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Social Media's Hidden Truth

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mahesh2k:
We have some recruiters here who check facebook or other social media profiles of the candidates before calling them, it's not restricted to linkedin anymore. So if you're sharing something public which doesn't go in line of thought with the recruiter or the employed company, or even family and friends it can go against you. Google admitting not to spy on web users is like US army saying - theyhave no interest in middle east politics. FOX reporters found spying for the sake of information and news. Same can be said for the other government stuff. Paranoia ? so be it.

IainB:
Interesting post here
"After the Iranian post-election events that led to massive riots and break-outs through the world, the Iranian government started blocking all social websites, including Facebook, Youtube, Orkut, MySpace and Twitter. The Iranians, however, started using VPN (virtual private network) connections to bypass censorship. Since Thursday, September 30, 2011, all VPN ports have however been blocked, in the first attempt to start what the Iranian government calls the 'National Internet.'"
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Renegade:
Interesting post here
"After the Iranian post-election events that led to massive riots and break-outs through the world, the Iranian government started blocking all social websites, including Facebook, Youtube, Orkut, MySpace and Twitter. The Iranians, however, started using VPN (virtual private network) connections to bypass censorship. Since Thursday, September 30, 2011, all VPN ports have however been blocked, in the first attempt to start what the Iranian government calls the 'National Internet.'"
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-IainB (October 06, 2011, 09:32 AM)
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I just posted on that same topic > Getting Around Internet Censorship: Internet Freedom.

Looks like I may need to look into posting another solution...

Paul Keith:
@Paul Keith: Yes, I don't know what the real issue is here, but I hope you are right - though some people might say that history would seem to indicate that you are probably on the wrong tack.

Freedom seems to be something that mankind has typically had to fight for, and generally "...you don't know what you got 'till it's gone", as the songs have it. I guess it could be cyclical. Once freedom has been obtained, the erosion of that freedom can commence. Entropy.
-IainB (October 06, 2011, 04:24 AM)
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My take is that it's more hmm... black hole-ish. (or whatever the theory is that the universe is destroying itself to set up another big bang)

It does cycle but the cycle is towards destruction. The illusion of progress is built on the fruits of freedom that has been already obtained so every next generation of erosion is worse but at the same time less "relatively destructive". That is to say, soft fascism may analogically be "kinder" than fascism but through it's subtle qualities it makes the conversation of issues related to freedom more wedged and less about bringing forth a single concept, as it is about bringing forth a set of newer preferences transforming once revolutionary issues into an issue of spoilage and soft activities.

I suppose that I'm paranoid then.

I worry that information will be turned against people by governments and corporations.

Governments turn it around when the police subpoena information.

Corporations use it in propaganda marketing machines.

It's like being thrown in a cage with 800 lb gorillas, then seeing someone throw in clubs and tire irons for the gorillas. As if it weren't bad enough already...-Renegade
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I wasn't really using paranoia as a negative though. More of an observation of attitudes.

The problem with paranoia isn't that paranoia can't be helpful but that paranoia can be distracting. Like say a cryptographer who declares an encrypted safe because in a vacuum that data would be near impossible to crack. This doesn't mean the average person even if he educates himself on cryptography would say... know if he is being wiretapped...nor will he be perfectly protected against a false friend if he studied wiretapping.

In such a scenario, paranoia is unhelpful in the sense that it's a single issue and not an issue that if penetrated through would lead to massive reforms. As you so portrayed, your worry does not prevent what governments and corporations have already become. In such a scenario, can you really say the fundamental issue is about freedom?

Maybe you can justify it as an individual but I bet if we take a series of surveys of people as like minded as you and question them which of the two topic title they would prefer clicking "Social Media's Hidden Truth" or "Freedom's Hidden Truth" that most people (especially in a state of fatigue) would click the former not only because of the title but because inherently they know they would more likely read about something they can skim in the former topic. Social media fuels our fear but once we log out of a news site or stop wondering about Google's policy, we are most likely to go back using Google. Freedom on the other hand though? Even with Iain's examples, how many of us are archiving his words and then rereading it and then planning to use our money to do something beyond even the acts of the common patriot like leave our job entirely and battle for the education of Indonesians?

IainB:
@Paul Keith:
My take is that it's more hmm... black hole-ish. (or whatever the theory is that the universe is destroying itself to set up another big bang)
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Yes, absolutely. That's "entropy" - (in cosmology) a hypothetical tendency for the universe to attain a state of maximum homogeneity in which all matter is at a uniform temperature (heat death).

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