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Facebook Will Open a 'War Room' Next Week To Monitor Election Interference (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Sheera Frankel and Mike Isaac [write from The New York Times]: "Sandwiched between Building 20 and Building 21 in the heart of Facebook's campus, an approximately 25-foot by 35-foot conference room is under construction. Thick cords of blue wiring hang from the ceiling, ready to be attached to window-size computer monitors on 16 desks. On one wall, a half dozen televisions will be tuned to CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and other major cable networks. A small paper sign with orange lettering taped to the glass door describes what's being built: "War Room."
Set to open next week, the conference room is in keeping with Facebook's nick-of-time approach to midterm election preparedness. (It introduced a "pilot program" for candidate account security on Monday.) It's a big project. Samidh Chakrabarti, who oversees elections and civic engagement, told the Times: "We see this as probably the biggest companywide reorientation since our shift from desktops to mobile phones." Of course, the effort extends beyond the new conference room. Chakrabarti showed the Times a new internal tool "that helps track information flowing across the social network in real time," helping to identify misinformation as it goes viral or a surge in the creation of new (and likely fake) accounts.
Set to open next week, the conference room is in keeping with Facebook's nick-of-time approach to midterm election preparedness. (It introduced a "pilot program" for candidate account security on Monday.) It's a big project. Samidh Chakrabarti, who oversees elections and civic engagement, told the Times: "We see this as probably the biggest companywide reorientation since our shift from desktops to mobile phones." Of course, the effort extends beyond the new conference room. Chakrabarti showed the Times a new internal tool "that helps track information flowing across the social network in real time," helping to identify misinformation as it goes viral or a surge in the creation of new (and likely fake) accounts.
A War Room to monitor election interference that doesn't go their way.
2012 election help for obama from Facebook: A Bold Model for our Tech infused Future. 2016 election generic 'help' for trump far less extensive than what Obama got and Hillary turned down: Dark tech invasion of privacy! Election manipulation! Birth of Fake News! Muh Russians!
"Sorry all those conservative posts got accidentally deleted on election night. There was a glitch in our AI that incorrectly flagged them as Russian bots. We promise this will be fixed in time for the next election. Maybe."
Facebook is a mega corporation, so odds are they're going to win the election either way. There's a few anti-corporation candidates, but not nearly enough that even something as tame as Liz Warren's current bill will pass (and Trump would just Veto it anyway). Basically, I don't think they have any particular agenda to push. They're not as left wing as everybody likes to make them out to be (they really only kicked Alex Jones off out of fear of a negligence lawsuit and they've left a lot of his hanger-ons alone).
OTOH if they keep ignoring election interference sooner or later somebody's gonna regulate. And if there's any sign of playing sides that'll hurt too. They've already got multiple Republicans talking about regulating or nationalizing them, and the Republicans are in power (and likely to continue to be). I suspect they're going to do everything in their power to shut both sides down from the kind of crap that happened in 2016.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
They want to make sure their interference is going smoothly
"If any Republican gets elected, we have failed and all your private photos get set to public".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Facebook VP: "The Majority Of Russian Ad Spend Happened AFTER The Election"
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/10/hard-questions-russian-ads-delivered-to-congress/
"many of these ads did not violate our content policies. That means that for most of them, if they had been run by authentic individuals, anywhere, they could have remained on the platform."
Shouldn't you stop foreigners from meddling in US social issues?
The right to speak out on global issues that cross borders is an important principle. Organizations such as UNICEF, Oxfam or religious organizations depend on the ability to communicate - and advertise - their views in a wide range of countries. While we may not always agree with the positions of those who would speak on issues here, we believe in their right to do so - just as we believe in the right of Americans to express opinions on issues in other countries.
