Facebook and CIA conspiracy theory

At least he did that. Perhaps the spying was part of the price he had to pay.... it's hard to tell. Many deals have to be done there is no doubt about it and we only get to hear a small part of it.

Personally, I can't understand why so many Americans are against it.

OOI What was the 'bunch of other stuff'... key ones...?

There's a bunch of lists, but many of them are rather fanboy.

This site does a good job of ranking what he did or did not do vs. his campaign promises. Not entirely up to date though.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/


Here's the top 25:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/subjects/politifacts-top-promises/
 
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Alright, I can accept that interpretation of it. You think that not telling people that he changed his position is a bare faced lie.

Now even here you tend to be evasive... saying "You think", i.e 'me' which implies that 'You' do not agree.

Do you agree that he lied?
 
There's a bunch of lists, but many of them are rather fanboy.

This site does a good job of ranking what he did or did not do vs. his campaign promises. Not entirely up to date though.

Thanks. V interesting, from a link.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/180/end-warrantless-wiretaps/


The expiring provisions of the act came up for re-authorization in late 2009. Despite months of congressional debate and a delayed vote, President Obama ended up signing a re-authorization that included no changes in early 2010.

This year-long extension came up for renewal again in early 2011. In this year's re-authorization battle, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., sponsored an amendment that would have increased congressional oversight of these renewed provisions. Yet the Leahy-Paul Amendment was never brought to a full vote. Ultimately the Patriot Act was reauthorized without any sort of additional oversight included in the final language. By reauthorizing the Patriot Act, President Obama guaranteed (barring any judicial action) that the law will live on in its current form until June 1, 2015.

"The extension of the Patriot Act provisions does not include a single improvement or reform, and includes not even a word that recognises the importance of protecting the civil liberties and constitutional privacy rights of Americans,” said Sen. Leahy.

Michelle Richardson, legislative council at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the Patriot Act has not changed since President Obama took office.
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Now even here you tend to be evasive... saying "You think", i.e 'me' which implies that 'You' do not agree.

Do you agree that he lied?

That's just an argument about the definition of the word. I do not agree that not telling people that your position is changed amounts to a lie. A lie is where you say something that you know to be untrue. Like "I am australian" is a lie. "I will watch The Lion King tonight" is a lie. "I will have a shower later today" is a statement of intent.

Why not just focus on what he said, and what he did, like with politifact? That's why I ask for a specific "he said ..., but then he ...." example.

I would agree he's not kept all his campaign promises. Was he lying when he made all the promises he did not keep?
 
I suppose that President Obama could have prefaced every policy statement with something like: "I will do everything possible, within the constraints of a democratic government to ' campaign pledge ' , provided that any new information I learn does not require me to alter my current position"

However I think that having to include such a caveat would be a little clunky, and I suspect that most people understand that this is always the case unless the head of state is a tyrant.


I think that this is the case with any candidate that makes campaign promises. Take Ron Paul and his promises...., do you think that he would have been able to have fulfilled those promises with the current makeup in the congress?

http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111223/GJOPINION_0102/712239994/-1/fosopinion

...."Paul routinely says that he's the only candidate who promises real change. For instance, he proposes cutting $1 trillion from the budget in the first year of his presidency. Now, show of hands: Who thinks Ron Paul could get those kinds of cuts through Congress? Anyone? OK, anyone who also believes the Council on Foreign Relations is a secret cabal determined to create a North American superstate?

I thought so.

I like, even love, many of Paul's proposals: turning Medicaid into block grants, getting rid of the Department of Education, etc. But he's not the man to get them accomplished, largely because the president doesn't have unilateral authority.

Presidential power is the power to persuade — Congress, the media and, ultimately and most important, the American people. The power of the purse, meanwhile, resides on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue."....
 
Consider, there are lots of people who ARE mentally ill, and they get detained because they are a danger to themselves or others. They quite often protest this in a very eloquent manner, and they quite often have friends and relatives on their side. Sometimes the decision to detain may be marginal, or even overreaching, but nonetheless sometimes there are valid and legal reasons for such detentions.

