Selective wealth and power will bring America to its knees

It is called an oligarchy, "a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few," according to Dictionary.com. And the current oligarchs are, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos. If ever, any one of the three ran their business with the customer's best interest in mind, this all vanished when Donald Trump was sent to the White House for the second time.

It's like all the rules were discarded, the direction of the country changed to reflect rights only for the chosen. For those of you who put the White House maniac back in office, one can only assume you had a total memory loss of what this lunatic did the first time in this position. And, you must also have your head in the sand if you don't see the destruction to the United States Donald Trump has promised. Here's the scenario from The Guardian...

One of the unacknowledged advantages of the horrendous era we’ve entered is that it is revealing the putrid connections between great wealth and great power for all to see.

Oligarchs are fully exposed and they are defiant. It’s like hitting the “reveal codes” key on older computers that let you see everything.

Now, addressing each oligarch individually, starting with Jeff Bezos...

"On Wednesday, Jeff Bezos, the third-richest person in America, who bought the Washington Post in 2013, announced that the paper’s opinion section would henceforth focus on defending “personal liberties and free markets”. 

"Anything inconsistent with this view would not be published, according to his statement. “Viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”

"The Post’s opinion editor, David Shipley, promptly resigned, as he should have."

 Defending “personal liberties and free markets” means simply supporting Donald Trump and his far-right ideologies, also turning a once great newspaper into bush league journalism.

Next is Mark Zuckerberg...

"Mark Zuckerberg, the second-richest person, has followed suit, allowing Facebook to emit lies, hate and bigotry in support of Trump’s lies, hate and bigotry."

Zuckerberg has reneged on promises to improve the security of FB users' personal information for years, selling much of this private information to advertisers actively. 

And now Elon Musk...

"Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, bought Twitter in 2022, laid off everyone who was filtering out hateful crap on the platform, renamed it X and turned it into a cesspool of lies in support of Trump."

Musk, with the "play-like" government department, DOGE, has all but decimated several U.S. agencies and fired millions of employees without cause, many of which had to be called back in desperation.

Each, in his own way, has put this country into a jeopardy that could work in three different ways to put this country over the edge. The American dream is no longer just to own a home; we've now added the idea of shared equity, that is to bring the classes together when it comes to the standard of living. This won't work under an oligarchy.

 

Trump suck-ups coming out of the woodwork

It all started with Trump's cabinet selections circling the wagons, preparing their 'resumes' in readiness to pounce on their idol, none other than the dictator-to-be, Donald Trump. If sufficient adoration doesn't accompany these groveling applications, the person would be out on the street. Apparently this group of unqualified, incompetent bumblers have passed the Trump test, after which most had to have a nose job. If any of these bootlickers veers away from the ritual of Donald Trump, they could find themselves waiting tables at Trump Tower.

Here they are, collected in Yahoo!News, in all their glory...

Kristi Noem, the infamous puppy-executing governor of South Dakota with early expectations for Vice President, had to settle for Homeland Security Secretary.

Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) was among the most outspoken critics of the Secret Service in the aftermath of the first attempt on Trump’s life in July. Now, he’s been chosen to be Trump’s National Security Adviser.

Among the most polarizing appointments by Trump has been his choice of Tom Homan to be his so-called “border czar.” Homan has promised to “run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen. They ain’t seen s--t yet. Wait until 2025.”

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) was also considered for V.P., has said, “President Trump will bring back moral leadership to the White House, condemning antisemitism and standing strong with Israel and the Jewish people." Stefanik is also, perhaps, one of the most radical in the new cabinet.

The infamous White Nationalist sympathizer Stephen Miller—who the Southern Poverty Law Center labels an “extremist”---will be Deputy Chief of Staff For Policy. In my opinion. Miller is probably the scariest member of Trump's selections.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), again, once a V.P candidate, will be Trump's secretary of state. Used to hate each other, now they love each other. I don't feel Rubio has the balls to be sec. of state.

Zuckerberg, bezos, Trump

Not mentioned in the Yahoo article but among the biggest suck-ups with their noses aimed at Mar-a-Lago, and reported by Robert Reich's Substack, are Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon's Jeff Bezos...

"Zuckerberg has turned to fawning. During the campaign, he had several private phone calls with Trump. After the assassination attempt, Zuckerberg told Trump he was “praying” for him and told an interviewer Trump looked like a “badass” after pumping his fist to the crowd."

Amazon’s founder and chief, Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post, had a rocky relationship with Trump during the first Trump administration. Bezos apparently learned his lesson. After Trump was shot at a campaign event, Bezos called him, and on social media he praised Trump’s “grace and courage under literal fire.” Bezos didn’t allow the Post’s editorial board to endorse Kamala Harris for president.

There is much more in Robert Reich's Substack that is well worth the read. 

The one thing that is the most startling to me is the fact that so many outside politics have done a complete turnaround from Trump's first administration and even into the last couple of years. This, of course, makes Trump's new trip to the White House much more complex. The pressure is on January 20, for the entire world.

