Facebook on its Fake News Problem: 'There's So Much More We Need To Do' (theverge.com)

In the aftermath of election, news outlets are counting Facebook as one of the major reasons that drove Trump to victory. NYMag, for instance, had an essay Wednesday titled "Donald Trump Won Because of Facebook", in which it has documented several instances where lies were peddled as fact on Facebook's watch. The social juggernaut, which has over 1.6 billion people checking the website every month, has been spotted running fake stories on its platform numerous times over the past few months, something that President Barack Obama remarked about recently. This is critical because over 60 percent people in the United States consume their news on social media. When asked if Facebook had anything to say about its influence in Trump's victory, the company said:We take misinformation on Facebook very seriously. We value authentic communication, and hear consistently from those who use Facebook that they prefer not to see misinformation. In Newsfeed we use various signals based on community feedback to determine which posts are likely to contain inaccurate information, and reduce their distribution. In Trending we look at a variety of signals to help make sure the topics being shown are reflective of real-world events, and take additional steps to prevent false or misleading content from appearing. Despite these efforts we understand there's so much more we need to do, and that is why it's important that we keep improving our ability to detect misinformation. We're committed to continuing to work on this issue and improve the experiences on our platform.

Comments

dont censor

[Anonymous Coward]

don't censor -- maybe just flag or have a "truth" meter.

Re:dont censor

[jellomizer]

Well one thing we learned about the election.
We were seeing all the polls showing Clinton had a near certain victory. And we assumed trump was lying when he said that his polls are showing something different. Unfortunately that raises the question how good are the sources to figure out truthfulness.

Now Trump could had been lying about his sources, and gotten lucky. However the fact that he was saying that he was winning and the media is lying about that and actually won. Does bring up questions, on the fact checkers and truthfulness.

Re:dont censor

[Anonymous Coward]

don't censor -- maybe just flag or have a "truth" meter.

How about a "safe place" for the "butt hurt crybaby whiners" to go and read all the news that supports their own beliefs?

Yep, that will solve the problem of "fake news" on FB. Fur-sur....

Re:dont censor

[Anonymous Coward]

No it doesn't. It says that the polls are using flawed means that don't end up being accurate. People have complained about the way polls are conducted being skewed for a long time now. Polls only measure people who agree to be measured. They only measure what people say, rather than what they do in privacy. The last time I checked they still only polled people who had land lines. But if they do poll cells now it is more likely that some demographics would be measured less than others still. Young people are far more likely to screen unknown numbers than older people for instance. And even the way that questions are asked can affect the results of a poll, even if unintentional.

Polls are a flawed mechanism for predicting elections and always will be. Some will be more accurate than others and that is going to change with each election I fear.

Re:dont censor

[Anonymous Coward]

Polls are a flawed mechanism for predicting elections and always will be.

Unfortunately this is true. The only way to know how the populace will vote is to hold the election. Various polls come with various levels of Truthiness, but there are a great number of reasons that they can't accurately predict results.

Re:dont censor

[Anonymous Coward]

why do you actually think Trump "won"?

because of voting? using known flawed electronic machines?

fuck you.

Re:dont censor

[Anonymous Coward]

Well one thing we learned about the election. [and the polls]

I'm going to stop you right there, because it's already obvious that different people learned different things about polls. It's possibly, even reasonably likely, that nobody was lying about the polls. Yet different people predicted different outcomes. Does this seem oxymoronic to you?

It shouldn't. Let's say I take a poll of early voters and 7 people vote for Giant Douche and 3 people vote for Turd Sandwich. Of course, the election has 100 elligible voters, but we've got a sample right here.

A naive predictor will guess that the election will end with about 70 people voting Giant Douche and 30 people voting Turd Sandwich. And that's a pretty good guess. Nothing wrong with that.

But you can do better.

Maybe you ask the early voters more than just who they voted for. Maybe you ask 'em some other questions about who they are, where they live, etc. Let's say your 100 total voters consist of 50 assholes and 50 bitches, but your early voters were 8 bitches and only 2 assholes, and furthermore, the bitches tell you they voted a certain way and the assholes tell you they voted another.

Maybe assholes aren't showing up. Or maybe bitches aren't voting quite you thought they would, whereas assholes conform to how you thought.

Do you see how this might shape your predictions? And do you see how people might even disagree as to how it should shape your predictions?

Same polling data can result in different predictions. It's quite possible the Clinton-win-predictors were just using naive models, haven't worked with statistics as much, whereas the Trump-win-predictors were mathier and better at squeezing bits.

Re:dont censor

[amicusNYCL]

The problem is that people think that polls are accurate, because they use terms like "sample size" and "margin of error" to give the illusion that they are scientific. They aren't scientific. A poll is asking a bunch of people what they think, and assuming that all of them tell the truth. Guess what? They don't all tell the truth. When Nate Silver was publishing his numbers he showed 12% of people saying they were "undecided", but for some reason the margin of error was not +/- 12. How many of those "undecided" people do you actually think had already made up their minds, and didn't want to tell anyone because they wanted to avoid how people would react to their choice? How many of those "undecided" people walked into the polling booth and chose an actual candidate? Those polls are going to say that Hillary has a lead, and that the margin of error is low, and that Trump has a 16% chance of winning, and none of those things are correct but since they list the sample size and bother to come up with a number for "margin of error" then people whose job it is to talk or write for companies that say they publish news (pardon me if I don't want to refer to those people as journalists) will say that all of the polls show that Hillary is in the lead, and this is what's going to happen, and here are the states where there is going to be a real contest, and no one has any idea what they're talking about. But it sounds good, until none of the things that people predicted actually happen.

The real stupid thing is that this same crap happened over and over during the primaries and all of the news talking people still acted like they knew what was going on at the end.

Re:dont censor

[Rakarra]

We were seeing all the polls showing Clinton had a near certain victory. And we assumed trump was lying when he said that his polls are showing something different. Unfortunately that raises the question how good are the sources to figure out truthfulness.

Now Trump could had been lying about his sources, and gotten lucky. However the fact that he was saying that he was winning and the media is lying about that and actually won. Does bring up questions, on the fact checkers and truthfulness.

Clinton actually gained roughly the amount of votes that were expected. But what happened is the overwhelming majority of "undecided" voters voted for Trump. What we all forgot about, but should never forget about, is The Bradley Effect. People didn't want to admit to a pollster that they were voting for Trump. It's a key example of Social Desirability Bias where respondents answer questions in a manner which will be viewed favorably by those around them.

Re:dont censor

[Rakarra]

No it doesn't. It says that the polls are using flawed means that don't end up being accurate. People have complained about the way polls are conducted being skewed for a long time now. Polls only measure people who agree to be measured. They only measure what people say, rather than what they do in privacy.

There was a pretty decent interview on NPR last weekend where the interviewer sat down the heads of a view polling agencies to discuss how polling works and the challenges involved in getting accurate polling. The fact of the matter is that each year it has been more difficult getting an accurate cross-sample of people. 30 years ago, it was far easier -- everyone had a public land-line. Everyone picked it up on a ring. No one had caller id. Now it's far more self-selected, and it's easier to get penned in to one demographic.

The last time I checked they still only polled people who had land lines.

No, they use cell phones now. I received a poll call on my cell phone this election, the first time in 15 years I had been randomly polled about anything.

Re:dont censor

[budgenator]

I was kind of confused by the various reported poll numbers, but when you actually got to see the number of poll participants to population, then when I compared it to what I had learned was necessary polling wise to get a valid result, there were vast differences. Now I'm not a statistician and I went to College a few decades ago, so I suppose the numbers have changed over the years, but not by a factor of 2! So It's easy to see how most of the pollsters got trapped in their own echo chambers.

It's one thing to take a statistically valid poll and add some secret sauce to tweek the results a bit with historical knowledge ,but most of the pollsters were just shaking beads and chanting incantations.

Re:dont censor

[budgenator]

I never heard of a voting machine changing a vote for Trump to Clinton, but I heard of several instances of votes for Trump getting changed to Clinton. Theoretically just a few vote can make a big difference, but looking at the result it didn't seem like the errors made much difference in the real world.

Re:dont censor

[Anonymous Coward]

Dirty secret about polling: I worked for a big market research company, doing polls and surveys. We were paid for each poll form that was completed so there was a strong incentive to cut corners and get as many forms filled as possible, any way you can, in the minimum amount of time, without getting caught out. The checks on us were minimal, if any. If the election polls were taken under those conditions, they were pretty much useless.

Re: dont censor

[Rakarra]

Why does Facebook need to do anything? Why shouldn't people be able to share what they want? Why do we assume alternative sources of information are less accurate than large news monopolies?

Because the large news companies are usually BETTER at curating what is and is not accurate than your grandmother forwarding chain mail.

Re:dont censor

[bickerdyke]

And you're even leaving out the probably largest reason why polls divert from actual results. For the sake of the argument, assume all your assumptions and correction factors would be spot on and you could predict the outcome perfectly.

Now publish your prediction:

What happens? People who were bound to vote for the leading candidate stay at home because they think their candidate won't need their votes anymore, but people who want to support the second place candidate (by polls) are activated to actually vote.

Publishing a poll has a huge effect on election results.

Re:dont censor

[Anonymous Coward]

We were seeing all the polls showing Clinton had a near certain victory. And we assumed trump was lying when he said that his polls are showing something different.

Apparently I'm the only person who remembers when Karl Rove said, "you have your numbers; I have the numbers."

Trump (and Rove) may not have been lying. It's just that when you cite numbers which are dramatically different than everybody else and which coincidentally happen to portray your side in a good light, people get skeptical. Sometimes, like Trump, you are right. More often, you are like Rove and are just flat wrong.

Re:dont censor

[Anonymous Coward]

> We were seeing all the polls showing Clinton had a near certain victory. And we assumed trump was lying when he said that his polls are showing something different.

So, here's the thing. According to the polls, Clinton was ahead of Trump by 3%. That's
a) _Not_ a near-certain victory
and
b) very, very close to margin of error.

Don't believe me? Ask an expert: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-just-a-normal-polling-error-behind-clinton/

Clinton won ~1% more of the popular vote than Trump. This was an _extremely_ close race. In extremely close races, all _sorts_ of noise (Did it rain in Philly? Did the Cubs win the World Series? Did a bunch of Millennials get hammered the day before the election and fail to go out and vote?) will have an outsized effect on the result.

There's likely no conspiracy here. Pundits are gonna blow hot air to attract eyeballs for their advertiser overlords. When in doubt, ask the statisticians.

Re: dont censor

[bestweasel]

The lies came from those Trump supporters being polled. Trump was so vilified by all the clever people that some of them were too ashamed to admit being supporters to those same clever people's pollsters. However when someone says, "I'm conducting a poll on behalf of Donald Trump ...", they were more likely to admit to it. I didn't think Clinton was safe when her lead dropped below 7%. See also Brexit.

Re:dont censor

[Anonymous Coward]

Nate Silver repeatedly pointed out that the number of "undecideds" was way higher than normal, and that added a lot of uncertainty to the polling. Which is why his predictions consistently rated Trump's chances higher than anyone else's, including the betting markets.

But to assume a priori that all those undecideds must be closet Trumpists - that would have been abandoning any attempt at science and just making up the results to suit a preconceived agenda.

Maybe it would have been correct, maybe not. But one thing it wouldn't have been is scientific. I still give NS great kudos for his attempt to apply intellectual rigour to the analysis, despite all the pressure applied by both sides to bullshit the whole thing.

Re:dont censor

[ArcherB]

All the videos I saw looked to be the result of old and poorly calibrated touch screens. These things happen with older monitors.
Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.

Re:dont censor

[RuffMasterD]

Margin of error != undecided. Not even close. 'Undecided' is a valid response, along with 'Republican', 'Democrat', 'other', and 'no vote'. Margin of error is an estimate of the range of possible values the true population mean could have relative to the sample mean. So when someone says the 95% confidence interval of a value is between x+y and x-y, that means they are 95% certain that the true population mean is within x +/- y of their estimate. Or if they ran the experiment 100 times, then they would expect to be reasonably close around 95 times, and fuck it up about 5 time. Scientists also use the confidence intervals to decide if the results are 'significantly' different or not. For example Clinton 47%, Trump 46%, margin of error 2%, means that the true values could be Clinton anywhere from 45% to 49%, and Trump anywhere from 44% to 48%, thus the confidence intervals overlap and the difference is not significant. True values could be 47% vs 46%, or 45% vs 47%, or 46% vs 46%...

I am sure most polls use statistically rigorous and valid methods. It's just really hard to get a truly representative sample. It's not feasible to poll the whole population, so you try to take a random sub-sample. Where do you even get a truly representative random sample of people? Many people don't answer the polls, but do vote. Some people answer the polls, but don't vote. Some people change their minds between polling and voting. Some people are simply not contactable (I don't have a phone for example). Some people lie to mess with the poll.

And when you add the electoral college system to a tight race, then all bets are off, because who most people vote for != who receives most votes!

Re:dont censor

[Anonymous Coward]

I never heard of a voting machine changing a vote for Trump to Clinton, but I heard of several instances of votes for Trump getting changed to Clinton.

You just said the same thing twice, you know. Well, not the same thing, opposing statements, but in the same order, which is contradictory. You can't have ever heard of it, and heard of it. You must have meant one or the other, but I don't know which.

Whichever one it is

Now you've heard it..

Of course, you can say that the people made it up made it up, or were making human errors. Or that it didn't make a difference. Or the machines were poor choices. (I would say that about touchscreens in general. Fine for tablet. Not for serious business.) But the statement was that you had never heard of it. Whichever it was, since I provided both.

Therefore, I have satisfied that condition. You're welcome.

Re:dont censor

[goose-incarnated]

We were seeing all the polls showing Clinton had a near certain victory. And we assumed trump was lying when he said that his polls are showing something different. Unfortunately that raises the question how good are the sources to figure out truthfulness.

Now Trump could had been lying about his sources, and gotten lucky. However the fact that he was saying that he was winning and the media is lying about that and actually won. Does bring up questions, on the fact checkers and truthfulness.

Clinton actually gained roughly the amount of votes that were expected. But what happened is the overwhelming majority of "undecided" voters voted for Trump. What we all forgot about, but should never forget about, is The Bradley Effect. People didn't want to admit to a pollster that they were voting for Trump. It's a key example of Social Desirability Bias where respondents answer questions in a manner which will be viewed favorably by those around them.

The blame for that lies squarely with the hardcore left - as we see regularly on /. itself, the hardcore left prefers to use shaming language in lieu of arguments. Stop using shaming language and perhaps people will listen to you. Keep calling Trump misogynist because women let him grope them, see how that turns out for you.

Re:dont censor

[silentcoder]

>Unfortunately this is true. The only way to know how the populace will vote is to hold the election. Various polls come with various levels of Truthiness, but there are a great number of reasons that they can't accurately predict results.

Frankly, if they really could, there would be no reason to actually hold an expensive election now would there ?

Re: dont censor

[Anonymous Coward]

Or simply don't hold any election and have experts decide on matters. Seriously, can't we advance beyond mob rule?

Re:dont censor

[amicusNYCL]

But to assume a priori that all those undecideds must be closet Trumpists - that would have been abandoning any attempt at science and just making up the results to suit a preconceived agenda.

Yeah, I know. I wasn't suggesting that. I was suggesting adjusting your margin of error to reflect the undecided count. If your margin of error is less than the undecided percentage then that's a problem. Maybe add another choice - "I don't want to tell you", that will also give you more insight.

