Facebook Says It Can't Guarantee Social Media is Good For Democracy (reuters.com)

Facebook said on Monday that it could offer no assurance that social media was on balance good for democracy, but noted that it was trying what it could to stop alleged meddling in elections by Russia or anyone else. From a report: The sharing of false or misleading headlines on social media has become a global issue, after accusations that Russia tried to influence votes in the United States, Britain and France. Moscow denies the allegations.

Facebook, the largest social network with more than 2 billion users, addressed social media's role in democracy in blog posts from a Harvard University professor, Cass Sunstein, and from an employee working on the subject. "I wish I could guarantee that the positives are destined to outweigh the negatives, but I can't," Samidh Chakrabarti, a Facebook product manager, wrote in his post. Facebook, he added, has a "moral duty to understand how these technologies are being used and what can be done to make communities like Facebook as representative, civil and trustworthy as possible."

Comments

Facebook hurts Democracy

[nospam007]

Is the translation of the title.

Aiding and abetting the enemy is treason.
How cute that they admit that they just _have_ to do it, because otherwise, they don't make any money.

Re: Facebook hurts Democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Zuckerberg is about as arrogant a human being as I have ever seen. His time will come, and when it does watch how loudly he screams "anti-semitism!".

Re:Facebook hurts Democracy

[halivar]

Aiding and abetting the enemy is treason.

Settle down, Gen. Ripper; we haven't declared war yet. This is called "statecraft," and it's what countries do to each other every single day.

Re:Facebook hurts Democracy

[Khashishi]

Free speech is not treason.

Re:Facebook hurts Democracy

[Narcocide]

No, but accepting money to air foreign propaganda secretly is.

Re:Facebook hurts Democracy

[Cajun Hell]

Aiding and abetting the enemy is treason.

Who is the enemy? Is it the people who vote for the wrong candidates? (i.e. the people who disagree with me)

Re:Facebook hurts Democracy

[CrimsonAvenger]

Aiding and abetting the enemy is treason.

Hmmm....

So, who, exactly, is "the enemy"? Are we at war with someone? Did I miss the declaration of war while I was in the shower?

That aside, no, exercising one's First Amendment rights is NOT "aiding and abetting the enemy". Rather the opposite - suppressing one's First Amendment rights makes the suppressor the enemy....

Or are you one of those people who believe that democracy really only works if the Right People are allowed to control the rest of us?

Re:Facebook hurts Democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Or are you one of those people who believe that democracy really only works if the Right People are allowed to control the rest of us?

Winner winner, chicken dinner.

Re:Facebook hurts Democracy

[ShanghaiBill]

No, but accepting money to air foreign propaganda secretly is.

No, it is not treason. Treason is explicitly defined in the Constitution, and publishing foreign viewpoints in peacetime is not even close to qualifying.

Re:Facebook hurts Democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

I have seen this type of response a lot, and I think it does have some merit, but I don't know if it considers the deeper implications to the 'enemy' narrative. Let us suppose that there is a group of people who happen to be more susceptible to marketing of a particular message. I'm not saying this is true, but there is some decent evidence for it (like http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html ). So if some people are susceptible to some form of marketing, the next question is how can you target them. Well, again, suppose a platform was made that gave up deep knowledge about people such that you can generate statistics on the probability that someone is susceptible to your message. If you have the target audience, the message and a platform to send the message, you can change the world. In the past, messages were blasted to broad audiences, and we concluded that even if someone was trying to hack us, it would be one message mixed in dozens and not likely to be successful. However, with tailored messages that is no longer as certain. Therefore, some people conclude the election was 'hacked' by people with statistics and specialized knowledge. I admit I have my doubts on that story, but even if it isn't true, it's a new threat, we have not spent a lot of time considering. Maybe rather than spending your time arguing that this is all politics, it would be worth considering if this problem can and should be patched.

- JCD

Re:Facebook hurts Democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

So, who, exactly, is "the enemy"? Are we at war with someone? Did I miss the declaration of war while I was in the shower?

Popular Arab and Islamic Congress, also known as the organization that attacked the United States on September 11, 2001.

Re:Facebook hurts Democracy

[Obfuscant]

That aside, no, exercising one's First Amendment rights is NOT "aiding and abetting the enemy". Rather the opposite - suppressing one's First Amendment rights makes the suppressor the enemy....

False dichotomy. "Not exercising" is not the same as "suppressing". And yes, statements made under the guise or protection of the First Amendment can certainly be aiding and abetting the enemy. It depends on the statement and the situation. For example, using one's First Amendment rights to promote and support enemy combatants during a conflict, giving them moral support and confidence to continue their fight, resulting in the death of US service members, certainly is "aiding and abetting the enemy". The Constitution says you have the right to speak. It does not remove the consequences of that speech.

Re:Facebook hurts Democracy

[scatbomb]

Aiding and abetting the enemy is treason.

Who is the enemy? Is it the people who vote for the wrong candidates? (i.e. the people who disagree with me)

"The enemy" is whoever the media says it is.

Re:Facebook hurts Democracy

[slashrio]

f you need so many words to drive your point home, then you're probably wrong.

Re:Facebook hurts Democracy

[pots]

War is not required for treason, that's a common mistake. War makes it really obvious who some enemies of the state are, but aiding an enemy of the state, whether during wartime or peacetime, is still treason.

The parent is saying that Facebook is hurting democracy. That's not quite what the Facebook rep said, but from a certain perspective that could be viewed as being an enemy of the state. Seems like an overstatement to me... but that's the answer to your question.

Re:Facebook hurts Democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's why books never have anything valuable to say. Too many words.

When One Sees Only One Type and Source for News

[LifesABeach]

One wallows in Mediocrity.

Translation: We can't guarantee Hillary will win

[Anonymous Coward]

We tried our best to make sure won, but she didn't so therefore Democracy itself is broken!

It's not facebook's job to protect people

[scourfish]

People have the capacity and agency to double check sources for sensational claims, including "fake news." While it might set certain censorship standards based on market demand, we don't need an authoritarian government demanding censorship because things that offend their sensibilities were said. This goes for both liberal groups that want "fake news" censored, and for the "there are only 2 gender" social conservatives that get mad whenever some teenager makes up pronouns.

Re:It's not facebook's job to protect people

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, definitely not. It's the people's damn job to eradicate Facebook and other parasitic enterprises.

Re:It's not facebook's job to protect people

[Anonymous Coward]

People have the capacity and agency to double check sources for sensational claims, including "fake news."...

When Zuckerberg was initially starting Facebook, he referred to his first customers as "dumb fucks".

That description still rings true today. Spare me your delusions that people have the capacity and agency, because they don't. If they did, peddling bullshit wouldn't make so much fucking money. The masses are ignorant, stupid, and too fucking lazy to "double check" anything.

Re:It's not facebook's job to protect people

[Narcocide]

People have the capacity and agency to double check sources for sensational claims, including "fake news."

Provably and quite obnoxiously false.

Re:It's not facebook's job to protect people

[scourfish]

I don't believe for one minute that the population at-large is stupid. I believe that self-proclaimed internet intellectuals are, however..

Re:It's not facebook's job to protect people

[scourfish]

The comment stated in an IM by zuckerberg was "They trust me- dumbfucks" which could very easily be interpreted as self-deprecating humor.

Re:It's not facebook's job to protect people

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw this thing on FaceBook... oh, and they said the same thing on Fox News and CNN. Is that supposed to be a valid check of secondary sources? Because what a laugh that is.

Re:It's not facebook's job to protect people

[Gr8Apes]

I think you might want to rethink that position.

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

Trump wins election

Re:It's not facebook's job to protect people

[penandpaper]

Spare me your delusions that people have the capacity and agency, because they don't.

Then democracy is a fools errand, isn't it? We might as well accept this truth and reinstate the monarchy.

The masses are ignorant, stupid, and too fucking lazy to "double check" anything.

No one is informed on everything and politics is about everything. Everyone has better uses for their time than to double check anonymous cowards spewing bullshit online. You are probably just as stupid as the rest of the people you bemoan yet you seem to love the smell of your own shit. Good for you.

Insightful comment my dingleberry encrusted ass.

Re:It's not facebook's job to protect people

[scourfish]

"People are stupid and that's the reason Trump won" sounds more like a the stage of grief for people who are upset that he won, rather than a factual statement.

Re:It's not facebook's job to protect people

[Anonymous Coward]

People also have the capacity and agency to make sure the meat they buy at the grocery store isn't poisoned or rotten. But perhaps it makes sense to have a dedicated division of the government do that so that people don't have to?

Re:It's not facebook's job to protect people

[Anonymous Coward]

People have the capacity and agency to double check sources for sensational claims, including "fake news."

I think the concern is that even if people have the capacity (I'll try to go along with your optimism), they don't bother to do it.

There are many situations where if other people can do something but fail to, that person bears the price of their failure, and everyone else is ok with that. If I am careless with my widget and break it, I don't get to have a widget anymore. If I can go hunting for food but instead, I stay in my cave and starve, that doesn't hurt you. If I chug a pint of drain cleaner, that isn't going to hurt you or your drains. If I beam down to the planet in a red shirt instead of a blue shirt, that was a bad decision on my part but maybe it'll end up saving someone else's life, so the captain isn't going to order me to change my shirt.

There are also situations where we (i.e. 99% of voters) are not ok with someone else's failure, usually because their failure impacts other people in addition to themselves. These are situations where (so far) Republicans and Democrats are strongly motivated to use force against other people, even if more anarchic minorities would cry foul.

Disease is one. Typhoid Mary was isolated by force. It wasn't good enough to just let her be. Many people mention the "herd immunity" strategy when you talk about mandatory vaccines.

If your kid doesn't go to school, we will go after the truant. They aren't just hurting themselves; they're violating the law too.

If you don't check your sources and thereby make yourself wilfully ignorant, we will .. do what to you? Hmm. This crosses a line. Strategically, most Americans think they should be escalating to (possibly) deadly force to fix this problem, but legally, we cannot do that because we explicitly made it strictly illegal (the very first amendment to our constitution).

Is there any good (i.e. effective but also legal) response to wilfull ignorance? Do people have the right to not just be wrong, but to be provably wrong, where any effort on their part would have corrected it? Is it ok that someone who tries to be wrong, is allowed to vote, serve of juries, etc? Is it ok that they're allowed to vote with their wallet? Is it ok that they're allowed to hurt themselves? My inner libertarian is screaming "fuck yes, people have that right" but my inner systems analyst says they are defective components.

Re:It's not facebook's job to protect people

[Gr8Apes]

People are stupid. Trump "winning" is an example of people being stupid.

Is that so hard to understand?

Now if you're asking for proof on why people were stupid to elect Trump, that's a different story. We can start with the now proven statement that Trump only does things that benefit Trump. I cannot point to a single EO or policy that's he's pushed that's not benefitted him in a direct way. Sad.

Re:It's not facebook's job to protect people

[Shotgun]

Trump won, because people are stupid, but those super-intellects in the DNC backing Hillary were not smart enough to outwit them.

Something is awry in that equation.

Re:It's not facebook's job to protect people

[Cederic]

People that think Trump won the election because people that voted for him are stupid are revealing their own inability to grasp the actual reasons.

Yes, I'm saying you've just proven your own stupidity.

Re:It's not facebook's job to protect people

[Gr8Apes]

Trump won for a variety of reasons, but not least because a large portion of the populace disliked both candidates enough that press manipulation was sufficient to sway the vote. I don't cut the Dems any slack here, they chose about the only candidate that made Trump even a possible contender.

But keep touting your intellectual superiority.

Re:It's not facebook's job to protect people

[Gr8Apes]

I'd say the idiots in the DNC (all gone now) were exceptionally helpful in making Trump a viable candidate.

Re:It's not facebook's job to protect people

[Anonymous Coward]

People dont double check news they like.

