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The new management of the agencies want to review the social media policies. With the aim of installing Orwellian-style thought control practices† at every lev

The new management of the agencies want to review the social media policies. With the aim of installing Orwellian-style thought control practices† at every level, affecting every last publicity statement, blog post, and tweet. You forgot that part. † Based on what his press secretary (and other lackeys) attempted to have us believe about the size of the inaugural day crowds (and the millions of people who voted fraudulently in the past election) -- in addition to things Trump himself has said about climate change, and a whole bunch of other issues -- that's not hyperbole; that's quite literally what's happening.

jquery 10y ago
This is different than every Presidential transition of power, how? I don't see what's Orwellian about it. Presidents have always controlled the official department media their agencies put out.
- kafkaesq 10y ago
  This is different than every Presidential transition of power, how? It's the aims of the control, and the utter brazenness with which the new administration attempts to manipulate facts and reality in general that are different. There's never been an administration (well, maybe in the 19th century; but I mean, not since the dawn of modern journalistic reporting) that blatantly and transparently lied about such publicly known and immediately fact-checkable things as crowd sizes on inaugural day. I don't see what's Orwellian about it. This morning the press secretary asked you -- yes, you -- to not see anything wrong with the fact that President still believes that "millions of people voted illegally" in the last election. And that he has "studies and evidence" on which he bases that belief. You don't see anything Orwellian about that?
  - ColanR 10y ago
    Don't forget that he's press secretary for the one guy who actually made accurate polling assessments prior to the election. If your source on disproving the "millions of illegal votes" is one of the same sources that thought Hillary was going to win in a landslide, then you have nothing to say. I'm not going to say I agree there were illegal votes, but I am holding out for better evidence.
    - kafkaesq 10y ago
      Don't forget that he's press secretary for the one guy who actually made accurate polling assessments prior to the election. So if you met someone on a street corner who pointed at the sky, and told you "Hey look, it's orange with pink polka-dots" -- would you think to yourself, "Hmm, I'm tempted to be skeptical -- but then again, when I asked this guy for the time the other day, he gave a correct enough answer. So maybe he's right this time, too." If your source on disproving the "millions of illegal votes"... So are you suggesting that the "millions" claim stands until disproven? Is that really how you see things?
      - true_religion 10y ago
        If yesterday I thought the sky was going to be blue, everyone else swore the sky would be blue, and this lone fellow told me it'd be a blood red sky---and he was correct right down to the particular shade of crimson it would be, then yes I would take him a little more seriously. No one thought Trump would win. Even in the states he lost in, he lost be lesser margins than was predicted. Hiliary seemed to be inevitable---after all she is an actual politiclan, with real experience. The democractic machine is behind her, isn't it? She has the force of history behind her driving her to be the first female president. How can she lose? Then she lost rather dramatically. I looked at the election results and saw a sea of red from coast to coast, with Hilary doing well in high population areas but losing majority everywhere else.
        logandavis 10y ago
        You have completely missed the point of the comment to which you are responding. In kafkaesq's analogy, knowing the time does not really indicate good understanding of the color of the sky, and should not be considered as evidence of credibility about sky color claims. Similarly, being able to read polls well does not really indicate ability to predict voter fraud. They both have to do with voting. That's about it, as far as similarities go.
        bobwaycott 10y ago
