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Special bonus: today is Super Tuesday, which is when a large number of US states have their primary elections.

bbarn 3y ago
I've seen this posted everywhere like it's some grand conspiracy. What is the impact of it being Super Tuesday? Are people worried they can't vote without social media?
- ak_111 3y ago
  Actually I can see this morphing into a Russia interference conspiracy. If the main social media used by liberals goes down, while the one used by Trump (forgot what it's called) stays up, surely that is an advantage for him?
  - BaldricksGhost 3y ago
    There are probably more MAGA's on Facebook platforms than TFG's Truth Social. Either way it's going to start a few conspiracy theories.
  - laughablecargo 3y ago
    In an election between the two parties I think that would be a very likely narrative but in this case it's the primaries. And (as others have mentioned) neither primary has really had anything resembling a competition at this point so it's more or less irrelevant to the result (most likely).
    - ak_111 3y ago
      conspiracy theory get more imaginative. For example, you can then pose the conspiracy that the fact it was Russian interference conspiracy was a conspiracy to justify more social media policing during the real election.
      - laughablecargo 3y ago
        Perhaps but why would downtime increase policing? Something like a large scale fake news campaign (i.e. basic deep fakes or something) is easier (generally speaking) to pull off and would be more likely to cause increased policing that a short outage.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  Social Media is very successful in Get Out the Vote campaigns for younger people - who typically vote for one party disproportionately.
  - bbarn 3y ago
    This would be a point for sure, except this is a primary and the only people who can vote in it are registered party members. Young people actually registered already care enough to know it's the primary today. This one is already decided though. Biden on the Democrat side, Trump on the Republican. If anything it might hurt the Trump side a bit, as people may not realize that the Supreme Court only yesterday ruled states can not block him.
    - diggan 3y ago
      > This would be a point for sure, except this is a primary and the only people who can vote in it are registered party members Can't you register the same day as the voting happens? Seems utterly stupid that you have to register to vote to begin with, but if it's a requirement, you should at least be able to register the day of the voting.
    - MandieD 3y ago
      There’s all the down-ballot elections, and states like Texas have completely open primaries. And states like Texas often have nearly one-party rule, so the primary pretty much is the election. Because of the party that currently owns the non-urban parts of Texas, I usually vote in that primary, despite not voting for its candidates in the general elections.
    - fddrdplktrew 3y ago
      I used to switch my party back and forth to vote for who I thought mattered most when I cared about voting.
  - fddrdplktrew 3y ago
    I thought Facebook was being used by old people nowadays
- mynameishere 3y ago
  The primaries are pretty well decided, so I suppose the conspiracy would be "trial run".
- lxgr 3y ago
  Facebook and other social media platforms have played somewhat of a role in the 2016 election, for example. Meta has been under a lot of pressure for that, compare e.g. this recent Instagram change: https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/continuing-our-approach-to-political-content-on-instagram-and-threads https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/continuing-ou...
- kortex 3y ago
  Messenger is often used to coordinate logistics among friends. I would not be surprised if a Meta disruption lead to at least momentary confusion if someone was planning on carpooling. Not to mention it messes with "get out the vote" posting. I'm not very conspiracy-minded but this does smell a little weird. At the very least, "there's a big event in the country of one of our biggest userbases, maybe hold off on risky deploys until tomorrow"
- InitialLastName 3y ago
  I can't get into the US-local conspiracy-mongering, but I'm not sure how you've missed social media becoming a hot-spot for election-day information/misinformation? Shutting down social media has gone to the top of the list for regimes either "attempting to fabricate positive election results" or "attempting to combat the spread of misinformation about elections". More sympathetically, for better or for worse (definitely the latter) there will be people trying to look up election information ("what are my local polling hours", "who is on my ballot") on social media websites, who will now not be able to be guided to the correct information.
nso 3y ago
I'm sure people will be able to vote even if their vacation pictures are unavailable
- jeltz 3y ago
  I agree with the first part but the second is taking it too far. Plenty of people use Facebook messenger for communication about semi-important things. Not seeing how that would affect the primaries but it is not jsut for vacation pictures.
- Ancapistani 3y ago
  Not relevant to the primary election in any way, but this has been more than annoying to me already. We have a small livestock operation, and won an online auction late last night for a pig about four hours away. Facebook was the only listed means of contacting the person, and we were planning on driving to pick it up this morning. Now I get to re-arrange my day today to deal with that, and will probably have to take a PTO day from work to drive there later in the week. Real businesses are in fact impacted by Facebook being down - including those not based around Facebook and that you might never expect.
  - DANmode 3y ago
    Hi, wanted to try on an old thread first, to avoid disrupting a current one. I really enjoyed reading a few of your comments, and would like to get in touch. If you're open, drop a mode of contact in your bio/here?
    - Ancapistani 3y ago
      nominallyanonymous@protonmail.com
- Brian_K_White 3y ago
  Did they imply anything as ridiculous as needing facebook to vote? The implication is merely that everyone would otherwise have been talking about voting and the results, ie, simply higher than normal traffic. (I'm not sure it would be that much but that was the reasonable interpretation of the comment.)
apetresc 3y ago
Neither party's primary is in the slightest way contested, so what do you think the "bonus" is here?
- ak_111 3y ago
  If we get huge surge of "Uncommitted" votes to Biden as we did in Michigan, you can argue this can cause significant pressure on him and might even lead to his ousting...