Re:It's not facebook's job to protect people

[Cederic]

But keep touting your intellectual superiority.

Hey, I'm not the fuckwit that thinks he's intellectually superior by suggesting that Trump won because stupid people voted for him.

That's you.

Yes, I keep spelling it out in simple terms for you because you've provided no indication you could understand otherwise.

Re:It's not facebook's job to protect people

[Gr8Apes]

Hey, I'm not the fuckwit that thinks he's intellectually superior

So you're just a fuckwit? OK, got it.

Just remember, if the average IQ is 100 and yours is higher, at least half the people are dumber than you. Now consider that less than 50% of the people voted for Trump and...... that click you just heard was the light switch coming on, because we certainly can tell that a large number of Trump supporters are not the above average crowd from their public statements. Now you just go on proving your intelligence.

Re:It's not facebook's job to protect people

[Cederic]

While undoubtably people with a sub-100 IQ voted for Trump, equally people with a sub-100 IQ voted against him too.

This does not mean his election victory is because of stupid people.

Now you just go on proving your intelligence.

Are you shitting me? Small uneducated children could counter your arguments, this isn't a sign of intelligence.

You're wasting my time, feel free to reply but don't go expecting me to read it. Hunt down a small child if you want another response that points out the flaws in your argument.

Re:It's not facebook's job to protect people

[Gr8Apes]

While undoubtably people with a sub-100 IQ voted for Trump, equally people with a sub-100 IQ voted against him too.

This does not mean his election victory is because of stupid people.

OK. I get it. I suppose the rest are all stable geniuses.

Are you shitting me? Small uneducated children could counter your arguments, this isn't a sign of intelligence.

You're wasting my time, feel free to reply but don't go expecting me to read it. Hunt down a small child if you want another response that points out the flaws in your argument.

And yet you can't.

Re:It's not facebook's job to protect people

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupidity and ignorance are often conflated. They are not the same thing.

Both Trump's supporters and Hillary's supporters were ignorant -- of different things -- but not necessarily stupid.

In the end, the ignorance comes from the dehumanization created by social media and that includes Facebook despite mostly having your true identity exposed. By having the buffer of a screen between you and your "opponents" on Facebook, they no longer are human but are just words on a screen. It makes it much easier to discard or accept ideas without actually listening to the argument and asking questions. And, in the case of downright racism, it's much easier to simply scroll past it and ignore.

Re:It's not facebook's job to protect people

[GonzoPhysicist]

"your wise men don't know how it feels to be thick as a brick" -Jethro Tull

What?

[bracktra]

What is this? It looks like news, and it comes from a business that has reported on news in the past... Can slashdot guarantee this is actually news, please?

That's stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Game Of Thrones doesn't help democracy either, but so what?

Facebook, as a facilitator of social engagement, is just another form of entertainment. Yes, people also use it for communication and watching news. But that doesn't suddenly make it responsible for ensuring that our governmental processes work as expected.

All news outlets are biased and vulnerable to propaganda, and always will be. Attempting to police this too much will result in overt censorship which is just as bad.

The fix here isn't to somehow transform Facebook into a government service. The fix here is to encourage people to think critically and not be stupid.

Re:That's stupid.

[cayenne8]

The fix here is to encourage people to think critically and not be stupid.

How about you require everyone to pass a basic intelligence evaluation before you can get on social media.

You know, like the little sign at the roller coast measuring height before riding?

"You much be this smart and capable of critical thinking before you can use Facebook."

Hell, let's just extrapolate this to the greater internet, sure would make things nice again, more like the early days.

Re:That's stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

So long as there are several different tests, in order to avoid the problem of social/cultural differences making intelligent people score badly.

You can take all the tests, if you like, and you only have to pass one of them. And you can try again with no limit.

Man, I wish we could impose this test on voters too.

Re:That's stupid.

[Archangel Michael]

How about you require everyone to pass a basic intelligence evaluation before you can vote.

FTFY?

The problem isn't social media. Or even most of the people.

The real problem are people like you who don't know how elitist you sound, or worse, don't really care. Oh, I am sure you don't want a basic intelligence test to vote, because that would eliminate a few voting blocks that the Democrats actually depend upon.

Fake News isn't a new problem, it is just one that the Elites used for a long time, and now that anyone can "publish" anything the effect by the elite media is being nullified by other forms of fake news and a few sources of legitimate news.

Re:That's stupid.

[bondsbw]

Oh, I am sure you don't want a basic intelligence test to vote, because that would eliminate a few voting blocks that the Democrats actually depend upon.

Funny, I was thinking that about Republicans.

Frankly I fail to see the intelligence of anyone who commits themselves to one party or the other. They are directly claiming that party allegiance is more important than critical thinking during elections.

Re:That's stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

How about you require everyone to pass a basic intelligence evaluation before you can get on social media.

Well, why don't we do that with voting?

Re:That's stupid.

[cayenne8]

Oh, I am sure you don't want a basic intelligence test to vote

Actually, ideally...I wish we could. Or at least restrict voting to those who pay actual taxes, so as to make sure that everyone that votes has some "skin in the game".

But doing so, could really lead to a slippery slope.

I'd be happy just making sure people are of some level of intelligence to be on social media, or even the greater internet.

Not meaning to sound elitist, but if you've ever spent ANY amount of time working directly with the general public, you quickly come to realize that 95% of them are fucked in the head, and you wonder if they are actually worth all the oxygen they are processing.

But I digress.

Re:That's stupid.

[TheRaven64]

The browser-based game Kingdom of Loathing requires that you pass a very simple grammar / punctuation test before you are allowed to use their chat system. It works surprisingly well...

Re:That's stupid.

[thinkwaitfast]

encourage people to think critically

And when top educators, advisors to presidents, suggest that critical thinking is the reason that we're in the mess we are today andthat perhaps consensus building is a better way to go?

Given how far astray critical thinking has often taken us, maybe it’s time to embrace the Millennial Generation’s approach and see if it leads to even better results than the preferred methods of older generations.

-- Senior Fellow at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School’s Center on Communication Leadership and Policy and Senior Policy Advisor to Vice President Al Gore. and Director of the National Partnership for Reinventing Government

Re:That's stupid.

[pak9rabid]

Not meaning to sound elitist, but if you've ever spent ANY amount of time working directly with the general public, you quickly come to realize that 95% of them are fucked in the head, and you wonder if they are actually worth all the oxygen they are processing.

I'm more concerned with the amount of CO2 they're expelling.

Re:That's stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, I am sure you don't want a basic intelligence test to vote, because that would eliminate a few voting blocks that the Democrats actually depend upon.

"I love the poorly educated!" Can you identify that quote? The basket of idiots are the reason we've got this incompetent boob in office.

Re: That's stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasnt the basic voter test a way to disenfranchise black voters? Careful there bud. Dems will be all up after you by suggesting that lol

An intersting note though dem voters were intrviewed after they voted could only tell you about what CNN said anout a candidate but they couldnt tell you anything about various office holdetrs.

Re: That's stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasnt the basic voter test a way to disenfranchise black voters? Careful there bud.

That's exactly why I said: "So long as there are several different tests, in order to avoid the problem of social/cultural differences making intelligent people score badly."

Re:That's stupid.

[harrkev]

Frankly I fail to see the intelligence of anyone who commits themselves to one party or the other. They are directly claiming that party allegiance is more important than critical thinking during elections.

Not really. If you care about one of the "litmus test" issues, then you are likely to vote along party lines. If one of your most important issues involves either side of the "gun control" or "abortion" debate then you will likely vote along party lines. The thinking is that you are better off with a fool that will vote the way that you want rather than an intelligent person who will vote against the issues that you care about.

Re:That's stupid.

[mysticgoat]

There ottabee a rule: "if there is new communications technology, there will be abuse of it."

Unfortunately for you and me, we are living in a period of communications upheavals: Twitter and FB of course, but also smart phones, web pages, news aggregators, etc.

Zuckerberg is merely an opportunistic profiteer unencumbered by ethical concerns. An OPUE for short. He is truly an outlaw: he is operating in an area where there are no laws as yet.

Re:That's stupid.

[penandpaper]

This illustrates an interesting point. It's not the position that determine the intelligence of a person but rather how they rationalize that position.

Re:That's stupid.

[gfxguy]

I agree - huge swaths of both republicans and democrats (or conservatives and liberals, or whatever labels you want to use) would be eliminated from the voting pool.

From What Americans don't know about the constitution:

A public opinion poll conducted during the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution in 1987 found that most Americans were woefully ill-informed about the content and meaning of the document. Only a bare majority knew that the purpose of the Constitution was to create a federal government and define its powers. Nearly half believed that the Constitution contains Karl Marx's phrase "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

Re:That's stupid.

[gfxguy]

That's really interesting! I'll have to look it up.

Facebook, Instagram, and other social media should adopt that system... the first one to do it could bill itself as some sort of elite social media. That would be fantastic.

Re:That's stupid.

[mysidia]

The problem isn't social media. Or even most of the people.

The real problem are people like you who don't know how elitist you sound, or worse, don't really care.

The problem isn't fake news; the problem is people who are fooled by fake news.

I don't want to see an "intelligence to test"; as that is way too vague.

I want to see a simple test where each voter shows that they are an adult and understand our culture of freedom, the constitution, and their fundamental responsibility as a citizen.

It's understandable if voters are mislead by fake news, but they should at least understand that lies and fake news, and propaganda exist; and show they know their job as a voter is to educate themselves diversly on the people and issues and at the polls to select whatever choice the voter decides will be best for the country.

Re:That's stupid.

[LeftCoastThinker]

"If you weren't liberal when you were young, you had no heart, if you aren't conservative as you get older, you have no brains."

The facts aren't with you there. Democrats pull much larger volumes of low information voters, most criminals, most low income and welfare recipients by huge margins. Add to that their legal and illegal immigrant voting blocks who can barely speak English and all the other identity politics sub groups who make up nearly 50% of the Democrat voting block and who would fail hard on a poll test and the Dims would be SOL. It is the fundamental reason why they fear voter ID, because it takes interest, effort and intelligence to get a voter ID, and many of their voters lack two or more of those traits...

Republicans have primarily middle class voters who are much higher information (i.e. Republicans don't go around handing out gambling/food vouchers to street people and criminals in jail and a card showing the names to vote for to our constituents...) Democrats do and have done exactly that for decades.

If you had a poll test (not an IQ test, IQ testing is fairl irrelevant to level of education or knowledge of the issues and is inherently unfair; the intelligence people are born with is beyond their control, what they do with what they have is what is important here) where there were 10 random questions about the structure of the government, separation of powers, simple high school civics stuff with no cheat sheets allowed, 70% or higher score required for your vote to count, Republicans would dominate elections for the next 100 years...

Democrats have a lot of emotion and very few facts. They passionately "know" they are right. That only works in a vacuum of knowledge (AKA ignorance). When you drill down, there is no foundation below the volcano of emotions...

Re:That's stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

The result would be equivalent to today.

Consider that most people on facebook have graduated high school and among those who have not it is mostly because they are younger than the standard age for graduation, and that a high school diploma asserts among otehr things having passed courses on English Comprehension, US History, and Civics.

If they can pass those classes they can cram for and pass the Social Media License test.

Re:That's stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, I was around then. No search engines and you had to be fairly knowledgeable and know or find the url and enter it - and people were **STILL** assholes on the internet.

"The Good Old Days" is a pleasant myth regardless of its application.

Re:That's stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

> eliminate a few voting blocks that the Democrats actually depend upon.

And, that's the problem. Stupid people, like from the low IQ regions of the Middle East that have a lot of inbreeding, or most of sub-Sahara Africa have the right to vote. Republicans are elitists that think low IQ people shouldn't rule this country.

Re:That's stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Republicans would dominate elections for the next 100 years...

