One of the Web’s entertaining conspiracy theories about Facebook is the idea that the CIA helped found Facebook as its latest information-gathering tool. With recent outrage of privacy invasion of Facebook’s advertisement technology, this theory resurfaced and there was another round of fear and concerns on privacy invasions.
This conspiracy theory was first sparked off when the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) started using Facebook as a platform to recruit potentional employees into its National Clandestine Service in December 2006.
The CIA's Facebook page (login required) provides an overview of what the NCS is looking for in a recruit aim at potential college-aged applicants. U.S. citizens with a GPA above 3.0. The NCS, one of the four directorates of the CIA, was established following 9/11 to gather intelligence from sources both domestic and abroad. However, both Facebook and CIA deny the accusation. They claimed that CIA had setup the Facebook profile mainly for recruiting and marketing purposes, CIA has no direct access to member’s profile.
Facebook's privacy policy states that outside companies sponsoring groups don't have access to personal information or profiles. However, it does say that information may be shared with "other companies, lawyers, agents or government agencies," in order to comply with the law.
There are also theories that outlines the supposed CIA effort and tries to connect dots between the CIA, the U.S. Department of Defense and Facebook’s investors.
It was known that Facebook's first round of venture capital funding ($US500,000) came from former Paypal CEO Peter Thiel. Author of anti-multicultural tome 'The Diversity Myth', he is also on the board of radical conservative group VanguardPAC.
The second round of funding into Facebook ($US12.7 million) came from venture capital firm Accel Partners. Its manager James Breyer was formerly chairman of the National Venture Capital Association, and served on the board with Gilman Louie, CEO of In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm established by the CIA in 1999. One of the company's key areas of expertise is in "data mining technologies".
There can be many associations between Facebook and CIA, however Facebook is only as powerful as the information people voluntarily add to it. If you’re worried about privacy, don’t create a profile on Facebook, and if you must have one, omit any aspects of your life and actions that you don’t want others to know about.
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