Zuckerberg’s new cryptocurrency is absolutely terrifying

Just when it seems Facebook can’t get more sinister, more Orwellian or more mercenary, it does — announcing its own branded global cryptocurrency.

Does this strike anyone else as terrifying? A company that has operated with impunity, under zero federal regulations, whose CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has been called — in a hapless act of political theater — to explain his shadowy practices before Congress, yet has never offered specific correctives to any of his outfit’s failings or overreaches or unintended consequences, makes its next big move this?

As declarations go, it’s astonishing. Zuckerberg is out for nothing less than dominion over us all.

If you’re one of the site’s 2.6 billion users, Facebook’s operators know where you are all the time, whether you’re logged on or not. They know what you’re buying, even if you’re in a brick-and-mortar shop. They scan photos you upload for biometrics. They mine your data and sell it to advertisers, but they won’t say how much of it, only that it’s a small amount, promise.

Facebook’s not the product. We are.

Fake news, authoritarian propaganda, abuse by genocidal forces or ruthless dictators, Russian interference in our most recent presidential election — whoops, says Facebook.

They do, after all, move fast and break things.

Facebook outsources the monitoring and taking down of dark materials — murders, child pornography and all manner of depravity — to contractors, and as The Verge reported last week, employees at a company called Cognizant were overworked, underpaid and ill-equipped to view such traumatizing content all day, every day, with even their bathroom breaks surveilled and limited.

Earlier this month, Business Insider reported that 68 percent of shareholders want Zuckerberg out as chairman. But that doesn’t matter, because Zuckerberg holds so much controlling stock that he simply ignored the vote.

And that is everything we need to know.

Facebook, like Amazon and Google and Apple, loves to sell its products as designed — no, dedicated — to the betterment of humanity.

“Give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together,” Zuckerberg said of his mission in 2017.

A few weeks ago, in a scathing op-ed, Peggy Noonan wrote of being summoned to Zuckerberg’s office for an off-the-record meeting with other “conservative activists” to discuss their concerns.

Willing to attend only if she could also report, Noonan declined, and was later told by a Facebook employee that the actual plan was “to get the conservatives fighting with each other” and top it off with a speech by Zuckerberg that would leave them “bored to death.”

Attendee Glenn Beck, Noonan wrote, left a true believer, gushing over Zuckerberg’s “earnest desire to ‘connect the world.’ ”

There seems little to trust here. So when Facebook swears that its Libra cryptocurrency won’t be used to target ads and to definitely, absolutely keep your privacy intact — caveat emptor.

Guess whom Facebook is going after with this latest project? Poor people in failed states who have no access to traditional forms of banking, let alone wealth building. Surely the impetus here is humanitarian.

As to what institutions are going to back Facebook’s currency — which was created in secret, and which will eventually exist in the physical world as an alternative to US currency, accessed through its own ATMs — that remains unclear.

What is undeniable is Zuckerberg’s ambition. His power is presidential, if not more so, because it remains untrammeled, unregulated and borderless. If there was ever a moment to break up Facebook, as co-founder Chris Hughes and Sen. Elizabeth Warren have called for, it is now.

Original

Protesters in Hong Kong Sing Hallelujah to the Lord

A simple hymn sung in Hong Kong’s churches has become the anthem of the protesters across the city. The protests are about new extradition laws that China want to impose on Hong Kong.

At first the Christian protestors hoped the hymn would release tensions with the police. For Christians the protests are not only political but also religious. They can see the new laws being used to limit religious freedoms they enjoy, but are not shared by the church in mainland China. Many Christians in Hong Kong have smuggled Bibles to the mainland, and the new laws could see them arrested and sent their to face trial. Hong Kong is also a safe haven for Chinese believers who have fled the persecution of the mainland.

However, the hymn has quickly been taken up by all the protestors, not only those of faith. The Hong Kong authorities have said have suspended the bill, however protestors say they will continue until the bill is scrapped entirely.

Read More: BBC

Alaskan Regional Government Meeting Opens with “Hail Satan” Prayer

In Soldotna, Alaska a member of the Satanic Temple was given permission to open the regional government meeting with an invocation.  She closed her invocation with the declaration, “hail satan”.  This prompted dozens of attendees to walk out.

There were also protests outside the local government building. With people holding up banners saying, “reject Satan and his works” and “know Jesus and his love.”

Read More: Washington Post

Big Techs Economic Goals: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.

In her new book Shoshana Zuboff, Professor at Harvard Business School, outlines the goals of the tech giants like Google and Facebook. Zuboff argues that their “goal is to automate us” by trading in our personal experiences as their raw material. She says we are now in an age of surveillance capitalism.

In an interview with Democracy Now Zuboff explains what this means:

Read More: The Guardian 

Obama Environmental Rules Close to Being Rolled Back Under Trump

It is expected that the Trump administration will take its final steps this week in replacing Obama-era environmental legislation. Obama’s Clean Air Act was implemented to move the country away from coal and towards natural gas as well as renewal sources of energy.

However, critics of the act said it gave the Environmental Protection Agency too much power, that over stepped it’s remit. The Trump Administration are seeking to give power to the individual States to manage their energy policies in a way which will best suit that State’s individual needs.

Read More: Fox News

Mixed Reaction to Sen. Hawley’s Bill to Crack Down on Big Tech Giants

Sen Hawley has proposed a bill that would force tech companies like Facebook and Twitter to prove they are politically neutral. Conservatives have been seeking ways to stop these tech giants controlling the political narrative and promoting their own agenda.

“Social media companies that have routinely deplatformed conservatives and censored conservative speech should no longer enjoy the protections granted to politically neutral platforms,” Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, said in a statement Wednesday, referring to Section 230. “These tech companies claim they have no ideological bias — it is time they prove it.”

However, some conservatives think Sen. Hawley’s bill could have the opposite affect. They fear that the legislation would cause tech companies to remove political content that they fear would spark controversy, and thus further shut down the conservative voice.

“If social media firms are worried about being liable for user-generated content, they’re likely to be more aggressive in taking down any vaguely political content, out of fear that it could put them in legal jeopardy,” Philip Klein, a writer at the Washington Examiner.

Read More: The Daily Caller

Trump’s Spiritual Advisor: “Demonic Networks” have Aligned Themselves Against the President

President Trump’s Spiritual Advisor, Paula White, has said that “demonic Networks” have aligned themselves against the President.

In a prayer before the official start of the President’s re-election campaign she prayed: “Let every demonic network that has aligned itself against the purpose, against the calling of President Trump, let it be broken, let it be torn down in the name of Jesus,”

Read More: The Hill

Sen Hawley Introduces Legislation to Protect University Research Being Stolen

Missouri’s Sen. Hawley has introduced legislation to protect university research being stolen by nations like China, Russia, and Iran. He has said that Universities have been long targeted by these nations in a bid to steal intellectual property and spy on research that has national security implications.

The legislation would require students to undergo screening before being allowed to participate in sensitive research.

Read More: The Daily Caller

Mastercard No Longer Requires Legal Name in Support of Trans Customers

Mastercard have announced that it will allow customers to use a name other than their legal name. The move is to enable trans or binary people to use their “true name” and not their “dead name”.

MasterCard failed to respond to questions about whether this could be used by people to fraudulently change their name for illegal purposes.

The Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking for Washington DC’s government, which implements anti-fraud programs, said, “Whether this effort leads to increased fraud will, likely, depend on how it is implemented.” 

Read More: The Daily Caller

Random Events, Free Will, Pre-destiny or Something Darker ?