As someone else pointed out, it's usually all more a matter of public relations. Ironically that's the way that the diagnosis of insanity is usually produced in the first place too:
Psychiatrists have, indeed, come a long way from the autocratic-Teutonic days of Kraepelin and Bleuler, when solitary, male, psychiatric investigators staked their reputations on claiming to have discovered new diseases. Now we have psychiatric democracy or mobocracy—that is, psychopathology by a consensus of charlatans, with women meticulously included among the mischief-makers, with a stake in expanding the business. One of the invited psychologists—naively expecting something scientific to happen—complained: “The low level of intellectual effort was shocking. Diagnoses were developed by majority vote on the level we would use to choose a restaurant. You feel like Italian, I feel like Chinese, so let’s go to a cafeteria. Then it’s typed into a computer. However, it does not seem to matter how openly political—how obviously nonmedical and unscientific—are the ways and means by which psychiatrists create categories of mental illness: the medical and scientific community, as well as the lay public, continue to view psychiatry as a bona fide medical specialty and mental illness as bona fide illness.
(Insanity, the Idea and Its Consequences by Thomas Szasz :80-81)
 
I suppose that President Obama could have prefaced every policy statement with something like: "I will do everything possible, within the constraints of a democratic government to ' campaign pledge ' , provided that any new information I learn does not require me to alter my current position"

However I think that having to include such a caveat would be a little clunky, and I suspect that most people understand that this is always the case unless the head of state is a tyrant.
Yep so the campaign rhetoric goes

"I will do everything possible, within the constraints of a democratic government to eradicate illegal wiretapping of American citizens. No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. No more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient. That is not who we are unless of course any new information I learn requires me to alter my current position and if it does I won't say anything about the fact that I am no longer doing what I promised to do. "

Mmmmm essentially it's possible to campaign on any ticket you want then and you can never be accused of lying... Politics... Who would believe it? :)
I think that this is the case with any candidate that makes campaign promises. Take Ron Paul and his promises...., do you think that he would have been able to have fulfilled those promises with the current makeup in the congress?

http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111223/GJOPINION_0102/712239994/-1/fosopinion

...."Paul routinely says that he's the only candidate who promises real change. For instance, he proposes cutting $1 trillion from the budget in the first year of his presidency. Now, show of hands: Who thinks Ron Paul could get those kinds of cuts through Congress? Anyone? OK, anyone who also believes the Council on Foreign Relations is a secret cabal determined to create a North American superstate?

I thought so.

I would hope and expect that if Ron Paul was in that position, he would say, 'I came to this office on the promise that I would do x, y or z, but I am unable to do that because of a,b or c and I now intend to do 1, 2 or 3.... sorry about that'.

Presidential power is the power to persuade — Congress, the media and, ultimately and most important, the American people. The power of the purse, meanwhile, resides on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue."....

I think for both main parties... the American people are the least of it. Propagandise them and that will do. It is the same virtually worldwide, democracy is an illusion as the power resides with the Illuminatti... that is to say, the banksters, power brokers and corporations.

I think the reason for this is that things are so complex, (and oftentimes deliberately so), that people throw their hands up in despair and say ' Someone', needs to sort this out, but they shy away themselves because it is i) not their job, (that's what the politicians etc are paid for), ii) it is too complex/difficult, iii) dissent and activism is discouraged or even repressed.

And can someone please explain what "No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime... means?

Thanks
 
And can someone please explain what "No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime... means?

Thanks

It's a reference to the Bush administration's use of NSLs, problems with which were exposed in a March 2007 report by the inspector general of the Justice Dept.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/magazine/15wwlnlede.t.html?_r=0

April 15, 2007

In the latest and most serious post-9/11 civil-liberties abuse to emerge from Washington, the Bush administration’s “Trust me anyhow” defense has finally collapsed. The scandal involves “national-security letters,” which the F.B.I. has secretly used to scrutinize the financial data, travel records and telephone logs of thousands of U.S. citizens and residents. In March, a report by the inspector general of the Justice Department described “widespread and serious misuse” of national-security letters after the U.S.A. Patriot Act of 2001 significantly expanded the F.B.I.’s authority to issue them: between 2003 and 2005, he concluded, the F.B.I. issued more than 140,000 national-security letters, many involving people with no obvious connections to terrorism. The Bush administration was fortunate that, shortly after the F.B.I. scandal broke, the tempest over the Justice Department’s firing of prosecutors bumped it off the front page.


National-security letters are especially susceptible to abuse because they’re not subject to independent review by a judge or magistrate and because the recipients are forbidden to discuss them. In an op-ed article published anonymously last month in The Washington Post, the president of a small Internet-access business described the “stressful and surreal” experience of receiving a national-security letter. Under threat of criminal prosecution, he wrote, he was forbidden to discuss any aspect of the case with his colleagues, his family, his girlfriend or the client whose data he had been ordered to reveal.