Re:dont censor

[amicusNYCL]

'Undecided' is a valid response, along with 'Republican', 'Democrat', 'other', and 'no vote'.

Yeah, it sure is a valid response. So what happens when I'm planning to vote Democrat, but I tell them I'm going to vote Republican instead? Haven't I introduced an error into their data? What if I've made up my mind already, but I tell them I'm undecided? That's an error in the data, right? But they don't take that kind of thing into consideration, and how can they? How can they quantify lies in a data set when they look exactly like the rest of the data? It doesn't matter, because as long as they say what the sample size is, and calculate a margin of error, then everything sounds scientific and all of the reporters on the radio and TV will tell people exactly what's going to happen, and it's all wrong. That's my point, they try to make this stuff look scientific and it is not scientific at all. Take into account how many people are lying to you and maybe people will start to listen to "pollsters" again, but the news services are not doing themselves any favors by relying on this crap. Polls don't mean anything, and we saw that over and over again during the primaries and election, but for some reason everyone was so surprised that Trump won.

For example Clinton 47%, Trump 46%, margin of error 2%, means that the true values could be Clinton anywhere from 45% to 49%, and Trump anywhere from 44% to 48%, thus the confidence intervals overlap and the difference is not significant.

Well, significant how? To a statistician, or a reporter, or a voter? A reporter is going to look at those numbers and say that Clinton is in the lead. Reality could mean that Trump is up by 3 points. That's exactly the opposite of what the reporter said. I would say that's significant.

Re:dont censor

[Rakarra]

The blame for that lies squarely with the hardcore left - as we see regularly on /. itself, the hardcore left prefers to use shaming language in lieu of arguments. Stop using shaming language and perhaps people will listen to you. Keep calling Trump misogynist because women let him grope them, see how that turns out for you.

What? Is this a variant on the old "she was just asking for it" defense?
Did you speak with them? Unless you have information that goes against their statements that these were uninvited and unwanted advances, I'll go with their public statements.

There is no problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The Donald grabbed the world by the pussy and won fair and square against this rigged system!

Re:There is no problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Information is completely fungible: there are exactly as many opportunities for Team Blue to drive the narrative via Facebook as there is for Team Red. Anybody who tries to tell you that both sides aren't doing everything they can to take advantage of this is either hopelessly naive, or they already work on one of those teams, and they're trying to make you believe the other team are the bad guys.

Don't use Facebook

[lgw]

I have a simple and 100% effective strategy for avoiding fake news on Facebook. I think it's a fairly common strategy for Slashdotters.

Re:Don't use Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

Agree.

Also it wouldn't hurt to have much greater emphasis on critical thinking skills in public education. That's hard to do though, because some people really hate it and seem to have a deficiency there, and many parents hate it when their kids start asking really trenchant questions about their religious beliefs.

Re:Don't use Facebook

[NatasRevol]

Well, until Facebook goes back to less than 1 billion monthly users, your idea sucks for not impacting American politics.

Re:Don't use Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

trump was the perfect candidate for the facebook masses (well, and 4chan, and reddit, and etc etc). so instead of GOOD candidates, i think we'll see more "viral" candidates, not fewer.

Re:Don't use Facebook

[lgw]

Well, until Facebook goes back to less than 1 billion monthly users, your idea sucks for not impacting American politics.

It's not just Facebook.

US elections were very different before TV. When voter made a decision based on mostly written information and the candidates actual policy positions, plus maybe seeing a candidate once address a crowd, elections weren't about sound bites and hot takes. But the Nixon-Kennedy debate marked the beginning of a new era.

This way the same sort of "state change in voting", 56 years later. Trump was a master at getting free press in a world of 24-hour news coverage and social media and one-liners and tweets. Even less information being looked at than the TV era. Trump demonstrated that "any press is good press" as he rode the wave of "talking heads just can't stop talking about how bad he is" to victory. That's the new era - 140-character attention spans.

The content hasn't mattered much for 56 years, and matters less now. People aren't persuaded by "fake news", they've already decided based on the world around them, and grab any quote that looks good to defend that position. Clearly the media had very little actual influence this election. I doubt social media did either - people decide first, based on the real world ("it's the economy, stupid"), then talk about it on social media.

Re:Don't use Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

US elections were very different before TV. When voter made a decision based on mostly written information and the candidates actual policy positions, plus maybe seeing a candidate once address a crowd, elections weren't about sound bites and hot takes. But the Nixon-Kennedy debate marked the beginning of a new era.

I don't buy that at all. FB is mostly "written information". Candidates policy proposals are more available for scrutiny than ever.

There was also plenty of garbage "journalism" before TV.

TV and Twitter have taken over not by force, by by virtue of giving people the soundbites and one-liners that they want.

Elections, and politics in general, were very different when they were largely an exercise among "elites". That is just the plain, if sad, fact of the matter. Populism never leads to responsible government or prosperity.

"As democracy is perfected, the office of President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." H.L. Mencken

Re:Don't use Facebook

[lgw]

Populism never leads to responsible government or prosperity.

It's never pretty when the demos seizes the kratos. But it's worth remembering that democracy is primarily a circuit breaker. When the government ignores the concerns of the people too long, something ugly will certainly happen. I'll take Trump over Madam Guillotine any day.

Re:Don't use Facebook

[Sir_Eptishous]

You beat me to it.
FB is a wasteland of contrived "keeping up with the joneses", people trying to make their lives look larger-than-life, weirdo political rants, cat pictures, endless posts about nothing or anything, and most importantly, almost nothing of any substantive value.
Actually, no, the worst part about FB is the time wasted scrolling through it...

Re:Don't use Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

Before I choose between replying with 'mod parent up' or insinuating half of your parentage is registered by the Kennel Club, I need to know if this mockery of America is something done by my team or the hitler team.

Re:Don't use Facebook

[gnick]

I think it's a fairly common strategy for Slashdotters.

I doubt that's true. My guess is that the abstainers are just a very vocal minority. Like how people without TV love periodically announcing that they don't have TV and those of us that haven't cut the cable just keep our yaps shut.

Re:Don't use Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

No, there is nothing about critical thinking that forces my conclusions to agree with yours.

Re:Don't use Facebook

[Mashiki]

trump was the perfect candidate for the facebook masses

You know, it wasn't Trump or the media supporting Trump that turned around and said shit like "Looking at wikileaks is illegal." That was CNN, there was also similar views being pushed in a very vague way NBC, ABC, and CBS. Those networks were all supporting Clinton, so were newspapers like WAPO, USA Today, Boston Globe, NY Times. All with a variety of messages like "well those leaks are because RUSSIA" now believe what we're telling you! Oddly it was organizations facebook and twitter as well, that was removing or blocking content and/or stopping trending data that hurt the DNC.

Strange how that all seemed to work in Hillary's favor right?

Re:Don't use Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

US elections were very different before TV

Right, because before TV we had radio. It's like TV only without the pictures.

I promise you the vast majority of voters have never made informed decisions about anything in their lives. That's a myth. Since day one of the USA voters have heard nothing but useless stump speeches, yellow journalism and rumors no sane man would consider true for a moment.

Nothing has changed, specially not the people who vote. No one pays attention unless the "issues" impact their private patch of the world, and the politicians know exactly how to spin the fear machine to make every voter think a vote fore anyone other than themselves is a vote for the End of the World.

Nothing new here folks. Move along. Move along.

Re:Don't use Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

You won't believe this one simple trick to avoid clickbait on facebook!

Re:Don't use Facebook

[DerekLyons]

FB is a wasteland of contrived "keeping up with the joneses", people trying to make their lives look larger-than-life, weirdo political rants, cat pictures, endless posts about nothing or anything, and most importantly, almost nothing of any substantive value.

That's not caused by Facebook - that's caused by you having shit taste in friends. My feed is almost exactly the opposite. (Well, modulo the cat pictures but I have a lot of cat people among my friends.)

Re:Don't use Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

Populism never leads to responsible government or prosperity.

It's never pretty when the demos seizes the kratos. But it's worth remembering that democracy is primarily a circuit breaker. When the government ignores the concerns of the people too long, something ugly will certainly happen. I'll take Trump over Madam Guillotine any day.

It is not "the people" who have elected Trump, it is some people who are complaining that they have been shut out of their God given position at the center of the universe.

Re:Don't use Facebook

[Rakarra]

TV and Twitter have taken over not by force, by by virtue of giving people the soundbites and one-liners that they want.

They give ENTERTAINMENT. Or infotainment if you want to call it that. It's not informative. It's not thoughtful. It's salacious. It's shocking. It's also all about taking one sentence outside of the context that it was given in.

Re:Don't use Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

TV and Twitter have taken over not by force, by by virtue of giving people the soundbites and one-liners that they want.

They give ENTERTAINMENT. Or infotainment if you want to call it that. It's not informative. It's not thoughtful. It's salacious. It's shocking. It's also all about taking one sentence outside of the context that it was given in.

What people want. QED

Re:Don't use Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

Neil Postman wrote a book about this... Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business and Aldus Huxley before that.

Re:Don't use Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

"many parents hate it when their kids start asking really trenchant questions about their religious beliefs."

no we don't, I expect my kids to ask questions so that they can learn and I also suggest to my kids to do research as well. Let me guess you are not a parent because if you were you would know that kids ask questions constantly.

-geekpoet

Re: Don't use Facebook

[bestweasel]

If you believe this unreliable, unscientific, self-selecting poll from July, half of us don't use Facebook.

Re:Don't use Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

Cut off access to Facebook until people proved they voted. That's the only way to get the other 45% of America voting. :-(

Re:Don't use Facebook

[Rakarra]

You are correct, it's giving people what they want, not what they need.

Re:Don't use Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed the point. You also took the pompous self-aggrandizing attitude that most parents take. Having a kid does not suddenly make you enlightened.

But when kids start coming back from school doubting their religion and questioning the authority of the Bible, devoted parents decide that the public school is filling their kids' heads with lies. They naturally get politically active and force the school to get that material out of the classroom. Or they just pull their kids out and put them in religious private schools (if they can afford it).

Obviously, not all parents are like this. Some are atheists or agnostics. Others are of a particular set of religious beliefs that doesn't threaten their kids with everlasting torture for ceasing to believe. But we still live in a significantly religious culture, and those beliefs absolutely have an impact on what public schools can and cannot teach.

Also, this varies a bit by region.

Re:Don't use Facebook

[XxtraLarGe]

Also it wouldn't hurt to have much greater emphasis on critical thinking skills in public education.

"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few engage in it." - Henry Ford

Re: Don't use Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

Self-selecting poll == Minority being vocal

Re:Don't use Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure.
But why assume facebook matters? Backyard gossip is full of dubious opinions, and lots of people listen to it. Still, not a problem because people don't believe all the conflicting information they get through gossip. Facebook is the same thing. Cute cats, boring people telling what they did today - but do people believe a story circulating on facebook? yeah right!

Re:Don't use Facebook

[michael_wojcik]

US elections were very different before TV. When voter made a decision based on mostly written information and the candidates actual policy positions

Care to provide any evidence that this is something more than a prelapsarian fantasy?

Anyone with a passing familiarity with the history of US Presidential elections knows that, after the first two (where no one really dared challenge the Washington hagiography), they've generally been pretty vile. It's conceivable that back in some Golden Age before Great Devil Television corrupted us, a majority of voters decided things based on "candidates [sic] actual policy positions", since it's difficult to prove otherwise, but it seems highly implausible. Certainly people at the time didn't seem to think that was the case, given the vast amount of invective and innuendo they spread.

(If you're not familiar with the history, Kevin Underhill has an entertaining summary.)

New media certainly make it easier and faster to spread misrepresentations and illogical arguments, but I've seen no credible historical arguments that anything beyond that has changed.

Re:Don't use Facebook

[wdnspoon]

No doubt, so I think the focus needs to be around the electoral system that rewards populism as a viable strategy. There were more than two options available this election than Clinton or Trump: you could vote for a third party, or you could stay home. This is the worst thing about first past the post voting, which rewards strategies like Trump's. He can win with only a quarter of voter support, by fostering apathy so those who don't want Trump to win, but don't feel strongly pro-Clinton, won't be motivated to stand in line and vote. We saw this happen on a smaller scale with Ford in Toronto. 30% of the voters supported him, and 70% would absolutely never in their lives cast a vote his way. He could still compete, since populists can rally a broad base, while the remaining 70% could fracture in to groups where no one is > 30%, as they debate policy and ideas. It's awful that there's a voting system in place where reasonable discourse and dissent are actually losing strategies.

Re:Don't use Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhhh...Trump just took us a giant step TOWARDS Madam Guillotine. The majority of the country is perilously close to being completely shut out of the national government due to a combination of electoral college, gerrymandering, and the proposed removal of the congressional filibuster. (Can't let those pesky democrats use the same options to obstruct government that the republicans used when they were the minority!)

I don't think that's going to end well.

Re: Don't use Facebook

[bestweasel]

49% do use Facebook. The only minority in that poll was the 3% other.

Re:Don't use Facebook

[ayesnymous]

Except that I subscribe to the Slashdot Facebook page. So all these slashdot posts are fake?

Re:Don't use Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember Facebook. Farmville and Mafia Wars. I don't miss it.

A quick bit of googling will tell you what link to follow to delete (as opposed to just deactivate) your Facebook account.

That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Anonymous Coward]

.....to blame Facebook for Trump's win. Please, just accept what happened. Otherwise, just blame all media for what happened. But really, c'mon.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[NatasRevol]

Are you aware that saying 'why' something happened isn't the same as blaming someone else for that 'why'?

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you aware that saying Trump won because of fake news is a big waste of time and effort?
I oppose The Donald and everything he stands for, but I'm not so arrogant as to believe this crap.
It's a very serious mistake to believe that the only reason people disagree with you is they're uninformed.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[hey!]

Saying "Trump lost because of misinformed voters" "Trump won because EVERYONE who voted for him was misinformed".

Trump actually lost the popular vote; his electoral victory came down to any two of three states where his margin of victory was 1% or less. This means it takes only a small number of people switching their vote because of misinformation to throw an election one way or the other.

As few as 131607 vote switches could have swung the result. -- that was out of 14159807 votes cast in those two states, or about 0.9% of votes cast in those states.

I agree that most people who voted for Trump voted because they liked him, not because of misinformation. But we're talking about a marginal effect with big consequences. Misinformation in close elections can be decisive, which is why people do it.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[meta-monkey]

And what about on the Democratic side? My FaceBook feed is full of crying women who believe America just elected LITERALLY HITLER and that Trump is going to start deporting or murdering anyone who isn't a straight white male. Their level of delusion seems a little worse than your average Trump voter.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[hey!]

I have to say that I get a lot of liberal noise, but I haven't seen anyone claim that Trump is literally Hitler or is going to murder people. The closest is the story that Trump kept a book of Hitler speeches by his bed. I initially discounted that since the source was his ex-wife, but there turns out to be corroborating evidence. Still, I consider that meaningless in itself because I have all kinds of "bad books".

I judge Trump on what he actually says and does, and that's enough. Yes he is not "literally" Hitler, but if you study the careers of authoritarian leaders he fits right in. People should be concerned.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[bfpierce]

Are we seriously using FaceBook feeds to generalize entire populations now? Is that where we're at?

