Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda
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Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda
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Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda
#2Imagine 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.
Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda
#3It's a pretty bad look. When I think of social tech I think of the possibility to magnify the voice/reach of individuals. When I read an article like this all I see is that magnification going solely to big spenders. How do I form an independent political ideology if I'm only being told the part of the story that heavily monied interests want me to hear? Would I ever experience an anti-monied-interest being put on a level playing field with the monied interest?
Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda
#4This 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.
Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda
#5Imagine 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.
> 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 wouldn't happen, because on the one hand no amount of money from the Republicans would persuade ABC/CBS/NBC to support them, and on the other hand they're quite glad to provide free support to the Democrats. The situation is reverse with Fox 'News,' of course.
This isn't for any nefarious reason: it's just that pretty much everyone associated with mass media believes that the Republicans are evil and the Democrats are good. There's no amount of money which could persuade me to claim that all murder should be legal; likewise, there's no need to pay me to say that murder should be illegal. The situation is the same for the vast majority of showrunners & news anchors: they really are doing what they believe is right.
Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda
#6Imagine 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....
Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda
#7Remember 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:
- anti-protests
- anti-EU and basically nationalistic bullshit
- religion and how that will solve everything
- government does nothing wrong and protesters are a bunch of thugs
- links to well-known fake news websites
- inciting violence while appearing to be pro-protest
Groups of accounts such as these are brigading some popular news postings and I don't really find them inside the anti-protester echo rooms.
the accounts look and feel similarly to the spam profiles which were prevalent a few years back having supermodel headshots as profile pictures.
I reported about 12 such profiles and the response from Facebook was that I should block these accounts as a resolution, as they aren't doing anything wrong per Facebook community guidelines and they are legit accounts.
In contrast, 'famous' people who are famously anti-government (and trolls, that's true, like this guy: https://www.facebook.com/macacaur) are getting their accounts disabled every couple of weeks and require photo ID proof to re-enable.
Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda
#8Imagine 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....
For 30 Rock and Parks and Rec, weren't those appearances after the people were already prominent and/or in office?
The 30 Rock/Al Gore example in particular happened years after he was done running for public office.
And even Parks and Rec wasn't so much advocating for Joe Biden/Michelle Obama as having a left leaning, political character be excited about the opportunity to meet them. I can also remember John McCain appearing on Parks and Rec.
Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda
#9Imagine 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....
A writer pushing their political agenda is one thing and something you can't quantify. Is there a department at ABC whose sole job is getting politicians to pay for guest appearances?
Re: Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Propaganda
#10Here'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_?