don't use a cell phone.
 
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