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Delete Facebook

The burning of the American Empire and the Earth is the responsibility of every Facebook executive and employee who might be saying to themselves, “I was only following orders to keep my well-compensated position at Facebook.”

Stephen Bau

• 10 min read
Delete Facebook

Chamath Palihapitiya, former Facebook executive told us that social media is ripping society apart.

Former Facebook exec says social media is ripping apart society
‘No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth.’
The VergeJames Vincent

Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook, told us it is time to break up Facebook.

Opinion | It’s Time to Break Up Facebook
Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook, says the company is so big and powerful that it threatens our democracy.
NYTimesChris Hughes
Facebook’s privacy settings, which have outed gay teens to their conservative parents, are working exactly as designed. Their “real names” initiative, which makes it easier for stalkers to re-find their victims, is working exactly as designed.
Ruined by Design
RUINED BY DESIGN A design ethics and activism book by Mike Monteiro
Ruined by Design

Facebook has founded its business model on advertising and the sale of private information as a form of behaviour prediction and control. Corporate greed has decimated local journalism and created the conditions for surveillance capitalism.

Naomi Klein and Shoshana Zuboff on the Rise of Surveillance Capitalism
Naomi Klein talks with Shoshana Zuboff, author of “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power.”
The InterceptThe Intercept

Facebook has become a monopoly on public discourse by undemocratic corporate control and represents the greatest danger to our information ecology and civil society by amplifying disinformation for the sake of financial profit.

Move Fast and Break Things

“Move fast and break things” is Mark’s prime directive to his developers and team. “Unless you are breaking stuff,” he says, “you are not moving fast enough.”
Move Slowly and Fix Things
Recently I took a monthlong sabbatical from my job as a designer at Basecamp. (Basecamp is an incredible company that gives us a paid month off every 3 years.) When you take 30 days away from work…
Signal v. NoiseJonas Downey
Weaponizing Artificial Intelligence
Note: I didn’t see a transcript, so I transcribed a portion of the CBC Ideas episode in which Digital Media and Global Affairs expert Taylor Owen talks about the intense surveillance our lives are…
The StartupStephen Bau
Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon are manipulating our lives and threatening our democracy | CBC Radio
The internet began with great hope that it would strengthen democracy. Initially, social media movements seemed to be disrupting corrupt institutions. But the web no longer feels free and open, and the disenfranchised are feeling increasingly pessimistic. Dr. Taylor Owen argues that the reality of t…
CBCCBC Radio · Posted: Dec 15, 2017 2:50 PM ET | Last Updated: December 15, 2017
The Cambridge Analytica scandal changed the world – but it didn’t change Facebook
A year after devastating revelations of data misuse, Mark Zuckerberg still hasn’t fulfilled his promises to reform
the GuardianJulia Carrie Wong
Alexandria is Burning
When celebrities, billionaires, and salesmen are presidents, we effectively set fire to our faculties of reason and burn to the ground the project for the common good.
ImaginaxiomStephen Bau

Facebook is culpable and responsible for the manipulation of elections, and, as a result, the burning of the United States of America and the media virus of white supremacy and racism that has infected the world, just as it was responsible for the genocide in Myanmar.

A Genocide Incited on Facebook, With Posts From Myanmar’s Military
With fake pages and sham accounts, the military targeted the mostly Muslim Rohingya minority group, said former military officials, researchers and civilian officials.
NYTimesPaul Mozur

It is also responsible for the ongoing degradation of biological diversity and the ecological environment by creating an imbalance of social, economic, and political power that enables patriarchal, fascist, and racist religious institutions, corporate monopolies, and authoritarian states.

The United States of Authoritarians
The United States of America is an apathetic, hateful, warmongering nation lead by a racist, patriarchal, misogynist White House. The government, the corporations and the churches are complicit in…
MediumStephen Bau

By enabling and actively creating the imbalance of power in favour of an economic hierarchy, the unintended consequence is that corporate fossil fuel energy companies have a greater voice in public policy and are able to purchase power in government. Therefore, it continues to enable the disinformation campaign that threatens all life on the planet.

