Facebook Zero and the "People's Receiver"

March 7, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - "All of Germany hears the F�hrer with the People's Receiver," reads a World War II propaganda poster. It was advertising the Volksempf�nger - or, the People's Receiver - described by the US Holocaust Museum which contains one of the radios in its collection in Washington D.C. as:

Goebbels's ministry recognized the tremendous promise of radio for propaganda. It heavily subsidized the production of the inexpensive "People's Receiver" (Volksempf�nger) to facilitate sales. By early 1938, the number of radios in German homes surpassed more than 9 million, roughly one for every two German households. Three years later, this figure rose to almost 15 million, providing 50 million Germans with regular radio reception.

The radio lacked the capability to receive foreign radio stations, and on its dial, only German and Austrian stations were marked. This - in conjunction with radio jamming efforts - was a deliberate attempt to confine the German public's access to information to only that emanating from Berlin.

According to archives maintained by Yale University, during the Nuremberg trials after the war, Nazi Germany's Minister of Armaments and War Production, Albert Speer would remark (emphasis added):

Hitler's dictatorship differed in one fundamental point from all its predecessors in history. His was the first dictatorship in the present period of modern technical development, a dictatorship which made complete use of all technical means in a perfect manner for the domination of its own nation. Through technical devices such as radio and loudspeaker 80 million people were deprived of independent thought. It was thereby possible to subject them to the will of one man.

Should a similar dictatorship rise today, seeking to make complete use of all technical means in a perfect manner for the domination of global populations, it is very likely they would pursue similar methods - not over radio waves - but by dominating the 21st century's primary means of communication - the Internet.

Facebook Zero - the Modern-Day "People's Receiver" 

Facebook Zero is a service provided by Facebook in cooperation with mobile phone services worldwide. It is essentially the ability to use Facebook over cellular phone networks without being charged. It is part of a wider scheme called "zero-rating," which telecom giants are using to selectively provide content for its users.

It represents the complete circumvention of the concept of net neutrality in which all information traveling across the Internet is treated equally. Net neutrality has become the front line in today's battle for and against "independent thought," just as Germany controlling the radio waves within its borders represented a similar battled during the 1930's and 1940's.

How effective is Facebook's technical control over independent thought?

News outlet Quartz in a February 2015 article titled, "Millions of Facebook users have no idea they�re using the internet," revealed that (emphasis added):

Indonesians surveyed by Galpaya told her that they didn�t use the internet. But in focus groups, they would talk enthusiastically about how much time they spent on Facebook. Galpaya, a researcher (and now CEO) with LIRNEasia, a think tank, called Rohan Samarajiva, her boss at the time, to tell him what she had discovered. �It seemed that in their minds, the Internet did not exist; only Facebook,� he concluded.

 The article reveals that the same trend can be seen beyond Indonesia, across Southeast Asia, Africa, and other regions targeted by Facebook Zero's scheme. The article also reveals the obvious fact that surveys and research indicate the reality of Facebook Zero contradicts the stated goals of Facebook.

The article would claim (emphasis added):

Since at least 2013, Facebook has been making noises about connecting the entire world to the internet. But even Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook�s operations head, admits that there are Facebook users who don�t know they�re on the internet. So is Facebook succeeding in its goal if the people it is connecting have no idea they are using the internet? And what does it mean if masses of first-time adopters come online not via the open web, but the closed, proprietary network where they must play by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg�s rules?

Quartz' article would explain - in depth - how services are moving away from websites and toward Facebook - which becomes a problem specifically because of "Zuckerberg's rules."


The Modern Day Destruction of Independent Thought

Facebook is more than just a social media network. When it was first conceived, users were free to follow others as they wished, and would see posts of those they followed in real-time. By 2014, however, Facebook had begun tampering with how users viewed content from other users they followed.

A user's "News Feed" was now being regulated not by the user, but by algorithms created by Facebook. Content providers found their reach to their audiences plummet - and unless they were willing to pay to reach more users, it would remain that way.

Facebook would attempt to justify this new move in a section on its website called, "Organic Reach on Facebook: Your Questions Answered," where it claims:

Rather than showing people all possible content, News Feed is designed to show each person on Facebook the content that�s most relevant to them. Of the 1,500+ stories a person might see whenever they log onto Facebook, News Feed displays approximately 300. To choose which stories to show, News Feed ranks each possible story (from more to less important) by looking at thousands of factors relative to each person.

In reality, these "factors" may or may not have anything to do with what is relative to "each person." And with Facebook's growing involvement under the US State Department, manipulating political systems worldwide, and its recent pledge to join the war on "fake news," it is likely these factors will be more related to what special interests feel Facebook should make relevant, than the actual individuals viewing their own News Feed.

