[Air-L] and now for *the dark side* of facebook

Kimberly De Vries cuuixsilver at gmail.com
Tue Feb 19 22:59:58 PST 2008


You put that very clearly, Alex.  I have been waiting for someone to say
something beyond describing that chain, when criticising Facebook, but
everyone seems to stop with just pointing out these links which I agree that
by themselves don't offer much.

Has anyone seen this aspect pursued, or pursued it themselves in a further
investigation of any kind?

Best,

Kim

On Feb 19, 2008 9:53 PM, Alex Halavais <alex at halavais.net> wrote:

> On Feb 20, 2008 12:12 AM, Kimberly De Vries <cuuixsilver at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Anyway, has anyone from Facebook ever commented on the whole
> intelligence
> > community connection?
> >
>
> Is it just me, or is this a serious association fallacy. No doubt,
> network visualizations can help to root out conspiracies, criminal or
> not. But the mere fact that people associate with one another means
> little more than that: they associate with one another. Given the
> degree to which corporate boards interlock, I would be surprised if
> most companies could not be similarly associated with the intelligence
> community.
>
> Let's take one of the claims in plain English:
>
> Facebook is a site that collects a lot of information in order to
> create profiles of individuals;
> ACCELL is a VC company that invested in Facebook;
> James Breyer is on the board of ACCELL;
> James Breyer is also on the board of BBN Technologies;
> Dr. Anita Jones is on the board of BBN Technologies;
> Dr. Anita Jones at one point "oversaw" DARPA (among others);
> DARPA funded the Information Awareness Office,
> The IAO aimed to data mine profiles of individuals;
> Kevin Bacon started the IAO!
>
> (OK, I added the last one.)
>
> It's worth being critical of the overlapping membership networks of
> corporate boards, but to my mind, the above chain of connections is
> not particularly interesting.
>
> Alex
>
>
> --
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> // Alexander C. Halavais
> // Social Architect
> // http://alex.halavais.net
> //
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