5 ms·

The article is about how ad vendors are allowing for people monentize disinformation, but that seems to me to be entirely the wrong take. Breitbart et. al. are

The article is about how ad vendors are allowing for people monentize disinformation, but that seems to me to be entirely the wrong take. Breitbart et. al. are grifters. The disinformation economy is real and vibrant, and they're just catching some of the extra cash. For every Breitbart or Newsmax link shared, there are seven or whatever to a blog or PAC or campaign that is not monetized. At this point I think the game is lost. I mean... we just had an election which came out (absent higher turnout) more or less exactly like the last one, to within a percent or two. And half the country genuinely believes it was stolen by fraud to the tune of hundreds of thousands of ballots across at least four states. How do you come back from that? I don't think we do. I just don't know what the endpoint is going to be yet. But disinformation is no longer just competing with real facts, it's won the war.

nickff 6y ago
I agree with your take, but I think you understated the case. Before the 2016 election, the Republican partisans insisted that fraud and malfeasance were likely, and the Democratic ones said it was impossible. From 2016-2020, the Democratic partisans insisted that there had been some sort of fraud or malfeasance, and the Republicans insisted that it was impossible. By the end of 2020, we're back where we were in the middle of 2016, where the Republican partisans insist that fraud and malfeasance were likely, and the Democratic ones say it was impossible. And those are the so-called 'mainstreams' of the respective parties! The situation is part Orwellian, and part real-life satire.
- treeman79 6y ago
  One side wants a photo Id to vote. A basic fraud prevention technique. Other side opposes it strongly. Can’t argue about fraud if one won’t even take a basic precaution.
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    Photo ID at the poll is not a "basic precaution" it is an intentional vote suppression tactic. Many people lack government IDs and a significant number of those lack them because the racist regimes into which they were born did not bother documenting their birth.
    - MrZongle2 6y ago
      Then how do these people receive aid from social programs, without being able to provide proof of identity? How do they operate motor vehicles to get to or from (or at) jobs, especially in the majority of counties in the United States without substantial public transit systems? How do these people even purchase alcohol without proof of identity? I still get carded and I've been a legal drinker for well over 20 years.
      - stouset 6y ago
        > Then how do these people receive aid from social programs, without being able to provide proof of identity? Many of them don't. I would however like to call out your extremely offensive implicit assertion that anyone who doesn't have ID is likely to be a social aid recipient. > How do they operate motor vehicles to get to or from (or at) jobs, especially in the majority of counties in the United States without substantial public transit systems? Many of them don't. It's extremely common to get rides from friends, family, and/or coworkers. > How do these people even purchase alcohol without proof of identity? I still get carded and I've been a legal drinker for well over 20 years. Many of them don't. And this is locale-dependent. I was carded 100% of the time during a trip to Colorado last year, but I haven't been carded except a handful of times since living in California. I'm 35.
        treeman79 6y ago
        My much older sister was on welfare in California. It was routine to “borrow” kids from friend to get more benefits. At some point rules changed, and she stared working again.
        stouset 6y ago
        While I'm enjoying the clever "fraud" twist in the otherwise well-worn trope about welfare queens in left-leaning states, I'm genuinely confused as to where it fits in with a discussion about voter ID requirements.
  - MattGaiser 6y ago
    Is a national photo ID that is freely provided and easy to obtain (no strange DMV hours) acceptable? As that is where many of the issues with an ID requirement are: https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/Democracy/VRE/Challenge_of_Obtaining_Voter_ID.pdf https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/Dem...
    - treeman79 6y ago
      National id is a good suggestion at least. Passport is a valid ID. Would definitely need to be free with assistance available. Otherwise would cross line from fraud prevention to “poll tax” territory. Also a fan of federal standards where states run Their own ID, but have to have some basic security steps in place.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  The only party claiming election fraud / voter fraud in 2016 was the winner. https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/27/politics/donald-trump-voter-fraud-popular-vote/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/27/politics/donald-trump-voter-f... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/802972944532209664 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/80297294453220966...
  - nickff 6y ago
    Here's a link to a New Yorker article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/01/how-russia-helped-to-swing-the-election-for-trump https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/01/how-russia-hel... And a Time article: https://time.com/5565991/russia-influence-2016-election/ https://time.com/5565991/russia-influence-2016-election/ CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/26/us/2016-presidential-campaign-hacking-fast-facts/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/26/us/2016-presidential-campaign... And the Wikipedia page on all the allegations of Russian involvement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20... There are more...
    - jeffbee 6y ago
      There's a big difference between influencing the way people vote, and election fraud. The evidence that Russians do try to influence out electorate is pretty ... evident.
      - nickff 6y ago
        I said "fraud and malfeasance" for a reason, you're omitting the second word.
        mthoms 6y ago
        You didn't say "fraud or malfeasance" though. You said "fraud and malfeasance".
        6y ago
- psgibbs 6y ago
  I think there's some "both sides are equal" aspects in your position that mischaracterize the reality as I understand it. In 2016 Democrats thought manipulation / fake news (exactly the root problem in this article) was happening, and it appears it was. They recognized there is risk to systems and proposed to enhance election security based on the new (and proven) information that state actors were directly involved in trying to manipulate our election. I do not remember (I may be proven wrong), Democrats undermining the fidelity of the election itself, or alleging fraudulent votes, excepting one or two places where it was proven to happen (see the Dan McCready campaign). My understanding is both parties now are roughly aligned with their longstanding positions in terms of how they view election security and relative occurrence of voter fraud and malfeasance. Comparing the 2016 positions on interference via fake news is apples and oranges, it is fundamentally a different subject – and the allegations of election interference were literally proven true by a justice system run by the Republican party.