In other words, Facebook has constructed a modern day People's Receiver for corporate-financier special interests - with alternatives omitted from the tuning dials, and lacking the technical ability to receive alternative information from outside Facebook's carefully controlled information space. It is the modern day destruction of independent thought - an information cage many - like the German people during the 1930-40's may not even realize they're locked in.

Just as people fought hard to up end the Nazi propaganda machine during World War II, people today are and must continue to confront, undermine, and eventually displace Facebook's monopoly over modern day communication. Unlike Nazi Germany's People's Receivers, Facebook doesn't taint and skew the perception of just 80 million Germans, but includes a user base spread out across the planet and numbering nearly 2 billion.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine �New Eastern Outlook.�   

Fake News: The Latest Weapon in Information Space

January 16, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - The ability for technology and innovations to transform global economics and geopolitics is often underestimated, even sidelined in retrospect.

However, from the technological achievements that gave the British Empire mastery over the seas, to the industrial revolution that eventually disrupted and unraveled the empire's carefully constructed global system of mercantilism, the march of technological progress literally governors the rise and fall of global centers of power and the empires built around them.

Disruptive Information Technology

With the advent of information technology (IT), what once required immense capital and a substantial workforce to disseminate information across large segments of the population can now be done by a single individual for virtually no cost at all.

It is no longer necessarily the amount of resources one has at their disposal, but rather the power of their ideas and words that determine the efficacy of their message and the impact it has on society.

IT has leveled the playing field. The United States and Europe for decades, monopolized the flow of information across various forms of media. During World War II, the Allies easily outsmarted Axis powers and their less sophisticated, clumsy propaganda efforts. Between World War II and the Cold War, the US and British ruling circles not only held uncontested influence over their own populations, but through Voice of America and the BBC, they were able to project that influence abroad.

The cost of opening a radio station, a television studio, or a printing press to produce newspapers was prohibitive for the vast majority of people who may have disagreed with the "consensus" created by those who had the resources to produce mass media.

However today, not only does IT allow states once targeted by Western propaganda to better protect political and economic stability within their borders, they are able to get their side of the story out to Western audiences.

Beyond that, independent activists, journalists, and analysts can now write and speak before audiences of millions, contesting "mainstream" narratives promoted by circles of political and economic power worldwide.

The effects of this are evident everywhere we look.

The "alternative media," has already significantly disrupted manufactured "consensus" across a wide variety of interests from big-agriculture and big-pharmaceuticals, to agendas surrounding geopolitical conflicts everywhere from Ukraine to Syria.


Re-centralizing and Reasserting Control 

Independent news, analysis, and activist networks have flourished on the Internet, primarily through blogs, websites, and video channels. However, special interests have invested much in reasserting control over narratives and information in general by re-centralizing media platforms.

This is being done in particular with social media, and especially Facebook. Facebook boasts nearly 1.8 billion users. Virtually every person one passes on the streets using their mobile device, is using Facebook to connect with their friends and to access news and information. Facebook's popularity has all but centralized the majority of online users' activities, thus reasserting control over information has begun here.

Facebook has used many different pretexts to roll out this system of control. In 2014, it claimed that it was changing the way it displays posts in user news feeds because:

Rather than showing people all possible content, News Feed is designed to show each person on Facebook the content that�s most relevant to them. Of the 1,500+ stories a person might see whenever they log onto Facebook, News Feed displays approximately 300. To choose which stories to show, News Feed ranks each possible story (from more to less important) by looking at thousands of factors relative to each person.

However, it is not the user that determines what is most relevant to them, but rather an algorithm created by Facebook. In reality, the change meant that those disseminating information through Facebook and reaching large numbers of people now suddenly found their reach significantly shortened. To reach people that have already consciously decided to follow certain users, it is now necessary to pay Facebook money to "promote" posts.

In essence, the very obstacles of capital in relation to public reach dismantled by the advent of IT, have been reintroduced through Facebook's monopoly over social media.

In 2016, Facebook would tighten the screws further - this time under the pretext of combating "fake news." "Fake news" is a term created by the very monopolies slowly diminishing in the face of expanding and ever sophisticated alternative media.

While hysteria is being created by linking "fake news" with "Russian propaganda" and "white nationalists," in reality the measures being put in place to "fact check" and subsequently censor information deemed "fake news" will target everything that contradicts narratives promoted by US and European special interests - everything from promoting wars, to promoting and expanding big-business.

Time For Another Disruption 

In any struggle, adaptation is required. With Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms joining the so-called war on "fake news," those who seek to maintain the rise of the alternative media and a balance of power across information space must identify the special interests driving this agenda, as well as various means to undermine and overcome it.

