***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[IATT]

 

[DLF]

god bless donald

 

[Methodical Management]

You can say that one pundit, like Chuck Todd, is less powerful than a massive platform like Facebook, that’d be correct. If we compared all of legacy media to Facebook though, I’d say that legacy media has done more damage.

All of those outlets use Facebook.

We're also seeing the emergence of new, more extreme outlets (absent the sensible content regulations, like the fairness doctrine, enabled by the reliance of TV and radio on limited public spectra) and the propagation of misinformation so harmful that nobody with a federal tax id would dare disseminate it directly - because the only thing their shareholders fear more than a Black planet is a class action suit.

The point I am making is that Facebook is just a part of a whole constellation of cruelty, meanness, atomization, late capitalism and general rot just oozing out of every nearly every major and consequential institution in American life.

1. No one was arguing that Facebook stood alone in this regard.

2. This comes across like saying, in 2016, "It's hard for me to get too worked up about Donald Trump. A lot of people expressed the same prejudices he did. I think the mainstream politicians who've actually hurt people with their racism and sexism hate him because he doesn't bow to them or respect them as kingmakers."

The conservative politics I used to have are, to my present self, radical and horrible and yet those views, I used to have, are totally mainstream in the halls of power and within the discourse. In some cases, my former worldview is, dare I say, hegemonic, especially when it comes to economics. The fact that a once in century pandemic cannot shake the political and media establishment out of its neoliberal mindset, even temporarily, shows me how diseased our institutions really are.

It’s Not Just Trump: COVID-19 Is The Test That Conservatism Was Built To Fail

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. Nearly nine months into this COVID crisis, the virus appears to be raging completely out of control in the United States.

talkingpointsmemo.com

I think my main objection to the Atlantic article you posted is posted is not that it considers Facebook bad, it is bad. My main object is calling it a Doomsday Machine. I’d consider climate change, which was created by business and political elites with little push back from the MSM, to be the cause of world wide doom.

The awful truth is that we inherited a world full of doomsday devices: nuclear war, climate change, pandemic, Skynet... take your pick.

We've already seen how Facebook and Youtube are handling a pandemic.

Spoiler

It hasn't gone great.

I'd hate to see how we'd fare with an even more lethal outbreak.
They'll not only host dangerous views - they will promote them. After all, preppers need their baked beans and biocidal maniacs buy sneakers, too.

We mustn't show these people anything that could burst their bubble, because that might cause them to sign off. We need them good and outraged so they can share the latest "George Soros made me impotent" story from The Daily Napoleon with all their hunting buddies and sell more Super Alpha Warrior Dehydrated Moose Urine endorsed by the apoplectic bald man du jour.


LaFrance does not invoke "the Doomsday Machine" to declare Facebook the "ultimate weapon." Rather, she draws parallels between the device and Facebook due to their scale and unfeeling autonomy (emphasis mine):

The doomsday machine was never supposed to exist. It was meant to be a thought experiment that went like this: Imagine a device built with the sole purpose of destroying all human life. Now suppose that machine is buried deep underground, but connected to a computer, which is in turn hooked up to sensors in cities and towns across the United States.

The sensors are designed to sniff out signs of the impending apocalypse—not to prevent the end of the world, but to complete it. If radiation levels suggest nuclear explosions in, say, three American cities simultaneously, the sensors notify the Doomsday Machine, which is programmed to detonate several nuclear warheads in response. At that point, there is no going back. The fission chain reaction that produces an atomic explosion is initiated enough times over to extinguish all life on Earth. There is a terrible flash of light, a great booming sound, then a sustained roar. We have a word for the scale of destruction that the Doomsday Machine would unleash: megadeath.

Nobody is pining for megadeath. But megadeath is not the only thing that makes the Doomsday Machine petrifying. The real terror is in its autonomy, this idea that it would be programmed to detect a series of environmental inputs, then to act, without human interference."

If the conventional media throws rocks and then hides their hands, Facebook has built an omnidirectional Gatling gun that does nothing but fire rocks 24 hours per day. When anyone complains about a broken window or, say, Myanmar, Facebook shrugs.
They weren't the ones inciting violence. Facebook is just a tool! It's like the phone company! If a Neo Nazi uses the telephone to plan a bombing, we don't blame C&P Bell, do we? But Facebook isn't Whatsapp - at least, not exclusively - it's not a dumb pipe that transports information from sender to receiver. Facebook takes, from each, according to their neediness/privacy settings, and gives, to each, according to its algorithms. No two users share the same experience - even if they have identical "friends" lists. Facebook doesn't just deliver - it promotes. It suggests. Even more troubling, its goal is to predict and even actuate user behavior for the benefit of the company and its sponsors.

We don't blame the post office for facilitating the delivery of hate mail contained in a sealed envelope. If, however, the Post Office decided, of its own accord, to send you copy of The Daily Stormer because they noticed that you've been getting a lot of packages from Bass Outdoor Shop, or they sent you a flier for Bill Burr's upcoming comedy show because they just delivered a Real Doll and a copy of CyberPunk 2077 to your house, they'd be a lot less "blameless" for rising hate crimes.

