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Facebook Employees Ask Mark Zuckerberg If They Should Try To Stop a Donald Trump Presidency (gizmodo.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Mark Zuckerberg didn't shy from condemning several of Trump's views at his company's developer conference earlier this week. Things are getting tenser now. Gizmodo's Michael Nunez is reporting about a political discussion inside Facebook wherein employees appear to be asking Zuckerberg whether the company should try to "help prevent President Trump in 2017." Every week, Facebook employees vote in an internal poll on what they want to ask Zuckerberg in an upcoming Q&A session. A question from the March 4 poll was: "What responsibility does Facebook have to help prevent President Trump in 2017?"An excerpt from the report which talks about Facebook's position :But what's exceedingly important about this question being raised -- and Zuckerberg's answer, if there is one -- is how Facebook now treats the powerful place it holds in the world. It's unprecedented. More than 1.04 billion people use Facebook. It's where we get our news, share our political views, and interact with politicians. It's also where those politicians are spending a greater share of their budgets. And Facebook has no legal responsibility to give an unfiltered view of what's happening on their network.
Facebook is just a forum they should stay neutral and let the Democratic process work. While people may not agree with Trump it doesn't mean stop him from running for president. After all we are the same population whop allowed 2 terms for "W"
Don't confuse elitist CA politics with a consensus view.
--WooooHoooo--
Cruz is far worse than Trump. Even Hillary is worse than Trump on some issues.
National polls have shown that Bernie stands a far better shot at defeating any Republican candidate than Hillary does. If Facebook wants to stop Trump and similar demagogues, their best bet is to support Bernie.
No one over the age of 30 should have a Facebook account.
No Man over the age of 16 should have a Facebook account.
Why? because it makes you a me me me me me ...Look at me! Look at my Post Me Me ME!
losers
It will be fun listening to all the right-wing nut-bars after Trump goes down in flames.
Trump is not "right-wing". He draws his strongest support from independents, and tends to do poorly in more partisan closed primaries. Many of his views are anathema to the right-wing, and many conservative talk radio hosts detest him. Talk radio is credited with his defeat in the Wisconsin primaries. Trump is a populist, with a mish-mash of views, without any ideological consistency.
This is a political "just so" story, describing a possible line of argument about how "a legal responsibility to protect and maximize the value of their shareholders" might be interpreted. It is not a necessary, or even likely, conclusion.
There is abundant data showing that political spending has, on average, an extremely large ROI, exceeding 100-1. Regulatory rulings can cause tens of billions of dollars to change hands. It is an easy case to make that efforts to influence political races is not just wise, but incumbent on a corporation explicitly to protect shareholder value.
And in an age where unlimited corporate political spending on its own influence operations is legal, and where the content delivered by a news channel is legally regarded as "entertainment", with no sanction for out-right fabrications being passed off as fact, it is hard to know what sort of activity by a corporation would be impermissible.
Pretty much the only think illegal these days is paying Congressfolk a sum of money for a specific vote. It is fine though to keep them on retainer, paying regularly to their "leadership PAC" (from which the can keep all of the proceeds), and telling them periodically how they should vote, with the politician knowing that the sugar stops if the lobbyist is not obeyed. Not for sale, but all them are being rented.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
You know what, I have to second that notion. They're the reason I don't bother to vote for political offices anymore. I'll vote for the referendum issues, i.e. legalize cannabis, the signal to noise on the political offices is polluted by low information voters so bad, it's just not worth bothering.
An example of low information: Most of the anti-Trump crusade thinks he makes racist statements all the time. I don't know whether or not the man is racist, but I personally haven't seen him make any comments that come off to me as racist.
Most commonly cited is stopping Muslims from entering the country; not only do I like Scott Adam's take on it (see this for reference) but Islam isn't a race, and talking down or otherwise disparaging their religious views isn't anymore racist than doing the same thing to a Scientologist or a Christian (something that seems PC to do, in spite of being decidedly un-PC when done to a Muslim.) The exception I take to that is it goes directly against the first amendment, which is unacceptable, but it's not in any way shape or form racist.
Second most common is stopping illegal immigration. Mexico not being a race notwithstanding (hell, as far as I know I'm pure Caucasian, yet half of the Mexicans I know have lighter skin than I do) there have been many a politician who have called for the same thing and haven't been accused of being racist.
You have to have a somewhat low or at least loose standard for what qualifies as "racist" in order to say that (think PC Principal on South Park.)
Now that doesn't mean I endorse Trump; I think his economic ideas are boneheaded and he'll make a terrible chief diplomat. And to be honest, I'm also not particularly interested in a single person that is running for president.
without any ideological consistency.
I think that's a good thing. Or rather, it would be nice if policy decisions were made based on technical merit rather than passing some ideological test.
Having worked at Facebook- there's H1Bs there, but pay isn't a problem at FB. In fact they were one of the few large companies not caught up in the wage fixing lawsuits. They had no problem paying me a ridiculous amount of money in equity. The company has issues, but pay isn't one of them.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Trump only exists as a candidate because the Republicans have done such a bad job of representing the average working-class guy who votes Republican. (Conservative is almost meaningless now, as is Liberal, Right, and Left) He's certainly populist, but his supporters aren't populist idealogs for the most part there's just not a better answer being discussed.
Most people understand that "no immigration at all" and "totally open borders" are both really stupid ideas, but those are the only choices people are talking about, so if you have a low-skill job threatened by immigration, it's easy to chose between the two.
I think you're right that that's the only thing Trump has been consistent on this election (and even his populism is fairly recent).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"Well both of those actually are perfect examples of racism. But beyond that:"
No you fucking tool, neither of those statements are racist. Muslim is not a race. Mexican is not a race. You are exactly what is being discussed when someone says "low information voter". You think you're a knowledgeable voter but all you know is the soundbites from the news/entertainment sources you tune into to hear what you already want to hear.
Every bigot in the history of time has had a rationalization for why their bigotry is actually justified. A rationalization that serves to gives them permission to be bigotted but is really just an a circular expression of their bigotry. Your choice to characterize all muslims that way is just another example in that tradition.
It's especially telling that your rationalization is completely distinct from Trump's rationalization. Even if you were right it still wouldn't make Trump any less bigotted.
Why would the average working-class guy even vote for the Republicans? They are, unashamedly, the supporters of the employers of the average working-class guy.
Because parties are coalitions of a wide set of positions they support? Except in recent years, that's just not true any more, and both parties exist only to serve big-money donors and the voters interests don't matter to either side except as rhetoric. That's why both Trump and Bernie keep getting so many primary votes.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Except the Democrats aren't representing my interests either. They want to destroy personal responsibility, discourage self-reliance, make people more dependent on the state, and destroy the economy with communist nonsense. It's gotten so bad that a communist is even running in the Democratic primaries.
I want the upcoming generations to be able to support me in my old age and for the quality of medical innovation to continue. I don't want the destruction of economic incentives that Democrats of all kind seem so fond of.
BOTH parties could do with a massive "rollback" to more sane positions.
Anyone that wants to subject you to Medicare is your enemy. So is anyone that wants to tear down Big Pharma. They make really cool stuff for diseases you've never heard of. They need to continue.
Castrate Skrelli but leave the guys still doing R&D out of your little purge.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.