6 ms·

What Facebook Did to American Democracy

45 points by dankohn1 9y ago

humanrebar 9y ago
At the end of the day, individual citizens decided to show up at the polls and vote for candidates. The premise of this article seems to imply that sometimes when that happens, it's not fair. In particular, citizens are too ignorant or easily manipulated to be trusted to choose their own leaders. A core tenet of democracy is that the voters are capable of governing themselves. Or at least the popular vote is better than other alternatives. > The informational underpinnings of democracy have eroded, and no one has explained precisely how. I'd argue that the desire to make sure that the education and motivation of the populace is properly supervised is more dangerous to democracy than a giant pile of pizzagate spam.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  You're getting to the old split between "developmental" and "representative" democracy. American democracy has usually been the latter (Madison's Federalist Papers) with stretches of the former (Jackson, later populism). The dynamics aren't really new, it's that introduction of unrestrained information which is unprecedented and destabilizing.
- hsod 9y ago
  You state this as an absolute, but taken to it's conclusion it seems to be arguing that no one should attempt to influence the vote of anyone else. I see nothing undemocratic about examining the ways in which voters receive information and attempting to address deficiencies. Controversial statement: It's better for voters to believe true things than to believe false things.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    I'm arguing against the government doing things to make sure voters vote the "right" way. Reductio ad absurdum, my argument would turn into this: voters are always right. But that's simple enough to refute. Pick some examples of democratically elected leaders who ended up being terrible. Pick some Jim Crow laws enacted through the democratic process. I think it's more likely in the U.S., at least right now, that the government starts interfering in speech or elections in undemocratic ways than that the electorate would elect a tyrant. That being said, there are some provably false stories floating around out there. There should be a good case for revisiting American libel and slander laws, or at least revisiting how they are prosecuted and enforced. If the slanderer is a foreign power, Washington has a responsibility to judiciously ensure that doesn't happen again. But babysitting the American voter is a bad idea. If they can't be trusted, we've picked the wrong form of government. And while liberal republican democracy has its issues, it has proven better than the alternatives, at least the ones attempted so far
nocoder 9y ago
For how long will Americans blame FB for the rise of Trump? One he is democratically elected and two Americans have voted for him. Now dont argue about vote share, it does not matter as far as the way American electoral system works, its like talking about possession share in soccer when the winner is decided based on goals scored. The whole thing about Russia, the fact is the ground conditions & discontent amongst large population of Americans existed, it may have been fanned by Russia but it could have been simply done by any political party using ads, there is nothing ground breaking about it except the use of Russian money perhaps, most of it is marketing. Instead of acknowledging & working towards a more united society, (the U in USA), most media is just fanning further divisions by trying to sensationalize & scandalize every single thing. If so many of your fellow countrymen feel disenchanted enough to vote for a reality tv star, then the society needs deeper introspection. Coming to interference in election, America has done this & destroyed many countries, there is nothing scandalous if it is happening to USA. This is just another tactic employed by countries to get some benefits for themselves. IT might be morally incorrect, but just because it has probably happened to US does not make it something to scream about especially when US has done this probably the most. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_electoral_intervention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_electoral_intervention
- lr4444lr 9y ago
  As an American, I completely agree. So many of my compatriots are full of optimism, bravado, or even a sense of underserved privilege - all over the spectrum they're the same manifestation of the idea that we're "better" than other nations - but almost a year later we're still wallowing around in these melodramatics over what happened. The undeniable fact of the matter is that 42% of eligible voters did not cast a ballot last year. And presidential elections are our highest turnout years. People are getting angry about Facebook? Gimme a break.
  - ethbro 9y ago
    Conflating events isn't helpful. The following are independent of each other, so it's illogical to say something like "Trump won with populist support, therefore Facebook did not have an impact." - The Trump campaign mobilized sufficient support to be elected. - The Trump campaign demobilized Clinton's support. - This was the first "social media at critical mass" election. - Voter turnout was low, as usual in the US. - Conservative organizations appear to have harnessed targeted ads on social media more effectively than liberals. - Political and apolitical "news" businesses realized there was money to be made in sensationalist, false stories. - Foreign governments realized there were no prohibitions on using these levers to affect US (and other) elections. - Facebook appears to have been completely ignorant at the time of this impact. (Likely because, as the Atlantic article points out, their KPIs were truth-agnostic) Is "X won Trump the election?" unproductive? Yes, in the sense that it precludes further examination and the fact that there were many factors. But that doesn't mean that X isn't important in its own right and shouldn't be examined. A move from a limited oligarchy of old guard news sources to an explosion of anonymous, high-sharing-velocity, profit-driven sources is absolutely going to have an effect on democracy. And is important for that reason alone.
