"Did You Get My Check?"

That's the burning question Facebook's Dear Leader Marky-Mark Zuckerberg will be asking members of the House committee next week, as he testifies before congress about Facebook's questionable handling of member's privacy issues.  But that's little surprise to normal Americans who shake their collective heads at the corruption that occurs between the Deep State and the so-called Titans of Technology.

But as USA Today reports, it's true.  I quote from www.westernjournal.com:

The congressional panel that received the most contributions from the company is the House Energy and Commerce Committee, whose lawmakers are set to question Zuckerberg on Wednesday.  Of the 55 members on this committee, all but nine of them have received contributions by Facebook for the past decade, with the average Democrat receiving nearly $6,750 and the average Republican receiving $6,800.

Panel members announced their committee would question Zuckerberg to shed light on what they call “critical consumer data privacy issues and help all Americans better understand what happens to their personal information online.”

They also said they appreciate Zuckerberg’s “willingness to testify.” In regards to Facebook’s campaign gift, however, Republicans got a mere 33 percent and Democrats got 65 percent, adding to about $7 million worth of gifts.

As we've posted here previously, part of the issue is the selling of information mined from users' profiles and posts that is used in political campaigning.  There was little interest in Facebook's normal business model when that detailed information was sold to the Kenyan's reelection efforts in 2012, but all hell broke loose when the Donald Trump campaign did the same thing in 2016.  Now the Democrats in Congress are in high dudgeon that  - gasp! - the Republicans should be able to access that business model's data for their own purposes as well.  Fair only works one way in the democrat mind.

The other issue, and probably more sinister, is the more than seven thousand fake Facebook accounts that were run by Russian operatives - the infamous trolls.  They would upload provocative posts, and when users "liked" them, the trolls would collect that data, and recruit those members to rally or protest or otherwise engage in political discourse.  All propaganda aimed at the expense of American interests, of course.

One such piece of propaganda is seemingly all-American on its face.  See image (right).  Posted on Facebook's Instagram, it seeks to elicit anger against the Muslim invasion.  How could any red-blooded American not agree with that?  It got 6,000 "likes."  But, friends and neighbors, it was a Russian plant.  Untold in this story - yet, anyway - is what happened to all the information contained on all those 6,000 Facebook users who "liked" that post.  Are they targets for Russian/Marxist/Leftist retribution?  Or perhaps recruitment?  Or is their personal information just stored, ready to be accessed and used at some other time?  I don't know, either.

But I do know that whenever you cede power over yourself to others, it will invariably be used against you.  Keeping your own personal power is what freedom is really all about.   And within the whole of mankind's history, there always have been forces that seek to relieve you of that power.  And only the vigilant and wary can resist.

And that's some of the issues - hopefully - that Marky-Mark and his Facebook data monster will have to address.

Right after he verifies that those in congress got his check.