Thread by @blmohr

1/ Russian trolls are the least of Facebook’s concerns; Minority suppression, Peter Thiel and Project Alamo may prove more vexing.
[Thread]

2/ The hatred toward minority communities starts at the top.
bit.ly/2xeFIfw

3/ ind.pn/2kspvxq

4/ And every day it threads its way through numerous lives on Facebook.

5/ Over the last decade, fb has become a breeding ground for theft, racism, abuse, bullying, misogyny, child pornography, murder, rape and..

6/ ...even beheadings.
bit.ly/2fPWkD8

7/ Through its blissful ignorance, the problem grows.
bzfd.it/2fMn6Z8

8/ And even though it’s tried to reduce the published violence by adding more moderators, the issues persist.
reut.rs/2yM6N6c

9/ Partly because of its built-in ideology.
bit.ly/2p0VE1b

10/ But mainly because its overall system for monitoring violence is flawed.

11/ For starters, it's internal guidelines and how they're administered across its 2 billion monthly users can be wildly inconsistent.

12/
bit.ly/2q7dThG

13/ A growing number of minority leaders have been banned from the site with no justification and/or explanation.
bit.ly/2wxMFEf

14/ Shaun King, a Black Lives Matter activist and former fb guest speaker was banned for sharing a racist email he received.

15/ read.bi/2yqSBDy

16/ Leslie Mac, a social justice activist, was banned for commenting on white people being silent when they see racism.

17/ tcrn.ch/2xSPOT3

18/ Ijeoma Oluo, an activist and writer, was banned for what she calls #crackerbarrelgate.

19/ bit.ly/2vtErzZ

20/ A change. org campaign has been started w/ suggestions for how these issues can be resolved. bit.ly/2t4eWTY

21/ Germany’s taken it a step further by passing a social media hate speech law.
bit.ly/2tsto8C

22/ A similar law being passed by the U.S. Congress right now seems farfetched at best.

23/ Especially since Peter Thiel is one of Trump’s most senior advisors.
bit.ly/2fzVIOi

24/ Thiel, fb’s longest serving board member & Zuckerberg confidant, has a checkered past regarding discrimination.
bit.ly/2koj5iT

25/ He’s currently in talks w/ the WH to become the chair of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board.

26/ The P.I.A.B. oversees the activities of the U.S. intelligence agencies. Its power cannot be overstated.
bit.ly/2fzVIOi

27/ It’s a perfect fit for Thiel’s obsession w/ the so-called Deep State and Palantir, the data-mining and analytics company he co-founded.

28/ bit.ly/2fzVIOi

29/ Palantir, which received $2M in funds from the CIA's venture arm In-Q-Tel, has been helping the gov track illegal immigrants since 2011.

30/ Thiel stands to greatly "benefit financially from a deportation campaign."
bit.ly/2hwVdaK

31/ At the same time, Thiel’s personally invested in ComparaGuru com, a consumer site that helps Mexicans “find the right financial...

32/ ...product at the most competitive price."

33/ Palantir is also used by law enforcement agencies across the country. bit.ly/2vlDk2n

34/ Thiel and his Founders Fund have invested more than $1 billion dollars in at least 50 data-collection startups.

35/ They range from smart home data collecting, financial platforms and consumer shopping habits to cybersecurity and machine learning & AI.

36/ bit.ly/2xWFaIs

37/ Aside from being an early investor in fb, Thiel was also an early investor in Thrive Capital, a VC fund started by Josh Kushner, Jared…

38/ …Kushner’s brother.
read.bi/2y3iXKu

39/ The Kushners and Thiel investments overlap at various startups like Reddit, Artsy, Oscar and Cadre.

40/ In a revised filing after entering the WH, Jared revealed his real estate holding comp. owned a stake in Cadre.
wapo.st/2yKCyN5

41/ Yuri Milner, a billionaire Russian investor who co-founded Digital Sky Technologies, is also an investor in Cadre.

42/ D.S.T. and Mail.ru, another Milner company, invested $200 million in fb from 2009-2011.

43/ D.S.T is co-owned by Alisher Usmanov, a Russian billionaire oligarch with long ties to the Russian gov.
nyti.ms/2xVxQzf

44/ Zuckerberg defends the decision to allow Russians to invest in fb.
for.tn/2fQaAYT

45/ The banning of minority activists on fb has raised concerns that Russia may be playing a role.
nyti.ms/2xVxQzf

46/ The disinformation campaign is an admitted ploy by Russia.
nyti.ms/2gKYYX0

47/ Perhaps another reason for minority activists being banned on fb may be as simple as fb’s demographics.

48/ Most employees are white so they may not be the best arbiters of what constitutes racism.
bit.ly/2u5uebT

49/ Moderators have also complained about not being properly trained, supported and paid.
bit.ly/2rAQcCV

50/ Another flawed system w/in fb, which has been vastly underreported, is the technical aid it provided to Trump’s presidential campaign.

51/ wapo.st/2hTVx4x

52/ Jared Kushner and Brad Parscale build Project Alamo.

53/ As Kushner began to ramp up Trump's online campaign, he reached out to his tech friends to better understand the tools at his disposal.

54/ These friends included Thiel and his brother Josh.
bit.ly/2xkrUAr

55/ Kushner and Parscale created Project Alamo to build first-rate tech tools to target undecided voters.
bloom.bg/2fxAGll

56/ The Trump campaign contracted w/ Cambridge Analytica to develop a dataset of nearly 200 million Americans.

57/ This became the foundation by which Project Alamo formulated its various online social network campaigns.

58/ Of the total dataset, the campaign "identified 13.5 million voters in 16 battleground states whom it consider(ed) persuadable."

59/ bloom.bg/2fxAGll

60/ The data was used to build tools like the "Battleground Optimizer Path to Victory" model which weighed and ranked the most critical…

61/ …states it needed to get to 270 electoral votes.

62/ The campaign admits voter suppression was one of its strategies. bloom.bg/2fxAGll

63/ bit.ly/2wCrNvy

64/ But perhaps the most useful part of the operation were the developers that Facebook and Google supplied.

65/ When asked by a BBC reporter what the Facebook, Google and YouTube employees were doing at Project Alamo, Theresa Hong, a former Alamo…

66/ …employee admitted: "They were helping us, you know. They were our hands-on partners as far as being able to utilize the platform...

67/ as effectively as possible.”

68/ “When you’re pumping in millions and millions of dollars to the social platforms, you’re going to get white club treatment."

69/ "So, they would send people, you know representatives, to the Project Alamo to ensure that all our needs were being met."

70/ bit.ly/2v0DYRo

71/ Project Alamo generated at least 35,000-45,000 ad iterations per day. The Trump campaign spent at least $85 million on fb advertising.

72/ Hong went on to say: "Without Facebook, we wouldn’t have won. I mean Facebook really and truly put us over the edge."

73/ "Facebook was the medium that proved most successful for this campaign.”

74/ Parscale agrees.
bit.ly/2vacWIE

75/ So, did Facebook and Google employees work for the Trump campaign while knowing the campaign was consciously...

76/ trying to suppress voter turnout? And did the leaders at Facebook and Google know the whole time?

77/ Please read my related threads:

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78/

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79/

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80/ Also, please consider following me as I have more threads to come.

Technically, I beat "60 Minutes" to the punch. :) Regardless, glad to see MSM is on this story now.
cbsnews.com/news/facebook-…

Enter: Tone-deaf Zuckerberg techcrunch.com/2017/10/10/zuc…

Enter Twitter:
politico.com/story/2017/10/…

Enter Cambridge Analytica intern:
businessinsider.com/trump-campaign…