watwut 9y ago
It is much more comforting to blame Russia or Facebook for who won election in USA or general state of politics then to accept that most blame should go much closer. The reasons why majority of voters are disengaged have nothing to do with Russia. The reasons why people are skeptical of both parties in two party system have nothing to do with Russia too. It is not like USA would be a poor country with both Democrats and Republicans being peny-less helpless parties unable to get their version of story to news. We are still talking about the most powerful country with most powerful countries that take money from billionaires. Lately it seems that Russia is responsible for everything in America and there is Russian behind every tree. As much as comforting it might be, the real causes of problems are not Russia.
- Clubber 9y ago
  I agree with a lot of this. I've said before that whatever Russia did pales in comparison to what Limbaugh and Fox does every day. The Democrats didn't have a good candidate, obviously, and Americans were ready to shake things up. Trump just happened to be standing there with a shaker when it happened. Even if Trump doesn't get re-elected, the likelihood of electing another candidate that is an "outsider," is significantly high.
jister 9y ago
I am not American nor do I live/work in the US but every time I read articles from Western media that mentions Trump I am 100% sure that the "Russian" word will be mentioned somewhere in the article. For an outsider like myself the blaming on Russia is getting out of hand. Maybe Russia did something or NOT but I still haven't seen any evidence up to now. It's a shame that we are in the last quarter of the year and yet people there still haven't moved on.
- Tannic 9y ago
  Russia was them finding a way to cover their asses while continuing to push for war and intelligence funding. They lost because Hillary was even worse than Trump. She represented the utter moral bankruptcy of the Democratic party. She and Trump together represent the bankruptcy pf the entire electoral system. The continued full court press against free speech (as though media owned by six corporations should have a monopoly on myth-making) is truly fascistic and deeply disturbing, but I have hope that the disgust they continually generate with their delusional hubris will spawn fairer,more decentralized media. Our problem here is not right wing myths, it is capitalism and the emergent effects of the consolidation of power.
- StevePerkins 9y ago
  For decades now, there has been a significant chuck of the nation's fringe (10-20%) who simply CANNOT accept a member of the opposite political party as a legitimate President. All through the 90's, the talk radio fringe used the same argument that Bill Clinton's victory wasn't truly legitimate because he didn't win a majority of the popular vote. And they had a special prosecutor follow him around for his entire Presidency, pretty much on a fishing expedition (younger people might not remember this, but Ken Starr stumbled across the Monica Lewinsky thing years into the process). All through the 2000's, the fringe left rejected George W. Bush's legitimacy, because they felt that it was decided by a Supreme Court with a thin majority of Republican appointees. President Obama spent 8 years assuring people that he isn't a Muslim, and wasn't really born in Kenya. It sounds like parody, but roughly 1/3 of partisan Republicans seriously believe in this conspiracy theory (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/poll-persistent-partisan-divide-over-birther-question-n627446 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/poll-persiste...). Today, partisan Democrats just can't let go of the "Russia hacked the election!" conspiracy theory... even though, from an independant's perspective, they sound flatly insane. At BEST, someone with ties to Russia leaked some embarrassing emails from a criminally insecure mail server. If HRC hadn't been the worst Democratic nominee in decades, then it wouldn't have mattered regardless. I don't know what's going to happen with the next inevitable handover in 4-12 years. But it's a pretty safe bet that the next Democrat will be seen as "illegitimate" by roughly one-fifth to one-quarter of the nation as well. This is just the not-so-new normal.
throw2016 9y ago
It seems the country is not comfortable with diversity. There has been an insular and closely managed narrative by main stream press that is now confronted with true diversity of opinion. This confrontation with a whole array of opinions that are not in the mainstream is throwing people off their comfort zone and has created an unreal hysteria and panic about bogeymen.
simonsarris 9y ago
The only(?) good thing to come from the Trump election is that more people are slowly realizing that democracy isn't all its cracked up to be, from a systems view. All systems will eventually be gamed, evolution knows this very well. The only surprise here is that in this iteration of democracy the obviousness took so long. Plenty of other nations have known it for their whole democratic history. The Greeks knew it forever ago. Aristotle: > It is accepted as democratic when public offices are allocated by lot; and as oligarchic when they are filled by election. Facebook didn't do so much as it allowed more of the same and slightly revealed just how much manipulation gets attempted. If you like modern US democracy, you like the idea of everyone, no matter how stupid or easily manipulated, having a vote. You can't complain about it only when it doesn't go your way. You cannot just blame Facebook. It's not like this was the first time the two teams tried to buy an election. Look at the 2012 figures for campaign spending (per OpenSecrets): 2012 OVERALL SPENDING BLUE TEAM $1,144,965,831 RED TEAM $1,254,323,304 A couple billion spent sound like they were trying their hardest to "do something" to American Democracy.
