AS one who, literally, wrote the book on the underbelly and machinations of Facebook, nothing, absolutely nothing, is off limits for Zuckerberg and Co. In fact, when it comes to serving the interests of the deep state, well, they are wholly in bed. Incest-like.
CONSIDER the following as merely foretastes:
- The Facebook octopus
- We need to deep-dive into the dynamics of Facebook
- Can something be done about Facebook blocking?
- Does rebranding Facebook signal a real change in what matters?
AGAIN, just the tip of the multi-headed dangers.
RESULTANT, it makes total “sense” that the very same censoring, global behemoth would act as a shield and a cover for the IRS through this and that tax prep arms!
INDEED, the IRS is of the same highly dangerous ilk — an out of control, weaponized entity which does not — in any way, shape or form — serve the interests of those they collect monies from. Rather,
- Scalise: “The IRS Is Out of Control”
- IRS Boss To New Hires: Get Their Money!
- The GOP has plans for those 87,000 new IRS agents
MIND you, since the above determination was made in April 2016, rest assured, the situation within the IRS has grown exponentially worse.
AND then there is this,
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CONSERVATIVE FIRING LINE | Bob Unruh, WND News Center | November 22, 2022
Tax records contain some of the most personal details that a person has. Alimony? Income? Spending on medicine? Many of those items and more are there.
So what is creating concern is a report from The Verge that tax preparers, including TaxAct, TaxSlayer, H&R Block and more, “have been quietly transmitting sensitive financial information to Facebook.”
The Verge cites the documentation from The Markup that explains data, “sent through widely used code called the Meta Pixel,” lists names, email addresses and a vast range of private financial information, even to include dependents’ college scholarship amounts.
The Verge report noted its article was copublished with The Markup, which is a “nonprofit newsroom” investigating powerful institutions.
“The information sent to Facebook can be used by the company to power its advertising algorithms and is gathered regardless of whether the person using the tax filing service has an account on Facebook or other platforms operated by its owner Meta,” The Verge explained.
The Markup investigation discovered that the Internal Revenue Service handles about 150 million individual returns that are filed electronically each year, and some of the common services use the secret information sharing program.
The Verge said, “When users sign up to file their taxes with the popular service TaxAct, for example, they’re asked to provide personal information to calculate their returns, including how much money they make and their investments. A pixel on TaxAct’s website then sent some of that data to Facebook, including users’ filing status, their adjusted gross income, and the amount of their refund, according to a review by The Markup. Income was rounded to the nearest thousand and refunds to the nearest hundred. The pixel also sent the names of dependents in an obfuscated — but generally reversible — format.”
Some of the services also send information to Google, the report confirmed.
“Tax preparation giant H&R Block, which also offers an online filing option that attracts millions of customers per year, embedded a pixel on its site that gathered information on filers’ health savings account usage and dependents’ college tuition grants and expenses,” the report confirmed.
The details forwarded by TaxSlayer included phone numbers, names, dependents and more.
The report explained, “The Markup also found the pixel code on a tax preparation site operated by a financial advice and software company called Ramsey Solutions, which uses a version of TaxSlayer’s service. That pixel gathered even more personal data from a tax return summary page, including information on income and refund amounts. This information was not sent immediately upon visiting the page but only when visitors clicked drop-down headings to see more details of their report.”
The report said TaxAct spokeswoman Nicole Coburn said the company takes its customers’ privacy seriously, and tries to meet all IRS requirements.
A statement from Megan McConnell, of Ramsey Solutions, said, “We did NOT know and were never notified that personal tax information was being collected by Facebook from the Pixel. As soon as we found out, we immediately informed TaxSlayer to deactivate the Pixel from Ramsey SmartTax.”
Jon Collins of the Electronic Frontier Foundation said the practice of embedding secret monitors to collect information about people who visit or use a site is “ubiquitous.”
Just the News reported on the situation that the scheme is used by companies “to power” their advertising.
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FACEBOOK. THE IRS. EVIL ON ITS FACE!
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{ADDENDUM: Bear uppermost in mind — To stifle the truth-telling found at this site, FB’s censors have “zeroed-out” all of my articles via their “Boom and Ban” censors ala their ubiquitous “Community Standards” — as they hunt me up and down the internet like rabid dogs to their prey! No kidding. This is just some of FB’s modus operandi, what is now deemed their “love notes” to yours truly: This URL goes against our Community Standards on spam:adinakutnicki.files.wordpress.com ACTIVITY
About your post Today at 4:34 PM: No one else can see your post.And so on and so forth. In fact, just recently, each article at my “parent site”, ADINA KUTNICKI: A ZIONIST & CONSERVATIVE BLOG, had its FB registered shares go from the hundreds, with some up to the many thousands, to a big, fat ZERO. In other words, all my shares have gone down the rabbit hole. Just like that. Poof. Gone. As such, take it to the bank that each and every conservative voice which reaches a wide readership will, sooner than later, be CENSORED. MUTED.} MESSAGE FAILED: This message contains content that has been blocked by our security systems. If you think you’re seeing this by mistake, please let us know. Yes, additional “proof-in-the pudding” as to why “BANNED: How Facebook Enables Militant Islamic Jihad” had to be written!}
Adina Kutnicki 