Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#141

Post by Helmet » Thu, Dec 21, 2017, 10:42 PM UTC

hackbinary wrote: post #133

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,…

Then how do you explain the successive insanely excessive right wing governments in the US, Canada, Britain, and Australia over the last 30-40 years? Have you even read Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky? What do you even mean by conservative? Liberal? You do realise that liberal and liberalism means keeping the government out of people's lives. The USA is a liberal nation by definition, for example 'The separatio…

>Then how do you explain the successive insanely excessive right wing governments

I'm not familiar with Australian politics, but as for the others, what do you mean? We have had both liberal and conservative governments the last 30-40 years. This, again, has little to do with the mainstream culture, which was my original point.

As for explaining to you why neoliberalism has triumphed, well I recommend that you start here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War

>Have you even read Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky?

Yes, and it had quite an effect on me when I was in college, and utterly ignorant of history. A lot has changed now, and while much of the book is still good, Chomsky has lost his credibility as a cultural critic following the embarrassment of his analyses about a few corners of the world...:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO1JkjbzvPw

Not to mention the Cambodia/Khmer Rouge situation, which should have tipped me off earlier. But I was naive then.

>You do realise that liberal and liberalism means keeping the government out of people's lives....

I understand well what the words mean, friend-o.

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#142

Post by mistermann » Thu, Dec 21, 2017, 10:45 PM UTC

linkregister wrote: post #128

adjkant wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are people downvoting this? What is incorrect here?

Fox News is following its viewers’ sentiment; it originally favored anti-Trump stories prior to his nomination by the Republican Party. Now it pushes the Trump line, but this is due to the fact that Fox News rightly recognizes that its viewers want their biases confirmed.

As does CNBC and CNN, admittedly to a far lesser degree, except theirs is the "correct" bias.

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#143

Post by oconnore » Thu, Dec 21, 2017, 10:49 PM UTC

makomk wrote: post #36

What continues to fascinate me about stories like this is just how nakedly, obviously partisan the post-Trump reporting on the evils of social media is. Compare this with, for example, the tone of all the stories about how the Obama campaign used social media to win the previous election...

Most of the stories about social media are focused on the fact that it was non-US entities putting pro Trump posts up.

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#144

Post by mistermann » Thu, Dec 21, 2017, 10:50 PM UTC

jancsika wrote: post #81

H99189 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read the "journalists lean left, owners lean right" mantra many, many of times over the last 10 years on various boards, yet the overwhelming majority of network news and shows, cable news and entertainment shows dump on Republicans/Conservatism and fawn over Democrats/Liberalism. IMO, it's a very misleading idea meant to deceive people into thinking their sources of news or entertainment are somehow more honest…

You're conflating two very different concepts. The mantra is not "journalists are Democrats, owners are Republicans." Cable news and entertainment fawned over Hilary, not Bernie.

The error is in thinking Hillary is majorly opposed to the Republican agenda. A lot of Bernie supporters switched camps to Trump, as insane as that may sound. The rich would continue to accumulate more money either way, more war in the Middle East, etc. I viewed Trump as kind of a last ditch hail Mary, which seems to have been a bad guess in retrospect.

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#145

Post by fleitz » Thu, Dec 21, 2017, 10:53 PM UTC

fortythirteen wrote: post #2

Imagine if ABC/CBS/NBC actively went to political parties and sold them on buying their way into the scripts of the top prime-time sitcoms to shape the opinion of viewers. That's essentially what Facebook is doing out in the open.

That's not so far fetched, I mean CNN gave the debate questions to Clinton...

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#146

Post by linkregister » Thu, Dec 21, 2017, 10:55 PM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #142

linkregister wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fox News is following its viewers’ sentiment; it originally favored anti-Trump stories prior to his nomination by the Republican Party. Now it pushes the Trump line, but this is due to the fact that Fox News rightly recognizes that its viewers want their biases confirmed.

As does CNBC and CNN, admittedly to a far lesser degree, except theirs is the "correct" bias.

CNN has bias that fluctuates wildly toward the perceived flavor of the week; it operates for maximum sensationalism. It basically invented the 24-hour news cycle and hasn’t altered its formula for decades.

CNBC is business news; did you mean MSNBC?

MSNBC has the least viewership of the three and I would not consider it particularly influential. It is biased towards a minority ultra-Democrat position, hence its relatively lower viewership due to its fringe editorial content.

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#147

Post by fleitz » Thu, Dec 21, 2017, 10:55 PM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #142

linkregister wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fox News is following its viewers’ sentiment; it originally favored anti-Trump stories prior to his nomination by the Republican Party. Now it pushes the Trump line, but this is due to the fact that Fox News rightly recognizes that its viewers want their biases confirmed.

As does CNBC and CNN, admittedly to a far lesser degree, except theirs is the "correct" bias.

To be fair to Fox News I don't recall anyone in the RNC resigning because they gave candidates debate questions they were privy to as corespondents. (Donna Brazile)

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#148

Post by basic-gongfu » Thu, Dec 21, 2017, 10:57 PM UTC

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 would be really careful about saying anything negative about one of dangs lover boys around here, (s?)he'll fuck up your account in no time at all if you mess with the money.

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#149

Post by mistermann » Thu, Dec 21, 2017, 10:57 PM UTC

hackbinary wrote: post #133

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,…

Then how do you explain the successive insanely excessive right wing governments in the US, Canada, Britain, and Australia over the last 30-40 years? Have you even read Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky? What do you even mean by conservative? Liberal? You do realise that liberal and liberalism means keeping the government out of people's lives. The USA is a liberal nation by definition, for example 'The separatio…

> insanely excessive right wing governments in Canada

Calling anyone who disagrees with your political philosophy "insane" is....I don't even know what word to use.

EDIT: Perhaps instead of a downvote, you could give a few examples of the insanely excessive things right wing governments in Canada have done recently (extraordinary claims and all that....).

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#150

Post by threeseed » Thu, Dec 21, 2017, 10:59 PM UTC

Steeeve wrote: post #114

threeseed wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understand why people put Fox News and MSNBC on the same pedestal. Fox News is an an outreach of Trump's political apparatchik. MSNBC was never particularly close to Obama.

I wouldn't put them on a pedestal. And to think that MSNBC airs any kind of content that is non-partisan is a joke.

I never said MSNBC wasn't partisan.

But Fox News literally coordinates with the Trump team and he lavishes them personally with praise via Twitter almost every week. It's far more akin to campaign outreach rather than independent news. This never happened with Obama or the DNC.

MSNBC also does have independent journalists e.g. Chuck Todd and right-wing commentators e.g. Hugh Hewitt, Joe Scarborough etc. So it's not entirely liberal.