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Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

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Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#161

Post by objectivetruth »

Helmet wrote: post #135
whyaduck wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article? https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/the-cri... In no way, shape or form does that "bemoan" efforts to fight _serious_ crime in changing neighborhoods. It DOES take into account the impact of gentrification on the less affluent residents. Is actually discussing that impact considered "liberal"? If you want to criticize liberalism honestly, then you probably shouldn't grossly mischaracter…

Yes, that one. I stand by my criticism, and I accuse you of the very thing that you are accusing me of. If you want me to go in depth, I will. If anything, I restrained myself in addressing that asinine article. It opens with: >"But having been marred by gang violence in recent years, this J’ouvert was markedly different, as The New York Times described. The event, which derives its name from a Creole term for “daybr…

So your first complaint is that the phrase "having been marred by gang violence in recent years" doesn't fully express that the violence included "multiple stabbings" and "homicides." Uh, that's what gang violence usually entails: stabbings, shootings, and murder.

You chalk that up to the writer intentionally ("conveniently") omitting that. Then you cite the NY Post, widely acknowledged as a sensational tabloid, presumably as an example of the coverage you prefer?

Then, you take fault with the author expressing their opinion that the festival had "an overwhelming show of force."

Is that all the author complained about in this respect? They didn't say "damn fascists!" or anything else? They didn't attach any value judgment -- YOU did. The author just pointed out that it was an "overwhelming show of force" which you admit did make the event safer.

If this is the awful, biased "liberal" media you're worried about, you should probably stick to the Post. That way all of your existing biases can be reinforced.

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#162

Post by objectivetruth »

Helmet wrote: post #138
ameister14 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. This is a tangent about that article, as I hadn't read it before, but I live in that part of Brooklyn, have for a few years. Last year on J'ouvert, 2 people were shot about two and a half blocks from my apartment building. This happened every J'ouvert until this most recent one. I'm fine with the extra police presence for that one. When I moved in, there were drug dealers on every corner, including mine.…

>I don't think it's a really bad thing. Who in their right mind would? Uppity liberals and fringe left-wing protesters affiliated with various left-wing identitarian groups. The rest of us, rich, poor, middle-class, black, white, whatever, would prefer our neighborhoods to be safe, and not filled with gang violence and drugs. But this doesn't fit their narrative, so here we are.

So, in your world, there are:

* uppity liberals and fringe left-wing protestors * "the rest of us"

Interesting. Lots of people on both sides of the aisle admit that there are uppity conservatives and fringe right-wing protestors, but you neglected to mention them.

Do you feel that you're "in the middle" and not a conservative?

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#163

Post by objectivetruth »

AFNobody wrote: post #113
Helmet wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your response encapsulates everything I need to know. Have a good day sir.

I think the fact you did not rise to the occasion makes my point. You just assume everyone is a Democrat that doesn't agree with you and you can't think of such a list without serious time investment.

You're arguing with a closed-minded libertarian/conservative -- check the rest of his/her posts and save your breath :-)

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#164

Post by objectivetruth »

philwelch wrote: post #58
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.

Parks and Rec ran for seven seasons, and its protagonist was a fictionalized Hillary Clinton. The West Wing ran for seven seasons and explicitly featured a Democratic Presidential administration.

A fictionalized Hillary Clinton?

That's... quite a leap. You could easily argue Robin Wright plays a fictionalized Hillary Clinton on "House of Cards."

Personally, I think that the free market that the conservatives love to salivate about is making this happen. It cracks me up to imagine Hollywood producers saying "Well, I COULD make more money by making a super-conservative show but I just NEED to get my liberal views out there in the American brain!" Nope. They know that conservatives are going to stroke it to Duck Dynasty and that's about it.

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#165

Post by shostack »

wavefunction wrote: post #10

Here's what I don't get. I got back onto facebook about six months ago after deleting my previous account. I was using the account to auth into news article commenting systems. Within 24 hours I apparently had ticked someone off who had reported me, because my account was locked until I scanned a photo ID of myself and uploaded it. If that happened to me, why isn't it happening to _everyone_?

I'm not sure you ticked someone off who reported you vs. tripped an automated check on FB's end that looks at new accounts that use old account identities, and locks them as suspicious (in case they were hacked, or someone trying to steal someone's identity) which is why they request the additional authentication via photo...

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#166

Post by objectivetruth »

philwelch wrote: post #55
mtgx wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean like the Pentagon has been doing for decades? https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/exclusive-documents-... I wasn't quite aware of this myself until a few years ago. Now I see it in almost every crime/spy/military-related show or movie. I've stopped watching several shows because of it and never started watching others.

Most of these conditions look to be along the lines of, "if you're going to use military property or equipment to film your movie, you don't get to turn around and disparage the military", which has done nothing to stem the tide of Hollywood films explicitly designed to disparage the military.

Can you please give me a list of recent -- or ANY -- Hollywood films that are explicitly designed to disparage the military? That is a BOLD claim and I'd love to learn more.

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#167

Post by objectivetruth »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #6
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.

They do that all the time: Al Gore - 30 Rock Joe Biden/Michelle Obama - Parks and Rec Newt Gengrich - Murphy Brown Donna Brazil - Good Wife etc....

I hate to ruin your thesis, but:

Parks and Rec also featured Newt Gingrich, Olympia Snow, and John McCain.

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#168

Post by chiefalchemist »

linkregister wrote: post #125
narrator wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

When the Iraq WMD situation unfolded, it was met with plenty of skepticism. “MSM” gave it air time, but it was overcome by the deception of the administration at the time, e.g., Sec. Powell’s statements and the cherry-picked CIA assessment. Your example actually undermines your argument. If anything, we need honest actors around to poke holes in narratives produced by authorities, not ones with the goal of weakening…

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.

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#169

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#170

Post by linkregister »

paganel wrote: post #159
mistermann wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his point was, if it happened now, any skepticism would be immediately dismissed as Russian trolls, as it is not consistent with the "correct" mainstream narrative. I see this happening frequently even where there is zero motive for Russians to be involved, but it is no less effective as we've let the authorities do our thinking for us for so long.

Things are different the closer to Russia a country is (like Romania, from where I'm from). The thing with the fake FB accounts only showing "nice girls" as profile photos is all too real, I think I've reported 2 or 3 of them directly to FB, nothing happened, at which point I started calling them out as shill accounts directly. It's interesting seeing Russian propaganda in action. For Romania they have a website call…

I agree, Russia has invested the most capital toward this tactic, and it has paid off. It also has had more historical success with this “sowing discord” tactic than the US, which preferred to spend money on puppet revolutionaries and coups during the cold war.

I would rather that instead of the US government responding in kind with sockpuppets, it would do the much harder work of coming up with an enormous transparency initiative that would nullify the effectiveness of foreign and domestic attempts at sowing discord and propagating falsehoods.

The best Soviet propaganda successes used instances that were genuine weaknesses for the US, such as civil rights and suspicion over US intelligence agencies’ abuses.

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