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Despite the barrage of negative stories that would have ended nearly every other Presidential campaign - ranging from accusations of racism, misogyny, treason,

Despite the barrage of negative stories that would have ended nearly every other Presidential campaign - ranging from accusations of racism, misogyny, treason, incompetence, mental instability - despite all of it, tens of millions of Americans absolutely love President Trump. I cannot imagine how utterly frustrating it must be for them to watch the media bounce from story after story in some convoluted attempt to explain why they voted the way they did - from Russian hacking to white supremacy to Facebook ads to Facebook data. This is just one more in a long line of justifications when the most likely reasonable explanation is that he is beloved by millions, not just in the USA but around the world. The same goes for Brexit. "Your side won because the Russians and this data company and Facebook made you vote that way. We're going to make sure this never happens again!" It's unfortunate that in the aftermath of polarizing and controversial decisions like these, this kind of rhetoric will now drive people further apart, because one side refuses to accept the reality of the other's opinions, and dismisses them with conspiracy theories. Today people are pretending to be shocked that Facebook shares data with apps through the developer API. Most of the permissions being talked about were removed a long time ago. What is happening now is basically vindictive hatred for Facebook from the tens of millions who feel wronged and cheated by electoral results that they lost fair and square.

aptwebapps 9y ago
The election was won by a very slim margin. The core of Trump's support may have been with him regardless but they weren't enough to win. It's the actions on the margin that matter here. Also, as other's have pointed out, there are a lot of other problems with social media in general and Facebook in particular. Russian meddling in the election is the spark that is lighting the fire but the fuel was already there. (That last sentence optimistic to an extent that might not be warranted).
- foxh0und 9y ago
  Exactly, he won the election thanks to 80000 votes in three states. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/01/donald-trump-will-be-president-thanks-to-80000-people-in-three-states/?utm_term=.827af77a0a2d https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/01/do...
  - freejulian 9y ago
    Sure, the margin was slim, but Hillary has no one to blame but herself. Scapegoating Facebook keeps all of Hillary’s misdeeds out of the limelight. Perhaps if she was a better candidate I wouldn’t have wrote in Bernie. I, for one, am happy to have Trump over her. Edit: ah yes, let me feel the downvotes hackernews. We can’t have anyone disliking Hillary here!
    - grumdan 9y ago
      Your comment doesn't actually add anything to this conversation, so regardless of one's position on Trump vs. Hillary, the downvotes are justified. All you said was a vague commonplace sentiment that has very little to do with the topic at hand.
      - stochastic_monk 9y ago
        Additionally, “at least it’s not Hillary” is a pretty baseless reason without supporting arguments. The majority of Americans would vastly prefer her, so please explain your point if you aim to be taken seriously. This isn’t reddit.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - drharby 9y ago
      Why edit tag when you are not even annotating what you edit? Your original post was nothing as it is now. You are being grossly deceptive, and this is coming from a guy who loves to play devils advocate on hn
  - nilkn 9y ago
    Even applying such retroactive analysis to determine the smallest set of people who could change their votes so as to alter the election result, that doesn't imply anything about why Trump voters voted for Trump. That doesn't mean they were brainwashed by Facebook, that they're all white supremacists, etc.
- freejulian 9y ago
  There was no “Russian meddling” in the election. Stop parroting nonsense without evidence. Hillary did cheat though. Her campaign directly collaborated with correct the record - last time I checked coordinating with a super pac was illegal. She also directly worked with the media to spread progaganda. Thank god Trump won. Hillary would have been more of the same. Also, it’s hilarious that we’ve all stopped caring about Citzens United now. Corporations influencing our elections is A-OK!
  - tree_of_item 9y ago
    We've established beyond a doubt by now that there was, in fact, "Russian meddling" in the election. It's incredible that someone could still deny this.
    - freejulian 9y ago
      Really? Cool! I’m sure you won’t have any troubles pointing me to some evidence then! Let’s see it... Also, I’m not alone in this, notable journalists such as Glenn Greenwald are also asking for evidence.
      - tree_of_item 9y ago
        Are you just not paying attention to the Mueller investigation? There's like five guilty pleas by now. Is that just a nothing burger? Seriously, what do you think that's all about? If you want a timeline of events you can go here[0] or here[1], but something tells me you won't accept these... [0]: https://www.politico.com/trump-russia-ties-scandal-guide/timeline-of-events https://www.politico.com/trump-russia-ties-scandal-guide/tim... [1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/02/05/a-so-far-complete-timeline-of-the-investigation-into-trump-and-russia/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/02/05/a...
        dingo_bat 9y ago
        Can you spell it out? How did Russia "hack" the election? Please try to be specific. If I wanted random news stories, I'd google them.
- AndrewKemendo 9y ago
  It's the actions on the margin that matter here. Just think of what this whole story (Foreign meddling) says about these marginal voters in that case: That they were so easily swayed, that they decided to vote ostensibly against their own better judgement simply by being shown a series of ads to influence their emotions. Something is very wrong with voter education if it's that easy to sway a certain influential population of voters.
  - dwaltrip 9y ago
    Or they really disliked both candidates, so a small push could send them in either direction. Just as an example. It's pretty difficult to make meaningful wide-ranging inferences about the voter populations this way.
    - ventonMoore 9y ago
      ...or it's not that voters were swayed by anything at all, and lots of people voted for an unproductive celebrity for their own reasons. In the months and weeks approaching election day, I was struck numerous times by the reality that each political faction was profoundly disconnected from the other, in media consumption silos so different that if you happened to drift from one conversation to another, it felt like crossing an ocean and entering a distant country. And to me, it was obvious that this social rift had calcified during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Somehow, amid the victory of the Obama presidency, left wing democrats simply felt as though their job was done, they could die happy, and anything else they imagined as natural was a foregone conclusion of the retirement they were set to sail into. I don't think the media silos I noticed are the root of the problem. You cannot blame cartoons, talk radio and memes. I strongly believe that complacency, assumption and tone deaf, willful blindness among democratic party consituents led to the results we have watched unfold. I don't think it was New Media manipulation, and I don't think "fixing social media" will solve for the chaos we now see.
      - dwaltrip 9y ago
        Ah yeah, totally. I feel similarly to you. I was talking about a smaller contingent of voters who might have been caught in the middle. I should have made that more clear.
scrumper 9y ago
> What is happening now is basically vindictive hatred for Facebook from the tens of millions who feel wronged and cheated by electoral results that they lost fair and square. I'm not saying that's not part of it, but it's only part of it. There's plenty of other bad stuff about Facebook that people don't like: children experiencing isolation and depression; cyberbullying; addiction; shallow, empty interactions; clickbait mental junk food replacing content from actual friends... It goes on.