  - nickff 6y ago
    First off, I'd like to thank you for responding thoughtfully and directly. I'm not saying both are equal, I am saying the situation is ridiculous. I think you're about right in your assessment, though I do think each side has shifted its emphasis to whatever points were most convenient.
  - PixyMisa 6y ago
    State actors trolled people on Facebook and Twitter and spent $3100 on Google AdWords - against approximately $3 billion total spent on the 2016 election season.
- paxys 6y ago
  How many prominent Democrats refused to acknowledge election results in 2016? Edit – the fact that I'm getting downvoted (-2 right now) instead of getting a single valid answer pretty clearly shows the political lean of this forum.
  - nickff 6y ago
    Here's a story on H. Clinton saying Trump is illegitimate: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-trump-is-an-illegitimate-president/2019/09/26/29195d5a-e099-11e9-b199-f638bf2c340f_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-trum...
    - vkou 6y ago
      Ah, but both in 2016, and at the time that the article is written, she acknowledges that he won the election, and that the election was counted correctly.
      - nickff 6y ago
        I said the Democrats were alleging "fraud or malfeasance", not just 'counting errors'; you're putting words in my mouth (or taking them out).
        vkou 6y ago
        Fraud and malfeasance in propaganda has been a thing for hundreds of years. But that's not what Republicans in 2020 are complaining about. They are, with a straight face, but with no proof, claiming that the election's results are illegitimate - because they feel that the votes have not been counted correctly. This isn't a valid case of two-sidism. There is no way to bridge or alleviate or equate those concerns.
    - paxys 6y ago
      Your article is from 2019. Here is her concession speech from the day after the 2016 election - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv4hsmfgRuI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv4hsmfgRuI.
- jkubicek 6y ago
  I think you're misrepresenting both sides. The Republican position has always been "Voter fraud is common and affects our elections". The Democrat position has always been, "Voter disenfranchisement and misinformation is common and affects our elections". The only thing that changed between 2016 and 2020 is the party of the winners.
  - goldforever 6y ago
    The winner hasn't been decided yet dummy!
- mthoms 6y ago
  >From 2016-2020, the Democratic partisans insisted that there had been some sort of fraud or malfeasance What notable Democrats have "insisted" there was "fraud or malfeasance" in the 2106 election? I'm genuinely curious. The only claims of 2016 fraud that I can recall at the moment are those of Trump (when he tried to account for losing the popular vote).
  - nickff 6y ago
    Here's a story on H. Clinton saying Trump is illegitimate: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-trump-is-an-illegitimate-president/2019/09/26/29195d5a-e099-11e9-b199-f638bf2c340f_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-trum...
    - mthoms 6y ago
      Okay that's fair. I don't think Hilary should have said that. But since Trump lost the popular vote, "illegitimate" is a somewhat reasonable opinion IMHO. As in he won the election legally but is not the "legitimate" leader of the people in a moral sense.
- stouset 6y ago
  Almost nobody alleged fraud in the process of tallying votes for the 2016 election. The assertion was that a rival country fomented (and continues to foment) misinformation with the intent of swaying our elections. Reports by the Senate Intelligence Committee and statements from our own intelligence services affirm that this happened and that it presents a significant risk to the functioning of our democracy. On the flip side, the allegations from the 2020 election are repudiated by virtually all elections officials. Direct accusations of election misconduct have been recanted by their original claimants. At least as of a few days ago, ten out of ten suits filed by the Trump campaign were lost or thrown out of court. And even if every single suit filed to date was won, it wouldn't overturn the results of the election. The two sides are not the same at all.
- quickthrowman 6y ago
  > From 2016-2020, the Democratic partisans insisted that there had been some sort of fraud or malfeasance, and the Republicans insisted that it was impossible. Please provide evidence for this claim. I don’t recall any democrats claiming fraud in the 2016 election. This has been parroted repeatedly lately and I don’t recall anyone saying trump won because of electoral ballot fraud. There is plenty of evidence that outside nations targeted American voters on social media in 2016. There is 0 evidence for widepspread ballot fraud in 2020.
  - PixyMisa 6y ago
    Polls show that 52% of registered Democrats believe that the Russians actually altered the vote counts. And there was definitely ballot fraud in 2020. How widespread it was is yet to be determined.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > Polls show that 52% of registered Democrats believe that the Russians actually altered the vote counts. Source? I can't find a poll that asked this question, or anything closely resembling it, reported.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
WorkingDead 6y ago
You come back from that by honestly addressing their concerns and issues. What you dont want to do is purposefully misrepresent their perfectly valid concerns and then censor and banish them from the discussion because then they will just go create their own platform leaving both groups in their own echo chambers.
pwarner 6y ago
Maybe real information needs a better PR strategy? What would that look like? I think it needs to be bottom up, at least it can't be centralized.
- sjtindell 6y ago
  What I hear often from Republicans is they rail against “elitist” attitudes. Liberals need to frame their information as being subversive and stop trying to just slap more credentials onto everything. Half of America doesn’t care at all if you’re a respected scientist in your field, in fact it makes them distrust you even more! A very interesting situation.
dx87 6y ago
> And half the country genuinely believes it was stolen by fraud to the tune of hundreds of thousands of ballots across at least four states. If you're going to write a comment lamenting about how disinformation is unstoppable, you probably shouldn't use disinformation to try and make a point.
- newacct583 6y ago
  There was a poll just yesterday showing 86% of Trump voters felt that the election result was fraudulent! Are you really dinging me for "hyberbole" for rounding 41% (or whatever) up to "half"? Just to be clear though, since I'm guessing how this answer will go: do you believe that the election result was correct? Because if you don't, it's rather a different kind of fallacy to argue sideways about it.

