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he perception of the benefit outweighing the risk permeates the human condition ever more so within the digital universe than during the time before the world wide web.

The world is a much different place with this digital generation building virtual communities and making on-line friends that may or may not be who they say they are.

In this same way the Internet is not so much free speech building a path to a better democracy than an e-commerce marketplace – a logical progression in human development from hanging out all day in the shopping mall to following click bait leads through the cyberverse.

The Internet is a gigantic honeypot of consumers lured there for the financial exploitation of entrepreneurs with the ecommerce market becoming increasingly concentrated in fewer and fewer megacorporations that make the viability of new start-ups more and more near unlikely.

Make no mistake though, the digital world is a hive not just for start-up businesses, but for established criminal organizations, large domineering corporations and power ambitious politicians.

The teenager in Seattle may not experience the depth of the risk that life on-line poses, but that good will generated in the affluent free world communities lures unsuspecting victims in poorer neighborhoods and the less transparent virtual streets of the developing world.

The Wallstreet Journal series on Facebook details the worst that can be expected of on-line ‘piracy’, but also that executives at the massive digital global corporation know about the problems and consistently do not do enough or nothing at all to fix them.

If CEO Mark Zuckerberg

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does not like your Facebook page, he simply engineers a fly in your newsfeed algorithm that slows, if not stops from rising altogether, the popularity of your posted content.

The digital world looks easy, but success is just as riddled in obstacles, and just as unlikely as starring in that winning Broadway play in the famed New York City theatre district.

Zuckerberg can change your future just as easily as he changed the corporate entity name from Facebook to Meta Platforms Inc, or something like that (it’s still Zuckerberg’s Facebook) when he started to feel the political maelstrom coming. But one of the most influential CEOs on the planet is so brazen that he chose a name that implies wrongdoing with people’s trusted personal information.

Metadata is a digital profile of a user’s on-line content, including personal profile information, that allows companies like Facebook and government surveillance organizations like the NSA (US National Security Agency) to find you, and profile you, even when you are in the bathroom.

The digital age anti-hero, American Edward Snowden

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discloses that the American government controls much of the digital universe, except for those parts controlled by China and perhaps Russia, kind of like competing at the online World Series with only three countries invited, and the Americans almost always hosting the competitions at home plate.

Snowden does not use the sports analogy, probably because he has been in exile in Moscow too long, especially too long since snacking on those roasted peanuts while taking in a baseball game.

But Snowden was not much of a sports fan, according to his own words in the autobiography, Permanent Record. No doubt Snowden wrote the memoir to make his case for anti-hero status by telling the world who he is and why he did what he did, and most of all, that he is as American as baseball and apple pie.

Snowden draws a picture of himself as more American than over 90 percent of Americans, with his ancestry dating back to the pilgrims escaping religious persecution on the Mayflower, and then a family tree with a long line of service in the American military.

Whereas Snowden began his career next to Fort Mead where is parents were stationed while he was growing up, Zuckerberg began his digital hacking career by copying an existing campus website and modifying the algorithm so college friends could rate each other worthy enough or not for the college dating circuit.

Sure you can twist your own personal truth, especially growing up a military brat with few witnesses to suggests the contrary, but you kind of got to crack a smile and believe Snowden when he says that at the age of 7, he tried to fix his dad’s 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System, but he lost a screw in the process and couldn’t quite get all the parts back into the gamebox before his dad came home from research work at the naval avionics electronics laboratory.

‘Little Ed’ found out at an early age that the truth out there in the real world is so complicated that playing computer games and searching the Internet for the facts of life is an over-simplification of the daily struggle to survive that many Americans face.

Snowden’s secret of tampering with the ‘boy toys’ was safe within the family though, as his parents both had top secret security clearance.

THE MACHINE WORLD RECIPROCATES MAN’S LOVE BY EXPEDITING HIS WISHES AND DESIRES, NAMELY, IN PROVIDING HIM WITH WEALTH

MARSHALL McLUHAN

Like most hackers, Snowden likes to talk about his hacks, especially the really big ones, like the hack of the US National Nuclear Laboratory computer at Los Alamos. Snowden explains that at the age of 12, he just thought he would try the hack, and he just so happened to find the digital front door unlocked at Los Alamos.

I believe Ed’s telling of the progression from hacking bedtime rules to ratting on US President Barrack Obama’s surveillance program, and becoming the biggest anti-hero since US Military analyst Daniel Ellsberg blew the whistle on the American military involvement in Vietnam.

That projection to stardom is more or less the same that Zuckerberg is on, according to former Facebook CEO and cofounder Chris Hughes,

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who published an editorial in the New York Times calling for the breakup of the ‘mega data mining corp’, Facebook.

Hughes confirms that Zuckerberg can personally change the algorithms on Facebook. Zuckerberg can switch you off like a light or turn you into a star on a whim. And the most influential person in the digital world takes a personal interest in doing so.

Like Bill Gates of Microsoft, as Gates was described in the first part of this series, Zuckerberg has an insatiable appetite to dominate the digital world. And Zukerberg does so by picking and choosing competitors to “acquire, block or copy”, according to Hughes.

