Photo: Rex USA.It looks like bragging on Facebook is something not even Mark Zuckerberg is averse to. But, instead of telling the world about his Arcade Fire tickets or the amazing pulled-pork pizza he made the other night, his brags are straight up next level.
"I've called President Obama to express my frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future," read a statement posted on Zuckerberg's Facebook page earlier today. Let that sink in. Mark Zuckerberg called Barack Obama, and he dropped it as casually as someone who does that type of thing on the regular.
The reason for Zuckerberg's call was to discuss the recent reports of government spying, particularly one that alleges the NSA posed as a Facebook server to hack into people’s hard drives. "As the world becomes more complex and governments everywhere struggle, trust in the Internet (sic) is more important today than ever," Zuckerberg wrote. "This is why I've been so confused and frustrated by the repeated reports of the behavior of the U.S. government. When our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we're protecting you against criminals, not our own government."
Woah. Based on Zuckerberg's stern tone, we can't imagine his conversation with Obama was a pleasant one, especially after the way he ended his statement. "The U.S. government should be the champion for the Internet, not a threat," Zuckerberg added. "They need to be much more transparent about what they're doing, or otherwise people will believe the worst. Unfortunately, it seems like it will take a very long time for true full reform."
So, it looks like Zuckerberg has a long way to go to convince the Obama administration to adopt full transparency when it comes to the NSA and their monitoring tactics, but on the bright side, his post has over 200,000 likes and counting, so that's huge. (Slate)