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Latest WikiLeaks Reveal Suggests Facebook Is Too Close For Comfort With Clinton (hothardware.com)

MojoKid writes: As we quickly approach the November 8th elections, email leaks from the Clinton camp continue to loom over the presidential candidate. The latest data dump from WikiLeaks shines a light on emails between Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta and Facebook Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg. In one email exchange, dated June 6th, 2015, Sandberg expresses her desire for Clinton to become president, writing to Podesta, "And I still want HRC to win badly. I am still here to help as I can." While that was a private exchange, Sandberg also made her zest for seeing Clinton as the 45th President of the United States publicly known in a Facebook post on July 28th of this year. None of that is too shocking when you think about it. Sandberg has every right to endorse whichever candidate she wants for president. However, a later exchange between Sandberg and Podesta showed that Mark Zuckerberg was looking to get in on the action a bit, and perhaps curry favor with Podesta and the Clinton camp in shaping public policy. Donald Trump has long claimed that Clinton is too cozy with big businesses, and one cannot dismiss the fact that Facebook has a global user base of 1.7 billion users. When you toss in the fact that Facebook came under fire earlier this year for allegedly suppressing conservative news outlets in the Trending News bar, questions begin to arise about Facebook's impartiality in the political race. The report also notes that Sandberg is at the top of the list when it comes to picks for Treasury Secretary, if Clinton wins the election. In an interview with Politico, David Segal, executive director for Demand Progress, said "[Sandberg] is a proxy for this growing problem that is the hegemony of five to ten major Silicon Valley platforms." Lina Khan, a fellow with the Open Markets Program at the New American think tank adds: "If a senior Cabinet member is from Facebook, at worst it could directly interfere [in antitrust actions]. But even in the best of cases there's a real worry that it will have a chilling effect on good-faith antitrust efforts to scrutinize potential anti-competitive implications of dominant tech platforms."

31 of 437 comments (clear)

  1. Re: Why even have elections? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It gives the serfs the illusion that they have some say in who their rulers are.

  2. So what? by pauljlucas · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Who says companies can't favor one candidate or party over the other. Fox News clearly favors republicans and that just seems to be accepted.

    --
    If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
    1. Re:So what? by MFriis · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't disagree with you. Corporate agendas are not rare. However i do think there is a difference between being blatantly in support of a candidate (which from the view of a humble european, like me, is the case with Fox News) and having a slightly favourable selection algorythm that favours one candidate. I don't know enough about the laws and regulations of the US to judge, but what facebook does seems close to subliminal marketing which the FCC revokes broadcast licences for. Is it too big a stretch to compare news nudging to subliminal messaging? I doubt the consumer knows they are being manipulated.

    2. Re:So what? by DirkDaring · · Score: 1, Insightful

      You should start watching it then, because every 'take' I see that have both a republican and a democrat arguing against each other or getting their point of view.

    3. Re:So what? by JackieBrown · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think you need to actually watch it instead of go by what hufington post, politico and other liberal sites state.

      Fox news has a very large segment that is as anti-trump as you can get. Two prominent examples that come to mind are Shepard Smith and Megan Kelly.

    4. Re:So what? by bahwi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, because having one token member from the other side (who is sometimes ill-informed, or unable to make a decent argument) and controlling the argument and questions and leading is very fair.

      So in your definition, because Trump did make the news, and his posts were on Facebook (hell, his TV station even premiered its first show on Facebook!) this is all moot because Facebook is incredibly fair and there is no favoritism... Yeah?

    5. Re:So what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Hilarious that you guys have one media outlet you throw out as being blatantly right while ignoring that every other one is blatantly left.

  3. Virtual public spaces by sinij · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This illustrates the problem of virtual public spaces and real danger to freedom of speech and association that comes with digitization of all means of communications. Currently, FB and Twitter are free to censor political speech and push political agenda. You could argue that in 2016 as a politician you are effectively censored if you don't have access to FB and Twitter. This shouldn't be the case, insofar politics these should be considered virtual public spaces and any censorship of this kind should be disallowed.