jakear 9y ago
One note: fair and square by your interpretation of "fair", maybe. But the country as a whole uses its laws to interpret fair, and the important allegations are that the Trump campaign broke those laws by directly communicating with this agency.
- coldtea 9y ago
  Nah, it's just hypocrisy. All candidates take such data from social media, and have done for the last 2 elections at least, but, Trump being not that popular with the Republican establishment/deep state either (him coming from outside to steal the party's favorites thunder and not 100% controllable by the party bureaucracy) only one side has enough media stronghold to hammer the other side 24/7. The other can at best spew its own BS on FOX.
- cabaalis 9y ago
  "In 2012, the Obama campaign encouraged supporters to download an Obama 2012 Facebook app that, when activated, let the campaign collect Facebook data both on users and their friends." [0] The only real difference between what was done here and then was how it was represented to the users. [0]: https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/facebook-data-scandal-trump-election-obama-2012/ https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/facebook-data-...
  - noarchy 9y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
  - jakear 9y ago
    In terms of law, I think they key is that (presumably) the Obama campaign didn't have direct access to that data. Not a lawyer, but saw enough of the Jon Oliver / Jon Stewart SuperPAC skit to get the general idea that communicating directly with your funding source is a no-no. In terms of ethics, the key difference is mentioned in your article: The only difference, as far as we can discern, between the two campaigns' use of Facebook, is that in the case of Obama the users themselves agreed to share their data with the Obama campaign, as well as that of their friends. The users that downloaded the Cambridge app, meanwhile, were only told that the information would be used for academic purposes. This is big. If a university researcher asks me a few questions and tells me that my answers will be used purely for research purposes, I am much more likely to engage than if a campaigner did the same. It would be unethical for a campaigner to present themselves as an academic in order to get more information.
ggg9990 9y ago
I mean, I know why people love him too — he is entertaining as fuck and if you’re too poor or too rich to be affected by government policy, who gives a shit about the president?
- sergiotapia 9y ago
  So again, you attempt to hand-wave reasons why people would vote for Donald Trump.
  - ggg9990 9y ago
    Not really, I think that for a certain subset of the electorate, voting Trump was highly rational from a game theoretic perspective, and the worse Trump is, the better he serves this purpose. So I don’t need to hand Wave the emotional reasons.
    - Consultant32452 9y ago
      I'd like you to elaborate more on the game theory aspect. My personal opinion along those lines is that people looked to Trump as a bull in a china shop. The "system" was so corrupt that the only solution was to send someone in who would wreck it from the inside. It would be disingenuous to be upset now that he's broken some plates. While I don't think this is the majority of Trump voters it anecdotally appears to be a significant portion of the avid/vocal supporters. I still think most of his votes came from the people who show up and vote R no matter what. But there was definitely a shade of, "FUCK YOU" from the voters to the government this election.
      - ggg9990 9y ago
        Imagine you live in a room with an investment banker. Every day, $100 appears in the room and the investment banker decides how much you get to keep. Every year, you get to decide whether or not to push a button that sprays rancid feces on both of you. On Day 1, the banker lets you keep $30. He keeps this $30 for another 10 years. Then, he starts cutting your share by 2 pennies per week ($1 per year). It’s annoying but not too bad, but you don’t want to be covered in feces so you don’t push the button. A decade later, you’ve only got $20. A decade after that, $10. Five years later, only $5 out of every $100. At some point, it becomes strategic to push the button. Sure, your life sucks and having your tattered clothes covered in feces doesn’t help. But the banker in the bespoke suit is harmed more, and might rethink his allocation tomorrow. And when you do push that button, the stinkier the feces, the better.
zeth___ 9y ago
>What is happening now is basically vindictive hatred for Facebook from the tens of millions who feel wronged and cheated by electoral results that they lost fair and square. I'd say that a lot of the articles are driven by the news medias hatred of facebook. It used to be that facebook would drive upto 80% of the traffic on some news sites from shared articles between 2012-2017. Then when they started to tweak the news feed a lot of news sites found their traffic dying. There are definite reasons to hate facebook, but news sites hate them for controlling their very existence, and lately pushing them into irrelevance. Between facebook and google the views news sites receive from other sources are/were a rounding error, before we even start talking about advertising. That everyone is attacking facebook now is good. From a purely tactical point of view killing it or strangling it with so much regulation they need to ask you 5 times if they can access your data for every picture you upload will be a huge net positive for humanity. I only wish the same happens to google asap.
- trendia 9y ago
  I wonder if the news media's reaction to Facebook explains Google's $300m effort to save online news. $300m buys a lot of good will, and maybe some favirbale coverage.
- pteredactyl 9y ago
  That's a huge part of it. Seems to me every NY media story about SV the last few years has been a hit piece.
deleted 9y ago
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fzeroracer 9y ago
For some reason whenever negative stories come out about Trump or about Facebook or about some political figurehead in today's environment, people drag themselves out of the woodwork to pull out the tired argument that people are just 'jealous' that Trump won. Could you explain your justification for trotting such an irrelevant point? We can argue all day that everyone knows that Facebook does all this scary stuff (and the nearly tech-illiterate people I interact with have no clue about this sort of thing while being barely able to use Facebook) but I'm more curious as to where your main point comes from.
- fareesh 9y ago
  1) What makes you think I am from the woodwork? 2) Can you recall a time when a Facebook privacy story ever received so much media and government interest? There was a time when apps would blindly request a bunch of permissions. Users would blindly accept them. Devs would store tokens in the database. One shoddy exploit later on the application and an attacker had all their photos, friends' photos, and could post and comment on various things impersonating the user. I can't imagine how much harvesting was done by popular Facebook apps and games in those days.
  - fzeroracer 9y ago
    Because I've noticed in many of these threads about Facebook there is constant whataboutism relating to Obama and a constant attempt to deflect discussion away from the actual contents of the article. You've been making the unsubstantiated argument that the only reason people care about Facebook nowadays is because they're sore losers. If you're going to make a wide-reaching claim like that, I would love some citations.
    - dwaltrip 9y ago
      I'm really torn in how to respond to claims of whataboutism. On one hand, if something is simply business as usual, despite any misconceptions otherwise, then cries of whataboutism can be a bit misplaced. On the other hand, if some sort of tide has shifted, and business as usual can become business of the past, then I think dismissing similar past offenses from others could make sense. I have hard time attempting to evaluate this, to say the least...
enlightenedfool 9y ago
Absolutely. Trump got the true American feelings in every issue out which have been suppressed for far too long. The media will move on to the next Trump tweet tomorrow and face book will regain lost value in a week.
deleted 9y ago
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omarforgotpwd 9y ago
Wow, what a spot on comment.