Russia, for example, has VKontakte (VK), which competes with Facebook and is widely popular across Russia. It diminishes Facebook's monopoly over social media and gives Russia the ability to control social media within its borders. VK is also a profitable company.

China, likewise, has its own domestic tech-giants that allow it to control media within its borders and among its population.

This creates a balance of power between nations within information space. To create a balance of power within nations, there are other alternatives.

Just like cryptocurrencies are disrupting traditional financial institutions and the control they exercise over global monetary systems, peer-to-peer (P2P) social media platforms may help solve the problem of monopolies like Facebook exercising control over the information we receive - or don't receive.

Alternatives like FreeNet are not centrally controlled. Users download a free program onto their computer and it connects them directly with others using FreeNet around the world. There is no centralized administrator. Rather than a hub to which all users connect like Facebook - P2P networks resemble a mesh in which everyone serves as a node.

Users are anonymous if they wish to be, and content cannot be controlled or censored, nor can access to information be throttled back as Facebook's news feed algorithms do.

Enterprising states or individuals dedicated to establishing a balance of power across information space could make and promote their own P2P social media platforms. While they are not capable of being controlled like Facebook, VK, or China's centralized alternatives, they still help undermine foreign control - and in the long-term, help states adjust to technological decentralization that will inevitably unfold regardless.

While money will not be made in the same way as Facebook's founders are profiting from their control over social media, another form of profit results for the individuals or states that create such a platform.

Geopolitically, a successful, widely used, and disruptive P2P social networking platform that undermines or entirely breaks Facebook's control over social media evens the playing field and allows individuals and states to once again get their side of the story out to the public on equal footing to the "fact checkers" seeking to combat "fake news" on Facebook, Twitter, and other centralized platforms dominated by Western tech-giants.

P2P will not make billions in profits for its creators, but it could help avert a war, disrupt a foreign monopoly from undermining and destroying a nation's economy, or allow a socioeconomic alternative to take root and flourish that otherwise would be hindered by the West's attempts to reassert control over information space and eliminate competition both politically and economically.

When we think of things like social media, we may not immediately link it to the profound impact it has on geopolitics, economics, and the rise and fall of nation states and even regions of the world. But if Facebook's role in the 2011 US-engineered "Arab Spring" serves as any kind of example or warning, it is that uncontested domination over information space can literally destroy not just an entire nation, but an entire region of the planet.

Creating alternatives to Facebook, then, is as essential to a state or individual's security as any traditional weapon system. To face the modern age without such alternatives is to take the battlefield unarmed, unprotected, and entirely unprepared.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine �New Eastern Outlook�.    

Gizmodo Joins Fake News Bandwagon

Unless you consider posing as an objective tech magazine while lobbying for tech-corporations "fake news," then Gizmodo has been on that bandwagon for years. 

January 13, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - Gizmodo in their headline, "Russian Propaganda Channel RT Mysteriously Cut Into C-SPAN's Web Feed [Updated]," would attempt to add to the hysteria circulating among pro-Western audiences regarding alleged Russian "hacking" by portraying a C-SPAN control room error as a case of possible "Russian hacking."

Gizmodo reported:

This afternoon, online viewers of politics-meets-Ambien channel C-SPAN were treated to a disturbing change in programming: For around 10 minutes, the web stream aired RT (formerly Russia Today) instead.

Gizmodo would add:

It�s a Max Headroom moment of sorts, with authoritarian overtones. After all, last week�s declassified report jointly authored by the CIA, FBI, and NSA stated in no uncertain terms that RT was being used throughout the election as a tool to disseminate propaganda and swing the vote towards Donald Trump.

However, the article was soon updated, revealing Gizmodo - like the rest of the corporate Western media - was participating in propaganda, not RT and certainly not nonexistent "Russian hackers."

An update buried at the bottom of the article finally admitted:

C-SPAN said an initial investigation indicated that the interruption was caused by �an internal routing error� and was not the result of a hack.

Gizmodo, which poses as a tech magazine, spends much of its time lobbying for corporations and tech-related establishment narratives while using its editorial space to pass off advertisements as objective critical reviews. Gizmodo is not alone - other alleged tech magazines ranging from Wired to Popular Science and Popular Mechanics, quite literally have staff who communicate directly with and for various departments of the US government.

Gizmodo, like its bigger brothers and sisters at the Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN, and the BBC, find themselves attempting to stoke hysteria regarding "Russian propaganda" only to expose themselves as being engaged in attempts to intentionally deceive and manipulate their audiences to achieve specific economic and political goals - which is ironically, the very definition of propaganda.

