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Meta Platforms, Inc. | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Industry | Social media |
| Founded | TheFacebook, Inc. January 4, 2004 |
| Headquarters | Menlo Park, California, United States |
Meta Platforms, Inc. is a Statesian imperialist surveillance and propaganda network distributed across almost all countries worldwide. Its primary product is Facebook, a bourgeois social media service which acts serves as censor and propagandist for imperialist NATO powers, through NATO's Atlantic Council think tank.[1][2] It was established in 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg who currently has a net worth of over $52 billion.[3] Facebook has had documented ties to the FBI,[4] CIA,[5][6] and NSA.[7]
Platforms[edit | edit source]
WhatsApp[edit | edit source]
With over 2 billion users worldwide in over 180 countries,[8][9] WhatsApp has a monopoly of instant messaging services in many Latin American and African countries, such as Kenya (97%), South Africa (96%), Argentina (93%), Colombia (92%) and Brazil (91%).[10]
Imperialist connections[edit | edit source]
U.S. government[edit | edit source]
Edward Snowden proved in 2013 that the FBI and NSA have direct access to Meta's internal servers.[4] Facebook has partnered with the U.S.-funded National Democratic Institute, which was chaired by Madeleine Albright, and the International Republican Institute chaired by John McCain, to censor anti-imperialist content.[11]
CIA[edit | edit source]
Meta's senior product policy manager for misinformation, Aaron Berman, worked for the CIA until 2019 and prepared and wrote the U.S. president's daily brief.[6] Meta Trust and Safety Product Manager Deborah Berman worked for the CIA for ten years as a data and intelligence analyst and was a specialist on Syria. Bryan Weisbard was a CIA agent who led global "counter-terrorism" investigations and is currently Director of Trust and Safety, Security and Data Privacy for Meta.[5]
Israel[edit | edit source]
Jordana Cutler, who has worked as Facebook's public policy director for Israel since 2016, is also Israel's minister of strategic affairs and previously worked for Israel's embassy in Washington, D.C. For years, Facebook has censored and restricted Palestinian content.[12]
Controversies[edit | edit source]
Censorship[edit | edit source]
Facebook deleted hundreds of pro-Sandinista accounts and pages less than a week before an election in Nicaragua.[5] Five of the nine fact check organizations used by Facebook are funded by the U.S. government. The most well-known, StopFake, is funded by NATO's Atlantic Council and the British government. VoxCheck is funded by the U.S. government, NED, and the Dutch and German governments. Other fact checkers used by Facebook include Delfi, Demagog, Fact Check Georgia, Lead Stories, Myth Detector, Patikrinta 15min, and Re:Baltica.[13] Meta also censors Palestinian content criticizing Israeli genocide and settler colonialism.[14]
Fake whistleblower incident[edit | edit source]
In 2021, an ex-employee of Facebook was brought before US congress to testify about the company. Her testimony was basically a demand for increased censorship and government control over the social network. This so-called "whistleblower" was hailed by the US corporate media, unlike Julian Assange and Edward Snowden who actually risked their lives to expose the truth.[15]
Promotion of violence[edit | edit source]
In July 2009 the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a terrorist group based in the Xinjiang region of China, used Facebook to organize the Ürümqi riots. After the Chinese government requested Facebook to restrict the terrorists from organizing on their platform, Facebook responded by asserting the ETIM's right to "freedom of speech". The Chinese government then banned Facebook from being used in China.[16]
In 2021, right-wing Cuban exiles used Facebook to attempt a color revolution against the Communist Party of Cuba.[5]
Meta's social media Facebook is "temporarily" allowing users to voice hate speech and support for violence against Russians during the ongoing 2022 Russo-Ukraine conflict, which would have otherwise been against the platform's terms of service.[17] As a result, Meta is under a criminal investigation in the Russian Federation for the promotion of extremism.[18]
Since January 2023, Meta has removed the status of "dangerous organization" from the right-wing extremist neo-Nazi militia Azov Battalion, which will allow member of Azov to publish content in support of their organization.[19]
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Dina Srinivasan (2018). The antitrust case against Facebook: a monopolist’s journey towards pervasive surveillance in spite of consumers’ preference for privacy. Berkeley Business Law Journal. (PDF link)
- ↑ https://www.projectcensored.org/atlantic-council-partners-with-facebook-to-censor-social-media/
- ↑ "Real Time Billionaires". Forbes. Retrieved 2022-09-18.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Elliott Gabriel (2018-04-06). "Pentagon Capitalism and Silicon Valley: Google’s Drone War Project Shows Big Data’s Military Roots" MintPress News. Archived from the original on 2022-03-28. Retrieved 2022-07-06.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Alan Macleod (2022-07-12). "Meet the Ex-CIA Agents Deciding Facebook's Content Policy" MintPress News. Archived from the original on 2022-07-14. Retrieved 2022-07-14.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Alan Macleod (2022-08-26). "How the CIA Has Infiltrated Social Media Companies, with Alan Macleod" MintPress News. Archived from the original on 2022-08-26. Retrieved 2022-08-26.
- ↑ The Guardian (2013). NSA Prism program taps in to user data of Apple, Google and others
- ↑ Most popular global mobile messenger apps as of January 2022, based on number of monthly active users. Statista.
- ↑ "WhatsApp statistics: revenue, usage, and history" (2022-01-06). Fortunly.
- ↑ "What countries are the biggest WhatsApp users?" (2021-12-22). Verint.
- ↑ Stansfield Smith (2022-07-02). "US national security state censoring anti-imperialists to control ‘compatible left’" Multipolarista. Archived from the original on 2022-08-30. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
- ↑ Jessica Buxbaum (2023-01-27). "Facebook's Jordana Cutler" MintPress News. Archived from the original on 2023-01-28. Retrieved 2023-01-28.
- ↑ Alan Macleod (2022-08-02). "Most of the "Fact-Checking" Organizations Facebook Uses in Ukraine Are Directly Funded by Washington" MintPress News. Archived from the original on 2022-08-04. Retrieved 2022-08-06.
- ↑ "Gag rule on Palestinians continues, TikTok joins ban policy" (2022-10-15). Al Mayadeen. Archived from the original on 2022-10-15. Retrieved 2022-10-19.
- ↑ Facebook ‘whistleblower’ Frances Haugen represented by US intelligence insiders by Alexander Rubinstein on The Grayzone
- ↑ "80 pct of netizens agree China should punish Facebook" (July 10, 2009). People's Daily.
- ↑ Munsif Vengattil and Elizabeth Culliford (2022-03-10). "EXCLUSIVE Facebook temporarily allows posts on Ukraine war calling for violence against invading Russians or Putin's death" Reuters.
- ↑ "Russia opens criminal investigation of Meta over death calls on Facebook" (2022-03-11). Reuters. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
- ↑ “U.S. tech giant Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, no longer designates Ukraine’s Azov Regiment as a “dangerous organization.”
This means that Azov Regiment members will be allowed to have accounts on Meta platforms, while content posted by other users about Azov Regiment will no longer be removed, Meta’s spokesperson told the Kyiv Independent in an emailed statement.”
Daryna Antoniuk (2023-01-19). "Meta: Azov Regiment no longer meets criteria for dangerous organization on Facebook, Instagram" The Kyiv Independent. Retrieved 2022-01-20.