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Facebook Vice President Andrew Bosworth wrote in a memo... "anything that allows us to connect people...is de facto good."
This after the public learned that Cambridge Analytica had improperly harvested personal data from the social network's users---with Facebook's blessing.
Now Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg says his inspiration to create Facebook came from the Bible.
The New York Times is reporting "Facebook employees were in an uproar on Friday over a leaked 2016 memo from a top executive defending the social network's growth at any cost---even if it caused deaths from a terrorist attack that was organized on the platform."
The Times says, "In the memo, Andrew Bosworth, a Facebook vice president wrote: 'Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools. And still, we connect people. The ugly truth is that we believe in connecting people so deeply that anything used to connect more people more often is de facto good."
After BuzzFeed reported on the memo, both Zuckerberg and Bosworth have disavowed the memo.
But there are people who have read it. Many people.
Two Facebook employees told the Times that employees are calling for more transparency within the company regarding their 2.2 billion users worldwide. They spoke to the Times only after they were promised their names would not be revealed.
This comes in the wake of the story last week, which we wrote about here on Faith and Freedom Daily, that revealed that Facebook colluded with Cambridge Analytica who harvested at least 50 million names and personal information from Facebook.
The new dimension of the story last week, and over the weekend, is that the Trump organization bought the improperly harvested data to use in targeting voters during the presidential campaign.
The truth is that Trump's people did buy data from the company during the primaries, but didn't do so during the general election in November.
What is omitted from most all news reporting is that the improperly harvested information was originally gathered for Barack Obama who used it in both his primary and general election campaign.
But the importance of the story is not that either candidate bought the information, it's that Facebook allowed their users to be compromised and used in this way. And it's about how Facebook is responding.
Now this.
Bosworth has taken to Twitter saying he does not now agree with what he wrote earlier in the "memo." In fact, he is saying he didn't even agree with it at the time he wrote it. He says he was just trying to bring to the surface issues that he felt needed more discussion within the broader company.
Nobody believes that.
Walter Scott once said, "O, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."
After employees began saying the memo had in fact been written because they read it, Bosworth deleted it from an internal message board where he had originally posted it.
Alec Muffett, a former engineer at Facebook, said after reading the memo from Bosworth, he knew he could no longer work for Facebook, so he resigned.
On March 27, CNN reported that Facebook stock had plunged 18%---$80 billion in value following this story becoming public.
As of March 27, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had personally lost about $14 billion.
Zuckerberg has agreed to testify before Congress.
In the meantime he is giving media interviews as quickly as he can move from TV studio to TV studio.
It was Niccolo Machiavelli in his book "The Prince" who first discussed the theory that the end justifies the means.
In the mind of the secular progressive the end---whatever it is---is so noble that the end always justifies the means; therefore cheating, misleading, deceiving outright lying is all OK if it is for a noble cause.
However, this Facebook fiasco has a spiritual dynamic as well.
Yesterday, Zuckerberg said the inspiration for the design of Facebook came from Psalm 139:1-4.
He says, "When I read Psalm 139:1-4 something just clicked. I saw a heavenly glow and heard the voices of angels, assuming angels sound like the hum of a billion servers and a heavenly glow looks like a backlit keyboard."
Zuckerberg says he first learned about the Bible from an evangelical roommate at Harvard.
Promising to read it, Zuckerberg was encouraged by his roommate to not start at the beginning of the Bible, but just start reading and "let the spirit move me," which Zuckerberg says "sounded like a shot of whisky, but later I learned it means something totally different."
He says, "When I opened the Bible and saw Psalm 134, I thought, 'wow, what a great business model.' I knew I wanted to build a company like that."
That is very hard to match up with the fact that Zuckerberg, while a student at Harvard, was hired by the Winklevoss twins and Divya Narendra to develop what they called the "Harvard Connection" based on the concepts of My Space. Under the guise of working for them, he stole and developed their concepts, breaking a legal contract with the twin brothers.
The result of Zuckerberg's work is Facebook---which he is now saying is based on Psalm 134.
He later made a financial settlement with the twins.
Psalm 134:1-4 reads,
You have searched me , Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.
CS Lewis wrote, "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive"
Saul Alinsky in his "Rules for Radicals" says, "The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms. He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work."
Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton (whom Alinsky tried to hire at one time) and many other secular progressives embrace Alinsky's rules and ideologies.
Alinsky admits that some of the Machiavellian tactics he advocates might seem unethical to some, but states that "in action, one does not always enjoy the luxury of a decision that is consistent both with one's individual conscience and the good of mankind."
It is true, the Lord knows each one of us---and He perceives our thoughts from afar, and discerns our going out and lying down and is familiar with all our ways. And yes, He does know completely what our tongue will say before it speaks.
The problem is that Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook are not God.
Perhaps he should have also read John 3:16 which presents a far more effective model.
Be Informed. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Discerning. Be Prayerful.