Facebook/Biden

“On Saturday, Mr. Rosen said in the blog post that among Facebook’s American users, vaccine hesitancy had declined by 50 percent since April and vaccine acceptance had increased by 10 to 15 percentage points, or to over 80 percent from 70 percent.”  –NYT

How would they know? I didn’t get an e-mail asking my status. No, they sifted through the data, that they collected, while you thought you were connecting with friends. How myopic can you be? Never mind inaccurate.

It’s funny how Facebook and the rest of these tech companies kiss the ass of China, do whatever authoritarians want them to, but when it comes to the United States they believe they’re safe, impenetrable, bigger than the government. Administrations come and go, but Facebook remains.

Misinformation. It’s why people are not getting vaccinated. I know not because I read about it, but because my inbox is full of people e-mailing me false reports. All you have to do is Google to find out these bloviators and their opinions have been debunked. But if you get a vaccine you’re acceding to the power of the government, whereas if you believe some bozo anti-vax philosophy you’re in control. Let me ask you, do you want to be in control of the airplane? How come expertise is meaningless in today’s society?

As for all those computer science students, you know, the STEM people, maybe they needed to take humanities courses, because last time I checked our brains aren’t digital, nor is sex, nor are most of our feelings and decisions. Facebook is like a rogue dictatorship run by someone only barely better educated than Kim Jong-un. And Zuckerberg’s mentors? All data and finance people. And just like Trump thinks he’s entitled to still be president, Zuckerberg believes Facebook has a god-given right to exist. Hell, Apple allows users to turn off tracking and Zuckerberg throws a conniption fit. As if he’s entitled to hoover up our data. Wasn’t he prepared for this? Isn’t being a techie being worried about disruption?

As for disruption, Facebook missed the memo that you’ve got to pay creators and give them a chance for an audience. You can start from zero on TikTok and the platform will seed your video to those not following you to give you a chance. But not on Facebook, which cultivates your feed using black-box algorithms. Do you want to know why our country is divided? WE DON’T SEE THE SAME NEWS! Whether it be on Facebook or Google. It’s like a bad remake of “2001,” the computers are in control, soulless, and in this case only interested in making a buck, and power, of course. The truth is Facebook is in the middle of getting disrupted, it was asleep at the wheel. And Zuckerberg cozied up to Trump but not Biden. But Zuck makes all that money on Trump/right-wing stories, ever see the list of the most shared posts on Facebook? THEY’RE ALL RIGHT-WING! I mean each and every one of them, well, eight out of ten, the others are cat videos and other innocuous trifles.

And now Zuckerberg is telling us he’s not the problem, but the solution. It’s “1984” but in real life. Researchers ask interviewees why they won’t get the shot and they all say because of what they read on Facebook, I’m not making this up, read the studies, but now Facebook says exactly the opposite?

The first rule of thumb?

Never ever respond. And if someone does, in internet land, they find out the joke is on them. Because the silent majority is no longer silent, they’ve all got keyboards, and they let others know how they feel, and suddenly you’re in the crosshairs. Funny how a social media company doesn’t know how you act on social media. Facebook should have said they’ll have a meeting with the government, kick the ball down the road, wait for the story to fade away, which it always seems to do in the fast-paced world of today. But now this is a story.

Primarily because of the Delta variant. Did you see that one in five cases nationally was in Florida? Where DeSantis is so busy running for president he’s running to the right and killing people? No masks, no vaccination cards, open the state up… Do you really want to get on a cruise ship without knowing everybody has been vaccinated?

And the Delta variant is in the news every damn day. Because infections are going up, as are deaths. Furthermore, essentially one hundred percent of the infections are in people who have refused the shot, who are unvaccinated. It’s become Russian Roulette. I gotta ask you punk, do you feel lucky?

Kinda funny, just like every social movement that becomes mainstream, from gay marriage to legal marijuana, enough time has gone by that people are waking up to the fact you want to be vaccinated, and those who are not… This ain’t gonna go on forever, people are going to start getting the shot, because they’re gonna know people who get infected. Because infections are happening in all the places where people thought they were immune, like rural areas. We didn’t see this coming. It’s time to be optimistic. Then again, if these people are stupid enough to go bare and get infected…they find out that no one cares about them, they think they’re part of a tribe who will protect them but it turns out they’re just collateral damage to be ignored. Every day there’s a report of relatives of the dead crying, saying everybody should get the shot. You learn from experience.

As for Biden… They jump on him 24/7 in the right-wing sphere, and what does Biden do? IGNORE IT! For a long time, he wouldn’t even mention Trump’s name! How is it seventy-eight-year-old Biden knows more about media management, staying on message, triumphing than seemingly everybody younger than him? You cannot cave to the haters. I don’t care if you’re Mother Teresa, the Pope, go on social media and you’ll find someone who hates your guts and says so. You can’t let it get to you. That’s how you know someone is a winner, if they’re aware you’ve got to ignore the rabble-rousers.

And the raw truth is Facebook is a private enterprise, the First Amendment doesn’t apply. End of story. So Zuck and company can get rid of anything they want to, but they don’t want to, because of the MONEY! Meanwhile, these multinationals based in the U.S. shift income to tax havens so they don’t have to cough up any dough to the country and the recent right-wing mantra is that we can’t increase the size of the IRS because… Well, if big business and rich people have to pay taxes…somehow it’s going to ruin the country as if the trickle-down theory hasn’t resulted in income inequality so bad that seemingly everybody working for a living is looking for someone to blame. David Geffen posts a picture from his yacht, saying this is where he’s riding out the shutdown, and gets crucified for it and shuts up, but Jeff Bezos gets a new girlfriend and is love drunk and gives up his job, buys a yacht, which is just a measurement of a billionaire’s unit, and is flying into space not realizing that every day he’s becoming more hated around the world. We use Amazon, but we’re as positive about it as our cable providers. Tried to shop on Amazon recently? Between the ads and the “Amazon’s Choice” picks that are not the best deal you need an MBA and half an hour to buy toothpicks. But in the name of commerce, everything’s fair game!

Meanwhile, no one wants a crappy job anymore. With time off they’ve thought about it and they’ve realized there must be another way, or if they’re gonna do the gig they must be paid more. Sure, we need to raise the minimum wage, but it turns out the pandemic is doing a good job of it while the frozen Congress is embattled in a no-win, no-action contest.

If you think you can rule America in the future by only appealing to your base, you’re wrong. You’re one step away from a revolution. Biden hits at Facebook and… Who really wants to defend Facebook? Who wants to defend misinformation? Turns out not many. It’s an easy target.

And being president is not like building a career online. If you’re looking for good feelings from likes online you’re part of the machine, posting ever more to ultimately find it’s too much work and you end up nowhere. You were an influencer and now… It’s not like YouTube gives you a pension. Biden’s got a different job, he doesn’t need to be in the news 24/7, so when he does take a stand, it’s got much more gravitas.

It’s like America’s a competition, everybody playing for accolades online, ignoring reality, which ultimately comes to bite them on the ass.

Turns out the Democratic strategy wasn’t working. The Supreme Court allowed the evisceration of voting rights. So, Biden turned it into a street fight.

This is only the beginning.

~~~