austincheney 9y ago
> tens of millions of Americans absolutely love President Trump. People voted for Trump, but that is hardly an indication of love. Consider that this prior election was between two of the most despised (and possibly incompetent) candidates in US presidential history. If you don't want to repeat this fiasco stop supporting a divisive two party system. Yes, it was the internal mechanics of each party that picked candidates from the primaries opposed to actual voters. This has been proven with evidence for the Democrats and is likely true for the Republicans as well.
- sheepmullet 9y ago
  > stop supporting a divisive two party system. I wish we could move to a constitutional republic with a dose of direct democracy a bit like Switzerland. Otherwise even with more parties we would see parties forming coalitions and continuing to sideline a significant minority of the population. See the anti-immigration parties being ignored in Western Europe for a good example.
- abiox 9y ago
  > stop supporting a divisive two party system among other things, the voting system itself ("first past the post") tends to encourage a duopoly.
drawkbox 9y ago
> from the tens of millions who feel wronged and cheated by electoral results that they lost fair and square. Are you not doing as exactly as you are highlighting? If there were underlying forces at work that were foreign would that not mean it wasn't fair and square? Citizens United vs FEC[1] unfortunate decision in 2011 led to infusions of foreign funds[2] that outnumber what US citizens are legally allowed to contribute. Too much money and now foreign money that is the real problem, it reared it's ugly head in 2016 no matter who won. We have to backtrack on Citizens United vs the FEC decision or else foreign countries and oligarchs will be deciding every election. If that becomes the norm, it was a good run for the United States but it will be ending. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC [2] https://theintercept.com/2016/08/03/citizens-united-foreign-money-us-elections/ https://theintercept.com/2016/08/03/citizens-united-foreign-...
- fareesh 9y ago
  The winning candidate spent significantly less money in this instance. Also I tend to agree with Citizens United. Unions and Corporations should be allowed to express their views on a candidate. If there is someone running for office and making a BS claim about steel workers, I would want steelworkers unions to have the right to advertise and inform me that it is BS. Also if you get into issue based stuff, it becomes extremely overzealous to prevent unions and Corporations from being able to speak up during an election. Planned parenthood, for example, has a lot of misconceptions about it, they should have the right to do something about that. I also understand the scope for abuse with citizens united, but I don't think curtailing first amendment rights is ever a good idea. Probably worth noting that I'm not American, my opinion of this case is shaped by my listening to SCOTUS oral arguments of the case on YouTube many years ago.
  - alex_young 9y ago
    The winning candidate won by something like negative three million votes. What other country would consider that a democratic outcome?
    - 9y ago
andy_ppp 9y ago
Um, what? The whole point of this is whispering hundreds of half truths and individually targeted propaganda into voters ears. It’s all a fabrication even the “Cambridge” connection was faked! What the hell is going on with Facebook running their own investigation and turning up at Cambridge Analytica’s office? Why is Facebook asking to see this whistle blowers laptop? All seems very strange as if there is something to hide here...
Gravityloss 9y ago
I'm not sure and I might be mistaken, but I think you also advocate a little about this "people have rights to their feelings" line of argumentation. But people's feelings can be manipulated with things that aren't true. Say somebody told you that your coworker of similar skill level was earning twice as much as you, because they cheated somehow. You would get angry at them. If it then was revealed that no such thing happened, they have the same salary as you, would you still stay angry?
- fareesh 9y ago
  In the case of this election there were so many genuine incidents where wrongdoing was committed by both candidates so I'd be less inclined to buy into the theory that fake incidents were what caused the anger. One candidate stole a primary, was under FBI investigation for most of the campaign, was chastised by the director but then given a pass, had a trove of emails leaked wherein she was called incompetent by her own team, and cheated in debates due to a highly inappropriate relationship with the media. The other candidate was crucified in the press almost daily with a slew of controversial and crass, lewd statements, each of which was dissected, repeated and debated during the 24 hour news cycle as well as the late night talk shows.
hobs 9y ago
"It's unfortunate that in the aftermath of polarizing and controversial decisions like these, this kind of rhetoric will now drive people further apart, because one side refuses to accept the reality of the other's opinions, and dismisses them with conspiracy theories." That's the rub. The side that doesnt go with the trumpers keeps looking for justifications that dont boil down to "Those people innately agree with those policies after a reasoned and thoughtful approach to the problem." That's because the beliefs they espouse are an anathema to their core understanding of a civil society, and the only way they can continue to humanize them is to pretend they were tricked or stupid. Honestly, I pretty much feel the same way myself. If you earnestly understand the consequences of America's current president and you are still gung-ho, I find you to be lacking in about every important moral and ethical measure.
abalone 9y ago
#deletefacebook is not about "conspiracy theories". It's because their personal data was exploited to aid the election of someone they hate. Whether it actually moved the needle enough to elect Trump is open to debate, but that's not a "conspiracy theory". Even the very idea that their personal data can be exploited this way, against their will, via friends who were tricked, is unsettling. That's more than just being mad about the election. They do not want a service that can exploit them that way in their life. Maybe Facebook has locked down the API, or maybe there's some other way to exploit it next round. People are realizing that trusting Facebook with their personal data was a bad idea to begin with and not in their best interests.
- fareesh 9y ago
  Which is my point I guess - Facebook apps have had much more intrusive access to user data in the past. The only reason people care now is political.
  - abalone 9y ago
    Well no, you said more than that. > "Your side won because... Facebook made you vote that way" #deletefacebook doesn't mean that people think Facebook made people vote a certain way. It's about Facebook being a poor custodian of personal data and allowing it to be exploited to guide adversarial campaign efforts. Guiding where to invest efforts and dollars in an election campaign is extremely strategically valuable intelligence. That's different from just changing people's minds.. it's where to push for more voter turnout, for example. So at a minimum Facebook helped identify the psychological profiles and locations of people who were prime targets -- thanks to just a handful of friends who were exploited.
    - fareesh 9y ago
      My comment is about the coverage of this story, not the story. The story is being covered in the way that I've described. Facebook privacy stories never get this kind of coverage. This story is everywhere right now, for political reasons. People want to delete Facebook because of trust and that reasoning is perfectly sane. As far as the coverage is concerned, this is the same story with a Facebook flavour today.
resource0x 9y ago
> ranging from accusations of racism, misogyny, treason, incompetence, mental instability - despite all of it Same happened in USSR, Yeltsin was accused in almost all of the above, and won - not so much despite of this, but to a large extent due to this. When the entire establishment gangs up against one, the normal human instinct is to support him. And the effect is so well-known that I'm actually suprised Trump's opponents acted this way.
iscrewyou 9y ago
