Let's Talk About Media
- Thread starter sturg33
- Start date
Julio3000
<B>A Chip Off the Old Rock</B>
It's a decent point, and potentially worth some scrutiny. And I'm not going to dispute the general idea that Obama is going to get a lighter touch from headline writers at the Post, say.
It seems to me like there are some pretty significant differences in the content of the articles, though. The second Obama one is essentially talking about leveraging social networks to optimize certain retail campaign functions. It's describing a process that was voluntary and based on peer interaction. The first one was describing the same kind of data-harvesting at issue in the CA stuff, with a couple of differences. First, if you chose to access the campaign tools via FB, you were explicitly opting in (at least, I think that was the case) to the idea of your friend list and demo info being accessed. That is a bit different than a third party accessing the same data improperly via an ethically-questionable partner. Second, and this may be hair-splitting, but there may be a valid distinction between a campaign doing this directly, and a third-party contractor doing it. There is at least some manner (probably woefully inadequate) of rules and oversight that apply to campaigns versus private entities. Finally, you have to consider the context. It's not a journalistic leap to consider CA a bit of a dodgy actor. They did, after all, contact Wikileaks in order to try to more efficiently weaponize the fruit of the DNC/Podesta hacks.
I should make the caveat here that I generally consider any big data operations of this type to be inherently exploitative, whether it's OFA or CA taking advantage of FBs generally ****ty practices. It boils down to a matter of how much we, individually and collectively, care, I suppose.
I think the more compelling question is the legal or ethical issues that arise if an entity like FB chooses to treat two campaigns differently.
sturg33
I
Julio3000
<B>A Chip Off the Old Rock</B>
Ok, so you're quite alright with individuals and corporations pouring unlimited anonymous money into political campaigns. But you're clutching your pearls when you see a corporate executive nominally express a preference for one candidate over another? If money = speech and speech is unlimited, why--by your logic--should we be concerned?
I posted the above because it's consistent with my beliefs. If Facebook, for example, contravened federal election law by offering advantages to one candidate over another, amounting to in-kind donations, they should be on the hook for that with the FEC. But did they? Do you think any other corporate executives or CEOs have ever expressed a political preference and acted toward that end?
It's weird that people are ok in principle with unlimited, anonymous political donations but are SHOCKED by this.
Facebook is not just any corporation. They are a public utility at this point.
sturg33
I
I really don't know how many times I have to explain this, but I'll do it again.
Facebook can do whatever it wants. That doesn't mean I have to agree with it. The baker can do what he wants, that doesn't mean I have to agree with it. Consistency is not that hard yet it's a rare commodity around these parts.
Meanwhile, my entire point was you've got your panties in a wad about "interfering in an election" in another thread... but you don't have a problem with Facebook - the largest social media platform in history - banning conservative candidates for no reason and their CTO telling a candidate that she wants to do whatever she can to help her win.
Again, consistency shouldn't be hard
Julio3000
<B>A Chip Off the Old Rock</B>
And yet, being more shrill about it doesn't make your case any stronger.
You're saying that a primary candidate's facebook account being suspended for multiple violations of ToS, allegedly because facebook's CTO supports his general election opponent, is equivalent to a foreign espionage operation to influence an election.
Facebook is nominally accountable to its shareholders, and it and its executives are subject to American election laws. You really can't shoehorn those two situations into the same neat little box.
The funny thing is that Petersen probably gains more from the attention garnered from playing the political persecution card. Doubly funny is that your scenario is almost imaginable, but only because I'd wager Claire McCaskill would benefit from him winning the primary instead of his opponent.
Jaw
It's OVER 5,000!
There needs to be a plan of some sort for regulating new internet media companies. That industry has had a leap in power similar to manufacturing and railroads in the 1800s. Those industries were allowed to run rampant for a while before being brought under control, but I don't know that anyone in the current setting has both the ability and desire to do the same to the internet. Judging by the Net Neutrality repeal I would guess not.
I'm not just talking about social media, I have greater concerns about ATT, Comcast, Verizon, etc. In twenty years there will be a huge chunk of the population riding home from work in an autonomous car that communicates with other cars and traffic signals via the internet, after working at a computer connected to other offices on the internet. Then they will arrive at a home with an alarm system connected to the internet, get TV via the internet, grab a beer from a refrigerator that downloads firmware updates from the internet, with HVAC optimized for energy efficiency by downloading weather data from the internet... it just goes on and on. Most of those things are already happening. And yet, we are now allowing internet providers to decide what traffic to allow and what traffic to throttle.
How well will your Samsung refrigerator work if your internet provider merges with GE?
What if Google and Verizon team up to go into the autonomous car business and decide to provide slower communication for Apple cars because the Verizon network is "optimized" for the Google software?
Do you like watching CNN? Better hope your internet provider doesn't merge with Fox.
Some of this stuff may seem silly or outlandish but we literally just gave up most of our ability to stop it. Your options if you don't like it will be to either pay up or live off the grid. This could end much, much worse than Orwell ever imagined when he was writing 1984.
57Brave
Well-known member
Mike Rosenberg
Verified account @ByRosenberg
6h6 hours ago
Seattle local TV anchors are being forced to read this script on-air. It slams "fake news" and says the media is pushing its political agenda
The station is owned by Sinclair, a conservative local TV owner that reaches 40% of U.S. homes
https://www.seattlepi.com/seattlenews/amp/KOMO-fake-news-Sinclair-promos-12792032.php
Verified account @ByRosenberg
6h6 hours ago
Seattle local TV anchors are being forced to read this script on-air. It slams "fake news" and says the media is pushing its political agenda
The station is owned by Sinclair, a conservative local TV owner that reaches 40% of U.S. homes
https://www.seattlepi.com/seattlenews/amp/KOMO-fake-news-Sinclair-promos-12792032.php
57 has no problems when a Christian is forced to bake a cake for gays but he has problems when a liberal has to read something on air that he Doesn’t agree with. Double standards? Nah.
cajunrevenge
Well-known member
cajunrevenge
Well-known member
Obama is going to become more popular the further we get from his presidency and will skyrocket when he dies. He doesn't deserve it but first black president will be remembered fondly by history.
Hillary I will believe is going away when the 2020 elections are over and all the cabinet positions have been nominated without her sneaking her way back in.
AerchAngel
<B>Secretary of Statistics</B>
And the Democrats about Trump.
This is much worse than Clinton, Bush and Obama combined.
AerchAngel
<B>Secretary of Statistics</B>
Unfortunately he did not help us as much as he did for Hispanics, LGBT and others and we are still today giving him grief for it. Google black only boards and you will see. Be warned they don't like white Dems or Repubs equally and not for the squeamish.
He did okay for everyone else but us. But we are proud of him being the first black, but those that follow would be better if we vote them in because they won't ignore our race.
AerchAngel
<B>Secretary of Statistics</B>
What would make him boil is that blacks who vote Democrat are more religions than any white in any way by percentage. Try 90%, so if he diss Christians he is dissing every black in America and I will defend them every time.