gopherhole/paranoidsbible/Facebook: Precursor to Social Media Troubles and Future Censorship.txt

===Facebook: Precursor to Social Media Troubles and Future Censorship===

Non-profit and free for redistribution
Written on July 16th | 2017
Published on July 16th | 2017

For entertainment and research purposes only

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

DISCLAIMER
The Paranoid's Bible and its writers hold no responsibility for the acts of others.

The Paranoid’s Bible is for research and entertainment purposes only.

Please visit our blog for more PDFs and information: http://www.paranoidsbible.tumblr.com/ 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

====Preface====
The main purpose of this guide is to provide you, the reader, arguments as to why you should leave social media and networks, especially Facebook. The second purpose is to educate you about the dangers that social media and networks present as a whole, which ranges from governments and corporations modifying, twisting and overall polluting information. In order for us to do this, however, we’ll be borrowing heavily from Richard Stallman, Salim Virani and Vicki Boykis, who’ve already went above and beyond when doing their research and investigating these issues. While they may have mainly focuses upon Facebook, the truth is that what they have to say applies heavily to Web 2.0 and beyond with how the end user interacts with any services they sign up for, especially any that demand your information in order to create an account.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

===The Claim===
Many people who try to research the malpractices of Facebook or other social networks are usually met with blogs, sketchy sites and MSM articles on the matter, most of which usually gloss over important details or dummy everything down to the point where it seems like it’d be okay to use social networks. However, if you’re lucky or did your search query correctly, you should come across two to three links, which we listed below.

https://stallman.org/facebook.html
https://stallman.org/facebook-presence.html
http://www.salimvirani.com/facebook/

These links standout because they belong to two individuals who actually know what they’re talking about, both of whom know more than most when it comes to privacy. Richard Stallman and Salim Virani have written some thorough articles on the matter concerning privacy and social networking, which is which why we’re dedicating this chapter to their claim: Facebook is unsafe and violates your privacy.

Following Stallman’s article, we see (some of) the reasons to not use Facebook as such:
* Facebook requires your real name or a known alias to go by

* They try to trip up their user’s into giving away info - http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/facebook-snitch-on-friends-that-arent-using-real-names/

* After the cross dresser incident, FB has changed their policy but not really - https://www.engadget.com/2015/06/25/women-lgbt-safety-facebook-policy/

* Blackmail is rampant on FB - http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001133.html

* Your profile will always end up in the public’s eye - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/29/facebook-privacy-secret-profile-exposed

* FB has secret software that allows governments to censor - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/23/facebook-secret-software-censor-user-posts-china

* The infamous square boob incident - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/20/facebook-bans-breast-cancer-video-square-breasts

* FB is one of your larger purchasers of personal information - https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-doesnt-tell-users-everything-it-really-knows-about-them

* FB’s app spies on SMS messages - https://archive.is/f3uKM

* FB tricks you into allowing other websites to make accounts in your name - http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/facebook-info-sharing-created-zoosk-com-dating-profile-for-married-woman-1.2844953

* FB loves to diagnose people - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/01/facebook-target-mental-health-data-online
It makes you addicted to their service - https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/the-secret-ways-social-media-is-built-for-addiction

The above is just a sampling of what Stallman has dug up and found. The links and resources he has provided also go into greater detail on this disturbing trend of websites using their users. We encourage you to visit his links and read up on these issues, especially now that we’re going to discuss Virani’s claims.

Virani’s claims, while quite similar to Stallman’s, came after he was concerned about his friends and family. Reading through this article you can see that Virani was not only a supporter of Facebook but also, to an extent, an advocate.  You can see he brings up some points that Stallman doesn’t, however both articles are a good resource.

Virani’s claims are thus:
* FB sells your likes - http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2013/01/21/facebook-is-recycling-your-likes-to-promote-stories-youve-never-seen-to-all-your-friends/

* FB loves to sneak things through - http://www.zdnet.com/article/is-facebook-damaging-your-reputation-with-sneaky-political-posts/

* They know what you’re reading - http://spectrum.ieee.org/podcast/telecom/internet/stalking-on-facebook-is-easier-than-you-think

* Because of this, insurance companies love to mine your data - http://www.insure.com/car-insurance/social-media-future.html

* Facebook delivers your info to the NSA - http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data

So, looking at a sampling of the two articles above, we already see that Facebook, as an example, represents the potential harm all social media networks can do to its users. While FB is more popular than most, we must assume that if it happens there it’ll happen elsewhere, ergo social media networks pose a harm to our privacy and security as individuals and potentially even activism. This means that it also has the potential to be used as a weapon to enforce societal contagions—memes—as a way to groom users and steer them toward Government or corporate approved behavior and trends.

