0420blog
Signed, Sealed and Delivered
I am a member of 115 Facebook groups that span from Monte Python Fans Group, Castles & Ruins of Scotland, Friends Who Like The Beatles, The Bizarro Side, Illusions, Dylanology and more, I hear from like-minded, amiable members from Japan, Mexico and everyplace in between and I have 618 Facebook friends who have accepted my requests for friendship, whatever that word means, and that is why, like millions and millions and more likely billions of others around the globe, from sheep herders in Scotland to ironworkers in Moscow to retirees in River Edge, I have been mesmerized, hypnotized, analyzed, categorized, corporatized, characterized, scrutinized, editorialized, propagandized, personalized, politicized, dehumanized, strategized, mobilized, cannibalized, trivialized, financially sodomized and most importantly, monetized by Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and the rest.
And so have you, so don’t be taken in by that interminably sickening, yellow smiley face that populates the digital atmosphere, forget those cutesy reminders about Sally Sowhat’s birthday, never mind the Facebook photos of smiling strangers with wine at a Florida sunset and that adorable picture of a fluffy ostrich acting like a pillow for a baby elephant that makes you want to just squeeze that pillow for yourself. Enough. Get serious because we are being swallowed up, eaten alive and fed to the corporates that rule the world, totally without our permission and it is a conspiracy and I am not one of those crazy conspiracists who think Bigfoot lives in a cabin in West Milford, that Wayfair’s expensive cabinets are used for child trafficking, that 5G towers cause COVID19 or that Bill Gates wants to involuntarily embed microchips into us. That part about Bigfoot might be true.
Facebook knows who you are, they know the kind of cookies you like, they know the last thing you bought on Amazon, they know you support the environment, they know you like the Yankees, they know you have high blood pressure, they know your shoe size, your phone number, your social security number, your pets names and birthdays and they know you think the attacks on the Capitol were led by Black Lives Matter and other left wing radicals bent on overthrowing the country.
It’s the biggest scam the world has ever known and makes Bernie Madoff look like he’s selling candy and it seems all so painless as we are pummeled, punched, kicked and otherwise brutalized with nary a scar to prove the assault.
It’s nothing personal so don’t be so naive as to believe this is about anything other than money, money, money. They’ll accept a new Facebook page for the Nazis, unless they are pressured to stop by advertisers who don’t like Nazis. They will repeat baseless claims about election fraud and baby eating Democrats as long as you keep the meter running. They’ll give free reign to a wannabe dictator for as long as they can without running afoul of advertisers.
The social network giants are equal opportunity predators, they are totally amoral and they could care less about whether you lean left or right, whether you support laws to allow everyone to carry an assault rifle or whether you believe that Trump is still president. They monetize this information right before your eyes and they want to keep your eyes focused on that adorable elephant so they can flash the ads and the longer you hang around, the more money they make, ka-ching, ka-ching ka-ching.
Of course, it’s all about money and power. Isn’t everything? A New York Times story reported that the 10 largest tech firms in commerce, finance, entertainment and communications, have a combined market capitalization of more than $10 trillion. That is equal to the world’s third largest economy. So if you ever thought these global sharks would willingly compromise their power and their wealth, than you are zombie living in La La Land but there is hope because people all over the world are getting wise to the scam and governments are looking at how they can change the way the giants operate. Just don’t expect any big changes this century.