McAfee Associates founder John McAfee knows a little something about computer security. He founded one of the world’s most successful anti-virus software companies. McAfee is also a well-known libertarian, having run for the presidential nomination under the Libertarian Party banner in 2016. As such, McAfee is a champion of personal liberty and free markets; he’s also a big believer in religious freedom and in the right to be free of cyber intrusions from global Internet companies like Google and Facebook.
This clip starts out as a parody of the intro to the 1960s dystopian TV series The Prisoner. But as McAfee tells RT America, this parody may someday be a reality if companies like Google and Facebook aren’t regulated by the government and society. This is because these firms’ power has grown exponentially since they were founded.
If one looks at Google, for example, in 2006, the company’s motto was “Don’t Be Evil.” This saying was likely inspired by a recognition of how much power and influence the company had through the management and connection of much of the world’s data and knowledge.
Since 2006, that power has only grown as people now rely on Google for all kinds of information from their news to their email to their data storage. The world’s most popular mobile operating system, Android, was developed by Google. YouTube is owned by Google. The Chrome Internet browser many people use to access the web itself is made by Google. While Google in 2006 might have believed in its motto “Don’t Be Evil,” by 2013, the company owned a division that makes robots for the military (and has since changed its former motto to the more ambiguous-sounding “Do the Right Thing”).
Without serious regulation and constraint, companies like Google have the potential to effectively seize control of every computer on the planet and become like Big Brother of the George Orwell novel 1984. This is a future all humanity should be concerned about.
Watch as McAfee’s warnings in this clip may one day turn out to be incredibly prescient.
