As IF Times

Source: Mark Zuckerberg Testimony: A Critical Test for Facebook – The New York Times

Watching the current testimony of Mark Zuckerberg in front of a Congressional panel on Facebook’s activities is a bit like watching a bunch of seniors asking a PhD student about string theory.   It’s obvious that the Facebook CEO is giving condescending and patronizing answers to people who are asking political questions rather than probing for real fact discovery.  The greatest laugh he has on them is that during his testimony, the stock rose enough to enrich him by $3 billion dollars!  Boy they sure showed him.

That there is any outrage over the leaks of individuals’ private data exists only because there is a tenuous link to the possibility of a chance of maybe helping to bring about Donald Trump’s election.  As we all know, employment of such data mining techniques by parties partisan to the previous President were hailed as genius.  The root of the outrage is not so much about the abuse of mined data, it’s more about who got to benefit from it.

As usual, the threat of government regulation of companies such as Facebook have been raised as a means of curtailing ‘abuses’.  Sure, that’s what’s needed here, more laws.  Somehow, the encompassing sense of entitlement that has taken root in Western culture extends even to Facebook,  an entirely free platform for which nobody is forcefully compelled to participate.  However, in participating, people voluntarily offer their most personal information and proclivities for the world to see and presumably expecting the same from others.  Facebook is a brilliant invention which captures that large segment of the population whom are exhibitionists, voyeurs or both.   To their credit, Facebook made a business out of it and a very big one at that.  But now, there are all kinds of expectations on what this free service should provide or be responsible for.  It’s like going to a free public toilet and demanding that it be supplied with toilet paper.

Zuckerberg for his part, has been disingenuous with the description of his company.  His comments regarding Facebook content makes liberal use of the word ‘community’ to describe Facebook users.  In fact, they have armies of people who are charged with filtering out those that don’t fit their views of what’s acceptable in their community.  So it’s an inclusive community, as long as you fit their definition of community.

As long as Facebook is not deemed to be a public utility, they can do whatever they want and to treat customers as they see fit.  The hysteria surrounding their business practices will subside.  Satisfied users will stay; unhappy ones will leave.  The recent publicity that Facebook has garnered has served an important function however.  It exposes the reality behind their business model and perhaps into the models of many other internet and social media companies. People get something for free, meanwhile, the business owners become billionaires.  Why is there surprise?

Source: As Gunman Rampaged Through Florida School, Armed Deputy ‘Never Went In’ – The New York Times

In case anyone missed it, there was a shooting at a high school in Florida recently, claiming the lives of 17 people.  The perpetrator was an ex student who was previously ejected from the school for numerous instances of unsociable behavior.

How unsociable?  Well the police had been called to his home no less than 39 times by his neighbors for various incidents over the years.  There were other subtle clues to his mental state, namely, self posted You Tube videos in which he publicly professed interest in becoming a mass shooter at a school, accompanied by images of his numerous weapons.  Oh and apparently he had been torturing animals as well.  Other students knew this kid to be disturbed and at least one publicly reported him to the authorities because they felt Cruz was such a menace.  Her exact words were, ” I think he’s going to shoot up a school.”

As we now know, the FBI were given specific directions to his online activities but somehow, no one took it seriously enough to even send an agent to knock on Cruz’s door.  The fact that Cruz used his real name for his online activities obviously confused the law agencies since they couldn’t figure out who or where he was.  At the time of the shooting, at least one and maybe 4 armed deputies were at the school but declined to engage the shooter.

After the horrific event, when fingers began pointing like sunflowers to the setting sun, somehow it was determined that it was the NRA who were the villains.  Like circus ringmasters, the shameless media led by CNN began ginning up the grief of the parents and children and redirected it towards the evil NRA.  Predictably, images of sobbing children filled the airwaves imploring that ‘something has to be done’.  For some reason, the knee jerk response to anything tragic defaults to “the government has to do something”.

In this case, governments were involved at every level.  From the district school level, which had revised their policies to not accosting students for infractions because of racial sensitivities; to the local police who were aware of Cruz from all the disturbance calls; and to the federal level of the FBI who were virtually given flashing red arrows to the existence of this young man.   Even the sheriffs who were posted at the school specifically to provide protection were of no use. There’s a television ad presently running which depicts a bank being robbed; as the patrons look to a uniformed guard, he states, “oh I’m not a bank guard, I’m a bank monitor”.  In the case of the Broward county deputies, life imitates art.

But it’s the NRA’s fault.

Predictably, every time a tragedy of this type occurs, there are the expected shrill wails from the same quarters that ‘government must do something’, which is essentially dog whistle for, ‘take away all guns’.  In this case, government was involved at every step…and they failed at every one of them.  This is the same mentality as blaming restaurants for obesity and then having governments regulate them.  Heck, may as well outlaw forks.

Blaming the NRA and expecting the government to guarantee everyone’s safety perpetuates a level of willful ignorance that seems to draw in more naïve people all the time.  As Rahm Emmanuel once stated, ‘never let a good disaster go to waste’. How do we know this tragedy is being used for political leverage? Dana Loesch, a spokesman for the NRA made the observation that crying white mothers made for very effective TV.  But does anyone see images of crying black mothers from a weekend, every weekend of shootings in Chicago?