7 ms·

Why do you find this story scary? It seems like a sensible way for a political party to get votes: profile your current supporters, find other people who fit th

Why do you find this story scary? It seems like a sensible way for a political party to get votes: profile your current supporters, find other people who fit that profile, convince those people to vote for you too. As for Russian interference, the article you linked to says this: "The Russian meddling that German state security had been anticipating apparently never materialized. Instead, the foreign influence came from America."

tempguy9999 7y ago
> It seems like a sensible way for a political party to get votes Democracy was about educated voters, I thought. If you find this acceptable, we're on different planets. Perhaps ask a German about slippery political slopes? Or live long enough and find yourself in the middle of one. > the article you linked to says this: "The Russian meddling that German state security had been anticipating apparently never materialized. Instead, the foreign influence came from America." It also says "While the Russian episode involved ads bought under false identities by people with Kremlin ties" which you must have seen if you'd searched for 'russia'. How this statement links with the one you found, I don't know.
- luckylion 7y ago
  > Democracy was about educated voters, I thought. So trying to convince voters is undemocratic because voters are supposed to be educated before they become potential voters (and therefore don't require convincing)? Or is it just that you shouldn't try to convince them with simplified messages that don't reflect the actual complexity of the universe? Or that you shouldn't do it via Facebook?
  - tempguy9999 7y ago
    > because voters are supposed to be educated before they become potential voters yes, in that they make up their own minds rather than be open to influence by those with most money. > Or is it just that you shouldn't try to convince them with simplified messages that don't reflect the actual complexity of the universe? Such messages tend to be of the form 'vote X! Y is crap!'. Or outright lies (qv. certain leaders) That's not even a simplified messages, the first is pure tribalistic emotive, the second, well, it misrepresent reality (aka 'wrong' or 'deceitful' or 'lie'). If the were factually based and told both sides I guess I'd be OK with it. > Or that you shouldn't do it via Facebook? No, facebook is just a tool. How that tool is used is what makes it right or wrong.
    - walterstucco 7y ago
      > No, facebook is just a tool. How that tool is used is what makes it right or wrong. Facebook is just a tool in the same way a weapon is just a tool. Facebook is not a knife, an hammer or a pot, facebook is an M16. Eventually you could do good with an M16, but it's not its purpose.
    - rehasu 7y ago
      I think here American and German sentiment differ. From the American perspective the informed general public comes as a result of every ambitious group of people trying to pull you in their direction and you using as much of that input as possible to create a model that you can use for your personal gain. In sum of all the selfish actions a more objective result is achieved than with previous political models. So nobody is responsible to educate you but yourself. And it is assumed that everybody tries hardest to improve their own life independent of the General Good. That's at least how I understand the Americans.
      - tempguy9999 7y ago
        I've heard similar regarding how they do things in the US, though your expression is more extreme. If true that has to be the most inefficient and corrosive way of improving anything.
    - luckylion 7y ago
      > If the were factually based and told both sides I guess I'd be OK with it. Do you have an example of a message that you'd be okay with?
      - tempguy9999 7y ago
