Facebook employees outraged over top exec’s public show of support for Brett Kavanaugh

Joel Kaplan, Facebook’s head of global policy, is a long time close friend of Kavanaugh. They both worked in the Bush White House together. Which tells you all you need to know about Joel Kaplan and Facebook.

Comment by charmed_im-sure at 05/10/2018 at 13:10 UTC

42 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Apps in the Facebook mesh that give themselves generous permissions with your mobile devices, like reading your USB and changing your contact lists, you may wish to remove a few (the graphic enlarges):

https://labs.rs/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Mobile-01-01-01.png

How FB is controlling your world and how to stop letting them.

https://labs.rs/en/

Reading suggestions:

Mapping and quantifying political information warfare Part 1 : Propaganda, domination & attacks on online media October 26, 2016 24 minute read In Information Warfare

https://labs.rs/en/mapping-and-quantifying-political-information-warfare/

The Human Fabric of the Facebook Pyramid May 3, 2017 21 minute read In Facebook Research

https://labs.rs/en/the-human-fabric-of-the-facebook-pyramid/

The power players:

Marc Andreessen: Nexus of power – In the lower right corner, we find Marc Andreessen, one of the board members in the inner circle of Zuckerberg’s closest colleagues in Facebook. As we can see, he has been educated at the University of Illinois, which is a part of biography which doesn’t connect him with any other of his FB-colleagues. He is, however, also partner in one of the most influential venture capital firms in the Silicon Valley “Andreessen Horowitz”.[11] Through this company Andreessen is connected with very important companies such as Foursquare, Groupon, Skype, Twitter, eBay, AOL and GitHub. He is an example of a very powerful person who has a rather integrative function in the market since his business ties connect major players in the field.[12] This kind of interconnectedness raises the question if the companies of Silicon Valley are in the risk of being in cartels and trusts or if they are already beyond that. In other words, this and similar connections underpin the idea that Facebook has a successful concept because it attracts influential actors. They also do not remove suspicion that the company would not be as successful were it not for these actors. If we decide to follow one of his connections, as depicted on the graph above, we can see that Andreessen has interest in communications and financial services: through his venture capital firm he was an investor in Skype, and he is still the board member in eBay. The previous vice president of both companies was Dan Neary who is presently second level executive in Facebook and works for/with Sheryl Sandberg on the Asia Pacific market.

Peter Thiel: Agencies and Analytics – Peter Thiel (lower left corner), one of the most influential people in Silicon Valley and the member of the FB management, is also an early-stage investor in the LinkedIn network (where the retrieved data about the FB-employees come from). He is co-founder of world known PayPal, Clarium Capital (a global macro hedge fund), Founders Fund (a venture capital firm), Valar Ventures, Mithril Capital, and has served as a partner in Y Combinator, making him one of the most powerful figure in the venture capital sphere, extending his influence over hundreds if not thousands startup companies. One of companies Thiel founded is drawing special attention – Palantir Technologies, an analytical software company. A document leaked to TechCrunch revealed that Palantir’s clients as of 2013 included at least twelve U.S. governmental bodies, including the CIA, DHS, NSA, FBI, CDC, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, Special Operations Command, West Point among others.[13] This company was originally funded from In-Q-Tel, the Central Intelligence Agency’s not-for-profit venture capital arm, and was used by different government agencies. Even though the some of his close colleagues in Silicon Valley do not share enthusiasm about it, Thiel became advisor of U.S. President Donald Trump and his bridge to the tech community. In addition to Erskine Bowles (who will be mentioned further below), this is a second important connection of Facebook management board to politics and political parties.

Ties to Politics and Parties

The member of the board Erskine Bowles, (upper left corner) from the inner circle around Mark Zuckerberg, has been also Chief of Staff in the White House, and is the co-chair at the National Commission of Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, a governmental body that he himself helped to establish in 2010.[15] His ties to the financial industry through his work experience in Morgan Stanley,[16] and in the technological industry through General Motors[17] show the kind of systemic support that Facebook can rely on through the members of its board. Erskine Bowles stands for the connection of the financial, technological and IT industry with the politics and with the Democratic Party. Even if it is not so easy to talk about the protectionism in the classic meaning of the word, these connections do show the common interest of the actors within the political administration with those of the private business. This kind of political engagement in the context of mentioned lucrative businesses is problematic from the standpoint of European public and political tradition. From the perspective of civil rights and privacy policy, the strong institutional connections between the governmental bodies, secret services and social networks, i.e., communication infrastructure can only be seen critically. Mentioned examples show how elites merge with political establishment to concentrate power. We remind readers, however, that this phenomenon is generally not seen as something wrong in the U.S. since all these people are publically talking about these achievements as something highly positive. At the same time, similar ties are to be found in other branches of industry and in other countries. By no means advocating it, we think that the global success of a company like Facebook would not be possible without these kinds of capacities.

