4 ms·

People have been openly complaining about sexual impropriety in Hollywood for decades. There were comedic references to Harvey Weinstein [1] and Kevin Spacey [

People have been openly complaining about sexual impropriety in Hollywood for decades. There were comedic references to Harvey Weinstein [1] and Kevin Spacey [2] in shows like 30 Rock and Family Guy. Suddenly people started caring. What changed was the cultural moment of the 2016 election. Specifically with Cambridge Analytica and Facebook, the Mueller investigation may have taken a turn towards them in recent months. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ceNfXrccbQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ceNfXrccbQ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4dHf6jnwaU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4dHf6jnwaU

CiPHPerCoder 9y ago
> Suddenly people started caring. Yes, but why? And why now, rather than years/decades ago? There's another layer to these stories that I'm very interested in.
- ionforce 9y ago
  Probably a critical mass. It's just like technological adoption: there's an early adopters group and then the masses come in waves.
  - TAForObvReasons 9y ago
    A bunch of individual scattered movements were under attack at once. Women's movements were crushed by this overt misogynist who bragged about sexual harassment. Minority movements were crushed by the overt racist who started his campaign on the idea that the overwhelming majority of Mexican-Americans were murderers and rapists. Many people believed that America as a whole would reject the regressiveness of Trump. When that didn't happen, it was a wake-up call for a bunch of different groups. Post-election, we had the white nationalist rally and death at Charlottesville, which was eerily similar to Nazi rallies.
    - DoreenMichele 9y ago
      What you are saying doesn't really add up. If the environment is really that hostile because Trump was elected, it should not be fostering movements like #MeToo. It should have crushed dissent. A wake up call doesn't lead to something like that. There has to be some positive factor being overlooked.
      - brandall10 9y ago
        We're a constitutional republic, not an authoritarian regime regardless of how much current administration wishes otherwise. Good guys need villains, they need them to have purpose, to have focus. Without that ability to focus catalysts for change never amount to much.
        DoreenMichele 9y ago
        The comment my above comment is replying to literally compares Trump's America to Nazi Germany. How useful was Hitler as a means to empower the oppressed by giving them a villain for their public narrative? I am well aware that sometimes negative events can be a catalyst for positive change, that sometimes they cast light on the problem and make it visible. But comments here indicate that people long knew about, for example, Weinstein's bad behavior. It fostered jokes, not a groundswell of public outcry.
    - briandear 9y ago
      Trump got 41% of the female vote.
    - mancerayder 9y ago
      I don't know if the movements were suddenly under attack. What is more clear to me is many became more overt and loud after Trump was elected. There was a sense of urgency and threat based on nothing other than what Trump and others like Bannon had said. Mind you, just said. Whether they were actual threats (or are) is definitely a legitimate (if separate) debate. Your causality is, however, arguing that the reverse happened: the opening shot came from the Trump side. I don't think this discussion has much to do with the Facebook story above, however. I think the question of news manipulation based on headlines[1] affects both the left and the right and happened to be facilitated by Facebook and its hungry data chewers. It's got to monetize that somehow, right? Oh, and I remember when the Facebook IPO happened a bunch of buddies at a large investment bank argued that there was no way a platform like that had any value, etc. and so forth. And I remember arguing that the data they had had some value, we just don't know (and I didn't know) just for what, yet. 1 - https://medium.com/the-mission/the-enemy-in-our-feeds-e86511488de https://medium.com/the-mission/the-enemy-in-our-feeds-e86511... <-- You all must read this!
- superioritycplx 9y ago
  Their candidate lost.
- MalcontentLout 9y ago
  Now that Facebook is being associated with Russia—and its connection with Trump—it is being thrown into the political froth that predominates the media spotlight right now. Normally, very few people would care about data retention policies, targeted advertising, or twitter bots, but when it is connected to a hotbutton issue it becomes more palatable to pundits and dinner tables alike. There is also the new energy that was culminated in Trump's election, caused by fear and shock by some and by lifting the malaise of seemingly immutable conventions and power structures to most (although that is perceived differently to different groups), as was what propelled Trump into office in the first place. This is why both those that identify as liberal and conservative have become more active than in the past, but I think this is just an uptake in a trend which started long before now. History doesn't happen in a vacuum, that is to say.
dpwm 9y ago
There's also the fact that we now have two people telling mutually exclusive versions of the truth: the whistleblower and the CEO. At most one of these two people can be correct. At least one of them must be wrong. If the whistleblower is correct then the CEO has lied to a parliamentary select committee in the UK. Now that the CEO appears to have been marketing some of the things that CA and its partners (possibly SCL Group) can do (involving bribery, hidden cameras and Ukranian sex workers) to an undercover journalist[0] , CA is becoming something that can unite people in dislike just by its very essence. The more light that is shone the worse it seems to look. This is developing into quite a political story in the UK and it seems that unless there is a great big cover up (and it doesn't backfire) that this is only going to get bigger. I think the public anger is justified, but I'm surprised it took an almost cartoon-villain figure of a company to raise the awareness of the value of data to those that are prepared to pay for it. [0] https://www.channel4.com/news/cambridge-analytica-revealed-trumps-election-consultants-filmed-saying-they-use-bribes-and-sex-workers-to-entrap-politicians-investigation https://www.channel4.com/news/cambridge-analytica-revealed-t...
- TAForObvReasons 9y ago
  Donald Trump is a cartoon-villain figure of sorts -- Biff Tannen from Back to the Future was based on Trump.
  - mikepurvis 9y ago
    Source for the lazy: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/oct/23/back-to-the-future-writer-bad-guy-biff-was-based-on-donald-trump https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/oct/23/back-to-the-fut...
    - ineedasername 9y ago
      OMFG I can't believe that was a true comment, I thought it was just a tongue in cheek, too on-the-nose throw comment.
dang 9y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16624800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16624800 and marked it off-topic.