  4. MSM and social media are in the bag for the DNC by StandardCell · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There's no point in denying this any more. Journalists have always tended to lean left more than right, but 2016 has shown that all pretense of integrity and independence has completely evaporated. Rigged polls, collusion with PACs and the DNC, mudslinging directed at the RNC candidates while ignoring third party options and DNC scandals of the same magnitude as Watergate, and making unsubstantiated accusations of foreign interference by Russia while ignoring the foreign money from Soros and extreme Islamic regimes influencing the electoral process. Nothing is off limits to the same group that doctors audio recordings to falsely show racism and hypes up stories of a few cops committing criminal acts against black people while ignoring the fact that black on black violence is at epidemic levels.

    Rigging the Facebook feed to promote pro-DNC pro-Clinton pro-SJW causes is IMO an effective subliminal ploy even for those that scroll past it so they can see funny pictures of their friends' kids. They're cutting off Twitter feeds and FB pages of people they don't like too even though they have not violated the user agreement. All of them will stop at nothing to brainwash and browbeat us into one mind, and use the SJWs to persecute those who disagree with the positions like useful idiots.

    But it isn't just here as we've also seen in Europe with the hiding of stories and statistics on the effects on violence and crime due to mass migration from the third world. And, at this point, anyone who is a blind follower of political parties or of the media is a fool ready to be controlled to the will of an elite willing to throw us back into an effectively feudal system.

    Welcome to the Ministry of Truth. We have always been at war. All dissent is doubleplusungood. You don't even need to imagine a boot stomping on a human face forever because it's already coming through your computer screen.

    1. Re:MSM and social media are in the bag for the DNC by fulldecent · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What sources are you seeing fair reporting?

      Some sources I have read that are usually decent but are failing on this election:

        * The Economist -- does not investigate complaints about Trump and parrots the left's analysis; does not acknowledge any criticism of HRC
        * The Intercept -- reporting on Trump includes thorough analysis and opinion, reporting on facts critical of HRC include no analysis or commentary

      In fact the only balanced piece I have seen written was in Glamour magazine's op-ed written by the editor! It explained the contemplative process of voting in this election on page one and explained the issues voters face. Then page two was a bunch of claptrap about how women need to vote for a woman.

      --

      -- I was raised on the command line, bitch

    2. Re:MSM and social media are in the bag for the DNC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't think so. The sites I go to are pretty fair with their criticisms of both candidates.

      You must be going to the Church circular, because I have NEVER in all my years seen a Western election where the media has so clearly, relentlessly, and shamelessly picked a side and gone on the attack against a candidate.

      People are fooling themselves. What is happening to Trump has never happened to any candidate anyone can remember. There have always been oafs, buffoons, and morons running for office. Regan, Dan Quale, George H.W fucking Bush people. Bush wasn't even that long ago; Sarah Palin if you want something closer.

      But People are losing their minds over Trump. Really. He's nowhere near as far out there in comparison to a lot of Republican candidates of yesteryear, but the entire Media have flipped their shit like this is a second 9/11. I don't even think the coverage was this sloppy and slanted during the Iraq War. 90% of it is complete bullshit and hysteria, the other 10% is distorted reporting.

      I've come to the conclusion that it's not Trump. He's not that extreme. It's about his policies. They are extreme. But they're also what the public wants. What Sanders' supporters wanted. What a lot of people fed up with 8 years of austerity and 25 years of decline want. And that's why the media is lashing out so aggressively against him. Because unlike all the other batshit Republicans and religious wingnuts, Trump is actually giving the public want they want: Revenge.

      It's not about Trump. This is about the media trying to smother a rebellion by the 99%. And boy are they dirty about it.

    3. Re:MSM and social media are in the bag for the DNC by Kierthos · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Except some of the polls showing Trump behind are from Fox News.

      When Fox has a recent poll that shows Clinton is ahead by 6-7 points (depending on whether it's a 2-way poll or 4-way), well, I really doubt they're carrying water for Clinton.

      And you have to understand... there's a certain percentage of the voting populace that is going to vote for the Republican candidate no matter who it is or how they are presented (good, bad, indifferent). There are likewise going to be a certain percentage of voters that are going to vote for the Democratic candidate no matter who it is or how they are presented (good, bad, indifferent).

