Many readers are, no doubt, aware that Facebook has been caught in a major scandal where it was “running a psychology experiment on hundreds of thousands of people without their knowledge or consent” (first link). A magazine exposed the Facebook on-line experiment and there has been a torrent of understandable outrage. One Facebook user cited in a USA Today article (first link) is quoted as saying Facebook “…definitely overstepped the bounds there” and a second individual called the Facebook manipulations “Orwellian.” I would agree.
The first link reported that Facebook conducted an experiment on its users to see if they could be manipulated either negatively or positively by Facebook’s personnel. Facebook tried to apologize for their intrusive actions, but one has to wonder if any of their comments about their user manipulation program are true. Facebook says “nearly 700,000 users” were manipulated in this program. Can we believe this statement? Was it actually a far larger number? The public wouldn’t know. After Facebook’s secretive manipulation of its own users, their credibility isn’t very high right now re: whatever statements they release. Supposedly, this program was conducted for a single week in 2012. Do you believe that assertion?
One wonders in how many nations this Facebook manipulation program was used. The second link reports that the United Kingdom is investigating Facebook to see how many (or if) their citizens were manipulated by Facebook. French authorities are also reported to be “reviewing the matter.” It seems logical that both these nations have good cause to believe their citizens were also subjected to Facebook’s manipulation program or they wouldn’t be investigating the scandal. The second link also states that UK authorities revealed that Facebook was working with “two US universities” in conducting this mind-manipulation experiment. This fact indicates that this was no rogue operation by some out-of-control Facebook staffers. It was a highly organized and well-planned program that was, obviously, never expected to be revealed to the public. Given its level of coordination and high-level approvals, it seems very unlikely to me that this mind-manipulation experiment only lasted one week. It also begs the question of whether a US government agency was funding and coordinating the project. We all know about the massive NSA spying program targeting all citizens so such a government involvement would not be surprising.
Biblically, this kind of intrusiveness fits perfectly with the prophecy in Revelation 13:16-18 that the final global “beast” system will have the ability to both monitor and control global financial transactions. The fact that Revelation 13:15 also foretells that all will be required to “worship the beast” (this can be defined several ways) in this future system that will control the masses globally. The NSA spying programs, the Facebook mind-manipulation program, etc. all confirm that the technology is being put into place to fulfill the prophecy of Revelation 13 that the final beast system will have global people-control systems in place during its brief 42-month reign (Revelation 13:15).
One thing we know for sure. Big Brother is watching you in all kinds of ways, and on a scale that George Orwell couldn’t possibly imagine. Given the massive technological advances in recent decades, there is no need for a global Hitlerian “Gestapo” in black coats that comes out and knocks on doors to conduct searches to see what people are thinking, what associations they are in, who they know and interact with, etc. This is all easily discernible via electronic media monitoring of all people as they use their computers.
It is only one small step for global government agencies and private mega-corporations to go from mass monitoring of people to outright controlling people via electronic media without them even being aware they are being manipulated. The Facebook scandal confirms that at least one mega-corporation has already tried to move in the direction of manipulating people on-line without their knowledge. It is my personal view that this will not be the first on-line effort to manipulate people.
Do you use Facebook? I’m sure many readers of this blog are Facebook users. This begs the question: Were you being manipulated by Facebook too?
- http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/07/02/facebook-news-feed-experiment-backlash/12078327/
- http://news.yahoo.com/uk-investigating-facebook-over-psych-experiment-140430442.html
