Facebook An Innocent Social Media Platform Or A Complex Intelligence Gathering Apparatus

 

Of the 2.2 billion Facebook account owners very few know the origins and the historical circumstances that paved the way for the creation of the social media platform. Most of them are happy with the discovery of friends and distant relatives, relegated to the dark recesses of their memory. Overwhelmed by joy, friends and relatives lost decades ago are suddenly placed on a high pedestal, and strong ties are developed to satisfy a thirst for deep roots badly needed to control feelings of alienation imposed on them by the bitter modern realities of industrialization.

Facebook was the brainchild of Mr. Mark Zuckerberg back in 2004. With a group of friends he was engaged in an uphill battle to set up, from a humble dorm room of Harvard University, the basic foundations of a dream no one thought will become in a couple of decades a commercial empire with billions of dollars in revenues.

Serendipity, synchronicity, luck, strategic orientation, whatever you prefer to call it stimulated the interest of The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and forced key decision makers to focus with strong magnifying lenses on Mr. Zuckerberg's project. For a Federal institution engaged in the collection, analysis, and dissemination of information from open sources, Facebook was labelled as a “Treasure Trove” totally compatible with the new doctrine articulated a few years earlier (1999) by the former CIA Director George Tenet, who decided to “leverage technology” to enhance the information collection capabilities of the Agency. 

 


 

Discretion was always a prerequisite in the CIA's world, and operating in the shadows away from public scrutiny and spotlights was an imperative that the Agency always adhered to. Associating the Agency's name directly with the Facebook project was not an option. But behind the curtain the Agency had multiple choices to throw a financial lifeline to Mr. Zuckerberg. It relied heavily on the contributions of an obscure venture capital firm, fully funded by the CIA, operating under the name of In-Q-Tel.

To cover its own trail of money transfers, In-Q-Tel directed payments from individuals for an initial investment of $500.000 in Mr. Zuckerberg's project, followed by a capital injection of $12.7 million, and last but not least, the biggest investment was made in 2006 at the tune of $27.5 million. Neither The CIA nor In-Q-Tel were directly connected to Facebook, but from the very beginning The Agency propelled Facebook on the international scene with the clear understanding that, first and foremost, Mr. Zuckerberg cannot disregard the needs of The Agency for information while pursuing the goal of accumulating a wealth that landed him in a prominent place on the list of billionaires published annually by Forbes Magazine.

Monitoring the entries/chatter on Facebook, filtering the noise from the credible threat, and channeling the analysis to the daily intelligence briefings of The US President, became key components of the Agency's Open Source Center (OSC). By 2011, The Center's several hundred analysts were scrutinizing more than five million entries daily. Every account became a legitimate target. From Egyptian revolutionaries using Facebook to voice their grievances against the regime of president Mubarak, to Chinese political dissidents denouncing the brutality of the Communist leadership of China, to Iranian reformists trying to undermine the influence of the Ayatollahs governing Iran with an Iron fist.

Today, the significant increase of the OSC's analytical capacity and its indispensable reliance on Facebook as a primary source of open information, turned Mr. Zuckerberg into a billionaire who can make or break a king. At the level of the individual user, Facebook knows more about you than the CIA. But the real power of Mr. Zuckerberg is rooted in the fact that his mammoth corporation Facebook, under his watchful eyes and guidance, has been weaponized to disrupt elections and/or impose candidates who have political agendas compatible with Mr. Zuckerberg's interests.

From elections in Bolivia, Honduras, Ecuador, India, Azerbaijan, Ukraine,...ad infinitum Facebook allowed selectively thousands of fictitious accounts to manipulate public opinion and sway the results in favour of one candidate or against the vital interests of an electoral candidate.

On June 20, 2021 Armenia will be holding a snap election. Foreign powers are already using thousands of fictitious accounts to persuade the average Armenian voter that the salvation of Armenia rests with the success of candidate X, Y, Z...

Does the average Armenian have the political wisdom and sophistication to distinguish between petty personal interests from the collective well being of his/her nation? Highly unlikely. And with a choice between candidates from the old corrupt kleptocrats who controlled the country from 1989 to 2018, or a sociopath who lied to his nation for 44 days insisting that victory is within reach, only to capitulate on November 09, 2020, the future of Armenia is ineluctably very bleak.

Why do we call acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan a sociopath?

He clearly displays the several key characteristics of a sociopathic personality:

  1. He has a big narcissistic ego. I, Nikol Pashinyan, know better than my Army Commanders. I was told that the army cannot win the next war, several months before Azerbaijan started the military offensive against Artsakh, yet instead of relying on diplomacy to avert a war, I followed the twisted logic of my ego and decided to incite a war by insisting that “Artsakh is Armenia”. I insisted that under my regime there will be no compromise and with new wars we will be conquering more and more Azeri territories.

  1. Only a sociopath feels no remorse or guilt when facing the death of 6.000 Armenian young soldiers, more than 10.000 maimed, and thousands of orphans condemned to tremendous hardships due to the untimely disappearance of the bread winner of the family. Remember his own statement: “I am responsible for signing the Nov. 09, 2020 capitulation document, but I am not guilty for inheriting a bad situation from previous rulers who robbed the country instead of modernizing the army”

  2. PM Pashinyan with his grandiose sense of self, while knowing well that the Armenian Army was not modernized enough to face the wrath of four enemies (Azerbaijan, Turkey, Pakistan, and Islamist mercenaries from Syria) on the battlefields of Artsakh, should have adopted the decision that diplomacy and The Lavrov Plan were the only tools he can use to avoid a disastrous defeat, and spare the nation thousands of casualties and billions of dollars in infrastructure damages.

Unfortunately and very sadly, the sociopath will be reelected because the key regional powers have a vested interest in keeping him in power. Every Armenian eligible to vote, between now and June 20 must read and memorize the following dire warning of Octavia Butler:

Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be lied to. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery." 

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Readers interested in an in depth understanding of the close bonds between The US Intelligence community and the dominant social media platforms can consult the following references (hyperlinks):

Article: “REVEALED: Facebook’s CIA Connections…”

Article: “CIA tracks revolt by Tweet, Facebook

Article: “What This CIA Veteran Learned Helping Facebook With Elections

Article: Facebook As The Ultimate Government Surveillance Tool”

Article: “Where Does Facebook Stop and the NSA Begin?

Article: Social Media Is a Tool of the CIA: “Facebook, Google and Other Social Media Used to Spy on People

Article: "Mark Changed The Rules": How Facebook Went Easy On Alex Jones And Other Right-Wing Figures

Article: “I Have Blood on My Hands”: A Whistle blower Says Facebook Ignored Global Political Manipulation

Article: Russia Still Largest Driver of Disinformation on Social Media, Facebook Finds

 

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