Jacob Zucker has almost zero credibility online. Below: The Barangaroo towers where his Australian operation hangs out.

By TONY MOBILIFONITIS

GOOD luck to Geelong activist and Cairns News supporter Gary Oraniuk, who reckons the Australian office of Fakebook (Meta) should be prosecuted for political censorship under the Criminal Code acts.

Orianuk has discovered a “special relationship” between the Federal Government and the social media platform, one that almost certainly involves a bunch of “ex-CIA” types who basically run the organisation in cahoots with Jacob aka “Mark the Cyborg” Zucker.

Oraniuk recently tried to post a link on Facebook to an article in Natural News about Brillouin Energy, a clean-technology company (ironically) in Berkeley California, that is developing renewable energy technologies based on thermal energy (heat).

It’s hardly controversial, but apparently the “big problem” for Fakebook was the link to Natural News, a “non-kosher news” source not approved by “Zuckerberg”, and his team of “information managers” from the agency. So, like thousands of other users of the platform, our Victorian reader found himself on the wrong side of yet another Fakebook ban.

Oraniuk then set about trying to find some sort of administrator on Fakebook to talk to and lodge a complaint. Unfortunately, person-to-person interaction with Fakebook is not for mere mortals like our reader. Complaints, even if lodged on the AI-based “contact” pages, are unlikely to result in anything except a bland statement that “content policy was violated”.

Not happy with that, Oraniuk decided to take the matter up with his local MP Richard Marles, who happens also to be PM Anthony Albanese’s deputy, and lodge a complaint via his office. Oraniuk believes censorship of information is akin to censorship of political rights, which is an offence under the Crimes Act 1914 and the Commonwealth Criminal Code Act 1995. 

But when he spoke to one of the Deputy PM’s staffers, a female public servant, she refused to give him the government’s own contact details for Fakebook/Meta, maintaining that the information was not available to the general public from the minister’s office. She suggested he might try the Minister for  Communications.

Oraniuk was naturally gobsmacked by this refusal to cooperate and asked the staffer if she realised she was a public servant and that she should be able to supply such information to the public. To make matters worse, she hung up on him when he asked for her name. Such is the sickness and lack of accountability afflicting corporate-style government in Australia today.

What our reader did find out is that Fakebook/Meta does have an office in Australia – at No.2 International Tower at 200 Barangaroo Avenue, Sydney, and apparently it is staffed by human beings. It also has an office in Melbourne somewhere. Barangaroo is a collection of glass towers housing everyone who is important in the corporate world of Australia. Facebook shares the building with big global names like Accenture, Visa, KPMG, and Lendlease. Well of course they would. And across the road is the new Crown Casino.  

Fakebook, like it’s big mate Google, has long been known as one big data mining business, selling subscribers’ information to these same big corporate players including governments and (most likely) intelligence agencies. In relation to the latter it’s now quite well known that the platform has a special relationship with “ex-CIA” employees.

A number of these people are identified by investigative journalist Alan MacLeod on the news website Mint Press News (MPN). Given this fact, it is not surprising that the Australian Federal Government is a little jumpy about its relationship with Facebook, who of course censor information that governments find “uncomfortable”. The Federal Government notably made extensive use of Facebook to push its Covid-19 propaganda and Facebook worked overtime, censoring any information contradicting it.

Fakebook has a team that decides what information is acceptable and what is not. The manager is Aaron Berman, who was a senior analytic manager at the CIA until 2019 when he became senior product policy manager for misinformation at Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

As reported by MPN, Berman, while with the CIA, prepared and edited US presidential daily briefs and intelligence analysis to enable the President and senior US officials to make decisions on the most critical national security issues,” especially on “the impact of influence operations on social movements, security, and democracy,” his LinkedIn profile reads. MPN notes none of this is mentioned in the Fakebook promotional video.

MPN goes on to name the other key “ex-CIA” operatives at Fakebook as Deborah Berman, Bryan Weisbard and Cameron Harris – all in leading information control positions. Meta also has high-ranking people from the FBI, the Pentagon and USAID.

Ex-FBI special agent Emily Vacher is now a director of “trust and safety”, and Mike Bradow, USAID’s deputy director of policy is now a Meta “misinformation policy manager”. MPN notes USAID “bankrolled or stage-managed multiple regime change operations abroad”. Sounds like the CIA in all but name.

So it’s highly likely that the Bangaroo No. 2 Tower in Sydney houses a few CIA or ex-CIA operatives. Good luck to our battler from Geelong in getting some joy out of that diabolical monolith who style their workplaces as the ultimate in Silicon Valley cool with cosy little hidey-holes and couches and (according to a Yahoo News report) “countless meeting rooms with quirky names that were voted for by staff. Names include Tim Tam, Paddlepop, Struth, and Bananas in Pyjamas.”

“There’s also a games area with a pool table, a ping pong table, and musical instruments. The games area also doubles up as a yoga studio and classes are provided several days a week,” Yahoo reported.

The media, of course, buy into all of this “oh so cool and cute” window dressing while ignoring (or being completely ignorant of) its real purpose. In the same style, Fakebook addresses its subscribers by their first names while they compile their personal dossiers and psychological profiles behind the scenes.