We all wear tinfoil hats now • Hacker News Board

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#61

Post by mikestew » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 2:45 PM UTC

alwaysanagenda wrote: post #48

mech1234 wrote: post #25

I strongly urge all people who wish to be informed citizens to consume news sources from diverse sources. Selection bias of what events get covered is a huge source of political spin, and using diverse sources is the only way to eliminate selection bias. Consider any statement with morally-significant wording to be the spin, and whatever is left over to be the facts on the ground worth considering. The vast majority…

I recommend citizen journalists Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak who produce a twice-weekly media deconstruction on their podcast NoAgendaShow.com There are no ads or corporate sponsors or outside influences -- and never will be. The podcast has run nearly 12 years strong and it has been 100% listener supported.

John C. Dvorak has in the past been a crank and admitted troll. Until I see public repentance, I recommend against staking one’s reputation on anything coming out of Dvorak.

Source: Pick an article from the pcmag.com archives.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#62

Post by spoovy » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 2:52 PM UTC

dTal wrote: post #42

llcoolv wrote: post #2

This is an extremely one-sided and biased article. Basically, it presumes that manipulating public opinion begins with Cambridge Analytica, being completely oblivious to the excesive lies, public shaming, character assasinations, alarmism that the agents of the "solid establishment consensus" (The Guardian, NYT, BBC, Deutsche Welle, etc) routinely perform.

I'm not seeing where it presumes that, or why you think that makes it "one-sided" as though different types of social control are on opposite sides. I also find it curious that your shit-list includes a variety of liberal and centrist sources with decent journalistic standards, but doesn't mention the elephant in the room of Fox News. Taken together, your comment comes across as a partisan defense of Cambridge Analyt…

At least Fox wears it's bias on it's sleeve. The BBC is supposed to be --and claims to be-- impartial yet is very clearly not. It also has a huge audience across just about all platforms in the UK, and is totally unafraid of blatant lies in order to push its worldview. This is far more sinister than Fox's childish excesses.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#63

Post by dangerface » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 2:55 PM UTC

ameister14 wrote: post #59

dangerface wrote: post #52

The op doesn't seem to know the first thing about advertising and is in denial of how it works. Op asks head of facebook advertising if advertising influences people, their response "No companies spend millions on advertising with us because it doesn't work!". > The gullibility of the latter two may have stemmed from wishful thinking: If Brexit and Trump could be traced to the malign influence of a single company The…

>As an ad insider I know first hand that the tactics used by Cambridge Analytica and other agencies work, thats why people pay me to do it. As another ad insider I know first hand that people are willing to pay me to do a ton of things that don't actually work. (They often continue trying to do so after I tell them it doesn't work and it's a bad idea) People and companies pay millions for things that don't work all t…

> I know first hand that people are willing to pay me to do a ton of things that don't actually work. (They often continue trying to do so after I tell them it doesn't work and it's a bad idea)

Hehehe very true. I tell people what works then they ask me to do random shit. I can't deny you are right at the end of the day I do what they will pay for whether it works or not.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#64

Post by tic_tac » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

banads wrote: post #60

tic_tac wrote: post #43

The idea that targeted political advertising is unreasonably effective to the point of constituting mind control is ridiculous. It assumes people have no independent agency. While advertising can be effective it's definitely not mind control. It's the same story with money on elections. People were and are extremely paranoid about monied interests dominating elections, but we have seen Trump beat Hillary with half he…

Obviously advertising is not 100% effective, anyone claiming that is being silly. Likewise it's silly to think that ad surveillance companies such as GOOG, with its near trillion dollar market cap, and the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on advertising each year in the US does not have a disproportionate influence of the consciousness of society.

But Google's, influence on society comes from its ability to control all the information you see - if you use Google for all searches - over an extended period of time.

Crucially, we are exposed to political advertising from many different sides of the political spectrum. I regularly see both Bloomberg and Trump ads. The domain in which we see political advertising is not controlled by the advertisers themselves, so that is a fundamental difference from Google's influence.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#65

Post by darkerside » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 3:04 PM UTC

DubiousPusher wrote: post #53

mech1234 wrote: post #25

I strongly urge all people who wish to be informed citizens to consume news sources from diverse sources. Selection bias of what events get covered is a huge source of political spin, and using diverse sources is the only way to eliminate selection bias. Consider any statement with morally-significant wording to be the spin, and whatever is left over to be the facts on the ground worth considering. The vast majority…

I would add to that you have to find some news sources outside the U.S. mainstream. For years I read all the biggies but there were all kinds of things I missed. U.S. deploying troops in Africa U.S. mistaken drone strikes against civilians Uighut detention in China The success of drug decriminalisation in Portugal Etc There is a collective bias in mainstream news wherein they decide what is interesting and bias again…

Is there a Drudge Report type aggregator specifically for this kind of news?

