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Please read this. This isn't just another routine news that Zuck lied and Facebook is evil. They had access to more than 4.000 previously unreleased documents.

by neves 8y ago

Please read this. This isn't just another routine news that Zuck lied and Facebook is evil. They had access to more than 4.000 previously unreleased documents. Democracy is at stake. Facebook and its subsidiaries are destroying our societies. The problem is global. Not because it is happening in a far away country you shouldn't care. You can already see the increase in Amazon deforestation due to Bolsonaro election in Brazil.

threeseed 8y ago
You can't blame Facebook for the rise of right wing leaders. It's been happening in US, Italy, Israel, Poland, Hungary, Phillipines and now Brazil and the trend will continue whilst those leaders offer strength, populism and can point to immigrants as the cause of society's problems.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  Yes, and a corrupt left-wing leader could use the exact same techniques. Like the guns they put on the back of Toyota trucks in third world countries, this tracking stuff has no particular allegiance.
  - cageface 8y ago
    Promoting negative emotions is a lot easier than promoting positive emotions. To a very large degree the platform of the right is currently heavily weighted toward provoking fear and anger, negative emotions easy to stoke in people. This might change and we may have an ascendant party on the left with a primarily negative message eventually. And I'm not saying the current left never does this. But at the moment the right's playbook fits existing social media better.
    - whatshisface 8y ago
      I hope to avoid a political debate, but the left has plenty of negative messages too. The rich are too rich and don't have to pay taxes, the poor are too poor, racism never completely went away, the corporate world is unfair to women, and so on. I doubt there has ever been a political movement without any negative messages. I should add in support of your point about social media having a propensity to negativity, these negative left-leaning messages tend to spread faster than the positive ones, just like on the right wing.
      - cageface 8y ago
        Yeah I agree it's not intrinsically a left or right issue. It's more about the naive and simplistic design of the current platforms. I think we'll eventually see a second generation of social media platforms that incorporate the lessons learned from this generation.
      - danans 8y ago
        > but the left has plenty of negative messages too. The rich are too rich and don't have to pay taxes, the poor are too poor, racism never completely went away, the corporate world is unfair to women, and so on. Those are hardly negative, and to equate their tone with far right rhetoric is textbook false equivalency. They are if anything just positions that one may or may not agree with about the just distribution of wealth and opportunity. None of them are even in same ballpark or kind as the current toxic rhetoric on the far right, such as "[Mexicans] are criminals", "Muslims are trying to impose Sharia law in the US", "blood and soil", "we can't rebuild our civilization with someone else's babies" (that one is paraphrasing from a sitting member of Congress). That is the rhetoric of racial and ethnic nationalism, which is almost totally a far right phenomenon on social media. There is no equivalent on the far left today, and that's not to say that it can't develop. But to do so with literally require a complete change of the people who make up the left.
        whatshisface 8y ago
        You don't have to dig very far to find some stupid kids on Reddit going off on that "eat the rich" stuff - but the thing is, your "stupid kids" are their "horrible violent mob," and their "stupid kids" are your "horrible violent mob." In reality they're both a little bit violent and definitely both stupid. ;) Social media and regular media both contribute to this perception because everyone wants to forget about their own bad associations and focus on the bad associations of others. So, if you want to find out about nationalists you read left-leaning publications and if you want to find out about radical-to-the-point-of-silliness leftists you have to read right-leaning publications.
        danans 8y ago
    - int_19h 8y ago
      There's enough hate, anger and other similar emotions on the left, that memes like these get made by other people on the left to combat it (with not much success, from my own experience). https://i.imgur.com/YFQ9zO6.jpg https://i.imgur.com/YFQ9zO6.jpg I would also like to remind that among the many pages removed from the very same Facebook because they were inciting hate and anger as part of the Russian propaganda ops, quite a few were targeting left-leaning audiences. In general, populists of all stripes are going to appeal to those emotions precisely because it's much easier to evoke them. So whichever side has a stronger populist faction at any given moment is the one that benefits most. In some places (like US) it's the right wing currently, in others, it's the left.
- save_ferris 8y ago
  > You can't blame Facebook for the rise of right wing leaders Facebook absolutely bears some culpability in this, but they're not the only reason that this is happening. Facebook cannot successfully control the hateful toxicity of their platform, which is now global. All along the way, Facebook has lied, concealed, and deflected as much blame and responsibility as they could. This is unacceptable. Facebook launched internet.org to get the 3rd world online (and more specifically, facebook), and wound up cancelling the project after the UN blamed Facebook for failing to control toxic speech against the Rohingya, who were mass murdered and displaced as a result[0]. [0]: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/facebook-myanmar-rohingya-genocide https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/facebook-myanma...
  - neves 8y ago
    It's impressive how a lot of reasonable and negative comments about Facebook are always downvoted here. Probably it isn't a coordinated PR tactic, just where have a lot of Facebookers here.
- neves 8y ago
  No, I can blame. They could have stopped to spread of fake news, but as the article says, it's not their best interest.
- rhizome 8y ago
  Consider the example of Julius Streicher: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Streicher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Streicher
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

by neves 8y ago

threeseed 8y ago

You can't blame Facebook for the rise of right wing leaders. It's been happening in US, Italy, Israel, Poland, Hungary, Phillipines and now Brazil and the trend will continue whilst those leaders offer strength, populism and can point to immigrants as the cause of society's problems.