Moving onto the next chapter, we’ll present the information people have discovered that supports, at the very least, how Facebook (and possibly other social media sites) is a danger to its users.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

===The Evidence===
Using the information found at https://veekaybee.github.io/facebook-is-collecting-this/  and https://labs.rs/en/ , we can further see that, in the end, FB has no real qualm about violating your rights and privacy. Looking at the article written by Vicki Boykis we can see what information is collected by FB, and in Vicki’s own words…

“TL;DR: Facebook collects data about you in hundreds of ways, across numerous channels. It’s very hard to opt out, but by reading about what they collect, you can understand the risks of the platform and choose to be more restrictive with your Facebook usage.”

Actually reading the article, we can see that any user entered data is collected and placed into their (FB’s) database through hundreds of various means, which show cases how FB works with big data. Hive, Hadoop, Hbase, Bigpipe, MySQL, Memcacher, Thrift and much more are used in various ways, all working to keep the house of cards that is Facebook propped up and running while housed in massive data centers located around the world, like the one in Prineville, Oregon. Caching, collecting and archiving your information and data, possibly passing it through a backroom server owned by the government or at the very least one of its agencies.

It doesn’t stop there, either. Facebook is known for collecting your keystrokes and tracking your mouse’s movements, even using some of this data to conduct studies. This means everything is now potentially saved, even if you wanted it deleted. They keep track of things you edit and delete, the meta data and other items besides what you leave up and/or post. Again, this shows just a tiny bit of FB collects on you, especially how they can use this to possibly predict things you want to say or do, thus we end up in the realm of pre-activities. Pre-crime and similar notions from movies suddenly rear their ugly heads, showing you that possibly in the near future you could end up on a list just for something you didn’t say.

They use all of this to make extrapolations about whom and what you are, what you do and how much time you spend on their site doing anything, regardless of what it is you’re doing. You’ll never not exist on Facebook if you made an account simply because they’ve traces of you everywhere, constantly being catalogued, cached and backed up somewhere for others to find. This is why FB and social media is dangerous in general—one database leak and some information you thought gone could resurface.

Don’t believe us? Go and look here: https://www.facebook.com/help/302796099745838

Download your personal subset and see just what Facebook has on you, especially how they generated Ads they believe you’d be interested in. Pair this with what information you give them and combine it. See how disturbing it is with the general information you gave them to fill out your profile? See what they can deduce with such tiny bits of information? You’re marked by this beast now and if FB or any social network really wanted to, they can sell this information whenever they wanted to other companies.

Not only does its employees have access to your private information (https://www.quora.com/Do-Mark-Zuckerberg-or-Facebook-employees-have-a-skeleton-key-granting-them-access-to-every-members-Facebook-profile-page-and-information) but you’re also a guinea pig to them, no better than a rodent to poke and prod for their own experiments. They don’t care about you, you’re just a human cattle to them for them to do with as they please. Again, don’t believe us? Checkout their research webpage (https://research.fb.com/). 

Noticed it?

 “At Facebook, research permeates everything we do.”

* They monitor your emotions - https://research.fb.com/support-when-you-re-feeling-blue/

* They manipulate your emotions - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-users-emotions-news-feeds

* They want you to strap on the digital feed sack and never leave - http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/06/news-feed-fyi-taking-into-account-time-spent-on-stories/

You end up in a bubble, isolated from all other conflicting sources and opinions. You end up becoming trapped and only fed the things you like, which means you don’t get a healthy diet of information. They fatten you up on narratives they decide are good for you besides you clicking like or dislike. This means they can control the flow of information, making you a useful idiot for whatever side they support. They don’t want you free and thinking critically, they want you to do as they say.

Now, before we spend too much time on the above article, we urge you to give it a read and look it over. Like the other articles we’ve mentioned, it goes into great detail about how much FB invades your personal life and wants to actively expose and track people wherever they are, especially if they can make a buck off that information.

Moving onto the information from Labs.rs (https://labs.rs/en/category/facebook-research/), you’ll find their trilogy of articles. The first one you’ll find the most informative, especially the maps they’ve made. As you read their articles and look at the maps they’ve created, you soon realize just how far of a rabbit hole we’re digging into. The end result being: YOU’RE FACEBOOK’S PRODUCT

While Facebook can claim they don’t sell your information, you can find numerous articles on the matter that they do, especially to advertisers.

