Related: Facebook - With friends like these ... At the time of writing Facebook claims 59-million active users. That's 59-million suckers, all of whom have volunteered their ID card information and consumer preferences to an American business they know nothing about."
And track you for the government (with unconstitutional retro-immunity, I might add).
I don't think American business had this use in mind:
"Facebook activist attempts to spark a revolution in Egypt" by Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times | May 3, 2009
CAIRO - An activist in a police state should know when to sprint.
Mohamed Abdel Aziz has bolted from trouble a number of times, including dashing from security forces closing in on a demonstration in Alexandria. He has landed in police stations three times, but upon each release he has returned to his computer, opened his blog, and conspired in cyberspace....
A protest movement that draws from a Facebook group.... The movement opines, plots, and Twitters....
One, I'm not liking the MSM innuendo and descriptions, and two, I'm not liking the venues.
See: Tweet This!
I'll second that!!!
"No one knows when the trigger of revolution will be pulled. The state is oppressive, but ordinary Egyptians from all over sympathize with us," said Aziz, who recalls the passions that roused his countrymen's 1919 revolution against the British.
"When we started using Facebook it was a novelty," he said. "Calling for a national strike was a novelty. It was like lighting a candle in a dark room. But this is still an oppressive state and people are scared."
Is he talking about Egypt or AmeriKa?
C'mon, America, the EGYPTIANS KNOW the ANSWER!!!!
Human rights groups say the public's fear is a testament to mass arrests, torture, and other violations of civil liberties against political opponents in a nation that has been under a state of emergency....
OUR ALLY, puke!!!!
The Mubarak government, which receives about $1.2 billion in US military and economic aid, is blamed for inflation and corruption and for allowing public services such as schools and hospitals to deteriorate. Young Egyptians see a nation stripped of opportunity and run by patronage.
YOUR TAX DOLLARS at work winning hearts and minds, 'murkn! You know, if the money isn't going to be used to fix schools and hospitals in Egypt, maybe they could send it back because we have some needs of our own here. And if you didn't know they were talking about Egypt, you'd think it was AmeriKa.
"The generation born since 1981 came into the world during the worst period of Egyptian history," said Aziz, a 23-year-old aviation engineer. "We can see how dynamic the rest of the world is, but we feel alienated, as if we are living outside of time. We've spent years in schools and learned nothing."
Are you sure this is about Egypt?
Mubarak's opposition hums with disparate voices - nationalists, unionists, leftists, and the Muslim Brotherhood - that have been unable to unify around a single message. The Muslim Brotherhood is the strongest movement, but despite Egypt's increasing religious tilt, the Brotherhood's Islamist ideals are viewed by many as too radical to form strong alliances with secular parties and organizations.
Well, see this, readers: The use of the Muslim Brotherhood by MI6 and the CIA in Egypt, Syria and Iran
Always playing both sides and covering all the angles, aren't they? Even when a movement starts out uninfiltrated and true it only seems a matter of time before some government op or agency begins corrupting it. The true test of real effectiveness; otherwise, they would ignore you.
The 6th of April speaks to an anxious, rebellious youth, but at times the movement has been tugged in too many directions, including demonstrating for better wages for textile workers and protesting discrimination against the minority Nubian community. Such efforts have won it a measure of universal appeal, but have not seriously challenged the Mubarak government.
Certainly smells like a controlled opposition; however, who knows? Maybe the Brotherhood is gaming them right back.
Aziz's organization and other bloggers and Facebook activists, however, have expanded the debate into cyberspace, a new challenge for security forces that at times have been outflanked by organizing tactics and videos of protests and police brutality appearing on the Internet. Police have detained nearly 500 bloggers nationwide....
Of course, I am counting on the AmeriKan government to show it is better than the authoritarian state by not throwing us in jail.
Just turning us off would do it because the Facebooks here are more like pfffffffts.