Which is why that would be morally wrong. Anything that gives CONservatives power over us is morally wrong. We don't have the same education, same successes, or often the same clean criminal records as them so we have to work harder than them.

Re:That's stupid.

[Cederic]

Oh, I am sure you don't want a basic intelligence test to vote, because that would eliminate a few voting blocks that the Democrats actually depend upon.

I think you'll find that stupid people will vote for candidates from both major parties in the US.

Re:That's stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny I think the same thing about elitist highly educated snobs. They're fucked in the head.

Re: That's stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Searching for the original content and fully reading it, I don't necessarily disagree with his point. Think of all of the bad decisions made through individuals applying critical thinking, or according to some, "common sense".

Of course, I think it is merely because the people applying this "critical thinking" actually aren't. They're affected by bias, etc.

And of course of course, group think can be just as affected by bias, however, it will hopefully be washed out due to sheer numbers.

Anyway, I'm not the commenter, but the quote makes sense in the context of the original post.

Re:That's stupid.

[eth1]

Frankly I fail to see the intelligence of anyone who commits themselves to one party or the other. They are directly claiming that party allegiance is more important than critical thinking during elections.

You know, that would be a really interesting experiment, if you could store someone's voting history without revealing it.

The more often a voter votes for the same party, the less their vote counts. The people that don't always vote the same way are going to be the ones paying attention and actually making a decision.

I bet even if people only thought this was happening, it would make people stop and think before just ticking the straight ticket box.

Re:That's stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

ottabee

Ought to be... (fixed the typo for you)

Re:That's stupid.

[lucasnate1]

You conviniently forgot southern rednecks in your list of inbreeding stereotypes.

Re:That's stupid.

[Obfuscant]

Frankly I fail to see the intelligence of anyone who commits themselves to one party or the other. They are directly claiming that party allegiance is more important than critical thinking during elections.

You have cause and effect reversed. Identifying oneself as part of a group because you believe as they usually do does not mean that the identification is more important than the belief. There is nothing inherent in a voter saying "I am a democrat" that means it cannot or refuses to think about issues. It comes to the wrong answer because it starts from usually invalid assumptions, but that's different.

You're using the same failed logic that is applied to Dittoheads, because the assumption is that Rush tells them what to think and controls them, when the truth is that they already think that and agree with Rush.

Do you buy that double shot latte espresso from Starbucks because you like double shot latte espresso or because Starbucks told you to?

Re:That's stupid.

[Obfuscant]

Actually, ideally...I wish we could. Or at least restrict voting to those who pay actual taxes, so as to make sure that everyone that votes has some "skin in the game".

I have said that specifically regarding tax measures for decades. I live in a college town, so we have a large number of people who are pleaded with to vote on matters that will not have any effect at all on them in an average of two years.

For example, should the city impose a tax on cellphone service to pay for the 911 center? If you are moving away in a year anyway, why not vote 'yes' just because it sounds good, and it won't impact you in a few months anyway?

What's worse are the property tax measures being voted on by people who own no taxable property, in addition to the transients who will move out of the property they are indirectly paying taxes on through rent in a short time.

I've also talked about extending that to "sin taxes" on things like cigarettes and alkeehol. If you don't drink or smoke and won't be paying those taxes, why should you get to vote on them?

Re: That's stupid.

[bondsbw]

But I didn't say that someone shouldn't identify with a party. Committng blindly is the problem.

Re: That's stupid.

[Obfuscant]

Committng blindly is the problem.

Doing anything blindly is most likely a problem. But you just added that word -- previously it was just "commit". Those who have committed to the Democrat party so they can vote in Democrat primaries have not indicated that they are blindly following an agenda they are being fed by their controllers. Some of them, perhaps, are, but some of them are not. The act does not prove the cause, thus you have causality reversed.

Re:That's stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? My little sister is a teacher in Braselton, GA not far from Atlanta, and she said the average IQ for her white students was nearly 120, but for black students was about 75. She has three Muslim students that are under 60, but that isn't a fair sample.

Re: That's stupid.

[bondsbw]

Typically the word "commit" means more than just claiming favorites. No matter, you get my point.

Re:Translation: We can't guarantee Hillary will wi

[Anonymous Coward]

Translation: A completely crazy reality star with a divisive racist past won the Republican primary, and then won the election, after a combination of factors varying from a weird "Alt Right" White-Supremecist-adjacent political group,an organized Russian government "trolling" campaign, and mischief making "Fake News" sites, all coalesced around Facebook to expose Americans to a concerted campaign to discredit non-Trump candidates and promote Trump.

Seems more like...

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook can't guarantee it is good for society. Any society.

Maybe the problem is not FaceBook itself...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's problem is being a gigantic monolithic entity, it's too much information and eve a 0.01% or their traffic translates in millions of people.

Re:Translation: We can't guarantee Hillary will wi

[Anonymous Coward]

The candidate who talked about CREATING JOBS won

The candidate who talked about "being nicer to Chicks with Dicks" lost.

Genie/Bottle

[Anonymous Coward]

There's nothing that can be done about it, now, short of a complete rollback of civilization -- which, by the way, the doomsday clock shows we are quickly approaching. Democracy must either evolve or die. This is the way of things.

I can guarantee it is not.

[Narcocide]

Empirical evidence suggests it is bad for a lot more than just that. But the unfortunate takeaway is that this is only the case because of deficiencies of character in the participants.

Re:I can guarantee it is not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Humans are fallible? You don't say...

Moral superiority is pretty nauseating, grow up.

The Decider

[narcoossee]

So who all of a sudden gets to decide of FB, et al are "good for democracy". As an informed, educated and interested citizenry, that is OUR job.

Re:The Decider

[Narcocide]

Frankly nobody should be trusted with this job, least of all you. The obvious fact that nearly everyone involved thinks there is no threat posed by allowing paid foreign nationals to participate on our social networks under-cover, posing as citizens with opinions when they are actually just copying and pasting anti-establishment propaganda, proves it to me.

Re:The Decider

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you be crying this loud if Hillary would have won her contest of hate and discord that was funded by Saudi Arabia?

Re:The Decider

[4im]

So who all of a sudden gets to decide of FB, et al are "good for democracy". As an informed, educated and interested citizenry, that is OUR job.

Umm... from what we Europeans get from the state of the USofA, the US populace is very misinformed, is largely badly educated, and interested in Kim Kardashian, $DEITY and Mammon. Thus, badly done job. For a much better example, go look at the Swiss.

I know - the classic /. contributors, being geeks and nerds, are not that - but then again, a lot has changed here since the millenium...

Re: Translation: We can't guarantee Hillary will w

[Anonymous Coward]

Translation: Our pro hillary biased media outlets lost to pro trump biased media outlets and now we are whiney children and want a do over.

Re:Fuck off Zuckerberg, you sided with Hillary

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody did not take their frog pills recently.

Re:Translation: We can't guarantee Hillary will wi

[halivar]

concerted campaign to discredit non-Trump candidates and promote Trump.

No, this shit started with the entire media (both wings, Fox, MSNBC, et al) working together to smear, minimize, and discredit all non-Trump candidates in the GOP primary. Fox, because, well, they're Fox; the rest because they thought Trump would be an easy win for Hillary in the general. Next time, don't "help" pick the GOP front-runner if you really don't want that person to win.

Information matters

[Arzaboa]

Its a good thing, and about time, that Facebook finally makes a clear distinction between entertainment and news. Everyone needs a hand sometimes, and if Facebook can help steer people back to "news", it would be better for everyone. Facebook never should have been in the "news" business to start with, news feeds were dangerous territory to move into. They are right to make the distinction and help people move along.

The lines are so blurred due to the awful news cycles of cable news, that well meaning, smart people are arguing what they believe to be "the truth". Unfortunaly its all true in the sense that sure, someone else opened their mouth today and said something they believe to be right and it got reported by another layer of people trying to do the same.

Bad information ingested by the masses, consumed as the truth can lead well meaning individuals down the wrong path. Without a common set of facts, a healthy discussion of the issues and how to solve them can not be had.

All I hear are people arguing about hearsay and opinion, and which reporter got it right.

--
It's a bird, It's a plane!

Neither is federal law enforcement

[Anonymous Coward]

When they collude with a political party against the American people.

alt take: maybe democracy isn't good for societies

[dAzED1]

Maybe having the unwashed masses be involved in every single decision the gov makes turns it into a popularity contest and strips actual merit from ideas anyway, and facebook is just the latest doing exactly that?

Easy solution

[smooth wombat]

Shut down Facebook and do something useful.

Re:Fuck off Zuckerberg, you sided with Hillary

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the most retarded piece of shit thing I've read on the Internet in years. Congratulations you complete fucking moron.

Rothschild to Q: "Stop sending people to kill me."

[Anonymous Coward]

Q Intel Drop 01/19/18

https://www.reddit.com/r/consp...

Q says:

        Distress cal[L]s to others will [d]o you/family no good at this stage. We know whe[R]e you/the family are at all times and can hear you breathing.

Note "LdR" in brackets.

Days later, a helicopter crash happens over the Rothschild estate. A witness says "They should have picked up the call" and then disappears. This reference is later deleted from the Daily Mail article. An unnamed female Rothschild tells reporters she was directly underneath the accident and was nearly hit by wreckage.

Then Lynn de Rothschild retweets a completely random article that says "Stop sending people to kill me."

https://www.reddit.com/r/CBTS_...

So Eric Schmidt of Google went to NK to set up a private server/email and POTUS is going to declassify all of it!! WOW!!

Q !UW.yye1fxo 01/19/18 (Fri) 02:45:44 No.40
HUSSEIN CABINET / STAFF
Who used private email addresses?
What was the purpose?
LL.HRC.JC.JC.CS.AM.
We don't say his name.
RR.SR.JB.HA.VJ.
Did Hussein use a private email address?
@what?
Who just resigned from GOOG?
Why was ES in NK?
Why was ES in NK?
What private network did ES set up in NK?
What private network did ES set up in NK?
Who else was in NK during this time?
What private email address did Hussein use while in office?
Why would the Chairman of GOOG travel to NK?
WHY WOULD NK ALLOW ACCESS TO ES?
Nothing is ever truly erased/deleted.
These people are STUPID.
DECLASS-POTUS_
THE SHOT HEARD AROUND THE WORLD.
Q

Q !UW.yye1fxo 01/19/18 (Fri) 00:11:44 No.41
Why are American taxpayers subsidizing Tesla?
Welfare for the rich.
Why?
Private emails: GOOG: NK: Tesla
The MEMO is ONLY THE BEGINNING>
THE SHOT HEARD AROUND THE WORLD.
Q

QAnon +++ @MagniFieri

@ Jack = Dorsey / Twitter
MZ = Mark Zuckerberg / FB
ES = Eric Schmidt
JB = Jeff Bezos / Amazon & WaPo
EM = Elon Musk
SH = Steven Huffman / Reddit

#QAnon #GreatAwakening #WeThePeople

Q!UW.yye1fxo 01/21/18 (Sun) 13:25:40 No.48

@Jack, MZ, ES, JB, EM, SH, MSM, etc.
Do you know that we know?
Do you know that we see all?
Do you know that we hear all?
FEAR the STORM.
NOBODY PLAYING THE GAME GETS A FREE PASS.
NOBODY.
Q

Re:alt take: maybe democracy isn't good for societ

[bill_mcgonigle]

In that case, Long Live Facebook. And peaceful societies.

Russia meddling does not exist...

