December 2011
18 posts
“Up until now, the Occupy movement has focused on reclaiming space, direct...”
– How the People Got Their Groove Back: What a Bunch of Farmers Can Teach a Bunch of Occupiers About How to Keep on Going | Peaceful Uprising
Goodwyn said that successful movements go through four stages:
First, the movement forms. This happens when people acknowledge oppression and defy it. They create physical and psychic spaces where they can cast off conventional modes of deferment, reject resignation and start acting with radical self-respect. This self-respect involves speaking with the tongue of truth, in the language of radical...
A speech to a punk rock show about the Occupy... →
John Fords’ speech to the spectators of the Colin of Arabia show in Revere.
Lawsuit May Determine Who Owns a Twitter Account -... →
I believe this lawsuit will be significant in defining ownership of social-media identities. This case solidifies the idea that social-media has indeed commodified online relationships. Defining the legal ownership of that commodity is the logical next step in the corporate co-optation of this new “market”.
What did the public wake up to in 2011?
The people woke up to these realities in 2011:
NDAA
Union busting
SOPA / PROTECT IP
Congressional insider trading
Using the national budget and the threat of national financial default as a political weapon
Infinite growth agenda pushing a hyper consumption culture
Universal Search & Seizure in multiple cities.
Multi trillion dollar, zero interest loans from the Fed to the big...
Facebook as privacy market-maker
Tristan: the whole "life event" on facebook timeline is creepy as shit
Ron: yea, i'm real close to abandoning fB.
Tristan: "first kiss", "first word", etc
Ron: im really creeped out by the amount of shit they know about me.
Tristan: how so. like your 'likes" etc?
Ron: yea, likes, comments, but more importantly, they know who i know, how often i talk to them, and they can associate everything i post to or reply to directly to a real identity. Its not like random forums where i'm "" with no real identity
Tristan: True
Ron: Its scary providing all this information to them to build a representation of who i am and what i like, believe in, and what resonates with me. I'm giving it away for free. And i dont know what they can do with it. its very powerful data. Right now they're using it to build marketing analytics, but they can do alot more with it.
Tristan: Such as?
Ron: the sky is the limit.
Tristan: well they're associating your photos with you and so on
Ron: i just don't have trust in providing that data. So providing a 1-to-1 face association with an identity.
Tristan: but I don't think the ultimate goal is really that nefarious
Ron: Nor do i. I dont think anyone at Facebook is like "Muhahaha! i'm compiling the secret data models so that one day i will rule the world!"
Tristan: "NOW I CAN UTILIZE THIS DATA TO SEND BRAIN WAVES TO THEIR HOUSE"
Ron: I'm just saying that the data they collect is very useful, powerful, valuable, and how it could be used is more important than how it is currently being used. like, they know who i hang out with most often with the frequency of our fB check-ins, the number of photos we're both tagged in, the number of replies to the same topics, how often we view each others profiles, etc.
Tristan: True
Ron: they know what websites I visit if those websites have the facebook "Like" button on them. and what do i get in return?
Tristan: Nothin'!
Ron: No, I get the very real convienience of a single place to communicate with my peers. Facebook essentially becomes a one-stop-shop for communications between social relationships. A middleman of socialization, if-you will. Instead of paying for it as a service, we're paying in privacy. They've essentially turned online communication between friends into a commodity.
Ron: Its a marketplace for privacy-information. Facebook is the market-maker, the traders are corporations who wish to advertise to the users of Facebook. This data is also extremely useful to governments and other organization who wish to gain insight into the zeitgist of people, so that they can use that information to serve their own interests.
“Dear Mr. Adams,
Thank you for contacting me regarding Sections 1031 and 1032 of...”
– Senator Brown,
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was doing Americans all a favor by asking to strip overly broad language from the bill that essentially turn American soil into a battlefield on a war against a vague concept that has no goals other than the impossible goal to eliminate the very ...
“Under No Illusions”
Michael Hardt...
WatchIn Video: Surveillance Explained (by TBIJ)
“Among the investigation’s key findings is that the Fed unilaterally...”
– The Fed Audit - Newsroom: Bernie Sanders - U.S. Senator for Vermont