- the ads were non-political in nature, and didn't feature or favour a political candidate
- 56% of the ads were run AFTER the 2016 US federal election
- 25% of the ads were never displayed to anyone due to Facebook's algorithms not finding them relevant to trending interests
- only 25% of the ads were geographically-targeted
- Facebook is not sure that the ads were part of an organized campaign
- Facebook is not sure that the accounts the ads were purchased with are associated with each other
- Facebook is not certain that the ads were purchased by Russians
- many of the ads were not purchased using Russia's currency
- huge numbers of actual political ads are bought and run on Facebook from all countries around the world, and that is normal and OK
- the "overwhelming majority" of ad-space purchases from Russia by Russians are normal and not suspicious in any way
So, after a year of investigations and debunked conspiracy / false claim after debunked conspiracy / false claim, the strongest argument for alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US federal election is $100K of non-political or partisan Facebook ads - more than half of which ran after the election, and a quarter of which never ran at all. That's telling.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I mean, social engineering used to be considered a part of hacking. And KGB and friends used to be very good at social engineering back then.
Ezekiel 23:20
"Butthurt", that;s so cute...Jimmy got a new catch phrase.
I actually don't care very much what Facebook does, anyone who spends a lot of time there or believes what they see there is patently a moron.
The ridiculous pretense of actually trying to be fair, and concerned over the integrity of the election process. It's the absolutely unashamed and apparently oblivious hypocrisy that makes me laugh.
The best manipulation is always the most innocuous. I mean, if you get too overt, you will get called out. So the fact that things seem superficially innocuous might not necessarily tilt the scales to either option.
Ezekiel 23:20
Facebook still just doesn't get it. The international campaign to sow discord in America using propaganda made to appear as if it started within America goes back to at least shortly after 9/11, has never stopped, and is always getting more sophisticated as they discover more of what works. It heats up a bit around elections, but most of its effect is gained through small, constant, long-term pushes. It cannot be fought on an election by election basis and isn't even all about elections. It is about slowly pushing the social structure of the nation into a more polarized form in order to break our ability to act in a unified way.
This is a slow-burning war that must be fought continuously, not at the last minute. The opinions have already been shaped, the false beliefs already set in stone. It will take years of continuous work to undo the damage.
Corinthians 11:1 Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.
There's a political party which caters to people who spend their readimg time on Facebook, and there is a party which caters to people who spend their reading time with the Washington Times or National Review.
To be clear, it is a CRIME for a foreign country to interfere in US elections. It does not matter if that country supports your candidate or not.
It's also a crime for agents in the US to do the bidding for that country without registering themselves as foreign agents.
It is also a crime for that candidate to do deals with that country, where he's to receive tens of millions of dollars to rescue his overleveraged hotel business.
Clear?
You can do your "Hannity for President" shit all you like, but Putin cannot do his "Trump for President because it suits Russia" shit.
All an indictment is, is an accusation from a prosecutor. Ever hear the phrase that they could "indict a ham sandwich"? Grand juries are under the complete control of prosecutors, and they could indict just about anyone for anything if they wanted to.
If Mueller had actual evidence of actual collusion, we would have seen it a year ago, instead of all this fucking around with Twitter trolls, Facebook ads placed after the election, and money laundering from ten years ago with zero connection to Trump (but plenty to Hillary's campaign manager, John Podesta). More to the point, Mueller has never had the FBI investigate the DNC severs, the alleged hacking of which is the entire basis of Russiagate. Which either means Mueller is far too incompetent to be trusted to run the office Keurig machine by himself, or this was never a real investigation, only a puppet show for rubes who learned nothing from the lies told about Iraq. One of those liars being one Robert Mueller.
Pick one.
Sounds like treating dispositive evidence as proof that the conspiracy theory is correct. Like how any time Trump is confrontational with Russia - and he's far more confrontational than Obama ever was - Russiagaters say that's just him trying to prove he's not a puppet.
A thought process common to cults everywhere.
Does that include a British spy named Steele and paid for by the Hillary campaign with cash laundered through the Perkins Coie law firm who bought a bunch or lies from Russian agents and then funneled that back into the FBI via agent Bruce Ohr whose wife is a democrat activist working at the firm Fusion GPS that Steele worked with on the "dossier"?
