The Facebook Threat !

When Mark Zuckerberg came up with the idea that became Facebook his intentions were probably honourable.  He certainly intended for it to make money but it caught the public imagination and quickly spun our of control.  It attracted so much money that its monopoly status is being preserved by buying up any new ideas that emerge that might just be the " next big thing ".

There is an amazing correlation with the early days of the American nation.  A half dozen families achieved amazing wealth when they gained control of the oil, railroad and steel industries.   The names Rockefeller and Carnegie were almost as powerful as the government in Washington.  Oil brought kerosene lights to the homes of the nation, the railroads opened up the interior and steel replaced brick to introduce the skyscraper era to American cities.

The government realised that too much power was in too few hands and legislated to breakup these monopolies.  In this world of today that " robber baron " creed has re-emerged in the form of Facebook and Google.

We have long defended the free press as the guardian of our civil liberties, but now newspapers are in decline.  Facebook has replaced the press as our news source and this has introduced what we term " fake news ".  The world was quick to learn that people avidly read news that agrees with their own point of view and Facebook quietly removed any contrasting arguments.   Foreign governments were quick to seize this opportunity for mind control.

The emergency of Twitter seemed a threat to Facebook, but it was quickly brought under Facebook control.  We have learned the manipulative power of data to set markets in the direction of their choice and Facebook delivers an inexhaustible flood of data that is freely given by its users.  The people who control Facebook now have the power to direct market trends and to influence the outcome of government elections.

This divergence of money away from the press is to our detriment.  Journalism was the creative force that exposed wrong doing and that diversity of views helped us form our own opinions.  We are now at the mercy of mind manipulation by outside forces cleverly using fake news in such quantities that we accept its veracity.

Google is the other entity that is suppressing competitors and has emerged as the world's premier search engine.   What we see and learn is what Google chooses to make available.  The power this delivers is enhanced by the ability to use its vast wealth to buy any likely competitor before it fully emerges.

It is essential that world governments react to breakup these monopolies and introduce an element of competition between their components.  We are fast entering the dangerous situation where Facebook fully controls the news flow and Google directs our attention in directions that suit the view of its management.

We have created monsters with the ability to direct the way we think - and the way we vote.  That is not necessarily in our best interests !