- leereeves 9y ago
  There's far more manipulation and deception coming from the establishment media. For example, how many people heard that Trump removed two countries from the travel ban list (Iraq and Sudan)? The media practically ignored that. Ignoring events like that, which would show Trump in a more reasonable light, is a form of deception: a lie by omission.
  - simonsarris 9y ago
    Yeah, most established media has been shameful lately. From one angle it's hard to blame them, since they are largely just trying to post stories that they know their current subscriber base wants to hear. This is even true of the NYT. There was a great comment chain on HN about it a while back (comparing the coverage from stories vs looking at what their linked sources said), but I can't find it. It was similar to coverage like this: https://randomcriticalanalysis.wordpress.com/2016/05/09/my-response-to-the-nytimes-article-on-school-districts-test-scores-and-income/ https://randomcriticalanalysis.wordpress.com/2016/05/09/my-r...
jokoon 9y ago
I live in france, and a friend who did not use her real name on facebook was flagged and asked to provide her id card to prove her identity. I mean there are not that many structures in the world, not to mention international ones, that can do such things (or should). We even did a little research, and apparently if she did provide a photoshopped version of her id card, it could end up in a tribunal (the mere act of falsifying false documents). Meanwhile we live in france and an american private company can ask for such documents, it feels a little odd. I mean facebook can now justify asking users for their real identity paperwork to fight against bogus accounts.
Udik 9y ago
Modern democracies are always an interplay between mass media and electorate. The schema is roughly circular: people in power => media => voters => people in power The Facebook problem (and more generally the Internet problem) is that it vastly reduces the control that people in power have over the information consumed by the voters. Which could be a good thing in some cases, a very bad thing in others, as the powerful are usually also a highly educated elite that is capable of steering public opinion towards better choices. However, I also agree with others when they say that blaming Facebook for Trump's election is an exceedingly self-absolving way of dealing with the problem of a very unsatisfied, poorly educated electorate. And the risk now is that a global, pervasive censorship will be applied by Internet giants to please the powerful elites of their home country.
- Clubber 9y ago
  >that blaming Facebook for Trump's election is an exceedingly self-absolving way of dealing with the problem of a very unsatisfied, poorly educated electorate. I'm not sure poorly educated is the right term, but they are definitely poor financially across the vast majority of the US. I hesitate to say poorly educated because wading through the bullshit of politics isn't taught in high school and it takes years of getting burned before you realize just how much bullshit there is. I mean when you want to learn about something, you go to a source or two and learn about it. With politics, your source is the news, and there are really no consistent good sources that are consistent over decades. Also, the nature of politics is highly subjective.
  - Udik 9y ago
    > I hesitate to say poorly educated because wading through the bullshit of politics isn't taught in high school and it takes years of getting burned before you realize just how much bullshit there is. I didn't mean "poorly educated" in a derogatory way. Poor education can be the result of many factors, among which individual choice is probably the least relevant. The quality of education is influenced by family wealth, and on a bigger scale by political choices and a certain cultural attitude (I have long had the intuitive idea, which might be completely wrong, that USA's cult of freedom entails a rejection of the value of a common basic educational standard).
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Melk 9y ago
What's up with all the angry comments here? The article is about the influence of social media. People here take it as an assault on Trump supporters. Relax.
bloaf 9y ago
People not viewing the information we want them to view? Why not make your good information mandatory, and prohibit the bad information! Facebook didn't do anything to democracy; the electorate has always been mostly simple salt-of-the-earth, common-clay people [1]. The kind of people who've been swayed by yellow journalism before, and would eagerly spread completely fabricated rumors about candidates amongst themselves. The article also rings hollow when talking about how "no one could have seen this coming" since evidently Russia, the Trump campaign, and Beitbart (and, honorable mention, Scott Adams? [2]) had all managed to see it coming. Instead, I suspect the author is simply bitter about the fact that Clinton was unable to buy as the same kind of impressions as Trump, despite spending twice as much. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHJbSvidohg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHJbSvidohg [2] http://blog.dilbert.com/post/161777338226/russia-hacked-our-election-so-what http://blog.dilbert.com/post/161777338226/russia-hacked-our-...
Simulacra 9y ago
The worst is yet to come, just wait till Zuck runs for president.
chronid 9y ago
Wasn't also the Obama campaign helped (in 2008 and 2012) by massive social media/web presence? I remember articles of newspapers writing fondly of how "innovative" it was and "transformative". It's amusing how quickly and easily tables and narratives turn.

