Who among us did not realize when posting stuff on Facebook that advertisers were watching our every word and pix? Facebook, and the entire internet for that matter, is free for one reason: advertisers. They monitor what we say and reveal as well as what internet sites we roam from Facebook and other social media. That’s how we get all the news we can use from the internet for free. The internet never promised us security and privacy. It’s been routinely hacked. Some users are trolled. And the Russian bots and fake news proliferated, in accordance with our nation’s guaranteed right of free speech.
So why did the U.S. Congress make a federal case out of Facebook’s lax security? Why did they feel the need for a public scorning, scolding, and intellectual crucifixion of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg last week? Our nation has a heap more problems than the privacy settings of Facebook accounts.
Was the Zuckerberg testimony some sort of search for evil, as Americans are known to seek when bad things happen to us? Was this some sort of dog-and-pony show by our elected officials, democrats and republicans, still smarting over the Trump presidential win and subsequent leadership? Why not grill that computer guy with the pink hair and body piercings who blew the whistle on Cambridge Analytica and its connection if not command and directives by one Steve Bannon?
Now we are supposed to wait around until Facebook lets each of us know if we were one of the 80 million users whose accounts were sought to persuade a Trump victory? Here’s the deal: Trump was going to win whether or not 80 million Americans were inspired by Facebook’s political ads, Russian bots and unknown demographic influences. Hillary Clinton actually won the majority vote by two million, but she did not win the Electoral College because she lost Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Who even looks at the ads on Facebook anyway? I’ve managed to turn a blind eye. And while scrolling the Facebook feed, most of what I see is a resent internet poster on life being full of love and loss. If anything would make me want to drop Facebook, that would be it. Yet I remain a participant for the occasional real news from families and friends. That’s maybe two percent of what I get from Facebook these days. It used to be fun years ago. Remember Throwback Thursday? Keeping up with that was tedious and tiresome especially as I was swamped by work in the real world. But it was a fad, and so is Facebook and maybe social media altogether. We bore easily after a few years.
The In Crowd
The cool thing nowadays is to remove your Facebook account. A few million have done just that (as if the Russian bots can’t find some other way to influence, tantalize and confuse us on the internet). The internet has always been a deal with the devil. Computers are just switches using 0s and 1s. And that’s the problem in trying to maintain some kind of security such as online purchases with a credit card. Simply put, it can’t be done. We’ve seen time and again hacking of major accounts from banks to department stores, government departments to hospitals and colleges. It’s a modern man-made mess.
Because of privacy concerns, I was late to Facebook. I didn’t want everyone to know my business: where I went on vacation, when I went on vacation, my news and blues and latest hairdos. But like practically every American, I figured ‘What the hell?’ Why not get on social media and mix it up? Things went smoothly enough … until the 2016 election. It was sad to see how comments for and against Trump, Hillary and Obama were taken by long-time friends and family. I’d say relationships will never be the same and patched up. Some would say I have a big mouth—but no more so than others on Facebook. Besides, I always supported free speech, even if Obama was called a n**&^% by my Facebook friends.
Free speech is what I’m all about. I put up with comments I don’t like. To keep peace among my kin, I turned to tweeting my all-out sassy quips against, well, you know who.
The idea of Cambridge Analytica and Facebook in a data breach scandal is just too overwhelming and scary for some folks. They feel violated, their deeply-held political, religious and societal views being studied and used to swing an election, or so the tale goes, wagging the dog. We need to grow up and face the technological age in which we live: Anything we say on the internet and social media can and will be used against us.
One final thought on the subject: There really is no way to delete what’s said online. It’s out there now in cyberspace … to be found out by someone, somehow, someday, somewhere.