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That's a fair question. I've got a follow-up for you: do people actually watch other people express diverse opinions or are they happy with just impeaching the

That's a fair question. I've got a follow-up for you: do people actually watch other people express diverse opinions or are they happy with just impeaching the source, slandering the messenger, and moving on? It seems everywhere I go online I get other people telling me how I should or shouldn't consume media content based on the producer's political opinions. I both upvoted the video link and your comment. I like people with different opinions and worldviews. Now I'll go watch the video.

creato 8y ago
The verge article is detailed and pretty convincing that I don't need to bother with this video. This isn't impeaching the source because of their political opinions, it's impeaching the content because of its political opinions. > Taylor and the film’s writer Peter Schweizer say that they’re aware of issues affecting non-conservatives and simply wanted to focus on a single thread of the conversation. But that focus completely changes the argument. If conservatives are disproportionately suffering on Google and Facebook, an incident like Peterson getting locked out of Gmail looks like political warfare. If people across the social and political spectra are getting accounts suspended, YouTube videos demonetized, or stories de-ranked, it looks like bad service from a platform with a legitimately disconcerting amount of power. > This distinction is probably obvious to many people. But The Creepy Line suggests that any seeming technical glitch or bad decision is a coordinated step in the master plan of Silicon Valley’s digital “kingmakers,” even when that’s far from the most obvious conclusion. It does things like insinuate that Google’s lack of a customer support hotline is inexplicable and suspicious, or claim that “very few people in the world have ever seen” an error page for google.com, so spotting one indicates that Google has cut off search access to punish a user for criticizing it. It glosses over the fact that these kingmakers didn’t even get their favored candidate into the White House, although Taylor argues that Google only put “roughly 10 percent effort” into its manipulation efforts because it was confident Clinton was already winning. “That won’t happen again,” he says. edit: If this actually is funded by Amazon as someone speculated elsewhere in this thread, it's probably going to backfire spectacularly if this catches on.
- DanielBMarkham 8y ago
  I honestly think you're missing the forest for the trees. It doesn't matter the actual reason massive, subtle opinion changes occur. Maybe it's the Russians. Maybe it's a liberal cabal. Maybe, as I suspect, most of SV doesn't know what the hell they're doing and are just faking it the best they can while they make bank. There is some effect occurring. Most reasonable commentators agree on that. Once that's settled, then there are a bunch of follow-on questions: how large is it? How do we measure it? And so forth. This video, assuming the worst slander you have is true, is an example of an answer to the following question: how are the existing political power structures perceiving this new effect? That, in my mind, is as interesting as any of the rest of it. More so, actually, since the perception of damage is a much bigger thing in most cases than the damage itself. This is going to get political, and in a hurry. I don't care which bunch of political assholes are carrying the flag towards fixing it, but I want to know how they perceive the problems involved and what they might do to fix things if given the chance. This is too important to choose up teams and play the usual stupid partisan games.
  - creato 8y ago
    Sorry, I don't buy it. If you (or the authors of this piece) want to have a conversation about data harvesting, do that. Subtly entwining that with conservative conspiracy theories isn't just an innocuous side thread of the conversation. This is clearly an attempt to hijack the conversation about data harvesting to amplify their totally unrelated message about supposed suppression of conservative speech. This is a case of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' going horribly wrong.
    - DanielBMarkham 8y ago
      I'll try again. And that's it. You are concerned that this piece is wrong/misleading. Ok. Great. Another person wrong on the internet. Now, from a meta level, can you accept that the public discussion about data harvesting, like everything else is going to be politicized? And would you rather understand and engage people of all political persuasions by following their arguments, or are you happy just being in teams? I like understanding both sides, seeing where they are going. That way I can have reasonable conversations with them. Innocuous has nothing to do with anything. In fact, I'd argue that it's not innocuous. It's important. That's why we need to understand it. You realize, of course, that both sides look equally nutty to the other, right? I'm watching it rain and friends of both political parties spin up the most fantastical explanations for why it's raining. I find that fascinating. I also need to talk to them about coming the hell in out of the rain, so I choose to understand first, then be understood. Nobody's trying to soft-pedal anything. There's no whitewashing here. The perception is the reality. That's the way humans work. The causal, pseudo-scientific part of things? Different conversation entirely. Stop mixing them up.

