I started this article December 2, 2017. In short order I lost my computer to a very exceptional failure that cost me over two months, cost me my scoop and lost all of my research. This was the second time, the first being a ransomware attack that had to have been pulled off by a person, that was impeccably timed to prevent the publication of my fifth article with WKOG by taking me offline for several weeks (but did not succeed in stopping publication because the article was already complete). The next event, which followed in very short order was worse, as it took longer and took out my computer in terms of its entire history and everything on it.
I was obviously onto something at the time, as Zuckerberg has been obliged to appear before Congress on the very subject matter I was about to dive into in depth and had already sunk my teeth into, if inadequately, (launch point, Cambridge Analytica). I have left the article's beginning "in situ", - what I regarded as the just the introduction, -complete with errors. Given Zuckerberg's "nothingburger" appearance before Congress, the subject matter is more pertinent than ever. Fortunately or unfortunately, the time interval which cost me my scoop was a concurrent explosion of the subject matter in media, expanding the topic almost beyond the capacity to grapple with its sheer volume (a delay in its own right). Kindly bear with this.
To give you the initial premise in short: U2's impact on fan behaviour can hardly be overstated when their fans en masse were forced to download Amazon's "Alexa" on mobile devices to listen to a podcast documentary with the bandmembers as the sole preview event to their new album "Songs of Experience", -virtually the only prior publicity by U2 themselves for their latest album's launch. -In fact the largest fan administered U2 fansite launched their podcasts on Alexa (Amazon's voice activated personal assistant), Google Plus (Google's version) and Siri (Apple's version) in a matter of months, obliging anyone who followed the fansite that closely to adopt either of the three. The article published at the time would not have arrived at this proof positive satisfactory conclusion.
As an added laugh, though this may be pure coincidence, U2 made an attempt with their following (present) tour at avoiding US patriotic grandstanding in countries other than the USA (namely my country Canada, the first performance situation where it could observed whether or not they'd change tact), after I was the only individual to pen an article complaining volubly about how utterly propagandistic and paradoxically out of touch the whole exercise was (the main thrust of article 5 on WKOG).
As a third laugh (given I had publically tweeted the Alexa article intro as it stood in replies to the band before getting sunk offline a second time), and have been doing so in periodic reply bombardment ever since article 1, a subject of frequent (majority) censorship on Facebook (but not on Twitter, -the possibility of "shadow ban"ing excepted)) -given Bono's first appearance as Mac Phisto in 13 years capstoned article 1 in the unfortunate context of having become dead literal with himself as enabler; "welcome in to my cauldron of sin" at 4:20 being his entry as the devil in the celeb performed ditty "We're Going to Hell", -as he philanthrowashed #NoDAPL's gargantuan global warming fart billionaire investors/RED's billionaire benefactors in front of the world using RED and a bevy of unsuspecting celebrities on Jimmy Kimmel for Christmas in a consumer spend fest at the height of the #NoDAPL protest, -which was naturally the height of state violence exacted against the protesters, who above all were concerned about global warming and the state of their environment (and that their treaty was violated in this imposition of the "black snake"). Bono's Mac Phisto performance has been removed from Jimmy Kimmel's official youtube subsequent to article 1's publication.
-It so happens Bono has brought back the Mac Phisto persona for this entire present U2 tour, when that hasn't occured on stage since 1993. Mac Phisto ad libs in between the songs "Desire" and "Acrobat" for every live performance. With the 1st appearance of this character for the launch of this EI (Experience and Innocence) tour in Tulsa on May 2nd, Bono opened at 1:03 with, "I've been a busy little devil, oh yes, but you've made it all so easier for me these days. I told Stalin that one day people would bug themselves. Oh yes, -and here we are. The truth is dead...."