How do you explain lower turnout for Hillary Clinton when compared to Obama's two turnout numbers?
booleandilemma 9y ago
For me, one of the most memorable moments during the campaign was when one of my liberal friends told me that he suspected Melania of being a Russian spy. I was so relieved when it was over - people were acting nuts.
matthewwiese 9y ago
Well said. No matter the influence of Russians nor widespread manipulation by Cambridge Analytica, the reality is that people chose to believe these things without their own personal endeavor into critical inquiry. And I'm not talking about that white working class "base" that people like to attribute as Trump's secret weapon. I know plenty of people, truly well meaning individuals, who are not the dumb animals most outlets like to paint the Trump supporters as. They were just conned into it all, and I'm sure shady Facebook ads had a hand in it, but ultimately it was just trusting people suckered in by a television personality (or character, even). If this election is the spark that eventually instills a sense of proper analytical reasoning skills in the United States at large, then I'll be satisified. And I say this as a person who, if I could vote in this country, would certainly have not have entertained the idea of Donald Trump at all.
- forkwhilefork 9y ago
  Who the hell are you to talk about Trump voters being conned or voting without critical thinking? You have no idea why people voted for him.
  - matthewwiese 9y ago
    I believe you missed my point. Those that cry foul over those targeted Facebook ads also fail to realize that people were still willing to drink the Kool-Aid. Of course, it would be asinine to paint with broad strokes. But one can't disregard that it takes two to tango in exchanges of ideas and information. Edit: my horrendous spelling
    - ghthor 9y ago
      You're implying that we all were conned, yet I'm still a happy supporter of Trump and will continue to be, yet here I am not a redneck, extremely tolerant, not a racist, incredibly kind, etc. Maybe you've been conned on who a Trump supporter is.
      - matthewwiese 9y ago
wybiral 9y ago
I do agree, but it's also annoying that people keep using this to try and downplay stories like the Russia investigation and the fact that shady practices are going on at places like Facebook and in our political campaigns. People did vote for Trump. Without someone twisting their arm. But there is still merit to these other stories (even if the perspective that they got Trump elected is false).
- croon 9y ago
  Are you saying that hundreds of years of ad business has never worked and the billions upon billions of dollars spent on ads were wasted? Because if you're not, "People did vote for Trump. Without someone twisting their arm." is disingenuous, at best.
  - wybiral 9y ago
    All of our arms are being twisted by that standard. And all candidates were using ads. I'm saying that the people voted how they voted without the use of anything that seems outside of the norm. We should investigate these data-driven ad campaigns if they do have that much influence over our democracy. And we should investigate Russian meddling because it looks like there was a divisive propaganda campaign and a bunch of shady business deals. And we should investigate the Trump campaign because it looks like there were a bunch of shady business deals with questionable ties. My real point was that the fact that these things involve Trump shouldn't impact their seriousness. We know there are people trying to find dirt on Trump but that doesn't mean all of the angles they're looking at are purely about Trump.
    - croon 9y ago
      > All of our arms are being twisted by that standard. And all candidates were using ads. But there are rules regarding how and how much can be spent on ads. My initial post was to establish that we agree that ads work, the next issue is to establish whether campaign finance laws were broken, and if spending (foreign or otherwise) were not disclosed.
andrepd 9y ago
There are tens of millions who would vote for trump no matter what, and I literally mean no matter what. No candidate has ever got less than ~40% of the popular vote in recent times. So that fact, that "tens of millions voted for Trump after all", tells us squat. And besides that, the allegations being made are extremely serious, an utter threat to democracy, and they are to be taken so independently of any other factors.
jimmies 9y ago
I can't vote in the US election. I don't give a fuck who wins. I still think Facebook is shit.
didibus 9y ago
I'm not sure that's true. I think its just people realizing the power and reach of internet media giants like facebook. Nobody wants Russia to spam American news. Nobody wants to filter through media coverage and wonder which one is fake or not. People I think are looking for a bit more liability. Show me content truthfully, validate its source, don't change the order of my news feed, don't purposely remove some content and add others because you've learned my ad click habits. Trump is trump, I don't think he's the reason for the outcry. He's mentioned in it, because it can be seen as an example, but people on all side of the political spectrum I think have issue with propaganda, and the power that lies to whom control the internet mass media. So Facebook is scary to all party, and I think only now do a majority of people have woken up to its potential destructive influence. It's not known to what extent that potential is, and the debates will probably focus on that. How much/little regulation is needed to mitigate its applications that can affect our free social democracy, while maximising our capitalist ambitions.
knowThySelfx 9y ago
This is even with most of the global mainstream media supporting Hilary and party. And now the media wants to divert their failures to some social media effect - as if FB only showed pro Trump news.
fyfy18 9y ago
I don’t think Brexit really falls into the same category. At the time of the Brexit vote there were a lot of stories in circulation that were incorrect or not telling the whole story. If people were given the real facts, I find it very unlikely that the majority would have still voted leave. Yes I agree there are some real arguments for leaving, but most people were voting leave for reasons like the NHS getting an extra £350m a week, which turned out to be just spin. Maybe a company like CA was invoked to promote stories, and maybe they were funded by powerful people, but that’s not really a conspiracy. Even now it’s still unclear on what is going to happen on some major issues, like what will happen to British citizens living in the EU.
- fareesh 9y ago
  The British media has been reporting on CA and its links to the leave campaign for some time now. I watched a video in which an incredibly snarky reporter interviewed someone from CA and demanded to know why they were at an event being held by the leave campaign if they weren't working together.
tensor 9y ago
Perhaps the reality is two things. One, there may have really was been collusion and manipulation of peoples psyche as the data seems to be trending towards. But two, as you suggest, perhaps some people really do like him and what he represents. And maybe the "other side" would rather believe Trump voters were tricked then believe the alternative, that Trump voters really love Trump and what he represents. The thing that posts like yours seem to silently imply is that if "the other side" would just accept Trump and his ideology, the country will be fine. But perhaps two peoples can become so divided that they would rather take up arms against each other then accept the ideology of the other group. This is the possibility that really scares people the most, and is something that no one wants to talk about.
- fareesh 9y ago
  There's no reason to accept the ideology, just the fact that the election was won and that a very significant number of people want that ideology. Ideally now is the time to engage with them and reach a compromise. Unfortunately the reaction has been incredibly childish.
deleted 9y ago
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pteredactyl 9y ago
Exactly. And in the US I have a hard time believing the Democrats have done anything to remedy why they lost. In fact, they've made it worse.
fwdpropaganda 9y ago
> tens of millions of Americans absolutely love President Trump. Tens of millions of Americans are fucking stupid.