Critics warned that these changes would let the F.B.I. collect the personal data of Americans with no clear ties to suspected terrorists, but few predicted the magnitude of the F.B.I.’s incompetence. The inspector general’s report found that the F.B.I. wasn’t even following its own internal guidelines and in some cases had violated federal law. The bureau wasn’t keeping signed copies of all its national-security letters and, as a result, couldn’t properly track the data it got. In the spirit of the Keystone Kops, it didn’t realize when it received data on the wrong person. When an F.B.I. official complained to his superiors, he was ignored.

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That's why I prefer try to avoid interpreting facts, and just focus on verifying or disproving them.

So... you'll usually be talking past most theorists unless you try to come back and incorporate your factual/physical/historical falsifications or verifications into building up a better overall theory with "convincing" explanatory power.

Off topic
 
So... you'll usually be talking past most theorists unless you try to come back and incorporate your factual/physical/historical falsifications or verifications into building up a better overall theory with "convincing" explanatory power.

But if you remove enough supposed facts from their case (by disproving them), it's going to give some of them pause for thought. I would agree that communicating a replacement theory (the antibunk) is a challenge - in many cases it's impossible, as they tend to automatically reject the official story.
 
...

At no time did he recant on his commitment to stop (in his words) 'the illegal spying'... the fact that he did not recant that means he was knowingly lying.

Now you can play around with semantics all you like but you cannot escape the fact.

....

Is it possible it wasn't actually illegal? Doesn't the patriot act allow for all sorts of invasive abuses in the name of protection? Therefore, if it wasn't, in his own words, illegal spying, then he hasn't lied.

Can someone give me a summary of what the situation now is or point me to one?
I heard Snowden's initial claims of indiscriminate surveillance were found to not be quite the case, like, not as bad as claimed or not actually illegal?
Have laws been broken? Can the FBI guy who lied about the extent of surveillance last year be charged with perjury or is he getting away with it? Is congress going to have an investigation, will anyone be accountable?
What has Obama said about it?
It would be good if this situation results in some real reform and accountability for abuses of power - or at least gets politicians to stop passing and repeal laws which provide opportunities for those abuses.
 
Is it possible it wasn't actually illegal? Doesn't the patriot act allow for all sorts of invasive abuses in the name of protection? Therefore, if it wasn't, in his own words, illegal spying, then he hasn't lied.

Can someone give me a summary of what the situation now is or point me to one?
I heard Snowden's initial claims of indiscriminate surveillance were found to not be quite the case, like, not as bad as claimed or not actually illegal?
Have laws been broken? Can the FBI guy who lied about the extent of surveillance last year be charged with perjury or is he getting away with it? Is congress going to have an investigation, will anyone be accountable?
What has Obama said about it?
It would be good if this situation results in some real reform and accountability for abuses of power - or at least gets politicians to stop passing and repeal laws which provide opportunities for those abuses.

Technically it isn't ilegal as there was a warrant allowing it which is automatically renewed every 90 days under the FISA act. But then again, I don't think Bush was technically acting illegally either but Obomber said he was and it it would stop under his presidency.

From the moment he decided to carry on and actually increase the surveillance, he was lying IMO as he did not recant his intent. The fact he covered his ass in legal terms is neither here nor there. 'No one', (the public), even knew about the FISA warrants so they are moot and part of the secrecy.

The issue here IMO, is they are saying one thing and doing the opposite... that is a lie.... the whole system is a lie, (except to the 'in the know Elite).

What else is a lie... how far will they go... are you that trusting that it doesn't worry you? Or are you prepared to accept any illusion so long as you get what you want out of the system? 'I'm alright Jack' mentality.

He seems to have metamorphosed as in I Pet Goat 2... Why that happened is conjecture.
 