      It doesn't matter what scandals dog those candidates, they will always get a certain percentage of the electorate.

      The trick is appealing to those who normally fall into one party or the other but don't care much for the candidate AND getting voters who class themselves as "independent".

      Unless something causes an inordinate number of voters from one party or the other to stay home, it is generally impossible to win the Presidential election with just the voters that you can automatically count on. You have to attract voters from outside those blocks.

      And Trump hasn't been doing so.

      Sure, he's gotten a few. Can't argue that. But he's spent so much time actively insulting blocks of voters that he's effectively reversed the inroads that the Republican party started making among (for example) Hispanic voters after Romney's defeat in 2012. Not to mention African-American voters, some Jewish voters, some Asian voters....

      He's trying (whether he means to or not) rely on the angry older white voter, and hey, he's gotten that block fairly well nailed down. But it's been at the expense of every other block of voters that he would need to win.

      The "easiest" path for a Trump victory in two weeks is to carry every state that Romney won in 2012 and then flip enough states to make up the 64 electoral votes that Romney fell short of.

      The problem there is that not only is Trump apparently failing to do that (it's unlikely that he's going to flip Pennsylvania or Florida, and Ohio might be out of reach as well), it's possible that he's going to lose some of the states that Romney won. He might lose Arizona, he might lose North Carolina. Hell, he might lose Utah.

      Facebook and other social media don't need to do anything to make Trump look bad. They just need to give him a forum, and Trump will do that himself.

      --
      Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
  5. Re:Who would have thought? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Really? You think it sounds pretty good? Are you okay with it when the police and the judge are buddies? Are you okay with it when you got on the polices wrong side and you're claiming the police wrongfully arrested you and you're trying to convince the judge that his buddy is lying?

    And if you don't get why I used that analogy then we're done here. We'll never see eye to eye.

  6. Re: Why even have elections? by tripleevenfall · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't think even the lowliest serf is ignorant anymore that every media outlet and talking head is campaigning for Hillary.

    I wonder, though, if this won't backfire. People don't like being lied to, deceived, having information kept from them, or being talked down to like the media is doing. The average voter might lean right or left, but they want the process to be fair, and the media to be fair, and for the ballots to fall where they may.

    This growing perception that the media will never relay the truth about Hillary or honestly investigate her scandals, that all the corporate interests (including Google and Facebook now) are manipulating public opinion for her - people aren't going to like this nonsense. I wonder if it won't cost her more votes than it nets her.

  7. Re: Why even have elections? by The+Real+Dr+John · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I can see the left and right coming together on this. The right hates Clinton, and so does much of the left. Both are sick and tired of her lies, manipulation and the dirty tricks political machine. I would never vote to put Clinton the Second back into the White House again, but for me it is even more about her coziness with Wall Street and her penchant for wars of regime change (e.g., Libya) and her pro-trade deal and drill-baby-drill stances than it is about her lies and deceitfulness.

    --
    A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
  8. Re: Why even have elections? by tripleevenfall · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I am voting third party, even though I have always voted Republican in the presidential election.

    I wish people would revolt. Everyone likes to pretend that we wouldn't vote for the worst person in the world just because they bear our favored party's lablel. Well, this time around both sides get to prove it. To prove that honest government is more important than my desire for my side to dominate.

    If not now, when?

  9. To use her own words by argStyopa · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Why at this point does it even matter?"

    Seriously, the media organizations in this country have decided that HRC would be our next president. It doesn't actually matter what she did or didn't do, the legality, the money, etc.

    To be clear: the voting is a pointless detail.

    --
    -Styopa
  10. Re:The New American: by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Magazine of the John Birch Society. Yep, I need to hear from them.

    Ah, the argumentum ad hominem! Always strange to see a logical fallacy modded up...

    --
    Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
  11. Re: Why even have elections? by penandpaper · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The problem with revolting is that, what ever comes after, there is no guarantee that it will be better. More often than not it is worse.

  12. Re:In Soviet Russia by ganjadude · · Score: 3, Insightful

    none of the things he has *said* are worse than the things she has *done* is the issue

    --
    have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
  13. Re: Why even have elections? by Rei · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Right.

