'The Arms Race Between Facebook and Russia is a Scam' - Writer

Facebook's CEO testified before Congress this week promising to be more proactive about how user information is shared with third-party apps. The Cambridge Analytica scandal put Facebook under scrutiny after the political consulting firm used the personal data of 87 million Facebook users.

Sputnik discussed this with Pal Steigan, writer, critic, political veteran and web editor of steigan.no.

Sputnik: What are your thoughts on the recent statements made by Mark Zuckerberg on Capitol Hill? Did any of them come as a surprise to you?

Pal Steigan: I think that he was left off the hook because the senators and Congress people, they don't really understand social media and he had very light game during his job there, and I also think that the senators really didn't want to go into the depth of what Facebook is because that goes to the heart of the American information and security system. Many people know that Facebook is the brainchild and the child of the CIA; it has cooperated very narrowly with the CIA as we have learned from the disclosures of Edward Snowden, and it has also been very close to the NSA, which is another spy organization in the US, and these matters are not touched upon.

For example, a few years back Facebook opened the accounts of almost 600,000 members to manipulation to find out how easily one could change the feelings of uses of Facebook, this was part and parcel of the CIA activity. I think that the Cambridge Analytica, which is a scandal of course, but it does not touch on the heart of Facebook and.In fact, I think that when the politicians now go for a stricter control of Facebook and social media, this is something that's been going on for a long time. They want to have Facebook and other social media serve their agenda and, for instance, in Israel, Facebook is very closely connected to society. In the EU they demanded that there is to be control of Facebook, and I think that this whole Cambridge Analytica scandal can be used to further this even more.

READ MORE: US Senators Move to Regulate Facebook in Wake of Zuckerberg Testimony

Mr. Zuckerberg is not telling the truth, he is already doing regulations in corporations with many states and he has promised Frau Merkel in Germany to corporate with EU and Germany on so-called hate speech and other undesired expressions of thought on Facebook, so I don't think he's very faithful to truth in this sense. When he says they're not going to share user information as much as in the past, I don't think that this is in accordance with the truth either because the whole business idea of Facebook is to share user information with their clients, Facebook is nothing except for our user data, so I don't think this is the truth and Mr. Zuckerberg is only the front for the whole operation of brainwashing for the use of the Internet for this.

Sputnik: Mark Zuckerberg when speaking about Cambridge Analytica said his company was in an arms race with Russia what do you think about that?

Pal Steigan: Well this is absurd, this is a scam, obviously, Russia and all big powers try to use the Internet for their own political purposes, we will know that, but really who are experts in Facebook and Google is the Democratic Party in the US, and they really had and they still have very, very tight connections with chief teams with the big IT companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter and all of this, so I think this is mostly a scam covering over the real manipulation going on here.

Sputnik: Some experts have expressed concern that Russia was being used as a scapegoat in the whole Cambridge Analytica scandal, to what extent do you think that is the case?

Pal Steigan: The whole Russia-gate thing is an invention of the Democratic National Congress and the Democratic Party, they have since lost the need for explanation on this and Russia comes very handy because it has this Cold War atmosphere in the US and you can blame Russia for almost anything and it goes in the big media and the big media, mainstream media is cooperating on this, so I think it's just another expression of this.

The views of Pal Steigan and those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect Sputnik's position.