nickff 6y ago

I agree with your take, but I think you understated the case. Before the 2016 election, the Republican partisans insisted that fraud and malfeasance were likely, and the Democratic ones said it was impossible. From 2016-2020, the Democratic partisans insisted that there had been some sort of fraud or malfeasance, and the Republicans insisted that it was impossible. By the end of 2020, we're back where we were in the middle of 2016, where the Republican partisans insist that fraud and malfeasance were likely, and the Democratic ones say it was impossible. And those are the so-called 'mainstreams' of the respective parties! The situation is part Orwellian, and part real-life satire.

treeman79 6y ago
One side wants a photo Id to vote. A basic fraud prevention technique. Other side opposes it strongly. Can’t argue about fraud if one won’t even take a basic precaution.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  Photo ID at the poll is not a "basic precaution" it is an intentional vote suppression tactic. Many people lack government IDs and a significant number of those lack them because the racist regimes into which they were born did not bother documenting their birth.
  - MrZongle2 6y ago
    Then how do these people receive aid from social programs, without being able to provide proof of identity? How do they operate motor vehicles to get to or from (or at) jobs, especially in the majority of counties in the United States without substantial public transit systems? How do these people even purchase alcohol without proof of identity? I still get carded and I've been a legal drinker for well over 20 years.
    - stouset 6y ago
      > Then how do these people receive aid from social programs, without being able to provide proof of identity? Many of them don't. I would however like to call out your extremely offensive implicit assertion that anyone who doesn't have ID is likely to be a social aid recipient. > How do they operate motor vehicles to get to or from (or at) jobs, especially in the majority of counties in the United States without substantial public transit systems? Many of them don't. It's extremely common to get rides from friends, family, and/or coworkers. > How do these people even purchase alcohol without proof of identity? I still get carded and I've been a legal drinker for well over 20 years. Many of them don't. And this is locale-dependent. I was carded 100% of the time during a trip to Colorado last year, but I haven't been carded except a handful of times since living in California. I'm 35.
      - treeman79 6y ago
        My much older sister was on welfare in California. It was routine to “borrow” kids from friend to get more benefits. At some point rules changed, and she stared working again.
        stouset 6y ago
        While I'm enjoying the clever "fraud" twist in the otherwise well-worn trope about welfare queens in left-leaning states, I'm genuinely confused as to where it fits in with a discussion about voter ID requirements.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  Is a national photo ID that is freely provided and easy to obtain (no strange DMV hours) acceptable? As that is where many of the issues with an ID requirement are: https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/Democracy/VRE/Challenge_of_Obtaining_Voter_ID.pdf https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/Dem...
  - treeman79 6y ago
    National id is a good suggestion at least. Passport is a valid ID. Would definitely need to be free with assistance available. Otherwise would cross line from fraud prevention to “poll tax” territory. Also a fan of federal standards where states run Their own ID, but have to have some basic security steps in place.
jeffbee 6y ago
The only party claiming election fraud / voter fraud in 2016 was the winner. https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/27/politics/donald-trump-voter-fraud-popular-vote/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/27/politics/donald-trump-voter-f... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/802972944532209664 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/80297294453220966...
- nickff 6y ago
  Here's a link to a New Yorker article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/01/how-russia-helped-to-swing-the-election-for-trump https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/01/how-russia-hel... And a Time article: https://time.com/5565991/russia-influence-2016-election/ https://time.com/5565991/russia-influence-2016-election/ CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/26/us/2016-presidential-campaign-hacking-fast-facts/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/26/us/2016-presidential-campaign... And the Wikipedia page on all the allegations of Russian involvement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20... There are more...
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    There's a big difference between influencing the way people vote, and election fraud. The evidence that Russians do try to influence out electorate is pretty ... evident.
    - nickff 6y ago
      I said "fraud and malfeasance" for a reason, you're omitting the second word.
      - mthoms 6y ago
        You didn't say "fraud or malfeasance" though. You said "fraud and malfeasance".
        6y ago
psgibbs 6y ago