AI & Biotech: Striking a Technological Balance of Power

November 26, 2016 (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - During World War 2, nations desperately raced to harness the atom. The United State ultimately won that race, and during their victory lap - being the sole nation to possess nuclear weapons - used them against their enemy Japan - twice.

Tens of thousands of lives were extinguished in the blink of an eye and Japan, already a defeated nation, submitted absolutely to US hegemony which would prevail both over Japan and most of Asia for nearly a century onward.

Images: The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is what uncontested military superiority - or an imbalance of technological and military power - looks like. What will similar disparity in artificial intelligence or biotechnology lead to? 

Since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US has used its immense economic disparity over the last seven decades to build a conventional army and employ various methods of overtly and covertly attacking, undermining, and even overthrowing the political and socioeconomic orders of targeted nations worldwide in its bid to take, hold, and expand global hegemony.

It has used its domination of the media to sell wars, manipulate public perception, and project its socioeconomic, cultural, and military will to the far reaches of the planet.

With the advent of the Internet and social media, its domination over both allowed it to plunge the entire Middle East and North Africa (MENA) into chaos and eventually war in 2011 during the so-called "Arab Spring," a fact the New York Times in an article titled, "U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings," would later admit.

Balancing Power 

With each form of tactical and technological disparity manifesting itself in military aggression, subjugation, exploitation, and immeasurable injustice, attempts to diminish that disparity have helped strike a balance of power.

Image: Russian mobile nuclear missiles and the reason why the United States never used nuclear weapons again.

The development of nuclear weapons by the Soviets, then later China, India, and Pakistan as well as several European powers, helped strike a balance of power within which no nation dared strike another with such weapons again.

Asymmetrical warfare and increasingly sophisticated and prolific anti-tank and anti-air weaponry have allowed nations to raise the cost of US military adventures abroad to the point where direct military intervention has become all but impossible for the US (and other nations as well).

The alternative media has brought to an end what was almost total domination by the Western media over global public perception - and it has done so not only with the emergence of effective state-run media beyond the West, but also through the efforts of thousands of individuals and independent networks worldwide.

In other words, novelty provides those who pioneer and monopolize any given tactic or technology with an initial and significant advantage, but the democratization (widespread distribution) of these tactics and technologies minimizes this disparity and creates a balance of power that makes it difficult for any one party to take advantage of or dominate another.


Preventing Future Imbalances: Biotechnology 

Perhaps the most  frightening impending disparities humanity now faces are those in the fields of biotechnology and artificial intelligence.

Image: South Africa's Rodeplaat Research Laboratories, where genocidal scientists under Project Coast sought to weaponize vaccines to sterilize, even eradicate the nation's black population. 

The sequencing of the human genome has given rise to the practice of "gene therapy" - the ability to overwrite parts of an individual's genetic code. In other words, genetic code can now be introduced into living patients that show cells in the body how to find and eradicate cancer, how to rebuild heart muscles, or how to properly produce insulin in the case of patients suffering from diabetes.

But if code can be introduced so precisely to do great good, it can also be introduced to do great harm. Vaccines laced with vectors delivering the genetic equivalent of malware could potentially, and very subtly, reduce fertility, diminish intelligence, and even manipulate gene expression associated with human behavior.

The prospect of using the concepts behind gene therapy for biological weapons was mentioned in the Neo-Conservative Project for a New American Century's (PNAC) 2000 report titled, "Rebuilding America's Defenses" (.pdf). The chilling report stated (emphasis added):

The proliferation of ballistic and cruise missiles and long-range unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will make it much easier to project military power around the globe. Munitions themselves will become increasingly accurate, while new methods of attack � electronic, �non-lethal,� biological � will be more widely available. (p.71 of .pdf) 

It also stated:

Although it may take several decade for the process of transformation to unfold, in time, the art of warfare on air, land, and sea will be vastly different than it is today, and �combat� likely will take place in new dimensions: in space, �cyber-space,� and perhaps the world of microbes. (p.72 of .pdf)

And finally:

And advanced forms of biological warfare that can �target� specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool. (p.72 of .pdf)

By democratizing this technology, we ensure that the tools used to create and defend against "biological warfare that can "target" specific geneotypes" are in the hands of not only people who seek to do so already, but also in vastly more hands that seek to detect, prevent, or counter such abuses. Democratizing this technology also ensures that the people who need it most get it, rather than remain subjected to the whims and interests of a handful of corporations who seek profits over people and purpose.  

Work toward democratizing biotechnology is being undertaken by both institutions and individuals alike, around the world through opensource biotech tools, and community "DIYbio" labs. Nations are also working to build up their biotech infrastructure, both as a component to their healthcare systems and economy, and as a component of national security. 