        There is a rather huge expanse of land where that "sea of red" is very, very few people compared to the rest of the country. The color maps are silly and deceptive.
  - jquery 10y ago
    Fact-check: There is at least one study that support the President's beliefs on millions of people voting illegally. - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379414000973 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379414... There is a Harvard rebuttal to that study, but that doesn't change the fact there is a study supporting the President's position. The inauguration was the most-watched in history (person + tv + live-streaming), yet the "reality" I'm seeing in California is that Obama's was far more popular. Who is bending reality? It depends on the reality you're already pre-disposed to believe.
    - kafkaesq 10y ago
      There is at least one study that support the President's beliefs on millions of people voting illegally. ... There is a Harvard rebuttal to that study... This rebuttal, you mean? "This paper documents how low-level measurement error for survey questions generally agreed to be highly reliable can lead to large prediction errors in large sample surveys, such as the CCES. The example for this analysis is Richman, Chattha, and Earnest (2014), which presents a biased estimate of the rate at which non-citizens voted in recent elections. The results, we show, are completely accounted for by very low frequency measurement error; further, the likely percent of non-citizen voters in recent US elections is zero." ...but that doesn't change the fact there is a study supporting the President's position. Do you realize what you're saying, here? "The study has since been revealed to have been basically bullshit. But that doesn't change the fact it supports the President's position." It depends on the reality you're already pre-disposed to believe. If you're already that relativist about about basic events in recent history that were attended by hundreds of thousands in person -- and witnessed on television many many hundreds of millions, worldwide -- as to basically say, "How can ya really know? It all depends on what you're pre-disposed to believe" -- then I'm afraid there's not much I can do for you, pal.
      - jquery 10y ago
        I'm not an expert enough on the math to decide which study is accurate, the original or the rebuttal (nor did I read the original because it's behind a paywall). Nor, I doubt, is Trump. It's not an official government position that millions of illegal immigrants voted, it's Trump's personal opinion. Much like it was Obama's opinion that Trump would never be President (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FkIJEmOyoA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FkIJEmOyoA). Or that pulling out of Iraq and leaving a power vacuum wouldn't lead to the horrifying rise of ISIS and genocide (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/world/middleeast/isis-genocide-yazidi-un.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/world/middleeast/isis-gen...). I think Trump's opinion is on the more banal side of things and won't have any severe consequences if he's wrong. That's just my opinion.
flukus 10y ago
If you want Orwellian you should start at corporations doing the same with private accounts, not with government departments. Hell, twitter and facebook themselves have become quite orwelian lately, banning wrongthought.
- iainmerrick 10y ago
  Corporations aren't democracies.
  - flukus 10y ago
    Neither are government departments.
    - kafkaesq 10y ago
      But they aren't supposed to be unflinching propaganda machines in the style of Stalin, Goebbels, or the Kim Il Sung either. And yet, based on the blatant counterfactuals the President's lieutenants have offered in regard to crowd sizes and fraudulent voters -- and various things that Trump himself has said, since the start of his campaign -- that's precisely what we're up against.
      - flukus 10y ago
        > But they aren't supposed to be propaganda machines in the style of Stalin, Goebbels, or the Kim Il Sung either. If this was the goal then banning them from social media would be counter productive.
        kafkaesq 10y ago
        The departments weren't told to withdraw from social media permanently. They were just told to hold off for a few days until suitable Inner Party operatives could be installed.

