Facebook, the popular social networking site, was originally created by the CIA as a means of gathering information about internet users.
I have been reading about that today. I have also been reading about attracting hits in search engines by using controversial or often-searched-for words and phrases in your writing. Can you tell?
It appears to work as well. Charlie Brooker's column for UK newspaper The Guardian on July 21st was about exactly that subject. He deliberately inserted the words Poker, Naked, Viagra and Lohan into the otherwise innocuous title of his column - not long after it was published a comment was posted at the Guardian website by someone who had searched Google for the words "naked viagra" and Brooker's column was already the second listing.
My views on the subject mirror Brooker's own. His article was actually centred around his wrath at sections of the printed press who deliberately write their articles in a way designed to appeal to search engines, by inserting certain phrases into them whether they have anything to do with the subject at hand or not. It's already bad enough that we're constantly marketed-at by soulless corporate bastards without having the act of reading the newspaper becoming like walking down the main street in Akihabara with hundred-foot-tall neon signs flashing adverts directly into your eyes at retina-scarring levels of brightness.
Of course, this isn't a new phenomenon. Adverts in Victorian penny dreadfuls pulled exactly the same trick with bold, exciting headlines at the top of adverts for utterly mundane things. Almist all tabloid news articles follow the same lines - the Sun even goes so far as to bold exciting or saucy phrases in the opening paragraph of an article just to make sure you've noticed them. This is why I don't read much print media any more - the whole thing is to depressing for words.
As for the Facebook Conspiracy, check out the article here for more details. It's a sordid tale of slightly twisted pasts and not-really-underhand dealings. Some of the people who work at companies that put up funds for Facebook used to work at, or with people who used to work at, some US Government departments. Something's definitely dodgy, although whether it's Facebook or the conspiracy itself is something you'll have to decide on a personal level. I wouldn't want to influence your thinking. That would sound a bit like, well, a conspiracy.
Boy, writing the tags for this post's gonna be fun!