[Anonymous Coward]

Our former commander-n-chimp, obama, went to Putin under the illusion that Putin was the Soviet Union. obama wanted to draw down American nuclear capabilities to make his Soviet Union "wet dream" fantasy to come true. obama was on an open mic and was heard doing this prior to the end of "the age or reason", i.e. November 2012. Little did obama know that Putin is finding his faith in Russian Orthodoxy. Later, when the 2014 Olympics came along, obama was butthurt because Putin didn't want the gay plague sold as a lifestyle in Russia. Russia stopped meddling in Sochi. Russia did not meddle in Killary Clinton's campaign or in the general election. Russia did not "help Trump either. This is just another "myth from the libtards" for the softheaded. The libtards live in a world where they think they can reverse the 2016 election. They think a man can be a woman and the reverse. Libtards need mental illness help.

Re:Russia meddling does not exist...

[Anonymous Coward]

Poe's Law: any parody of extremism is indistinguishable from actual extremism.

We'll see how clever you are when war starts, the gloves come off, and we start dropping the "Eurasionists" feet-first into wood-chippers.

Re:Russia meddling does not exist...

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy crap Ivan. This is disjointed gibberish even for you. Uh sorry. It's been PROVEN that Russia meddled. And not just in the US election. Britain, France, Spain, everyone. That, however, doesn't mean that "Russia meddled therefore Trump won". Because Russia was also silently promoting Hillary by inflaming leftist tensions against the right. Russias goal was never to get Trump in: it was to make the right hate the left and to make the left hate the right. Hell not even that: it was to target different opinion segments and sow division EVERYWHERE. And it hasn't stopped. As this thread proves.

Switzerland?

[Archtech]

Does Facebook know of somewhere democracy is practiced? Or maybe it means that social media acts to prevent any movement towards democracy.

Like Gandhi's reaction when asked by a patronizing British journalist what he thought of Western civilization.

"I think it would be a very good idea".

Re:Translation: We can't guarantee Hillary will wi

[Narcocide]

But you only think this is true because the public discourse you were privy to was itself manipulated by people entirely focused on amplifying exactly the right half-truths that would manipulate people like you into making the wrong choice.

The problem isn't Facebook.

[DaveV1.0]

The problem is the people on Facebook and in society. You know the ones; the university students using free speech to call for an end to free speech. the people who believe in a flat Earth, the creationists, the people who promote Paltrow and GOOP, the people who listen to and worship Dr. Oz and Deepak Chopra.

The problem is the stupid, ignorant, and gullible people.

Re:The problem isn't Facebook.

[Miles_O'Toole]

If you had included Fox News believers and Trump supporters in your list of the gullible and willfully ignorant, you'd have had 100% agreement from me.

Re:The problem isn't Facebook.

[Arzaboa]

It's not that easy. At any given time, decent ideas are spouted by regular people. One wouldn't want policy decided at the local coffee shop, but there are certainly talking points that can sprout from those conversations.

Policy discussion then comes from an in depth conversation, of those few good ideas. The "best" of those ideas float or sink to the top, which is the basis of a government by the people.

--
It's a bird, It's a plane!

Re:The problem isn't Facebook.

[LeftCoastThinker]

I would be happy to discuss creationism with you any time. I have a PhD in Engineering and have taught at the college level for years. I routinely discuss and debate with professors in the biology and astrophysics departments, and they never win, because they don't have any hard facts or solid logic to support their theories.

You seem be be laboring under the false impression that cosmic evolution (or biological evolution) is in any way scientific. Both Creationism and Evolution (cosmic and biological) require faith, since neither has ever been observed in nature or in a lab. (And no, a different beak shape is not evolution, it is genetic diversity from genes already present, nor is duplicate, damaged or deformed preexisting structures). Biological evolution requires a rock to become a banana to become a dog (never observed in nature or in the lab). Cosmic evolution/origin requires that nothing (the state of existence before the universe was created) creates something which is fundamentally irrational.

Re:The problem isn't Facebook.

[jbengt]

Voters can't guarantee that their votes are good for democracy, either.

Re:The problem isn't Facebook.

[Anonymous Coward]

since neither has ever been observed in nature or in a lab.

Nylonase.

Re:The problem isn't Facebook.

[DaveV1.0]

If you want to discuss creationism, fine. Here are the things you must do, in order:

• State who your claimed creator is.
• Provide credible evidence that said creator exists Evidence that can be attributed to other claimed creators or the scientific explanations is not credible evidence of your claimed creator.
• Provide credible evidence that said creator did, in fact, create the universe. Evidence that can be attributed to other claimed creators or the scientific explanations is not credible evidence of your claimed creator.
• Provide credible evidence of the origin of said creator. Evidence that can be attributed to other claimed creators or the scientific explanations is not credible evidence of your claimed creator.

Now, let's start with your post

"Evolution (cosmic and biological) require faith, since neither has ever been observed in nature or in a lab. (And no, a different beak shape is not evolution, it is genetic diversity from genes already present, nor is duplicate, damaged or deformed preexisting structures)." Evolution is based on evidence. If you are really a PhD, then you should know that observation in nature includes things like the CMBR and fossils. That you don't is telling and makes me wonder about your PhD. Also, you seem ignorant of ring species. You should look those up some time. You are trying to impose your own definition of what is and what is not evolution rather than using the scientifically accepted definitions which is dishonest on your part. Also, you are trying to conflate biological and cosmological evolution which have nothing but the word evolution in common. "Biological evolution requires a rock to become a banana to become a dog " I can't tell if you are being ignorant or simply using a straw man fallacy. If you truly believe that the Theory of Evolution (ToE) "requires a rock to become a banana to become a dog", then you are ignorant as to what the ToE says. If you do know what the ToE says, then you are engaging in a straw man fallacy, demonstrating deliberate dishonesty. What the ToE says is " all the different species have evolved from simple life forms. These simple life forms first developed more than three billion years ago ". If evidence for what you state (rock->banana-dog) were ever found, it would completely invalidate the ToE. "Cosmic evolution/origin requires that nothing (the state of existence before the universe was created) creates something which is fundamentally irrational." Let's start with your parenthetical first: "... nothing (the state of existence before the universe was created) ...". Actually, no one knows nor does science claim to know with any certainty what existed before the universe, so that is a lie on your part. Now, let's look at the rest of the statement: "Cosmic evolution/origin requires that nothing ( ...) creates something which is fundamentally irrational." No, it doesn't nor does it claim to know what happened before a very small time after the so-called "Big Bang". You are engaging in yet another straw man.

Re:The problem isn't Facebook.

[LeftCoastThinker]

If you want to discuss creationism, fine. Here are the things you must do, in order:

Um no. You are not the moderator of this discussion, but a participant, nor are many of your criteria reasonable. A reasonable person seeking truth evaluates all the theories (because no one in this discussion was present at the beginning of the universe) and picks the most reasonable theory with the most evidence to back it up. But nice try. I will answer some of your questions though in an effort to help you seek truth:

State who your claimed creator is.

- Elohim, the singular creator God described in the Bible. An infinite, all knowing, all present being of unlimited power who exists outside of time and space, but who has the power to manipulate time, space, mater and all the laws of physics in any way he pleases. He created the entire universe by speaking it into existence and sent his son to die in our place so that our transgressions could be forgiven and we can spend eternity in his presence.

Provide credible evidence that said creator exists Evidence that can be attributed to other claimed creators or the scientific explanations is not credible evidence of your claimed creator.

(The second half of this request is again fallacious, just because something can be explained differently doesn't make that alternative explanation correct or the best explanation and is clearly intended to frame the discussion in your favor, rather than arriving at the best theory, I do not accept that criteria.)

- Physics: mater is not eternal, it has a finite life before it decays. If mater is not eternal, then it must have had a beginning, before which mater did not exist. Atheists argue that nothing exploded and created the universe with tremendous energy and organization. Creationists argue that nothing never explodes, and explosions never create order, only increase entropy and therefore the Athiest argument is pure faith that is directly contradicted by science. Creationists assert that the universe was created by God, an extra dimensional being of unlimited power, omnipotence and omnipresence who exists outside of time and space. The universe, including the light and organization in the universe was directly created by the intelligent Creator God.

- 6000 years of recorded history and millions of eyewitnesses have observed the Judeo-Christian God and chronicled his activities. Those historical chronicles survive to this day in un-altered, accurate form, protected and duplicated by believers who held that even a slight change to the Bible might damn them to hell for eternity. The acts of God were attested to by millions of eyewitnesses who were convinced of their observation to the extent that they were willing to live and die according to their beliefs.

- The supernatural activities of the God of the Bible in the nation of Israel were extremely public and evidence exists to this day (massive amounts of evidence of a global flood, including fossils at the top of Mt. Everest, 170 plus cultures with a global flood account, 150 plus that recount a single family that survived the flood, sedimentary rock found virtually everywhere at every elevation on the planet, trillions of tons of oil and coal created by rapidly burying living plants and animals under sedimentary rock. Brass bells and other man made articles are found in coal, indicating it was created at the time of man. Polystrata fossils that penetrate what Evolutionist think are millions of years indicate that the strata and sediment were laid down quickly before the fossils could rot and separate, as would be seen in a global flood, not over millions of years.

- Remains of Sodom and Ghemorah, Jericho, Parting of the red sea and subsequent destruction of Egyptian army, etc. etc. have all been archaeologically discovered and verified.

- There is no dispute among serious scholars that Jesus was a real person and that the accounts of

Re:The problem isn't Facebook.

[DaveV1.0]

All of my criteria are reasonable. The fact you think they are unreasonable proves you are intellectually dishonest.

The god of the bible states in the bible that it does not know something and must go look and see for itself. This fact shows you don't know your claim.

We know civilization and recorded human history are much longer 6,000 years, with many other god claims being much earlier. We also know there are not millions of eye witnesses. That is simply you lying.

The existence of physical matter is not evidence for your god. It is evidence for physical matter. Also, it is evidence for the scientific explanation and all other creation myths, therefore it is not credible evidence for your god.

The simple fact that there has been a continuous record of human civilization for the last 10,000 years precludes the existence of a global flood. The other flood myths contradict each other and the version in the bible, which came from the Sumerian version.

Using previously existing locations as evidence also leads to existence of Washington DC, Da Nang Vietnam, and Bejeing China being proof Forrest Gump exists.The rest of your claim about the story of the supposed exodus is lies. There is no archaeological evidence for either. The fact that there is no archaeological evidence of the tens upon tens of thousands of people who supposedly lived in and off the desert for 40 years is evidence against the story.

I can't believe you actually tried the appeal to ignorance fallacy. You are truly dishonest and pathetic. Also, you implied that your creation myth is scientific when it is not. You are lying again.

You didn't answer about the origin of your creator. You simply claimed once again that evidence for everything is credible evidence for you god and then made a bunch of unsubstantiated, unevidenced claims.

You have failed to provide any credible evidence for your god. You are the problem. You are a gullible idiot.

Re:The problem isn't Facebook.

[LeftCoastThinker]

Please feel free to explicitly state the points in my arguments that actually lack evidence, rather than asserting they lack evidence without substantiating the assertion, all that does is make you look ignorant and desperate.

You seem to be struggling, let me help you out with some facts:

Recorded civilization is not older than 6000 years. That assertion is predicated (I suspect) on radiological dating and not actual recorded history. The way that the radiocarbon dating age is determined is based on the "age" of the strata it is found in. The age of the strata is based on the radiological dating (circular logic fallacy) or the "geologic column" which is a totally fictitious construct with no basis in fact or science with 100% imaginary ages.

Attempts to radiocarbon date articles of known age are wildly inaccurate. Radiocarbon dating is also predicated on the levels of radioactive carbon in the atmosphere being constant. It is still changing, indicating that the earth is less than 10,000 years old... Oops. If you want actual facts on radio carbon dating (instead of pull it out of the ass theories and straight up fiction) you can actually learn facts here: http://www.creationstudies.org...

There are no actual histories or societies older than the Jews, who trace their history back to creation about 6000 years ago. The next oldest civilizations (Babylonians, Chinese, etc.) date back only 4000 years give or take a few years.