45 points by dankohn1 9y ago

At the end of the day, individual citizens decided to show up at the polls and vote for candidates. The premise of this article seems to imply that sometimes when that happens, it's not fair. In particular, citizens are too ignorant or easily manipulated to be trusted to choose their own leaders. A core tenet of democracy is that the voters are capable of governing themselves. Or at least the popular vote is better than other alternatives. > The informational underpinnings of democracy have eroded, and no one has explained precisely how. I'd argue that the desire to make sure that the education and motivation of the populace is properly supervised is more dangerous to democracy than a giant pile of pizzagate spam.

aaron-lebo 9y ago
You're getting to the old split between "developmental" and "representative" democracy. American democracy has usually been the latter (Madison's Federalist Papers) with stretches of the former (Jackson, later populism). The dynamics aren't really new, it's that introduction of unrestrained information which is unprecedented and destabilizing.
hsod 9y ago
You state this as an absolute, but taken to it's conclusion it seems to be arguing that no one should attempt to influence the vote of anyone else. I see nothing undemocratic about examining the ways in which voters receive information and attempting to address deficiencies. Controversial statement: It's better for voters to believe true things than to believe false things.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  I'm arguing against the government doing things to make sure voters vote the "right" way. Reductio ad absurdum, my argument would turn into this: voters are always right. But that's simple enough to refute. Pick some examples of democratically elected leaders who ended up being terrible. Pick some Jim Crow laws enacted through the democratic process. I think it's more likely in the U.S., at least right now, that the government starts interfering in speech or elections in undemocratic ways than that the electorate would elect a tyrant. That being said, there are some provably false stories floating around out there. There should be a good case for revisiting American libel and slander laws, or at least revisiting how they are prosecuted and enforced. If the slanderer is a foreign power, Washington has a responsibility to judiciously ensure that doesn't happen again. But babysitting the American voter is a bad idea. If they can't be trusted, we've picked the wrong form of government. And while liberal republican democracy has its issues, it has proven better than the alternatives, at least the ones attempted so far