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence, long before we must worry about sentient machines and what they may or may not decide to do with a vastly inferior humanity, is already being used in highly specialized applications ranging from automatically extracting intelligence from the millions of photos uploaded to Facebook daily, to gaming the stock market, to managing the UK's National Health Service (NHS), to automatically managing utility grids. 

While many uses of AI are benign, the fact that so few institutions are engaged in high-level AI research and applications invites immense disparity and abuse. While AI applications today do not constitute a sentient being superior to humans in every conceivable way, they do constitute very focused algorithms that are vastly superior to any human performing the same specific task. 

Google's DeepMind subsidiary, and their AI AlphaGo was able to learn and then outplay the world's best Go player. Other developers are creating AI platforms that can learn through trial and error how to play various video games before eventually mastering them with super-human reflexes and strategies. 

Applied to games, they are quaint. Applied to warfare and they are terrifying. The high-speed, ultra-deadly nature of the first Gulf War in which the technological disparity between the US and Iraqi forces left the fourth largest military on Earth in ruination and retreat will be tame in comparison if and when machine learning is applied to real-world military operations. 

The increasing use of drones and automation, and the eventual combination of the two, will create a network an AI simply needs to plug into and direct, either entirely or temporarily, to grant its operators a super-human advantage over their unprepared opponents. 

And such contests need not be waged on conventional battlefields. Cyber and information warfare may also present a tempting battlefield upon which to deploy AI. Targeting the IT infrastructure of an opposing nation, or mass manipulating public perception with increasingly convincing AI 'bots" working ceaselessly to create the illusion of persuasive consensus, could overwhelm unprepared opponents. 

Just like DeepMind's AlphaGo left its human opponent utterly, hopelessly defeated, so too would any military wielding a militarized AI algorithm. However, the ability to multiply force through the use of artificial intelligence is only an advantage if those it is being used against lack similar capabilities. 

Artificial intelligence is not just a component of Facebook or Google's business strategy - US policymakers admit that AI, as well as companies like Facebook and Google themselves, constitute an integral part of creating, maintaining, and projecting American power globally. Nations must not look upon AI as a novelty or an economic asset, but also as a central component to national security. Nations depending on Facebook and Google to prop up their IT infrastructure rather than brewing their own national alternatives are akin to nations during the age of empires inviting British gunboats into their harbors.

Artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and other forms of emerging technology must be viewed by each nation, state, community, and individual not as a mere novelty or potential industry, but also as a potential means to grant those who develop and monopolize it economic, political, and even military superiority history has taught us they most certainly will abuse. 

Just like the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki could never have fathomed the destructive power of the atomic weapons used against them, let alone anticipate they personally would fall victims to such weapons, we too allow ourselves to tempt fate by waiting for the first biological or AI strike before establishing a deterrence through a balance of power. 

We are increasingly connected and empowered by the Internet and other forms of technology already being democratized. We know about emerging technology and we can easily find ways to either raise awareness regarding these issues or directly involve ourselves in the actual process of democratizing this technology. We can and we must, lest we languish under the mushroom clouds and in all-consuming fire ignorance, unpreparedness, and technological disparity invites. 

LocalOrg seeks to explore local solutions to global problems by empowering people locally with education and technology to not only survive, but to thrive.

Facebook, Twitter, Western Media Attempt to Reassert Monopoly Over "Truth"

A network whose members have literally ended the lives of millions with their lies, propose to police the web and verify the truth. 

October 3, 2016 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - In a surreal and stunning example of 21st century propaganda and censorship, Google has cobbled together a coalition it is calling "First Draft" to tackle what it calls "misinformation online." 

First Draft's "founding partners" include News Corporation's (parent company of Fox News) Storyful and NATO think tank Atlantic Council's "Bellingcat" blog, headed by formally unemployed social worker Eliot Higgins who now fashions himself as a weapons expert and geopolitical analyst despite no formal training, practical real-world experience or track record of honest, unbiased reporting. In fact, between News Corporation and Bellingcat alone, Google's First Draft appears to be itself a paragon of, and nexus for "misinformation online." 


Google's Glaring Conflicts of Interest 

Google too, having for years now worked closely with the US State Department, faces its own conflicts of interest in "social newsgathering and verification." In fact, Google has admittedly been involved in engineering intentional deceptions aimed specifically to skew public perception, including doctoring its maps and Google Earth in real-time amid conflicts in favor of US-backed militant groups and through the development of applications designed to psychologically target the Syrian government into capitulating before US-backed militant groups.

