Remember to say nice things about Obama on Facebook - Big Brother is watching
By AnjaP
@Rollo1 (16679)
Boston, Massachusetts
September 16, 2009 11:08am CST
Everyone knows that you shouldn't call your boss a loser or a perv on social networking sites, especially if you're the kind who forgets you added him as a friend on Facebook or MySpace. But even if you didn't add Obama, he knows what you're saying about him.
"The White House is collecting and storing comments and videos placed on its social-networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube without notifying or asking the consent of the site users, a failure that appears to run counter to President Obama's promise of a transparent government and his pledge to protect privacy on the Internet. "
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/16/obama-wh-collects-web-users-data/
So, whether you're a liberal or a conservative, whether you're a staunch supporter or a critic, what do you think of this report? Is this a way to stifle free speech? Should people worry about what they say online about the government? Is this the move of a paranoid president? What use will be made of this data and is this legal?
How do you feel about the government collecting your comments on sites such as this one?
2 people like this
12 responses
@whiteheather39 (24403)
• United States
16 Sep 09
It is certainly a first step in stifling free speech and closer to a dictatorship. I wonder when the spies are going to censor myLot!
2 people like this
@Rollo1 (16679)
• Boston, Massachusetts
16 Sep 09
I don't think they'll get here too soon. They're concentrating on people bold enough to say it directly to them. They'll get to the rest of us later, or maybe, by that time, everyone will be too worried about what they say and where. Fear can wipe out criticism even more efficiently than any single action.
2 people like this
@Claire859 (71)
• United States
17 Sep 09
myLot is already censored. You cannot use certain words or topics. The guidelines are a form of censorship. Egads, I sound paranoid.
@Rollo1 (16679)
• Boston, Massachusetts
17 Sep 09
You don't own comments on your Facebook page. You don't own your Facebook page, Facebook does. They can prove that by banning you anytime they like and you won't have those comments or videos, but Facebook will. The White House doesn't own their Facebook page either. Any comment I make on a White House social networking page belongs to that social networking site, not to the White House.
@Barbietre (1438)
• United States
17 Sep 09
]If you post on my website, I own that info too.
1 person likes this
@ParaTed2k (22940)
• Sheboygan, Wisconsin
16 Sep 09
There is no assumption of privacy in a public place. If Obama is tapping into our emails, Private messeges, IM's and stuff like that, then they should be charged because that is a crime.
If all they are doing is trolling the social networks for anti Obama statements and images then I pity that idiots for feeding Obama's massive insecurity.
Besides, what do I care if Obama knows I think he's a bigoted little Marxist?
2 people like this
@aronofsky (41)
• United States
17 Sep 09
The government has been collecting this data since the opening of the site, which is wayyy before Obama was elected. I don't know if he knows about it currently, but I think it's rather funny that no one caught onto this until now.
@Rollo1 (16679)
• Boston, Massachusetts
17 Sep 09
Actually, no they haven't. There are laws preventing the government from collecting and storing information on private citizens and prescribing the exact circumstance under which they can do this.
President Bush didn't have a Facebook page. His official website did archive comments but that was an official government website, not a third party site. Comments made directly to him on that site could be considered correspondence. Comments on a third party site are not covered under the definition of presidential records.
However there are certain deals with some sites and also some data collection done by ISPs that previously did not contain as much detailed information as President Obama has asked them to turn over.
I guess it's time for a laptop and some drive-by wireless.
@pixeltwistr (613)
• United States
17 Sep 09
Um...yeah they do!
If you go to Obamas myspace page and put a comment on it then that is a correspondence directly from you to him and he has a right to save it if he chooses...my gosh what is soooo hard about just not leaving him comments if you dont want to?
It might be different if he were snaking ALL of myspace and not just his own profiles....BUT in my opinion it still isnt any different....
I know whenever I post ANYTHING to the internet...ANYTHING at ALL...that it is open to scrutiny by anyone who has internet access! Period....if you want privacy so much then dont plaster your bizness all over the internet!
NOW if a story breaks that Obama had someone arrested because they posted a comment on his myspace page that he didnt like THEN we have a problem!
@lilwonders456 (8214)
• United States
16 Sep 09
You know I was not fond of Bush to say the least. HOmeland secuirty scares me worse than the terrorist. The patriot act was and IS unconstitutional. NOw this.
The constitution, bill of rights and the law means nothing to any of them. Not Bush. Not Obama. It is all about getting power and control. Both sides. We the people mean nothing. Our rights mean nothing.
You would never have thought it could happen in this country but it is. If we let them they will take away our rights and they will control us.
Obama said voting for McCain was just voting for four more years of Bush. I feel he was right. But it seems that voting for Obama got us four more years of Bush plus pushing it farther.
More invasion of privacy. More police state. More big government. Extending the patriot act. More homeland security. I think either way we were going to end up with "more" with Either Obama or McCain.
People really should have looked at the third party options. The two major parties are out of control.
2 people like this
@Rollo1 (16679)
• Boston, Massachusetts
16 Sep 09
Both Homeland Security and the Patriot Act were pushed through because people were afraid. The problem is that when government power is expanded this much, the government becomes the entity most likely to endanger our freedoms.
I agree that there are 3rd party candidates who are preferable to the usual choices, but if enough people go 3rd party in 2012, does it simply guarantee Obama a second term?