creato 8y ago

The verge article is detailed and pretty convincing that I don't need to bother with this video. This isn't impeaching the source because of their political opinions, it's impeaching the content because of its political opinions. > Taylor and the film’s writer Peter Schweizer say that they’re aware of issues affecting non-conservatives and simply wanted to focus on a single thread of the conversation. But that focus completely changes the argument. If conservatives are disproportionately suffering on Google and Facebook, an incident like Peterson getting locked out of Gmail looks like political warfare. If people across the social and political spectra are getting accounts suspended, YouTube videos demonetized, or stories de-ranked, it looks like bad service from a platform with a legitimately disconcerting amount of power. > This distinction is probably obvious to many people. But The Creepy Line suggests that any seeming technical glitch or bad decision is a coordinated step in the master plan of Silicon Valley’s digital “kingmakers,” even when that’s far from the most obvious conclusion. It does things like insinuate that Google’s lack of a customer support hotline is inexplicable and suspicious, or claim that “very few people in the world have ever seen” an error page for google.com, so spotting one indicates that Google has cut off search access to punish a user for criticizing it. It glosses over the fact that these kingmakers didn’t even get their favored candidate into the White House, although Taylor argues that Google only put “roughly 10 percent effort” into its manipulation efforts because it was confident Clinton was already winning. “That won’t happen again,” he says. edit: If this actually is funded by Amazon as someone speculated elsewhere in this thread, it's probably going to backfire spectacularly if this catches on.

DanielBMarkham 8y ago
I honestly think you're missing the forest for the trees. It doesn't matter the actual reason massive, subtle opinion changes occur. Maybe it's the Russians. Maybe it's a liberal cabal. Maybe, as I suspect, most of SV doesn't know what the hell they're doing and are just faking it the best they can while they make bank. There is some effect occurring. Most reasonable commentators agree on that. Once that's settled, then there are a bunch of follow-on questions: how large is it? How do we measure it? And so forth. This video, assuming the worst slander you have is true, is an example of an answer to the following question: how are the existing political power structures perceiving this new effect? That, in my mind, is as interesting as any of the rest of it. More so, actually, since the perception of damage is a much bigger thing in most cases than the damage itself. This is going to get political, and in a hurry. I don't care which bunch of political assholes are carrying the flag towards fixing it, but I want to know how they perceive the problems involved and what they might do to fix things if given the chance. This is too important to choose up teams and play the usual stupid partisan games.
- creato 8y ago
  Sorry, I don't buy it. If you (or the authors of this piece) want to have a conversation about data harvesting, do that. Subtly entwining that with conservative conspiracy theories isn't just an innocuous side thread of the conversation. This is clearly an attempt to hijack the conversation about data harvesting to amplify their totally unrelated message about supposed suppression of conservative speech. This is a case of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' going horribly wrong.
  - DanielBMarkham 8y ago
    I'll try again. And that's it. You are concerned that this piece is wrong/misleading. Ok. Great. Another person wrong on the internet. Now, from a meta level, can you accept that the public discussion about data harvesting, like everything else is going to be politicized? And would you rather understand and engage people of all political persuasions by following their arguments, or are you happy just being in teams? I like understanding both sides, seeing where they are going. That way I can have reasonable conversations with them. Innocuous has nothing to do with anything. In fact, I'd argue that it's not innocuous. It's important. That's why we need to understand it. You realize, of course, that both sides look equally nutty to the other, right? I'm watching it rain and friends of both political parties spin up the most fantastical explanations for why it's raining. I find that fascinating. I also need to talk to them about coming the hell in out of the rain, so I choose to understand first, then be understood. Nobody's trying to soft-pedal anything. There's no whitewashing here. The perception is the reality. That's the way humans work. The causal, pseudo-scientific part of things? Different conversation entirely. Stop mixing them up.