whatshisface 8y ago
Yes, and a corrupt left-wing leader could use the exact same techniques. Like the guns they put on the back of Toyota trucks in third world countries, this tracking stuff has no particular allegiance.
- cageface 8y ago
  Promoting negative emotions is a lot easier than promoting positive emotions. To a very large degree the platform of the right is currently heavily weighted toward provoking fear and anger, negative emotions easy to stoke in people. This might change and we may have an ascendant party on the left with a primarily negative message eventually. And I'm not saying the current left never does this. But at the moment the right's playbook fits existing social media better.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    I hope to avoid a political debate, but the left has plenty of negative messages too. The rich are too rich and don't have to pay taxes, the poor are too poor, racism never completely went away, the corporate world is unfair to women, and so on. I doubt there has ever been a political movement without any negative messages. I should add in support of your point about social media having a propensity to negativity, these negative left-leaning messages tend to spread faster than the positive ones, just like on the right wing.
    - cageface 8y ago
      Yeah I agree it's not intrinsically a left or right issue. It's more about the naive and simplistic design of the current platforms. I think we'll eventually see a second generation of social media platforms that incorporate the lessons learned from this generation.
    - danans 8y ago
      > but the left has plenty of negative messages too. The rich are too rich and don't have to pay taxes, the poor are too poor, racism never completely went away, the corporate world is unfair to women, and so on. Those are hardly negative, and to equate their tone with far right rhetoric is textbook false equivalency. They are if anything just positions that one may or may not agree with about the just distribution of wealth and opportunity. None of them are even in same ballpark or kind as the current toxic rhetoric on the far right, such as "[Mexicans] are criminals", "Muslims are trying to impose Sharia law in the US", "blood and soil", "we can't rebuild our civilization with someone else's babies" (that one is paraphrasing from a sitting member of Congress). That is the rhetoric of racial and ethnic nationalism, which is almost totally a far right phenomenon on social media. There is no equivalent on the far left today, and that's not to say that it can't develop. But to do so with literally require a complete change of the people who make up the left.
      - whatshisface 8y ago
        You don't have to dig very far to find some stupid kids on Reddit going off on that "eat the rich" stuff - but the thing is, your "stupid kids" are their "horrible violent mob," and their "stupid kids" are your "horrible violent mob." In reality they're both a little bit violent and definitely both stupid. ;) Social media and regular media both contribute to this perception because everyone wants to forget about their own bad associations and focus on the bad associations of others. So, if you want to find out about nationalists you read left-leaning publications and if you want to find out about radical-to-the-point-of-silliness leftists you have to read right-leaning publications.
        danans 8y ago
  - int_19h 8y ago
    There's enough hate, anger and other similar emotions on the left, that memes like these get made by other people on the left to combat it (with not much success, from my own experience). https://i.imgur.com/YFQ9zO6.jpg https://i.imgur.com/YFQ9zO6.jpg I would also like to remind that among the many pages removed from the very same Facebook because they were inciting hate and anger as part of the Russian propaganda ops, quite a few were targeting left-leaning audiences. In general, populists of all stripes are going to appeal to those emotions precisely because it's much easier to evoke them. So whichever side has a stronger populist faction at any given moment is the one that benefits most. In some places (like US) it's the right wing currently, in others, it's the left.
save_ferris 8y ago
> You can't blame Facebook for the rise of right wing leaders Facebook absolutely bears some culpability in this, but they're not the only reason that this is happening. Facebook cannot successfully control the hateful toxicity of their platform, which is now global. All along the way, Facebook has lied, concealed, and deflected as much blame and responsibility as they could. This is unacceptable. Facebook launched internet.org to get the 3rd world online (and more specifically, facebook), and wound up cancelling the project after the UN blamed Facebook for failing to control toxic speech against the Rohingya, who were mass murdered and displaced as a result[0]. [0]: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/facebook-myanmar-rohingya-genocide https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/facebook-myanma...
- neves 8y ago
  It's impressive how a lot of reasonable and negative comments about Facebook are always downvoted here. Probably it isn't a coordinated PR tactic, just where have a lot of Facebookers here.
neves 8y ago
No, I can blame. They could have stopped to spread of fake news, but as the article says, it's not their best interest.
rhizome 8y ago
Consider the example of Julius Streicher: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Streicher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Streicher

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]