First off, I’m sure you have already worked out, that Faceook is not funded by the CIA, and instead the headline refers to a very funny Onion TV story where it reveals the CIA is to get a boost to its Facebook surveillance programme.

The segment also outs Mark Zuckerberg as a CIA agent and director of the CIA’s Facebook programme, which was first conceived as part of the US government’s Patriot Act.

The “news clip” also reveals that one of the single biggest achievements of the CIA social media funded network (other than being able to closely watch the lives of 600 million plus people) was “operation Farmville”. This is credited with “pacifying”  million of people. Oh look a virtual chicken.

Zuckerberg, as head of operation ‘Overload’, describes his programme as the “the single most powerful tool for population control ever created”.

Other notable wins for the CIA include the friends of friends feature, which has allowed the CIA to infiltrate dissident networks, and persuading people that sharing all the details of their lives is a deeply desirable act rather than a deeply unsettling one.

The Onion’s panel also makes a crack about another CIA digital initiative namely Twitter. The gag goes that despite more than 400 billion tweets there has still to be one bit of useful data. Looks like Twitter isn’t long for the world.

The funniest thing is that while this is just a piece of humour it is spot on when it comes to the privacy issues. We do love to share.

Watch on The Onion