And no, I did not appeal to ignorance, as you assert, learn your logical fallacies here: https://www.logicallyfallaciou...

I gave you 6000 years of recorded history, millions of eye witnesses, the transient nature of mater and a number of other well documented facts and history that has been accepted as fact for thousands of years.

I will amend my previous statement: I am happy to discuss creation with anyone willing to discuss actual facts and logic reasonably. All you have laid out here are baseless theories and bad science that has been debunked for decades now and then you devolve into personal attacks because apparently anyone who disagrees with you is dishonest and pathetic and a gullible idiot. That must be a fun way to live.

I don't agree with everything this guy says, but he does have a lot of the facts lined up and is worth a watch if you actually care about being right. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:The problem isn't Facebook.

[DaveV1.0]

I already stated where your evidence is deficient. You are a gullible fool or a troll. You are simply trotting out already long debunked creationist claptrap.

Fuck Democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

As above.

Could have just stopped right here.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The sharing of false or misleading headlines on social media has become a global issue."

Sharing headlines from pretty much any main stream media outlet pretty much guarantees that the article is biased and misleading. There is no truth anymore, all the truth teller have been replaced by entertainers.

Face Pravda

[Zorro]

All the news they want YOU to know.

Qanon is legit

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd know that if you spend 5 minutes reading Q's intel drop.

Lynn de Rothschild to Q "Stop sending people to kill me":

https://www.reddit.com/r/consp...

Q says:

        Distress cal[L]s to others will [d]o you/family no good at this stage. We know whe[R]e you/the family are at all times and can hear you breathing.

Note "LdR" in brackets.

Days later, a helicopter crash happens over the Rothschild estate. A witness says "They should have picked up the call" and then disappears. This reference is later deleted from the Daily Mail article. An unnamed female Rothschild tells reporters she was directly underneath the accident and was nearly hit by wreckage.

Then Lynn de Rothschild retweets a completely random article that says "Stop sending people to kill me."

#Qanon #TheStorm #FollowTheWhiteRabbit

Who is Qanon?

Re:Qanon is legit

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha, Lynn Rothschild blocks me on Twitter. I feel privileged. :-)

Re:Qanon is legit

[Anonymous Coward]

You should, being you live in your parent's basement, unemployed.

Fake News!

[pik0]

So FB will ignore that they are the greatest conduit of #FakeNews by attacking alternative #FakeNews?!

Zuck Married A Chink Spy

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares what this traitor to democracy does with his shit bbs for moms? Its dead in 10 years anyways..

Q predicted the airport blackouts

[Anonymous Coward]

Rothschild gang also tried to flee but was sent back mid flight.

Democracy (mob rule) hurts civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Just read Thucydides or Plato to figure that one out. Democracy is might makes right; he who has the most guns "wins."

https://mises.org/library/introduction-democracy-god-failed

Re:Democracy (mob rule) hurts civilization

[ShanghaiBill]

The point of TFA is that this is the way it should be. Basic human freedoms, such as freedom of expression, are expendable if they don't help to "guarantee" that elections are won by the "correct" candidate.

Re:Democracy (mob rule) hurts civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Democracy is might makes right; he who has the most guns "wins."

Aren't all political systems might-makes-right? Has anyone ever imagined (much less, implemented) any political system which is otherwise?

You might come up with imagining something, but one thing is for sure: there has never, in the entire history of human civilization, existed any government that wasn't utterly and completely based on "whoever has the most guns wins." Every single political organization, from a group of ten Pacific islanders, to emperors who ruled over hundreds of millions of Chinese people, to 1960s hippie communes, to enlightened colonial Americans, to european parliamentarians, absolutely committed to working that way.

Where ever strength is used, that's someone's enforcement of their law. And whenever you disagree with the government, that's an admission that they had more might than you did, otherwise the government's decision would have been your decision.

Re:Democracy (mob rule) hurts civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to being ruled by your boss Putin?

I'll take my chances with rule by THE PEOPLE

Re:Democracy (mob rule) hurts civilization

[mysidia]

Basic human freedoms, such as freedom of expression, are expendable if they don't help to....

The democracy is truly an illusion --- we're an oligarchical society, where the people are
made more productive by allowing them to choose their occupation, and ultimately most of the productivity goes to enrich the oligarchy and keep those in power in power.

We have only been allowed "basic human freedoms", because humans that feel they have liberty have higher productivity than those who realize that they're slaves, therefore, this situation is seen as more beneficial to our masters.

When the freedoms don't suit those in power, they'll find ways to circumvent or eliminate them.

In the case of Facebook.... censorship by fiat or emergency order is forseeable.
Speech from those who happen to be Russian in origin can be suppressed under the claims that it is "subversive" or an attempt to undermine and destroy the US, rather than to legitimately persuade the voters to do something different.

Beware of trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Russian trolls and sock-puppets are out in force, desperately trying to contain the West's righteous anger at Russia's imperialist, aggressive, and racist information warfare campaign against the West.

They're defending Trump and the alt-right at all costs, attacking Mueller and anybody else trying to take down Trump/Putin's criminal enterprise.

Don't be fooled. Russia are not our friends. Putin is our sworn enemy. Anybody downplaying Russia's aggression, is de-facto siding with the enemy. DO NOT TRUST people defending Trump and Putin and their interests -- because they hate you, and they want to see you defeated, beat-down and humiliated.

Re:Beware of trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Found the democrat voter. I am American and I SUPPORT Russian works of hacking for it means less Shillary Clinton, the whore bitch of babylon underminig our American values by supporting the blacks and homosexuals and abortionists.

Follow the money...

[Anonymous Coward]

Translation: Facebook doesn't want to fix their broken system as it would reduced advertising revenues. Something that "Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley" makes clear when Facebook set up their advertising system.

Good for democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh oh. Now companies have to prove they're good for democracy? I'm not sure if the company that made my toaster is good for democracy.

Re:alt take: maybe democracy isn't good for societ

[Anonymous Coward]

nope.

tht's why public education and a free press are essential for a functional democracy.

Well yeah

[pak9rabid]

Well yeah, when the population is largely composed of gullible idiots that believe anything they read online.

Social media is fine for democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the paid ads pretending to be popular news stories that's not good for democracy

Moral Duty?

[Anonymous Coward]

I seriously doubt that screening posts for social responsibility is a good idea for any company including Face Book. It is not at all unusual for the public to have a position that absolutely proves false in the long run. In many places in the deep south the majority probably feels that segregation is a better path. That is nonsense that is driven by local conditions. At times the majority is off the wall wrong. For example tricking the public into supporting the Vietnam War. Then we had the majority supporting invading Iraq with the tiny little problem that Iraq was not behind the 9/11 attacks. It could have made things worse if those that opposed the nonsense were censored by either public or private parties. In 1961 the minister in a fairly large church explained to us that if black people came to church they would be allowed to sit and worship with us but would not be asked to join the church as some of the older members would not be comfortable with black people becoming members and in prayer with them. The thinest excuse would do to justify many awful acts. But here is the reality about what the minister was saying. Older white people often leave large sums to the church. If they left and joined other congregations the church would lose money and i don't mean tiny sums but large sums. I can't imagine what Christ would have done if he was in that room hearing that from the minister.

I think we already have established that

[ruddk]

It's not good for democracy and it is not good for society.

Facebook Cop Out

[Pyramid]

Sure, FB can't guarantee it or other social media is good for democracy, but it would be a great start if they and other players like Google/Youtube were to curtail curating your feed for the sole purpose of keeping your eyes on the screen as long as possible.

It has already been proven the FB feeds posts, news, etc. that align with the political ideology it "thinks" you hold. This creates a hyper-echo chamber where people no longer are exposed to dissenting ideas and become inured with their beliefs being endlessly reinforced instead of challenged.

Facebook's behavior actively discourages civil discourse all in the name of advertising revenue.

Re:Facebook Cop Out

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Facebook is first and foremost out to turn a profit - NOT to protect democracy. They need eyeballs on their pages to do that, and the best way is to create groupthink environments for people to want to keep coming back.

Re:Facebook Cop Out

[Solandri]

And how is that different from before? In the old days people would hang out with friends who were similar to themselves, shielded from exposure to dissenting ideas and having their beliefs reinforced instead of challenged. Now that people are doing the exact same thing online, suddenly it's the end of democracy as we know it? I remember reading an article in the 1980s about how you could guess someone's political affiliation pretty accurately by looking at which magazines they subscribed to. Nothing has really changed except the nature of the subscriptions and the speed of the discourse (instead of forums, we had letters to the editors).

Instead of thinking of this as evidence of democracy failing because of people hanging out in their own cliques, maybe we should think of it as democracy having succeeded in spite of people hanging out in their own cliques. IMHO democracy's strength doesn't come from there being One Truth that everyone has to be convinced to believe in. It come from the incredible diversity of ideas that it can generate precisely because it values everyone and all their differences equally. Other more officious styles of government attempt to stamp out this diversity, meaning on average it takes a longer time for a good idea to percolate up to be noticed and implemented by those in charge - sometimes decades or centuries. With democracy, it can happen in a matter of months if not weeks.

Perhaps the value of that quicker response time outweighs the drawbacks of people isolating themselves in their own cliques with their own insular ideas. That as long as we have a wide diversity of such cliques (who aren't actively trying to kill each other), it doesn't really matter if individuals restrict themselves to just one clique.

Re:Facebook Cop Out

[Powercntrl]

Now that people are doing the exact same thing online, suddenly it's the end of democracy as we know it?

It's not the exact same thing, because Facebook isn't just passively consumed like a magazine or TV broadcast. It, by design, allows friends to actively put their stamp of approval (by "liking") on bullshit and fake news, and promote (by re-sharing) whatever idiotic groupthink happens to be going around. It absolutely does reinforce the belief in terrible ideas, just look at the anti-vaxxer movement.

Re:Facebook Cop Out

[penandpaper]

maybe we should think of it as democracy having succeeded in spite of people hanging out in their own cliques

Optimism... Who are you and what time period did you come from? Did the robots win? Tell me! DID THE ROBOTS WIN!?!?!

But seriously, it is nice to see an optimistic thought whenever society and/or politics is discussed even if it is rare. Everything is all so doom and gloom. Then again, sitting around a campfire singing koombaya holding hands is pretty lame.

Back to your regular scheduled nay-saying... "Social media has fundamentally changed human nature like never before! The written word and printing press be damned!"

Poor facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

Being eaten alive by it's own loyal subjects.

"stop letting russia interfere!" Even though there still isn't any proof that such interference took place to begin with... which leaves FB in the precarious position of trying to police an imaginary crime/scenario.

The bad behavior of those in charge is what got people so fed up that they crossed their fingers and voted for Trump. That is all this is about. It's a bunch of people in charge that are scared "oh shit the people are so pissed off they elected this schmuck... we've some serious damage control to do"

Hence: "it was all russia's fault!"

Re:alt take: maybe democracy isn't good for societ

[Solandri]

Problem is democracy can offer people free public education and a free press, but it can't force them to take it. That would violate the core tenet of democracy - that the people be free to decide for themselves what's important. And if as you claim these things are essential for a functional democracy, but the people don't want these things, then you've just proven that democracy is untenable.

I can't guarantee FB is useful to me

[Anonymous Coward]

said me, .. to myself .. 10 years ago!

Re:Translation: We can't guarantee Hillary will wi

[Ambassador Kosh]

I really don't think the media is liberal or conservative. They just want conflict and Trump generates conflict so they cover it non-stop. Even with what they know now about how much of a problem they created they still can't stop themselves from doing it.

If Fox loses too many of its viewers because they have died of old age they will switch to something else in order to keep making money. They don't really care about being conservative.

