Insider X (5 page)

Facebook.

Man oh man, had that surprised her.  She used
Renren
,
Qzone, Sina Weibo
and other social media sites all the time.  But Facebook?

WOW. 
(^_^)  !!!!

It was her second day on the job when she realized it.  She was doing some searches to find good sites to leave posts.  When typing in certain key words, she was pulling up links—working links!—that she could never get at home.

OMG.

The computers in here were not affected by the
Great Firewall. 
That ninny, bullying, Big Brother nincompoop that regulated the Internet.

!!!!!WHAT!!!!!

She’d looked over her shoulder to make sure no one was behind her.  She didn’t believe what she was seeing.  She could click on anything and it would pull up.

This was amazing.  Beyond amazing.  She’d clicked on a few sites, and then had gotten scared.  This was illegal what she was doing, banned by The State.  Men in grey could come any moment and put her in a dark, wet place and she would never be heard from again.  Who would know?  Who would miss her?

Those thoughts depressed her.  Nobody would, of course.  SAD.  (Q_Q)

She was alone in this world.  And she could be silenced at any moment just for doing this.  She’d stopped clicking on the links.  The Great Firewall may not work in here, but she wasn’t going to take the bait.

Maybe this was a test?  To see who was tempted?  The whole premise of this gig was crazy anyway.  All employees needed to know to work here was how to write English? 
Yah! 
How stupid could she be?  She’d fallen for that nonsense.  The State had created the perfect honey pot.
 
A way to lure potential dissidents, those not loyal to The State.  They could weed out traitors.  Weed out all those sympathetic to westernized thinking.  If a person could read and write English, they were already suspect.  So they had advertised on walls. 
Can you write English?
  Yep!  Me!  Me!  Na had read it, been tempted, and walked right into the honey.  Man, was she a dummy.

Now she was stuck.

THEY HAD HER.  Right?  Any day now.  She waited.  Didn’t run.  Didn’t disappear, though a part of her thought that might be her best option. 

The only reason she stayed, was she ran the percentages.  No, it was better to stay.  If they were monitoring her somehow, they’d see she didn’t go down that road of temptation.  She’d only clicked on the sites.  She hadn’t taken it any further.

So, she came to work.  Day 1 ticked to Day 2, 3 and 4.  And nothing happened.  No consequences.  No men in grey came.  Instead,
nothing
.

During those four days, she noticed that both Chun and Jing-Wei frequently went to off-limit sites to leave posts.  Either they didn’t know those sites were banned, or they didn’t care.  Still, Na played it safe.  She only went to sites she knew were okay to do her work.  She kept that up, all the while observing Chun and Jing-Wei on the sly, as they continued to go to banned sites.

Nothing was happening to them.  No men in grey came to take them away.  They didn’t disappear; here one day, gone the next.  In fact, Na saw the same employees each day.  Nobody went missing.  Not for the first week.  And not even into the second.

Okay.  None of this was making sense to Na.  Perhaps, this operation was not what she thought.  Maybe it wasn’t a honey trap?  Maybe they weren’t trying to lure English-writing dissidents in order to capture them?

As she thought about it, there was even the possibility this operation had received permission from The State to do what they were doing.  While that seemed highly unlikely to her, The State had to know what was going on here.  Right?  Wouldn’t they know this was happening with all their ability to monitor Internet traffic?

They had to be turning a blind eye.  So if they weren’t policing it, they must be okay with it.  Maybe this fit some sort of exception?  Or maybe this operation was owned by someone with connections?

Her mind went through various possibilities, but none of them clicked.  None of them seemed to explain this operation.  This was all
Joe Cheapo
to her
.
  Everything about this setup: the cheapo computers, cheapo fold-up tables, cheapo work space, cheapo compensation for the employees.  When they worked.  Where they worked.  This did not seem to be a state-sanctioned operation.  This reeked black market.

