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Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

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Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#241

Post by romanovcode »

qubex wrote: post #33
foodislove wrote: post #4

This is why I don't want Mark Zuckerberg in any public office. I really think the guy has no moral compass because all his actions point to a very sinister "money is everything" attitude and that everything has a price.

I’m not American but I keep hoping Bill Gates’ philanthropic inclinations will eventually get the better of him and lead him to casually pour a billion or so into getting himself nominated and elected President in a ”battle of the billionaires” and end this horror.

Same here, I actually think he would be very good as a president for U.S.

But AFAIK he is not interested in politics at all.

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#243

Post by chiefalchemist »

willyt wrote: post #237
chiefalchemist wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was "overcome" because the reporting had little backbone to begin with. Most of the rest of the world was demanding proof but the MSM did little to make the American public aware of that. Powell, the IC statements, etc. were just part of the theatre, part of the spin. The bottom line was, the MSM was on board and played a key roll in the WMDs snow job.

But no-one believed it. At the time there was a protest of well over 1M people in London against the war. Which is huge, between 1.5% and 3.3% of the entire population of Britain. My work actually gave us the day off to go to it.

Yes, basically that's what I said. That is, the USA MSM "under-reported" the lack of belief internationally. The American people were sold fiction and they gladly bought it.

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#244

Post by erikpukinskis »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #243
willyt wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But no-one believed it. At the time there was a protest of well over 1M people in London against the war. Which is huge, between 1.5% and 3.3% of the entire population of Britain. My work actually gave us the day off to go to it.

Yes, basically that's what I said. That is, the USA MSM "under-reported" the lack of belief internationally. The American people were sold fiction and they gladly bought it.

That’s simply not true. There was a huge anti-war response in the U.S. too. The country was very divided on the subject.

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#245

Post by tux1968 »

wavefunction wrote: post #215
tux1968 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The laws didn't change drastically from the time a few years earlier when all those people managed to get out and elect Obama. That doesn't seem like a deciding factor at all.

Voter ID laws definitely changed. All the kicking people off voting rolls definitely got stepped up. Quite a few things were different.

Not really. There have been such allegations going back to every election. There is no evidence that they were more prevalent this time around. In any case, it really seems to not be relevant in a statistical sense of playing a deciding role in the election.

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#246

Post by qubex »

hyperdunc wrote: post #196
qubex wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cartoon or not, or is a depiction of sexual objectification, harassment, profaning somebody’s personal space in a public context, and a denigration of womanhood. What is there to like about it?

You don't have to like it. You also don't get to censor it because you don't like it.

I shan't stand by when I see somebody being molested and humiliated and I shan't stand by when I see material that advocates molestation and humiliation. I hope you wouldn't either.

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#247

Post by qubex »

vadimberman wrote: post #192

I remember back in late 1990s to early 2000s there was a fad for scaremongering articles about how computers and the Internet are the root of all evil. Looks like it's the turn of social networks now. > In India, the company helped develop the online presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who now has more Facebook followers than any other world leader. ...Seriously? How about another article on SEO companies train…

Those articles back then probably had in mind some of the things that social media is occasioning now, they just didn't have the specific term for it so they lumped it all together under the big novel catch-all term “Internet”. I've read some eerily prescient forewarnings from that era, particularly about the undesirable side-effects of the “global village”.

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#248

Post by passing_by_and »

narrator wrote: post #101
decebalus1 wrote: post #7

Remember this? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15790687 To some extent it's still going on. Protests are still happening (and it's really bad) so lately I've been noticing a bunch of - what I think are - shill accounts. Couple of days before I went through some of the posts in news post about the protests and identified several profiles with no personal pictures, no posts, posting in broken Romanian about: - ant…

How do you know what goes on outside of your direct perception anyway? It used to be conventional media channels and they would print what was arguably propaganda, but there wouldn't be any Russian trolls to poke holes in it. Imagine if the Iraq WMD story broke now. All those Russian trolls spamming Facebook running around saying it was bullshit. That would be total chaos! Why don't people trust the mainstream? The r…

"You think you know what fake news is and what's reality, but we never did..."

I think this may be one of the most simple and insightful comments I have read recently. Thank you.

My only thought is how do you find bedrock to base ideas when you can't trust any of it?

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#249

Post by gerbilly »

darpa_escapee wrote: post #129
Helmet wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The left has not taken over anything. I specifically said that the dominant culture is left - and it most certainly is, not the economic order. Virtually every major newspaper in every major city is left-leaning, almost every single cable news network, and all the major tech giants, who are a gateway to content, are undeniably liberal. And academia...well that goes without saying - half are card carrying communists,…

> In fact, it's heresy to even be conservative at most major tech companies. I've found more self-professed libertarians in this field than I've found of their left-leaning counterparts.

Instead of being conservative or liberal why don't we just try being nice to people?

All these hot button issues that divide conservatives/liberals would evaporate if each side just tried, in each interaction to treat the other with dignity and according to their needs.

You know, the golden rule: Treat others like you would like to be treated? That's a good start, but we really need the platinum rule: to treat people how they would like to be treated.

Attempting to walk this path is a much harder task than relying on a dusty old book or on an enumeration of freedoms. It requires one to try to develop humility and wisdom.

I believe there are no moral absolutes, and that only by paying attention the entire situation in the moment can you tell what you should do.

When you adopt this point of view, you see that labels like liberal/conservative are just a set of received ideas that people use to avoid the difficult work described above.

They are just an interrelated set of heuristics allowing you to take shortcuts in our day to day interactions with others.

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#250

Post by qubex »

romanovcode wrote: post #241
qubex wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not American but I keep hoping Bill Gates’ philanthropic inclinations will eventually get the better of him and lead him to casually pour a billion or so into getting himself nominated and elected President in a ”battle of the billionaires” and end this horror.

Same here, I actually think he would be very good as a president for U.S. But AFAIK he is not interested in politics at all.

As far as I know, he isn't either, but as I said, I keep hoping that somehow it dawns on him that salvaging the USA from this hideous path it's on is within the domain of ‘philantropy’ that he is pursuing.
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