On 07 Jan 2015, at 11:22 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>> Despite an intoxicating adolescence - built on the foundations of a dubious birth, but which was masked by the excitement of the uprisings in the Arab world, which happened to coincide with the period of FB’s greatest “democratic" potential - FB has become in its maturity the abomination it was always destined to be: an abomination, hidden behind an algorithmic enigma, wrapped in a large, data-mining turd.
>
> Yawn.
1.
"Using techniques ranging from supermarket loyalty cards to targeted advertising on Facebook, private companies systematically collect very personal information, from who you are, to what you do, to what you buy. Data about your online and offline behavior are combined, analyzed, and sold to marketers, corporations, governments, and even criminals. The scope of this collection, aggregation, and brokering of information is similar to, if not larger than, that of the NSA, yet it is almost entirely unregulated and many of the activities of data-mining and digital marketing firms are not publicly known at all.”
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/jan/09/how-your-data-are-being-deeply-mined/
2.
"Facebook has willingly provided information in response to government subpoenas or requests, except with regard to private, unopened inbox messages less than 181 days old, which require a warrant and a finding of probable cause under federal law.[25] An article by Junichi Semitsu published in the Pace Law Review, reports that "even when the government lacks reasonable suspicion of criminal activity and the user opts for the strictest privacy controls, Facebook users still cannot expect federal law to stop their 'private' content and communications from being used against them. "[25] Facebook's privacy policy states that "We may also share information when we have a good faith belief it is necessary to prevent fraud or other illegal activity, to prevent imminent bodily harm, or to protect ourselves and you from people violating our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, courts or other government entities."[25] Since Congress has failed to meaningfully amend the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to protect most communications on social-networking sites such as Facebook and since the Supreme Court has largely refused to recognize a Fourth Amendment privacy right to information shared with a third party, there is no federal statutory or constitutional right that prevents the government from issuing requests that amount to fishing expeditions and there is no Facebook privacy policy that forbids the company from handing over private user information that suggests any illegal activity.[25]
"In July 2011, aided by Facebook, Israeli authorities prevented several pro-Palestinian activists, who "announced on their Internet sites that they planned to come [t]here and cause disruptions, and told their friends", from boarding Tel Aviv-bound flights in Europe by "contact[ing] other foreign ministries and simply giv[ing] them links".[26]
"The 2013 mass surveillance disclosures identified Facebook as a participant in the U.S. National Security Administration's PRISM program. Facebook now reports the number of requests it receives for user information from governments around the world.[27]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook#Cooperation_with_government_search_requests