All of us with Facebook accounts do work for Mark Zuckerberg. Our tagging, sharing, and liking gives Facebook valuable information that advertisers use to reach us. This article describes how Facebook has been courting news organizations, asking them to provide content tailored to Facebook’s needs. Facebook is not interested in an informed, educated public that has access to a wide range of considered opinions. Facebook wants you to spend time on Facebook, whether that’s liking and sharing posts you agree with, or putting angry faces on content that you don’t like. I’m annoyed that when I click on a link in Facebook, it doesn’t open in my web browser of choice (where I have all my bookmarks) but it opens inside Facebook, and I have to go through several steps to view the URL.
Facebook’s latest pitch to publishers such as CNN is for them to provide a regular stream of TV-quality, edited, original videos that will give Mark Zuckerberg’s company a chance to compete with YouTube to siphon some of the $70 billion pouring into TV ads each year. In exchange, the publishers can share some of the revenue for ads that roll in the middle of the videos. Facebook will control all the ad sales. It’s getting tougher for CNN and others to view these arrangements as mutually beneficial. —Bloomberg
Having dealt first hand with Facebook, as an advertiser, this post really struck home. It’s a sad fact but the world, or at least most countries, are not free. We, the population, are controlled by large corporations.