Comment by bdy435 at 05/10/2018 at 14:05 UTC

6 upvotes, 0 direct replies

FSBook

Comment by kdeff at 05/10/2018 at 14:06 UTC

41 upvotes, 2 direct replies

I hate to say it, tech workers. Your management is just as bad as bad as any other fortune 500 company's management.

You're just another company. you need to stop with this "holier than thou" impression you have of yourselves. You exist to make money for those who own you.

Comment by redrumakm at 05/10/2018 at 14:41 UTC

7 upvotes, 0 direct replies

they need to get back to work figuring out new ways to invade our privacy and mine our data. how could an exec at a company with those morals not go for Kavanuagh.

Comment by Glibberosh at 05/10/2018 at 15:34 UTC

7 upvotes, 0 direct replies

What needs to happen for FB users to find a non-evil-supporting platform for connecting to others?

What would FB have to do, for users to create their own "sharing site" groups, and keep their kids away from its awfulness?

Really. Set up a site, tranport the content you wish from FB, invite loved ones as contibutors. Or, set up an email distribution group. Delete and ditch your FB accounts. Slam that door - let it go full 4chan (or whatever).

Help your kids do the same. Is this the company you want riding *morality lessons* into your kids' brains? *Everybody does it* is a child's response.

Be the consumer of something better; lead the way, model the behavior/freedom *to choose*.

Comment by aardw0lf11 at 05/10/2018 at 16:33 UTC

3 upvotes, 0 direct replies

I knew I had seen that douche attorney seated behind her before.

Fuck facebook.

Comment by [deleted] at 05/10/2018 at 16:02 UTC

6 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Fuck Facebook, ban this Political hack whose given millions or user data to the government for political purposes.

Comment by thornside at 05/10/2018 at 14:18 UTC

12 upvotes, 0 direct replies

I don't see why this is an issue. I don't like Trump and don't support confirming Kavanaugh, but just because you're an executive at a company, you can't support someone of your choosing on your own time?

Comment by RobotPigOverlord at 05/10/2018 at 14:46 UTC

9 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Facebook employees should strike or quit. Their employer has shown no real concern for how their website enabled interference into our election, has not made a significant effort to prevent it from happening again, and now their top level execs are openly supporting a SCOTUS nominee who wants to trample all over democracy and take away women's right to make decisions about their own bodies. By working for Facebook, they're supporting all of this bullshit. These people could get great jobs elsewhere, if they were able to get jobs at Facebook, other tech companies will jump at the chance to hire them.

Comment by gazongas001 at 05/10/2018 at 13:35 UTC

6 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Fb is just garbage.

Comment by MaximumOrdinary at 05/10/2018 at 16:02 UTC

3 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Soo... maybe Facebook intentionally helped the election of Trump?

Comment by alexahartford at 05/10/2018 at 16:10 UTC

3 upvotes, 0 direct replies

The women’s faces say it all

Comment by DBDude at 05/10/2018 at 18:51 UTC

3 upvotes, 0 direct replies

This is scary thinking regardless of your political views. These snowflakes think that everybody who works at their company needs to think like them, or should be punished. It's the same as people at a Koch company complaining an exec showed up in a pro-choice march.

Comment by [deleted] at 05/10/2018 at 13:56 UTC*

53 upvotes, 34 direct replies

[removed]

Comment by ParticleCannon at 05/10/2018 at 16:58 UTC

4 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Wrongthink much?

Comment by ZEO5520 at 05/10/2018 at 16:31 UTC

2 upvotes, 0 direct replies

They can be mad all they want but he had the right to be there. Oh, I forgot these employees don’t believe in anyone’s rights but their own

Comment by rblake005 at 05/10/2018 at 16:54 UTC

2 upvotes, 2 direct replies

To everyone saying innocent until proven guilty doesn’t apply to job interviews, actually yes it does.the EEOC actually has policies on this.

Have you ever applied for job? You might notice if you might that the employer might ask “have you ever been convicted of a felony?”. This is the only related question as a potential employee that you must legally answer. It is considered discrimination if you are not hired because of criminal charges that are not a convicted felony.

Comment by [deleted] at 05/10/2018 at 16:05 UTC

2 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Obviously as per Zuckerberg he hasn't broken rules. Why would having a top executive whose close friend is a SC judge break any rules, right. Zuckerberg thinks he way too smart for anybody to see through his facade.

Comment by bangagonggetiton at 05/10/2018 at 17:08 UTC

2 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Get rid of Facebook today.

Comment by runikepisteme at 05/10/2018 at 17:40 UTC

1 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Facebook supporting a mysogynistic tool ? Not very surprising considering Facebook was literally created to rank the female population of Zuck's college when he created it .