aptwebapps 9y ago

The election was won by a very slim margin. The core of Trump's support may have been with him regardless but they weren't enough to win. It's the actions on the margin that matter here. Also, as other's have pointed out, there are a lot of other problems with social media in general and Facebook in particular. Russian meddling in the election is the spark that is lighting the fire but the fuel was already there. (That last sentence optimistic to an extent that might not be warranted).

foxh0und 9y ago
Exactly, he won the election thanks to 80000 votes in three states. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/01/donald-trump-will-be-president-thanks-to-80000-people-in-three-states/?utm_term=.827af77a0a2d https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/01/do...
- freejulian 9y ago
  Sure, the margin was slim, but Hillary has no one to blame but herself. Scapegoating Facebook keeps all of Hillary’s misdeeds out of the limelight. Perhaps if she was a better candidate I wouldn’t have wrote in Bernie. I, for one, am happy to have Trump over her. Edit: ah yes, let me feel the downvotes hackernews. We can’t have anyone disliking Hillary here!
  - grumdan 9y ago
    Your comment doesn't actually add anything to this conversation, so regardless of one's position on Trump vs. Hillary, the downvotes are justified. All you said was a vague commonplace sentiment that has very little to do with the topic at hand.
    - stochastic_monk 9y ago
      Additionally, “at least it’s not Hillary” is a pretty baseless reason without supporting arguments. The majority of Americans would vastly prefer her, so please explain your point if you aim to be taken seriously. This isn’t reddit.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - drharby 9y ago
    Why edit tag when you are not even annotating what you edit? Your original post was nothing as it is now. You are being grossly deceptive, and this is coming from a guy who loves to play devils advocate on hn
- nilkn 9y ago
  Even applying such retroactive analysis to determine the smallest set of people who could change their votes so as to alter the election result, that doesn't imply anything about why Trump voters voted for Trump. That doesn't mean they were brainwashed by Facebook, that they're all white supremacists, etc.
freejulian 9y ago
There was no “Russian meddling” in the election. Stop parroting nonsense without evidence. Hillary did cheat though. Her campaign directly collaborated with correct the record - last time I checked coordinating with a super pac was illegal. She also directly worked with the media to spread progaganda. Thank god Trump won. Hillary would have been more of the same. Also, it’s hilarious that we’ve all stopped caring about Citzens United now. Corporations influencing our elections is A-OK!
- tree_of_item 9y ago
  We've established beyond a doubt by now that there was, in fact, "Russian meddling" in the election. It's incredible that someone could still deny this.
  - freejulian 9y ago
    Really? Cool! I’m sure you won’t have any troubles pointing me to some evidence then! Let’s see it... Also, I’m not alone in this, notable journalists such as Glenn Greenwald are also asking for evidence.
    - tree_of_item 9y ago
      Are you just not paying attention to the Mueller investigation? There's like five guilty pleas by now. Is that just a nothing burger? Seriously, what do you think that's all about? If you want a timeline of events you can go here[0] or here[1], but something tells me you won't accept these... [0]: https://www.politico.com/trump-russia-ties-scandal-guide/timeline-of-events https://www.politico.com/trump-russia-ties-scandal-guide/tim... [1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/02/05/a-so-far-complete-timeline-of-the-investigation-into-trump-and-russia/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/02/05/a...
      - dingo_bat 9y ago
        Can you spell it out? How did Russia "hack" the election? Please try to be specific. If I wanted random news stories, I'd google them.
AndrewKemendo 9y ago
It's the actions on the margin that matter here. Just think of what this whole story (Foreign meddling) says about these marginal voters in that case: That they were so easily swayed, that they decided to vote ostensibly against their own better judgement simply by being shown a series of ads to influence their emotions. Something is very wrong with voter education if it's that easy to sway a certain influential population of voters.
- dwaltrip 9y ago
  Or they really disliked both candidates, so a small push could send them in either direction. Just as an example. It's pretty difficult to make meaningful wide-ranging inferences about the voter populations this way.
  - ventonMoore 9y ago
    ...or it's not that voters were swayed by anything at all, and lots of people voted for an unproductive celebrity for their own reasons. In the months and weeks approaching election day, I was struck numerous times by the reality that each political faction was profoundly disconnected from the other, in media consumption silos so different that if you happened to drift from one conversation to another, it felt like crossing an ocean and entering a distant country. And to me, it was obvious that this social rift had calcified during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Somehow, amid the victory of the Obama presidency, left wing democrats simply felt as though their job was done, they could die happy, and anything else they imagined as natural was a foregone conclusion of the retirement they were set to sail into. I don't think the media silos I noticed are the root of the problem. You cannot blame cartoons, talk radio and memes. I strongly believe that complacency, assumption and tone deaf, willful blindness among democratic party consituents led to the results we have watched unfold. I don't think it was New Media manipulation, and I don't think "fixing social media" will solve for the chaos we now see.
    - dwaltrip 9y ago
      Ah yeah, totally. I feel similarly to you. I was talking about a smaller contingent of voters who might have been caught in the middle. I should have made that more clear.

scrumper 9y ago

> What is happening now is basically vindictive hatred for Facebook from the tens of millions who feel wronged and cheated by electoral results that they lost fair and square. I'm not saying that's not part of it, but it's only part of it. There's plenty of other bad stuff about Facebook that people don't like: children experiencing isolation and depression; cyberbullying; addiction; shallow, empty interactions; clickbait mental junk food replacing content from actual friends... It goes on.

jakear 9y ago

One note: fair and square by your interpretation of "fair", maybe. But the country as a whole uses its laws to interpret fair, and the important allegations are that the Trump campaign broke those laws by directly communicating with this agency.