Because I'm pretty certain there was a large segment of people who were utterly convinced after Obama won that we'd be a Socialist workers paradise by now and nobody would ever be able to buy a Gun ever again.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[jevvim]

And what about on the Democratic side? ... Their level of delusion seems a little worse than your average Trump voter.

Hammer, meet nail. It wasn't just the Trump side that was "misinformed" by Facebook; Clinton's supporters were equally in a bubble. "Fake" news did not impact only one side; it touched every single candidate. It was near propaganda levels, especially in the final week. Ad hominem was the normal response of the Clinton side; why rebut the argument when it's easier to attack the speaker. Straw man was the normal response of the Trump side; why respond to the actual argument when you can misrepresent it and have a slam-dunk rebuttal.

Maybe it's time for Facebook to realize that all their "algorithms" will be exploitable, and they should just go back to a perfect, unaltered timeline of everything a user is following. At least that way we can say it's the people choosing to be misinformed and not just a side-effect of an algorithmic choice.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[meta-monkey]

There have been dozens of articles about how Trump is just like Hitler from the media. When Trump won New Hampshire and HuffPo's front page was all caps screaming "NEW HAMPSHIRE GOES RACIST SEXIST XENOPHOBIC!!!!" I wondered what would happen if Trump wins. Will the people who believe this kind of shit snap out of it and realize the media is lying to them? People voting Trump in New Hampshire want the drugs coming from Mexico stopped because they can't treat their people's addiction problems when you can get $10 heroin on any street corner, not because they're RACIST SEXIST XENOPHOBIC. Or, will they continue to believe that America just elected Hitler, and that half of their friends and neighbors are secret Nazis who are going to hang all the gays and rape the women now? It appears to be the latter. You may not be this delusional, but holy shit a lot of people are. It's psychological abuse what the media did to these people.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[NatasRevol]

Here are some facts.

1. Trump received about the same number of votes as Romney did in 2012.
2. Hillary received about 10M fewer votes than Obama did in 2012.

Neither was a remotely good candidate.

But only one was 'great' at exposing every little flaw of the other candidate. Meanwhile, the other one stuck to the traditional politician script in a decidedly non-traditional election.

They both won their primaries because they were the best politicians, not the best options.
Trump won the election because he was the best politician, not the best option.

Both the DNC & the RNC need to go back to square one and start promoting their best candidates, not the best politicians. The best candidates will serve more of the whole of America than either one of these candidates ever would.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[bryanbrunton]

I agree: this story is complete nonsense. We know why Trump won: his voters had no problem voting for an offensive, sexist, racist, sexual predator.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[bfpierce]

You idiots in New Hampshire think your Heroin is coming from Mexico? lol

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Archangel Michael]

I have seen it. Mostly in the LGBT crowd.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile, the definition of fascist sounds a lot like Trump's campaign.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Trump is going to start deporting or murdering anyone who isn't a straight white male.

Mostly because he's said things exactly like that.
http://www.washingtontimes.com...

Mr. Trump has suggested that he’d order the U.S. military to kill families of Muslim terrorists and institute interrogation techniques worse than waterboarding, itself widely condemned as torture. Torture and retaliatory executions are both war crimes under international law.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Oligonicella]

"authoritarian leaders"... Leaders are by definition authoritarian, else they'd just be committee members.

what he actually says and does, and that's enough

To hint at dictatorial tendencies, I presume? Perhaps you could be more specific.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[NatasRevol]

The closest Trump came was saying that he'd make the military commit war crimes. During a debate on national TV. Then reiterated it the next day when asked about it.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[avandesande]

He won because Hillary ignored the flyover states that Obama had swept previously. Enough with the silly theories.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[meta-monkey]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Anonymous Coward]

...because the alternative was worse.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Sir_Eptishous]

America just elected LITERALLY HITLER and that Trump is going to start deporting or murdering anyone who isn't a straight white male.

Many, many people thought that Trump getting elected wasn't possible.
They thought that there is no way a guy who said the things he said and behaved the way he behaved would get elected or even have a chance.
Those doubts have now been proven wrong, and the unthinkable happened.

So let me ask you, if Trump getting elected, which was so unthinkable and against all odds happened, why is it unthinkable and against all odds that Trump would or could behave as many on the left expect him to, as a demagogic "strong man" tyrant like Putin?

Why is that unthinkable?

We have just given the reins of power of the most powerful nation on earth to someone who has time and again shown his incapacity for nuanced thought, for compassion, for patience and for the respect of the opinions of others. We have given the reins of power to a man who, months before the election, had painted himself so far into a corner that half the country didn't just vote against him(NOT FOR HRC), but they fear and detest him.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[bfpierce]

That's Ohio and the midwest son. Your problem is the other border.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Anonymous Coward]

Because none of his awfulness is directed at anyone they care about.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Sir_Eptishous]

"authoritarian leaders"... Leaders are by definition authoritarian, else they'd just be committee members.

what he actually says and does, and that's enough

To hint at dictatorial tendencies, I presume? Perhaps you could be more specific.

It appears you weren't paying attention to this election we just went through.
Did you ever watch Trump at his rallies?
Did you ever watch his interviews?
Did you watch the debates?

There are endless examples of his despicable behavior towards many different groups and individuals, but I guess you didn't see or acknowledge that.

Your question is hilarious, like when people ask quesitons on forums and they don't even know they themselves can look it up.
By asking your quesiton, you are making a weak attempt at being snarky.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[hey!]

"authoritarian leaders"... Leaders are by definition authoritarian, else they'd just be committee members

No, leaders by definition wield authority. That does not make them authoritarians "authoritarians":

Authoritarianism, principle of blind submission to authority, as opposed to individual freedom of thought and action. In government, authoritarianism denotes any political system that concentrates power in the hands of a leader or a small elite that is not constitutionally responsible to the body of the people. Authoritarian leaders often exercise power arbitrarily and without regard to existing bodies of law, and they usually cannot be replaced by citizens choosing freely among various competitors in elections.

The key Trumpian personality traits that have people concerned are prejudice toward racial or ethnic minorities, fear of the outside world, aggressiveness, defensiveness, narcissism, and and an overly expansive view of what his powers as president would be.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[hey!]

Not bad enough for you?

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[meta-monkey]

And I'm saying most of that is because the media painted him that way. Instead of repeating over and over and over again "TRUMP THINKS ALL MEXICANS ARE RAPISTS!!!!" they could have explained that 80% of the women and girls who cross the boarder illegally are raped during their crossing, and, as Trump said, "somebody's doing the raping."

Trump isn't Hitler. The media has made a bunch of hysterical women believe Trump is Hitler.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[hey!]

I agree that neither was a great candidate. But here's my theory: Trump is the first candidate ever to win by running a negative campaign -- against himself.

They were both candidates with enormous negative public perceptions. But Clinton had a lot of money. In a normal year she could have bought attention to start to shift perception, except that Trump's antics sucked all the oxygen out of the media space. And at a certain point the marginal cost of another revelation about Trump was nil.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Anonymous Coward]

And what about on the Democratic side? My FaceBook feed is full of crying women who believe America just elected LITERALLY HITLER and that Trump is going to start deporting or murdering anyone who isn't a straight white male. Their level of delusion seems a little worse than your average Trump voter.

Plus lots of whiny barely educated minorities having tantrums. The educated ones are more like "meh, we'll see what happens."

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[painandgreed]

I have to say that I get a lot of liberal noise, but I haven't seen anyone claim that Trump is literally Hitler or is going to murder people.

Murder? Naw, he's still working on registering them.

"Asked later, as he signed autographs, how such a database would be different from Jews having to register in Nazi Germany, Mr. Trump repeatedly said, “You tell me,” until he stopped responding to the question."

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that most people who voted for Trump voted because they liked him, not because of misinformation

Completely disagree. My take is people voted for Trump to register a vote against Clinton and the system. As they viewed both as corrupt (DNC & MSM)

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Anonymous Coward]

> Trump actually lost the popular vote;

Keep an eye on those vote totals, because this doesn't appear to be true. AZ had a ton of ballots that weren't going to get counted until late. They don't matter as far as the election is concerned, but as far as the vote total? They matter.

Re: That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Anonymous Coward]

And I'm saying most of that is because the media painted him that way. Instead of repeating over and over and over again "TRUMP THINKS ALL MEXICANS ARE RAPISTS!!!!" they could have explained that 80% of the women and girls who cross the boarder illegally are raped during their crossing, and, as Trump said, "somebody's doing the raping."

Has Trump demonstrated one iota of concern about the illegal sex trade? It doesn't seem to be a signature policy of his.

Unfortunately, I'm pretty such that Trump, if speaking on such a thing, would find a way to put his foot in his mouth and attack the whores.

Don't blame the media for Trump's own incapacity to avoid such missteps into big gaping holes.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Anonymous Coward]

I get Louis CK's e-mails, having bought his first self published special from his website. He did use the words "literally hitler". It was not in a joking sense, it was in one of his "heart to heart" sections after he announced some more dates for his tour.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[NatasRevol]

It's awfully Hitler like.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Anonymous Coward]

How did Clinton do so poorly that she lost to Trump? Just barely losing does not make the question less important, and if it's ignored in favor of blaming FB and the like, then I wouldn't be surprised if Trump takes a second term.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump is far more likable than his opponent, the career criminal.

I can't wait until we get our first female president, and I'm so glad that it won't be Hillary!

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[budgenator]

Misinformation in close elections can be decisive, which is why people do it.

But nobody though the election was going to be close, at least nobody I saw. The Talking heads on TV were going along with the Clinton by a landslide and the alt-right echo-chamber were Trump by a landslide.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Anonymous Coward]

hey! and meta-monkey, looks like you two agree on something: if the election is close, then bullshit could end up making a big difference.

Unfortunately, that's a pretty boring fact, once you think about it. But at least we all agree on it! Obviously, the solution is to stop having close elections.

Oh, and at least one of you is an insufferable asshole because I can easily tell that you supported the wrong candidate. I'm not saying who, but you know who you are!

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Anonymous Coward]

Your "facts" are wrong on both counts... do some homework before spouting out your inane blathering.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[budgenator]

That's what I've seen as well the LGBT community is have an mass anxiety attack, waiting for some Trumpian Gestapo to come and kick down their doors.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Rakarra]

I have to say that I get a lot of liberal noise, but I haven't seen anyone claim that Trump is literally Hitler or is going to murder people. The closest is the story that Trump kept a book of Hitler speeches by his bed.

That might even be a smart move. Adolph Hitler was one of the greatest speakers we've seen in the modern age. Sure, he was evil as hell, and his policies were abhorrent, but he knew how to speak to a crowd.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[budgenator]

1 I must of missed that one and 2 Trump is only going to be the Commander in Chief, he can't force anyone to follow an illegal order.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Anonymous Coward]

In the first place, HuffPo is not "mainstream media". It's the left-wing equivalent of Drudge.

In the second place, why don't you link to that article? Could it be that it's not actually exactly as you've described it? Because this kind of hyperbole is exactly how we get to screaming at each other instead of talking. You're no better than Huffpo or Drudge yourself.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[budgenator]

Well she was counting on the Union vote, but forgot all the good Union jobs went to Mexico, and all of the Retirees saw it didn't matter how good the Union contract was when the company went bankrupt, so they were just getting strung along until the next election.
As they say "Atlas Shrugged"

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[hey!]

It's awfully Hitler like.

Well, these days you can't take it for granted when someone say something like that they consider it a bad thing.

Re: That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone who reads in bed will keep a book by her bedside until she's finished it, when it will be replaced by another. Keep has implications of permanence (castle keep) which aren't always justified.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[NatasRevol]

Agreed, but that's kind what I meant by Trump was the better politician.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[NatasRevol]

You do know they're easily verifiable, right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Romney: 60.9M votes
Obama: 65.9M votes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Trump: 59.7M votes
Clinton: 59.9M votes

So it was 7M fewer for Clinton instead of 10M. The point is still exactly the same.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[NatasRevol]

Unlike the soldiers at Abu Ghraib?

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump isn't Hitler. The media has made a bunch of hysterical women believe Trump is Hitler.

I'll no doubt be corrected on details based on my limited understanding of history, but... I'm guessing Hitler wasn't 'Hitler' until he had come to near-absolute power for some time. The media was unfortunately, but perhaps unavoidably filled with two overlapping sets. The legitimate concern that Trump's behavior, could be 'Hitler' level concerning. And Hillary using frat/sorority tactics to smear overzealously (but somewhat predictably in line with political races in general).

I pray to God that I live to see the day that Trump leaves the presidency and nobody has died from nuclear bombs exploding since he took office. I'm not saying he's 'Hitler'. I'm just extremely concerned.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[RuffMasterD]

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid the 'facts' you just verified are incompatible with the /. Advertising Revenue Maximisation and Public Information Transfer (ARMPIT) (TM) algorithm. Your account is hereby suspended. Have a nice day.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[silentcoder]

>My FaceBook feed is full of crying women who believe America just elected LITERALLY HITLER

If you think you didn't, you haven't been paying attention. There is not a single Nuremberg law that he has not proposed as policy. If that is not enough to justify a Godwin then nothing will be.

When Hitler himself got elected people just like you were also declaring that he would never actually DO the insane shit he said to get elected. That the constitution would prevent it, that the checks and balances would constrain him.

You DID just elect orange Hitler. The only REAL question is - are you going to let him go full circle ? There is one last check and balance that can prevent that, one he doesn't control. That one is the citizens. They could constantly and harshly oppose him - enough to force him to not do the crazy things he said he would do. In Germany - they didn't, his party only got 32% of the vote ever - but the other 68% of the people got scared when he slaughtered all their elected representatives - and fell in line.
Looks like maybe some people DID learn from history - because it looks like the 47% of people who know who he is and who knows what is not even SLIGHTLY an exagerated metaphor - are protesting already.

The only thing that will keep Orange Hitler from doing everything German Hitler did - are the protesters in the street right now. They weren't there in Germany. Those people right now, excercising their constitutional rights - they could change the outcome, or at least mitigate the worst of it.
You better support them - they are your only hope.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[pnutjam]

Trump certainly proved that not only could you ignore anyone who isn't white (and male), GOP strategy for decades. You can get better results by anointing your chosen "race" and actively discounting any other. Basically, we're looking at a return to early 1900's thinking.
Nationalist spirit (mindless), worship of the aristocracy (celebrities), disregard for the deprivations of business (environmental or worker).
Most people don't know that Woodrow Wilson purged blacks from the Federal workforce when he became President. Trump could easily do something as heinous and it would be lost to history in afew decades. I don't think he will, but I didn't think he would win, so what the hell do I know.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[pnutjam]

Well, to be fair, authoritarians have learned that they don't have to send people to kick in door. They can marginalize a group pretty effectively and let them die alone. Trump probably thinks camps are a waste of money. He's proven that nobody is really concerned about what he does.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[pnutjam]

Desperate people being violated is as old as time. Maybe Trump can bring that to America. He certainly seems to be heading in that way.
Also, something is wrong with your math. How many women can one man rape? I think it's a pretty high number, and I don't think that person (people) are coming to the US when they obviously have such great opportunity where they are currently set up.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[pnutjam]

So, despite the narrative I'm reading, Trump did not "energize" his base. He merely replaced almost every reasonable voter (who abstained) with a degenerate.
Clinton failed to energize her base. Everybody said Romney had poor turnout, but Trump had slightly less.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[NatasRevol]

Both were terrible candidates.