    Because we hate Wall Street, let's instead put a billionaire real estate scammer whose entire adult life has been spent trying to kiss up to investors and banks to get loans for his businesses, and who refuses to reveal what banks he's in debt to in power.

    Because we oppose the Libyan conflict, let's put in power someone who wants to bomb the children of terrorists, insists that waterboarding isn't harsh enough, wants more nations to have nuclear weapons, wants to build a new generation of nuclear weapons, and spent his first security briefing repeatedly asking why we're bothering to have nuclear weapons if we're not going to use them.

    Because we oppose free trade, let's put in power someone who spent his entire career - up until he decided to rebrand himself as a populist for this election - championing free trade, built his empire on dumped steel and undocumented workers, and - until it was shut down as a scam - championed the benefits of outsourcing on his Trump University page.

    I'm not even sure where you're getting that Clinton has been big "drill baby drill" champion, but Trump has literally called for "drill baby drill" in speeches, including lifting all federal restrictions on offshore drilling and elimination of the EPA.

    So if you want to cut off your nose to spite your face, go right ahead, but please understand why many people will not be joining at you.

    And if your argument is "I'm not supporting either of them" - if you don't vote for one, you're supporting the other. Not to the degree of voting directly for the other, but you're still supporting them. Because that's the way the US electoral system works.

    --
    "99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
  14. Re:So says every SJW attacking Peter Thiel by CajunArson · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Thiel gave $1.25M to a candidate who'd just had it revealed he has serious problems with women (to put a politically correct spin on it),"

    Sure sounds like Hillary/Bill to me.

    " who is/was telling people he wouldn't accept the results of the election if he loses,"

    Maybe you have a point there. After all, it sounds like Trump is agreeing with Al Gore and that's not a good look.

    " and who previously has supported violence against his opponents,"

    Yeah, Hillary supports violence right now and violated campaign finance laws to coordinate the violence. Ever seen Project Veritas?

    " who is threatening legal sanctions against his opponents and the press,"

    Sounds like Clinton to me too.

    " and who has engaged in racial scapegoating and in dehumanizing minorities."

    Basket of Deplorables. Not to mention the racist lynch mob waiting for any "minority" who gets uppity and doesn't lick Massa Hilary's boots like a good little house slave.

    --
    AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
  15. it's about money and power by ooloorie · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Sandberg is angling for a cabinet position: after having graduated from growing up in a wealthy and privileged family to becoming a billionaire, her ambitions are higher, and what else is there other than political power? And even if she doesn't get the cabinet position, sucking up to the Democrats is good business for Silicon Valley companies.

    Of course, there is an enormous amount of hypocrisy and self-delusion in Sandberg's positions. She has led such a privileged life that 99.9% of the men whose backs she walks on can only dream of.

  16. Re:Just like China by meta-monkey · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The BBC definitely has their own biases, as well.

    I prefer adversarial media. With both Breitbart and Mother Jones I know exactly where they stand. Neither is pretending to be unbiased. You can see what issues matter to different people of different ideologies, and then do your own fact-checking. But then you get CNN blatantly editing shit to fit their narrative while pretending to be unbiased "news." No, it's propaganda. I don't think it's possible to be unbiased. Humans can't be. Anyone claiming to be unbiased is lying.

    --
    We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
  17. Re:Just like China by ooloorie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We don't have a state-run media, we have a media-run state.

    The distinction is pretty academic: when government becomes too powerful, media, police, politics, etc. all blur into one entity.

    The massive corporations have similar interests

    "The" massive corporations don't have much of a choice than to participate in this, because if they don't, their competitors will kill them via legal and legislative manipulation.

    Ultimately, the failure is always a failure to limit government power. Governmental power will always be abused, and the only way to limit that abuse is to limit how much power you give government.

  18. Re:Just like China by meta-monkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Governmental power will always be abused, and the only way to limit that abuse is to limit how much power you give government.

    We used to have this document that listed the limited powers of the federal government and strictly forbade it from doing most everything else but nobody pays attention to that thing anymore.