coldtea 9y ago
Nah, it's just hypocrisy. All candidates take such data from social media, and have done for the last 2 elections at least, but, Trump being not that popular with the Republican establishment/deep state either (him coming from outside to steal the party's favorites thunder and not 100% controllable by the party bureaucracy) only one side has enough media stronghold to hammer the other side 24/7. The other can at best spew its own BS on FOX.
cabaalis 9y ago
"In 2012, the Obama campaign encouraged supporters to download an Obama 2012 Facebook app that, when activated, let the campaign collect Facebook data both on users and their friends." [0] The only real difference between what was done here and then was how it was represented to the users. [0]: https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/facebook-data-scandal-trump-election-obama-2012/ https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/facebook-data-...
- noarchy 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
- jakear 9y ago
  In terms of law, I think they key is that (presumably) the Obama campaign didn't have direct access to that data. Not a lawyer, but saw enough of the Jon Oliver / Jon Stewart SuperPAC skit to get the general idea that communicating directly with your funding source is a no-no. In terms of ethics, the key difference is mentioned in your article: The only difference, as far as we can discern, between the two campaigns' use of Facebook, is that in the case of Obama the users themselves agreed to share their data with the Obama campaign, as well as that of their friends. The users that downloaded the Cambridge app, meanwhile, were only told that the information would be used for academic purposes. This is big. If a university researcher asks me a few questions and tells me that my answers will be used purely for research purposes, I am much more likely to engage than if a campaigner did the same. It would be unethical for a campaigner to present themselves as an academic in order to get more information.

ggg9990 9y ago

I mean, I know why people love him too — he is entertaining as fuck and if you’re too poor or too rich to be affected by government policy, who gives a shit about the president?

sergiotapia 9y ago
So again, you attempt to hand-wave reasons why people would vote for Donald Trump.
- ggg9990 9y ago
  Not really, I think that for a certain subset of the electorate, voting Trump was highly rational from a game theoretic perspective, and the worse Trump is, the better he serves this purpose. So I don’t need to hand Wave the emotional reasons.
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    I'd like you to elaborate more on the game theory aspect. My personal opinion along those lines is that people looked to Trump as a bull in a china shop. The "system" was so corrupt that the only solution was to send someone in who would wreck it from the inside. It would be disingenuous to be upset now that he's broken some plates. While I don't think this is the majority of Trump voters it anecdotally appears to be a significant portion of the avid/vocal supporters. I still think most of his votes came from the people who show up and vote R no matter what. But there was definitely a shade of, "FUCK YOU" from the voters to the government this election.
    - ggg9990 9y ago
      Imagine you live in a room with an investment banker. Every day, $100 appears in the room and the investment banker decides how much you get to keep. Every year, you get to decide whether or not to push a button that sprays rancid feces on both of you. On Day 1, the banker lets you keep $30. He keeps this $30 for another 10 years. Then, he starts cutting your share by 2 pennies per week ($1 per year). It’s annoying but not too bad, but you don’t want to be covered in feces so you don’t push the button. A decade later, you’ve only got $20. A decade after that, $10. Five years later, only $5 out of every $100. At some point, it becomes strategic to push the button. Sure, your life sucks and having your tattered clothes covered in feces doesn’t help. But the banker in the bespoke suit is harmed more, and might rethink his allocation tomorrow. And when you do push that button, the stinkier the feces, the better.

zeth___ 9y ago

>What is happening now is basically vindictive hatred for Facebook from the tens of millions who feel wronged and cheated by electoral results that they lost fair and square. I'd say that a lot of the articles are driven by the news medias hatred of facebook. It used to be that facebook would drive upto 80% of the traffic on some news sites from shared articles between 2012-2017. Then when they started to tweak the news feed a lot of news sites found their traffic dying. There are definite reasons to hate facebook, but news sites hate them for controlling their very existence, and lately pushing them into irrelevance. Between facebook and google the views news sites receive from other sources are/were a rounding error, before we even start talking about advertising. That everyone is attacking facebook now is good. From a purely tactical point of view killing it or strangling it with so much regulation they need to ask you 5 times if they can access your data for every picture you upload will be a huge net positive for humanity. I only wish the same happens to google asap.

trendia 9y ago
I wonder if the news media's reaction to Facebook explains Google's $300m effort to save online news. $300m buys a lot of good will, and maybe some favirbale coverage.
pteredactyl 9y ago
That's a huge part of it. Seems to me every NY media story about SV the last few years has been a hit piece.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

fzeroracer 9y ago

For some reason whenever negative stories come out about Trump or about Facebook or about some political figurehead in today's environment, people drag themselves out of the woodwork to pull out the tired argument that people are just 'jealous' that Trump won. Could you explain your justification for trotting such an irrelevant point? We can argue all day that everyone knows that Facebook does all this scary stuff (and the nearly tech-illiterate people I interact with have no clue about this sort of thing while being barely able to use Facebook) but I'm more curious as to where your main point comes from.

fareesh 9y ago
1) What makes you think I am from the woodwork? 2) Can you recall a time when a Facebook privacy story ever received so much media and government interest? There was a time when apps would blindly request a bunch of permissions. Users would blindly accept them. Devs would store tokens in the database. One shoddy exploit later on the application and an attacker had all their photos, friends' photos, and could post and comment on various things impersonating the user. I can't imagine how much harvesting was done by popular Facebook apps and games in those days.
- fzeroracer 9y ago
  Because I've noticed in many of these threads about Facebook there is constant whataboutism relating to Obama and a constant attempt to deflect discussion away from the actual contents of the article. You've been making the unsubstantiated argument that the only reason people care about Facebook nowadays is because they're sore losers. If you're going to make a wide-reaching claim like that, I would love some citations.
  - dwaltrip 9y ago
    I'm really torn in how to respond to claims of whataboutism. On one hand, if something is simply business as usual, despite any misconceptions otherwise, then cries of whataboutism can be a bit misplaced. On the other hand, if some sort of tide has shifted, and business as usual can become business of the past, then I think dismissing similar past offenses from others could make sense. I have hard time attempting to evaluate this, to say the least...

enlightenedfool 9y ago

Absolutely. Trump got the true American feelings in every issue out which have been suppressed for far too long. The media will move on to the next Trump tweet tomorrow and face book will regain lost value in a week.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

omarforgotpwd 9y ago

Wow, what a spot on comment.

austincheney 9y ago

> tens of millions of Americans absolutely love President Trump. People voted for Trump, but that is hardly an indication of love. Consider that this prior election was between two of the most despised (and possibly incompetent) candidates in US presidential history. If you don't want to repeat this fiasco stop supporting a divisive two party system. Yes, it was the internal mechanics of each party that picked candidates from the primaries opposed to actual voters. This has been proven with evidence for the Democrats and is likely true for the Republicans as well.