        I'm a brit and I suppose I'd describe myself as a remainer. That is itself a label which I don't like, but let it ride. So an example message I'd be OK with is if bojo (boris johnson) had said that the uk gives 160 million (or 199 million[0]) a week to the EU, instead of his claim that it was £350 million a week (which deliberately and dishonestly ignored the rebate), I'd be OK with that. I fear that tribalism is a disease that's damaging both the UK and the US at the moment; make your point with facts as far as possible. [0] dependng on how you count, I've heard both figures
- spangry 7y ago
  If you read the sentence before the one you very selectively quoted, or even just completed the very sentence you quoted, it becomes clear the sentence is talking about the US presidential election, not the German one: "That’s a paltry sum for Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, who finds himself in the greatest crisis of his career over the company’s role in Russia’s meddling with the U.S. election. While the Russian episode involved ads bought under false identities by people with Kremlin ties, the AfD campaign was completely different—the party literally walked through Facebook’s front door and introduced itself, a strategy Harris Media intends to repeat."
  - tempguy9999 7y ago
    I messed up, thanks for catching it. My mistake. Upvoted.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
KirinDave 7y ago
> Why do you find this story scary? It seems like a sensible way for a political party to get votes: profile your current supporters, find other people who fit that profile, convince those people to vote for you too. I'm going to take the bold stance that: yes, fascists renting time on sophisticated ad networks to spread pro-fascist propaganda is in fact scary. This is not a case of a simply political party pushing a policy agenda. This is a dangerous, militant and xenophobic group attempting to target individuals with materials designed to stoke fear and subtly misinform the public. So yeah, it is scary. It's also scary that they had help from American interests. It speaks to how far right American politics are sliding.
- hos234 7y ago
  It's scary but we evolve and learn from it. While they can be targeted with fear and misinformation. The opposite also holds. They can be targeted to diffuse fear and inject purpose, hope etc. Which is the thesis of the book Nudge (by Nobel winner Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein who tried doing this during the Obama Administration)
  - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
    as much as I support the aspiration, I do not see this working practically, well, funded, and not being abused for propaganda. I think the practical solution is to forbid foreign interests from financing attack ads and political campaigns, be they from US or Russia. And to enforce this vigilantly, with tough penalties.
freeflight 7y ago
> Why do you find this story scary? For several reasons. Over these past years the rise of the AfD, the alt-right in general, has been heavily credited to Russian interference. But to this day there's no actual solid evidence for anything like that, and these accusations of "You are just a Russian bot!" have been a major factor for driving protest voters to the AfD. When in reality it seems to have been a US American PR firm facilitating most of it, one that has managed to make political attack ads an actual thing in Germany. While I was wondering why and how the political discourse suddenly became so unbelievably hostile in Germany. But all the German mainstream gets to read and hear about is the Russians attacking "democratic institutions in Germany" [0] and supposedly propping up the alt-right, which keeps on driving voters to the AfD for feeling marginalized with their "Russian opinions". [0] https://www.dw.com/en/hackers-target-democratic-institutions-in-europe-says-microsoft/a-47595003 https://www.dw.com/en/hackers-target-democratic-institutions...