I think there's some "both sides are equal" aspects in your position that mischaracterize the reality as I understand it. In 2016 Democrats thought manipulation / fake news (exactly the root problem in this article) was happening, and it appears it was. They recognized there is risk to systems and proposed to enhance election security based on the new (and proven) information that state actors were directly involved in trying to manipulate our election. I do not remember (I may be proven wrong), Democrats undermining the fidelity of the election itself, or alleging fraudulent votes, excepting one or two places where it was proven to happen (see the Dan McCready campaign). My understanding is both parties now are roughly aligned with their longstanding positions in terms of how they view election security and relative occurrence of voter fraud and malfeasance. Comparing the 2016 positions on interference via fake news is apples and oranges, it is fundamentally a different subject – and the allegations of election interference were literally proven true by a justice system run by the Republican party.
- nickff 6y ago
  First off, I'd like to thank you for responding thoughtfully and directly. I'm not saying both are equal, I am saying the situation is ridiculous. I think you're about right in your assessment, though I do think each side has shifted its emphasis to whatever points were most convenient.
- PixyMisa 6y ago
  State actors trolled people on Facebook and Twitter and spent $3100 on Google AdWords - against approximately $3 billion total spent on the 2016 election season.
paxys 6y ago
How many prominent Democrats refused to acknowledge election results in 2016? Edit – the fact that I'm getting downvoted (-2 right now) instead of getting a single valid answer pretty clearly shows the political lean of this forum.
- nickff 6y ago
  Here's a story on H. Clinton saying Trump is illegitimate: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-trump-is-an-illegitimate-president/2019/09/26/29195d5a-e099-11e9-b199-f638bf2c340f_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-trum...
  - vkou 6y ago
    Ah, but both in 2016, and at the time that the article is written, she acknowledges that he won the election, and that the election was counted correctly.
    - nickff 6y ago
      I said the Democrats were alleging "fraud or malfeasance", not just 'counting errors'; you're putting words in my mouth (or taking them out).
      - vkou 6y ago
        Fraud and malfeasance in propaganda has been a thing for hundreds of years. But that's not what Republicans in 2020 are complaining about. They are, with a straight face, but with no proof, claiming that the election's results are illegitimate - because they feel that the votes have not been counted correctly. This isn't a valid case of two-sidism. There is no way to bridge or alleviate or equate those concerns.
  - paxys 6y ago
    Your article is from 2019. Here is her concession speech from the day after the 2016 election - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv4hsmfgRuI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv4hsmfgRuI.
jkubicek 6y ago
I think you're misrepresenting both sides. The Republican position has always been "Voter fraud is common and affects our elections". The Democrat position has always been, "Voter disenfranchisement and misinformation is common and affects our elections". The only thing that changed between 2016 and 2020 is the party of the winners.
- goldforever 6y ago
  The winner hasn't been decided yet dummy!
mthoms 6y ago
>From 2016-2020, the Democratic partisans insisted that there had been some sort of fraud or malfeasance What notable Democrats have "insisted" there was "fraud or malfeasance" in the 2106 election? I'm genuinely curious. The only claims of 2016 fraud that I can recall at the moment are those of Trump (when he tried to account for losing the popular vote).
- nickff 6y ago
  Here's a story on H. Clinton saying Trump is illegitimate: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-trump-is-an-illegitimate-president/2019/09/26/29195d5a-e099-11e9-b199-f638bf2c340f_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-trum...
  - mthoms 6y ago
    Okay that's fair. I don't think Hilary should have said that. But since Trump lost the popular vote, "illegitimate" is a somewhat reasonable opinion IMHO. As in he won the election legally but is not the "legitimate" leader of the people in a moral sense.
stouset 6y ago
Almost nobody alleged fraud in the process of tallying votes for the 2016 election. The assertion was that a rival country fomented (and continues to foment) misinformation with the intent of swaying our elections. Reports by the Senate Intelligence Committee and statements from our own intelligence services affirm that this happened and that it presents a significant risk to the functioning of our democracy. On the flip side, the allegations from the 2020 election are repudiated by virtually all elections officials. Direct accusations of election misconduct have been recanted by their original claimants. At least as of a few days ago, ten out of ten suits filed by the Trump campaign were lost or thrown out of court. And even if every single suit filed to date was won, it wouldn't overturn the results of the election. The two sides are not the same at all.
quickthrowman 6y ago
> From 2016-2020, the Democratic partisans insisted that there had been some sort of fraud or malfeasance, and the Republicans insisted that it was impossible. Please provide evidence for this claim. I don’t recall any democrats claiming fraud in the 2016 election. This has been parroted repeatedly lately and I don’t recall anyone saying trump won because of electoral ballot fraud. There is plenty of evidence that outside nations targeted American voters on social media in 2016. There is 0 evidence for widepspread ballot fraud in 2020.
- PixyMisa 6y ago
  Polls show that 52% of registered Democrats believe that the Russians actually altered the vote counts. And there was definitely ballot fraud in 2020. How widespread it was is yet to be determined.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Polls show that 52% of registered Democrats believe that the Russians actually altered the vote counts. Source? I can't find a poll that asked this question, or anything closely resembling it, reported.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

