Why the Zuckerberg Manifesto is the start of the Dark Era of Social Control

The other day I turned on Facebook, and I saw a call to action to job hunt there. Just what we need right? Nay, Facebook isn't just the blueprint to destroy journalism, it's also something else.

Silicon Valley's Bid to Conquer the World

Facebook for Work to beat Microsoft teams and Slack and this to push LinkedIn to the next level or become obsolete?

Facebook is innovating, sure, it's also stealing ideas, functions, cherry picking users by offering identical features (sorry Snap Inc.), and not to mention talent from other companies.

Why? Because it can. Now I spend more time on Instagram stories, than I do on the downtrodden and maniacal Twitter. The evil empire of digital wins again.

Facebook as a Monopoly of our Attention

Here's the catch, between giving advertizers false video metrics for years and stealing Snapchat stories, I've sour-ed on Facebook. Young people have been closing Facebook accounts for years, but meanwhile:

Businesses of all sizes boost content on Facebook, (their hard-earned money) in desperate and (often) clueless attempts to stay relevant in a mobile-first era.

Since the Facebook algorithm makes organic reach virtually non-existent anymore, it's all a pay-to-play mine field. This is commonly know as an "exploit". When you have a monopoly, you can over-charge. Think cash cow, in the least ethical formula of capitalism.

Their record on privacy and doing experiments on users already worried me years ago. But let's not be alarmed, they only have 1.86 billion users after all. Facebook is able to hire and retain the best talent, the digital elite if you will.

I've read a lot of interesting headlines about Facebook's new manifesto in the past few days + hours. Here is one that stood out to me:

Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg hints at SECRET plans to use artificial intelligence to censor and spy on users.

Facebook as a Hackable News Media & Content Distribution Platform

In 2017, Facebook is being called a media and content distribution company, not simply a social media network. As Amazon or Alibaba are pivoting into new verticals, so Facebook is a digital behemoth, which is making a lot of folk wealthy at the expense of a lot of other people.

Just don't call it an ethical tool, because that is an insult to our intelligence. It's not making the world a better place. Just forget that.

Facebook which propagated "fake news" in the 2016 USA presidential campaign, may have significantly influenced the outcome of the elections.

There's no need for human editors, if your artificial intelligence can monetize your business, am I right?

Facebook as Conditioning our Attention to be Shorter

It's also a very strange place, where you can find micro-video that conditions your attention span to be shorter and shorter (less than a Goldfish), training you to be a kind of dopamine drone who swims the digital soup that is mobile addiction.

In 2017, Facebook drives more traffic than Google and it's hard to estimate the total percentage of our digital time it owns, but it's likely pretty high. It owns us, our data quite literally.

This is because the total daily active users of the monthly active users, is pretty significant.

Facebook Likely to Lose in the Era of Video Content

The truth is, Facebook video is never likely to approach YouTube, due to the differences in how we consume video content on each channel. One for cheap thrill entertainment, the other for education, actually following a native video channel and long-form video that is more immersive.

Video on Facebook is like click-bait consumed in our echo chamber, or basically, like digital dopamine personalized to us. You like cute cat videos? Okay sure, you'll get your fill of that.

It's also sound-on auto-play. The majority of Facebook videos won't reach beyond 3-seconds of our attention as they are hurtled at us from our diverse feed.

Manifest Destiny

Social media supremo appears to have accidentally revealed scheme to monitor 'private' communications.

When you think of NSA backdoors and wide-scale public surveillance, you have to think Facebook. When you think of the most valuable Big Data set, again you have to think Facebook. The best place to train predictive analytics profiling on actual people? Again, that would be Facebook.

Facebook already developed a censorship tool designed to persuade China to enter the world's second biggest economy. This is how desperate they are to stay relevant to have a glimmer of the world domination they pretend to have.

How ironic would it be if it was Facebook that enabled Beijing to have the social-credit system they will be implementing? Meanwhile of course, all we hear is light and love, from Facebook's new founding family.

However, as more members of the planet join the web, Facebook scales inevitably. Vanity metrics, never looked this good. Legacy venture capital is riding its payload, with untold human suffering.

Facebook is a social engineering tool, to condition us to be a kind of dopamine drone who swims the digital soup that is mobile addiction .

Silicon Valley Like a Dinosaur that Wants to Keep Power

Large Silicon Valley companies have a way of getting over-confident. Facebook's epic failure in VR illustrates that their vision of the future of digital is deeply flawed.

Let's read the Zuckerburg manifesto now together. Let's remember also the advice of citizen x, one Edward Snowden on this.

The document is penned as a public relations device.

We all know Facebook basically monopolizes the world’s attention and helps Americans push their agenda in a form of digital colonialism as Silicon Valley's battle to dominate the web is right on track, born in the USA and all. There's an end-game here orchestrated by a few billionaires, and Facebook is leading the charge.

How much do you think Mark Zukerberg is worth? Well if you guessed that he makes about $30 million a day, and is worth $33 Billion you would be right.

The real questions of our time are different however, and they might make Facebook obsolete. They are over, who will win:

• Who will dominate the future of retail and the cloud, Amazon or Alibaba?
• What comes after the web, apps and mobile in our digital evolution?
• Who will win the race to artificial intelligence?
• How will humans adapt to a world embedded with artificial intelligence?

Digital Monopolies Damage Innovation

Meanwhile, humans are adapting rather poorly to the world Facebook has implemented. There's virtually no ethical or true ownership of responsibility from Facebook, even on its own impact upon the citizens it's supposed to serve.

There's a lot of head fakes, a lot of manipulation and then there's some of the least authentic PR I've ever seen.

Facebook also keeps us in a dark age of its paradigm, since it profits from us staying there. Get that? It's the anti-thesis of digital innovation.

Facebook is built on iterations of itself, by adding new features to hook you, but it's keeping us in a legacy old-world form of the two dimensional web.

We have to be careful, companies promising altruistic and philanthropic missions undermine the credibility of genuine social entrepreneurship. About one year ago. India rejected the "free internet" Facebook was offering.

If we have companies pretending to be something they are not, then we have a problem. Let's face it, Facebook, did not become a monopoly by being nice.

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Do you believe Facebook has an unhealthy monopoly on the planet's digital attention? Does the user experience satisfy you? Are you worried how your data might be used?