“News Feed algorithms could change our culture, influence elections and empower nationalist leaders,” writes Hughes.

That ability to manipulate the culture and social engineer is a lot of power for an unelected capitalist whose favorite topic at Harvard was the expansion of the Roman Empire under Caesar Augustus.

The deepening concentration of American corporations should be of concern to the rest of the world, although not the presence of capitalism alone, but the size and breadth of the economic and social influence of a legal entity operating within a loosely regulated free market.

These corporations have a long reach from America to the rest of the developed world, and easily influences everywhere else with billion dollar investments into digital infrastructure and the promise of thousands of new jobs.

By leaking the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times and the Washington Post, Ellsberg revealed that the military generals knew that the Vietnam War was one hundred percent unwinnable and much, much riskier to the American public than of a benefit.

Ellsberg smuggled out top secret reports he had access to on behalf of the US contractor, the RAND Corporation. Snowden states the CIA uses contractors to shield their agent’s true purpose as government spies.

Snowden too was working on a report searching CIA computer databases when he stumbled onto operation honeycomb. Of course, once a hacker’s interest is peaked, a hacker continues to search for interesting top secret reads until the door is closed again.

“America remains the hegemon, the keeper of the master switches that can turn almost anyone on and off at will,” writes Snowden (p. 163)

Facebook users post content without charge, and develop networks on-line, and then give it all up when the NSA comes knocking with a silent warrant issued by a judge for that personal data stored on megacorp computer hard drives.

The perception created by social media companies is that the on-line world is freer and more open and fairer, almost more democratic than democracy itself, but in digital reality, the systemic flaws in the social order are condensed on-line like an archeological midden. Everything is compressed and exaggerated with this veil of authenticity and trustworthiness that has no grounding in reality.

The problem of privacy is exacerbated because the people who created the digital midden are still alive and vulnerable to manipulation if the social media company decides to sell the information contained in the metadata to advertisers or give the profiles up to the intelligence community knocking on the door.

And at the same time, the digital on-line world is much more dangerous than street life, because of the possibility of manipulation and the unassuming users caught in the honeycomb.

First, the algorithms are set to massage content. And then second, the data from the use of the content generated from the algorithms is sold to ecommerce corporations, potential advertisers or government surveillance.

The added danger of that silent warrant is that no one else knows about the search and seizure of private personal information other than the government surveillance agency, the mega social media corporation mining metadata and the judge.

The moral use of metadata cannot be trusted. Social media engineers are called capitalists for a reason. And intelligence agents are called spies for a reason.

EVERYONE INVOVLED IN THE PROCES OF OBTAINING SILENT WARRANTS MIGHT JUST HAVE TOO MUCH RIGHT WING BIAS TO ASSESS THE SITUATION OBJECTIVELY.

The factual matrix for silent warrants can be manipulated with dubious intent. Judges are not always right after being misled by the information advanced to obtain the warrants in a closed courtroom, or everyone involved in the process just having too much right wing bias to rationally consider the long term damage to individual civil rights, protected by the constitution, through which the next e-generation will have to muster.

The ownership of the facts, and the manipulation of those facts, control the real and virtual world orders simultaneously, as electioneers are discovering almost only now, and a bit too late.

Algorithms can change more than the popularity of your social media pages. The free world order and the politics of democracy are just as susceptible to algorithm fraud as consumer spending habits. Content does not just flow into the newsfeed. Algorithms direct content there more aggressively than some managing editors of national broadcasting corporations control prime time news.

The power of influence through content manipulation is one of the reasons Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos diversified his portfolio by purchasing the Washington Post. The national newspaper had been owned and operated by the Graham family, but the ‘ma and pa press’ was at risk of insolvency.

Billionaire Bezos purchased the Washington Post for $250 million USD and gradually restored some of the journalistic integrity to the historically influential newspaper. For politicians like former US Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Donald Trump, the sinking of the Post would have been the best possible outcome for a right wing democracy.

Bezos reinventing the Washington Post was probably a nightmare for the political right.

The newspaper barons of lore meet with business leaders and politicians from time to time, even inviting them into the newsroom to talk directly to journalists shaping the news. When Bezos turns the newsroom around from losing 400 of 1600 journalists to hiring 200, and meets regularly in DC with the editorial team, his presence is felt in the building and his influence must certainly at least indirectly affect the front page leads and opinion columns.

Bezos took a page out of Daimler, when the automaker bought Chrysler, and raided the Washington Post pension fund. The ecommerce tycoon then made moves, like Citizen Kane, and gave the newspaper a new life on-line in the digital age.

Tonya from North Dakota might have an opinion on the ongoing functionality of missile siloes, but whether that thought is grounded in the truth is as much of a guess as hers was. Journalist and editorial boards source out the facts for the opinion, whereas social media publishers at the most just look for red flag triggers of hate and homophobia and bigotry imbedded as tropes in the language.

Facebook is not protected by free speech. Social media posts are protected by an omnibus legislation drafted by the United States Senate, Congress and the Oval Office for the developing stages of the digital universe. The legislation was to foster limitless growth of ecommerce and the on-line world by protecting companies providing storage servers for virtual reality content.