Or would that foreign interference that's such a major CRIME (as you put it) include millions of illegal aliens from places like Mexico who have been admitted to the country by Democrats like Obama, and specifically told by Obama that they would not be prosecuted if they voted while he was in office? Does it matter that most are being in some way hidden or sheltered by Democrats (an actual federal offense)? Every single vote by an illegal, or by the legal kid of an illegal, cancels out the vote of a US citizen who did NOT violate the laws and thus has far more impact than some stupid click bait ad on Facebook. Do illegal aliens marching in our streets and waving Mexican flags as they intimidate little old ladies and gents constitute Mexico interfering in our elections?
Just asking, because you folks on the left have some mighty funny rules about standards and consistency, and every time I try to keep up and adapt to the new rules you have demanded, the rules change again.
Nobody reads individual sentences from other books and then takes them (often out of context) as individual snacks of wisdom and truth.
Uh, yes they do. All they time. What is the modern news cycle but a collection of individual sentences (often out of context) from longer speeches or documents, then repackaged as eye catching headlines?
If you want to get more literary, I invite you to read the words of Shakespeare and find out just how many of his individual sentences have passed into common wisdom and truth .
I am a Statistician. One false move and you are a Statistic
I *Love* conspiracy charges.. They basically mean "We have 0 real evidence that you committed a crime, but were going to charge you anyways because you could have maybe *THOUGHT* about committing a crime" Thats what conspiracy is, thought crime. Think about it.
Muller indicted 17 Russians on no evidence. I am making that claim outright and have been looking for someone to prove me wrong. Muller IS a criminal abusing his position because of that.
He based it on the DNC server being hacked and emails sent to WikiLeaks. There is not a SINGLE expert who has seen the DNC server and will claim in court that Russia hacked the DNC servers. The FBI has not seen the DNC servers. There is absolutely ZERO evidence Russia hacked the DNC servers, PERIOD. A company named Crowdstrike, the only ones who have looked at the DNC servers said Russians hacked them. The began having legal trouble in Ukraine for lying about Russian hacking and have since RETRACTED their statements about Russia hacking the DNC server. Since they are the only ones who looked at it and aren't willing to say it now, that means NO ONE ON EARTH has evidence.
As for the indictments, Putin called Muller out. He offered to let the FBI question those people in Moscow. He offered to hand them over if Muller provided proof. Muller's answer was to refer it to counterintelligence, where a HEARING WILL NEVER HAPPEN. This is what a prosecutor does if he is sure he can't get a conviction.
Muller also earlier indicted a Russian company that didn't exist at the election time, a false accusation.
Muller also indicted another Russian company who came to fight the charge and Muller's response was to not let them see the evidence he was charging them with.
Muller IS the criminal here. It is called prosecutoral misconduct, and it IS A CRIME. Since the DOJ would be responsible for charging Muller, and they are corrupt, they will not likely charge him.
Wasn't necessarily interference in the election. It was just interference in general. It was propaganda, through meme's, 4chan, etc they stoked the fire. They targeted angry young men and told them it was all women,black,brown's fault. It just so happens that's trump's MO also.
I've got my artwork on facebook. I collect limited edition screenprint posters and that's how I communicate with the collecting community. I've got a few friends from high school/college on there. I ignore all the political bullshit for the most part. Sometimes I have to call somebody out when they're being a complete moron though.
Video of Obama saying the election CAN'T be hacked.
Sorry you are a snowflake and can't accept that the election wasn't hacked, even in Obama's words. Lets get a short history...
1980 - Regan won only because Bush flew on secret jet to France to rig the election
2000 - Bush only won because SCOTUS picked him, not because he got more electoral votes
2016 - Trump only won because of Russian interference.
Notice a pattern? When the DNC loses an election it can't POSSIBLY be because they suck. Its ALWAYS outside interference.
You are a perma-snowflake. Even your great hero says you are a liar.
As for wrecking the country, I hear your dog whistle of Trump is letting blacks get jobs and out of poverty and you need to get it back to "put them in their place". Yea, we know you are a bigot, you don't need to keep reminding us.
I really wish you folks wouldn't leave me with no option but conspiracy theories. I don't like conspiracy theories.
But ... well, if the "oh noes Russia" thing were a false flag operation to cover Facebook going all in in helping Democrats and suppressing dissent, how would things look any different?