So as far as disclosure goes, Snowden has provided documentation published by the Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/20/exhibit-b-nsa-procedures-document


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/national-security-agency-surveillance
With every passing administration, the NSA has ballooned. One well-informed estimate of its staffing levels is 100,000, of whom about 30,000 are military and the rest private contractors.
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Now this pertains to the oft stated 'where are all the whistleblowers... why aren't they crawling out the woodwork in droves... ha ha ha ... they don't exist', meme

So far we have had Binney and Snowden. Binney has been through the mill and Snowden is subject to vitriol, even on here. Can't have it both ways... 'There is nothing going on or there would be whistleblowers... Ah a whistleblower = traitor'.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-why

Now what about the NSA... lying to Congress and spying on you all like you are all terrorists and if you should happen to displease them on any issue at some time in the future ... your ass is theirs cos they know more about you than anyone else and they are not averse to using it. How clean are you? No little secrets at all? lol

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygre...a-for-a-reminder-of-what-hes-revealed-so-far/
The publication of Snowden’s leaks began with a top secret order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) sent to Verizon on behalf of the NSA, demanding the cell phone records of all of Verizon Business Network Services’ American customers for the three month period ending in July. The order, obtained by the Guardian, sought only the metadata of those millions of users’ calls–who called whom when and from what locations–but specifically requested Americans’ records, disregarding foreigners despite the NSA’s legal restrictions that it may only surveil non-U.S. persons. Senators Saxby Chambliss and Diane Feinstein defended the program and said it was in fact a three-month renewal of surveillance practices that had gone for seven years.

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That's just an argument about the definition of the word. I do not agree that not telling people that your position is changed amounts to a lie. A lie is where you say something that you know to be untrue. Like "I am australian" is a lie. "I will watch The Lion King tonight" is a lie. "I will have a shower later today" is a statement of intent.

Why not just focus on what he said, and what he did, like with politifact? That's why I ask for a specific "he said ..., but then he ...." example.

I would agree he's not kept all his campaign promises. Was he lying when he made all the promises he did not keep?

This wasn't a lie either was it?

But what is it?

What does the bank say about it?

http://www.dailypaul.com/114429/dig...-will-get-our-troops-home-i-will-end-this-war

"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank. " - Barack Obama Campaign Promise - October 27, 2007>

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Here he is ... I don't have any evidence that this video is fake or that the audio has been tampered with... he appears to be saying the quote above but I accept that this may just be a conspiracy theory and unfortunately I cannot prove that he actually said it and it may be an actor trying to make him look bad because we know there are a lot of fake videos out there on you tube and stuff made up by CTists.



Of course this is only RT and not a good source... probably Russian propaganda

 
I'm a bit late in the day on this one. "A broken promise"? Or perhaps a false promise. Are you all still buying the Kool Aid that Obama and the democrats are fundamentally any different from the Republicans? Obama was the much needed re-brand the establishment needed to continue pursuing its militaristic agenda's at home and abroad. Come on, I thought it was pretty obvious to anyone paying attention that we're entering a fascist surveillance state and its not an accident/emergence/evolution.
 
Come on, I thought it was pretty obvious to anyone paying attention that we're entering a fascist surveillance state and its not an accident/emergence/evolution.

Labeling things like "fascist surveillance state" is not useful, as people have different interpretation of what it means, and it's often arguable as to the matter of degree.

So if you are going to say things like that, you really need to describe exactly what it means.
 
we're entering a fascist surveillance state and its not an accident/emergence/evolution.
How would you prove that to those to whom it isn't obvious that it hasn't just been a gradual creep in combination with the general atmosphere of increasing media-fed paranoia, over-population, a culture of bureaucratic solutions to issues, acclimatisation etc.
Because to me it seems very plausible it emerges organically from those things.
What's the compelling evidence it was planned?
 
How would you prove that to those to whom it isn't obvious that it hasn't just been a gradual creep in combination with the general atmosphere of increasing media-fed paranoia, over-population, a culture of bureaucratic solutions to issues, acclimatisation etc.
Because to me it seems very plausible it emerges organically from those things.
What's the compelling evidence it was planned?

I think that is exactly it. Currently the big thing is cyber bullying and a lot of parents are up in arms about how easy it is for people to be anonymous online and there are calls for more restrictions and transparency. Now if a politician puts it in their manifesto that everyone in the country has to agree to be monitored whilst online it's going to be a vote winner amongst the general populace. They get voted in, a law gets passed and seemingly another part of our liberty is eroded by the government.
 
Labeling things like "fascist surveillance state" is not useful, as people have different interpretation of what it means, and it's often arguable as to the matter of degree.

So if you are going to say things like that, you really need to describe exactly what it means.

It wasn't the centre point of my comment and its interesting that all the responses avoided addressing the question I was posing.

