4 ms·

So now that the Cambridge Analytica story is unraveling they're looking for a new scapegoat to blame an undesirable (to them) political outcome on.

iamkroot 6y ago
I have often wondered: if Brexit and the 2016 presidential election had gone differently, would we still have this panic surrounding social media? To me, a lot of it feels like people can't believe that a thinking human would ever vote for "the bad guys", so they go searching for some other explanation. It must have been some sort of brainwashing, that's the only reason someone would ever fall for their obvious lies! Curiously, I very rarely hear people who complain about social media admit to it influencing their own political decisions, it's always their opponents who are being led astray.
- jeffreyrogers 6y ago
  My thoughts are that most people's political views are shaped by the media they consume. For a large portion of the social elite, these views are shaped by their education and by the class views espoused in publications like the New Yorker, NYT, etc. These prestige publications no longer have the influence they once had on other social classes because these social classes have access to a wide variety of new media enabled by the internet, and this loss of control is what's shocking to the political/social elite. I think something along these lines must be what's happening because in terms of actual policy, Trump isn't that different from someone like Pat Buchanan.
  - anigbrowl 6y ago
    Pat Buchanan is generally regarded as a political extremist. And yes, I'm very familiar with him based on his own speech and writing, not someone else's characterization of it.
    - jeffreyrogers 6y ago
      Sure, but he doesn't provoke the intense reaction that Trump does.
      - anigbrowl 6y ago
        Perhaps because he hasn't run for office in a quarter century? And while I find many of his views odious, he's more coherent and restrained in his rhetoric than Trump - he is a fixture on a weekly TV roundtable political TV show called *The McLaughlin Group if you want to sample his communication style.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > My thoughts are that most people's political views are shaped by the media they consume. Are you sure it's not the other way around? I believe people's political views shape what media they consume. I agree with your point that wider availability plays a role, but I see it mostly in giving people a choice. If you only have one choice in media, you can either not read news or read that one. If you have multiple choices, you can choose whichever seems to make the most sense to you. People don't want to feel like they are reading an article by someone who has no clue about the matter at hand, which it often feels like when they come from a very different ideological background, they will seem to have things backwards, focus on irrelevant details and completely miss the actual reasons.
- ffggvv 6y ago
  i think almost certainly not. i also tbink we’d have much less political correctness and wokeness
- intended 6y ago
  You would, eventually there would be some other trigger event which would make it clear that things arent normal. Theres been a fundamentaly change in how information in society is organized, in terms of reach, scale, scope and frequency - and all the data analysis and nudging it entails. At some point that vortex would create some event that would set off conversation and fear as the average person begins to discuss what is going on/
dane-pgp 6y ago
> the Cambridge Analytica story is unraveling I assume you are referring to stories like this[0] where the UK's Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) recently found that "Cambridge Analytica models were exaggerated and ineffective". Presumably you don't think that there could be any bias in the ICO's investigation, despite the UK government now being run by Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings, all senior members of the Vote Leave campaign group. Regardless of any bias, there is the question of whether the ICO had the data it needed to judge CA's models sufficiently. We have a whistleblower claiming that Vote Leave "attempted to destroy evidence"[1] and photographic proof that "Storage crates were removed from Cambridge Analytica's London headquarters today (pictured) but it is not yet known who has ordered them to be taken away"[2]. In fact, CA were given at least a week's notice to prepare for the search warrant[3], a privilege not afforded to most criminal suspects. You might think that there is nothing suspicious about all this, and that even a fair examination of CA's practices would clear them of any influence over the outcome of the referendum (and you may also think that all online advertising is a waste of money, because it can't influence people's decisions and opinions), but please do not glibly state without a citation that the story about them is "unravelling". [0] https://www.itpro.co.uk/policy-legislation/data-protection/357367/cambridge-analytica-project-was-ineffective-ico-claims https://www.itpro.co.uk/policy-legislation/data-protection/3... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/26/the-cambridge-analytica-files-the-story-so-far https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/26/the-cambridge-a... [2] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5521893/Warrant-sought-search-Cambridge-Analytica-offices.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5521893/Warrant-sou... [3] https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2018/03/information-commissioner-has-still-not-obtained-warrant-to-search-cambridge-analyticas-offices/ https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2018/03/informatio...
- jeffreyrogers 6y ago
  > You might think that there is nothing suspicious about all this, and that even a fair examination of CA's practices would clear them of any influence over the outcome of the referendum (and you may also think that all online advertising is a waste of money, because it can't influence people's decisions and opinions) I think that you should stick to factual claims rather than trying to infer my mental state from my comments.

