The Facebook Conspiracy

I just found this video on Digg, and I think it warranted a post on here.

albumoftheday.com...

This details the policies (data-mining) and funding sources (venture-capitalists) of Facebook.com. I, myself, have a facebook, and while I don't share my information outside of my friends, I have a feeling that doesn't really matter, especially after seeing this.

Also, I don't have the capability, but I would also like to suggest that someone download and mirror the flash video. With the google videos from the BBC being taken down recently, I believe it to only be a matter of time before this one is taken down as well.

Discuss...

The US Govt recently, or well, it was recently revealed that they have been spending millions on ways to gather information from websites such as Myspace, Facebook, and other community sites to create databases of individuals.

I don't think the govt. set up facebook if that's what you're saying?

I'm not saying that they set up facebook. It is interesting to note that the people that funded facebook perhaps saw a great way to capitalize on some data mining, by funding this social network to grab data from the millions of college and highschool students. You can also sign up for a corporation or even a region.

I guess at the minimum it is similar to how myspace data is gathered (especially being owned by News Corp.)

The real kicker, IMO, is the source of funding for such a large and rapidly growing social network.

MySpace does not sell it's information to third parties such as FaceBook does. That's not to say that the governement is not still gathering information from MySpace, but it's not gratned permission by the site itself.

I use MySpace, but I'll never use FaceBook.

Originally posted by Charles Lee

I don't think the govt. set up facebook if that's what you're saying?

Maybe they didn't set it up, but they could have helped it get going. According to that video most of the venture capital came from Accel. James Breyer, the manager of Accel, sits on the board of National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) alongside Gilman Louie, head of In-Q-Tel which is the CIAs venture capital firm

www.prisonplanet.com...

Facebook was just the beginning. Check out what Google is doing now:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

[edit on 16-5-2007 by tyranny22]

Well there is an option that lets you choose if you want your information private or not. That's probably useless though

Facebook, (along with the other stupid websites like myspace,etc) are pointless. Yes, great way to re-connect with old friends...un-safe way to make new friends, but posting your information for the world to read is dangerous. Especially how facebook promotes schools, a perpetrator can easily track you down. I myself, sillingly have a myspace and a facebook, though I don't write much about myself; other than useless information such as my favorite movie, television shows, and music artists, which isn't much. I like myspace for the creative space and facebook just because my boyfriend uses it so, I use it to talk via internet.

These sites are dangerous, pointless, and silly.

What annoys the heck out of me is I keep receiving SPAM from facebook. "Friends" who I don't even know exist keep sending me facebook invitations. This is spam and I'm sick of these websites (facebook, myspace, insert social website here, etc) sending me spam wanting me to sign up for their useless service.

I use msn messenger to talk to friends. Thats enough for me. I don't need to sign up for 100 different social sites as well... thanks but no thanks.

I think it's fairly apparent that social networking sites are being monitored by various government organisations. I can't provide a link, but I read recently about underage parties being raided by the cops in the US which they found out through facebook and myspace. Although I think in that instance they merely searched for keywords and browsed people's accounts for information rather than a direct initiative with the websites, which is completely legal, as anyone can browse your homepage if you have so activated it.


I think people need to be careful about what they post on those things in general. I am an active user of facebook and find it rather enjoyable, however, I'm not going to be discussing this weeks up and coming crack and chronic party at me mate Dave's (this is an example).

What kind of things do you think are being monitored for?

I started posting some really bizarre and outlanding things on my facebook page like recipes to weaponize anthrax, plans to take out the city I live in, etc. just as an experiment. Nothing happened, or at least I do not think anything happened.

More: www.albumoftheday.com...

i use myspace and facebook just about daily.
i have about 300 friends on myspace. I use the bulletin function to repost things i read on ATS, so that they might be reposted and thusly, the good word spread. I've been doing this using copy and paste for about the last year, since i discovered ATS. Don't worry. I also post the original source links.

I've noticed that ONLY after I post something that would be severely destructive to the ideologies of the "powers that be" i.e. that one about Rumsfeld admitting the War on Terror is a HOAX, i experience problems.

for example, after i posted that one, i was unable to post any bulletins for the rest of the day.
About two weeks ago, I posted on at work, and then all of the computers in my department froze.
I have experienced similar situations on about 10 other occasions.
THEY ARE WATCHING MYSPACE

yeh this is the wonderious age of selfishness.... at anyone's cost

heres a mirror.... still in flash format but theirs a buttload of converters if yeah need just search google for it.

Download the OP's video here.

You all don't think that the people at facebook, myspace, etc. are providing free services to you because they are humanitarians. If these people wanted to give their time to charity, they would be working in a soup kitchen.

A friend of mine used to work for evite. Evite pretty much makes its money collecting information about people. Every time you send an evite you your friends, evite not only records their names and email addresses, but also records who associates with who. The theory behind evite is that people of the same socioeconomic class with similar spending habbits tend to associate with eachother. If evite is able to find out the socio-economic status of one or more people in a particular group, it can then determine the socio-economic status of the entire group.

Social networking sites are a joke. The biggest thing for me is the amount of information people put on them. It easy to find someone, know lots of details about them, know who their friends are etc. If you wouldn't give out this information to someone on the street, why post it online?

Furthermore, I find it odd that when you delete a Facebook profile, all the information is not actually deleted from the Facebook servers. It is kept. If you wanted to rejoin all you have to do is type in your username and password, and it pops up, with all the relevant info and photos as they were. If you request to delete your profile, surely you expect them to delete the information from their servers as well!

I'd never use the CIA Facebook, i only use myspace for my music which has been a great help for me to promote my stuff...

I really can't argue that without myspace, I would never have had fans of my stuff from all over the world listen to and give me feedback on my music...

but apart from that I don't really go into any detail with anything...

reply to post by Alethia


Another thing people should keep in mind is that employers and other people you may want to do business with are now looking people up on facebook to see what they are about. You might have trouble finding a job or getting customers if you have some embarassing stuff on your facebook page.

The Governments of the world will find all of the information about you they want, whether or not you are on Facebook or Myspace. Here is a list of a few ways they do it without the internet.

-bank loans / accounts
-drivers licence
-social security / social insurance number
-passports
-credit cards
-debit cards
-cell phone ------trackable like GPS so they can even tell where you are
-medical records
-educational records
-anytime you fill out a form for services eg: hydro, telephone etc


when I used to work at the airport, to gain access to the ramp I had to fill out a form and get checked out by C.S.I.S.

and so on and so on.

The information is there even without facebook or myspace.