sheepmullet 9y ago
> stop supporting a divisive two party system. I wish we could move to a constitutional republic with a dose of direct democracy a bit like Switzerland. Otherwise even with more parties we would see parties forming coalitions and continuing to sideline a significant minority of the population. See the anti-immigration parties being ignored in Western Europe for a good example.
abiox 9y ago
> stop supporting a divisive two party system among other things, the voting system itself ("first past the post") tends to encourage a duopoly.

drawkbox 9y ago

> from the tens of millions who feel wronged and cheated by electoral results that they lost fair and square. Are you not doing as exactly as you are highlighting? If there were underlying forces at work that were foreign would that not mean it wasn't fair and square? Citizens United vs FEC[1] unfortunate decision in 2011 led to infusions of foreign funds[2] that outnumber what US citizens are legally allowed to contribute. Too much money and now foreign money that is the real problem, it reared it's ugly head in 2016 no matter who won. We have to backtrack on Citizens United vs the FEC decision or else foreign countries and oligarchs will be deciding every election. If that becomes the norm, it was a good run for the United States but it will be ending. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC [2] https://theintercept.com/2016/08/03/citizens-united-foreign-money-us-elections/ https://theintercept.com/2016/08/03/citizens-united-foreign-...

fareesh 9y ago
The winning candidate spent significantly less money in this instance. Also I tend to agree with Citizens United. Unions and Corporations should be allowed to express their views on a candidate. If there is someone running for office and making a BS claim about steel workers, I would want steelworkers unions to have the right to advertise and inform me that it is BS. Also if you get into issue based stuff, it becomes extremely overzealous to prevent unions and Corporations from being able to speak up during an election. Planned parenthood, for example, has a lot of misconceptions about it, they should have the right to do something about that. I also understand the scope for abuse with citizens united, but I don't think curtailing first amendment rights is ever a good idea. Probably worth noting that I'm not American, my opinion of this case is shaped by my listening to SCOTUS oral arguments of the case on YouTube many years ago.
- alex_young 9y ago
  The winning candidate won by something like negative three million votes. What other country would consider that a democratic outcome?
  - 9y ago

andy_ppp 9y ago

Um, what? The whole point of this is whispering hundreds of half truths and individually targeted propaganda into voters ears. It’s all a fabrication even the “Cambridge” connection was faked! What the hell is going on with Facebook running their own investigation and turning up at Cambridge Analytica’s office? Why is Facebook asking to see this whistle blowers laptop? All seems very strange as if there is something to hide here...

Gravityloss 9y ago

I'm not sure and I might be mistaken, but I think you also advocate a little about this "people have rights to their feelings" line of argumentation. But people's feelings can be manipulated with things that aren't true. Say somebody told you that your coworker of similar skill level was earning twice as much as you, because they cheated somehow. You would get angry at them. If it then was revealed that no such thing happened, they have the same salary as you, would you still stay angry?

fareesh 9y ago
In the case of this election there were so many genuine incidents where wrongdoing was committed by both candidates so I'd be less inclined to buy into the theory that fake incidents were what caused the anger. One candidate stole a primary, was under FBI investigation for most of the campaign, was chastised by the director but then given a pass, had a trove of emails leaked wherein she was called incompetent by her own team, and cheated in debates due to a highly inappropriate relationship with the media. The other candidate was crucified in the press almost daily with a slew of controversial and crass, lewd statements, each of which was dissected, repeated and debated during the 24 hour news cycle as well as the late night talk shows.

hobs 9y ago

"It's unfortunate that in the aftermath of polarizing and controversial decisions like these, this kind of rhetoric will now drive people further apart, because one side refuses to accept the reality of the other's opinions, and dismisses them with conspiracy theories." That's the rub. The side that doesnt go with the trumpers keeps looking for justifications that dont boil down to "Those people innately agree with those policies after a reasoned and thoughtful approach to the problem." That's because the beliefs they espouse are an anathema to their core understanding of a civil society, and the only way they can continue to humanize them is to pretend they were tricked or stupid. Honestly, I pretty much feel the same way myself. If you earnestly understand the consequences of America's current president and you are still gung-ho, I find you to be lacking in about every important moral and ethical measure.

abalone 9y ago

#deletefacebook is not about "conspiracy theories". It's because their personal data was exploited to aid the election of someone they hate. Whether it actually moved the needle enough to elect Trump is open to debate, but that's not a "conspiracy theory". Even the very idea that their personal data can be exploited this way, against their will, via friends who were tricked, is unsettling. That's more than just being mad about the election. They do not want a service that can exploit them that way in their life. Maybe Facebook has locked down the API, or maybe there's some other way to exploit it next round. People are realizing that trusting Facebook with their personal data was a bad idea to begin with and not in their best interests.

fareesh 9y ago
Which is my point I guess - Facebook apps have had much more intrusive access to user data in the past. The only reason people care now is political.
- abalone 9y ago
  Well no, you said more than that. > "Your side won because... Facebook made you vote that way" #deletefacebook doesn't mean that people think Facebook made people vote a certain way. It's about Facebook being a poor custodian of personal data and allowing it to be exploited to guide adversarial campaign efforts. Guiding where to invest efforts and dollars in an election campaign is extremely strategically valuable intelligence. That's different from just changing people's minds.. it's where to push for more voter turnout, for example. So at a minimum Facebook helped identify the psychological profiles and locations of people who were prime targets -- thanks to just a handful of friends who were exploited.
  - fareesh 9y ago
    My comment is about the coverage of this story, not the story. The story is being covered in the way that I've described. Facebook privacy stories never get this kind of coverage. This story is everywhere right now, for political reasons. People want to delete Facebook because of trust and that reasoning is perfectly sane. As far as the coverage is concerned, this is the same story with a Facebook flavour today.

resource0x 9y ago

> ranging from accusations of racism, misogyny, treason, incompetence, mental instability - despite all of it Same happened in USSR, Yeltsin was accused in almost all of the above, and won - not so much despite of this, but to a large extent due to this. When the entire establishment gangs up against one, the normal human instinct is to support him. And the effect is so well-known that I'm actually suprised Trump's opponents acted this way.

iscrewyou 9y ago

How do you explain lower turnout for Hillary Clinton when compared to Obama's two turnout numbers?