Facebook Compared to Tobacco Cos. killing children

 

Speaking before Congress, whistleblower, Frances Haugen, did a number on Facebook and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg. Described as "animated" at times by The Guardian, would indicate to me that she is overly enthusiastic to get facts before the public she believes are important and necessary. This is how she

described it on Vice...

“I’m here today because I believe Facebook’s products harm children, stoke division, and weaken our democracy.”

This clearly puts the monkey on Zuckerberg's back, and should prompt some control on Facebook's wide open permission for the misinformation it spews regularly. One Senator called Haugen's statement, “the big tobacco jaw-dropping moment of truth.” Here's a statement that should get Congress moving...

“Facebook knows that they are leading young users to anorexia content,” she said in a voice of authority that may prove a tipping point in government efforts to curb the power of big tech.

Haugen says that the Facebook empire, which includes Instagram and WhatsApp, could be made "safer," but, in fact, FB chooses not to and instead focuses on profits. Haugen continues...

“The company's leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer, but they won't make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people. Congressional action is needed. They won’t solve this crisis without your help.”

If the reaction of Senators is any indication of how Congress views this issue--several joined Haugen in "scathing" criticism of Mark Zuckerberg--it would indicate that we might expect some action, and soon. Here's her ammunition...

A former product manager on Facebook’s civic misinformation team, she has come forward with tens of thousands of pages of internal research documents she secretly copied before leaving her job in the company’s civic integrity unit.

This all seems to have surfaced from recent discoveries revealing that...

Facebook knew Instagram was deeply toxic for teenage girls, resisted changes to make its platform safer for fear of reducing engagement, and knew it was openly used by drug and human traffickers.

Frances Haugen was applauded by The Senators, and even Facebook has agreed that something should be done about the openness of the Internet. Now the monkey is on the back of Congress with the future of misinformation hanging in the balance. 

Take the time to watch Frances Haugen testify in Congress TODAY...

READ MORE...

Facebook data gone postal again

Here's the lead sentence in the Bloomberg article...

"Facebook Inc. user data is still showing up in places it shouldn’t."

Almost fifteen years ago when I started my privacy blog, The Dunning Letter, we were talking about how loose personal data was becoming, and predicting events just like what has happened with Facebook. When I realized how things were progressing in the private information field, I realized two things:1) People don't care if their personal data is kept private and; 2) Companies that collect this information don't care what these people think. Tragic but true!

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made a career of using your personal data to make zillions of dollars, placing the man in a perpetual state of apology for the mismanagement of FB user data. Now he's calling for Internet regulation, sounding like the guy who is desperate and needs help to stop gambling. I spent 35 years in the junk mail industry, where your name and personal information were flaunted as if you had no say whatsoever. You didn't.

And now there is the "Cloud," where trillions of pieces of data can be stored...forever. That's correct, whatever you said on Facebook today is shot right up to that colossal database in the sky, can be retrieved in seconds and it will never be deleted. It's been said before, 'You have no privacy.' So, you might as well go on your merry way throwing everything that is private about you to these data mongers. They probably already have it anyway.

First Facebook,now twitter-All that's left is the bloggers

I have been blogging now for almost 15 years and both Twitter and Facebook, plus Google+ and now Pinterest have been very helpful in sharing my blog posts. I think Mark Zuckerberg is one of the most arrogant persons I have ever known about, on a parallel with Donald Trump. His (Facebook's) handling of your privacy information is shocking and downright scandalous, precisely why he gets the very minimum required from me. But since the latest uproar against Zuckerberg and Facebook my referrals from FB have dropped to a minimum, compared to Twitter.

Now, Jack Dorsey, who heads Twitter, is defending Alex Jones, the wacky conservative radical and his broadcast network Infowars, after it was banned by Apple, Facebook, YouTube, and many other companies. I am a staunch defender of the 1st Amendment but Jones is a real nut job who came up with the conspiracy theory that the Sandy Hook Massacre of 26 people including 6-year-old children, never happened. If Dorsey wouldn't censure him for content, he could have for the fact the whole thing is an outright lie, which is a proven fact. Alex Jones followers are even more pathetic than those who watch Fox News.

Facebook arrogance re. privacy is reason for concern over stock offering

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and the leader of Facebook, has repeatedly shown his arrogance in the selecting, handling and sharing of Facebook user data.  Take a look at what results from a Google search of “Facebook Privacy Issues.”  In November of 2011, the feds accused the company of engaging in “unfair and deceptive” practices, only settling after ordering the company to respect the privacy wishes of its users, subjecting it to regular privacy audits for 20 years.

That’s heavy stuff for a company some of you trust your most private data to.  But the smart ones don’t and they have finally been heard from in a recent AP-CNBC poll revealing that 57 percent of Facebook users never click on ads or other sponsored content.  The obvious reason, they are concerned it will be used in a way that breaches their privacy.  Another 26 percent hardly ever do this and only 4 percent indicate they often click on ads.

