Judas Oscariot

 I have no idea whether "The Social Network" will win the best picture Oscar.  Maybe it already has.  I don't watch award shows.  The producers have the gall to broadcast a 3-hour ad for Hollywood and still to lard it with ads for cars and beer and boner pills or whatever.  Awards shows are tedious, besides.  If they'd just show the 100 best trailers and the 100 sexiest stars, then I might watch.

I don't know whether Mark Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook, but I do know that he is a villain.  Practically everything he has ever done with the site proves that.  Repeated privacy violations, followed by insincere apologies (as evident from the next violation/apology cycle), have steadily removed privacy.  At this point, I assume that anything I ever do on FB is recorded and available to FB's marketing partners.  They've already been caught targeting users based on their private messages.  They've already been caught posting chat sessions for the world to see.  Do you need to be smacked with a 2x4 to get the message?

FB is selling you and your demographic attributes to the highest bidder.  That's why "Harvard" shows up on my thumbnail despite my efforts to get rid of it.

Zuckerberg likes to wrap himself in the mantle of free information.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  He only wants to liberate your information from you for the benefit of access to your wallet.  Those of us on FB are just marks, succumbing to a con because we like hearing from our friends.  It's exploitation.

Facebook continues to allow virus writers to spread their crap.  Click on a video a friend has posted, and you can never tell whether you'll see a video - or post the same video to all your friends, as if you'd clicked Like.  It's an abuse, and FB won't stop it.

Here's what I want to think about:  How can we build an open source, decentralized social network with the benefits of Facebook and without the soul-selling drawbacks?