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Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

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Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#261

Post by chiefalchemist »

soundwave106 wrote: post #255
chiefalchemist wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, basically that's what I said. That is, the USA MSM "under-reported" the lack of belief internationally. The American people were sold fiction and they gladly bought it.

Mmm, there was definitely enough reports in US media that reported on the criticism if you listened hard enough. Linkregister's account was what I remembered. The polling history shows a distinctive minority that opposed the war ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_opinion_in_the_United_... ). I will buy the criticism that some media definitely did stick too obediently to the administration line, the question is h…

> if you listened hard enough

_that_ is the key. If The Fourth Estate is doing their job you shouldn't have to turn down the MSM noise to hear The Truth. Facts should be the majority not some passing fringe moment.

And don't forget Bush's follow up lie "Mission Accomplished" wasn't scrutinized as it should have been.

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#262

Post by chiefalchemist »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #244
chiefalchemist wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, basically that's what I said. That is, the USA MSM "under-reported" the lack of belief internationally. The American people were sold fiction and they gladly bought it.

That’s simply not true. There was a huge anti-war response in the U.S. too. The country was very divided on the subject.

Wrong issue. The issue here is the validity of the WMDs. There would be no war debate is that lie was exposed for what it was (i.e., a lie).

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#263

Post by chiefalchemist »

raverbashing wrote: post #227
chiefalchemist wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes and not everybody bought what msm sold

True. But those who didn't believe were marginalized as unpatriotic.

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#264

Post by JoshMnem »

meri_dian wrote: post #82
JoshMnem wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that is what happened. The media didn't hold him accountable for what he said. They wanted viewers. Websites wanted clicks. There was disinformation everywhere. Even in discussions with people who could calmly talk about it, Trump supporters would cite obviously fake blog posts and other completely fake information that could easily be discredited with quick online searches. Even when shown that the inf…

Illegal immigration is a "wrong thing"? Bringing jobs back to blighted areas is a "wrong thing"? Trump talked about these things, that's real, not fake. Media talked about Trump being terrible all the time. He was bashed at every opportunity on many of the big networks. All the free publicity he got probably helped him, even if much of it was negative. Once Trump won the R nomination, media began to take him seriousl…

Talking about immigration isn't how he won.

I don't think that this would be a productive format for discussing it in depth though.

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#265

Post by mistermann »

SauciestGNU wrote: post #211
mistermann wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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....).

The biggest thing that comes to mind (as a non-Canadian) was the Harper government banning scientists from making public statements. It's as if they knew all evidence contradicted the policy they were trying to enact, so rather than enact better policy they just decided to silence anyone who could provide evidence of their malfeasance.

No disagreement from me that that policy was absolutely shameful. But it falls a ways short of "successive insanely excessive right wing governments", at least for me.

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#266

Post by [deleted] »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #262
erikpukinskis wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s simply not true. There was a huge anti-war response in the U.S. too. The country was very divided on the subject.

Wrong issue. The issue here is the validity of the WMDs. There would be no war debate is that lie was exposed for what it was (i.e., a lie).

[deleted]

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#267

Post by slavik81 »

qubex wrote: post #240
slavik81 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see. So, the thrust of your complaint is not that moderation is too lax, but that it is capricious and arbitratry? I could definitely see consistent moderation being a weakness for Facebook.

Basically, yes. I wish I had summarised my point in those terms. I was just so incensed at that moment in time that I didn’t plan my post very carefully. Sorry and thanks.

I did the same thing the other day. That's an easy mistake to make.

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#268

Post by eecc »

narrator wrote: post #101
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…

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…

Ehm, the WMD story was universally understood as being a load of horseshit from day one. But on the other hand lying in public and not caring about it, counting your clients proclaiming their belief in your fabrications is an exercise of power. “With us of against us”, same old monkey speak

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#269

Post by linkregister »

fleitz wrote: post #147
mistermann wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Misconduct occurs in all organizations; while pointing fingers I could make the claim that the Fox News organization is pro-sexual harassment because of two high officials’ actions (Ailes and O’Rielly). Yet this would be unfair and false.

Lest ye be Roy Moore’d (or Anthony Weinered), it is a mistake to take a bad actor and extrapolate isolated statements or conduct to the greater organization without evidence of a trend.

However, CNN is the topic. Don’t think for a minute if Trump or another Republican achieves greater than 50% popularity, CNN won’t swing that way. Negative coverage of Trump was en vogue before CNN started doing it, not the other way around.

Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda

#270

Post by linkregister »

starik36 wrote: post #233
linkregister wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 relati…

CNN's bias is firmly anti-Trump and it doesn't fluctuates in any way, shape or form. You can go to their home page and at any point, there will be some anti-Trump headlines.

You don’t think it’s coincidental that most Americans will click on a negative Trump article? CNN is a trend follower, not a leader in this regard.
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