The right to speak out on global issues that cross borders is an important principle. Organizations such as UNICEF, Oxfam or religious organizations depend on the ability to communicate - and advertise - their views in a wide range of countries. While we may not always agree with the positions of those who would speak on issues here, we believe in their right to do so - just as we believe in the right of Americans to express opinions on issues in other countries.
Precisely.
You know perfectly well that if in late October, say, some French group bought Facebook ads admonishing Americans to "stop being racist, take action, vote, etc. you know who we're talking about, wink wink" that FB would have not the slightest problem with it. Nor would the media or the permanent bureaucracy that is so worried about "foreign meddling".
Some foreign meddling is more equal than others.
http://www.isdglobal.org/wp-co...
Facebook hired this company, ISD, to identify, monitor, and analyze it's users based the extent to which they are associated with right-wing beliefs ("extremism").
They use algorithms to analyze the sentiment of a person's posts and flag them as an "extremist" (ie: some one who supports Donald Trump), and then target them with propaganda, including "trained experts" directly messaging them repeatedly to try to persuade them to believe otherwise.
Note how in this report they keep using the term "extremism" without ever defining it. This is the 'deep state'. This is their culture. They speak and think in newspeak, where everyone different than them is fundamentally wrong for reasons they can't define.
Another noteworthy term is "counter-speech". I.e.: stop using your freedom in a way that isn't good for us.
There's a lot, lot more in here that I don't have time to go over right now.
But this report should absolutely blow you away. The establishment/'deep state' is going totally crazy to quell the uprising Donald Trump threatens to foster.
This is an absolutely dire situation. You probably didn't make much of a stink at the mass surveillance revelations. Now look what you have. It's only going to get worse. Take the opportunity that Donald Trump presents to take up your voice and seek a peaceful solution to these assaults against your society and personal freedom, because civil war is around the corner.
My first thought was Bureau of Land Management?? How would that make anyone angry?
I have no reason to believe that Facebook, Google and many other outfits define 'election interference' as anything but 'not electing Democrats'.
Change my mind. No, 'you're stupid' and variations thereof are not cogent arguments. Use your mind to change mine.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I don't trust Facebook as far as I can throw it, and in something like this they have to be absolutely pristine about it -- and in the current socio-political climate that's almost impossible. If you take pro-Trump messages off because you trace them back to fake accounts held by foreign operatives, the Trump supporters will scream that it's 'censorship'; if you leave them in, the anti-Trump groups will claim they're not doing their job properly. It would be better overall if Facebook removed ALL political speech than to prune any part of it, but that won't work either. Overall I'd just as soon that Facebook closed it's doors and went away, it's cancerous all around and should just die.
"I don't care about my society being comprised of morons, they make me laugh"
Says the fucking moron
My first thought was Dr. Strangelove references (we already have one posted earlier). Then there was Reagan just after his inauguration he asked to see the War Room, was told there was none. So he created one.
mfwright@batnet.com
A communications corporation this large and influential that it could effect the national dialog to the point where this sort of precaution could ever be seen as needed, is also proof that allowing it to moderate and deplatform as they see fit is also a danger.
And people are still going to vote how they plan on. In my case it is vote against every incumbent.
Facebook is more of a threat to American democracy than Russia ever has been. Facebook has no business monitoring or censoring anything and we know damn well they're the last area you can expect to find any sort of objective moderation. This is nothing but facebook ensuring that their own political agenda is served and it represents a dangerous precedent if we allow them to dictate what speech should be allowed and what should be censored.
We are supposed to believe now that Facebook was merely the conduit of external forces and not attempting to pursue their own political agenda?
Bill Gates is a communist -- he's just more equal than the rest of us.
How to get a window sized monitor? Oh, we're going to monitor meddling, on facebook.
Really? Bunch of people will have big frickin' monitors and do facebook all day long. Talk about an easy job.
That's one of my big gripes with the political correctness crowd - using words like 'racism' differently. It's not that they never have a point, but that it's disingenuous to use the same word for a different analysis
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Russian election interference aimed at leftists like Black Lives Matter activists could get them to not vote Hillary (maybe stay home or vote for left wing third parties - I wonder to what extent Jill Stein was involved or if she was just a useful idiot)
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.