Exxon has misled Americans on climate change for decades. Here’s how to fight back
It’s crucial to expose the fossil fuel industry’s disinformation tactics so the public doesn’t fall prey to the next effort
the GuardianJohn Cook

Facebook is the corporate knee on the neck of civil discourse. “I can’t breathe.”

U.S. cities see more protests, violent unrest over George Floyd’s death | CBC News
With cities wounded by days of violent unrest, America headed into a new week with neighbourhoods in shambles, urban streets on lockdown and shaken confidence about when leaders would find the answers to control the mayhem amid unrelenting raw emotion over police killings of black people.
CBCThe Associated Press · Posted: Jun 01, 2020 7:06 AM ET | Last Updated: June 1

The burning of the American Empire and the Earth is the responsibility of every Facebook executive and employee who might be saying to themselves, “I was only following orders to keep my well-compensated position at Facebook.”

‘Mark is wrong’: Facebook employees stage walkout in protest of site policy on political speech | CBC News
Some Facebook employees critical of chief executive Mark Zuckerberg’s decision not to act on President Donald Trump’s inflammatory comments about U.S. protests went public on Twitter, praising the rival social media firm for acting, and rebuking their own employer.
CBCThomson Reuters · Posted: Jun 01, 2020 1:06 PM ET | Last Updated: June 1
What Facebook doesn’t understand about the Facebook walkout
The company is treating a moral issue as if it’s a legal one
The VergeCasey Newton
The End of Facebook
We have been fooled into thinking that the medium is about the content. Marshall McLuhan declared that the medium is the message. When we surrender our personal desires and connections in exchange…
MediumStephen Bau

The Banality of Evil

“I was only following orders”

The American Empire commits crimes against humanity every single day, yet remains unaccountable, because it has its knee on the neck of the world. It has the military might to destroy the world multiple times over.

US Again Threatens International Criminal Court | Human Rights Watch
Over the past 18 months, the prospect of an ICC investigation has led the US government to threaten or take action in an effort to scare the court away from an investigation.
Human Rights Watch

The banality of evil requires only willing accomplices.

Hannah Arendt’s challenge to Adolf Eichmann | Judith Butler
Judith Butler: The Big Ideas: In her treatise on the banality of evil, Arendt demanded a rethink of established ideas about moral responsibility
the GuardianJudith Butler
It spells out so clearly that Nazi Germany’s worst atrocities and many atrocities the world over were not only the ideas of singular evil men. They were supported and enacted by systems, by groups of people who woke up in the morning and went to offices to work on it.
Fascist Architecture
A transcript of an excerpt from the excellent Nice Try! podcast about Utopias and how they go wrong. This episode is called Germania: Architecture in a Fascist Utopia. Traces of this fascist utopia…
MediumStephen Bau

His Reichstag Moment

Reichstag Fire

At around 6:00 p.m. on the evening of June 1, Donald Trump stood before a podium on the White House lawn and announced to the nation that he was prepared to use military force to quiet the demonstrations and riots that have swept the cities of the nation in the wake of last week’s murder of George Floyd by four policemen in Minneapolis.
“I am mobilizing all available federal resources, civilian and military, to stop the rioting and looting, to end the destruction and arson, and to protect the rights of law-abiding Americans,” Trump declared, while police fired tear gas against protesters demonstrating outside the White House. “If a city or state refuses to take the actions necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them,” Trump continued, referring to himself as “your president of law and order and an ally of all peaceful protesters.”
The True Story of the Reichstag Fire and the Nazi Rise to Power
When the German parliamentary building went up in flames, Hitler harnessed the incident to seize power
Smithsonian MagazineLorraine Boissoneault

Updates

Opinion | Clean Up Your Act, Facebook, or We’re Leaving
The social media company has taken steps toward reining in Trump. It’s too little, too late.
NYTimesKara Swisher
Facebook management ignored internal research showing racial bias, current and former employees say
A civil rights law firm released its audit on Facebook, claiming the platform has done little to combat hate speech, misinformation and other damaging content. Dylan Byers explains what this could mean for the social media giant.
NBC NewsOlivia SolonOlivia Solon is a tech investigations editor for NBC News in San Francisco.

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