The UK Independent in its article, "Google planned to help Syrian rebels bring down Assad regime, leaked Hillary Clinton emails claim," would report that:

An interactive tool created by Google was designed to encourage Syrian rebels and help bring down the Assad regime, Hillary Clinton's leaked emails have reportedly revealed.

By tracking and mapping defections within the Syrian leadership, it was reportedly designed to encourage more people to defect and 'give confidence' to the rebel opposition.

The article would continue:

The email detailing Google's defection tracker purportedly came from Jared Cohen, a Clinton advisor until 2010 and now-President of Jigsaw, formerly known as Google Ideas, the company's New York-based policy think tank.

In a July 2012 email to members of Clinton's team, which the WikiLeaks release alleges was later forwarded to the Secretary of State herself, Cohen reportedly said: �My team is planning to launch a tool on Sunday that will publicly track and map the defections in Syria and which parts of the government they are coming from.�

Cohen would conclude:

�Our logic behind this is that while many people are tracking the atrocities, nobody is visually representing and mapping the defections, which we believe are important in encouraging more to defect and giving confidence to the opposition.�

Can Google then be relied upon to sort out "misinformation online" if it itself is directly involved in manipulating public perception to achieve US foreign policy objectives? To impartial observers, the answer is clearly "no."

First Draft would publish on its website a post titled, "Social networks unite with global newsrooms to take action against misinformation online," adding further details behind the alleged rationale of the coalition. It would state:

Today, news breaks online. Today, the first images to emerge from a breaking news event have been captured by an eyewitness. Today, injustices that may never have been reported become global news stories because a bystander reached for their smartphone. Today, malicious hoaxes and fake news reports are published in increasingly convincing and sophisticated ways. 

We live in a time when trust and truth are issues that all newsrooms, and increasingly the social platforms themselves, are facing. In July, the Guardian�s Editor-in-Chief Katharine Viner wrote about the ways technology is disrupting the truth, explaining �in the news feed on your phone, all stories look the same � whether they come from a credible source or not.� Filtering out false information can be hard. Even if news organisations only share fact-checked and verified stories, everyone is a publisher and a potential source.

The members that constitute the First Draft coalition, however, have enjoyed an uncontested monopoly for decades in determining just what the "truth" actually is, as well as a monopoly over propagating things the global public now know for a fact were "untruths." Again, we see another case of the proverbial fox guarding the hen house.

The Liars Who Lied About WMDs in Iraq Will Protect Us from Liars Online? 

Indeed, many of the organizations that constitute First Draft's coalition played a pivotal role in perhaps the most destructive and costly lie of the 21st century (to date), that involving alleged "weapons of mass destruction" or "WMDs" in Iraq, serving as the pretext for the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

According to some estimates, up to a million perished in the initial invasion and subsequent occupation. More conservative estimates are still in the hundreds of thousands.

Undoubtedly, the invasion, justified by lies propagated across the entirety of US and European media, helped trigger a predictable chain of catastrophes that have left the Middle East to this day in conflict and ruination. These same US and European media organizations, the same ones now signing their names to First Draft, also helped justify the continued presence of US troops in Iraq for years after the invasion, up to and including today.

And the same names signed on to First Draft are also the same names who helped sell the disastrous intervention in Libya and who are now attempting to sell yet another direct Western military intervention in Syria.

And it is perhaps the lack of success these same names are having in selling this most recent potential intervention in Syria that has precipitated First Draft's creation in the first place.

There is a burgeoning alternative media composed of individual independent journalists, analysts and commentators both biased and impartial, both professional and amateur, competing directly with and overcoming the West's longstanding monopoly over international public perception. There is also the emergence of professional and competitive national media organizations across the developing world who are taking increasingly large shares of both the West's media monopoly and its monopoly over the public's trust.

It is clear that First Draft has no intention of protecting the truth as none among its membership have done so until now individually, but rather in collectively protecting what the special interests behind these organizations want the global public to believe is the truth. First Draft is a desperate measure taken by Western special interests to reassert the West's dominance over global public perception by leveraging the widely used social media platforms it controls, including Facebook and Twitter, as well as IT giant Google and its large range of services and applications.

In the end, all that First Draft is likely to accomplish is convincing the developing world of the necessity of creating domestic alternatives to Facebook, Google and Twitter, as well as to continue expanding their own domestic media organizations to better represent their respective national interests upon the global stage and to dilute the dangerous and destructive media monopoly the West has enjoyed and abused for decades.

Until the members of First Draft can cite a lie told by their competitors that is as destructive and as costly as their own lies preceding and underpinning the invasion and occupation of Iraq or the more recent destruction of Libya, their efforts appear more as a means of further deflecting away from the truth, not defending it.

 Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine �New Eastern Outlook�.