Like the time they worked.  From 3 AM till 3 PM.  That was unusual.  Maybe that was how this operation kept off the radar?  Maybe the owners of this operation knew the best time to avoid the Internet censors?  Maybe these hours were a “hole” in the Great Firewall?  A time when the censors were relaxed or even turned off?

She had to test her theory.  There was a notice on the wall, written by bossman.  It was the rules.

No phones.  No cameras.  No bathroom breakings.  Piss and shating on fifteen-minute break.  Only!  Speak-ing English.  Writing English.  Work!

The sign would have been funny, particularly the creative spelling and grammar, except those rules weren’t a joke.  One of the poor girls that sat across from Na had trouble one day.  Na noticed the uncomfortable look on the girl’s face.  She was obviously struggling with something.  Two hours later, about an hour to go till break, Na understood what it was.  Everyone understood what it was.  The smell was terrible.  The girl’s shame was horrible to see.

The girl didn’t want to face bossman, apparently.  She’d chosen what she did, rather than choose the alternative, which would have required asking bossman if she could be excused for a moment.  Na had looked at bossman to see his reaction.  He obviously was smelling what everyone else was smelling.  Na saw him snort, and then she saw him do something he rarely did.  He smiled.

He was beneath Na’s contempt.  The more she saw, the more she was disgusted by him.  The others feared him; it was obvious.  No one wanted to have to face him in the other room.  Because that was the punishment.  What would happen if rules were broken.

Na was learning, but she was still rash.  She decided to test out her theory about the “hole”.  Even though bossman said no phones, she smuggled one in one day.  She hid it under her clothes.  While she was pretending to work, she discretely pulled it out under the table.  She had already plugged in a set of key words, and all she had to do was touch her screen to run a search.  She did the same search on her computer.  She compared the two searches.  Nope.  They were different.  No “hole”.  This was something else.

Na didn’t know how they did it, but somehow the firewalls and government filters didn’t apply in here.  In addition to Facebook, she could access other off-limit sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social media platforms she normally couldn’t pull up.

It was still amazing, each time she looked at it.  Nothing was censored.  She could go to any site.  Any site!!!

After the phone test, she decided enough was enough.  She’d stayed off, while her fellow employees kept going to banned sites.  And nothing was happening to them.  She made a decision then.  She dove in.  She started to use the full breadth of tools that were at her disposal.

Facebook.

That was the mother lode.  Twitter and LinkedIn were good, but not like Facebook.  By using Facebook she found she could bypass a lot of stuff.  Sign-in instantly on almost any site.  Forget the time-consuming registration process on Game Zone.  With Facebook’s ‘connect’ button, which almost every site had nowadays, she could register in seconds.  She just clicked on Facebook’s blue ‘F’ button, typed in her user name and password, and Facebook did the rest.  In seconds, she was logged onto the site.  At that point she was in a position where she could leave a comment or post a review.

Of course it took some time in the beginning to set up the Facebook accounts.  But once she got those set up she could use them over and over.  And over and over again.  She kept a cheat sheet to keep them organized.  She was constantly adding new ones, so her list kept growing.

Like a ‘Christmas tree’.  *<<<<+

Oops.  Before it was cut.  *<<<<

Growing, growing…

*<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Right now her list was over thirty pages long, and each page held information on over sixty Facebook accounts.  When she dove in, she really dove in.  She was now 2,046 different people and counting.  She was having babies all the time.  No one baby limit for her.  >^_^<   Ha ha, you silly grey men, poop poop on you!  Na had created her own little army of
Feebies
(that would be Facebook drones; trademark; mine!  mine!  made it up).

On her cheat sheets, which were alphabetically organized, she’d listed each person’s name, email address, and password.  And off to the right were some notes, which kept her straight on what types of products each Feebie liked or disliked.  She believed it was important to keep those details consistent.  That way she wouldn’t lose track.