Dems apparently thought their own candidate was worse than GOPs did.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Anonymous Coward]

> I'm guessing Hitler wasn't 'Hitler' until he had come to near-absolute power for some time.

Good news! You don't have to guess -- you can get off your lazy ass and actually do a little bit of research. It turns out there's been quite a bit written about that Hitler guy.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[ClickOnThis]

You do know they're easily verifiable, right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Romney: 60.9M votes
Obama: 65.9M votes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Trump: 59.7M votes
Clinton: 59.9M votes

So it was 7M fewer for Clinton instead of 10M. The point is still exactly the same.

You made insightful points in both of your posts, but check your math: it's 6M, not 7M or 10M.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[michael_wojcik]

Yes, though she also didn't do quite well enough in Florida. Florida was achievable, with just a little more turnout for the Democrats. But Florida alone wouldn't have saved her; it would just have been insurance against losing one of the three "defectors" (as ultimately she did).

But the three defecting states - Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan (still not officially called, but it no longer matters) - would have been enough to put her over the top (228 + 46 for 274 total). And those three hadn't voted for a Republican Presidential candidate in 28 years.

Now, various people have been saying for a long time that the Democrats' "firewall" was much weaker than popularly believed. But given the very, very close totals in those states, it should have been possible to retain them with better campaigning. For the most part (and particularly with Wisconsin, a state the Clinton campaign basically ignored - though voter-impeding by the state Republican government hurt too), the Democrats didn't do a good job of maintaining their constituencies there, or reaching out to undecided voters. And the last-ditch scramble in Michigan looked desperate and seems to have fired up rural Republican voters much more than urban Democrat ones.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Anonymous Coward]

No, she didn't ignore them. She went out of her way to insult them, shame them, and then write them off as human beings. Just like the rest of the racist intolerant hate-mongering left. That is why she lost.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, seriously. What do they have to worry about? I mean it's not like the vice president elect tried to give his state the right to discriminate against gays or anything. Oh wait...

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[budgenator]

These Abu Ghraib Soldiers?
Pfc. Lynndie England
372nd Military Police Company
May 2, 2005 - England pleads guilty to reduced charges as part of a pretrial agreement.
May 4, 2005 - A mistrial is declared after she pleads guilty but then states that she did not know her actions were wrong.
September 21, 2005 - England's second court-martial trial begins at Fort Hood, Texas.
September 26, 2005 - England is found guilty of four counts of maltreating detainees, one count of conspiracy and one count of committing an indecent act.
September 27, 2005 - Is sentenced to three years in prison and given a dishonorable discharge.
March 2007 - Is released from military prison after serving half of her 36-month sentence.
2009 - Releases her biography, "Tortured: Lynndie England, Abu Ghraib and the Photographs that Shocked the World."
Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick II
372nd Military Police Company
October 20, 2004 - Pleads guilty to conspiracy, dereliction of duty, maltreatment of detainees, assault, and committing an indecent act under a plea agreement.
October 21, 2004 - Is sentenced to eight years in prison and also sentenced to a forfeiture of pay, a dishonorable discharge and a reduction in rank to private.
October 1, 2007 - Is paroled after serving approximately three years in a military prison.
Spc. Charles Graner
372nd Military Police Company
January 14, 2005 - Graner is found guilty of nine of 10 counts under five separate charges.
January 15, 2005 - Graner is sentenced to 10 years in prison, downgraded to the rank of private with loss of pay, and receives a dishonorable discharge.
August 6, 2011 - Graner is released from prison.
Spc. Sabrina Harman
372nd Military Police Company:
May 16, 2005 - Is found guilty on six of the seven charges for her role in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal.
May 17, 2005 - Sentenced to six months in prison. Harman is demoted to private, and receives a bad conduct discharge after she finishes the sentence.
Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan
Director, Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center during the fall of 2003. Jordan is the only officer charged with prisoner abuse.
April 28, 2006 - Charged with eight counts, including disobeying an order, dereliction of duty, cruelty, false statements, fraud and interfering with an investigation.
August 28, 2007 - Acquitted of charges that he failed to control soldiers who abused detainees, but is found guilty of disobeying a general's command not to talk about allegations of abuse at the prison. On August 29, he is sentenced with a reprimand.
January 10, 2008 - Cleared of all wrongdoing, and the conviction and reprimand are removed from his record.
Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski
Commander of the Army Reserve's 800th Military Police Brigade, in charge of all 12 Iraqi detention facilities, including Abu Ghraib.
May 5, 2005 - She is demoted from brigadier general to colonel by President George W. Bush after an extensive investigation and is cited for two of four allegations against her, dereliction of duty and shoplifting. The probe clears her of "making a material misrepresentation to an investigating team" and "failure to obey a lawful order."
Col. Thomas Pappas
Commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade.
May 2006 - Reprimanded, fined, and relieved of command after using muzzled dogs inside interrogation rooms.
Lt. Col. Jerry L. Phillabaum
Commander, 320th MP Battalion.
April 2004 - He is reprimanded and relieved of command of the 320th Military Police Battalion for his role in the abuse scandal.
Spc. Jeremy Sivits
372nd Military Police Company
May 19, 2004 - Sivits pleads guilty as part of a pretrial agreement with prosecutors that leaves him open to testify against other soldiers charged in the scandal. He is sentenced to a year of confinement, discharge for bad conduct, and is demoted.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[meta-monkey]

Weren't all the celebrities shilling for Hildawg? And wasn't it the working class that voted Trump because the globalist policies Hillary espouses are what's closed all their factories and lost them all their jobs?

And didn't Hillary basically throw whites under the bus? Non-stop pandering to every other ethnic group, and demonizing whites as evil racists? Trump talked about us all being Americans. It's the dems and their media allies who divide and conquer by screeching constantly that Republicans are evil and hate everyone who isn't a straight white male.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[meta-monkey]

You need to stop watching CNN. It's rotted your brain.

What are you going to say when he turns out to not be Hitler? My guess is "haha, see, he lied about being Hitler, and boy are his evil Nazi supporters pissed about it stupid Trumpkins!" Because that's what CNN will say, and all you can do is regurgitate their nonsense.

Basically you've got a big cognitive dissonance thing going on here.You identify as a smart and well-informed person. You watched the corporate media which painted Trump as Hitler because it's in their financial interest (the companies that owned the media own Hillary). So now that Trump is elected (despite that same corporate media saying Hillary had a 99% chance) you're confronted with a paralyzing choice: either you're not as smart and well-informed as you thought and in fact Trump is NOT Hitler, or your friends and neighbors you've known your whole life are actually secret Nazis who know Trump is Hitler and like it! Panic! Now, attacks to identity are really tough. You'd have to be broken down pretty hard to recognize you got fooled by the media, so instead you'll hallucinate that you're really surrounded by monsters. Isn't that what the protestors think? Have you seen these people? Blue haired nutjobs who went $40,000 into debt for a gender studies degree and still can't figure out which of the 47 genders they are day to day and are working at Panerra Bread when they're not smashing the patriarchy. These are your fellow travelers. Are they smart and well-informed? What the media has done to you people this cycle is unconscionable. Psychological torture that defies comparison.

Trump's not Hitler. Your neighbors aren't Nazis. Anderson Cooper lied to you. It's okay man. It's going to be all right. Bust your corporate media bubble and look for some alternative sources. Or, failing that, panic.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[NatasRevol]

Sounds a lot like they all followed illegal orders. From Rumsfeld on down.

They may have paid for it, but that doesn't mean they didn't follow them.

Or did you miss that part?

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[meta-monkey]

It was what the front page of HuffPo looked like the day of, so it wasn't an article. Google "huffpo NH goes racist sexist" and this article has a screenshot: http://www.weeklystandard.com/...

Also I saw it myself the day of.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[silentcoder]

You know - that's EXACTLY what people said about the original Hitler....
Here's the New York times in 1922 http://www.nytimes.com/times-i... declaring that all that talk of forced registrations and mass deportations and anti-semitism was just campaign bluster and he would never do it in real life if he ever got elected.

They were wrong.

I have no reason whatsoever to believe that YOU are any less wrong. If there is one thing I have learned it's that you can't believe a politician when he promises to do good - but when they promise to do evil, you better fucking believe they ALWAYS keep THOSE promises.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[meta-monkey]

But deportation of illegal aliens is already our law, but our politicians have ignored the law because Republicans want cheap labor and Democrats want votes. Trump is just going to enforce our own laws. How is that evil? Every other nation on earth does it. Is every nation evil?

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting AC due to moderatin'.

Explain how illegal aliens can vote?
I understand the cheap labor thing.

See you, space cowboy.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[meta-monkey]

Lots of places have no voter ID laws, so aliens vote illegally. Also they drop anchor babies who then become the Dem's future voting base.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[budgenator]

It was big deal because of the severity of the occurrence, not the size of it. The offense was at the First-line supervisor's level in origin, Second liner Supervisors for not properly Supervising the FLSs.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[Anonymous Coward]

If you wanted to make that argument - you had to make it in 1930.
To try and do it now. Yes, it's fucking evil. There is no way now to do that without ripping families apart, destroying communities - and coincidentally destroying your own economy and putting ALL Americans out of work pretty much permanently.

You think it will GET you jobs ? No. It will get you a great depression.

And besides - notice how you ignored almost everything Trump said. Deportations is just one of the things I mentioned... odd how you ignored the rest - is it because you can't defend it ?

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[silentcoder]

"Anchor babies" ... right. You mean American citizens ? Are you native american ? You're not ? So you are yourself ONLY a citizen because of somebody's anchor baby. And what do you propose ? Putting those young citizens into foster care to deport their mothers ?

And you think you are NOT being fucking evil ?

Oh and by the way - no other countries do NOT in fact do that. They all have immigration laws, but none of them are nearly as rabid about it as you lot are. And no other free country would turn away refugees. Even Australia didn't dare THAT one. It's not like it's a problem anyway - Mexican migration is negative and has been for years. You don't NEED to deport anybody - the ones that CAN leave are doing so of their own accord and have been for years.
The rest, you'll never KEEP out because the reason they are there is because they are either there - or dead. Deporting those people - now that is REALLY evil.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[pnutjam]

Trump is a celebrity.
I'll just issue a blanket NO to everything else, anyone with a brain can see you need some medication.

Re:That's the funniest thing so far .....

[meta-monkey]

No you are the one who is crazy.

WE FAILED!!

[CajunArson]

Commit Sepuku in your hoodie Zuckerberg.

The platform that you built to limit the flow of information to the population and as a way to make advertising revenue for yourself and Hillary backfired on you.

Incidentally, Trump's expenditures per vote were about half of Hillary's.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/09...

That's a story that Slashdot doesn't want to cover since they still want to paint this as Trump "buying" the election.

Re:WE FAILED!!

[Anonymous Coward]

>That's a story that Slashdot doesn't want to cover since they still want to paint this as Trump "buying" the election.

Citation needed.
Who said Trump bought the election? Seriously, that's some heavy persecution complex there if you think Slashdot is pushing the agenda.

Re:WE FAILED!!

[bfpierce]

Wait, there's stories on slashdot saying Trump 'bought' the election? Did I miss something, or did you just post false tin foil hat bullshit in an article about false fucking news stories.

Re:WE FAILED!!

[Anonymous Coward]

What's interesting in that article is that for the past several elections, Democrats outspend Republicans two- (or more) to-one, and the election margins are still close.

That tells me that Democrats are having a much harder time selling their message than Republicans. Maybe they need to re-think their message?

Re:WE FAILED!!

[sinij]

This just in: "Trump bought the election".

Here, now there is.

Re:WE FAILED!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Some sources say Trump bought the election:
https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9870187&cid=53260397

Re:WE FAILED!!

[jbmartin6]

+1 Funny

Re:WE FAILED!!

[DavidMZ]

Incidentally, Trump's expenditures per vote were about half of Hillary's. http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/09...

That's a story that Slashdot doesn't want to cover since they still want to paint this as Trump "buying" the election.

Trump didn't have to spend as much: he got free media coverage.

If you want your story to make the frontpage of /., you are welcome to submit it. There are enough Republicans here to promote it if they find it newsworthy for the /.ers. And if it doesn't make it to the front page, you don't have to turn it into a conspiracy theory, there is a much simpler explanation: sometimes /. is still "News for nerds".

Re:WE FAILED!!

[Orgasmatron]

They can't, for two reasons. The first is that their message is utter garbage to the core, and has been ever since Marx wrote it. This was recognized instantly by, among others, Bastiat, who wrote an excellent rebuttal which shouldn't take anyone more than an hour or so to read. The translation from economic terms to cultural terms by the Frankfurt School didn't make it any better.

The second is that they don't possess the equipment necessary for thinking.

And no, I don't mean brains. I mean introspection, self awareness, curiosity, etc. Well, maybe I do mean brains too, a little bit. The people "protesting" the election results, to pick one example, probably aren't ditching their local Mensa meetings to be there.

Re:WE FAILED!!

[Orgasmatron]

Two days of nonstop "Trump is evil and he's going to kill us all" stories makes me think that maybe it is going to take /. a while to settle down.

Re:WE FAILED!!

[Tailhook]

That tells me that Democrats are having a much harder time selling their message than Republicans. Maybe they need to re-think their message?

There are more interesting depths to plumb here as well. Trump won spending only $285 million. If that wasn't reality it would be pure crazy talk. That's a 1995 presidential campaign budget.

Hillary spent $609 million. The bulk of that was large donors; banks, IT companies and other corporate interests. Hillary took full advantage of the state of campaign finance post Citizen's United.

It is the best example in a long list of good examples that our recently obviated campaign finance laws are pointless. When you're dealing with pairs of establishment candidates campaign financing might be significant around the margins, but who really cares? All your going to get is more establishment regardless of the outcome. When you're dealing with an outsider, however, and that outsider has any appeal at all, they can overcome very large finance deficits just fine.

Re:WE FAILED!!

[Anonymous Coward]

It was not made to limit the flow of info. It just wasn't made to improve the flow, either. If people go over there and tune out, that's a people problem, not a website problem.

Re:WE FAILED!!

[pnutjam]

Democrats aren't Marxists, but thanks for playing. Last year I would have said Republicans aren't Fascists.

Re:WE FAILED!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, maybe I do mean brains too, a little bit. The people "protesting" the election results, to pick one example, probably aren't ditching their local Mensa meetings to be there.

LOL. Remind me again who Trump's biggest voting bloc was? Oh, right, whites with minimal education. I've never seen facts stand in the way of what the right wing "knows", though, so I don't expect that piece of information is going to mean much to you.

Turns out the Democratic message is hard to sell because there's only so much you can explain to a group of people who don't believe in science or rational thought.

It's not just Facebook

[zifnabxar]

This is a problem with any social media or news aggregation site that allows for unchecked echo chambers. It's an issue for people of all politics and will crop up anywhere someone can consume media and news unchecked. "Fixing" this on Facebook will only push it elsewhere. Can we fix human nature? Should we?

Re:It's not just Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

I do think fact checking is important by the outlets posting the news because fake and outright malicious news stories do have consequences. One problem is when the lie fits the narrative you want to sell to your audience.

Take one of the many "fake" news stories peddled by fox. Wednesday night before the election they had a special "Breaking report" that Hillary's email server had been broken into by 5 countries and the FBI was closing in on an indictment regarding the Clinton foundation.