* FB sells your web browsing data - https://consumerist.com/2014/06/12/facebook-is-now-selling-your-web-browsing-data-to-advertisers/

* The price of free - http://www.pcworld.com/article/2986988/privacy/the-price-of-free-how-apple-facebook-microsoft-and-google-sell-you-to-advertisers.html

Privacy has been privatized - http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-google-information-nsa-iphone-android-data-personal-2016-2

This means that using FB or any social network is a move against your overall level of privacy and security. Add the fact that there’s no guarantee that Facebook or any social network isn’t manipulating your feed continuously, you soon can see what the potential scenarios that can happen. What is preventing someone from using social media to spread enough gloomy news and information to cause a massive wave of suicides? With people claiming teenage suicides are contagious (http://www.newsweek.com/2016/10/28/teen-suicide-contagious-colorado-springs-511365.html) and social media being a possible contributors (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_and_suicide) all it’d take is for the wrong person in control of the right website and then we begin to see why there needs to be more laws in favor of our privacy and security when it comes to these websites.

___References:___
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3477910/

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

===The Realization====
Social Media was believed to be, like the radio, a means to end miscommunication and bring about an era of information sharing the likes of which we’ve never seen before. However the sad truth is that it has become yet another tool for those in power to use against an unsuspecting populace. The US government being one of the bigger exploiters, especially the NSA, has worked with such infamous individuals like Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and their websites in order to aggregate information on as many users as possible.

It’s nothing more than domestic  and foreign spying and one of the many reason why you, as an internet user, should abandon all forms of social networking (Facebook, Myspace, Twitter…ETC). This is because they're no more than breeding grounds for the cancerous tumors of surveillance and so-called legal operations meant to sniff out supposed terrorists that usually end up being some bullied kid in high school venting about jocks and cheerleaders.

The Obama administration even acknowledges this much and admitted to wanting backdoors, but if that doesn’t bother you maybe the fact that many abusive individuals use apps and malware to track down their targets or partners will make you think twice about using Facebook and other social networking sites with such naivety.

Social networks have become a vice, whether this was intentional or not is irrelevant, as it has shown to be as addictive as any drug. It also has even led to an increasingly common trend: FoMo; Literally the fear of missing out. These websites and their communities will continue to be a vice for our species until we can learn to properly use such social networks with moderation and with responsibility.

___References:___
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out
http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/the-nsa-is-using-facebook-to-hack-into-your-computer-20140312
http://www.globalresearch.ca/domestic-spying-and-social-media-google-facebook-back-doors-for-government-wiretaps/5334449
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jan/25/spyware-smartphone-abusive-men-track-partners-domestic-violence
http://www.casacolumbia.org/newsroom/press-releases/2011-national-teen-survey-finds
https://theintercept.com/2014/07/14/manipulating-online-polls-ways-british-spies-seek-control-internet/
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jul/14/gchq-tools-manipulate-online-information-leak

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

===The Conclusion===
The real truth as to why you need to give up social media is because, if you truly want to fight the establishment or punch up, you need to disappear in order to be seen or heard. With all this information online being archived and housed in data centers where everything’s checked, marked and catalogued the only real way to get anything done is to scrub your digital footprint off of the internet and start looking into information security.

While you can find most everything you need to do this over at the PB’s library (https://paranoidsbible.tumblr.com/library), you still won’t get far if you don’t cut ties with social media. If you want to be an activist or a spokesperson for some cause and/or oppressed people, it won’t work if all the establishment or your opponents have to do is a quick search query on any number of engines and bring up the fact that you said something that currently isn’t up to par with what society deems good or bad. Look toward China and their cyberpunk-ish dystopian point system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System)  they want to put into place where everyone’s rated by social points that anyone can add or take away. This could be the future of the world, one day, if no one starts acting and working toward a revolution where our information is just that, our information.

Not to be one of those people, however if you look at current pop-culture you’ll find an animated series from Japan called Psycho-Pass. It’s set in the future and an entire country is controlled by a system where right and wrong is decided solely by the system, which is almost freakishly close to what happening in today’s day and age. You’ve children now being watched by mega-corporations, where even their schools, parents and daily lives are also monitored. They begin to self-censor because they fear social-castration where they’re ostracized and their brand is meaningless and shunned by the other living-brands due to things said online, in private or caught by a passing smart phone and uploaded to social media. This creates a toxic environment where children (and everyone in general) is limited to the things and ideas they’re exposed to and exploring past what’s deemed appropriate is a sentence of living-death where no one wishes to interact with you lest they too are cast to the shadows for breaking protocol.

