As IF Times

Source: Facebook changes mission statement to ‘bring the world closer together’ | TechCrunch

Not content to be a cyber bulletin board for voyeurs, exhibitionists and lonely cat people, Facebook has reaped a financial bonanza by generating income from advertisers and marketers of all types selling to their addicted  audience.  When people sign on to peek enviously at the lifestyles of their wealthy buddies, they are also treated to a steady dose of ads for financial services and other miscellaneous junk. Increasingly, they also get treated to free political sanctimony and propaganda offered as suggested ‘likes’.  And because people want to be inclusive, they are encouraged to ‘like’ these not so subtle blurbs so as to be with the cool kids.  Here are some recent gems:

To most thinking people, this is annoying spam and could be tolerable if we found similar ‘like’ suggestions for trolling stories on left leaning personalities; you know, the whole fair and balanced thing.  Shockingly, it doesn’t happen.  With the target rich material offered up everyday by left leaning people and their causes, we never get treated to opinion pieces on them to like and pass on.  No pink hat wearing Ashley Judd pieces, no crazy eyed Nancy Pelosi slamming President Bush, no black professors banning whites in the name of inclusivity.

While this flotsam and spam is an affront to sane people who just want to ogle their buddies, it’s nothing less than a recruitment tool for leftist influencers to capture naïve and malleable minds.  This is the methodology that’s been used for eons by advertisers and opinion shapers to create a subtle but persuasive version of ‘normal’.  For example, if we watch enough TV,  we may think that man buns and beards are normal although these are really just affectations of a very small group of fashionistas.  Those inspired by this fad no doubt feel that they are expressing their individuality … in a me too kind of way.  In reality, it mostly comes off like Michael Moore wearing skinny jeans trying to be cool.

We imagine that this is the same technique that ISIS probably employs in their social network recruiting programs wherein ads for matches,  blow up dolls and vests are popular.  While Mohammed is checking up on his pal Mohammed, a suggested article pops up on the latest suicide vest fashion. Of course, they’re encouraged to “like” it.  Next thing ya know, everyone wants a vest.

Those who don’t believe the effectiveness of this type of coercion are rejecting over 100 years of work by the advertising industry.  Facebook’s not so subtle campaign of political coercion has been on-going unabashedly since well before the Trump election.  They’ve been doing their bit to convince  regular people into man buns and skinny jeans.  But now, the new mandate is to “bring people closer together” after long being advocates for partisan segregation and identity politics.  It’s the equivalent of North Korea announcing that their new credo is “college students welcome”.

Source: Facebook, Google Crack the Whip on Fake News

Back in the day, if it was on TV or in the newspapers, it must be true.  The modern iteration of this flawed wisdom now is that a story has validity because it was posted on Facebook.

There’s no denying that Facebook has morphed from a quaint social platform where friends posted their activities and kept in touch with distant relatives to become a commercial behemoth generating hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue and becoming the de facto village bulletin board for all types of spam.

For many, Facebook has become a compulsion as people out-do each other with envy invoking pictures of recent vacations or thrilling adventures.  Voyeurs and narcissists alike find reasons to be participants.  Naturally, the sheer size of the worldwide audience begged for commercial capitalization and so ads were introduced into the application and next thing you know, your neighbor’s vacation in Thailand is sponsored by Viagra.

People can post only so many interesting things since, well, most lives are dull punctuated by the occasional vacation episode or rock concert, or baby birth.  Enter the introduction of sponsored links and likes.  Now, users can further embellish their profiles by passing on stories, articles and opinions that they ‘like’, causing their contacts to also ‘like’, much like clapping when someone else starts it.

From liking videos of rescued dolphins,  puppies and cats to passing on interesting recipes for kale, the site became more and more a commercial billboard than personal scrapbook. Running out of original content, people lazily forwarded videos and clever quotes instead.  It became a natural place to distribute faux news under the cover of blessing from the social network.

A recent study revealed that more and more people were getting their news from either Facebook or Twitter, fully 67%, up from only 50% two years ago.  What this may mean is that opinion shapers may not be the mainstream media outlets of years gone by. Stories and opinions may now have to go through the gatekeepers on social media with the largest number of followers.

This is only alarming when you find out that among the people with the largest followers are, Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, Barack Obama, Rhianna, Eminem, Shakira and believe it or not, Michael Jackson.

The Facebook company has denied the distribution of fake news even as they promise to eradicate this practice going forward.  A particularly ironic nugget of science offered recently was a story that claimed that accepting Facebook requests would allow you to live longer. I suspect the global warming crowd are moonlighting in their storytelling.  Next thing you know, décolletage images will get un-likes on user pages.

It’s unlikely that Facebook’s influence on shaping social perceptions will diminish in the foreseeable future since the trend is towards short headlines and soundbites rather than in depth personal analysis.  My guess is that intellectual laziness and the pressure of social conformity will contribute more and more to the naïve population we see today.  The echo chamber of opinions is much like inbreeding.  Convenient at first, but eventually leading to undesirable consequences.