This is exactly what Fox's audience wanted to hear and generated more negative press for the Clinton campaign that they had to combat. Even after it was quietly retracted by the news anchor on a morning show 2 days later who explained, much like the Rolling Stone rape story, that he only had the one source. A source who wanted Hillary to be guilty but had no evidence.

There is no punishment for putting out false information in this climate. Republican congressmen admitted last year that the Benghazi hearings were political and all about bringing down Hillary's approval numbers but that didn't stop them from wasting Taxpayer time and money with 9 investigations. They had nothing better to do with Taxpayer money.

There was so much FUD put out there by trump supporters that it achieved it's goal, depressing the turnout for Hillary Clinton, that includes the dagger that was the Comey letter to congress in violation of the Hatch act.

Re:It's not just Facebook

[MightyMartian]

I've seen news outlets do that my entire life. You'll always see the front page story "Local soccer coach accused of child molestation!", but the story six months later that all charges were dropped is buried somewhere on page four below a story about how a Suffolk County family's cat had nine conjoined kittens.

Re:It's not just Facebook

[Hognoxious]

6 across (5,7) - Not a kiddly diddler.

Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't take misinformation seriously--or at least they don't put the corporate effort behind eliminating it that they should. Otherwise you wouldn't see things like the UPS driver uniform hoax going around. (Basically a hoax shared thousands of times that they don't shut down about UPS driver uniforms being stolen and an imminent terrorist threat). There needs to be an easy way of reporting something as a hoax or satire or untrue and MARKING it that way in someone's feed or removing it. The only real change we've seen in our feeds is that sometimes the recommended articles below a link, now, are pointing to a fact-checker who debunks something.

The problem is not Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that there are lots of stupid people.

The problem is that a stupid person's vote is worth as much as a smart person's vote.

Unlike money, a "democratic" vote has very little correlation with competence.

Re:The problem is not Facebook

[nospam007]

"The problem is that there are lots of stupid people."

And they are all on Facebook, go figure.

Re:The problem is not Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that a stupid person's vote is worth as much as a smart person's vote.

Unlike money, a "democratic" vote has very little correlation with competence.

Ironically, a "stupid person's" vote is far more likely to align with their self-interests more than a "smart person's" vote.

If you think that a handful of "smart" people can successfully elect candidates that can run a country far more successfully than the whole population, I'll refer you to exhibit A: the former Soviet Union, or exhibit B: China. If you think about it for another three minutes, you might even be able to figure out why that marginalizing votes from "stupid people" is a stupid idea to begin with.

Re:The problem is not Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that a stupid person's vote is worth as much as a smart person's vote.

Unlike money, a "democratic" vote has very little correlation with competence.

Ironically, a "stupid person's" vote is far more likely to align with their self-interests more than a "smart person's" vote.

If you think that a handful of "smart" people can successfully elect candidates that can run a country far more successfully than the whole population, I'll refer you to exhibit A: the former Soviet Union, or exhibit B: China. If you think about it for another three minutes, you might even be able to figure out why that marginalizing votes from "stupid people" is a stupid idea to begin with.

Sorry, but the stupid people who voted for Trump are the one demographic in America that has gotten exactly what they asked for from their political leaders. Rich people got most of what they wanted, i.e. more riches. Trumps beloved "uneducateds" got exactly the unrestrained private sector greed and de-fanged public institutions that they were told they were going to get by the Republican politicians they have been supporting for the last 50 years. Now they are mad, so they have doubled-down on the same stupid assed excuse for "strategery" that they have been riding into the ground for their whole idiotic lives.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. H. L. Mencken

At least if they were Chinese peasants, they'd have all those idyllic manufacturing jobs that they are desperate to get back.

Great idea!

[Orgasmatron]

Congratulations to Facebook for stepping up against the spreaders of fake news and kicking CNN, (MS)NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, BBC and Fox off their platform! Oh, and all of the polling organizations that got everything 100% wrong for the last 18 months. Very happy to see them go too.

Enjoy your CSPAN and Breitbart News, facebook users.

Re:Great idea!

[BradMajors]

Breitbart is the number one source of news on Facebook.

THAT is the issue the Facebook is talking about.

Re:Great idea!

[michael_wojcik]

all of the polling organizations that got everything 100% wrong for the last 18 months

The polls weren't far off, generally speaking. There are any number of actual analyses of the recent polls that demonstrate this. The US Presidential election system - with most states being winner-take-all and the Electoral College - amplifies small differences. That's exactly what happened here. The good polls were close to the actual outcome, even if many fell on the wrong side of the line.

The problem is people who think "ahead within the margin of error" means "definitely gonna win".

And, of course, we'd love a polling organization that was always completely wrong, since you could simply invert their results. A maximally bad poll would be statistically random.

Bro Zuck

[fubarrr]

Mark, you can't beat Russian clickfarmers. Russian clickfarms are undefeatable!

You can't fix stupid

[zifn4b]

The old saying "don't believe everything you hear/read/see" hasn't changed even in today's age of social media. If you don't fact check or correlate your sources and go around regurgitating everything you hear/read/see, you will get a collective consciousness not even remotely based in reality. This is a PEBKAC error not a Facebook problem.

Re:You can't fix stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Well said.

Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[chispito]

If Facebook were to censor these stories, people who fall for them would assume Facebook was controlled by the "liberal media" and go elsewhere for their news. It would not keep the stories from spreading virally.

Also, I like the implication that Trump won due to FUD but the Democratic FUD is of no concern--like the incredibly stupid story posted right here about Trump's server secretly communicating with a Russian bank.

It was so obviously a non-story... but read through the comments here and you'll see how eager people were to lap it up. (I linked Snopes as it contains a variety of credible sources debunking the article).

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't so black and white. I'm glad you linked snopes because that shows exactly the right approach.

Guess what, genius. Facebook does exactly that now! It is a great move, but it is not obvious enough. The snopes link shows up in the "You may also like" section which most people have tuned out completely. Fact checking like that should be more prominently displayed.

No censorship needed.

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[ScentCone]

Also, I like the implication that Trump won due to FUD but the Democratic FUD is of no concern

Yes. My own FB feed is curated a bit by my un-follows and follows, and no doubt skews a bit towards the conservative/libertarian bent - though I am FB friends with at least as many dyed-in-the-wool liberals who post to FB (or memegurgitate) about as often as they breathe. So while I saw no small number of silly re-posts and likes/shares of breathless fake/shallow news meant to draw in clicks from conservative types, I saw FAR more FUD-ish content from liberals trying to actually shame/change minds through the use of preposterously overblown fear mongering and outright lies.

So, yes: fake news on FB is a problem, or at least a significant annoyance. But the notion that somehow this is limited to stuff from and aimed at right-leaning people in some proportion that, compared to its lefty counterparts, cost Hillary Clinton the election... I call bullshit. The biggest purveyors and apparent consumers of that crap that I saw were outspoken Clinton supporters. So even if I'm wrong by a lot and the amount of it was roughly equal, that DOES NOT explain away the DNC/Clinton-Machine's huge loss. This is just another example of liberals - especially in the media - refusing to look in the mirror and understand that they're not nearly as clever and persuasive as they think they are, and that a whole lot of other people were just sick to death of the condescension, the holier-than-thou presumption of a Clinton coronation, and the deploying of finger-wagging celebrities telling people how to think.

And for those who are mystified that yelling at their non-racist, non-homophic, non-misogynistic friends about how racist, homophobic, and misogynistic they are didn't somehow make them vote for Hillary or feel apologetic following the election: maybe it's time to rethink what you were sure would get people to see things your way.

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[meta-monkey]

And for those who are mystified that yelling at their non-racist, non-homophic, non-misogynistic friends about how racist, homophobic, and misogynistic they are didn't somehow make them vote for Hillary or feel apologetic following the election: maybe it's time to rethink what you were sure would get people to see things your way.

I so close to voting for Hillary. If only someone had called Trump Hitler just two or three hundred more times I would have been right there.

Re: Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest purveyors and apparent consumers of that crap that I saw were outspoken Clinton supporters.

And you're sure your view is unbiased, and you're not ignoring lies and crap when you do see it?

Quick test, without looking it up, identify ten pieces of crap you saw from Trump supporters. Or Trump himself. That'll male it easier.

So even if I'm wrong by a lot and the amount of it was roughly equal, that DOES NOT explain away the DNC/Clinton-Machine's huge loss. This is just another example of liberals - especially in the media - refusing to look in the mirror and understand that they're not nearly as clever and persuasive as they think they are, and that a whole lot of other people were just sick to death of the condescension, the holier-than-thou presumption of a Clinton coronation, and the deploying of finger-wagging celebrities telling people how to think.

At the last check I made, Hillary Clinton was leading Donald Trump by roughly a quarter million votes.

And it looks like less than 30 electoral votes. Is calling it a huge loss really accurate? Nixon in 72. Reagan in 84, those were huge. Obama in 2012, in 2008. Huge.

Especially since Trump really did not manage to get more voters. He's basically treading water with McCain in 2008 and Romney in 2012. He's still way under Bush's level in 2004.

The fact is, whatever missteps you want Democrats to see in themselves, you seem to have a perception issue yourself. If you can't face it, and see that Trump made no real and substantial gains, then you may find yourself in trouble.

But go ahead, ignore the sick elephant in the room.

Re: Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[chispito]

At the last check I made, Hillary Clinton was leading Donald Trump by roughly a quarter million votes.

And it looks like less than 30 electoral votes. Is calling it a huge loss really accurate?

Yes. Hillary Clinton losing the Presidency to Donald Trump and all his craziness is a "huge loss" for the Democrats, even if she had 0.2% more of the popular vote.

The only reason this doesn't seem cataclysmic to you is that you've already become acclimated. Put yourself in your shoes from 2, 4--heck, even 10 years ago, and you'd agree.

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[sinij]

As a fellow libertarian-leaning individual, you are doing intellectual disservice to yourself by intentionally creating echo chamber of like-minded people. Thing is, we are not likely to object to mutual agreed views. So there isn't true marketplace for ideas when you central-plan demand.

100% of Sinijs agreed with the above post as the only valid opinion on this subject.

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[sinij]

I so close to voting for Hillary. If only someone had called Trump Hitler just two or three hundred more times I would have been right there.

To turn this on you, clearly electoral system isn't rigged. That is, if Clinton could rig the elections, do you have any doubt that she would? So if we were demonstrably wrong with this, what else you are not getting?

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[ZenShadow]

Who fact-checks the fact-checkers?

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[meta-monkey]

The system is rigged. We read the DNC leaks. They rigged the primary against Bernie, the debates are rigged, the news coverage is propaganda, this article is about how clearly the problem is they haven't rigged social media enough for the establishment. Oh and the congressional districts are gerrymandered by the Republicans. This is also a form of rigging.

If you're just talking about voting machines and such, there's analysis going into that right now, so we'll see. There are certain precincts of PA and Ohio where it looks like they were flipping votes, but they didn't do it enough to effect the outcome. Nobody cares much about this kind of stuff after your team wins though.

I would also not be shocked if some of the more blatantly fraudulent plans were stopped because of the spotlight O'Keefe and Trump shined on it. Foval and Creamer were smoked out and knew they were being watched, so that took out their men on the ground who would have actually been doing the dirty work.

Beating the rigged system doesn't mean the system isn't rigged.

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, I like the implication that Trump won due to FUD but the Democratic FUD is of no concern

And for those who are mystified that yelling at their non-racist, non-homophic, non-misogynistic friends about how racist, homophobic, and misogynistic they are didn't somehow make them vote for Hillary or feel apologetic following the election: maybe it's time to rethink what you were sure would get people to see things your way.

If you voted for Trump, no matter what the reason, no matter what you believe, you have condoned racism, bigotry, misogyny, and homophobia making you no better then those people. There is nothing else to be said about it. You can deny it all you want but it will ALWAYS be true and how Trump supports are remembered. I don't know what Trump will do. No one does because he didn't run on a platform of policy he ran on racism, bigotry, misogyny, and homophobia. That is what you voted for. That is what you support. That is what you are.

For those who are mystified that half the country and most of the planet think they are racist, homophobic and misogynistic: maybe it's time to rethink who you support. Sure would get people to stop thinking of you as racist, homophobic and misogynistic

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[chispito]

If you voted for Trump, no matter what the reason, no matter what you believe, you have condoned racism, bigotry, misogyny, and homophobia making you no better then those people.

I think you may have been trolled by the next President. The media sure were.

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[jbmartin6]

It's a very human tendency very much on display during this US election. Their candidate is a monster whose every eyebrow twitch displays a lack of ethics or even basic humanity. My candidate gets a free pass for even the most outrageous behavior.

Re: Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to invoke Poe's Law protocal here.

1. If you're being sarcastic, damn right, what was I thinking? Trump is now a god.

2. 2 years ago, I was pointing out the abysmal turnout, 4 years ago, I was pointing out that Obama was obviously not that divisive or unpopular, 10 years ago, I was relieved that people were finally waking up to Bush's snowjob.

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[ScentCone]

he ran on racism, bigotry, misogyny, and homophobia. That is what you voted for. That is what you support. That is what you are.

And your swallowing of that liberal meme, hook line and sinker, and believing it to be true, is exactly why the Democrats lost the White House and failed to get either house of congress. Because telling people who didn't want to see the Clinton family once again having the sort of power and influence selling access they so desperately craved that they're racists for thinking so, when you know that's not true, shows you to be EXACTLY the sort of lying, hypocritical, disingenuous phony that millions of people saw right through this time around, and were sick enough of to repudiate.

If you really cared about misogyny, why weren't you railing about Hillary Clinton's career-long defense of her sexual predator of a husband and her own actual hiring of people to go out and smear his rape victims' reputations? If you really cared about homophobia, why weren't you noting the fact that Trump was happily applauding gay marriage a decade ago while Hillary Clinton was still insisting that the government should prevent it? I know ... because you're a flaming hypocrite, that's why. You're probably also one of those people who's pretending to be too dim to understand that "illegal" isn't a race.

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[DerekLyons]

So, yes: fake news on FB is a problem, or at least a significant annoyance. But the notion that somehow this is limited to stuff from and aimed at right-leaning people in some proportion that, compared to its lefty counterparts, cost Hillary Clinton the election... I call bullshit.

  So much this! My kingdom for mod points today!

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[bickerdyke]

You.

If so called fact checkers don't give links to reliable sources, they're not worth being called fact-checkers.

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't cite snopes, it's propaganda.

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[Anonymous Coward]

At least that story was based on - well, facts. The doubt and argument was about what interpretation should be placed on those facts. But at root, there is a story there.

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[Solandri]

Oh and the congressional districts are gerrymandered by the Republicans. This is also a form of rigging.

I used to care about this back in the 1980s. Only back then it was the Democrats who gerrymandered the districts in their favor to control the House for 40 years. I admit a slight political bias (I tend to vote conservative). But it was mostly the principle of the thing - gerrymandering is bad regardless of your political beliefs since it manipulates that essential link between voter and representative.

In the 1990 election in California, a fix for this came up as a ballot initiative. It simply required a 2/3 majority vote of the legislature for redrawn districts to be approved, thus preventing a 50%+1 majority from leveraging their slim advantage into a bigger one in future elections. I helped spread the word about it, the problem it tried to solve, why it was good for everyone. I was delighted that once I explained the problem and how this fixed it, even diehard liberals grudgingly agreed it was the right thing to do and said they would vote for it. Early polls showed it passing.

