18 ms·
It sure would be nice if Facebook would come out and clearly say that these bad actors are clearly non-partisan, and are simply trying to cause civil unrest in
by gfodor 8y ago
It sure would be nice if Facebook would come out and clearly say that these bad actors are clearly non-partisan, and are simply trying to cause civil unrest in the US by agitating both sides of the political spectrum.
I'm sure these state actors are thrilled that their plan has gone so well -- not only are their agitations seemingly driving the population apart, but the wider politicization of the issue itself, fueled by the media, where people think the bad guys are acting to tip the scales in the favor of the opposition just plays further into the hands of these actors and does more to fracture our society than any of these stupid Facebook ad campaigns they're concocting ever could.
- cm2012 8y agoSo the thing is, it is partisan, towards the republican party. When they showed liberal issues during the election, it wasn't ones that would drive the average liberal vote. It was issues that would drive conservative outrage, like Antifa ads saying to burn down society, etc. And IIRC correctly, the ad spend they did was showing these liberal ads to conservative audiences, which would make no sense if it was non partisan.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- gfodor 8y agoThis article shows the state actors actively organizing left-wing counter-protests. Your narrative is part of the problem.
- throwaway82729 8y agoNo, it doesn't. It just says that they were connected to the protests.
- nailer 8y agoThe article specifically states the state actors created an event, and then coordinated with five legitimate pages to co-host the event: > The “Resisters” Page also created a Facebook Event for a protest on August 10 to 12 and enlisted support from real people. The Event – “No Unite the Right 2 – DC” – was scheduled to protest an August “Unite the Right” event in Washington. Inauthentic admins of the “Resisters” Page connected with admins from five legitimate Pages to co-host the event. These legitimate Pages unwittingly helped build interest in “No Unite Right 2 – DC” and posted information about transportation, materials, and locations so people could get to the protests.
- empressplay 8y ago"The 'Resisters' Page also created a Facebook Event for a protest on August 10 to 12 and enlisted support from real people. The Event – “No Unite the Right 2 – DC” – was scheduled to protest an August “Unite the Right” event in Washington. Inauthentic admins of the “Resisters” Page connected with admins from five legitimate Pages to co-host the event."
- microdrum 8y agoThis. It's documented that the Russian state security apparatus was not seeking (and did not believe it possible) to prevent Clinton from winning. What they wanted, and got, is mania.
- gruez 8y agoSource?
- iscrewyou 8y agoRead NYTimes. Then watch Fox. Repeat. You’ll know what he means.
- prolikewh0a 8y agoAre you sure you're putting blame in the right place and not just falling into some manufactured consent? Every day income inequality gets worse, workers are treated like garbage[1], wages are going down[2] with unemployment going down, people can't afford health insurance and even if they can they will probably still be broken as deductibles and out of pocket costs rise, 80% of all people are living paycheck[3], 50% of all people in USA are defined as poor or low income[4], 80% of the country makes under $65k/year while the value of our money becomes less[5], 1/5 of children are in poverty[6]. I really think this is a natural occurrence to the failures of this corrupt capitalist system that provides for the few instead of the many. Things are shifting left, and it's certainly not because Russia spent $50k on advertisements on Facebook. You can also argue that the UK was a far greater influence with Cambridge Analytica, but it's something people like to ignore. These are absolutely our own policies having this effect. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/30/accidents-at-amazon-workers-left-to-suffer-after-warehouse-injuries https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/30/accidents... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/15/for-the-biggest-group-of-american-workers-wages-arent-just-flat-theyre-falling/?utm_term=.13c656824069 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/15/for-t... [3] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/24/most-americans-live-paycheck-to-paycheck.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/24/most-americans-live-paycheck... [4] https://kairoscenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Poverty-Fact-sheet-Jan-2017.pdf https://kairoscenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Poverty-... [5] https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2016 https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2016 [6] http://www.nccp.org/topics/childpoverty.html http://www.nccp.org/topics/childpoverty.html
- weiming 8y agoCould someone ELI5 why FB is in the business of policing any non-illegal speech at all? Political, partisan, foreign-made, domestic-made, poor taste humor, memes, etc. -- why not just keep all of it? It seems like a slippery slope if they turn to active moderation, and they have everything to lose by selectively choosing one or other side of some debate.
- machiavelli1024 8y agoI think because the Russians and Trump. Some people also mention white supremacists and other toxic people.
- caust1c 8y agoBecause facebook recognizes how powerful a tool the site is to fuel hate and they don't want to destroy society.
- maccam94 8y agoFacebook's brand is based on connecting real people. Fake trolls pollute their platform and tarnish their brand.