nocoder 9y ago

For how long will Americans blame FB for the rise of Trump? One he is democratically elected and two Americans have voted for him. Now dont argue about vote share, it does not matter as far as the way American electoral system works, its like talking about possession share in soccer when the winner is decided based on goals scored. The whole thing about Russia, the fact is the ground conditions & discontent amongst large population of Americans existed, it may have been fanned by Russia but it could have been simply done by any political party using ads, there is nothing ground breaking about it except the use of Russian money perhaps, most of it is marketing. Instead of acknowledging & working towards a more united society, (the U in USA), most media is just fanning further divisions by trying to sensationalize & scandalize every single thing. If so many of your fellow countrymen feel disenchanted enough to vote for a reality tv star, then the society needs deeper introspection. Coming to interference in election, America has done this & destroyed many countries, there is nothing scandalous if it is happening to USA. This is just another tactic employed by countries to get some benefits for themselves. IT might be morally incorrect, but just because it has probably happened to US does not make it something to scream about especially when US has done this probably the most. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_electoral_intervention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_electoral_intervention

lr4444lr 9y ago
As an American, I completely agree. So many of my compatriots are full of optimism, bravado, or even a sense of underserved privilege - all over the spectrum they're the same manifestation of the idea that we're "better" than other nations - but almost a year later we're still wallowing around in these melodramatics over what happened. The undeniable fact of the matter is that 42% of eligible voters did not cast a ballot last year. And presidential elections are our highest turnout years. People are getting angry about Facebook? Gimme a break.
- ethbro 9y ago
  Conflating events isn't helpful. The following are independent of each other, so it's illogical to say something like "Trump won with populist support, therefore Facebook did not have an impact." - The Trump campaign mobilized sufficient support to be elected. - The Trump campaign demobilized Clinton's support. - This was the first "social media at critical mass" election. - Voter turnout was low, as usual in the US. - Conservative organizations appear to have harnessed targeted ads on social media more effectively than liberals. - Political and apolitical "news" businesses realized there was money to be made in sensationalist, false stories. - Foreign governments realized there were no prohibitions on using these levers to affect US (and other) elections. - Facebook appears to have been completely ignorant at the time of this impact. (Likely because, as the Atlantic article points out, their KPIs were truth-agnostic) Is "X won Trump the election?" unproductive? Yes, in the sense that it precludes further examination and the fact that there were many factors. But that doesn't mean that X isn't important in its own right and shouldn't be examined. A move from a limited oligarchy of old guard news sources to an explosion of anonymous, high-sharing-velocity, profit-driven sources is absolutely going to have an effect on democracy. And is important for that reason alone.

watwut 9y ago

It is much more comforting to blame Russia or Facebook for who won election in USA or general state of politics then to accept that most blame should go much closer. The reasons why majority of voters are disengaged have nothing to do with Russia. The reasons why people are skeptical of both parties in two party system have nothing to do with Russia too. It is not like USA would be a poor country with both Democrats and Republicans being peny-less helpless parties unable to get their version of story to news. We are still talking about the most powerful country with most powerful countries that take money from billionaires. Lately it seems that Russia is responsible for everything in America and there is Russian behind every tree. As much as comforting it might be, the real causes of problems are not Russia.

Clubber 9y ago
I agree with a lot of this. I've said before that whatever Russia did pales in comparison to what Limbaugh and Fox does every day. The Democrats didn't have a good candidate, obviously, and Americans were ready to shake things up. Trump just happened to be standing there with a shaker when it happened. Even if Trump doesn't get re-elected, the likelihood of electing another candidate that is an "outsider," is significantly high.

jister 9y ago

I am not American nor do I live/work in the US but every time I read articles from Western media that mentions Trump I am 100% sure that the "Russian" word will be mentioned somewhere in the article. For an outsider like myself the blaming on Russia is getting out of hand. Maybe Russia did something or NOT but I still haven't seen any evidence up to now. It's a shame that we are in the last quarter of the year and yet people there still haven't moved on.

