Facebook, is an apparently cutting-edge electronic social networking mechanism. People across Canada and around the world are apparently being offered at no charge a mechanism which obviously has taken millions of dollars to develop, implement, and maintain. But as a critically thinking individual, have you ever wondered why?

If you, for example, found two free tickets to Rio, Brazil, in your mailbox, or found a satellite dish on your doorstep or other such free stuff, wouldn't you wonder, why? Like, what is in it for the creators of "Facebook"? Are they idealists, who have donated millions of dollars, because they want to altruistically bring people together. Or, is there potentially some kind of cynical agenda associated with Facebook?

Indeed, it was the famous Nobel Laureate and economist Milton Friedman who remarked, "There's No Such Thing as a Free Lunch". Accordingly, what price are users really potentially paying for using an apparently free service, toward social networking objectives? The protection of individual's own rights depends upon cultivating critical thinking to protection oneself from strategies designed to undermine those rights.

Indeed, the researcher of an article entitled "Big Brothers, Big Facebook: Your Orwellian Community" acknowledges that Facebook.com, created in February of 2004 by 21 year old Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, is as a student social network, is now active at more than 800 campuses, with more than 2.8 million registered users. [1] Among its features, The Facebook allows users to upload a picture of themselves and can include information about their favourite music, books, movies, their address, phone number, e-mail, clubs, jobs, educational history, and even political affiliations.

Facebook is extremely popular, attracting on average 80 percent of a school's undergraduate population. However, there are some questions raised regarding privacy concerns on the site, and when some digging is done to find out who is really behind the site's management, there are more questions than answers. LINK This article elaborated that TheFacebook, just happened to stumble upon a sum of $13 million in capital. That article then details apparent "Big Brother" neo-conservative interests that allegedly seek to use information gathered from Facebook to support the oppressive interests of the U.S. political-military-industrial complex.

Hopefully, this is not the case, and Facebook.com was just started by interests who are of high principles, who are acting inconsistent with their political affiliations.

Footnotes

[1] "Accel Partners Invests In Thefacebook.com" Link