Today, a friend of mine put me wise to some seriously unpalatable facts about Facebook. Briefly, here’s the deal before i break it down. There's a video link which covers a lot of what i'm going to say below if you don't want to read me blathering on.
1. Facebook’s main mover Peter Thiel is an odious neoconservative.
2. Facebook’s got some seriously dodgy sounding investors with links to the CIA.
3. Facebook make it really difficult for you to delete your data from their site
1. Facebook’s main mover Peter Thiel is an odious neoconservative.
The following may sound longwinded but it is a summary of Tom Hodgkinson’s very long (but excellent) article in the Guardian. Hodgkinson says
‘Thiel is a member of TheVanguard.Org, an internet-based neoconservative pressure group that was set up to attack MoveOn.org, a liberal pressure group that works on the web.’
And
‘This little taster from their website will give you an idea of their vision for the world: "TheVanguard.Org is an online community of Americans who believe in conservative values, the free market and limited government as the best means to bring hope and ever-increasing opportunity to everyone, especially the poorest among us." Their aim is to promote policies that will "reshape America and the globe". TheVanguard describes its politics as "Reaganite/Thatcherite". The chairman's message says: "Today we'll teach MoveOn [the liberal website], Hillary and the leftwing media some lessons they never imagined."
I don't have time to go into how much of the above is stomach churningly offensive but the bit about the free market and limited government being the best means to help the poor is particularly yuch.
2. Facebook’s got some seriously dodgy sounding investors with links to the CIA.
Hodgkinson goes on to reveal that Greylock Venture Capital have invested $27.5m in Facebook. One of Greylock’s senior partners is Howard Cox who’s on the board of In-Q-Tel. Now, In-Q-Tel is the venture capital wing of the CIA. No really - look, it says so on their site. Also part of In-Q-Tel is Anita K Jones, former director of defence research and engineering for the US department of defence.
3. Facebook makes it really difficult for you to delete your data from their site and doesn’t care about your privacy.
you’ll need a guide on how to do delete your data, if you wish to do so - here it is essentially it’s a hack because Facebook don’t want you to delete your data. I don't really understand this because their terms tell you they've backed your data up so even if you do delete, they have, in google style, backed up your info anyhow.
Now most Facebook users will be aware that Facebook uses the personal details on your account to target you with tailored advertising - and I guess their reluctance is related to that.
Finally, read the part in their terms and conditions section that none of us read when we signed up and ask yourself if you feel comfortable with it.
‘By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content. ‘
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