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#66

Post by caseysoftware » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 3:09 PM UTC

On one hand, we've had a generation of persona-based sales/marketing where it is key to understand your customer, numerous multi-billion dollar companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc, etc that function because they let you target your ads down to excruciating detail, the entire Obama campaign's 2012 micro-targeting data efforts, and the rise of communities based on every interest, habit, and niche.

And on the other hand, we're supposed to believe that ad targeting doesn't work.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#67

Post by karatestomp » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 3:11 PM UTC

DubiousPusher wrote: post #53

mech1234 wrote: post #25

I strongly urge all people who wish to be informed citizens to consume news sources from diverse sources. Selection bias of what events get covered is a huge source of political spin, and using diverse sources is the only way to eliminate selection bias. Consider any statement with morally-significant wording to be the spin, and whatever is left over to be the facts on the ground worth considering. The vast majority…

I would add to that you have to find some news sources outside the U.S. mainstream. For years I read all the biggies but there were all kinds of things I missed. U.S. deploying troops in Africa U.S. mistaken drone strikes against civilians Uighut detention in China The success of drug decriminalisation in Portugal Etc There is a collective bias in mainstream news wherein they decide what is interesting and bias again…

Listen to NPR and you'd think strikes and such in the US are extremely rare and unions are mostly passive. Listen to Democracy Now and you'd think they're happening constantly and unions are very active. That just from a choice of what to cover, and on one issue.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#68

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 3:24 PM UTC

RandomTisk wrote: post #30

llcoolv wrote: post #2

This is an extremely one-sided and biased article. Basically, it presumes that manipulating public opinion begins with Cambridge Analytica, being completely oblivious to the excesive lies, public shaming, character assasinations, alarmism that the agents of the "solid establishment consensus" (The Guardian, NYT, BBC, Deutsche Welle, etc) routinely perform.

What bothers me the most about the CA-Stole-Elections drumbeat is how devoid these kinds of articles are with evidence. They don't qualify which or how many votes were ultimately changed, but it's a well enough hypothesis so writer after writer keeps making bolder and broader claims about CA's influence. Now how many votes are changed due to the media's overwhelming (90%+) negativity about Brexit and Trump? If CA swa…

The UK media were overwhelmingly in support of Brexit, including manufacturing all sorts of nonsense about the EU and uncritically repeating false claims by the government.

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#69

Post by luxuryballs » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 3:25 PM UTC

Let’s not ignore the even greater influence: Clinton was a terrible candidate and people like Trump. The article reads as if the outcome of 2016 was primarily because the public was duped by advertising. I’d argue that even if (or especially if) all we got was video clips or live streams of each candidate speaking, it would have gone the same way.

In fact if I put my tinfoil hat on I’d say Hillary Clinton ran to make sure Trump would win ;)

Re: We all wear tinfoil hats now

#70

Post by jfengel » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 3:27 PM UTC

mech1234 wrote: post #25

I strongly urge all people who wish to be informed citizens to consume news sources from diverse sources. Selection bias of what events get covered is a huge source of political spin, and using diverse sources is the only way to eliminate selection bias. Consider any statement with morally-significant wording to be the spin, and whatever is left over to be the facts on the ground worth considering. The vast majority…

By way of alternative, I'd suggest not consuming news at all. Or at least, delaying your consumption of news to sources that have had a chance to digest and consider the news, such as a weekly news magazine.

It's very, very rare that you require up-to-the-minute news. Continually-updated news sources, like Internet sources or 24 hour news channels, are more for entertainment than information. They focus on keeping your attention, which pushes them to pick up unverified stories and magnify their importance out of proportion.

You will lose very little actual knowledge by hearing about the news a week later. Switching to a delayed news source doesn't automatically remove political spin, but the people most interested in manipulating your views have mostly switched to more immediate media, which are more powerful.