At the core I see the media companies as thriving on conflict. If aliens invaded Earth and we were kicking their asses then the media companies would give the aliens weapons and teach them how to use the weapons in order to make covering the conflict more interesting.

That is also why one presidential candidate never really get very far ahead of the other one. The media companies will bring up all the negative things they can find on whoever is ahead so they can make the race close and then disclaim any responsibility for it.

Re:alt take: maybe democracy isn't good for societ

[Anonymous Coward]

The argument of tyrants. And Madison and his bankers.

can't guarantee people's opinions are good..

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook says it cant guarantee people's opinions are good for democracy

FTFY

the educated deserve democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

The fat and happy spoiled by always having whatever opinion taken seriously probably don't.
If Putin can throw the US election for a million in advertising Putin isn't the problem.
If Fox can keep one faction in society hating the other more than they care about their own children Fox isn't the problem.
If I can pay half the working class to kill the other half Facebook isn't the problem.
The printing press was a problem as well. How'd that turn out so far?

Never learn from history

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

1. Oh no, anonymous trolls!
2. Ok, require real names.
3. Many don't like that, especially in an era of zero tolerance social get you fired lemming ostracism.
4. Many move to anonymous fora.
5. State-sponsored trolls flood said fora convincing people of misleading ideas or outright lies.

It isn't an issue of free speech so much as not knowing who is manipulating you.

Hence "Hillary wants to literally start a war with Russia!" gets pushed by Russian state actors over and over, to cause the failure of a candidate who will continue to apply sanctions to their leadership because of lack of democracy and a free press there, and a disturbingly Nazi Germany-like invasion of a sovereign country to "protect" the Russians living there.

This continued pressure would be favored by most Americans, especially those who lived through the Cold War or earlier.

We don't need to ease sanctions on such a country's leaders so they will open up development to the West in a tit for tat.

Re:Never learn from history

[Anonymous Coward]

p>Hence "Hillary wants to literally start a war with Russia!"

I do have a question, out of curiosity...

In the debate Hillary outright said "I would impose a no-fly zone over Syria, day one."
Russia, in response, said they would not accept a no-fly zone over any of Syria and would continue flying there.

How does this not imply Hillary was running on starting war with Russia? I don't think she would have, but she did run on that platform. Or are you implying Russia was influencing her comments in a debate? Or are you implying we should ignore comments from people running, and only people who pointed this out were paid by Russia?

You don't make a convincing argument and reek of revisionist history.

Re:Never learn from history

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm curious. According to Hillary's campaign promises, she'd impose a "no-fly zone" over Syria to stop the Russians helping Assad. Just how is one supposed to impose a no-fly zone in areas Russian planes are flying without shooting down Russian planes? And after you start shooting down Russian fighter planes, just how do you expect Russia to react? I mean, how would that NOT cause war with Russia? It's not like Russian planes being shot at can't shoot back.

Re:alt take: maybe democracy isn't good for societ

[Rick Schumann]

Elitism
Aristocratism

Yeah sure thing buddy, because having The Rich decide everything for everyone else has worked so goddamned fucking well for people since the dawn of human civilization.

Power corrupts proportionally; absolute power corrupts absolutely

(the former) Soviet Union; Russia; China; North Korea; just to name a few. How well has that worked out for the Average Citizen, hmm? How about this: Go dig up and resurrect Marie Antoinette and ask her how well that seemed to work out, okay?

If you're so goddamned concerned about the so-called 'unwashed masses', then how about we get them better educational opportunities so they make (by your apparently skewed standards) more informed choices at the ballot box?

I can only speak for myself, though I know I'm far from alone when I say: I'd rather put up with the potential abuses to our system of government, than put up with The Few enforcing their will on The Many.

Oh and yes by the way I am mad and I am ranting because your comment pissed me off. Deal with it.

Social media is just plain bad to start with

[Rick Schumann]

To be fair about it: I'll lay 50% of the blame on 'social media' itself, and the other 50% on the people who flock to social media, the former for providing a platform with such a high potential for abuse, and the latter for abusing it in one way or another, or for catering to the social media-abusers. But this is not to say that 'social media' shouldn't just go the way of the dinosaurs.

Re: alt take: maybe democracy isn't good for socie

[Graymalkin]

Well it's a good thing we invented republics then.

Re:Translation: We can't guarantee Hillary will wi

[halivar]

I proffered a reason that I believed fit the data, but I have to admit your reason is as good as mine.

Re:alt take: maybe democracy isn't good for societ

[halivar]

"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." - Winston Churchill

Facebook is what people make it

[Ranbot]

Facebook reflects the people using it and is a symptom of society's problems, not a cause. Anyone who thinks killing Facebook will change the way people interact and share ideas online, does not understand society. They want easy scapegoat targets, to avoid the work of actually try to understand difficult social problems.

Re:alt take: maybe democracy isn't good for societ

[Kjella]

Maybe having the unwashed masses be involved in every single decision the gov makes turns it into a popularity contest and strips actual merit from ideas anyway, and facebook is just the latest doing exactly that?

More like Wikipedia democracy... whoever has an ax to grind or agenda to run and know all the rules and processes overwhelms the majority by persistence. A direct democracy has to be balanced so you ask people to decide on a reasonable number of issues because you can't have 300 million paying attention to everything that happens in every sub-committee. Hell, I hear even Congressmen who have politics as a full time job don't have time for that. That and getting people to balance out the budget, if they want to spend money one place they have to cut it somewhere else or get a majority to cut total taxes. It could be done - more reasonably than today anyway - but why would the duopoly you have change the system? It's either team red or team blue but they know that after 8+/-4 years the grass will look greener on the other side.

The root of this problem

[LeftCoastThinker]

The root of this problem is that MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, The New York Times, and virtually all the mainstream media has lost all credibility in the eyes of conservatives and independents (only 32% of Americans trust the media, coincidentally aligning with the dyed in the wool alt left crowd who have no knowledge of history and "think" with their emotions). http://news.gallup.com/poll/19...

This has occurred for a simple reason. Traditional constitutional journalism necessary for democracy targeted one simple principle: find the truth no mater what it was and follow it no matter where it led. Throughout history journalists have achieved this with varying degrees of success. However, the modern alt left infested main stream media now has the motto: "Change the world." They have divested all semblance of independence, fair reporting or pursuit of the truth instead choosing to only report stories and/or slant stories (i.e. lie by omission) that further their world view and political candidates. This is not some grand conspiracy, but rather an organic result of the alt left fascist cesspool that is the college campuses in the US where the next generation of journalists are spoon fed the alt left propaganda.

The democracy has recognized and is rejecting this poisoned fruit and is in the process of finding new avenues to get accurate news that covers the entire set of facts including historical background and objective facts. In the 1990s we saw the explosion of talk radio, then Fox news, then citizen journalists online, and now Facebook and more broadly online sources.

There have always been propaganda stories during elections, it is up to the individual voter, more than ever, to find the truth and sources that are trustworthy. The Democrats last election cycle ran Hillary Clinton, and most people knew exactly who and what she was (a grasping, lying, cheating, back stabbing politician lawyer who only wants power and money, in that order; don't believe me, ask the Bernie Sanders supporters). You could have run a false story that she ate babies for dinner every night to stay young and most conservatives would believe it because she has been in the public eye for 20 years and has extremely high negatives with conservatives and those who actually pay attention to politics.

The fact is that Russia and China try to meddle in US elections every time to varying degrees of success (the Chinese successfully funneled millions into Bill Clinton's campaign and no one said boo until he gave them ICBM guidance technology, Ted Kennedy tried to work with the Russians to get Reagan out of office, etc. etc.) https://www.dailywire.com/news...

Re:The root of this problem

[liquid_schwartz]

The root of this problem is that MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, The New York Times, and virtually all the mainstream media has lost all credibility in the eyes of conservatives and independents (only 32% of Americans trust the media, coincidentally aligning with the dyed in the wool alt left crowd who have no knowledge of history and "think" with their emotions). http://news.gallup.com/poll/19...

This has occurred for a simple reason. Traditional constitutional journalism necessary for democracy targeted one simple principle: find the truth no mater what it was and follow it no matter where it led. Throughout history journalists have achieved this with varying degrees of success. However, the modern alt left infested main stream media now has the motto: "Change the world." They have divested all semblance of independence, fair reporting or pursuit of the truth instead choosing to only report stories and/or slant stories (i.e. lie by omission) that further their world view and political candidates. This is not some grand conspiracy, but rather an organic result of the alt left fascist cesspool that is the college campuses in the US where the next generation of journalists are spoon fed the alt left propaganda.

The democracy has recognized and is rejecting this poisoned fruit and is in the process of finding new avenues to get accurate news that covers the entire set of facts including historical background and objective facts. In the 1990s we saw the explosion of talk radio, then Fox news, then citizen journalists online, and now Facebook and more broadly online sources.

There have always been propaganda stories during elections, it is up to the individual voter, more than ever, to find the truth and sources that are trustworthy. The Democrats last election cycle ran Hillary Clinton, and most people knew exactly who and what she was (a grasping, lying, cheating, back stabbing politician lawyer who only wants power and money, in that order; don't believe me, ask the Bernie Sanders supporters). You could have run a false story that she ate babies for dinner every night to stay young and most conservatives would believe it because she has been in the public eye for 20 years and has extremely high negatives with conservatives and those who actually pay attention to politics.

The fact is that Russia and China try to meddle in US elections every time to varying degrees of success (the Chinese successfully funneled millions into Bill Clinton's campaign and no one said boo until he gave them ICBM guidance technology, Ted Kennedy tried to work with the Russians to get Reagan out of office, etc. etc.) https://www.dailywire.com/news...

Well stated. If I had a buck for every time the media at large conflates legal immigrants with illegal immigrants I'd be retired.

Re:The root of this problem

[Xylantiel]

Wow, so talk radio shock jocks are "finding the truth." Your argument reduces to nobody is perfect so everybody is evil, except your beloved "conservatives" of course. That is so obviously fallacious that I don't honestly understand how you can't be a troll.

Re:The root of this problem

[Powercntrl]

The root of this problem is that MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, The New York Times, and virtually all the mainstream media has lost all credibility in the eyes of conservatives

Bullshit. You can find exactly the same stories on Fox, and sometimes even Breitbart if you can stomach the spin (how they attempt to defend the repeal of Net Neutrality is absolutely painful to read). People simply choose not to read news they disagree with, regardless of the source.

"ObamaCare repeal would leave 32 million more without insurance" What liberal rag is this headline from? Fox.

Re: The root of this problem

[Anonymous Coward]

As a non-American resident in a five eyes nation I am both amused and concerned that catalogues and litanies of 'faults' posted by US folk are now welded to the one-sided hardline.

For example, a balanced catalogue of foreign interference shenanigans in US elections must surely include Reagan's Republicans outbidding Carter's Democrsts for the right to decide the timing to release the hostages in Teheran.

The Democrsts couldn't match the Republicans, the Iranians kept the hostages until after the election, Carter was seen as ineffective and lost. The rest is history.

Reagan putting up money to keep US citizens imprisoned so he could get elected kinda sums it all up for me. You guys really do have problems.

As xylantiel said.

Re:The root of this problem

[LeftCoastThinker]

The main stays of talk radio are not shock jocks... Howard Stern is a shock jock. Get a clue. And not that the MSM is evil, but that they don't give a shit about the truth anymore, only what sells and pushing their alt left agenda, which sounds like it's fine with you... Watch Shepard Smith sometime on Fox news. He is the epitome of an alt left empty suit "journalist". He sensationalizes everything he can, has no damn clue about modern history or a drop of common sense and he wears his alt left point of view on his sleeve, blatantly editorializing even though he is supposed to be a hard news anchor. The other networks are just more of that BS.