1 person likes this
@lilwonders456 (8214)
• United States
16 Sep 09
I hope not. But it could. I mean really are the republicans any better? They wrote and signed the partriot act. The democrats are extending it instead of repealing it. So they are just as guilty if not more so for extending it when they have the power to stop it completely.
So how can any freedom loving american vote for either.
1 person likes this
@AngryKittyMSV (4317)
• United States
16 Sep 09
I too wonder about the legality of it, since the flag@whitehouse.gov proved to be an illegal means of collecting information on private citizens and they are STILL soliciting people to snitch on eachother despite disabling that particular email address. This is just another piece of an ever more worrying puzzle and looks to me to be just another attempt to intimidate critics into silence.
Very disturbing.
1 person likes this
@Rollo1 (16679)
• Boston, Massachusetts
17 Sep 09
The White House doesn't own that information because they don't own their pages on social networking sites. Those pages are owned by Facebook, Twitter, myspace, whatever. The point has not been missed. There is an effort to collect information from third party websites, not from official government websites. It's invasive, intimidating and wrong.
1 person likes this
@mzz663 (2772)
• United States
16 Sep 09
Our gov't should be concentrating on solving problems for us, not making more of them. Don't we pay their salary? seems to me we might have a few in the gov't that read myne kamf (or my struggle) by adolf hitler.....they're using a lot of his tactics...We'll have no right to privacy and no freedom of speech....what comes after that? A selective system of who gets jobs, credit, health care, etc?
1 person likes this
@apricotrains (456)
• Melbourne, Australia
17 Sep 09
Obama & the Gov can collect anything I say about them...they don't rule the country I live in at all. He only got voted in because of his color & from where I stand he seems to have done nothing but hand money out. He sounds alot like our own leader here....does nothing but empty promises & hands money out.
@spalladino (17891)
• United States
16 Sep 09
What do I think? I think this administration is getting more and more paranoid. While there is no expectation of privacy on social networking sites, for any agency to be involved in the wide sweeping collection of the comments and opinions of the public is disturbing to say the least.
@spalladino (17891)
• United States
16 Sep 09
Okay..okay already. Thanks for pointing that out. Is your hand cramped yet?
@Rollo1 (16679)
• Boston, Massachusetts
17 Sep 09
They also say they don't allow crawlers from third party data mining companies, but here they must be doing it. Without disclosing it.
Seriously, you don't think this is at all intimidating to people who might want to comment on a site - say Barack Obama's Facebook page? It's intimidation and it's wrong. And if we judge him by his own promises and his own words, it is the opposite of everything he said during his campaign.
@Citychic (4067)
• United States
17 Sep 09
Hello there, while I think that everybody deserves freedom of speech and their right to privacy, all of us have to wonder, how much privacy do we really have on the internet? In answer to your question I do not think it's right that information is being gathered from off the internet concerning the government but then again, how else will they know what's on our minds if we don't begin to spill it out over different mediums. I tend to think of the internet in terms of a great big public electronic magazine. Certainly not everything that is published in magazines will be true. Neither will everything be true that's published here on the internet. I think that our president is smart enough to realize that he can't take everything personally that he hear or read about. If he was that weak i don't even think that he would have bothered to have run as president. I'm sure that he simply take everything with a grain of salt and keep on moving on. My take on things as far as information gathering goes. Let folks take whatever they want, remember a ease dropper never hear nothing good. Neither will someone that is trying to be sneaky and gather up information that shouldn't concern them, Happy mylot.
1 person likes this
@Rollo1 (16679)
• Boston, Massachusetts
17 Sep 09
There are many polls on issues that tell what people think. The problem with this president and this congress is that they simply don't care what the polls say, they are determined to push their agenda without regard for public opinion. This is not to find out what the public thinks, they would prefer the public just shut up and stop disagreeing with them. This is about making the public afraid to say what they think because someone will be keeping records on it.
@aaronzuo (7)
• China
17 Sep 09
i am chinese ,so i dont know what happened you there.but you know ,you guys are pretty lucky already, u still can find way to express your dissatisfaction with your president whom you vote.what's going on with us ? if we criticize our so-called president ,our comments will be deleted and we may got ourselves in big trouble . as for the presidencial election , there is no democracy out there at all .our representatives are taking responsiblity for electing our president ,and it's our right to elect our representatives ,however, to a great extent , we even dont know the names of our representatives and they assume office.that's really ironic.so ,in my point of view,you guys are good campers and we've got used to violence of our privacy and we dont know what we should do.rebelling? we have to admit CCP indeed has made much prograss in improving chinese economy and chinese people love peace and we would rather sacrifice domocracy than lose peace
all in all ,you guys are already very lucky
1 person likes this
@Rollo1 (16679)
• Boston, Massachusetts
17 Sep 09
I realize that you don't have the level of political freedom in China that we enjoy, and it's very honest and courageous of you to express that. I understand how one can treasure peace over violence and a good economy is an important asset. I can't agree that peace at any price is a peace worth attaining. A quiet life is to be sought after, but to be free to choose and free to speak is much more important. I truly do not want to sacrifice democracy for peace, and I do not think that is possible for all, for all may not wish to live without a voice.
@susanwilliam (3)
• China
17 Sep 09
Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.