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1) Yes, there is a certain degree of hypocrisy in commentators lauding the sophistication of the Obama campaign machine and then complaining about the Republica

1) Yes, there is a certain degree of hypocrisy in commentators lauding the sophistication of the Obama campaign machine and then complaining about the Republican strategy. At the same time, some of the most celebrated aspects of the Obama campaign were not about social media. This is not (or should not be) treated as a partisan issue. 2) Political advertising is beneficial to democracy only if it improves voter's ability to vote in an informed way, which might not be the case. 3) If all competitive candidates require huge advertising budgets, that limits who can run and makes them beholden to sponsors. 4) The particular concern here is the lack of transparency. However much advertising helps inform voters, if voters are also able to understand what advertising strategies are being used they will be more informed. Social media seems particularly opaque with regards to what has been paid for, manipulated or occurred organically.

chimeracoder 9y ago
> Yes, there is a certain degree of hypocrisy in commentators lauding the sophistication of the Obama campaign machine and then complaining about the Republican strategy. The complaints are generally with respect to a targeted effort to direct people towards sites publishing outright false information[0] as propaganda, and doing so by coordinating with a foreign government. There is no such claim about the Obama campaign machine - certainly that's not what people laud when they talk about it. [0] Not misleading or biased, but completely false - as false as the headline "Humans Land On Mars", or "Moon Landing Revealed to be Hoax" would be.
- jimmytidey 9y ago
  If you want a non-partisan debate, which I do, I think you have to look past this kind of 'who was worse' debate. Even if there is an answer to 'who was worse', trying to reach a conclusion will just descend into meaningless point scoring. So, rather than saying that there is or isn't hypocrisy, I guess it would have been better for me to say that I don't care.
  - chimeracoder 9y ago
    > If you want a non-partisan debate, which I do, I think you have to look past this kind of 'who was worse' debate. You can have a "non-partisan" debate while recognizing that there's an important distinction between applying data to disseminate information in good faith to potential voters and applying data to intentionally disseminate misinformation in concert with a foreign government.
    - tatersolid 9y ago
      Your typical Democrat enthusiast considers the entire Republican platform “disininformation”. And vice versa. That’s truly the root of the problem here: none of the “fanatics” who control the various political organizations on left or the right actually want informed debate. They want to censor the other side entirely.

chimeracoder 9y ago

> Yes, there is a certain degree of hypocrisy in commentators lauding the sophistication of the Obama campaign machine and then complaining about the Republican strategy. The complaints are generally with respect to a targeted effort to direct people towards sites publishing outright false information[0] as propaganda, and doing so by coordinating with a foreign government. There is no such claim about the Obama campaign machine - certainly that's not what people laud when they talk about it. [0] Not misleading or biased, but completely false - as false as the headline "Humans Land On Mars", or "Moon Landing Revealed to be Hoax" would be.

jimmytidey 9y ago
If you want a non-partisan debate, which I do, I think you have to look past this kind of 'who was worse' debate. Even if there is an answer to 'who was worse', trying to reach a conclusion will just descend into meaningless point scoring. So, rather than saying that there is or isn't hypocrisy, I guess it would have been better for me to say that I don't care.
- chimeracoder 9y ago
  > If you want a non-partisan debate, which I do, I think you have to look past this kind of 'who was worse' debate. You can have a "non-partisan" debate while recognizing that there's an important distinction between applying data to disseminate information in good faith to potential voters and applying data to intentionally disseminate misinformation in concert with a foreign government.
  - tatersolid 9y ago
    Your typical Democrat enthusiast considers the entire Republican platform “disininformation”. And vice versa. That’s truly the root of the problem here: none of the “fanatics” who control the various political organizations on left or the right actually want informed debate. They want to censor the other side entirely.