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How Facebook Is Fueling the French Populist Rage

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Re: How Facebook Is Fueling the French Populist Rage

#121

Post by stef25 »

paganel wrote: post #77
stef25 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People getting their ass beat for trying to set fire to a McDonalds while protesting the high cost of living deserve no tears, I'm sorry. Also, if you're going to pick a fight with a crew in full riot gear it's best to not get cornered by them.

There's a very good reason why there are even international treaties forbidding an army force to physically molest the opposing side once the latter has surrendered, because that way the conflict doesn't need to escalate to the point of total destruction for both sides. More to the point, the protesters seeing this video will know that surrendering to the police will probably get their arms and feet broken so next ti…

> the protesters seeing this video will know that surrendering to the police will probably get their arms and feet broken

The ones getting their limbs smashed weren't protesting, they had destroyed and broken in to property with the probable intent of causing more damage.

All of this in a setting where police is massively outnumbered while being pelted with 10 pound rocks, bottles, fire crackers and tear gas.

Giving someone a beating to incapacitate them (no time for arrest & paperwork) is fair game in my eyes.

Re: How Facebook Is Fueling the French Populist Rage

#122

Post by pjc50 »

zabana wrote: post #39

Genuine question: Is it just me or the whole 'fake-news' concept seems like an excuse for ~old~ traditional (failing?) media to continue to act as gatekeepers of information ? I've seen an increasing number of alternative / independent journalists and websites being given the label of "fake-news site" recently and I'm a bit worried to see that trend continue.

There are different types of things being conflated as "fake news":

- fiction not labelled as such: items invented from whole cloth with no regard for evidence. Conspiracy garbage. "B52 FOUND ON MOON".

- correctly reporting an official statement that turns out to be false, without checking the underlying facts ("WMD in Iraq": the newspapers accurately reported what the officials said!). Various other sorts of bad, sycophantic or "yellow" journalism.

- hostile propaganda, malicious lies, racial slander, and the like: protocols of zion/blood libel/etc material. Similar slander of Muslims. QAnon and Pizzagate. Previously the mainstream media refused to touch this stuff, but now it's being spread to a large audience via social media. Various sorts of government psyops, including but not limited to Russia.

The problem is that people correctly see the "old fake news" (2), but then replace it with even less accurate news (3).

Re: How Facebook Is Fueling the French Populist Rage

#123

Post by EGreg »

dao- wrote: post #20
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 not just plain communication. Facebook controls what you see and their algorithms encourage rage because it gets users engaged.

And the media does the same.

Re: How Facebook Is Fueling the French Populist Rage

#124

Post by AlexB138 »

ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #113
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.

I think it is fair to criticize unedited internet communication in general, as we have just recently learned that this form of communication did not result in the improvement of public discourse that everyone might have hoped. Facebook just happens to be the largest platform offering that. I don't think it is fair to consider large-scale censorship as the only other alternative. Having some kind of neutral editorial…

> I don't think it is fair to consider large-scale censorship as the only other alternative. Having some kind of neutral editorial process to filter out the unsubstantiated, hateful opinions and leave room for a more nuanced discussion raises the level of discourse, and is the model that have been offered by traditional media for a long time.

The problem with this view is that one person's hateful opinion is another person's oppressed minority opinion. There aren't many objective truths, moderators just end up enforcing their own world view (which we've already seen Facebook do).

Re: How Facebook Is Fueling the French Populist Rage

#125

Post by beginningguava »

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.

>unless you actually want censorship on the largest scale ever in history

that's what they want. The media and many government officials have been implying that the citizens are simply too stupid to be trusted with filtering their information so the glorious government must restrict what they're allowed to see. At what point will they decide the common man is simply too dumb to vote and get rid of democracy as well?

All this talk is demeaning and shows what our cultured elites really think about us, that we're a bunch of dumb cattle that need to be controlled

Re: How Facebook Is Fueling the French Populist Rage

#126

Post by snaky »

ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #113
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.

I think it is fair to criticize unedited internet communication in general, as we have just recently learned that this form of communication did not result in the improvement of public discourse that everyone might have hoped. Facebook just happens to be the largest platform offering that. I don't think it is fair to consider large-scale censorship as the only other alternative. Having some kind of neutral editorial…

> I think it is fair to criticize unedited internet communication in general, as we have just recently learned that this form of communication did not result in the improvement of public discourse

It depends on how exactly you define 'improvement'. Millions of people, speaking freely to each other, finding new friends sharing common interests would disagree with you.