Facebook, Internet.org, and the End of Net Neutrality

September 16, 2016 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - American-based aerospace company SpaceX is one of the few Western enterprises pursuing a greater purpose in a nation otherwise obsessed with power and profit. When its rocket was recently lost on the launch pad amidst an anomaly it took with it a satellite to be used by Facebook, an example of the latter. 

The Guardian in an article titled, "SpaceX rocket explosion: Mark Zuckerberg laments loss of Internet.org satellite," would report: 

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg struck a bitter tone in his response to the explosion of the SpaceX rocket carrying a satellite intended for use on his Internet.org project in Africa. 

Writing on his Facebook page, Zuckerberg said: �As I�m here in Africa, I�m deeply disappointed to hear that SpaceX�s launch failure destroyed our satellite that would have provided connectivity to so many entrepreneurs and everyone else across the continent.�

However, while technically Facebook's Internet.org would provide "connectivity" to people across the continent, it would not be providing them with access to the actual Internet.

Instead, it is Facebook's version of the Internet, where the concept of net neutrality - the principle that Internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites - does not exist.

On Facebook's version of the Internet, only those willing to pay large sums of money can have access to audiences while others who do not pay, no matter how popular or meaningful their message may be, are essentially silenced. This is already a reality across Facebook's social network itself, and this network is one of several "Free Basics" offered on Facebook's Internet.org.

Internet.org by Facebook Aims to Control the World, Not "Connect" It 

A visit to Facebook's Internet.org reveals meaningless slogans and images of smiling brown people.

Looking past the superficiality at what Internet.org truly represents, it is clear that it is an attempt to takeover and monopolize the telecom industry and in particular, the entire Internet across the developing world. Not only does Facebook's "Free Basics" limit users to information highly controlled by Western corporate-financier special interests and Facebook's own net neutrality-usurping algorithms, but because the infrastructure employs methods including space-based satellites, the governments and communities exposed to this upturned version of the Internet have no say or control over it.




So obvious is this, that even before Facebook has completed its plans, nations are already fighting back.

In India, net neutrality activists succeeded in getting the invasive, manipulative, and monopolizing service banned from the country. The Guardian's article, "India deals blow to Facebook in people-powered 'net neutrality' row," would report:

Facebook has lost the right to offer its free mobile internet service in India after the country�s telecoms regulator ruled in favour of net neutrality, marking the end of an intense and very public 11-month national debate. 

The new regulations published by India�s Telecom Regulatory Authority (TRAI) ban differential pricing for data services, and make it easier for smaller firms to compete with established companies including Facebook.

Facebook's response was as unsurprising as it was dishonest, claiming:

Our goal with Free Basics is to bring more people online with an open, non-exclusive and free platform. While disappointed with the outcome, we will continue our efforts to eliminate barriers and give the unconnected an easier path to the internet and the opportunities it brings.

In reality, in order to eliminate barriers and connect people, the people themselves must acquire the skills and resources necessary to create their own infrastructure, companies to maintain it, and the ability to create their own content to transmit over it - the very embodiment of both the Internet itself and the underlying hope proponents of net neutrality hold for the Internet. The people using the Internet in their nation should be the primary benefactors of it - not just in terms of having access to useful information, but the ability to earn a living by maintaining its infrastructure.

In addition to Facebook's ability to penetrate and monopolize any given developing nation's telecom industry, considering Facebook's ties to the US State Department and its  role in facilitating regime change and even destructive, violent campaigns of armed subversion, it is very likely Facebook's monopoly would make it that much easier to control and manipulate information space in any given developing nation during a Western-engineered crisis.

This may explain why legitimate nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in India stood up to Facebook's attempt to undermine net neutrality, but nations where NGOs are dominated by US State Department and Open Society funding like Thailand and the Philippines, Facebook's Internet.org has gone unopposed.

Image: "Activists" complain about Thailand's alleged "single gateway" plan to control domestic Internet infrastructure, while Facebook attempts to construct a global "single gateway" it controls, completely unopposed by these same groups - groups generally funded by the US State Department and Open Society, two partners Facebook has worked with in the past and groups that have themselves taken part in training assisted or sponsored by Facebook. . 

Telecom and information technology, like food, water, energy, and a standing army, are essential building blocks for national security and prosperity. Handing the responsibility of any of these over to either a foreign nation or a foreign corporation - or both - is the relinquishing of one's sovereignty and the compromising of one's national security.

Nations and their people must develop their own Internet infrastructure. For Mark Zuckerberg and his government-connected corporation Facebook to presume they are the sole solution to "connecting the world" is but a modern-day version of "The White Man's Burden" - those nations subjected to it subordinated to this domineering arrogance and the self-serving schemes that underpin it.