Tannic 9y ago
Russia was them finding a way to cover their asses while continuing to push for war and intelligence funding. They lost because Hillary was even worse than Trump. She represented the utter moral bankruptcy of the Democratic party. She and Trump together represent the bankruptcy pf the entire electoral system. The continued full court press against free speech (as though media owned by six corporations should have a monopoly on myth-making) is truly fascistic and deeply disturbing, but I have hope that the disgust they continually generate with their delusional hubris will spawn fairer,more decentralized media. Our problem here is not right wing myths, it is capitalism and the emergent effects of the consolidation of power.
StevePerkins 9y ago
For decades now, there has been a significant chuck of the nation's fringe (10-20%) who simply CANNOT accept a member of the opposite political party as a legitimate President. All through the 90's, the talk radio fringe used the same argument that Bill Clinton's victory wasn't truly legitimate because he didn't win a majority of the popular vote. And they had a special prosecutor follow him around for his entire Presidency, pretty much on a fishing expedition (younger people might not remember this, but Ken Starr stumbled across the Monica Lewinsky thing years into the process). All through the 2000's, the fringe left rejected George W. Bush's legitimacy, because they felt that it was decided by a Supreme Court with a thin majority of Republican appointees. President Obama spent 8 years assuring people that he isn't a Muslim, and wasn't really born in Kenya. It sounds like parody, but roughly 1/3 of partisan Republicans seriously believe in this conspiracy theory (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/poll-persistent-partisan-divide-over-birther-question-n627446 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/poll-persiste...). Today, partisan Democrats just can't let go of the "Russia hacked the election!" conspiracy theory... even though, from an independant's perspective, they sound flatly insane. At BEST, someone with ties to Russia leaked some embarrassing emails from a criminally insecure mail server. If HRC hadn't been the worst Democratic nominee in decades, then it wouldn't have mattered regardless. I don't know what's going to happen with the next inevitable handover in 4-12 years. But it's a pretty safe bet that the next Democrat will be seen as "illegitimate" by roughly one-fifth to one-quarter of the nation as well. This is just the not-so-new normal.

throw2016 9y ago

It seems the country is not comfortable with diversity. There has been an insular and closely managed narrative by main stream press that is now confronted with true diversity of opinion. This confrontation with a whole array of opinions that are not in the mainstream is throwing people off their comfort zone and has created an unreal hysteria and panic about bogeymen.

simonsarris 9y ago

The only(?) good thing to come from the Trump election is that more people are slowly realizing that democracy isn't all its cracked up to be, from a systems view. All systems will eventually be gamed, evolution knows this very well. The only surprise here is that in this iteration of democracy the obviousness took so long. Plenty of other nations have known it for their whole democratic history. The Greeks knew it forever ago. Aristotle: > It is accepted as democratic when public offices are allocated by lot; and as oligarchic when they are filled by election. Facebook didn't do so much as it allowed more of the same and slightly revealed just how much manipulation gets attempted. If you like modern US democracy, you like the idea of everyone, no matter how stupid or easily manipulated, having a vote. You can't complain about it only when it doesn't go your way. You cannot just blame Facebook. It's not like this was the first time the two teams tried to buy an election. Look at the 2012 figures for campaign spending (per OpenSecrets): 2012 OVERALL SPENDING BLUE TEAM $1,144,965,831 RED TEAM $1,254,323,304 A couple billion spent sound like they were trying their hardest to "do something" to American Democracy.

leereeves 9y ago
There's far more manipulation and deception coming from the establishment media. For example, how many people heard that Trump removed two countries from the travel ban list (Iraq and Sudan)? The media practically ignored that. Ignoring events like that, which would show Trump in a more reasonable light, is a form of deception: a lie by omission.
- simonsarris 9y ago
  Yeah, most established media has been shameful lately. From one angle it's hard to blame them, since they are largely just trying to post stories that they know their current subscriber base wants to hear. This is even true of the NYT. There was a great comment chain on HN about it a while back (comparing the coverage from stories vs looking at what their linked sources said), but I can't find it. It was similar to coverage like this: https://randomcriticalanalysis.wordpress.com/2016/05/09/my-response-to-the-nytimes-article-on-school-districts-test-scores-and-income/ https://randomcriticalanalysis.wordpress.com/2016/05/09/my-r...