Rush Limbaugh (was in the 1990s, he needs to retire), Sean Hanity, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham etc. are reasonable, well informed news commentators. They report the news and are conservatives and give background, historical perspective and call out the bullshit in the MSM. You might try to listen to any one of these guys for a few hours (assuming your brain doesn't explode from the sudden influx of actual facts.) The left tried to do talk radio (see the flaming failure of Air America), but the problem is that they are all emotion and sensationalism and very light on the facts, and you can already get that on CNN, MSNBC etc. Plus they already have alt left NPR paid for by the tax payers.

There are always examples of purely entertainment shows, and talk radio is no exception. There are kooks (like Art Bell for example). It took me 5 minutes listening to him to decide he was a nut and move on. However, in the mid 1990s when talk radio exploded with shows like Rush Limbaugh, they were telling the rest of the story and filling in the entire picture with the facts the main stream media was hiding, obfuscating or otherwise misreporting in an attempt to deceive the American people.

Bill Clinton was a dirty mobster and had a virtually unending parade of huge scandals. Remember when Bill Clinton got millions in campaign contributions from China and then gave them the green light to manufacture ICBM guidance systems, which they promptly stole and reverse engineered and are now guiding ICBMS aimed at the US)? Yeah, that happened and the MSM buried it.

Or remember when Clinton tried to bribe North Korea to stop developing nuclear weapons and paid $1.5B tax dollars for a worthless treaty that the North Koreans promptly broke? Yeah. Clinton's first two years were a complete shit show.

Then, because everyone was so pissed at him and talk radio was on his ass every day, the Republicans kicked ass and took names and got a big majority in Congress. They dragged Clinton kicking and screaming to sign the contract with America bills which boosted the economy in a big way, dramatically reduced welfare by giving people jobs, and did a number of things that made the last 4 years of Clinton's presidency pretty good for your average American.

Re:The root of this problem

[LeftCoastThinker]

First off, Roger Ailse and most of the conservatives are gone thanks to the #metoo scam by the feminists and Murdoch handing control over to his liberal sons. Beyond that, unlike the alt left, conservatives do believe in objective truth and integrity, and so they report the truth whether or not it hurts their political position.

Beyond that, the story that you refer to has nothing to do with political persuasion, Fox is just reporting on the CBO's opinion... and the CBO report is a hit job by the deep state alt left infiltrators to give Democrats talking points. It projects to 2026 and assumes no one now on Obamacare would get other insurance (catastrophic or otherwise, which is disingenuous to say the least).

The alt left is so good at projecting their behavior onto conservatives it is almost pathological.

Re:Translation: We can't guarantee Hillary will wi

[squiggleslash]

No, this shit started with the entire media (both wings, Fox, MSNBC, et al) working together to smear, minimize, and discredit all non-Trump candidates in the GOP primary.

I assume you're talking about Fox, because I saw no attempts to discredit Bush, Rubio, or even Cruz during the primaries, and Fox was the only one I avoided. In fact, most candidates were pumped up as that guy that will finally beat Trump only to... uh, not beat trump.

One or two got bad press, but, for example, in Carson's case, the bad press was a combination of him doing comical things like staying in the wings after he'd been called to a debate, and writing a book about his past knifing people.

Outside of the news, Bush I recall being portrayed as a punching bag by Trump on SNL, but the others were for the most part not treated any worse than, say, Clinton... although Clinton's coverage was pretty negative.

On that note, did you see the NYT's coverage of Clinton? They leapt on pretty much every ludicrous allegation made about Clinton, no matter how ridiculous.

Weasel word

[Shotgun]

As a QA professional, the problem with TFS is that "good" is not defined? You can't test for a condition that is not defined. I find these sort of statements all the time in technical requirements, and it always ends in a conversation with the author where I repeatedly explain that I can't write a test that goes "if (condition > good) { pass} else {fail}"

If the article is to mean anything "good" has to first be defined. The interesting part is that the definition of "good" will expose a lot of the biases held by Facebook leaders.

Re:alt take: maybe democracy isn't good for societ

[gfxguy]

I agree - we need better education; but I also agree that not everyone should be able to vote. Why should we let people who don't even understand our constitution decide who gets to lead us? I posted this above: What Americans Don't Know About the Constitution, in a poll (granted an old one) "... Nearly half believed that the Constitution contains Karl Marx's phrase 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.'"

It's not wealth - it's education. It's an incentive to get educated. We're not talking about people living like they do in the favelas of Brazil (although, believe me, they have electric and water and most of them have internet and smartphones), we're talking about first world countries where even the poorest person can go into a library and read a book or look something up on the internet.

And since education is one of the primary factors in earning wealth, it's a plus all around.

Social Media, as it is now, is practically a disincentive for people to be educated, because far too many rely too much on it for information, and take whatever they read there as truth.

Another APK fueled retarded delusion

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like retard Alexander Peter Kowalski is now posting another one of his InfoWars fueled delusions.
He like showing off how full retard he can go, just wait until he posts his anti-jewish rant.
He really needs to sign his BS so everyone know what he posts instead of other just pointing it out.

Re:alt take: maybe democracy isn't good for societ

[Actually, I do RTFA]

How is that different from how it works now? Those who cares about any given issue enough just sends a fleet of lobbyists. I guess it requires more money in the current system, for lunches and fact finding and bribes^W campaign conributions?

Re:alt take: maybe democracy isn't good for societ

[liquid_schwartz]

nope.

tht's why public education and a free press are essential for a functional democracy.

While I agree with you in principle unfortunately public education has a well documented bias towards the left. Because there is a well known bias it undermines general acceptance and also undermines the mission of educating because so much effort is wasted on PC propaganda. Stated another way - the downside to clearly favoring one side for education is that it loses broad support. The press while technically still free has been allowed to be consolidated into just a few hands - and is thus no longer free in a real sense. You can thank Bill Clinton for that one (citation below).

Citations:

http://www.truth-out.org/news/...

Um . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Duh. Though more appropriately, its misuse isn't good for democracy. I'm beyond convinced at this point that silicon valley is full of millennial retards who can kinda sorta code but understand absolutely nothing. No closed feedback loop is good for anything. That is just logic and life, 'geniuses'. Your parents have lied to you your entire lives, about everything, but particularly about *you*.

Re:alt take: maybe democracy isn't good for societ

[Rick Schumann]

Gee who gets to decide who can and can't vote? Southern states have been trying to pull shit like this for decades to prevent blacks and other minorites from being able to vote. Are you a racist? You're sure sounding like one.

they have to be EDUCATED enough to vote!

so then you gut the public school system, make sure blacks and the poor get a shit education, they don't pass the 'test' required to qualify to vote, and rich whites get to dictate their will to everyone else. Racist, elitist, bigoted. Fuck that. I'd rather have the mess we have now than live in a world where people are intentionally marginalized.

Who decides?

[Anonymous Coward]

You raise a good point. I should get to decide everything for the rest of you.

Re:alt take: maybe democracy isn't good for societ

[gfxguy]

You don't need the public education system - virtually everybody has the ability to surf the internet or use public libraries and, for the record, there's more white people living in poverty in the south that blacks - sorry if the reality doesn't fit your narrative.

FB is a Controlled Environment

[Stan92057]

My thinking is FB in one way of many, control everything you do. How is that a social network? i don't think it is.

Re:alt take: maybe democracy isn't good for societ

[hey!]

I don't think education or status are perfect vaccines against mob thinking, either. In every historical instance of a society driving off the cliff into folly has plenty of people who should have known better egging it on.

Facebook is to bullshit as crack is to cocaine. Crack is cocaine, but packaged to provide a cheap, short-lived high. Facebook is a means of consuming a lot of bullshit by repeatedly deciding to consume just little bit more.

Just look at the basic Facebook mechanic: the like. What the easiest way to get that sweet hit of external validation? Find a group of like-minded people and express a completely conventional thought in an outrageously provocative way. And how long does that hit last? Days? Hours? Minutes?

Facebook didn't invent getting yourself lost in an epistemic bubble; it just made it accessible to people who don't have the time to invest in joining a cult. That makes a difference.

Re:alt take: maybe democracy isn't good for societ

[Rick Schumann]

You're not for real. Trollololol.

Re:Translation: We can't guarantee Hillary will wi

[Xylantiel]

I would agree -- we talk alot about how facebook etc are import in all of this, but it's not like crazy people have never been put in power by a populist movement before.

Not Proven

[huckamania]

The press today is full of anonymous quotes, statements taken out of context and just outright opinion. Such as you writing '...the now proven statement that Trump only does things that benefit Trump.' That's an opinion and not a very well supported one. How does ending the estate tax benefit Trump. His dad is dead and he already got an inheritance. You might say that it benefits his family and amend your idiocy to be '...the now proven statement that Trump only does things that benefit Trump and his family/friends.' But then he also lowered taxes on working families, which doesn't benefit anyone he knows. Also, how does capping the mortgage deduction help a real estate business? I would put that in the column of doing something that didn't benefit DJT.

Sorry but I think you fail and are an example of there being stupid people on both sides of the political divide.

If FB wants to get rid of fake news they need to stop spreading hearsay, rumors and opinions presented as facts.

Cause I heard from a really close friend that Mark Zuckerberg pays no taxes and hasn't for years. See what I did there? That's called 'a Hairy Read'.

Re:Not Proven

[Anonymous Coward]

That is exactly what *every* piece of news reported on the left is:
"My friend said.... therefore I will take to the streets and protest... something"

Re:Not Proven

[Gr8Apes]

How does ending the estate tax benefit Trump.

His estate won't be investigated, evaluated, nor taxed when it goes to his heirs. His finances are off limits (a warning he also gave to Mueller, and/or Comey) That's just a slow fat softball there.

But then he also lowered taxes on working families, which doesn't benefit anyone he knows.

Did he though? He says he did, but in actuality, he traded a $1.5 trillion loan to give the common worker a pittance in their check for a few years to keep the base enthusiastic, which then sunsets. So, in reality, there's no benefit there and even worse, the supposed benefit doesn't even add up to 1 trillion, meaning they're getting pennies on the dollar, the rest is going to him and corporations.

Also, how does capping the mortgage deduction help a real estate business?

Capping the mortgage deduction has 0 effect on Trump's real estate business, which is almost 100% commercial in nature. Also, Trump and his cronies are rich enough that the mortgage deduction doesn't do them any good whatsoever, so capping it doesn't hurt them either. Similarly, the original proposal of removing it altogether doesn't affect them either.

Sorry but I think you fail and are an example of there being stupid people on both sides of the political divide.

You think? You might want to investigate exactly what "think" means.... So far, whether you're a Trump supporter or playing devil's advocate, you only exemplified how dumb the supporters are with several of their most commonly trumpeted points. Thank you.

If FB wants to get rid of fake news they need to stop spreading hearsay, rumors and opinions presented as facts.

Cause I heard from a really close friend that Mark Zuckerberg pays no taxes and hasn't for years. See what I did there? That's called 'a Hairy Read'.

Presenting a false precept has no bearing on my previous statements in this thread. You can ask me to explain and/or defend my position, but presenting a false argument is no way to convince anyone other than the easily misled.

Who cares

[Cederic]

We don't need Facebook to be good for democracy, and they certainly shouldn't need to prove that they are.

Even if someone can prove that Facebook is bad for democracy, that should merely inform a debate on whether that even fucking matters.

What does seem to be clear is that social media is fucking terrible for totalitarian states. Assuring those fail is a fine start towards helping democracy succeeds.

This Just In...

[Anonymous Coward]

Being a uneducated total dumbass does not disqualify you from voting. That is the real story. When the right was complaining about uneducated urbanites voting the party line for Democrats, there was no issue. It's only when Facebook spoils the Hillary Clinton coronation that it becomes a problem.

Re:Translation: We can't guarantee Hillary will wi

[Anonymous Coward]

BS. I would still have voted for Trump regardless of Russian trolls. I watched his very first speech and I was like WTF this guy speaks it like it is.