That is Facebook. It is not, itself, the "doomsday weapon"; it is the doomsday machine from which the doomsday weapons are launched.

- All that said, I see your point that if you can have some good voices mixed in with the slew of bad voices, you are mitigating the worst effects of the bad voices. In that sense, the MSM is less bad compared to Facebook or YouTube or any other site like that. If the internet were more like Niketalk, things would be much better.

A far more responsible algorithm would see that a user is clicking on “SJW gets owned” and tag it as interested in public affairs and it’d throw in some suggested videos where someone explains the basics of women’s studies and queer studies. If you watch some Bill Burr videos, you’d get some Dave Chappell in your suggested videos. We have the technological capacity to put the best arguments in front of the mass of people and do it instantaneously and we ought to do so.

I appreciate the kind words about our community, and the way that our relative lack of technical sophistication offers an actual benefit as opposed to the imagined "warm tones" of vinyl.

"I had to find my own content" is fast becoming the "uphill both ways in the snow" ordeal for Millennials. At this stage, however, automated content discovery is not a convenience without a cost.


We can easily imagine the opposition to the sort of ethical algorithm you describe, as that's essentially been the response to every single half-measure attempted by social media companies to date. Anything that might drive less traffic to Manchild Today is greeted with outraged cries of anti-conservative bias. Time and time again, Facebook et al. have proven eminently fearful of and receptive to those claims.

Were it not for their monopolistic ambitions, this would be less of an issue. No one social media network should aspire to be "all things to all people." And yet, it remains the ambition of these firms to monopolize online expression. It is at this point, and only this point, that they can portray basic standards as a "free speech issue."

We deserve services that both reflect our values and protect our values.




As this is a rather gloomy discussion, I've also decided, apropos of nothing, to update my flow chart from the previous post to include a third YouTube pathway:

 

[tomdiginson]

Probably one of those idiot types that just chant "USA USA USA" for everything.

 

[junglejim]

Speaking of:

SANTA IS ANTIFA? ****

 

[whywesteppin]

kill Santa to own the libs

 

[dmbrhs]

Wait, Lou Dobbs let someone with the last name "Perez" provide commentary on his show?

 

[NToweG]

Both of em made a joke of something as simple as wearing a mask

Fake a55 needles

 

[dinyc3st]

I sense hella shade from the Press God

 

[gry60]

"Don't call me stupid, call me American"

Maybe sentences like "I'm an American" or "this is America" work like incantations for the initiated.

It’s Not Just Trump: COVID-19 Is The Test That Conservatism Was Built To Fail This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. Nearly nine months into this COVID crisis,... talkingpointsmemo.com

From the discussion forum about this article:

Has any political Conservative ever worked for a private corporation? There is nothing so complicated and bureaucratic and burdensome than the paperwork involved in making even small changes in procedure in large corporations.

To say that government stands in the way of free enterprise is wholly ridiculous. Large numbers of people will always tend to gravitate toward more bureaucratic processes because that’s the only way to regulate the multitude of opposing viewpoints and efforts. Without this ‘check’, no corporation, no government, would be able to choose the best alternatives to serve the greater purpose, whether that purpose is to ensure equal rights or to reward shareholders.

This is very true, and unfortunately, conservative-minded folks in the corporate world have a tendency to encourage going around those checks and blame somebody else when **** hits the fan.

It's mind boggling how many of them will complain about "bureaucracy" slowing down the ability to complete a process, only to try and refer back to the data gathered by the bureaucracy during the execution of the process many years after the fact. I don't understand why they don't understand the purpose of keeping track of **** even though they use it. Of course, when the corporation is successful, they will praise the CEO for their "vision" instead of the hundreds/thousands of notetakers who took the time to document every little thing and put together the best solution.

Where is the disconnect?

 

[gry60]

Speaking of:

On my way to work, I usually drive past a house that had huge Trump/GOP signs in November. It's only fitting that this year, their yard Christmas decorations included the Grinch. In fact, it's the most prominent piece of their setup.

Spiteful people, man...

 

[dinyc3st]

On my way to work, I usually drive past a house that had huge Trump/GOP signs in November. It's only fitting that this year, their yard Christmas decorations included the Grinch. In fact, it's the most prominent piece of their setup.

Spiteful people, man...

I don't wanna be that guy but I feel like Racism caused a lot more ignorance than usual. And that's all I'm seeing from the GOP. Systematic af

 

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[KHUFU]

Yet another reason why you SHOULD defund the police.

 

[IATT]

Really hope we find out whatever Russia got on this dude one day

 

[biggie62]

 

[gry60]

I don't wanna be that guy but I feel like Racism caused a lot more ignorance than usual. And that's all I'm seeing from the GOP. Systematic af

"YoU wERe SuPPosEd tO StOp tHE BlaCks fRoM VOtING, NoT mY CHrisTmAs GiFtS!!!!!!!1!1!1!1!"

 

[IATT]

Can’t wait til this dude now gets fired

 

[mplsdunk]

Should have gave him a shot of bleach honestly. Dr had one job...

 

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[IATT]

dwalk31 this was when you were still front line

 

[Sharpshoeter13]

“Leader McConnell”

too Klans-y for my liking