I've seen this posted everywhere like it's some grand conspiracy. What is the impact of it being Super Tuesday? Are people worried they can't vote without social media?

ak_111 3y ago
Actually I can see this morphing into a Russia interference conspiracy. If the main social media used by liberals goes down, while the one used by Trump (forgot what it's called) stays up, surely that is an advantage for him?
- BaldricksGhost 3y ago
  There are probably more MAGA's on Facebook platforms than TFG's Truth Social. Either way it's going to start a few conspiracy theories.
- laughablecargo 3y ago
  In an election between the two parties I think that would be a very likely narrative but in this case it's the primaries. And (as others have mentioned) neither primary has really had anything resembling a competition at this point so it's more or less irrelevant to the result (most likely).
  - ak_111 3y ago
    conspiracy theory get more imaginative. For example, you can then pose the conspiracy that the fact it was Russian interference conspiracy was a conspiracy to justify more social media policing during the real election.
    - laughablecargo 3y ago
      Perhaps but why would downtime increase policing? Something like a large scale fake news campaign (i.e. basic deep fakes or something) is easier (generally speaking) to pull off and would be more likely to cause increased policing that a short outage.
onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
Social Media is very successful in Get Out the Vote campaigns for younger people - who typically vote for one party disproportionately.
- bbarn 3y ago
  This would be a point for sure, except this is a primary and the only people who can vote in it are registered party members. Young people actually registered already care enough to know it's the primary today. This one is already decided though. Biden on the Democrat side, Trump on the Republican. If anything it might hurt the Trump side a bit, as people may not realize that the Supreme Court only yesterday ruled states can not block him.
  - diggan 3y ago
    > This would be a point for sure, except this is a primary and the only people who can vote in it are registered party members Can't you register the same day as the voting happens? Seems utterly stupid that you have to register to vote to begin with, but if it's a requirement, you should at least be able to register the day of the voting.
  - MandieD 3y ago
    There’s all the down-ballot elections, and states like Texas have completely open primaries. And states like Texas often have nearly one-party rule, so the primary pretty much is the election. Because of the party that currently owns the non-urban parts of Texas, I usually vote in that primary, despite not voting for its candidates in the general elections.
  - fddrdplktrew 3y ago
    I used to switch my party back and forth to vote for who I thought mattered most when I cared about voting.
- fddrdplktrew 3y ago
  I thought Facebook was being used by old people nowadays
mynameishere 3y ago
The primaries are pretty well decided, so I suppose the conspiracy would be "trial run".
lxgr 3y ago
Facebook and other social media platforms have played somewhat of a role in the 2016 election, for example. Meta has been under a lot of pressure for that, compare e.g. this recent Instagram change: https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/continuing-our-approach-to-political-content-on-instagram-and-threads https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/continuing-ou...
kortex 3y ago
Messenger is often used to coordinate logistics among friends. I would not be surprised if a Meta disruption lead to at least momentary confusion if someone was planning on carpooling. Not to mention it messes with "get out the vote" posting. I'm not very conspiracy-minded but this does smell a little weird. At the very least, "there's a big event in the country of one of our biggest userbases, maybe hold off on risky deploys until tomorrow"
InitialLastName 3y ago
I can't get into the US-local conspiracy-mongering, but I'm not sure how you've missed social media becoming a hot-spot for election-day information/misinformation? Shutting down social media has gone to the top of the list for regimes either "attempting to fabricate positive election results" or "attempting to combat the spread of misinformation about elections". More sympathetically, for better or for worse (definitely the latter) there will be people trying to look up election information ("what are my local polling hours", "who is on my ballot") on social media websites, who will now not be able to be guided to the correct information.

nso 3y ago

I'm sure people will be able to vote even if their vacation pictures are unavailable

jeltz 3y ago
I agree with the first part but the second is taking it too far. Plenty of people use Facebook messenger for communication about semi-important things. Not seeing how that would affect the primaries but it is not jsut for vacation pictures.
Ancapistani 3y ago
Not relevant to the primary election in any way, but this has been more than annoying to me already. We have a small livestock operation, and won an online auction late last night for a pig about four hours away. Facebook was the only listed means of contacting the person, and we were planning on driving to pick it up this morning. Now I get to re-arrange my day today to deal with that, and will probably have to take a PTO day from work to drive there later in the week. Real businesses are in fact impacted by Facebook being down - including those not based around Facebook and that you might never expect.
- DANmode 3y ago
  Hi, wanted to try on an old thread first, to avoid disrupting a current one. I really enjoyed reading a few of your comments, and would like to get in touch. If you're open, drop a mode of contact in your bio/here?
  - Ancapistani 3y ago
    nominallyanonymous@protonmail.com
Brian_K_White 3y ago
Did they imply anything as ridiculous as needing facebook to vote? The implication is merely that everyone would otherwise have been talking about voting and the results, ie, simply higher than normal traffic. (I'm not sure it would be that much but that was the reasonable interpretation of the comment.)

apetresc 3y ago

Neither party's primary is in the slightest way contested, so what do you think the "bonus" is here?

ak_111 3y ago
If we get huge surge of "Uncommitted" votes to Biden as we did in Michigan, you can argue this can cause significant pressure on him and might even lead to his ousting...