Re: How Facebook Is Fueling the French Populist Rage

#127

Post by pjc50 »

asianthrowaway wrote: post #112
pjc50 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, a key part of this is misrepresentation: Russians saying things about politics as themselves would be one thing, but Russians pretending to be Americans en masse with thousands of fake accounts and promoting obviously false rumours and driven by audience-targeting ad technology starts to become a problem. (This is not an argument against anonymity; I don't need to know where these accounts really live. I do need…

I'm still really unconvinced by this whole "Russians influenced the election" narrative. I doubt a few articles written in poor English about how Hillary runs pedophile sex rings would have had a greater influence on the electorate than Hillary being actively endorsed by nearly every respectable establishment media outlet.

People really wanted to hate Hillary, and to some extent this was because she was endorsed so heavily by the media. So they latched onto every little thing that could be used against her.

There's really two parts to the populist wave: "establishment politics isn't delivering what we need" and "we must turn to what seems like a Man of the People". The first has some extremely valid points, the second has (mostly) been a total disaster.

Re: How Facebook Is Fueling the French Populist Rage

#128

Post by hardwaresofton »

sanxiyn wrote: post #44
amelius wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's starting to feel like a coordinated smear campaign, even if all of it is accurate. I don't get it. If it's all accurate then what is the problem exactly? That all the anger is directed at FB? They are the largest social media company, and in the good times I have never heard them say "but other social media companies deserve some love too". Running a business is not supposed to be easy.

> I don't get it. If it's all accurate then what is the problem exactly? Selective reporting is a huge problem. You can distort almost any topic by selectively reporting only truthful things.

Yup. In addition to this, for every extremist/unsavory group that gathers on FB there are probably a bunch more wholesome (or at least unsavory) groups that have a chance to congregate for almost free (minus the cost of some privacy). Facebook is accelerating volunteer orgs, philanthropies, and all sorts of other organizations that do good, but that doesn't necessarily get reported on, an even when it does the cynical.

Again, I'm not defending Facebook, but it's pretty peculiar -- they just seem to have been in hot water every day for the last few months. Maybe it's a vicious PR cycle where regular media outlets are now being incentivized to report on FB's negative press because that's what's getting clicks.... because negative press is being produced.

[EDIT] wanted to add that this is part of how people get sucked into conspiracy theories... No one has time to verify and fact-check every single fact, and editors/media outlets are doing it less and less these days. A few lies mixed in with a bunch of facts are sometimes really hard to find but can have lasting impacts on your world view/view of some subject. Of course, sometimes conspiracy theories, outlandish-seeming claims, and smear jobs are sometimes true and justified.

Re: How Facebook Is Fueling the French Populist Rage

#129

Post by paganel »

stef25 wrote: post #121
paganel wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a very good reason why there are even international treaties forbidding an army force to physically molest the opposing side once the latter has surrendered, because that way the conflict doesn't need to escalate to the point of total destruction for both sides. More to the point, the protesters seeing this video will know that surrendering to the police will probably get their arms and feet broken so next ti…

> the protesters seeing this video will know that surrendering to the police will probably get their arms and feet broken The ones getting their limbs smashed weren't protesting, they had destroyed and broken in to property with the probable intent of causing more damage. All of this in a setting where police is massively outnumbered while being pelted with 10 pound rocks, bottles, fire crackers and tear gas. Giving…

> Giving someone a beating to incapacitate them (no time for arrest & paperwork) is fair game in my eyes.

This is a very wrong view to hold, imho. Modern political concepts like the German Rechtsstaat or the English "Rule of law" depend on the police not doing what they're seen doing in videos like this one. If the general populace feels (or even starts to feel) that the police and the powers that be play by no rules then we'll be in a world of hurt and anarchy.

Re: How Facebook Is Fueling the French Populist Rage

#130

Post by janzij »

Veen wrote: post #105
sanxiyn wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.

Macron isn't Hitler or Pol Pot or George III. He wants to put the price of diesel up to reduce environmental damage. He wants to reduce taxes on the rich to spur the economy. You can disagree with those aims, but he's not destroying the French system of government. For that, look to Venezuela.

He's a neoliberal who's screwing the working people, and now the working people are protesting. While I agree with the premise that they should've chosen someone else who cared about them like Le Pen, I don't see how this protest is illegitimate. (Not that I'm defending the property damage, of course.)
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