CiPHPerCoder 9y ago

> Suddenly people started caring. Yes, but why? And why now, rather than years/decades ago? There's another layer to these stories that I'm very interested in.

ionforce 9y ago
Probably a critical mass. It's just like technological adoption: there's an early adopters group and then the masses come in waves.
- TAForObvReasons 9y ago
  A bunch of individual scattered movements were under attack at once. Women's movements were crushed by this overt misogynist who bragged about sexual harassment. Minority movements were crushed by the overt racist who started his campaign on the idea that the overwhelming majority of Mexican-Americans were murderers and rapists. Many people believed that America as a whole would reject the regressiveness of Trump. When that didn't happen, it was a wake-up call for a bunch of different groups. Post-election, we had the white nationalist rally and death at Charlottesville, which was eerily similar to Nazi rallies.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    What you are saying doesn't really add up. If the environment is really that hostile because Trump was elected, it should not be fostering movements like #MeToo. It should have crushed dissent. A wake up call doesn't lead to something like that. There has to be some positive factor being overlooked.
    - brandall10 9y ago
      We're a constitutional republic, not an authoritarian regime regardless of how much current administration wishes otherwise. Good guys need villains, they need them to have purpose, to have focus. Without that ability to focus catalysts for change never amount to much.
      - DoreenMichele 9y ago
        The comment my above comment is replying to literally compares Trump's America to Nazi Germany. How useful was Hitler as a means to empower the oppressed by giving them a villain for their public narrative? I am well aware that sometimes negative events can be a catalyst for positive change, that sometimes they cast light on the problem and make it visible. But comments here indicate that people long knew about, for example, Weinstein's bad behavior. It fostered jokes, not a groundswell of public outcry.
  - briandear 9y ago
    Trump got 41% of the female vote.
  - mancerayder 9y ago
    I don't know if the movements were suddenly under attack. What is more clear to me is many became more overt and loud after Trump was elected. There was a sense of urgency and threat based on nothing other than what Trump and others like Bannon had said. Mind you, just said. Whether they were actual threats (or are) is definitely a legitimate (if separate) debate. Your causality is, however, arguing that the reverse happened: the opening shot came from the Trump side. I don't think this discussion has much to do with the Facebook story above, however. I think the question of news manipulation based on headlines[1] affects both the left and the right and happened to be facilitated by Facebook and its hungry data chewers. It's got to monetize that somehow, right? Oh, and I remember when the Facebook IPO happened a bunch of buddies at a large investment bank argued that there was no way a platform like that had any value, etc. and so forth. And I remember arguing that the data they had had some value, we just don't know (and I didn't know) just for what, yet. 1 - https://medium.com/the-mission/the-enemy-in-our-feeds-e86511488de https://medium.com/the-mission/the-enemy-in-our-feeds-e86511... <-- You all must read this!
superioritycplx 9y ago
Their candidate lost.
MalcontentLout 9y ago
Now that Facebook is being associated with Russia—and its connection with Trump—it is being thrown into the political froth that predominates the media spotlight right now. Normally, very few people would care about data retention policies, targeted advertising, or twitter bots, but when it is connected to a hotbutton issue it becomes more palatable to pundits and dinner tables alike. There is also the new energy that was culminated in Trump's election, caused by fear and shock by some and by lifting the malaise of seemingly immutable conventions and power structures to most (although that is perceived differently to different groups), as was what propelled Trump into office in the first place. This is why both those that identify as liberal and conservative have become more active than in the past, but I think this is just an uptake in a trend which started long before now. History doesn't happen in a vacuum, that is to say.

dpwm 9y ago

There's also the fact that we now have two people telling mutually exclusive versions of the truth: the whistleblower and the CEO. At most one of these two people can be correct. At least one of them must be wrong. If the whistleblower is correct then the CEO has lied to a parliamentary select committee in the UK. Now that the CEO appears to have been marketing some of the things that CA and its partners (possibly SCL Group) can do (involving bribery, hidden cameras and Ukranian sex workers) to an undercover journalist[0] , CA is becoming something that can unite people in dislike just by its very essence. The more light that is shone the worse it seems to look. This is developing into quite a political story in the UK and it seems that unless there is a great big cover up (and it doesn't backfire) that this is only going to get bigger. I think the public anger is justified, but I'm surprised it took an almost cartoon-villain figure of a company to raise the awareness of the value of data to those that are prepared to pay for it. [0] https://www.channel4.com/news/cambridge-analytica-revealed-trumps-election-consultants-filmed-saying-they-use-bribes-and-sex-workers-to-entrap-politicians-investigation https://www.channel4.com/news/cambridge-analytica-revealed-t...

TAForObvReasons 9y ago
Donald Trump is a cartoon-villain figure of sorts -- Biff Tannen from Back to the Future was based on Trump.
- mikepurvis 9y ago
  Source for the lazy: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/oct/23/back-to-the-future-writer-bad-guy-biff-was-based-on-donald-trump https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/oct/23/back-to-the-fut...
  - ineedasername 9y ago
    OMFG I can't believe that was a true comment, I thought it was just a tongue in cheek, too on-the-nose throw comment.

dang 9y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16624800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16624800 and marked it off-topic.