However, I'll indulge you. Definitions of fascism are disputed and contentious, agreed. The question you pose is I think beyond the remit of this forum, a huge amount of literature and debate has gone into discussing this issue. The subject would make a very timely phd thesis. However, I will defend my usage of it in my previous comment. I would describe fascism as a system of totalitarian governance. The fascism currently arising today in America necessarily assumes a different form to the archetypal incarnations more recently defined by Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and deconstructed by Orwell. What we're witnessing is far more insidious. The apparatus for a system of total control, centralised in the hands of a few, is being erected under the guise of "Liberal Democracy". A "strategy of tension" has been cultivated providing the justification for the emergence of this system. So whilst the appearance is different the fundamental principles that define fascism are not. Naomi Wolf does a great job describing those principles and how they're being enacted;

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/apr/24/usa.comment

Chris Hedges succinctly identifies a corporate totalitarian core that thrives inside a fictitious democratic shell. He describes an ‘inverted’ totalitarian state that few recognise because it does not look like the Orwellian world of Nineteen Eighty-four. This corporate totalitarianism is spreading outward from America. Planet Earth is being rapidly militarised by the world’s major and significant states, including their police forces. Meanwhile, state surveillance is becoming universal and torture is outsourced to gulags.

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/21052-chris-hedges-the-last-gasp-of-american-democracy
 
I think that is exactly it. Currently the big thing is cyber bullying and a lot of parents are up in arms about how easy it is for people to be anonymous online and there are calls for more restrictions and transparency. Now if a politician puts it in their manifesto that everyone in the country has to agree to be monitored whilst online it's going to be a vote winner amongst the general populace. They get voted in, a law gets passed and seemingly another part of our liberty is eroded by the government.

Two words; "Manufacturing consent".
 
How would you prove that to those to whom it isn't obvious that it hasn't just been a gradual creep in combination with the general atmosphere of increasing media-fed paranoia, over-population, a culture of bureaucratic solutions to issues, acclimatisation etc.
Because to me it seems very plausible it emerges organically from those things.
What's the compelling evidence it was planned?

The compelling evidence that it is being planned is vast should you have the eyes to see it. A cursory glance at history reveals a central narrative; the battle between oppressor and the oppressed. The powerful continually look for new and inventive ways of securing and expanding their power. To believe the small group that controls the vast majority of the worlds wealth aren't meditating on the ways in which the technological "Third wave revolution" (Toffler) we're currently in the midst of can reshape the world to their own ends flies in the face of history and human nature. The American Republic, at least on the face of it, was established to counter the trends I describe. It seems the founding fathers, if around today, would be dismissed as "conspiracy theorists".

Likewise with Adam Smith: "Again and again, Smith warned of the collusive nature of business interests, which may form cabals or monopolies, fixing the highest price "which can be squeezed out of the buyers".[80] Smith also warned that a business-dominated political system would allow a conspiracy of businesses and industry against consumers, with the former scheming to influence politics and legislation. Smith states that the interest of manufacturers and merchants "...in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public...The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith
 
My nephew hates facebook. He says that the CIA and Facebook have joined forces to gather information about all of us. He posted a link to my FB page telling me to watch the following link on Youtube: "Close your facebook account". Please watch it and let me know what you think.


Your nephew hates facebook. He posted a link to your facebook page. He has a facebook account. He can't be too bothered.
 
It's a joke. It's from The Onion, a satirical web site that creates fake news stories.
Returning to the original premise of this thread. Using a (fairly lame) slice of humour to drive or support a conspiracy theory must be up at the sharp end of paranoia.

Did you hear the one about the day all the schoolteachers were revealed as reptillians?

(Oh, oh....that's torn it!)
 
Returning to the original premise of this thread. Using a (fairly lame) slice of humour to drive or support a conspiracy theory must be up at the sharp end of paranoia.

Did you hear the one about the day all the schoolteachers were revealed as reptillians?

(Oh, oh....that's torn it!)

Does nobody here understand the concept of satire and the point the Onion is making? o_O

Satire: The use of humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.

Aside from whether the original poster believed it to be a genuine news report or not, the video is making the point that the public is voluntarily handing over on-going detailed personal information to unknown entities. That the database created by Facebook is a dream for authorities that want to monitor the population. Considering the Snowden revelations and the video I posted above, on the institutions involved in the rise of Facebook, the video is very pertinent and should, for those that haven't given it much thought, raise awareness. It does what satire is supposed to do - raise awareness in an amusing fashion!

