Facebook, the world’s top social media platform, is reportedly
seeking to hire hundreds of employees with US national security clearance
licenses.
Purportedly with the aim of
weeding out “fake news” and “foreign meddling” in elections.
If
that plan, reported by
Bloomberg, sounds sinister, that’s because it is. For what it means is that
people who share the same worldview as US intelligence agencies, the agencies
who formulate classified information, will have a direct bearing on what
millions of consumers on Facebook are permitted to access.
It’s as close to outright US government
censorship on the internet as one can dare to imagine, and this on a nominally
independent global communication network. Your fun-loving place “where friends meet.”
Welcome
to Facespook!
As
Bloomberg reports: “Workers
with such [national security] clearances can access information classified by
the US government. Facebook plans to use these people – and their ability to
receive government information about potential threats – in the company’s
attempt to search more proactively for questionable social media campaigns
ahead of elections.”
A Facebook spokesman declined
to comment, but the report sounds credible, especially given the context of
anti-Russia hysteria.
Over the past year, since the
election of Donald Trump as US president, the political discourse has been
dominated by “Russia-gate” – the notion that somehow Kremlin-controlled hackers
and news media meddled in the election. The media angst in the US is comparable
to the Red Scare paranoia of the 1950s during the Cold War.
Facebook
and other US internet companies have been hauled in front of Congressional
committees to declare what they know about alleged “Russian influence campaigns.” Chief
executives of Facebook, Google, and Twitter, are due to be questioned again
next month by the same panels.
Mark Zuckerberg, the
33-year-old CEO of Facebook, initially rebuffed claims his company had
unwittingly assisted Russian interference in the last US in November. But after
months of non-stop allegations by politicians and prominent news media outlets
vilifying Russia, Zuckerberg and the other social media giants are buckling.
Led,
perhaps unwittingly, by US intelligence fingering of Russian meddling,
Facebook, Google, and Twitter are now saying they have discovered postings and
advertisements “linked
to the Russian government.” Notably, the sources impugning
the “offending ads” are
the intelligence agencies and members of Congress who are hawkish on the
Russia-gate narrative.
One
glaring weakness in this narrative is that the alleged “Russian ads” involved
a spend of $100,000 on Facebook. Twitter identified $274,000 worth of “Russian-linked ads.” Some
of the information being promoted appears to be entirely innocuous, such as
pet-lovers sharing cute photos of puppies.
It is far from clear how these ads are connected to Russian state agencies allegedly attempting to subvert the US elections. Moscow has dismissed the allegations.
It is far from clear how these ads are connected to Russian state agencies allegedly attempting to subvert the US elections. Moscow has dismissed the allegations.
Much of it is assumed and taken on face value from claims made by
American intelligence and their political and media associates. But what is
clear – albeit overlooked in much US media coverage – is the sheer
implausibility that the Russian government intended to warp the US presidential
election with a few hundred thousand dollars.
Facebook alone earns billions
of dollars from advertising. The alleged Russian ads represent a drop in the
bucket. The expenditure and presumed impact on public opinion is also
negligible compared to the billions of dollars American corporations donated to
the election campaigns of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Alphabet
(Google’s parent company) and Facebook are among the top 50 biggest US
corporate donors in lobbying the Federal government and Congress. Last year,
the top 50 corporations reportedly spent over $700
million, of which Alphabet and Facebook contributed $15 million and $8.7
million, respectively. This expenditure is explicitly intended to influence
policy and legislation. So, what’s that about Russia allegedly swaying the
presidential election with a fraction of the financial muscle?
Despite
the irrational focus on Russian meddling, internet companies like Facebook have
become willing participants in the official efforts to clamp down on this
illusory “enemy of democracy.”
What’s more is the complete
oversight on how the US media environment is increasingly dominated and
controlled by vested powerful corporate interests.
While the mainstream media and politicians fret over alleged Russian influence on American citizens, there is an absurd absence in the public debate about the disproportionate power of just six US media conglomerates dominating all major American news services.
While the mainstream media and politicians fret over alleged Russian influence on American citizens, there is an absurd absence in the public debate about the disproportionate power of just six US media conglomerates dominating all major American news services.
Social
media and internet companies are vying with the traditional news channels. In a
recent article, New York Times technology columnist Farhad Manjoo wrote about the
“Frightful Five” – Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Alphabet (Google). He
writes: “The Five elicit worries of
total social control.”
The influence these US-owned
media giants exert cuts across all cultural sectors, from the news received, to
books, film and other entertainment. In effect, these companies are molding
citizens into the consumers that they want to maximize their profits.
Facebook’s reported plans to
employ US government-validated people who can use their intelligence contacts
and prejudices to control what millions of ordinary people will read, watch or
listen to is another manifestation of the larger drift into a corporate matrix.
Under the
preposterous guise of “protecting” from “fake news” and “foreign meddling in
elections,” Facebook is turning into a government censor.
This disturbing trend has
accelerated over the last year. Far from Russia or some other foreign impostor
tampering with freedom of information and free speech – supposed bedrocks of
democracy – it is increasingly American companies that are the very real and
formidable constraint.
Robert Bridge, a fellow Op-Edge contributor, said Facebook appears to be
deliberately blocking links disseminating particular news stories carried by
the channel.
Bridge concurs with the experience of many other ordinary people around
the world who also have noticed how US internet companies have substantially
curbed the search freedom previously enjoyed on the internet.
“It’s
really incredible how Google and YouTube have earnestly started manipulating
their algorithms and censoring news, ”says Bridge. “I was researching a story
recently, and it was so difficult to pull up any relevant information that was
not critical of Putin or Russia.”
A
similar finding was reported by the World Socialist Web Site
(WSWS), which carried out a study on how search traffic to that site and other
left-wing, anti-war online journals has plummeted by over 50 percent since
Google announced new search engines to curtail “fake news” back in April.
Facebook
and the other big US internet companies are instead directing users to what
they call “authoritative” news
organizations, which by and large are corporate-controlled entities aligned
with government interests. Ironically, these news outlets have peddled some of
the biggest fake news stories, such as the non-existent weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq which launched a decade-long US war killing over a million
Iraqis.
“Russia-gate” is another fabricated narrative
which is being used to crush critical alternative sources.
The infernal paradox is that genuinely alternative, critical news
sources are now at risk of being censored by internet companies working in
league with nefarious US government intelligence.
The statements, views and
opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not
necessarily represent those of RT.
Reprinted
from RT News.
Former editor and writer for major news media organizations. He
has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in
several languages.
Copyright © 2017 Autonomous Nonprofit Organization “TV-Novosti”
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