That's when two groups I had up til then respected (if not always agreed with) stepped in. A bunch of environmental groups led by the Sierra Club and the National Organization for Women realized Prop 118, regardless of how fair it was, would reduce the number of legislators sympathetic to their cause in both the State and Federal government. They flooded TV and radio with ads telling people it was bad and to vote against it, without even explaining what it was or how it was bad. It ended up losing by a 2:1 margin.

The Republicans took the time to figure out how to undo the Democrat gerrymandering. First they worked on winning the governorships so they could veto the gerrymandered redistricting. That usually kicked the matter into the courts, who usually took it upon themselves to redraw the districts (since the had to be redrawn to reflect population shifts, and the legislature/governor were deadlocked). Which allowed more Republicans (or rather, the correct number of Republicans) to win office as state legislators. Which gave them more control over future redistricting. Which combined with the governorship allowed them to eventually gerrymander things in their favor.

I suppose I should still be concerned about this on principle. But the whole thing scarred my young, optimistic self and my belief that people are inherently good and fair, and will make the right decision if they're properly informed. I tried to help fix gerrymandering for all people, only to see my hard work shot down by unrpincipled groups who were only interested in their own benefit regardless of how unfair it was. Screw them. The shoe's on the other foot now. They made their bed. They can lie in it. If another ballot initiative comes up which makes gerrymandering harder, yeah I'll vote for it. But I'm not going to put additional effort into helping people out of a gerrymandered hole they put themselves into.

Re: Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely the popular vote doesn't represent the votes either candidate would have got had the popular vote been the deciding factor. Several hundred thousand Californian Republicans likely stayed home, ditto New York ones because their vote doesn't matter. Similar things happened in Red states. Claiming that because some people who couldn't change the election stayed home the result is unfair is intellectually vapid.

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[Orgasmatron]

But, but, muh vast right wing conspiracy!

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to care about this back in the 1980s. Only back then it was the Democrats who gerrymandered the districts in their favor to control the House for 40 years. I admit a slight political bias (I tend to vote conservative). But it was mostly the principle of the thing - gerrymandering is bad regardless of your political beliefs since it manipulates that essential link between voter and representative.

Oddly, and you may be surprised by this, the most gerrymandering was by the conservatives. Especially in the South. There was a reason why Baker v. Carr and Reyonds v. Sims involved Southern states. Don't be confused that it was Democrats, it was Conservative Democrats, who had little, if anything, in common with the party as you probably have known it.

In the 1990 election in California, a fix for this came up as a ballot initiative. It simply required a 2/3 majority vote of the legislature for redrawn districts to be approved, thus preventing a 50%+1 majority from leveraging their slim advantage into a bigger one in future elections. I helped spread the word about it, the problem it tried to solve, why it was good for everyone. I was delighted that once I explained the problem and how this fixed it, even diehard liberals grudgingly agreed it was the right thing to do and said they would vote for it. Early polls showed it passing.

That is a bloody complicated Christmas Tree of an Amendment. I'd ban it for not focusing on a narrow subject, but being way too complicated. I'll get more into the real problem later, but I just wanted to say that.

That's when two groups I had up til then respected (if not always agreed with) stepped in. A bunch of environmental groups led by the Sierra Club and the National Organization for Women realized Prop 118, regardless of how fair it was, would reduce the number of legislators sympathetic to their cause in both the State and Federal government. They flooded TV and radio with ads telling people it was bad and to vote against it, without even explaining what it was or how it was bad. It ended up losing by a 2:1 margin.

The Republicans took the time to figure out how to undo the Democrat gerrymandering. First they worked on winning the governorships so they could veto the gerrymandered redistricting. That usually kicked the matter into the courts, who usually took it upon themselves to redraw the districts (since the had to be redrawn to reflect population shifts, and the legislature/governor were deadlocked). Which allowed more Republicans (or rather, the correct number of Republicans) to win office as state legislators. Which gave them more control over future redistricting. Which combined with the governorship allowed them to eventually gerrymander things in their favor.

Uh no. You may be thinking of Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims, but that wasn't quite involving the governorships. No, it was rather simple, what gave Republicans the edge was the Southern Strategy. They took advantage of the Democrats repudiating the conservative racists of the South by embracing said racists. Don't bother denying it. Don't bother bringing up Robert Byrd. I've heard it all before. Your arguments will do not prevail, spawn of Udun, Go back to the Shadow.

I suppose I should still be concerned about this on principle. But the whole thing scarred my young, optimistic self and my belief that people are inherently good and fair, and will make

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, for fuck's sake...

The "news coverage is propaganda" if, AND ONLY IF, you don't fucking read it properly. Every, repeat every news story needs to tell you what its sources are. Look at the sources and weigh them appropriately.

If the source is anonymous, then it should say why the source is anonymous, and you can weight its contribution to the story appropriately.

All too often, the stories you read are effectively written by one side's campaign. (That's what you get for not buying a daily newspaper. Guess what, actual reporters want to be paid. And if you're too tightfisted to pay for them, then you're stuck with the news that someone else is willing to pay to give you, and serve you right.) But even then, by following the story and carefully watching what statements are attributed to what sources, you can deduce what is actual news and what is propaganda. It's not that hard.

Just requires an attention span long enough to read. But you already gave up on this post, didn't you?

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[Anonymous Coward]

That's when two groups I had up til then respected (if not always agreed with) stepped in. A bunch of environmental groups led by the Sierra Club and the National Organization for Women realized Prop 118, regardless of how fair it was, would reduce the number of legislators sympathetic to their cause in both the State and Federal government. They flooded TV and radio with ads telling people it was bad and to vote against it, without even explaining what it was or how it was bad. It ended up losing by a 2:1 margin.

Whups, must have messed up the formatting. But I'll explain the real problem with it. It just makes a 2/3 vote. That's doing nothing and pretending it's meaningful. It's not stopping the partisanship, it's just making people find some way to still abuse it. And it leads to deadlock, rather than resolution.

Now obviously, I don't know what these organizations wanted, or what they said, maybe you missed it, but no, it's not a solution. Just the number of states with HEAVILY GERRYMANDERED Legislatures over 2/3 partisan representation already exist. Even California is 1 short, and it isn't even using legislatively drawn maps. It is not sufficient, nor effective. And consider New York's State Senate.

If you brought it to me, I'd tell you come back with something real. With teeth. I could point you to several today. Including one approved in the very same state. And I don't even find it truly satisfying. But it's doing a better job than your empty suggestion.

As I said already, get over your anger, you're griping over a petty bullshit amendment, which wouldn't have solved a damn thing.

And this captcha is ostrich. Ostrich as in the bird alleged to hide its head in the sand. Not true, but...you should REALLY consider that Slashdot KNOWS.

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried to help fix gerrymandering for all people, only to see my hard work shot down by unrpincipled groups who were only interested in their own benefit regardless of how unfair it was. Screw them. The shoe's on the other foot now. They made their bed. They can lie in it.

And Donald Trump will make sure that they do lie in it. If the environmentalists and the Sierra Club thought that not being able to gerrymander was bad, just wait until they get their first real taste of President Trump and his policies. The chickens have definitely come home to roost for the uncompromising environmental weenies of Greenpeace and the Sierra club and they deserve every bit of it. Now a Republican President, Donald Trump, has the benefit of a gerrymandered US House and a Senate majority to boot. They're already talking about dismantling the EPA. Maybe if they'd had just a bit more foresight in the 1980s we could have avoided this outcome, but now we will all pay for the selfishness of the environmentalists and their uncompromising ways.

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[Anonymous Coward]

"when you know that's not true,"

Here is where you lost me. I hate to invoke Rummy, but, you have your known unknowns, and ...

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[pnutjam]

Winner winner, chicken dinner.

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[pnutjam]

So, we have friend and foe, but Slashdot really needs a "racist" and "racist apologist" button. Maybe "misogynist" as well.

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[Solandri]

Since this was up-voted, I guess I should at least inform my Democratic colleagues who are interested in fixing gerrymandering. Redistricting happens after each census, and the census happens once a decade in years ending in 0. (This is also when reapportionment happens - changes in number of House members each state gets). So the next census will be in 2020, and the first election with new districts would be 2022. If you've got an idea, a ballot initiative, whatever for fixing gerrymandering, the time to work on it is between now and 2019. You want it to be on the 2020 election ballot at latest so people can vote for it, and if it's approved the changes would go into effect before the districts are redrawn for the 2022 election.

This needs to be done on the State level. The Constitution outlines how many House members each state should get, but leaves the details up to the states. As a state matter, by default it ends up being decided by the state legislature (majority vote) and signed by the governor. Unfortunately that's the fox designing the henhouse, which is where the entire problem of gerrymandering comes from. The most popular way to fix it seems to be the people passing a ballot initiative which takes the job away from the legislators and assigns it to a redistricting commission. So if your state doesn't have one of those yet, get to work now. Find like-minded people, research these commissions in other states, draft text of a ballot measure. Then work on collecting signatures (yes you'll be one of those people standing outside the supermarket asking people to support your cause) to qualify it on the ballot for the 2018 or 2020 election. (If you've never done a ballot initiative before, typically you need about twice the number of signatures your state requires because a lot of them are going to be thrown out as fake or duplicate.) Then work your butt off getting the message out and informing the public what your ballot initiative is about, what the problem is, and how this fixes it, so they'll vote for it during the election.

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[Anonymous Coward]

And for those who are mystified that yelling at their non-racist, non-homophic, non-misogynistic friends about how racist, homophobic, and misogynistic they are didn't somehow make them vote for Hillary or feel apologetic following the election: maybe it's time to rethink what you were sure would get people to see things your way.

Sorry, but what's the acceptable level of compromise with racists, sexists, or homophobes? Should we request that they only discriminate against people that are at least two out of three on the gay/minority/female list? Should we tolerate shitty behavior just because there's a lot of it?

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[Anonymous Coward]

It simply required a 2/3 majority vote of the legislature for redrawn districts to be approved, thus preventing a 50%+1 majority from leveraging their slim advantage into a bigger one in future elections. I helped spread the word about it, the problem it tried to solve, why it was good for everyone. I was delighted that once I explained the problem and how this fixed it, even diehard liberals grudgingly agreed it was the right thing to do and said they would vote for it. Early polls showed it passing.

Uh, 2/3 majority is a TERRIBLE plan. It means as soon as one party manages to draw the districts, it's virtually impossible to ever undo it.

Maybe those groups opposed you not because they were liberal, but because it was a bad idea?

Re:Let me tell you why this is a non-issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Since this was up-voted, I guess I should at least inform my Democratic colleagues who are interested in fixing gerrymandering. Redistricting happens after each census, and the census happens once a decade in years ending in 0. (This is also when reapportionment happens - changes in number of House members each state gets). So the next census will be in 2020, and the first election with new districts would be 2022. If you've got an idea, a ballot initiative, whatever for fixing gerrymandering, the time to work on it is between now and 2019. You want it to be on the 2020 election ballot at latest so people can vote for it, and if it's approved the changes would go into effect before the districts are redrawn for the 2022 election.

Actually, as Texas in 2003 showed, it can be done between a Census. You might feel inclined to quibble over the details, since technically, the process went to the alternative method since there was deadlock in the state legislature, but the fact is, the Supreme Court already ruled and expressly provided for it. It would be entirely legal to begin to redistrict immediately. There is no need to wait until 2022. It could be done at the next election. (I am not sure if the entire legislature could be dissolved, and schedule elections off-cycle, theoretically there is no impediment, but it has not been tested.)

You should really inform yourself better, before you start giving advice.

This needs to be done on the State level. The Constitution outlines how many House members each state should get, but leaves the details up to the states.

Constitution contains no such outline, except for setting a minimum of one and preventing it from reaching a certain threshold. Well, setting the standard for the count(later modified by the 14th Amendment) and providing for the initial allocation before the first enumeration. Otherwise, there is no constitutional standard for the numbers of the House beyond that. Don't feel bad, I have had many other persons tell me that they thought it was fixed for some reason.

I mean, technically, if you want to consider Article, the First to be still under review, it could be implemented, but meanwhile, no, it is set by statutory law, not the Constitution. And the 435 number dates from act in 1929, which has lingered, despite the awareness of its flaws.

Furthermore, as a review of Section 4 shows you, the Congress has the power over the State Legislatures in this issue. And they have exercised it, by regulating districts, whether at-large, multi-member, or through Civil Rights clauses. This has been an issue in the resolution of a claim over a commission that helped resolve the case, as Congress provided that was permissible in existing law.

Of course, you could say that Congress could also forbid it, but as of yet, they have not done so, making it a minor point. Still, the point is, Congress could act today itself, if it so desired.

As a state matter, by default it ends up being decided by the state legislature (majority vote) and signed by the governor. Unfortunately that's the fox designing the henhouse, which is where the entire problem of gerrymandering comes from. The most popular way to fix it seems to be the people passing a ballot initiative which takes the job away from the legislators and assigns it to a

Why change? Cover a fake President with fake news

[Anonymous Coward]

Why report the facts that the Republican 1/2 of the country doesn't want to hear or think are important? Just make some shit up like they're used to.

"the company said:"

[turkeydance]

we don't have to care, we're Facebook said company liason, Ernestine

Troll Wars

[Tablizer]

Why did the GOP (allegedly) out-propaganda the Democrats?

It's not realistic to police that much material before a heated election, being it's a periodic event. You don't want excess staff sitting between elections. That's not economical for Facebook et al.

There were probably more "intense" Trump supporters than intense H supports, and that's why the Trump trolls won. H did not "inspire" the way Trump did. Her supporters were more anti-Trump than pro-H and thus were not motivated to troll hard.

The conventional political wisdom is to run a bland centrist to capture the undecided vote. However, a bland centrist does not inspire, and therefore produces less trolls to flood The Webtubes with propaganda.

Once again, the Internet changes the rules.

(I'm not saying the propaganda was necessarily placed or coordinated by high-level officials, it's probably mostly amateurs, i.e. trolls.)

Re:Troll Wars

[Anonymous Coward]

That's true, although trolling was originally a military term so it's a bit naffed to call them amateurs.

There was no good reason to troll for Hillary - trolling is physically and mentally exhausting, and even hazardous to one's health in extremes. She utterly was undeserving of such a sacrifice. I and most I knew trolled against Trump quite heavily but it would be unconscionable to pretend like the anti-Hillary meme's weren't on point, or that she deserved a free pass for some reason. Bernie was the one to win, and everyone who isn't a gullible goldfish-like chimpling knew it.

Re:Troll Wars

[Tablizer]

it would be unconscionable to pretend like the anti-Hillary meme's weren't on point

When I looked into the details behind such given by online participants, most were false or spun half-truths. They used clever wording to mislead the reader, the kind of tricks slimy marketers use. Many could be traced back to far-right-leaning propaganda sites. The trolls just redecorated them to disguise them from plagiarism or repetition-prevention bots.

But let's not get into a political fact war. Both sides make and spread propaganda. T's supporters just did it more and better this time.

(Also, GOP got lucky and wasn't hacked.)

Bernie was the one to win, and everyone who isn't a gullible goldfish-like chimpling knew it.

In hindsight, yes. Similar to my prior point, traditionally a non-centrist has slimmer odds in a general election, but the rules have changed. Now we know. Live and learn.

Re:Troll Wars

[quantaman]

Why did the GOP (allegedly) out-propaganda the Democrats?

It's not realistic to police that much material before a heated election, being it's a periodic event. You don't want excess staff sitting between elections. That's not economical for Facebook et al.