Arguing, that someone using it to raise awareness on the issue of surveillance is at the "sharp end of paranoia" would suggest someone on the dull end of ignorance.
 
Are you deliberately being obtuse Mick? All satire contains varying degree's of truth in order for it to resonate. So yes, Onion stories contain varying degree's of truth.

The Onion is there for entertainment. They takes concepts that are somewhat familiar, and raise them to the absurd. What is "Drunken Man Careen Wildly Across Internet" raising awareness about?
http://www.theonion.com/articles/drunken-man-careens-wildly-across-internet,35249/
PLYMOUTH, MA—Racing erratically between unrelated browser tabs, local man Eric Mancano was spotted careening around the internet in a drunken haze at approximately 2 a.m. Tuesday, sources confirmed. “He was out of control, just swerving from one site to the next without any apparent idea of where he was going,” said an anonymous witness, who saw Mancano stagger incoherently from an NHL box score to CNN’s Politics section before suddenly jumping 28 seconds into Nas’ “Hate Me Now” music video on YouTube. “At one point he must’ve been about halfway through a Buzzfeed ‘20 Most Expensive Zip Codes’ list when he blacked out, regained consciousness right in the middle of an IAmA subreddit, and then slammed headfirst into the Washington Post paywall. It was alarming to watch.” Sources then reported seeing a semi-lucid Mancano quickly reverse course and head straight for his ex-girlfriend’s Facebook page.
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So with the CIA/FB story they are just taking a current meme, and making it funny. they are not raising awareness, they are exploiting awareness.
 
The Onion is there for entertainment. They takes concepts that are somewhat familiar, and raise them to the absurd. What is "Drunken Man Careen Wildly Across Internet" raising awareness about?
http://www.theonion.com/articles/drunken-man-careens-wildly-across-internet,35249/
PLYMOUTH, MA—Racing erratically between unrelated browser tabs, local man Eric Mancano was spotted careening around the internet in a drunken haze at approximately 2 a.m. Tuesday, sources confirmed. “He was out of control, just swerving from one site to the next without any apparent idea of where he was going,” said an anonymous witness, who saw Mancano stagger incoherently from an NHL box score to CNN’s Politics section before suddenly jumping 28 seconds into Nas’ “Hate Me Now” music video on YouTube. “At one point he must’ve been about halfway through a Buzzfeed ‘20 Most Expensive Zip Codes’ list when he blacked out, regained consciousness right in the middle of an IAmA subreddit, and then slammed headfirst into the Washington Post paywall. It was alarming to watch.” Sources then reported seeing a semi-lucid Mancano quickly reverse course and head straight for his ex-girlfriend’s Facebook page.
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So with the CIA/FB story they are just taking a current meme, and making it funny. they are not raising awareness, they are exploiting awareness.

:confused: This is ridiculous. You're contradicting yourself Mick, as you said; "It's from The Onion, a satirical web site".

Have you spent much time on the website? Have you read the paper edition? I have many times and it seems quite clear that it is a satirical publication that takes aim at corporate and political culture, using humour to critique. Obviously, my word alone isn't enough so what does wikipedia say?

"The Onion is an American digital media company and news satire organization." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Onion

So I think we can safely say that The Onion is a satirical publication.

Do I need to provide a more comprehensive definition of satire?

"Satire is a genre of literature, and sometimes graphic and performing arts, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, government or society itself, into improvement.[1] Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit as a weapon and as a tool to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire

You also pick one of the more benign, less political and disposable "stories" from the local section, not politics, as if to prove that all of The Onion's content is apolitical. I think that's what's called a "fallacy of composition" but then I think you know that. However, even on this you fail as ultimately the piece you reference is satirising the medias propensity for reporting the banal.

There still has been no attempt at debunking the claims made in the much more comprehensive video, posted above, describing the financial associations between Facebook and the intelligence community.
 
Returning to the original premise of this thread.

Does nobody here understand the concept of satire and the point the Onion is making? o_O

Satire: The use of humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.

Aside from whether the original poster believed it to be a genuine news report or not, the video is making the point that the public is voluntarily handing over on-going detailed personal information to unknown entities. That the database created by Facebook is a dream for authorities that want to monitor the population. Considering the Snowden revelations and the video I posted above, on the institutions involved in the rise of Facebook, the video is very pertinent and should, for those that haven't given it much thought, raise awareness. It does what satire is supposed to do - raise awareness in an amusing fashion!