    --
    We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
  19. Re:Who would have thought? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's adorable that you think she's going to do anything of this.

    In her "private" vs "public" speech, she has told big business that she wants to make it easier for the banks, and use government to backstop all of their risk. Her foundation's doesn't do anything in health care unless there's a political connection back to skim money out of it. And her track record on actually telling the truth is terrible, she lied about forwarding confidential information, her lack of security focus in Benghazi, but if you want to think that she actually cares about you, go ahead. Send her more money.

  20. Re:In Soviet Russia by Rei · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Right. So let's take a look at how this "excerpt the gotcha" plays into that.

    Slashdot writes about Zuckerberg:

    a later exchange between Sandberg and Podesta showed that Mark Zuckerberg was looking to get in on the action a bit, and perhaps curry favor with Podesta and the Clinton camp in shaping public policy.

    Except that the email from Shelly about Zuckerberg very clearly begins:

    Mark is meeting with people to learn more about next steps for his philanthropy and social action and it’s hard to imagine someone better placed or more experienced than you to help him. He’s begun to think about whether/how he might want to shape advocacy efforts to support his philanthropic priorities and is particularly interested in meeting people who could help him understand how to move the needle on the specific public policy issues he cares most about

    Likewise on the other email from Cheryl. They mention the "She came over and was magical with my kids" re. Clinton. They don't bother mentioning the reason for Hillary's visit, which can be seen in what she's replying to:

    To: Sheryl Sandberg
    Subject: At a loss for words

    Can't imagine your pain, but know that you are surrounded by people who love you. Mary and I are praying for you, the kids and, in our Catholic way also for Dave.

    ... and the part before the excerpt:

    Thank you – means a lot to me that you reached out.

    And I like that you are praying for Dave. I have to believe in heaven now.

    This wasn't some buddy-buddy campaign visit, this was a "person I know's husband just died" visit. Likewise, the implication that they're supposed to give here is that they know her because of Facebook. No bothering to mention that the reason that they actually know her is because she was Larry Summers' Chief of Staff during the Clinton administration.

    Almost anything can be made to look sinister when you take it completely out of context. Which is the whole purpose of these emails.

    Furthermore, do you honestly think you couldn't do the exact same thing by picking through the Trump campaign's internal messaging? Do you have any clue how many people of note a major campaign interacts with, how many people work for them, etc? We know given Trumps record on server security that hacking him would have been a breeze, but miraculously nobody bothered. Why do you think that is?

    Lastly: take everything you read with a grain of salt. I know everyone's reaction to statements that emails could have been altered (and scattered amongst real ones) is going to be "You just don't want to discuss them!" No, the reason you should take things with a grain of salt is that the other anti-Clinton hacks this year have done exactly that. Leaks posted by the hackers in different places involved cases where they had involved changing the same file to say different things (such as a donation list where they added a donation from Soros to a Russian democracy activist, but had different values for the donation in different versions of their release), cases where files were dated to after the hack occurred, and cases where file metadata showed the changes they'd been making. Salting real data with fake is something that they've been doing this year, so it'd be naive to think that they're just going to stop doing it now. Come on, even the most die-hard Clinton hater is going to be hard pressed to actually believe that the Clinton Foundation has a directory sitting around literally called "Pay for Play".

    Yes, the majority will be real. But don't be naive when viewing them and assume that you can just take everything at face value.

    --
    "99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
  21. Re:The New American: by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You might feel safe in ignoring them, but if you attempt to refute them, using "they're scum" is still a logical fallacy. If you feel there's no point in refuting them any more, that's a different matter. But laziness is not logic.

  22. Every media outlet? Really? by AF_Cheddar_Head · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So you are saying the following are shilling for Clinton:
    - Fox News
    - Breitbart
    - EIB (Rush Limbaugh)
    - Wall Street Journal
    - New York Post
    - Forbes

    I could go on but you get the point.

  23. Re:So says every SJW attacking Peter Thiel by ProfBooty · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Clinton did pay for play.

    Trump gets it on with a lot of women.

    So do we pick the playboy, or the woman who puts the interests of foreign governments before America?

    --
    Bring back the old version of slashdot.