There were probably more "intense" Trump supporters than intense H supports, and that's why the Trump trolls won. H did not "inspire" the way Trump did. Her supporters were more anti-Trump than pro-H and thus were not motivated to troll hard.

My feed contained many more intense Hillary supporters than Trump supporters, but the volume of fake news from the pro-Trumpers dwarfed that from the pro-Hillary camp.

I don't think the difference is intensity, it's integrity, and it's starts at the top. The GOP has spent the last 8 years disavowing a health care plan they came up with. Their movement has been consumed by hair-brained conspiracy theories about birthers and UN proposition 21 and all sorts of nonsense, and the leaders either let them spread unchallenged or actively endorse them. FOX News is practically a punch line for how its pundits misrepresent facts and contradict themselves.

When opinion leaders signal that it's appropriate to lie and play dirty the followers listen, that's what is poisoning the right. Both sides have their crazies, the big difference is that when leaders on the left encounter their crazies they stand up and correct them, you could see this with Sanders working to keep his supporters in line. The right has gotten in the habit of enabling and encouraging the fringe, and that's what led them to the free-for-all lie-fest that gave the world Trump.

Re:Troll Wars

[Tablizer]

Perhaps those in power have a longer record to complain about and spin up. It's hard to complain about somebody who sat on their ass, other than the fact they sat on their ass.

If you do 1000 things, roughly 50 of them will be outright legitimate poor judgement because humans make mistakes, and roughly 300 more will be "spin-able" using half-truths to make them seem like legitimate news of ill-doings to those who don't bother digging deeper.

I do agree the Clintons brought some of this on themselves by riding too close to the edge of legality. In the world of Big-Eye politics, you have to go out of your way to avoid even looking bad, because small transgressions will be hyped up by the other side.

For example, various high-ranking people have come to the Clintons after donating to their foundation and saying things like, "I gave X dollars to your foundation. I'd like to see progress on issue Y. Can you help?"

A typical Clinton response was, "Sure, we'll see what we can do."

That's just politeness 101. You don't blow people off. "I'll see what I can do" is non-committal, yet shows you are not ignoring them.

But under Big-Eye politics, they probably should have said, "As policy we can't change our position or focus based on donations." It's a little rough on the donor, who just spent their money on charity, but necessary to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest. The Clintons were in a tricky spot, but who said politics was easy.

(I "quoted" too many words in my prior "statements". Sorry about "that".)

Re:Troll Wars

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought trolling was a fishing term?

Re:Troll Wars

[budgenator]

I still have trouble with the notion that the DNC was actually hacked, my gut still says it was an insider pissed off about Bernie getting screwed over. That stuff is much more likely an insider than an outsider.

Re:Troll Wars

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. WIkileaks said as much and Occam's Razor pretty much settles it for me. Much easier for somebody to gzip it up, put it on a thumb drive and walk it out of the buildng than for "Russian hackers" to get at it.

The Podesta emails may have been the fruits of a hack -- someone got his gmail password -- but even that could very well have come from within. There are a LOT of law enforcement, military and intelligence people who did not want Hillary to win.

Thanks for nothing Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

Get used to the bed you made. It's too late now. The hate will continue to flow, feelings will Trump facts, and you will be the victim of all of the anti-intellectual policies that the current GOP government will enact.

You want to have a voice? Shut down links from known fake news sites. Cut off access to states whose majority engages in non-factual and hate speech. Let them build their own social network. I'd love to see them try.

It's needed, but how to do fairly

[Timmy D Programmer]

Can it be done fairly and with so much transparency that folks wouldn't confuse it with censorship? It's worth trying.

Re:It's needed, but how to do fairly

[sinij]

Can it be done fairly and with so much transparency that folks wouldn't confuse it with censorship? It's worth trying.

Strongly disagree. Such system has to fail open, instead due to intrinsic properties it will fail closed, resulting in censorship.
To put it other way, FB hiring a bunch of "fact checkers" in SV will result in censorship.

Lies during an election ! Tell me it's not so !

[paulxnuke]

I'm sure Facebook contributed to the spread of phony news, but it's not like everyone else (i.e., ABC, NBC, etc) wasn't doing it too. Facebook wasn't as blatantly biased as the regular media, either (whether I agree with him or not, the anti-Trump media blitz shamed everyone involved, and they well deserved what they got.)

Re:Lies during an election ! Tell me it's not so !

[PPH]

But Facebook isn't part of the good-old-boys press club. Yet. It doesn't depend on some quid-pro-quo for future access to the Washington talking heads or an invite to the press club. It's just a pipeline that anybody can use to bypass the MSM editorial policies and get their (or third party) content out into the public.

It's up to the readers to apply some bullshit tests to what they find there.

They want a thicker filter bubble next time.

[Xenographic]

The real question is who controls that truth meter and who they work with. [1]

Are they going to ban lies like this one from CNN? And yes, it is a clear lie.

Anyhow, it's clear they haven't learned anything whatsoever from this election, so you have 8 years of Trump to look forward to unless they figure it out.

[1] Refer to this old comment if you don't like reading raw HTML and for more context. It's an email thread of the DNC collaborating with Politifact.

Re:They want a thicker filter bubble next time.

[Anonymous Coward]

More Trump lies being spread even here on Slashdot. Go away, TrumpTroll.

Re:They want a thicker filter bubble next time.

[Anonymous Coward]

DRAIN THE SWAMP!

Re:They want a thicker filter bubble next time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Donald Trump Won Because of Facebook

I lol'd

Re: They want a thicker filter bubble next time.

[Anonymous Coward]

That reporter was engaged in war against America and *must* be treated as a traitor by the legal system. Get the rope and blindfold. I doubt he smokes.

Re:They want a thicker filter bubble next time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sod off swampy.

Re:They want a thicker filter bubble next time.

[Anonymous Coward]

More Trump lies being spread even here on Slashdot. Go away, TrumpTroll.

Yes probably. Yet you didn't bother to provide a counter narrative. Or even a single link. Why do you think he's more effective at spreading his message than you are?

Re:They want a thicker filter bubble next time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets not forget the Huffington post that added this to any article that mentioned Trump....
Note to our readers: Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims—1.6 billion members of an entire religion—from entering the U.S.

Lets take this one by one...
Xenophobe - How can one argue that Trump is Unduely fearful of foreign people and then say he might nuke because he isn't afraid of anything? How can one argue someone is a xenophobe for being concerned about Muslims entering the country, and then a racist because he is only concerned about Muslims.

Racist - Well first this is wrong. Trump argued that we should stop allowing people from a section of the world from coming in until security measures are established. Secondly, if he was targeting a particular race with this then he by definition wouldn't be a Xenophobe.

Misogynist - Unless he was also a masochist this doesn't work. He involved himself in many many activities with women. If he despised them he would avoid that... Now if your going to argue he was a sexist pig... I would likely agree.

Birther - Yes because clearly it is wrong to ask someone to prove they are a US citizen when they run for President which requires a US natural born citizen over the age of 35.

Ban from Entering the US -- Since Trump clearly supported US museums this cannot be true... But ALL of his comments on this matter were focused on areas where we presently have a war going on with ISIS.

Re:They want a thicker filter bubble next time.

[Humbubba]

Ugh boy. Here goes: Reinforcing the belief in fake or real stories is what makes social media social, and often fake stories reinforce social bonds more so than real stories do. Something doesn't have to be "True" to have "truthiness." Social acceptance of stories as true or false demonstrate the validity mechanisms that are part of reciprocal social reinforcement. Here, meaning is embedded into abstract and coded stories, slogans and gossip, which aligns one to and bestows identity with the group.

Re:They want a thicker filter bubble next time.

[Xenographic]

True enough, but you can have dispute even over items of mathematical truth. How many people still refuse to accept that 0.9999999... [repeated endlessly] = 1? Even if you show people that 1/9 = 0.1111111 [repeating] and multiply both sides by 9, they think there's a trick or a "last" 9 or something. I mean, I had a long argument over DKIM authorization and that's something where anyone can look up what the headers mean by spending mere seconds looking it up and where the truth or falsehood of the statement is literally mathematical.

It takes effort to analyze things. Not everyone has the time or energy to bother so they use their priors to know who to trust and nobody has any guarantee that those are right, the best we can hope is that people update sensibly when given information and they recognize when they're being manipulated.

Re:They want a thicker filter bubble next time.

[Humbubba]

I enjoyed your DKIM authorization argument. Thanks for annotating your point and keeping it simple.

I wish I could claim the idea that Facebook has become part of the social construction of reality, but even South Park beat me there ("You Have 0 Friends", Episode 199; Season 14, Episode 4).

And yes, math has it's problems; personal, social and other. I've watched "Dangerous Knowledge" about Geog Cantor, Ludwig Boltzmann, Godel and Alan Turning. I think it's on Youtube, if you're interested.

People do make off the cuff decisions based on a web of belief. When beliefs gets purposely manipulated, that's a problem. In response to President Obama and others accusing Facebook of tilting the election, Zuckerberg says Facebook is a tech company, not a media outlet. Unbelievable, especially as a story on Gizmodo in May 2016 accused Facebook of "Imposing human editorial values" onto its trending news algorithm by having "news curators" suppress and inject stories. In this light, Facebook's editorial imposition demonstrates it is a news outlet, albeit nonobjective. "All the news that fits, " as it were. This is a clear attempt of trying to manipulate its users' web of belief.

Zuck is not the only one doing this. Media manipulation went into overdrive after the 2008 global economic collapse. One of their tricks was to nickname it a "recession", so people wouldn't notice it was the biggest depression since 1929.

There's more, but I don't want to bore.

Re:They want a thicker filter bubble next time.

[Xenographic]

Thing is, all the news feeds are manipulated on some level these days. Only question is who likes it and who doesn't.

I'm not sure there can be any one perfect defense against being manipulated. If anything it seems to depend on who has more "CPU" to devote to the task.

I'm not sure if I'm just becoming more aware of it or what, but manipulation has been getting more and more overt.

Do they lack mirrors or reflections?

[Xenographic]

It's hilarious to see the media who got this entire election wrong now trying to tell us whose fault it is.

Re:Do they lack mirrors or reflections?

[fubarrr]

:)

Yeah, those types are trying to teach bees how to make honey

Extrapolating from that

[Hognoxious]

This is critical because over 60 percent people in the United States consume their news on social media.

I reckon I could sell the Brooklyn Bridge about [takes off shoes] 180 million times.

I'm sure that some people do want honesty

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

And I'm just as sure that a rather large number, at least in the USA, like things just fine with the lies. I grew up in a small town in a red state and I have some friends from school days on Facebook They are almost all die hard Republicans. It is unreal the kind of crap they keep sharing with fake news that supports their political beliefs. I don't see any desire from these folks to get accurate information. In fact, with one person when people have tried to point her to Snopes, she now counters back with the argument that Snopes is actually pro-Democratic and lies to help them. For those of you not aware, this is a tactic the people who write the lies have used for some years now. They claim that any source that debunks them is itself biased and lying, so a lot of people just don't bother to check anything and pass it on as facts if matches their own political views. One guy I both knew in school used to share those kind of bogus stories a lot and when I pointed him to the information debunking what he passed on, he said that it wasn't his job to judge the accuracy or truth of the articles he passed on. He was just sharing information and it was up to the reader to decide whether it was true or accurate.

Re:I'm sure that some people do want honesty

[110010001000]

Exactly. People are comfortable with their ignorance, and seek out "news" that affirms their ignorant views.

There is a name for this

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to the cult of personality.

Trump won because of Inadequate brainwashing

[Anonymous Coward]

We goofed. We overlords need to strive harder to increase the brainwashing and make sure the the pieces-of-shit chattel-citizens vote properly for the establishment next time.

Deciding truth is not Facebook's job

[mysidia]

Facebook just owns the website; the content on it is supplied by and judged by users.

If you want to discourage fake news then suggest they add a "Verifications" line similar to the "Comments" section for verified true stories, and
where people can contribute corroborating sources Or sources showing the story false.

And limit how large a picture, or how large a thumbnail or headline text can show in peoples' news feed, until positive Verifications accrue.

The lament is equivalent to arguing that chain-letter e-mail hoaxes caused the outcome, because
"e-mail service providers were spotted running fake e-mail threads on their platform numerous times over the past few months,"

Any facility to remove 'fake news stories' would be abused.

They already have a comment system where folks can add comments, if they believe a story is fake.

But when it comes to political matters..... people are seen to report any story that disagrees with their prized candidate as bad/fake.

In recent elections unlike any other, ordinary people who just posted to Facebook and nothing more see themselves as activists and part of their candidate's campaign.

What difference does in now make

[Anonymous Coward]

These Dems never want to admit that maybe a lot of people don't agree with their agenda. I mean you didn't hear anybody complain that Romney lost because of fake news stories. I can remember more than a few big fake news stories about him. Harry Reid started a few big fake ones himself. He lost because Republicans didn't show up to vote for him. Hillary lost because SHE failed, Democrat voters just weren't with HER and HER agenda and they didn't show up.

Re:What difference does in now make

[meta-monkey]

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

You do realize

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that we can just look at the site right now for a whole newsfeed of counterexamples? It was pretty much the same story before the election too. If there is a pro-Trump story, the shares are always mysteriously low. For example, the Anthony Weiner story (shudder) topped out at about 50k. Today we have news about Sanders easily defeating Trump (1 million shares) and Hillary jabbering incoherently somewhere (another 1 million).

There are many problems with Facebook, but I think they have the Trump issue well under control.

Bernie was viral too

[Anonymous Coward]

... just to throw it out there

Re:Bernie was viral too

[0100010001010011]

The DNC wanted to do it their way.

And they did.

Re:Bernie was viral too

[budgenator]

DNC wanted a "Pied Piper" candidate to run against and got him, unfortunately the moral of the "Pied Piper" story wasn't as much he led the rats as it was he had to be paid; the cost was finding a candidate that wasn't up to her eyeballs in corruption and an elitist asshole spotting memorized talking points.

Facebook is a social platform

[nucrash]

That means that the social contract is on the individuals as well as Facebook to vet the information.

Our own lack stupidity or laziness allowed for this to happen.

Things that drove Trump victory

[Anonymous Coward]

Republican Redistricting, The Electoral College, Comey, Facebook, Assange, Russian Hacking and that fact that Hillary has a vigina

Re:Things that drove Trump victory

[Anonymous Coward]

Republican Redistricting, The Electoral College, Comey, Facebook, Assange, Russian Hacking and that fact that Hillary has a vigina

Let me find you the phone number for a really really good proctologist that I know. he is really great at solving problems like yours....

Hey Vladimir! I got another "butt hurt, whing, crybaby customer" for you......

Re:Things that drove Trump victory

[Anonymous Coward]

How could redistricting possibly affect the Presidential election? They didn't move any state boundaries.

Not just Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

ALL major online sources had a ton of fake and bullshit news designed to skew popular perception of the election and make Trump the winner. Hell, reddit was absolutely FLOODED with pro-Trump lies for 6+ solid months, repeating the same lies and bullshit over and over again and an army of votebots and multiple accounts upvoting the lies and downvoting the people trying to debunk them. Pro-Trump propaganda appeared on /r/all moments after it was created, which is a clear votebot/brigading tool.

Meanwhile, anything that was anti-Trump and was flawed or incorrect was posted maybe a few times and never seen again. So the very notion that antiTrump FUD was anywhere NEAR proTrump FUD is laughable. And this is the case everywhere else, not just reddit.

