Don't Panic! Lighten Up!

Facebook is Run by CIA!!

The Onion/YouTube
Mon, 06 Jun 2011 00:00 UTC

Reader Comments

mosaicvic · 2011-11-27T08:30:21Z

Very humorous!

Very humorous. Yet, there is so much truth to the joke. Facebook reminds me of something Hitler would come up with so he could decide a master race. You have to know that something wicked is monitoring these social sites and doing studies and picking victims (such as a religious cult) . What will social networking turn into in future generations?... or will it die out? Why isn't there a cure for cancer?

gdpetti · 2011-11-27T10:38:16Z

There is but it would cut into revenue.

And the existing establishment doesn't like those loss projections, so such cures had to be cut from the 'to-do' list. Maybe we can await the next idiot who comes up with a way to triple your gas mileage. As if we care! Just get your own herd of sheep to squeeze why don't you!

griffin · 2011-11-27T18:39:37Z

Partly true

Some of Facebook's initial investment came from InQtel, the CIA's venture capital fund. So did Google's, for that matter. As you should imagine, all the US three-letter agencies no doubt have full access to both databases and are using them for purposes we can only guess.

If someone is suspected of criminal activity in the US, it is routine for law enforcement to access their Facebook and/or other social media accounts for information that will help them find and track the person, build the legal case against them, identify their family and friends, etc.

Even before the rise of social networks on the internet, there was a case about 10 years ago I think, give or take a few, where some guy took on the State by harassing its employees (following them, etc.), and tried to establish an assassination lottery, where people could make bets on when the target would meet his or her demise, and the person who guessed closest would win all the money in that pool. It would never do, of course, so he was put away for several decades.

Obviously the rationale of that scheme was that the individual who would have 'guessed' the closest would have carried out the action and so deserved the bounty collected.

Good idea. It was too bad that he was so naive that he was easy to put behind bars for a very long time.

Add some encryption and one or two *very* private but absolutely honorable banking establishments, as well as provisions for payout to heirs in case someone succeeds but doesn't personally survive, and well, things could get a lot more interesting, if you catch my drift.