Pandora Papers and the revealed offshore secrets of the world’s elite
A large-scale journalistic investigation by Pandora Papers has revealed the murky waters around offshore zones and the secrets of the ruling elite, which uses the tax haven to commit various crimes – be it tax evasion or terrorist financing and money laundering.
2.94 terabytes of information about the offshore secrets of the world’s elite became public two days ago, and the names include more than 330 politicians and 130 billionaires. Among the names are two former Bulgarian politicians. It became clear that one of them was Delyan Peevski, who, however, denied the accusations against himself.
Pandora Papers is the largest journalistic investigation ever conducted. It is the result of a lot of work, and more than 600 journalists from 150 media outlets in 117 countries take part in it.
The role of Facebook
The social network has been involved in various scandals over the years. One of the biggest was the one with Cambridge Analytica and the misuse of users’ personal data. Because of him, Mark Zuckerberg was heard before the US Congress and representatives of the European Parliament. However, it remains one of the most widely used social networks and can become a convenient tool for manipulating the masses and even becoming a weapon against democracy.
Currently, Facebook’s problems are due to documents that have become public thanks to a former employee of the company. According to the allegations against Zuckerberg, the company uses sensitive content to make money.
Francis Hogan, 37, provided the Wall Street Journal with the documents that sparked another avalanche of scandals around Zuckerberg. Not only the mental health of teenagers or the rise of anti-vaccines was involved, but also the raid on the Capitol on January 6, 2020. According to the revelations, Facebook deliberately changed its mechanisms to deal with fake news just before the invasion.
Because of the revelations, Mark Zuckerberg again appeared before the US Congress, where he described the allegations as illogical.
“We make money from ads, and advertisers consistently tell us they don’t want their ads to be next to content that’s harmful and anger,” Zuckerberg said.
Facebook got involved in another scandal a few days ago – the data leak in the so-called “dark network”. It is about trading the information of 1.5 billion users of the social network, which were provided in a hacker forum, and in fact allows cybercriminals and unscrupulous advertisers to choose their targets. Emails and even phone numbers are included.
Ivan Savov, director of the European Institute for Policy Risk, told bTV that there was a quadruple event that “hit directly into the circulatory system at the highest level – in relations between politicians, shadow leaders, organized crime and people who influence geopolitical processes ”.
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