How Facebook Is Fueling the French Populist Rage • Hacker News Board

Re: How Facebook Is Fueling the French Populist Rage

#51

Post by janzij » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 1:36 PM UTC

Veen wrote: post #37

janzij wrote: post #2

How is this any different from the Arab Spring? Why should this be silenced while the Arab Spring had to amplified?

Because there is no moral equivalence between the despotisms of the middle east and the elected government of a secular democratic republic. Overturning tyrany is good. Attempting to overturn democracies in favor of mob rule is bad.

Democracy is not the perfect system that some people purport it to be.

You get someone elected, someone who is far from perfect but he's the only likely candidate to win, so what can you do. And then that person has 4 years to screw you over. That's not just.

Re: How Facebook Is Fueling the French Populist Rage

#52

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 1:36 PM UTC

jdhn wrote: post #13

Damned if they do, damned if they don't. Personally, I feel that a lot of this hate towards Facebook is done by media types who are jealous that Facebook has stolen their role as a place to find news, no matter if it's fake or real.

[deleted]

Re: How Facebook Is Fueling the French Populist Rage

#53

Post by mc32 » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 1:37 PM UTC

purplethinking wrote: post #16

I don't like Facebook more than anyone else, but at this point aren't we just blaming them for enabling communication? By all means, criticize Facebook for privacy issues, but not for stuff like this, unless you actually want censorship on the largest scale ever in history.

It’s odd because they pick and choose which “violence” is right and wrong. When Arab spring (in the end a very destabilizing movement) was facilitated by FB and Twitter it was great. When it facilitates caravan protests it’s great. When it facilitates anti-tax movements that threaten viability of an unpopular (vis a vis locals) but popular internationally (ie elites) then it’s seen as facilitating “bad” protests. Obviously media like to pick their narrative and winners and losers, deserving of freedom and those who don’t rather than let the masses decide for themselves.

That’s manipulation by traditional media upset their worldview and power to project it is slipping away from them.

Re: How Facebook Is Fueling the French Populist Rage

#54

Post by itry2develop » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 1:37 PM UTC

Never any articles on how social media has fueled the sjw rage...

Re: How Facebook Is Fueling the French Populist Rage

#55

Post by dboreham » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 1:37 PM UTC

easytiger wrote: post #34

dao- wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just plain communication. Facebook controls what you see and their algorithms encourage rage because it gets users engaged.

It's monetisation of the little rush of chemicals your body injects when you feel outraged. Apparently its quite addictive!

Re: How Facebook Is Fueling the French Populist Rage

#56

Post by nkozyra » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 1:37 PM UTC

jdhn wrote: post #13

Damned if they do, damned if they don't. Personally, I feel that a lot of this hate towards Facebook is done by media types who are jealous that Facebook has stolen their role as a place to find news, no matter if it's fake or real.

It's really not about jealousy.

Facebook is indeed a huge distribution model, one that's defective and one that's become a vector for disinformation. That is newsworthy, it's one of the biggest and most interesting media stories of the past half century.

Facebook's reach is why it's newsworthy, but Facebook's actions (and inactions) are why you hear more about them than Google, etc.

Re: How Facebook Is Fueling the French Populist Rage

#57

Post by justtopost » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 1:38 PM UTC

buboard wrote: post #43

stochastic_monk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that this content source is only concerned about news about prominent tech companies, which matches their Palo Alto location. Facebook’s been going through the grinder because they’ve recently had a lot of evidence against them come out; of course technically interested people care about a leader in research and industry. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=mondaynote.com

doesn't explain why there are at least 2 similar stories at any time in HN frontpage I mean, from an entrepreneurial standpoint,maybe "antifacebook as a service" is a valid idea?

I would subscribe to that service.

Re: How Facebook Is Fueling the French Populist Rage

#58

Post by sylvinus » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 1:38 PM UTC

> the worse civil unrest ever seen in France

It's major, but quite far from the worst we've ever had.

Re: How Facebook Is Fueling the French Populist Rage

#59

Post by dopylitty » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 1:39 PM UTC

I'm leery of any movement that the media refers to as "populist" as it seems many of these movements in the past years have been fueled by concerted efforts by despotic governments to destabilize democracies (Ukraine, US) or spread internal discord (Myanmar).

Facebook and Twitter play a key role in these influence operations by not adequately detecting and removing accounts controlled by these despotic governments until after the fact.

Traditional media outlets are not blameless as they frequently treat the results of these intelligence operations as though they were authentic grassroots movements.

Re: How Facebook Is Fueling the French Populist Rage

#60

Post by stdbrouw » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 1:39 PM UTC

vixen99 wrote: post #9

And it could merely be that folk on the edge of French society — truck drivers, provincial plumbers, builders, deliverymen, teachers, parents — are saying `Enough is enough. Stop making our lives harder.’

How exactly are truck drivers, provincial plumbers, builders, deliverymen, teachers and parents parents on the edge of French society? How are their lives being made harder?