iamkroot 6y ago

I have often wondered: if Brexit and the 2016 presidential election had gone differently, would we still have this panic surrounding social media? To me, a lot of it feels like people can't believe that a thinking human would ever vote for "the bad guys", so they go searching for some other explanation. It must have been some sort of brainwashing, that's the only reason someone would ever fall for their obvious lies! Curiously, I very rarely hear people who complain about social media admit to it influencing their own political decisions, it's always their opponents who are being led astray.

jeffreyrogers 6y ago
My thoughts are that most people's political views are shaped by the media they consume. For a large portion of the social elite, these views are shaped by their education and by the class views espoused in publications like the New Yorker, NYT, etc. These prestige publications no longer have the influence they once had on other social classes because these social classes have access to a wide variety of new media enabled by the internet, and this loss of control is what's shocking to the political/social elite. I think something along these lines must be what's happening because in terms of actual policy, Trump isn't that different from someone like Pat Buchanan.
- anigbrowl 6y ago
  Pat Buchanan is generally regarded as a political extremist. And yes, I'm very familiar with him based on his own speech and writing, not someone else's characterization of it.
  - jeffreyrogers 6y ago
    Sure, but he doesn't provoke the intense reaction that Trump does.
    - anigbrowl 6y ago
      Perhaps because he hasn't run for office in a quarter century? And while I find many of his views odious, he's more coherent and restrained in his rhetoric than Trump - he is a fixture on a weekly TV roundtable political TV show called *The McLaughlin Group if you want to sample his communication style.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > My thoughts are that most people's political views are shaped by the media they consume. Are you sure it's not the other way around? I believe people's political views shape what media they consume. I agree with your point that wider availability plays a role, but I see it mostly in giving people a choice. If you only have one choice in media, you can either not read news or read that one. If you have multiple choices, you can choose whichever seems to make the most sense to you. People don't want to feel like they are reading an article by someone who has no clue about the matter at hand, which it often feels like when they come from a very different ideological background, they will seem to have things backwards, focus on irrelevant details and completely miss the actual reasons.
ffggvv 6y ago
i think almost certainly not. i also tbink we’d have much less political correctness and wokeness
intended 6y ago
You would, eventually there would be some other trigger event which would make it clear that things arent normal. Theres been a fundamentaly change in how information in society is organized, in terms of reach, scale, scope and frequency - and all the data analysis and nudging it entails. At some point that vortex would create some event that would set off conversation and fear as the average person begins to discuss what is going on/

dane-pgp 6y ago

> the Cambridge Analytica story is unraveling I assume you are referring to stories like this[0] where the UK's Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) recently found that "Cambridge Analytica models were exaggerated and ineffective". Presumably you don't think that there could be any bias in the ICO's investigation, despite the UK government now being run by Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings, all senior members of the Vote Leave campaign group. Regardless of any bias, there is the question of whether the ICO had the data it needed to judge CA's models sufficiently. We have a whistleblower claiming that Vote Leave "attempted to destroy evidence"[1] and photographic proof that "Storage crates were removed from Cambridge Analytica's London headquarters today (pictured) but it is not yet known who has ordered them to be taken away"[2]. In fact, CA were given at least a week's notice to prepare for the search warrant[3], a privilege not afforded to most criminal suspects. You might think that there is nothing suspicious about all this, and that even a fair examination of CA's practices would clear them of any influence over the outcome of the referendum (and you may also think that all online advertising is a waste of money, because it can't influence people's decisions and opinions), but please do not glibly state without a citation that the story about them is "unravelling". [0] https://www.itpro.co.uk/policy-legislation/data-protection/357367/cambridge-analytica-project-was-ineffective-ico-claims https://www.itpro.co.uk/policy-legislation/data-protection/3... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/26/the-cambridge-analytica-files-the-story-so-far https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/26/the-cambridge-a... [2] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5521893/Warrant-sought-search-Cambridge-Analytica-offices.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5521893/Warrant-sou... [3] https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2018/03/information-commissioner-has-still-not-obtained-warrant-to-search-cambridge-analyticas-offices/ https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2018/03/informatio...

jeffreyrogers 6y ago
> You might think that there is nothing suspicious about all this, and that even a fair examination of CA's practices would clear them of any influence over the outcome of the referendum (and you may also think that all online advertising is a waste of money, because it can't influence people's decisions and opinions) I think that you should stick to factual claims rather than trying to infer my mental state from my comments.