WorkingDead 6y ago

You come back from that by honestly addressing their concerns and issues. What you dont want to do is purposefully misrepresent their perfectly valid concerns and then censor and banish them from the discussion because then they will just go create their own platform leaving both groups in their own echo chambers.

pwarner 6y ago

Maybe real information needs a better PR strategy? What would that look like? I think it needs to be bottom up, at least it can't be centralized.

sjtindell 6y ago
What I hear often from Republicans is they rail against “elitist” attitudes. Liberals need to frame their information as being subversive and stop trying to just slap more credentials onto everything. Half of America doesn’t care at all if you’re a respected scientist in your field, in fact it makes them distrust you even more! A very interesting situation.

dx87 6y ago

> And half the country genuinely believes it was stolen by fraud to the tune of hundreds of thousands of ballots across at least four states. If you're going to write a comment lamenting about how disinformation is unstoppable, you probably shouldn't use disinformation to try and make a point.

newacct583 6y ago
There was a poll just yesterday showing 86% of Trump voters felt that the election result was fraudulent! Are you really dinging me for "hyberbole" for rounding 41% (or whatever) up to "half"? Just to be clear though, since I'm guessing how this answer will go: do you believe that the election result was correct? Because if you don't, it's rather a different kind of fallacy to argue sideways about it.