But as Producer Jessica Chastain points out in the documentary about the sex trade, I Am Jane Doe (2017), the same legislation, protected by Congress and enforced by the Canadian and American judiciary to protect social media posts, also protects organized crime sites that prey on global innocence.

Free speech has nothing to do with young American girls being nurtured into sex slaves for fat belly yokels.

Zuckerberg, as do many Americans, haul out the freedom mantra every time digital publishing gets put under the hot spotlights of the mainstream press. Before the legislation, right wing crack pots and left wing wig heads would have to take out an ad or write a letter to their friends for their extremist opinions to be read. And the ads might not have gotten published either, while the letter might have got lost in the mail on a cold rainy night along the publishing trail.

Even national media, first of all, have limited space and resources to publish material, and second of all, have sophisticated editorial boards for vetting content. Social media companies rely on artificial intelligence that has been programmed to identify language tropes, doing the work of seasoned journalist with advanced degrees from prestigious universities.

Facebook has artificial intelligence protecting, through non-feasance, fake news and libelous posts originally published by algorithms and software patches.

Literally millions of Facebook users might not experience any adverse effects from an algorithm, but an entire nation an ocean away, such as India, might experience racial riots and have to live with a president they did not want as a result of the same lack of control, or in a darker telling of the world wide web, because of the intent to manipulate the information highway for profit.

No doubt, Zuckerberg drives a ‘big masheen’.

Meta Platforms Inc. (Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) whitelists celebrities, influencers and other users that have either paid for their popularity or attract advertising revenue to their posts.

Celebrities with perfect lives, beautiful faces and perfect bodies lure in social media users and a heck of a lot of cash, just like talent does in Hollywood and TV time on national broadcasting networks.

In one year, in one virtual reality that merged with surviving the daily struggles on the city streets, Facebook made $152,000 in advertising for massage parlors.

According to the Wallstreet Journal Facebook Files, Zuckerberg can turbocharge the growth of political movements through the manipulation of the algorithm. The algorithm determines what content ends up in what newsfeed in what political election.

Zuckerberg chose to help stop genocide in places like Ethiopia, while social media users in Indonesia have witnessed murder videos posted to their pages. And European political parties have shifted their real world political platforms to conform with the algorithm designed for their country.

Facebook has been developed pursuant to the other American free market capitalist value of ‘make money now’, whichever way but loose, and ask for forgiveness later.

With neglect, the digital universe can potentially become a test kitchen for socializing and building communities that eventually provide the blueprint for social engineering unplugged on street level.

When US President Barack Obama caught the digital wave of support on social media to win the national election in 2008, many people were still scratching their heads out of curiosity. But each successive presidential election has been more and more influenced by social media companies to the extent that election scrutineers, who include the department of justice providing overwatch, have become concerned about the possibility of election rigging and vote tampering.

Zuckerberg only had to turn off 5% of the national college vote to allow the Republicans to win in 2020, and less than 1% in pivotal swing states such as Arizona, Wisconsin and Georgia.

The power and influence that comes with controlling information is what has authorities so pissed off at Snowden and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. The information highway carries more than one message, but the ability to get the right message to the right people, at the right time carries significant political power, with the potential of immense wealth, future fortune and fame.

The government holds a lot of information that the public is not conscious of, resulting in a hacker’s paradise in the search for damaging content when the ‘digital door is left open’ by agencies conducting matters in secret.

Snowden points out that the smart phone alone is a treasure trove of information. If the NSA wants to find you and find out everything about you, they just have to hack your smartphone for your present past history. And this hack may just occur without your knowledge.

Military intelligence agencies can access your metadata from social media and on-line usage with silent warrants, and then track you down in real time with your smart phone.

Once they cage you in a digital prison, the holders of the keys to your heart can track your heat signatures to tell whether you are standing up or sitting down when pissing in the pot they let you keep.

If you think you just have to turn off the WIFI, agents can follow your work on screen, before you even publish the content, with electromagnet pulses that reproduce your screen images on their computer screens.

Imagine not knowing what the agent next to the black site you have found yourself in can do to you, then imagine the virtual universe you are stuck in without Edward Snowden.

America asks for forgiveness later, almost always.

So, the digital age has Mark Zuckerberg acting like Caesar Augustus, and Jeff Bezos like Citizen Kane, Edward Snowden like Daniel Ellsberg, Elon Musk like Nicola Tesla, Bill Gates as Bill Gates, Bob Iger as famous as Mickey Mouse, and Tim Cook… well that’s for the third part of our series.

An Ugly Truth, by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang, New York, Harper Collins Publishers, 2021

The Permanent Record, by Edward Snowden, New York, Metropolitan Books, 2019.

Opinion/It’s Time to Break Up Facebook, by Chris Hughes, New York Times, May 9, 2019.

The Facebook Files, Jeff Horwitz, et al, Wall Street Journal, September 21, 2021 to November 9, 2021.

Amazon Unbound, by Brad Stone, New York, Simon & Schuster, 2021.

Fulfillment, by Alec MacGillis, New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021.

Power Play, by Tim Higgins, New York, Doubleday, 2021