booleandilemma 9y ago

For me, one of the most memorable moments during the campaign was when one of my liberal friends told me that he suspected Melania of being a Russian spy. I was so relieved when it was over - people were acting nuts.

matthewwiese 9y ago

Well said. No matter the influence of Russians nor widespread manipulation by Cambridge Analytica, the reality is that people chose to believe these things without their own personal endeavor into critical inquiry. And I'm not talking about that white working class "base" that people like to attribute as Trump's secret weapon. I know plenty of people, truly well meaning individuals, who are not the dumb animals most outlets like to paint the Trump supporters as. They were just conned into it all, and I'm sure shady Facebook ads had a hand in it, but ultimately it was just trusting people suckered in by a television personality (or character, even). If this election is the spark that eventually instills a sense of proper analytical reasoning skills in the United States at large, then I'll be satisified. And I say this as a person who, if I could vote in this country, would certainly have not have entertained the idea of Donald Trump at all.

forkwhilefork 9y ago
Who the hell are you to talk about Trump voters being conned or voting without critical thinking? You have no idea why people voted for him.
- matthewwiese 9y ago
  I believe you missed my point. Those that cry foul over those targeted Facebook ads also fail to realize that people were still willing to drink the Kool-Aid. Of course, it would be asinine to paint with broad strokes. But one can't disregard that it takes two to tango in exchanges of ideas and information. Edit: my horrendous spelling
  - ghthor 9y ago
    You're implying that we all were conned, yet I'm still a happy supporter of Trump and will continue to be, yet here I am not a redneck, extremely tolerant, not a racist, incredibly kind, etc. Maybe you've been conned on who a Trump supporter is.
    - matthewwiese 9y ago

wybiral 9y ago

I do agree, but it's also annoying that people keep using this to try and downplay stories like the Russia investigation and the fact that shady practices are going on at places like Facebook and in our political campaigns. People did vote for Trump. Without someone twisting their arm. But there is still merit to these other stories (even if the perspective that they got Trump elected is false).

croon 9y ago
Are you saying that hundreds of years of ad business has never worked and the billions upon billions of dollars spent on ads were wasted? Because if you're not, "People did vote for Trump. Without someone twisting their arm." is disingenuous, at best.
- wybiral 9y ago
  All of our arms are being twisted by that standard. And all candidates were using ads. I'm saying that the people voted how they voted without the use of anything that seems outside of the norm. We should investigate these data-driven ad campaigns if they do have that much influence over our democracy. And we should investigate Russian meddling because it looks like there was a divisive propaganda campaign and a bunch of shady business deals. And we should investigate the Trump campaign because it looks like there were a bunch of shady business deals with questionable ties. My real point was that the fact that these things involve Trump shouldn't impact their seriousness. We know there are people trying to find dirt on Trump but that doesn't mean all of the angles they're looking at are purely about Trump.
  - croon 9y ago
    > All of our arms are being twisted by that standard. And all candidates were using ads. But there are rules regarding how and how much can be spent on ads. My initial post was to establish that we agree that ads work, the next issue is to establish whether campaign finance laws were broken, and if spending (foreign or otherwise) were not disclosed.

andrepd 9y ago

There are tens of millions who would vote for trump no matter what, and I literally mean no matter what. No candidate has ever got less than ~40% of the popular vote in recent times. So that fact, that "tens of millions voted for Trump after all", tells us squat. And besides that, the allegations being made are extremely serious, an utter threat to democracy, and they are to be taken so independently of any other factors.

jimmies 9y ago

I can't vote in the US election. I don't give a fuck who wins. I still think Facebook is shit.

didibus 9y ago

I'm not sure that's true. I think its just people realizing the power and reach of internet media giants like facebook. Nobody wants Russia to spam American news. Nobody wants to filter through media coverage and wonder which one is fake or not. People I think are looking for a bit more liability. Show me content truthfully, validate its source, don't change the order of my news feed, don't purposely remove some content and add others because you've learned my ad click habits. Trump is trump, I don't think he's the reason for the outcry. He's mentioned in it, because it can be seen as an example, but people on all side of the political spectrum I think have issue with propaganda, and the power that lies to whom control the internet mass media. So Facebook is scary to all party, and I think only now do a majority of people have woken up to its potential destructive influence. It's not known to what extent that potential is, and the debates will probably focus on that. How much/little regulation is needed to mitigate its applications that can affect our free social democracy, while maximising our capitalist ambitions.

knowThySelfx 9y ago

This is even with most of the global mainstream media supporting Hilary and party. And now the media wants to divert their failures to some social media effect - as if FB only showed pro Trump news.

fyfy18 9y ago

I don’t think Brexit really falls into the same category. At the time of the Brexit vote there were a lot of stories in circulation that were incorrect or not telling the whole story. If people were given the real facts, I find it very unlikely that the majority would have still voted leave. Yes I agree there are some real arguments for leaving, but most people were voting leave for reasons like the NHS getting an extra £350m a week, which turned out to be just spin. Maybe a company like CA was invoked to promote stories, and maybe they were funded by powerful people, but that’s not really a conspiracy. Even now it’s still unclear on what is going to happen on some major issues, like what will happen to British citizens living in the EU.

fareesh 9y ago
The British media has been reporting on CA and its links to the leave campaign for some time now. I watched a video in which an incredibly snarky reporter interviewed someone from CA and demanded to know why they were at an event being held by the leave campaign if they weren't working together.

tensor 9y ago

Perhaps the reality is two things. One, there may have really was been collusion and manipulation of peoples psyche as the data seems to be trending towards. But two, as you suggest, perhaps some people really do like him and what he represents. And maybe the "other side" would rather believe Trump voters were tricked then believe the alternative, that Trump voters really love Trump and what he represents. The thing that posts like yours seem to silently imply is that if "the other side" would just accept Trump and his ideology, the country will be fine. But perhaps two peoples can become so divided that they would rather take up arms against each other then accept the ideology of the other group. This is the possibility that really scares people the most, and is something that no one wants to talk about.

fareesh 9y ago
There's no reason to accept the ideology, just the fact that the election was won and that a very significant number of people want that ideology. Ideally now is the time to engage with them and reach a compromise. Unfortunately the reaction has been incredibly childish.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

pteredactyl 9y ago

Exactly. And in the US I have a hard time believing the Democrats have done anything to remedy why they lost. In fact, they've made it worse.

fwdpropaganda 9y ago

> tens of millions of Americans absolutely love President Trump. Tens of millions of Americans are fucking stupid.