-Mac Phisto was once performed as irony, -and Charlotesville "KKK" marches would have made the subject matter then as now (how Bono finishes that sentence), -but with both these first appearances of the character Bono has shifted to being a direct enabler of what he purports opposition to. It is no longer performed in irony, it is dead literal, -he is performing the actions of Mac Phisto himself. There could be no greater irony to the return of the character. U2 fans literally bugged themselves en masse with Alexa at the band's behest, as the NSA already operates at superior voice recognition capacity and we all know what the NSA was doing with cameras that were "off" on personal computers at will thanks to Edward Snowden -to American citizens and anyone else. The fans who were forced to download Alexa onto their phones have all been served up on a silver platter to government and private surveillance, Alexa is always listening. And indeed the modulation of public perception via the algorithms and online censorship now advented by the social media behemoths already means the truth is dead, as the trajectory of Alexa's owner and his media ownership well attests, as does the advent of censorship across Facebook and Twitter and Google (with Alexa's owner being given censorship oversight of Facebook as well, -you can trust the proles are kept in line), -online censorship launched by literally every social media heavyweight over millions, even billions of people.
Even worse perhaps is that U2 lauded the grandchild of a Ukrainian Nazi onstage as a leading feminist for happening to be our cabinet minister last tour (an all performances in Canada exclusive, see article 5 Part 2), which makes Bono's public outrage about the Charlottesville march when the band is femiwashing such descendents in primary positions of government power a form of public deception (be afraid, very afraid about this when it occurs here, -but not if it occurs over here -that's feminism). The double entendre sleight of hand does double duty, -in that Bono's declaration of the Devil succeeding in having everyone bug themselves becomes mere subtext to Charlottesville in his speech, -when as a public social threat in comparison to the public threat Bono has already had his audience unsuspectingly imbibe and absorb in terms of downloading Alexa, with the band treating this as beneficial rather than a serious prospective invasion of privacy, -online surveillance portends an inestimably greater threat to the general public. He literally is describing the threat he already sujected his fanbase to, and there is no more lethal a manner in which to actively disassociate them from identifying the threat -than to elucidate it when he's serving up the poison himself.
-He has done this in much the same manner he had Canadians imbibing a leading feminist as benign, when she has Canada actively arming governments abroad who are possessed by powerful and murderous neo-Nazi factions engaged in civil war against those they discriminate against, -but Bono thinks the general public should be terrified of Charlottesville (fatalities zero). Bono simultaneously makes the "people will bug themselves" via social media implication invisible by shifting in a non-sequitur to Charlottesville. Safe to say by the time this article reaches its conclusion, you will not be in agreement. Silicon valley surveillance will loom much larger in your mind than a single march in Charlottesville, by simple virtue of the fact, if nothing else, that none of those marchers are where power lies. The march was impelled by feeling threatened, -reactionism, the very pronouncement of power's lack. The same cannot be said of the cabinet member in question.
Bono has performed double duty, if you have any clue what Canada's "leading feminist" cabinet minister has been performing with respects to the Ukraine, in deflecting the unsuspecting public from where the US and Canadian governments are actively arming neo-Nazism abroad right now. This has nothing to do with measuring the presence of evil in either instance, what subordinates one to the other is power. If he labels both contexts as evil (in the "they will bug themselves" instance and the "Charlottesville" instance), and in the other instance, feeds one to you as laudatory and progressive, when in fact it's participating in supporting the same ideology he ascribes as evil when it hasn't leverage in government, there's an implication to the relative scope of one as opposed to the other (social media control of the perception of billions of peole through a depth of surveillance that can analyse you more in depth than either your marital partners or your parents, or anyone else), -just as there's an implication in the fact that Bono's actively a participant (this includes major Facebook investor) in certain aspects (-which includes the indirect support of neo-Nazism, provided it's supported and brought to power with the aid of the US government). Bono props up neo-Nazism in the world that has the control of governments, by purporting its active supporters in other governments in the world to be a feminist achievement by virtue of their position in government. in other words, if neo-Nazism has power behind it, he and the band render it invisible by actively getting you to swallow it as feminism. (And this is just warming up.)
To jump that particular ship (which admittedly from the neoNazi "don't look behind the curtain" vantage is what the band happened to feed to Canadians, but as one the subject is fair game, and no matter how it may have happened, is what the situation amounts to) and really jump the shark, the negative to my computer loss last Christmas is that I had a blistering scoop and lost it. The plus side of the loss is, you wouldn't have known the above, nor a whole lot else, presumably, that occurred subsequent to the article's publication, though you may have been ushered to the front row seat endowed by my perspective, as you watched precisely what was at issue explode in front of your eyes across news media right up to the top echelons of US government. The net bonus is I get to tell you, the public, how you've just been epic-ally failed by the entire process.