Nice try though.

Re:alt take: maybe democracy isn't good for societ

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe having the unwashed masses be involved in every single decision the gov makes turns it into a popularity contest and strips actual merit from ideas anyway, and facebook is just the latest doing exactly that?

What alternatives do we have? Randomly select leaders? Do it like with rescue dogs, put them through some artificial troubles, and select those that stay calm and do the right thing as leaders? Mortal combat?

Re:alt take: maybe democracy isn't good for societ

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. You have just done 2+2=4 therefore 5.

This is true: the people don't want these things.

The other part doesn't join from there. *Unless* you're trying to make the case that democracy is for *always* making "correct" decisions.
It isn't. It's for making the decisions the people want. Dumb or not.

Re:alt take: maybe democracy isn't good for societ

[gfxguy]

Ooops.... you forgot to post your idiocy anonymously.

No, but it does prove one thing

[p51d007]

How smart the founding fathers were, in creating something new called a Constitutional Republic, as opposed to a "democracy", which is effect a "mob rule" mentality. By giving the people, the house of representatives, the people have a voice. The senate, until the 17th amendment was the state's voice. A democracy, is not "everyone has a voice" but emotional MOB RULE. Just think, if we had a democracy, what happened in Ferguson Missouri, would have meant the death of that police officer, since most social media has spread the lie that the "gentle giant" Michael Brown was running away from the police, hands in the air and shot in the back, when in fact he was running towards the officer after previously robbing/assaulting a clerk at a convenience store, assaulting a police office and attempting to take his weapon. No, we DO NOT want a democracy. "Social media" is just another way for "mob rule" to attempt to take hold.

How to solve this problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

- Posts can be tagged "Political" or "Non-Political"
- Facebook AI tags posts as such.
- Users can click a button on other people's posts to correct if the AI is wrong.
- Users must opt in separately to see political posts by anyone or political posts by friends.
- Or users can block political posts from someone.
- User's opt-in status is made visible on their profile.
- When creating a post, Facebook warns if the post is political and might not be seen by everyone.

This way:
- People who want to see political stuff can see it.
- People who don't, will not.
- AI will adapt to changing political subjects.
- The pedantic among you may say "Everything is political." Well, post X can be Y% political, and it is subjective. The AI will figure that out. User should be able to reset it.

Re:Rothschild to Q: "Stop sending people to kill m

[Anonymous Coward]

Gawd. DIRECT Russian propaganda here on slashdot. Unbelievable. So Russia doesn't like Google and it doesn't like Tesla.

Re:alt take: maybe democracy isn't good for societ

[Rick Schumann]

No, I'm openly calling you a troll. Or perhaps you're just a garden-variety idiot, or worse: an ultra-conservative/white supremacist/libertarian, or perhaps a Dominionist.

Re:alt take: maybe democracy isn't good for societ

[Obfuscant]

That would violate the core tenet of democracy - that the people be free to decide for themselves what's important.

The core tenet of democracy is that the people rule themselves. This has nothing to do with being free to decide for themselves what's important. For example, there are many tax measures that appear on the Oregon ballot through our initiative process, which is an example of democracy. Many of them, I believe, are completely ridiculous and some downright damaging. Many of them I do not think they are important, but my decision means nothing. Other people get to decide for me what is important, such as "is it important enough to the poor people in the state of Oregon to tax HEALTH CARE and health insurance, raising the costs for everyone, to pay for the few who need it?" I say no; tomorrow night we will find out what the people ruling themselves have to say.

And if as you claim these things are essential for a functional democracy, but the people don't want these things, then you've just proven that democracy is untenable.

No, you've proven that some people don't want democracy, which is a very different thing. Of course, nobody has ever claimed that democracy has no flaws, either.

We have laws about this ya know

[rsilvergun]

there are very clear laws about who can and cannot interact with foreign governments in an official capacity and even under what circumstances you can act in an unofficial capacity. When folks talk about treason, both legally and colloquially, this is what they mean. That's understood from context, and to suggest otherwise is at best misdirection and debating slight of hand and at worst a plain 'ole straw man argument.

Suckerberg JUDEN globalist zionist agenda

[Anonymous Coward]

Jews believe this of all they call goyim/gentiles (any non-jew): Jews = biggest racists of all (for which they "jew guilt" you for no less! They're hypocrites known as thieves all thru history or were Argentines in the 1940 under Perrone, Spanish inquistion & Spain 1492 (Christopher Columbus the jew https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22C... sailed to the US for them to create it), France (1306), Egypt (despoiled/robbed by jews), Arabs (pre & post 1948), England (1330 Edward longshanks), Romans under titus, Russia pogroms and Germany who got rid of them from their nations nazi german's too? No. Driven into DESERTS ages ago! Don't wonder why after all those exilings above. Should anyone doubt any of this see Jacob Javits' crony Rosenthal spill the beans on it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4zMVZ8HnFI/ where he called all Christianity fools for helping Israel and the biggest scam of all time per their beliefs below from their Talmud. This is the province of the synagogue of Satan (Khazar/Pharisees whom Jesus Christ himself kicked to the curb out of the temple & they killed him for it. Jeremiah did the same to them also + the Essenes could not stand them either breaking away from the pharisee corruption):

Maria Abramovic satanist spirit cooker pal of Hillary Clinton the Voodoo queen is a jew https://www.google.com/search?... just like Hillary Clinton's mentor Saul Alinsky author of rules for radicals book dedicated to Lucifer

"Most Jews do not like to admit it, but our god is Lucifer â" so I wasnâ(TM)t lying â" and we are his chosen people. Lucifer is very much aliveâ Harold Rosenthal http://www.thetruthseeker.co.u...

Jewish rabbi openly admits to satan worship use white children's blood they kill for passover bread, infiltrating and subverting the catholic church, creating the Jesuit order https://www.youtube.com/watch?... and https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Barbara Spectre, a jew, tells everyone it's jews orchestrating the muslim migrant problem in Europe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFE0qAiofMQ/ . No migrant raping of women in Poland. Tons in Sweden. Do the math. Use common-sense. This is to get muslims and other goyim/gentiles to wipe one another out as incompatible cultures that will clash and always have.

Rabbi A. Finkelstein ADMITS their greatest enemies are ARABS and WHITES (blacks too) whom they wish to kill one another in a 'theater of war' which they find AMUSING https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Finkelstein also admits JEWS DID 9/11 https://www.youtube.com/watch?... profiting by it (and that 3,000 jews employed there did not show up for work that day knowing about it beforehand).

Finkelstein also admits JEWS are going to destroy the U.S. Dollar and dumping it for other world currencies and gold to destroy the United States.

George Soros who funds groups to create division in the USA?? A jew. One who sold his own jew people into death for the nazis. Zucker @ CNN is another frying publicly for lying about "russians" and John Bonifield a producer @ CNN said it is bs. Van Jones did also.

What World-famous Men have said About the Jews https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MYPzKNQUE0/

Bernie Madoff (who made off with everyone's money, especially construction union pensions)

Words mean things

[zeugma-amp]

Thank God I live in a Republic and not a Democracy.

Ever heard of 1960's "voter literacy tests"

[knorthern knight]

> Hell, let's just extrapolate this to the greater internet, sure
> would make things nice again, more like the early days.

This idea "was extrapolated to the voting booth" in the 1960s. http://www.openculture.com/201...

Facebook,

[MerlTurkin]

because you're an attention whore!

Re:Translation: We can't guarantee Hillary will wi

[bigfinger76]

Well that was easy. I like to put more thought into it, but to each his own I guess.

Coming from Reuters..

[Anonymous Coward]

.. you know, the mouthpiece for Rothschild?

Influrence failed in France

[manu0601]

Russia influence failed in France, facing huge and obvious influence from french medias that backed Emmanuel Macron.

Re:alt take: maybe democracy isn't good for societ

[gfxguy]

Why? The public education system can't keep people down if they want to learn on their own. Why is that a troll?

Re:alt take: maybe democracy isn't good for societ

[Anonymous Coward]

Just an FYI, but the Houses of the States already decide who does and does not get to vote. You forget that even in America the Free that people like felons cannot vote at all. Some states allow this to be rescinded, others make it permanent. I don't like any of it, like you, but your question has already been answered and that answer is: THE STATE.

Re:alt take: maybe democracy isn't good for societ

[Anonymous Coward]

And to stay on topic, THOSE WHITE PEOPLE don't have issues voting. Your claim (which probably isn't correct anyway) doesn't help your cause at all. It shows the privilege you swear doesn't exist.

Re:alt take: maybe democracy isn't good for societ

[dAzED1]

You seem to be responding to several things I didn't say....and if I click the parent of your post, it just goes to mine. Do you not understand there may be a difference between having absolutely everyone involved in every single action of gov, and gov being "the few enforcing their will on the many" - you seem to be taking dramatic liberties in assuming things I didn't say, and then extrapolating those event further. Here, I'll make it less controversial for you - I also don't think people should play Dr Google, nor do I think marketing people should get equal say on cybersecurity issues as the cybersecurity people. Take the crazy money out of it (reversing a certain recent SCOTUS ruling would help loads...) and enforcing certain things a bit better (emoluments, anyone?) and then force every bill to be public - but then back the fark off and stop pretending like congress is some sort of reality tv show for our instant entertainment 24/7.

If you think the effect in the US is bad ...

[quax]

... check out Cambodia. F'book is flat out complicit in killing democracy in that country.

Sour Gr8pes

[huckamania]

"Also, Trump and his cronies are rich enough that the mortgage deduction doesn't do them any good whatsoever, so capping it doesn't hurt them either."

So what you're saying here is that it doesn't benefit them, right? So this would invalidate your original idiocy. Thank you for playing. Have a nice day.

Re:Sour Gr8pes

[Gr8Apes]

"Also, Trump and his cronies are rich enough that the mortgage deduction doesn't do them any good whatsoever, so capping it doesn't hurt them either."

So what you're saying here is that it doesn't benefit them, right? So this would invalidate your original idiocy. Thank you for playing. Have a nice day.

Are you really that dense? The mortgage cap was a way to make the average middle/upper middle pay for the tax cut for the rich. To spell it out for you, they increased taxes on the working middle/upper middle class to pay for the tax cut for the rich/corporations.

I retract the question as it's obvious you are so invested in proving Trump isn't benefitting from the "tax reform" that logic and reality have no bearing on your thoughts.

Re:Sour Gr8pes

[Rakarra]

So what you're saying here is that it doesn't benefit them, right? So this would invalidate your original idiocy. Thank you for playing. Have a nice day.

The mortgage deduction cap has adverse affects that primarily fall upon his political enemies. IE, the blue states with high property values for one-bedroom houses and high costs of living. They didn't vote for him, so fuck 'em.

Listen to Former Execs

[Anonymous Coward]

A couple of former Facebook execs have claimed in recent articles that Facebook deliberately designs it's UX to trigger dopamine responses in users in order to addict them to the product. What other companies deliberately manipulate their product to make it more addictive? Yup, cigarette companies.

Your product celebrates and re-inforces the insecurity, narcissism, vanity, etc. of it's users. Can you name one product -- other than maybe teenage girl's fashion magazines -- that is more psychologically destructive?

Yet, you only THINK that it MIGHT be harmful to society?

Holy fuck, Silicon Valley has gone full blown psycho. You're not even pretending to be human anymore.

Facebook gives everyone a voice.

[Anonymous Coward]

This whole comment by facebook is moot for 2 reasons: 1. Facebook gives everyone a voice. 2. The USA is a constitutional republic, and not a democracy. Simples....

Re:Translation: We can't guarantee Hillary will wi

[Rakarra]

Well that was easy. I like to put more thought into it, but to each his own I guess.

If you think Trump "speaks it like it is," then you're not putting much thought into it.