Wishful Thinking: Why The Economist Wants Social Media to Replace Blogs

The Daily Bell, June 9, 2011

The Economist Magazine is out with an article entitled "The end of mass media: Coming full circle." It actually provides us with a kind of sub-dominant social theme – that "social media" take us back to the pamphleteering days of Samuel Johnson, Ben Franklin, Thomas Paine and others.

This has been, in a sense, a message of ours for many years. And here at DB, we've regularly compared the output of the Gutenberg Press and its revolutionary influence to the Internet. The Economist is about 10 years late in joining the party.

Even so, I think The Economist is making the wrong comparison and doing it on purpose. Blogs and websites are a far more appropriate comparison to the Gutenberg Press than "social media."

There is likely a reason that The Economist, a power elite mouthpiece, wants to talk up social media. Here's the beginning of an article from Global Research written way back in March 2009, when Facebook only had 20 million users but was well on its way to success:

Facebook - the CIA conspiracy ... Facebook has 20 million users worldwide, is worth billions of dollars and, if internet sources are to be believed, was started by the CIA. The social networking phenomenon started as a way of American college students to keep in touch. It is rapidly catching up with MySpace, and has left others like Bebo in its wake.

But there is a dark side to the success story that's been spreading across the blogosphere. A complex but riveting Big Brother-type conspiracy theory, which links Facebook to the CIA and the US Department of Defence. The CIA is, though, using a Facebook group to recruit staff for its very sexy sounding National Clandestine Service.

The story starts once Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had launched, after the dorm room drama that's led to the current court case. 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 Central Intelligence Agency in 1999. One of the company's key areas of expertise is in "data mining technologies."


The Internet has revealed much about the way the world really works. And more and more it seems evident and obvious that almost NO company in US, Britain and Europe becomes globally dominant without Intel vetting – and subsequent cooperation with high-ranking government officials.