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How Meta Is Planning for Elections in 2024

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Re: How Meta Is Planning for Elections in 2024

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The silly hypothetical I painted is that an adversary, B, of country A, could launch a mid to long term plan to secure some degree of voting control over country B. There are countries around the world where even a million people could play a serious role in all kinds of elections. This is where simple majority systems could be vulnerable. Just looking at the recent presidential elections in Argentina, I think the de…

Oh yeah sure, I thought you were suggesting that as a reason to restrict the practice, not as an interesting hypothetical. Admittedly I did not read super carefully, sorry. The inverse is also interesting. Let’s say a group of people think the country is going in the wrong direction, but they don’t have the power to oppose it directly. They leave the country, and then absentee vote as extremists of the side they disa…

Yeah, idea of country B inserting enough controllable voters into country A is likely very difficult in reality if A has a sufficiently large population. Could be possible for smaller nations. The question there becomes the economic or strategic value that nation might offer in order to justify this type of action.

For example, a bunch of countries in Europe have populations between 5 and 10 million. The question there becomes: How many controllable voters would you have to inject into such nations in order to have degree (not absolute) or control in elections at various levels, from local to national? I don't know enough about their voting systems to be able to guess.

Obviously, as you get to nations with tens of millions of people this becomes harder and harder to execute.

The part that isn't hypothetical is the idea that citizens who have left nation A can cast votes remotely and affect those living in country A (at a local to national level) while not suffering the consequences of their votes. This is real today.

Obviously, if expats from A are obligated to pay taxes in A while living abroad, they should have the right to vote. A deeper look is likely required because the rule might have them paying zero taxes (they have to file, yet credits make it zero) or the voting ought to be restricted to the kinds of taxes they pay. For example, they get to vote on national elections only and can't vote on state/provincial elections.

I know many people living abroad for decades. None of they pay taxes. Some of them vote. And that's the point. They are completely disconnected from the consequence of their vote. I don't think that's right.

Re: How Meta Is Planning for Elections in 2024

#42

Ffs why do we need arbiters of truth on the internet. We didn't trust in back in the day, why are we under a notion that we can and should trust it today?! Where are people's critical thinking skills?

We very much need to give the truth a leg up because there are powerful moneyed interests peddling lies.

Also because the threat is diffuse, so it’s not as easy to sue for (say) slander as it was with newspapers.

Re: How Meta Is Planning for Elections in 2024

#43

Ffs why do we need arbiters of truth on the internet. We didn't trust in back in the day, why are we under a notion that we can and should trust it today?! Where are people's critical thinking skills?

Back in the day there wasn’t much value in convincing people on the internet that arbiters of truth were needed because there weren’t enough people on the internet to determine political power contests. There were enough people watching television back in the day to determine political power contests, and hey would you look at that there were arbiters of truth there back in the day.

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Re: How Meta Is Planning for Elections in 2024

#44

Ffs why do we need arbiters of truth on the internet. We didn't trust in back in the day, why are we under a notion that we can and should trust it today?! Where are people's critical thinking skills?

> Where are people's critical thinking skills?

When there are nations working on manipulating people, with presumably significant budgets, you can't really fault people for getting fooled occasionally.

Re: How Meta Is Planning for Elections in 2024

#47

Next year, more than two billion people will head to the polls in elections across some of the world’s biggest democracies, including the United States, India, Indonesia, Mexico and the European Union. Over many years, Meta has developed a comprehensive approach for elections on our platforms. With so many important elections approaching, we are setting out how the policies and safeguards we have established over tim…

How could you ever regain credibility after you de-platformed a US President and many of his supporters? If that’s not election interference I don’t know what is.

I’m not saying Trump is a nice guy, or that we should vote for him, but I believe the best way to expose a bad actor is with disinfecting sunlight, as opposed to martyrdom.

Re: How Meta Is Planning for Elections in 2024

#48

Ffs why do we need arbiters of truth on the internet. We didn't trust in back in the day, why are we under a notion that we can and should trust it today?! Where are people's critical thinking skills?

We very much need to give the truth a leg up because there are powerful moneyed interests peddling lies. Also because the threat is diffuse, so it’s not as easy to sue for (say) slander as it was with newspapers.

> there are powerful moneyed interests peddling lies

When has this not been the case?

> the threat is diffuse, so it’s not as easy to sue for (say) slander as it was with newspapers.

By this, do you mean that anonymity is preventing lawsuits? Regardless, it's never been easy to sue newspapers and win.

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