jokoon 9y ago

I live in france, and a friend who did not use her real name on facebook was flagged and asked to provide her id card to prove her identity. I mean there are not that many structures in the world, not to mention international ones, that can do such things (or should). We even did a little research, and apparently if she did provide a photoshopped version of her id card, it could end up in a tribunal (the mere act of falsifying false documents). Meanwhile we live in france and an american private company can ask for such documents, it feels a little odd. I mean facebook can now justify asking users for their real identity paperwork to fight against bogus accounts.

Udik 9y ago

Modern democracies are always an interplay between mass media and electorate. The schema is roughly circular: people in power => media => voters => people in power The Facebook problem (and more generally the Internet problem) is that it vastly reduces the control that people in power have over the information consumed by the voters. Which could be a good thing in some cases, a very bad thing in others, as the powerful are usually also a highly educated elite that is capable of steering public opinion towards better choices. However, I also agree with others when they say that blaming Facebook for Trump's election is an exceedingly self-absolving way of dealing with the problem of a very unsatisfied, poorly educated electorate. And the risk now is that a global, pervasive censorship will be applied by Internet giants to please the powerful elites of their home country.

Clubber 9y ago
>that blaming Facebook for Trump's election is an exceedingly self-absolving way of dealing with the problem of a very unsatisfied, poorly educated electorate. I'm not sure poorly educated is the right term, but they are definitely poor financially across the vast majority of the US. I hesitate to say poorly educated because wading through the bullshit of politics isn't taught in high school and it takes years of getting burned before you realize just how much bullshit there is. I mean when you want to learn about something, you go to a source or two and learn about it. With politics, your source is the news, and there are really no consistent good sources that are consistent over decades. Also, the nature of politics is highly subjective.
- Udik 9y ago
  > I hesitate to say poorly educated because wading through the bullshit of politics isn't taught in high school and it takes years of getting burned before you realize just how much bullshit there is. I didn't mean "poorly educated" in a derogatory way. Poor education can be the result of many factors, among which individual choice is probably the least relevant. The quality of education is influenced by family wealth, and on a bigger scale by political choices and a certain cultural attitude (I have long had the intuitive idea, which might be completely wrong, that USA's cult of freedom entails a rejection of the value of a common basic educational standard).

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Melk 9y ago

What's up with all the angry comments here? The article is about the influence of social media. People here take it as an assault on Trump supporters. Relax.

bloaf 9y ago

People not viewing the information we want them to view? Why not make your good information mandatory, and prohibit the bad information! Facebook didn't do anything to democracy; the electorate has always been mostly simple salt-of-the-earth, common-clay people [1]. The kind of people who've been swayed by yellow journalism before, and would eagerly spread completely fabricated rumors about candidates amongst themselves. The article also rings hollow when talking about how "no one could have seen this coming" since evidently Russia, the Trump campaign, and Beitbart (and, honorable mention, Scott Adams? [2]) had all managed to see it coming. Instead, I suspect the author is simply bitter about the fact that Clinton was unable to buy as the same kind of impressions as Trump, despite spending twice as much. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHJbSvidohg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHJbSvidohg [2] http://blog.dilbert.com/post/161777338226/russia-hacked-our-election-so-what http://blog.dilbert.com/post/161777338226/russia-hacked-our-...

Simulacra 9y ago

The worst is yet to come, just wait till Zuck runs for president.

chronid 9y ago

Wasn't also the Obama campaign helped (in 2008 and 2012) by massive social media/web presence? I remember articles of newspapers writing fondly of how "innovative" it was and "transformative". It's amusing how quickly and easily tables and narratives turn.