And as we try to sort out the Trump victory, Trumpbrigades are lying and FUDing about that as well, and won't even let the truth find itself out either way; they'd rather just obfuscate and denigrate and hate their way to making Trump seem like a godlike being rather than expose any problems he has, and let's not forget that he has *quite a few*, PROVEN issues including misogyny, xenophobia, and racism, something not at all befitting the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. All the Trumpshills trying to defuse the protests and give excuses and reasons people shouldn't be protesting... that is the problem. You cannot be a hateful, spiteful fuck that has been PROVEN to be antagonistic against most of the fucking world and be the president of the USA. You just can't.

Sorry, but Trump's "victory" should be invalidated. Is Hillary the answer? Hell no, but at least she hasn't been shown to be as hateful and spiteful as Trump. I say get the runners up of the primaries, have a new election, and the winner of THAT becomes the president. Either side would be fucking fine.

Re:Not just Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot be a hateful, spiteful fuck that has been PROVEN to be antagonistic against most of the fucking world and be the president of the USA. You just can't.

Recent history disagrees with your assessment: with the right letter by your name, ANYBODY can become President.

Shkreli 2020! Make America 5000% Greater!

Re:Not just Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

"anybody can become president"

Until Tuesday, this wasn't true. Now apparently the job is open to any fucking moron that tricks the people into believing incredible shit.

Not just fake news, but fake news posts by users

[alphad0g]

The larger problem is fake news by users. "Friends" of mine repost stories from sites that are pure fabrication. The headlines are salacious and always have the affect of painting someone in a negative light. For example, search on "Fake snopes" and you will find a facebook page with a long diatribe on why snopes.com is fake. Many people agree, but it isn't until much further down in the comments where people post counter posts (with many links) that debunk the story about "Snopes being fake"

I am sorry, but most people consume their facts in 2 sentence sound bites. If it comes from a friend it must be true. That is how Trump won the election - not news posts that Facebook itself posted, but the posts from everyone's friends that have them convinced that "Chelsea Clinton's wedding was paid for by the Clinton Foundation". Since the conservative hatred of liberals is much stronger then the opposite, everyone forgot about The Trump Foundation contribution to Florida AG who was investigating Trump University.

I don't know how to fix it, but the future of politics is fake mud slinging on Facebook.

TRANSLATION: We're all dumb now. It's your fault.

[WolfgangVL]

How about people stop being fucking morons and look a little closer at "the news". We used to absolutely LOVE disgracing our media when they spread bad info. Now we have opinion news, click-bait, and citizen journalists.

You won't believe how Batboy's all grown up love affair with Janet Jackson ended....
Orange clown runs for office and has THIS to say......
See HRC's hot new underwear...

Pointing out bad stories on social media gets you involved in whatever TOXIC topic it relates to, earns you name-calling, and general ass-hole-ry on response for all your "friends" to see. Those of us that know better just left. People really seem enjoy the dumb-shit-echo-chamber we left behind.
(the irony of post right?)

And now what, we are somehow surprised or something? This is exactly what we wanted. It's not on fb to censor bad news, its on us to not be fucking morons.

Is this REALLY not obvious?

You have to wonder

[avandesande]

How much 'real' trump news there was on facebook from Hillary supporters. Is facebook some exclusive bastion of conservatives?

There is no such thing as objective truth!

[Anonymous Coward]

All things are true and all things are false. With enough fear, and intimidation anyone will believe anything or nothing. Only the guy holding the gun over your head knows what is true. It is up to the polite educated citizenry to understand what the guy on top is thinking so they too can become educated in matters of truth.

Is Kim Jung Ill really humanity's saviour? Are black people really inferior to white people. Both these statements established scientific facts for the place and time they were created. Denying these established scientific facts will get you laughed at and humiliated in the same manner as you would be if you did not believe in mass governmental vaccinations.

None is so blind as the person who thinks he sees.

clickbate stories

[Anonymous Coward]

getting rid of all the click bate bull shit stories would be a good start.

End Facebook Now!

[frovingslosh]

This is awful. Facebook must be shut down and Zuckerberg deported, jailed or executed. CNN and the major news networks should be in charge of lying to the American people, not Facebook.

Libtard echo chamber in full swing

[Anonymous Coward]

This story is ricocheting around the usual suspect sites, mollifying triggered libtards with "we was robbed" sophistry. The fake stories they cite had no significant impact on anything and were at least matched by falsehoods perpetrated against Trump.

But please, do continue indulging your delusions. I have no intention of interfering as you defeat yourselves.

EASY solution

[Anonymous Coward]

AUTOMATICALLY hide ANY news story that has a WORD capitalized...that should take care of 95% of fake news stories right there.

This article is ITSELF false

[sdinfoserv]

So what if FB has 1.6B users.... there's only 191M US users who are sharing 21% LESS information. Year over year (2015-2016) there's an 8% DECLINE in time spent in FB per user. If you can't tell true from false or buy into pseudo-science, that's not a face book problem.
What it isn't - a Trump victory explanation.

Opinion vs speculation

[DavidMZ]

Not all discourses are equal:

When someone says: "Trump is the new Hitler", that's an opinion.

When someone says: "Trump is going to start deporting or murdering anyone who isn't a straight white male", that's an exaggeration.

When someone says: "Hillary killed her opponent", that's speculation at best, and presenting it as a fact is misleading.

As a side note, can we please stop with the random capitalization. There's an emphasis tag in html, that should be good enough. And I won't comment in the non-literal use of "literally"; being a grammar nazi won't win me any Godwin point here. ;-)

Regressive Lies.

[Anonymous Coward]

FB actively censors conservative views all the time:

https://heatst.com/tech/facebook-censors-conservative-lauren-southern-for-mentioning-censorship/

Lies, Damned Lies, and Russian Lies

[Xenographic]

> Yes probably. Yet you didn't bother to provide a counter narrative. Or even a single link. Why do you think he's more effective at spreading his message than you are?

Funny how they modded you "Troll" for saying that, because it's completely true. They can't argue with anything other than just calling people names most of the time.

And on one of those few occasions they do bother to present a falsifiable claim? This happens.

Not why Trump won though

[guruevi]

There were various other stories doing the rounds. I don't have FB for personal use but I am working on software that curates feeds for businesses. Depending on your particular group of friends there were false H stories and false T stories, Trump did everything from rape a 13yo to being a secret Hillary shill, being in secret societies and cahoots with foreign governments and businesses etc.

The Clinton campaign came up with the Russians being behind Wikileaks and pretty much any activity in firewall logs (it was China during the Obama/Romney election cycle) as well as the various "things Trump said really means this", the females he supposedly molested etc

The media controlled this election cycle and lost... too bad for them.

"misinformation"

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless of all the statements about how Bill and Hillary had nothing to do with the Mena Airport operation and coverup, those two teenagers that got killed there are still dead...some people are above the law.

Trump did NOTwin beacause of facebook

[bickerdyke]

Trump did NOT win because of facebook.

Trump won because enough people were more than willing to believe even the most absurd stories they read on facebook or everywhere.

That only starts at "Hillary performing satanic rituals" and this is not where it ended. even if less than 1000 people believed that (or believed it enough to change their vote) it has to be multiplied with the amazing number of fake stories, that are clearly recognizable as fake. Heck even satire was taken at face value by more than 1000 people without half a brain!

Absolute nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook propelled Donald to victory?
Seriously?
I doubt even half of the people who voted for him have Facebook accounts.
And on my Facebook account I was inundated with anti-Trump garbage like comparing him to Hitler... unfavorably.

Re:Absolute nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook propelled Donald to victory?
Seriously?
I doubt even half of the people who voted for him have Facebook accounts.
And on my Facebook account I was inundated with anti-Trump garbage like comparing him to Hitler... unfavorably.

You can read what Zuck had to say in this post:

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2016/11/11/zuckerberg-denies-facebooks-fake-news-tilted-election.html

While Zuck denies FB "fake news" may have "tilted the elction", he does not outright state that FB Newsfeeds do not contain "fake news". Quoting from the URL:

“Personally I think the idea that fake news on Facebook—of which it’s a very small amount of the content—influenced the election in any way is a pretty crazy idea,” Zuckerberg said at conference in Half Moon Bay, Calif.

So there you have it, the answers come straight from the "hoodie billionaire" himself.

It's crap like this ...

[Anonymous Coward]

that makes me glad I have no TV, don't listen to the radio, dropped all Social Networking and moved to a remote tropical island where I power the internet via coconuts.

Ok, last part is fake ... but seriously, filtering out all the crap helped look at the real issues. Too bad most people these days have the intelligence and attention span of goldfish!

I don't think that they should work on it

[jader3rd]

I don't think that they should work on the fake news problem for political stories. What I think they need to do for political stories is break down the echo chamber. If they can detect that certain stories are political in nature, stop silo-ing off people to only see what they will like. If someone is following politics, make them see stories from both sides.

Any fake news, that's seen by people outside of the echo chamber should get called out. Which hopefully will prevent it from spreading. Or if it does spread, cause significantly less damage.

Critical

[jgullstr]

This is critical because over 60 percent people in the United States consume their news on social media.

No, this is what's critical.

Slashdot on its fake news problem: what, me worry?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who trusts Facebook for news or Wikipedia for political articles deserves what they get.

Pet the therapy dog little snowflake, and look at the flowers.

disconnect or oxymoron?

[k6mfw]

Interesting as the Big Z is friends with Obama.

Facebook doesn't want to listen

[Anonymous Coward]

... We value authentic communication ...

As long as Facebook doesn't have to listen: The company with the motto of "connecting people" (same as Nokia) doesn't want to connect to their subscribers.

... additional steps to prevent false or misleading content ...

Moderators get 12 seconds to decide if an article or video should be banned because of terrorism, violence, pornography, nudity, profanity or anti-American sentiment. If you want to remove misinformation, employ editors for fact-checking.

Translation

[manu0601]

We're committed to continuing to work on this issue and improve the experiences on our platform

Translation: you may be right, but we don't care.

Lost in Translation

[HarriedTourist]

"One you label me, you negate me"

- Soren Kierkegaard

That's why Trump won, in my book.

There's so many facets to this election one can reflect on but if the liberals really (and I mean REALLY) want to understand what happened at a gut level this Tuesday, the above quote from a long-dead Dane says so much...

No, this country isn't anywhere near what the days of Yellow Journalism brought it in terms of misinformation and outright propaganda....not yet. Where it is at, though, is at a rather ugly place where rude, condescending derision seems to take the place of legitimate, thought-provoking discourse. Both sides practice it, for sure but it seems to have become a high art form for a well-publicized cult on the left. "Snark Club", let's call them. Some of it's distinguished members?

Jon Stewart
Bill Maher
John Oliver ...and half of Facebook.

I'll lump a number of journalists and popular left-leaning op-ed figures in the media there as well. The disdain and outright derision shown to the plebs by this particular collective finally reached it's zenith and is largely responsible for the results seen this Tuesday.

Trump isn't that attractive of a candidate to vote for, at least not for any principled conservative or one schooled to any reasonable degree. He's just not...

What he is, though, is a vote against those labeling so many as "deplorables" and treating them as such. Casting the rural and arguably simpler folk aside and treating those in the "fly over states" as something to be walked over. There's only so many times the media and "pop-news" personalities can take a metaphorical shit on half the population before they finally respond in kind.

I honestly believe once the vote is dissected a bit further, it will be found that so many in the "fly over" states and the rural areas of this country finally had their fill of being type-cast as bumpkins, retards, miscreants, fools, misogynists, racists, etc. to the exclusion of any other label. So pat yourself on the back, Stephen Colbert. That paycheck you and your writers cashed on the backs of your self-aggrandizing audiences is partially responsible for giving you an electoral map full of red.

Where's that "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner they rolled out for Bush, Jr. on the aircraft carrier before the Iraq War went to complete, utter shit? The DNC have need of it to hang in their headquarters for the next 4 years. It would fit well in the halls of the New York Times, CNN, Washington Post and a number of other media outlets who took it upon themselves to try and MAKE news rather than report it.

Think twice when you kick Ego and Superego to the curb and invite Id to party during the next election, DNC. Same goes to the RNC, if they are going to start pulling this shit.

Re: WHEN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA LIES, WE USE FACEBOO

[Anonymous Coward]

We could use some progressive totalitarism. It would only be common sense, it has been demonstrated over and over again that you cannot trust the populace.

More MSM tears

[Anonymous Coward]

The MSM has proven itself to be absolutely worthless and now they're pissed that people are turning to social media to get their "news"?
There was just as much anti-Trump BS as anti-Clinton BS on Facebook and the internet. There are just as many people living in left-leaning social media echo chambers as there are people living in right-wing versions of the same. Face it. Every single person on this planet gravitates toward information that validates their existing views and discounts evidence to the contrary. The author of this article is no exception.
By contrast, the MSM was overwhelmingly full of anti-Trump/pro-Clinton BS. Look no further than the number of endorsements from major newspapers. Not only did they slant their coverage, they totally ignored relevant news such as the content of the Wikileaks dumps. "Oh, that's just the evil Russians in a conspiracy with Trump and Wikileaks". Focus on the source instead of the data. Their version of misleading information and untruth is just more subtle than the outrageous crap propagated through social media. They're just pissed because they pulled out all the stops and abandoned whatever small vestiges of objectivity they had left trying to support Clinton, and they lost.
Sorry MSM, your days of telling the American electorate what to think are OVER. If anything, this election was a giant middle finger erected in your direction.

So many salty Dems...

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook was always very left wing. It was never shy about censoring and suspending Republican accounts for very petty reasons. I find it odd, that now, we suddenly have all these people writing articles about Republican 'lies" when liberals have unleashed a deluge of propaganda for years. It's funny how liberals only care about honesty and ethics when they don't get to make the rules.

Dumb dumb dumb

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Trump did not win "because Facebook"... talk about a blame game. Trump won because people hate Hillary more, because we didn't want her and she was crammed down our throat. The democratic candidate most people actually wanted was unfairly and systematically prevented from representing his supporters.

2. Facebook is using feedback from users.... users who are in feedback chambers. Conservatives with conservative friends reading conservative news, liberals with liberal friends reading liberal news. I'm not sure how they expect to get any kind of serious criticism on the stories.

O Rly?

[psycheitout]

Maybe its just the cynical prick in me but whenever a company drops a press release after a major screw up and say something like "we take 'blank' very seriously" or "we are taking steps to investigate the problem with 'blank'" My eyes roll so hard they get stuck looking at the back of my skull. "We take blank very seriously" typically means "we take this problem very seriously now that people are actually paying attention to it and will continue to pretend we are fixing it until everyone's A.D.D kicks in and they piss off to be angry about something else." Just about every country that facebook is in has problems with the ol' FB's hands off approach to content control. So what if it convinced a bunch of misinformed idiots to elect a orange skinned biggot with stupid hair to the highest office in the free world. No body is gonna give a crap in a month when there is another school shooting or Taylor Swift goes outside in last seasons boots.

Fake news

[Anonymous Coward]

Fake news. Things like "All of our 'scientific' polling indicates that Killary will win in a landslide" and "Trump won the electoral college but not the popular vote," repeated ad nauseum by the talking head robots, over and over and over.

The same people who got EVERYTHING wrong are now telling us what will happen after all the shit they told us would never happen wound up happening. They have no credibility or trustworthiness.