Facebook's Internet.org is a wake-up call for developing nations to stand up and invest in modern day essential infrastructure - including domestic versions of social networks like Facebook - to ensure they are as safe in the field of information as their conventional armies keep them on the field of battle.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine�New Eastern Outlook�.

Iran Bans Pokemon Go Over Security Concerns

August 8, 2016 (The New Atlas) - Iran has for now, banned Pokemon Go over security concerns. 

The BBC in their article, "Pokemon Go banned by Iranian authorities over 'security'," would report that:

Authorities in Iran have banned the Pokemon Go app because of unspecified "security concerns". 

The decision was taken by the High Council of Virtual Spaces, the official body overseeing online activity. 

Iran follows a number of other countries in expressing its worries over security related to the game.

While the BBC offers no insight into what security concerns Iran specifically had, PC Magazine offered a few theories in its article, "Iran is First Country to Ban Pokemon Go," which reported:

We have our guesses, though. Pokemon Go can encourage players to get creative with their sleuthing at all hours of the night, which can prove troublesome. Trespassing concerns are prevalent, too�so much so, there's even a class-action lawsuit in the works in the United States centered on that very issue.

It's also possible that Iran wants to stop the "Pokemon effect" of tens (if not hundreds) of people all hanging out in the same area for hours at a time, or even the few cases where Pokemon Go players are robbed or assaulted when walking around Pokestops in particular areas.

The disruptive ability of the game to create and manipulate large groups of people on the streests, and other concerns regarding malware and permissions required by the application, couple together with the fact that the game's developer, Niantic, has a somewhat nefarious pedigree.

Pokemon Go's US State Department-Google Upbringing 

Niantic is headed by John Hanke, a former US State Department employee and a former employee of Google. His time at Google included overseeing Google Maps and Google Earth  at a time when the tech-giant was working together with the US State Department to assist protesters and militant groups during the opening stages of 2011's Arab Spring. It would be revealed by the London Guardian's article, "Syria: is it possible to rename streets on Google Maps?," that:

In their struggle to free Syria from the clutches of President Bashar al-Assad, anti-government activists have embarked on a project to wipe him off the map. Literally. On Google Maps, major Damascus thoroughfares named after the Assad family have appeared renamed after heroes of the uprising. The Arab Spring has form in this regard. When anti-Gadaffi rebels tore into Tripoli last August, the name of the city's main square on the mapping service changed overnight � from "Green Square", the name given to it by the erstwhile dictator, to "Martyr's Square", its former title. 

The internet giant's mapping service has a history of weighing in on political disputes. 

In other words, the US State Department, using Google's applications, would augment military operations on the ground in real time through location-based information warfare.

Other aspects of the Google-US State Department collaboration were also revealed during this time, including an application proposed by Jared Cohen of Google (formally of the US State Department) to track alleged defections across Syria's government and military in real-time to panic the rest of the nation into folding under the US-backed uprising.

The UK Independent in its article, "Google planned to help Syrian rebels bring down Assad regime, leaked Hillary Clinton emails claim," would report that:

An interactive tool created by Google was designed to encourage Syrian rebels and help bring down the Assad regime, Hillary Clinton's leaked emails have reportedly revealed. 

By tracking and mapping defections within the Syrian leadership, it was reportedly designed to encourage more people to defect and 'give confidence' to the rebel opposition.

Considering the role the US State Department and Google played in setting the stage for the now ongoing war ravaging Syria to this day in which Iran is currently assisting the Syrian government, it is not difficult to see why Tehran would have reservations regarding a Google-US State Department-connected application like Pokemon Go being widely used within its borders. 

The application can literally create a small mob virtually anywhere at anytime by simply populating virtual Pokemon characters at any given location. There is even a feature to specifically lure users to a particular area. While Niantic has claimed this is a means for businesses to attract customers, political campaigners in the US have already used it to lure players to political rallies.

(A Pokemon Go instant-mob.) 

Iran, a nation the US has openly targeted in the past with organised uprising, is unlikely to want an application operating within its borders, created by a former US State Department employee with connections to Google, that is capable of generating crowds anywhere at any given time. Even as a means to throw off security forces, it would serve as a valuable tool to those seeking to subvert peace and stability.

Considering the price Syria is now paying for allowing foreign-backed elements to upend social order and stability there, Iran's decision seems fairly reasonable and justified.

Conversely, Iran, and other nations, would be much better served by developing their own augmented reality, location-based applications, where their use and abuse would be directly controlled by the people using them, within the nation they are being used.

 The New Atlas is a media platform providing geopolitical analysis and op-eds. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.