One of the added benefits of Facebook were the pictures.  When she logged on using Facebook and left a post, there was her little thumbnail showing her face—well it wasn’t her face, it was the face of Bubba, Mary Sue Ellen, or whatever Feebie she was using at the moment.  She’d set up Bubba’s profile three months ago on Facebook.  Bubba had 274 friends, most of which were other Feebies that Na had created.  The funny part was that Bubba had some “real” friends.  He was friended almost every other day by somebody.  Someone thinking they knew him, claiming to have gone to the same school as Bubba supposedly attended.  She thought it hilarious, until she realized what was really happening.  Seemed she wasn’t the only one creating Feebies.  For kicks, she’d look at some of the profiles to see how glaringly bad they were.  The red flags were usually easy to spot.

Like how many friends the Facebook profile would have.  In some cases it would be some low number like 12 or 34. 
And they were friending Bubba as one of their first friends?  Must be a close friend?
  She wanted to laugh, but had to hold it in.  Or the picture of the person friending showed a gorgeous exotic girl, that more times than not, was revealing way too much skin.  AND she only had 4 friends!  AND Bubba was her fifth friend request!  They must be VERY close!  BFGF.  Kiss kiss. 

Giggle.  Eye roll.  Snort. 

Low friend number.  Bimbo picture.  It was so silly.  Who fell for that stuff?  Americans were so stupid.

Na didn’t bother friending anyone other than her own fake profiles.  She knew it was too easy to spot fakes.  All someone had to do was look at the other pictures on the Facebook page, or that person’s history.  Unless the faker had taken the time to fully flesh out the fake profile, by adding other pictures with the same person, or posting comments, liking lots of stuff, using ‘Instagram’, tweeter feeds, yada yada yada, all the stuff needed to give the profile a veneer of credibility, then it was a wasted effort.  At least in her opinion.  At the bare minimum those fakers needed to bulk up their friend numbers before trolling for real people.

Jeez.  They were morons.  Homer Simpsons.  (_8^(I)

She’d look at their Facebook pages.  They usually would be blank or completely bare bones.  No pictures aside from the profile picture.  No family pictures, no friend pictures.  Nothing.  Just that one picture of them.  And maybe a few basic details.  School they attended.  Where they lived.  One or two things they liked.

After that—
nada, zilch, bupkis.
  Ridiculous.  Na figured it was a low margin business, but still, they weren’t doing a very good job if they were trolling for identities to steal.  Go ahead, she wanted to tell them.  Steal Bubba!  He’s yours!  He has lots of money!!!

And I’m Marge Simpson.  @@@@:-)

With a mustache.  @@@@:-{)

It didn’t take her long to see what was out there.  Yippee!  It was like one big fake family.  Obviously, she wasn’t the only one having fun with Facebook.  It almost made this job, which would be infinitely monotonous and boring, into one of the most fun jobs ever!

Well…

Not really.

SAD.  (Q_Q)

And tired.  (=_=)

To tell the truth this job was worse than cramps.  All she had to do was look around where she worked, and it jolted her back to reality.  She felt like that song bird.  Trapped.  In a cage.  Unable to spread her wings.

But…

And this was the hopeful part… it had a tiny bit of potential.  If she wasn’t a worker bee; if she was running the show, then maybe this could be an okay business.  But she’d have to have her own rules, and they would be so much different.

No shotgun specials.  They were just wrong in her opinion.  Unnecessary.

She never liked doing those.  Bubba’s last post had fulfilled the last order from IDF.  They’d ordered two ‘shotgun specials’ today, which meant 50 good reviews on their stuff, and 200 bad reviews on the competition.  Since IDF was a company that specialized in gaming accessories and post-apocalyptic themed video games, Na had visited websites that catered to that crowd.  Sites like Game Zone.  She’d also left posts on user forums at Zombie Pit, GameSpot, and Joystiq.

She’d kept most of them short and sweet, using various Feebies to log in, and sometimes adding a gamer handle.  Gamer handles, she’d noticed, were frequently used at gamer sites, and when in Rome, do what Rome-ies do (or whatever that phrase was supposed to be).  Anyway...