NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Facebook Embraces J. Edgar Hoover: Anti-Google Lie Campaign Revealed
Facebook Embraces J. Edgar Hoover: Anti-Google Lie Campaign Revealed
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000852.html
Yesterday, in "Attempt to Involve Me in Anti-Google 'Astroturf Lies'
PR Campaign ( http://j.mp/iLvhQT [Lauren's Blog] ), I expressed my
strong interest in finding out who was behind the effort last week
that (unsuccessfully) attempted to suck me into a lies-based PR
campaign aimed at Google.
While the list of potential suspects seemed quite short, public
speculation in the absence of specific facts in this regard was
inappropriate, so I made no accusations in this regard in that
posting.
Today "The Daily Beast" has revealed that Facebook instigated the
campaign, a fact that Facebook (and their PR firm that deployed the
plan) have now both admitted ( http://j.mp/mHNa5W [Daily Beast] ).
Needless to say, Facebook was most certainly a featured entry on my
suspect list. But the incredibly clumsy manner of their anti-Google
mudslinging project would have put the incompetent Richard
Nixon/Watergate "White House Plumbers" break-in team to shame.
C'mon guys, if you're gonna play the dirty tricks game, at least bring
your antics up to "Three Stooges" competency levels -- no offense
meant to the Stooges!
Facebook of course is attempting to spin this event not as an
anti-Google campaign of lies, but rather as something of an
"information gathering" effort. Yeah ... right ... information
gathering -- sort of like the way J. Edgar Hoover used his FBI
COINTELPRO "information gathering" program to try smear Martin Luther
King, Jr. and many others. No, not the same scope, but seemingly a
similar sort of intrinsically evil mind-set.
My overall level of respect for Facebook has long been at bargain
basement levels. After these new shenanigans, it's going to take an
oil rig to drill a hole deep enough for their new ranking.
A journey to the center of the Earth? In the end it will be
Facebook's users who ultimately -- get the shaft.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Google Buzz: http://j.mp/laurenbuzz
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com