jquery 10y ago

This is different than every Presidential transition of power, how? I don't see what's Orwellian about it. Presidents have always controlled the official department media their agencies put out.

kafkaesq 10y ago
This is different than every Presidential transition of power, how? It's the aims of the control, and the utter brazenness with which the new administration attempts to manipulate facts and reality in general that are different. There's never been an administration (well, maybe in the 19th century; but I mean, not since the dawn of modern journalistic reporting) that blatantly and transparently lied about such publicly known and immediately fact-checkable things as crowd sizes on inaugural day. I don't see what's Orwellian about it. This morning the press secretary asked you -- yes, you -- to not see anything wrong with the fact that President still believes that "millions of people voted illegally" in the last election. And that he has "studies and evidence" on which he bases that belief. You don't see anything Orwellian about that?
- ColanR 10y ago
  Don't forget that he's press secretary for the one guy who actually made accurate polling assessments prior to the election. If your source on disproving the "millions of illegal votes" is one of the same sources that thought Hillary was going to win in a landslide, then you have nothing to say. I'm not going to say I agree there were illegal votes, but I am holding out for better evidence.
  - kafkaesq 10y ago
    Don't forget that he's press secretary for the one guy who actually made accurate polling assessments prior to the election. So if you met someone on a street corner who pointed at the sky, and told you "Hey look, it's orange with pink polka-dots" -- would you think to yourself, "Hmm, I'm tempted to be skeptical -- but then again, when I asked this guy for the time the other day, he gave a correct enough answer. So maybe he's right this time, too." If your source on disproving the "millions of illegal votes"... So are you suggesting that the "millions" claim stands until disproven? Is that really how you see things?
    - true_religion 10y ago
      If yesterday I thought the sky was going to be blue, everyone else swore the sky would be blue, and this lone fellow told me it'd be a blood red sky---and he was correct right down to the particular shade of crimson it would be, then yes I would take him a little more seriously. No one thought Trump would win. Even in the states he lost in, he lost be lesser margins than was predicted. Hiliary seemed to be inevitable---after all she is an actual politiclan, with real experience. The democractic machine is behind her, isn't it? She has the force of history behind her driving her to be the first female president. How can she lose? Then she lost rather dramatically. I looked at the election results and saw a sea of red from coast to coast, with Hilary doing well in high population areas but losing majority everywhere else.
      - logandavis 10y ago
        You have completely missed the point of the comment to which you are responding. In kafkaesq's analogy, knowing the time does not really indicate good understanding of the color of the sky, and should not be considered as evidence of credibility about sky color claims. Similarly, being able to read polls well does not really indicate ability to predict voter fraud. They both have to do with voting. That's about it, as far as similarities go.
      - bobwaycott 10y ago
        There is a rather huge expanse of land where that "sea of red" is very, very few people compared to the rest of the country. The color maps are silly and deceptive.
- jquery 10y ago
  Fact-check: There is at least one study that support the President's beliefs on millions of people voting illegally. - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379414000973 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379414... There is a Harvard rebuttal to that study, but that doesn't change the fact there is a study supporting the President's position. The inauguration was the most-watched in history (person + tv + live-streaming), yet the "reality" I'm seeing in California is that Obama's was far more popular. Who is bending reality? It depends on the reality you're already pre-disposed to believe.
  - kafkaesq 10y ago
    There is at least one study that support the President's beliefs on millions of people voting illegally. ... There is a Harvard rebuttal to that study... This rebuttal, you mean? "This paper documents how low-level measurement error for survey questions generally agreed to be highly reliable can lead to large prediction errors in large sample surveys, such as the CCES. The example for this analysis is Richman, Chattha, and Earnest (2014), which presents a biased estimate of the rate at which non-citizens voted in recent elections. The results, we show, are completely accounted for by very low frequency measurement error; further, the likely percent of non-citizen voters in recent US elections is zero." ...but that doesn't change the fact there is a study supporting the President's position. Do you realize what you're saying, here? "The study has since been revealed to have been basically bullshit. But that doesn't change the fact it supports the President's position." It depends on the reality you're already pre-disposed to believe. If you're already that relativist about about basic events in recent history that were attended by hundreds of thousands in person -- and witnessed on television many many hundreds of millions, worldwide -- as to basically say, "How can ya really know? It all depends on what you're pre-disposed to believe" -- then I'm afraid there's not much I can do for you, pal.
    - jquery 10y ago
      I'm not an expert enough on the math to decide which study is accurate, the original or the rebuttal (nor did I read the original because it's behind a paywall). Nor, I doubt, is Trump. It's not an official government position that millions of illegal immigrants voted, it's Trump's personal opinion. Much like it was Obama's opinion that Trump would never be President (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FkIJEmOyoA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FkIJEmOyoA). Or that pulling out of Iraq and leaving a power vacuum wouldn't lead to the horrifying rise of ISIS and genocide (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/world/middleeast/isis-genocide-yazidi-un.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/world/middleeast/isis-gen...). I think Trump's opinion is on the more banal side of things and won't have any severe consequences if he's wrong. That's just my opinion.

flukus 10y ago

If you want Orwellian you should start at corporations doing the same with private accounts, not with government departments. Hell, twitter and facebook themselves have become quite orwelian lately, banning wrongthought.

iainmerrick 10y ago
Corporations aren't democracies.
- flukus 10y ago
  Neither are government departments.
  - kafkaesq 10y ago
    But they aren't supposed to be unflinching propaganda machines in the style of Stalin, Goebbels, or the Kim Il Sung either. And yet, based on the blatant counterfactuals the President's lieutenants have offered in regard to crowd sizes and fraudulent voters -- and various things that Trump himself has said, since the start of his campaign -- that's precisely what we're up against.
    - flukus 10y ago
      > But they aren't supposed to be propaganda machines in the style of Stalin, Goebbels, or the Kim Il Sung either. If this was the goal then banning them from social media would be counter productive.
      - kafkaesq 10y ago
        The departments weren't told to withdraw from social media permanently. They were just told to hold off for a few days until suitable Inner Party operatives could be installed.