I like the critical thinking in this article. Problem is, I am critical about it's critique. Just because Ted Cruz made use of the same platform and did not win, does not mean there is no problem with what Facebook is doing. They are still thieving people's data and selling it for a nice sum.
Facebook is America’s scapegoat du jour
21–30 of 172 posts
Re: Facebook is America’s scapegoat du jour
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
I realize that this is tangential to what you're talking about but your comment reminded me of it strongly: As much as it's clear that there was some funny business with trump's people and russia, the way liberals are salivating over mueller's investigation makes me uncomfortable. they need the legal system to pronounce in some way that trump and his people broke the rules, in order to avoid acknowledging that the ge…
It's like how the 2008 election didn't count, because Obama is actually a Kenyan. People can't just lose an election anymore.
I like to talk about social issues and politics and stuff but the more I do it in public the more I run into what feels like "politics-as-basketball." It's really begun to feel like team sports as opposed to a critical analysis of conditions and power analysis.
Re: Facebook is America’s scapegoat du jour
#23Here is, roughly, the media's playbook: 1. Never stop talking about Trump. Mention his name 300 times an hour on CNN. He's not a serious candidate, but he is entertaining so they give him free publicity until he is a serious candidate. 2. Start blathering about Hillary's emails, as if that were somehow important. 3. Now Trump is elected. In these tough times, it is more important than ever to support high-quality ind…
I realize that this is tangential to what you're talking about but your comment reminded me of it strongly: As much as it's clear that there was some funny business with trump's people and russia, the way liberals are salivating over mueller's investigation makes me uncomfortable. they need the legal system to pronounce in some way that trump and his people broke the rules, in order to avoid acknowledging that the ge…
As evidenced by the gerrymandered districts intended to do things like sway presidential elections. Clearly the system is working as designed and not being cheated...
Re: Facebook is America’s scapegoat du jour
#24I saw it coming a few months ago. Didn't you? There is a group of people/organizations acting as puppet masters, dictating what's going to be the next big topic. This is a lot more scarier than the FB story itself. It would be great if someone starts digging it out and uncover what's really happening, who are they and what their motives are. Media started feeding us stories how social networks are "bad for you", then…
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Re: Facebook is America’s scapegoat du jour
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I realize that this is tangential to what you're talking about but your comment reminded me of it strongly: As much as it's clear that there was some funny business with trump's people and russia, the way liberals are salivating over mueller's investigation makes me uncomfortable. they need the legal system to pronounce in some way that trump and his people broke the rules, in order to avoid acknowledging that the ge…
As evidenced by the gerrymandered districts intended to do things like sway presidential elections. Clearly the system is working as designed and not being cheated...
That's kinda what I'm getting at: gerrymandering is the implementation. Our legislatures need to specify and clarify rules to stop those kind of abuses, but I don't think anyone is going to jail for gerrymandering a district. My point was simply that these are the rules of the game but people seem to believe someone is cheating.
Re: Facebook is America’s scapegoat du jour
#26I find the use of the word "scapegoat" interesting. From the little I know about anthropology, when some calamity befell the village/horde/tribe (disease/drought/crime etc) the shaman would magically point out the scapegoat as the culprit, who invariably was someone people didn't like to begin with; because of this, such decisions were rarely contested regardless of their plausibility and the scapegoat was promptly disposed of.
I suspect that most people are as clueless about what is really going on as those villagers.
Those who control the media, though, just like the shaman, are extremely adept at sizing up the public emotion.
For what it's worth, if I understand it correctly, the most interesting aspect of this is that using machine learning techniques they managed to translate the actual tags that they wanted to target (gay/square/racist/unemployed/man/rightwing/white/latino etc etc) to the less revealing tags actually offered by fb, and in this way direct propaganda more accurately.
Re: Facebook is America’s scapegoat du jour
#27Here is, roughly, the media's playbook: 1. Never stop talking about Trump. Mention his name 300 times an hour on CNN. He's not a serious candidate, but he is entertaining so they give him free publicity until he is a serious candidate. 2. Start blathering about Hillary's emails, as if that were somehow important. 3. Now Trump is elected. In these tough times, it is more important than ever to support high-quality ind…
Don't forget conjuring up an external enemy to distract the public and get the population riled up. 5. Russia and Hackers and Collusion Oh My! > Not the fault of the media who would never shut up about Trump. But look at the ratings and the ad money they are getting? It's the same thing with school shootings. Massive 24/7 coverage turning the shooter into a celebrity. Then they wonder why shootings happen. Oh it coul…
Nobody will talk about "common sense media control" for some reason. It's common sense!
Re: Facebook is America’s scapegoat du jour
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
I realize that this is tangential to what you're talking about but your comment reminded me of it strongly: As much as it's clear that there was some funny business with trump's people and russia, the way liberals are salivating over mueller's investigation makes me uncomfortable. they need the legal system to pronounce in some way that trump and his people broke the rules, in order to avoid acknowledging that the ge…
As evidenced by the gerrymandered districts intended to do things like sway presidential elections. Clearly the system is working as designed and not being cheated...
How does one use gerrymandering to sway a presidential election?
Re: Facebook is America’s scapegoat du jour
#29All the terms and templates we are using legally and in the media... they are painting a totally (imo) misleading picture.
FB's "crime" is painted as data security. The "criminals" are trump, Bannon, Putin or whoever is alleged to have used this data to "manipulate public opinion." This misses the entire point.
FB's business model is based on using large datasets of mundane (in isolation) information in order to "profile" people. More specifically, score people for likelihood to do X, where X is refinance a loan, go to a diet seminar or whatever an advertiser wants.
The key point is large quantities of mundane data, not necessarily stuff that is protected.
Someone got a hold of a small subset of FBs dataset and presumably used it to target political messages or whatnot.
This is exactly what all FB advertiser's do every day.
If we're calling this incident "manipulating public opinion" or "foreign meddling"... Then the problem is 10,000X times bigger than this case. This stuff is all around us.
Re: Facebook is America’s scapegoat du jour
#30I saw it coming a few months ago. Didn't you? There is a group of people/organizations acting as puppet masters, dictating what's going to be the next big topic. This is a lot more scarier than the FB story itself. It would be great if someone starts digging it out and uncover what's really happening, who are they and what their motives are. Media started feeding us stories how social networks are "bad for you", then…
Implying that media is manipulated "from the top" seems needlessly complex. The perpetual urge to produce more makes the media chaotic, it can amplify any fluke in the white noise. You can manipulate the opinions while being nobody.
Why is it "needlessly complex"? Aren't all corporations "manipulated from the top"?