tempguy9999 7y ago

> It seems like a sensible way for a political party to get votes Democracy was about educated voters, I thought. If you find this acceptable, we're on different planets. Perhaps ask a German about slippery political slopes? Or live long enough and find yourself in the middle of one. > the article you linked to says this: "The Russian meddling that German state security had been anticipating apparently never materialized. Instead, the foreign influence came from America." It also says "While the Russian episode involved ads bought under false identities by people with Kremlin ties" which you must have seen if you'd searched for 'russia'. How this statement links with the one you found, I don't know.

luckylion 7y ago
> Democracy was about educated voters, I thought. So trying to convince voters is undemocratic because voters are supposed to be educated before they become potential voters (and therefore don't require convincing)? Or is it just that you shouldn't try to convince them with simplified messages that don't reflect the actual complexity of the universe? Or that you shouldn't do it via Facebook?
- tempguy9999 7y ago
  > because voters are supposed to be educated before they become potential voters yes, in that they make up their own minds rather than be open to influence by those with most money. > Or is it just that you shouldn't try to convince them with simplified messages that don't reflect the actual complexity of the universe? Such messages tend to be of the form 'vote X! Y is crap!'. Or outright lies (qv. certain leaders) That's not even a simplified messages, the first is pure tribalistic emotive, the second, well, it misrepresent reality (aka 'wrong' or 'deceitful' or 'lie'). If the were factually based and told both sides I guess I'd be OK with it. > Or that you shouldn't do it via Facebook? No, facebook is just a tool. How that tool is used is what makes it right or wrong.
  - walterstucco 7y ago
    > No, facebook is just a tool. How that tool is used is what makes it right or wrong. Facebook is just a tool in the same way a weapon is just a tool. Facebook is not a knife, an hammer or a pot, facebook is an M16. Eventually you could do good with an M16, but it's not its purpose.
  - rehasu 7y ago
    I think here American and German sentiment differ. From the American perspective the informed general public comes as a result of every ambitious group of people trying to pull you in their direction and you using as much of that input as possible to create a model that you can use for your personal gain. In sum of all the selfish actions a more objective result is achieved than with previous political models. So nobody is responsible to educate you but yourself. And it is assumed that everybody tries hardest to improve their own life independent of the General Good. That's at least how I understand the Americans.
    - tempguy9999 7y ago
      I've heard similar regarding how they do things in the US, though your expression is more extreme. If true that has to be the most inefficient and corrosive way of improving anything.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    > If the were factually based and told both sides I guess I'd be OK with it. Do you have an example of a message that you'd be okay with?
    - tempguy9999 7y ago
      I'm a brit and I suppose I'd describe myself as a remainer. That is itself a label which I don't like, but let it ride. So an example message I'd be OK with is if bojo (boris johnson) had said that the uk gives 160 million (or 199 million[0]) a week to the EU, instead of his claim that it was £350 million a week (which deliberately and dishonestly ignored the rebate), I'd be OK with that. I fear that tribalism is a disease that's damaging both the UK and the US at the moment; make your point with facts as far as possible. [0] dependng on how you count, I've heard both figures
spangry 7y ago
If you read the sentence before the one you very selectively quoted, or even just completed the very sentence you quoted, it becomes clear the sentence is talking about the US presidential election, not the German one: "That’s a paltry sum for Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, who finds himself in the greatest crisis of his career over the company’s role in Russia’s meddling with the U.S. election. While the Russian episode involved ads bought under false identities by people with Kremlin ties, the AfD campaign was completely different—the party literally walked through Facebook’s front door and introduced itself, a strategy Harris Media intends to repeat."
- tempguy9999 7y ago
  I messed up, thanks for catching it. My mistake. Upvoted.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

KirinDave 7y ago

> Why do you find this story scary? It seems like a sensible way for a political party to get votes: profile your current supporters, find other people who fit that profile, convince those people to vote for you too. I'm going to take the bold stance that: yes, fascists renting time on sophisticated ad networks to spread pro-fascist propaganda is in fact scary. This is not a case of a simply political party pushing a policy agenda. This is a dangerous, militant and xenophobic group attempting to target individuals with materials designed to stoke fear and subtly misinform the public. So yeah, it is scary. It's also scary that they had help from American interests. It speaks to how far right American politics are sliding.

hos234 7y ago
It's scary but we evolve and learn from it. While they can be targeted with fear and misinformation. The opposite also holds. They can be targeted to diffuse fear and inject purpose, hope etc. Which is the thesis of the book Nudge (by Nobel winner Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein who tried doing this during the Obama Administration)
- ClumsyPilot 7y ago
  as much as I support the aspiration, I do not see this working practically, well, funded, and not being abused for propaganda. I think the practical solution is to forbid foreign interests from financing attack ads and political campaigns, be they from US or Russia. And to enforce this vigilantly, with tough penalties.

freeflight 7y ago

> Why do you find this story scary? For several reasons. Over these past years the rise of the AfD, the alt-right in general, has been heavily credited to Russian interference. But to this day there's no actual solid evidence for anything like that, and these accusations of "You are just a Russian bot!" have been a major factor for driving protest voters to the AfD. When in reality it seems to have been a US American PR firm facilitating most of it, one that has managed to make political attack ads an actual thing in Germany. While I was wondering why and how the political discourse suddenly became so unbelievably hostile in Germany. But all the German mainstream gets to read and hear about is the Russians attacking "democratic institutions in Germany" [0] and supposedly propping up the alt-right, which keeps on driving voters to the AfD for feeling marginalized with their "Russian opinions". [0] https://www.dw.com/en/hackers-target-democratic-institutions-in-europe-says-microsoft/a-47595003 https://www.dw.com/en/hackers-target-democratic-institutions...