This could be the primary reason that General Motors, the third-largest advertiser in the U.S., will drop Facebook from all its advertising.  Apparently it didn’t sell cars.  Considering the Facebook public stock offering coming this month, it exposes the riskiness of the overall Facebook model, according to Brian Wieser of Pivotal Research on MSN/Money.  And it’s not just Facebook; another large consumer products company thinks it may not be worth the money spent.

Mark Zuckerberg

I did a blog recently, “What U.S. company do you hate the most?”  Guess who came out number 1.  That’s right.  Facebook.  Here’s a quote from the entry: “Facebook has the lowest customer satisfaction score from the American Customer Satisfaction Index.“  Further, “The company’s customer service was described as poor by 25.9 percent of users in 2011.”  In most industries that would spell disaster but fortunately for Zuckerberg, he holds the edge.

He’s giving away a communications vehicle that is absolutely free.  All he asks is that you give him all your private information to use in any way he chooses.  And there lies the problem of this whole mess.  It translates into yet another distrust by users where 54 percent said they would not feel comfortable using Facebook for financial transaction in purchasing goods or services.  Just imagine what that kind of thinking would do to a site like Amazon.com.

Watch this alarming video on your lack of Facebook privacy:

Analysts say this kind of e-commerce is necessary if the company is to survive.  But only 8 percent said they would feel safe in buying through Facebook.  These are all figures that, if they aren’t changed and changed quickly, could provide such a negative picture of this social media that it begins to lose both users and more advertisers. I have followed Mark Zuckerberg on his privacy raids since they first started and he appears completely clueless on the merits of the issue.

This has all had its effects on the current stock offering with an evaluation of around $100 billion, with half in the poll saying that is overvalued.  That number jumps to 62 percent with active investors.  There is also no consensus whether Facebook would make a good investment which does not bode well for the long term.  And Zuckerberg garners only 18 percent in those who have confidence in him as a leader of the company.  Has he just been lucky so far?

For as long as I can remember, users have been suspicious of Facebook’s use of their personal data.  In the AP_CNBC poll, which was conducted May 3 through May 7, 59 percent of respondents said they had “little or no trust in Facebook to keep their information private.”  Yet the company has grown to 901 million monthly users worldwide.  The answer is really simple, just give the very minimum of information to identify yourself and never your birth date.

Finally, an online survey the pollsters asked readers to respond to asked the following question: Do you trust Facebook to keep your personal information safe?  The results:

Total of 34,564 votes

Yes-2.1%-740 votes

No-93.7%-32,390 votes

Not Sure-4.1%-1,434 votes

Facebook, Google help potential suicides…will they sell your data?

It is commendable that Facebook and Google have set up procedures to identify people who are contemplating suicide, passing them along to help lines that are geared up to help these folks.  Facebook has designed a system that promotes the flagging of “suicidal or otherwise violent messages.”  If there is a post about someone doing harm to themselves, friends can click on a “report suicidal content link.”

Google added something to its U.S. search engine in 2010 showing a red telephone plus the telephone number for a suicide help line to call.  They have a similar program for poison-control providing a hotline.  The latter was prompted by an actual incident of a mother unable to find the right number after her child had consumed something poisonous. 

These are good things being done by two high-profile companies in the business of providing and sharing information between their customers.  The question is whether we can trust either with this most personal of private information, that, if used against us, could be disastrous.  As an example, both companies are known to collect marketing information from online use of their sites, and what if Google or Facebook decided to sell suicide data to a life insurance company?



After all, Mark Zuckerberg, the bad-boy founder of Facebook, has been known in the past to push the limit on how he uses your personal data.  As late as November of 2011 the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lodged a complaint against Facebook for assuring customers their data was secure from ad networks or FB apps, while at the same time this information was merrily streaming on its way to both. 

It’s as if Zuckerberg, genius that he may be, comes completely dumb when it gets down to your privacy.  Or is it that he just doesn’t care because he thinks your private information belongs to him?  I spent 35 years in the junk mail industry selling your personal data, but for the last seven years I have been fighting for your rights in this matter.  The problem is the average person is completely apathetic about this issue, allowing the Facebooks and Googles to do their thing.

Google has mellowed over the years since they were accused of holding search data for too long a period of time.  However, in March of 2011, Google settled a complaint with the FTC that its Google Buzz social network violated user privacy.  With a fanfare introduction, Google failed to tell users their personal information might be shared.  These oversights are frequent in businesses who apparently don’t understand the full value of privacy.  Unlike junk mailers, who understand but either don’t care or favor profits over customer data security.

Let me leave you with yet one more example of how Facebook and Google might share this data with advertisers.  Pharmaceutical companies thrive on any means to hawk new and old drugs to the public and have little regard for consumer privacy.  Anti-depressant drug-makers could use a list like this to sell their wares, although some experts in the past say anti-depressants actually cause suicides. 

You may think this is all far-fetched but we are currently in an information-driven society and in my 35 years selling this personal data it was obvious just what a gold mine it is.  And because everything anyone needs to know about you is out there with easy access, it just may be too late to even think about your privacy anymore.