After the recent visit of Mark “I’m the CEO… bitch” Zuckerberg to No. 10 Downing Street, Jeremy Hunt, the secretary of state for culture and media, tweeted:
Just met Mark Zuckerberg, Founder of Facebook. Really smart guy with some good ideas on improvement digital engagement in policy making. (Source)
Could I please be the 32768th person to say: “Aaaargh! We’re doomed!”
Now I’m sure there was nothing particularly sinister discussed at that meeting, but I can’t help the shivers down my spine when I discover that my government has been taking advice from Facebook.
From News Feeds to Beacon to Connections to the impossibility of quitting, Facebook’s privacy is continually worsening at a worrying rate. (danah boyd rant; scary employee interview.) And Zuckerberg’s famously cavalier attitude doesn’t help matters either. Facebook are about the only people I would trust less at the helm of the Labour party’s aborted Überdatabase less than the government themselves.
Though that said, perhaps Jacqui Smith needn’t have bothered trying to force the Database State on us after all – half the population (myself included) already signed up for a bigger, leakier, privately owned one.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to pipe my net connection through an SSH tunnel so Jeremy Hunt can’t see how close I am to finishing building my stable.
Comments
Great article.