- scaryclam 8y agos/connecting/advertising at/
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- cryoshon 8y agothe russians are playing the various factions against each other, yes. but they couldn't do it successfully if there weren't real, deep, vicious, and simmering rifts to begin with. furthermore, the institutions responsible for generating public unity are, to put it lightly, in shreds. people don't trust the media, and there is little in the way of genuine investigative reporting in any event. people don't trust the government's agencies -- nor are many of those agencies beneficial to the public anyways. local governments are facing unprecedented system failure; many can't provide basic necessities like clean water. territories like puerto rico can't count on federalism any more after being let down in their moments of great need. putin didn't cause any of these problems by spamming propaganda on facebook.
- extralego 8y agoThese shortcomings of government are very basic to explain. It’s been well understood for plenty of time that private interests erode otherwise healthy good faith public service. To not acknowledge such systemic causality at this stage of things is a failure on your own part.
- equalunique 8y agoThe content of this comment is very sensible. The fact that it has been downvoted speaks volumes about the defining culture here on HN.
- throwaway0255 8y agoThis is only my experience, but personally I haven’t really found anyone who fits this “politically fractured and agitated” description in the real world. People in person don’t really seem to care as much and are generally somewhat moderate/centrist and are perfectly capable of talking about these issues without reflexively hating the opposition. The one thing everyone does seem to agree on is that they hate internet mobs and political extremism on both sides. I don’t know. Regular people still seem pretty damn reasonable to me. I think the problem might be that we’re taking a very narrowly defined demographic (people who argue rudely with strangers on the internet) and extrapolating from that as if their sentiment represents everyone at large. Media sources do this as a justification to report on population sentiment and create big narratives arcs out of it. Twitter and Facebook’s scale and visibility makes it very convenient for them. But I really think the “write nasty comments on the internet” demo is too narrow and specific to extrapolate anything meaningful from it at all (unless perhaps you’re a psychiatric researcher...)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- panarky 8y ago> these bad actors are clearly non-partisan No, it's not at all clear. The 2016 disinformation campaign clearly favored one candidate, while simultaneously attempting to radicalize his opposition. Maybe stirring up anti-fascist counter-protests actually helps the right wing by proving that they're fighting evil scary masked guys wearing black. Maybe the adversaries understand very well the countermeasures Facebook has taken, knew these accounts would be discovered, and the discovery itself is intentionally part of their campaign. Or maybe they're just indiscriminately pouring gasoline into the fire. It's not at all clear that all interests are equally compromised.
- equalunique 8y ago>The 2016 disinformation campaign clearly favored one candidate How then would you characterize Russian sources on the Steele dossier? Edit: Bring on the downvotes. I don't care.
- panarky 8y agoUmmm ... maybe those sources weren't part of the disinformation campaign? Or are you trying to argue that evidence of possible Russian influence over one candidate, by its very existence, is evidence that they don't have influence over that candidate?
- equalunique 8y ago>Or are you trying to argue that evidence of possible Russian influence over one candidate, by its very existence, is evidence that they don't have influence over that candidate? No. It's possible evidence - some of it is verifiable while other parts are simply allegations. Can you prove that the part in the dossier about the hotel orgy was not a disinformation campaign used on western intelligence?
- MaysonL 8y agoHas any part of the dossier been proven false? Not so far as I know. Has any part of the dossier been proven true? Yes.
- moorhosj 8y ago==It sure would be nice if Facebook would come out and clearly say that these bad actors are clearly non-partisan, and are simply trying to cause civil unrest in the US by agitating both sides of the political spectrum.== Both of these can be true at the same time. Companies donate to both political parties all the time, that doesn't mean they don't have a preference. The Koch brothers have given money to Democrats, but they certainly prefer Republicans in power. Putin said he wanted Trump to win in Helsinki [1]. We also know the RNC was hacked [2]. That those emails weren't released in the same manner as the DNC's seems like evidence the scales were being tipped. [1] http://time.com/5339793/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-russia-election-meddling/ http://time.com/5339793/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-russia-e... [2] https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/comey-republicans-hacked-russia/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/comey-republicans-ha...
- mc32 8y agoThis thing has the potential to get put of control. Not a red scare, but like the red scare it has the potential to sweep up unintended victims. What happens to foreign PACs, can they buy ads? Can the UK, Israel, Saudi, Mexico, China, etc, now be barred from trying to influence US politics in ways which were previously allowed? What about political ads in foreign language channels, will those be monitored for foreign influence?
- Kalium 8y ago> It sure would be nice if Facebook would come out and clearly say that these bad actors are clearly non-partisan, and are simply trying to cause civil unrest in the US by agitating both sides of the political spectrum. You're dead on. It would be nice if Facebook would come out and clearly say that! There might be a potential wrinkle in that it's not always possible to correctly infer an actor's true intentions from knowing some of their actions. It's also generally impossible to know for certain when you've learned of all of an actor's actions. It would be really awesome is Facebook were to say that this is clearly just non-partisan shit-stirring! But it also might not be fully true.
- aalleavitch 8y agoWhat a morally convenient position when certain people are actively leaning into the disinformation for political gain...
- LeoPanthera 8y ago> these bad actors are clearly non-partisan There is no [citation needed] big enough for this claim, since it flies in the face of all available evidence so far.