Arguing, that someone using it to raise awareness on the issue of surveillance is at the "sharp end of paranoia" would suggest someone on the dull end of ignorance.

"Returning to the original premise of this thread" seems to have caused you some confusion. The original poster's nephew seems to believe that the material in the video is true. If people are too stupid to realise that emlazoning the internet with bucket loads of personal information is going to attract the attention of others......ie "the government", major corporations, small companies, sundry organizations and (in my opinion the most threatening of all), individuals...... they're too stupid to understand that this is satire. They take it at face value that it means they are being manipulated from all sides. A conspiracy theory raised at the sharp end of paranoia.

Inability to comprehehend that would suggest someone on the "dull end of ignorance".
 
:confused: This is ridiculous. You're contradicting yourself Mick, as you said; "It's from The Onion, a satirical web site".

Right, but now you are just arguing about the precise motivations of the individual Onion writers. The basic point I was making is that the story is not literally true. Facebook was not conceived of as part of the Patriot act. FarmVille is not designed to keep the population from rising up against the 1%. Foursquare was not created by Al Qaeda, Wanbee is not a Chinese site collecting state secrets.

You know this, and you recognize it as satire, social and political commentary. Great. The point is that there are people who take Onion stories seriously and literally, because they don't look at anything in depth, and they lack awareness.

This thread is old (Nov 2012). It does not really conform to newer posting guidelines. And normally posting a video without explaining exactly what is in it would get a warning, and possibly a post deletion. That applies to the OP, and to your post above.

If you'd like to discuss any particular claims in your video (which people are not commenting on because people just don't click on videos without good reason), then I suggest you pick one, and start a new thread after reviewing the posting guidelines.
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/posting-guidelines.2064/
 
"Returning to the original premise of this thread" seems to have caused you some confusion. The original poster's nephew seems to believe that the material in the video is true. If people are too stupid to realise that emlazoning the internet with bucket loads of personal information is going to attract the attention of others......ie "the government", major corporations, small companies, sundry organizations and (in my opinion the most threatening of all), individuals...... they're too stupid to understand that this is satire. They take it at face value that it means they are being manipulated from all sides. A conspiracy theory raised at the sharp end of paranoia.

Inability to comprehehend that would suggest someone on the "dull end of ignorance".

It's unclear as to whether the original poster actually believed it was genuine or not. Perhaps he posted it because he thought it was a light and humorous way of dealing with a topic that in reality is quite disturbing. We don't know. Regardless my comment still stands. The video is pertinent and should provoke people to think more deeply about the type of society we are being led into. The fact we're having this debate demonstrates a certain level of success.
 
You also pick one of the more benign, less political and disposable "stories" from the local section, not politics, as if to prove that all of The Onion's content is apolitical. I think that's what's called a "fallacy of composition" but then I think you know that. However, even on this you fail as ultimately the piece you reference is satirising the medias propensity for reporting the banal.

You mean hard hitting political truths wrapped in satire as evidenced in the following?

Live Cow Lowered Onto Floor Of U.S. House Of Representatives

Obama Admits U.S. Hasn't Been The Same Since Buddy Holly Died

Neighborhood Has Gotten A Lot Safer Since Mayor Vanquished Fire Troll

And this little gem...

Stephen Breyer Sets Supreme Court Record For Most Gavels In Mouth



I especially enjoyed the following comment on the video in the OP...

Scott Lemay 1 year ago

I'm going to have to delete mine eventually because I want to go to college and Harvard doesn't accept students with a Facebook account.
Content from External Source
Personally, I deleted my Facebook account after I discovered the EPA has an office just a few blocks from my house.
:eek:
 
You mean hard hitting political truths wrapped in satire as evidenced in the following?

Live Cow Lowered Onto Floor Of U.S. House Of Representatives

Obama Admits U.S. Hasn't Been The Same Since Buddy Holly Died

Neighborhood Has Gotten A Lot Safer Since Mayor Vanquished Fire Troll

And this little gem...

Stephen Breyer Sets Supreme Court Record For Most Gavels In Mouth



I especially enjoyed the following comment on the video in the OP...

Scott Lemay 1 year ago

I'm going to have to delete mine eventually because I want to go to college and Harvard doesn't accept students with a Facebook account.
Content from External Source
Personally, I deleted my Facebook account after I discovered the EPA has an office just a few blocks from my house.
:eek:
Sorry are you pursuing the argument that the Onion is not satire? I thought this had been dealt with?
 
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