3516

Twitter and Facebook are making a fortune from facilitating the end of the world and no one seems to be pointing out the damage socmedia has done globally.

They’ve done as much damage to the fabric of society as oil majors have done to the planet or bank’s have done to the economy.

3517

I am truly worried that social media is particular vulnerable to propagating lies and extremism and propaganda. The correlation with Brexit, Trump, and other reactions around the world might coincide with the spread of social media and the information age generally, as much as other factors. That’s a scary thought if true.

3518

It’s absolutely true. Totalitarian states have been using peer-group ideology reinforcement for decades because it works. Socmedia combines that with cross-network links and instantaneous transmission that means news stories that meet the ideological bar of the peer group propagate rapidly.

Once a story is posted disagreeing with it is incredibly difficult, and loses you social capital with the group even if the story is completely deceptive, because the dynamics paints you as the aggressor attacking another group member, which is a transgressive act.

Robust statements of agreement with the prevailing ideology net an outpouring of likes. Dissenting views are tarpitted in internet argumentation and attacked through guilt by association. Public figures who do not share the prevailing ideology are condemned viciously, which serves as an indirect (and therefore non-transgressive) attack on socmedia network members who share those views. Again, objecting to these attacks is transgressive.

Even Trump’s “people are saying” meme is something I saw on socmedia first - people link to stories they think are BS, but are ideologically pleasing, with “This is interesting if true” or some other weasel words. If questioned they deny all responsible for spreading the lies, all they did was share a link.

This is why I’m so sceptical of the people who try and paint this as an exclusively right wing phenomenon, because I’ve repeatedly seen the socmedia aspect in a left wing context.

3519

There is little doubt that social media has achieved little of true worth, and resulted in a substantial decline in the quality of political debate and a debasement of journalism generally.

Both were of a generally poor quality to begin with, so there you go.

3520

I don’t know what media you’ve been consuming, but pretty much every mainstream and not so mainstream news source I’ve seen has been pointing this out since the election. A fair part of that is probably deflection from their own culpability and/or irrelevance, but still, plenty of people are doing it.

3521
3522

In theory, of he puts up judges actually like scalia, they would check his craziness. This is the situation where you want a pretty literal interpretation of the Constitution.

3523
3524

I keep wondering how this can get worse. And then it does.

3525

Old Russian folk tales are often about how a peasant does something that pleases the Czar, who then ruins his life. Basically, the moral of the story is: don’t ever let the Czar notice you, because no matter what kind of attention it is, it’s going to be bad for you.

This seems the same. Doing anything, anything at all, that draws Trump’s attention is going to lead to threats of lawsuits or jail time. Unfortunately, he’s so erratic, it’s impossible to tell what will draw his attention at any given time.

3526

Wasn’t Clinton the one who sponsored a law to that effect? I believe this is a clever baiting trick from Trump. He basically proves the media doesn’t do its job.

3527

Clinton’s bill was specific. Trump’s idea isn’t remotely and also includes losing citizenship (which is almost impossible to do to someone anyway).

3528

I still don’t understand what happens to someone who loses their citizenship. I mean, in my case I’d presumably be sent back to my country of birth. But what about Jim Bob or ol’ Cooter who were born here? Just how big is Guantanamo, anyways?

3529

He can just make it Biglyer, once we kick out all those Cuban illegals from the rest of the island.

3530

Based on my high school English class, you’re put on board a ship and sentenced to cruise forever without being given any news about the good ol’ USA.

3531

You’d lose all your rights. They could send you to Gitmo if they wanted among many other things.

The problem is the only way to actually lose citizenship is to “join” another nation (become a citizen, joining their military or government), give it up willingly, or be found guilty of treason. And the Constitution only specifically defines one crime: treason. The bar is really, really fucking high because the Founding Fathers knew it was a sledgehammer against dissent to be used against political opponents so they specifically targeted it so that it couldn’t be used in that manner.

3532

What could be more treasonous that speaking out against Dear Leader?

3533

Don’t be silly, only America hating browns and illegals would ever burn a flag!

3534

Ironically Scalia’s most famous decision is when he sided with flag burning as protected speech (it was 5-4).

And Trump has been talking up Scalia and saying he wants to replace him with someone who would follow his ideals, while effectively saying publicly that Scalia is a traitor.

3535

What shocks me is that it was a 5-4 decision! I mean, really? I get the insanity from Donald Trump but I can’t believe 4 people on the Supreme Court actually thought the same way.