You’ll soon begin to see people readily conditioned through fear of being an outcast, ergo no one will dissent, participate in activism, challenge the status quo our simply tell someone no. This means these same people will reproduce and their spawn will fall into the same spiraling  behavioral sink where you don’t want to speak against the state in fear of an arbitrary number being dropped, thus lowering your prospects in the future when you need a job or get married. Soon you’ll see critical thinking cast side all in favor marching to the same tune of whatever the deep state wants, which will all be due to people not revolting now and costing social media money VIA not participating in their schemes and deleting your accounts. You can stop future surveillance by dissenting right now and by isolating yourself from social networks and media, thus starting a trend where if enough people were to up and remove themselves from a site like Facebook you’ll see their bottom line falter. You can prevent people from being politically timid and docile like the voter-cattle the deep state wants, and all it takes is saying no to social media and networks.

If you’re from the US or any Western country, you’ll see what made us special slowly erode due to activist judges and people too worried about hurting the feelings of others. Disregard the arbitrary numbers and mooing of those not currently in the know, as you can prevent things like the destruction of the Bill of Rights by not participating in the rat race of self-implication that’s social media. Why let corporations and political dictate your behavior? Why let them control the narrative and determine our cultural values?

Don’t let them dictate your patterns of behavior or the behavior society as a whole with threats of a good-citizen-point.  This isn’t a Left or Right political issue, nor is it an issue about genetalia, men, women or chromosomes. This is an issue about privacy and freedom. This is an issue of rights. You’ve the powers-to-be working to use women against themselves, and the same with men and children and various racial groups. This will continue to snowball and force to reality a self-censored public if we don’t start making our voices heard through our actions. The more to submit and make accounts, the more that fall prey to the need for approval from internet strangers and the nanny-state the governments are forcing.

Don’t believe the above? Then how about some more evidence and reasons as to why you need to leave your social media accounts VIA some links and discussion points below?

* Many privacy advocates and various individuals agree, Facebook’s (and social media) a danger to our freedoms and rights.
https://stallman.org/facebook.html |https://www.salimvirani.com/facebook/ | https://labs.rs/en/ | https://veekaybee.github.io/facebook-is-collecting-this/ 

* They’ve already started the narrative that if you aren’t on social media, or simply are introverted, you’re a potential problem.
http://www.medicaldaily.com/your-social-media-presence-may-tell-whether-youre-narcissist-introvert-or-sociopath-270299 | http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/08/06/beware-tech-abandoners-people-without-facebook-accounts-are-suspicious/

* It’s comprised of nothing more than lies, deceit and overall manipulation for simple arbitrary and made up numbers that can hurt your self esteem and overall health.
https://conversionxl.com/online-manipulation-all-the-ways-youre-currently-being-deceived/ | http://illusionofmore.com/social-media-manipulate/ | http://fortune.com/2015/12/30/social-media-emotions/ | https://www.independent.co.uk/student/istudents/filters-and-photo-manipulation-on-social-media-sites-are-creating-a-generation-of-deluded-a6852736.html

* Again, it’s literally like a drug and can cause addiction.
http://www.medicaldaily.com/facebook-addiction-activates-same-brain-areas-drugs-how-social-media-sites-hook-you-320252

* The astroturfing’s real and it’s aimed at women and young people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing | http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/07/women_young_people_experience_the_chilling_effects_of_surveillance_at_higher.html

* The people behind it, like Zuckerberg, are the closest things we’ve to Bond villains.
https://boingboing.net/2015/05/21/mark-zuckerberg-just-dropped-a.html | http://www.staradvertiser.com/2017/01/18/business/facebooks-zuckerberg-sues-to-force-land-sales/ | https://trak-in.cdn.ampproject.org/c/trak.in/tags/business/2017/06/07/facebooks-evil-patents-discovered-your-emotions-may-soon-be-secretly-recorded-by-your-own-camera/amp/ | https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/02/the-mark-zuckerberg-manifesto-is-a-blueprint-for-destroying-journalism/517113/ | http://www.barstoolsports.com/dmv/mark-zuckerberg-confirmed-facebook-is-working-on-reading-your-mindtelepathy-and-the-details-are-wild/

* Deleting your social media outright lessens your chances of being doxed.

* The government can legally access your profiles, accounts and information.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-27/us-government-can-legally-access-your-facebook-data-and-now-we-know-how

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

===Afterword===
The arguments have been made a thousand times as to why social media and networking is a bad thing and no matter what we say or do, we can’t really rephrase it anymore. This is why we made this guide, to provide arguments and information as to why you should say goodbye to social networks and learn to live without them. They’re a tool to undermine any initiatives taken against censorship and oppression, as their main goals are to ultimately get people to self-incriminate.