The decline of Facebook and the chilling effect of social media

Sort of an internal circular logic, in a way. “I’m a moral, ethical person, so this awful thing I’m doing must be moral and ethical”. Reminds me of the thing from yesterday with the wackaloon saying Jesus couldn’t have been an illegal immigrant.

Gman admitted to being a voluntary Russian agent and you all are still arguing with him instead of ignoring.

No, this is way off. Will try again: 1) Domestic misinformation sources are arguably a greater threat to democracy than foreign ones, but no one should characterize their conduct as an attack on the US, or an act of war; (2) At the very least, both foreign and domestic sources of misinformation can be characterized as threatening to a functioning democracy; (3) Commercial marketers, a narrow subset of domestic info sources, seek to use friend networks to sell goods, although I made no commentary on how good or bad this is for democracy.

And then, the conclusion: (4) All this hysteria, and panic, and talk about “attacks on the US,” overlooks the fact that there’s really no good, constitutional way to address the persistent problem of misinformation on social media beyond asking social media companies nicely to try to curtail it – and even that risks silencing dissenting, reasonable views. Again, rather than commence mass freakout, or make creepy, personal claims about how much I enjoy harming the US, it might be best to just encourage people to find better news sources. But misguided was mentioning education as a possible solution too, which seems like a positive solution, although no one is talking about that. I wish more people were.

I think you left off an important goal that Russia had: sow paranoia and discord in the US, as people turn on each other and work themselves into a frenzy. That’s why they impersonated Black Lives Matter groups and trashed cops; it’s why they probably encouraged Pizzagate, etc. And we can see a small example of the results on this board: constant paranoia, with posters making wild personal accusations and misinterpreting almost everything I say.

I also know that plenty of news outlets, including MSNBC, willingly spread misinformation to help elect people to public office. I am pointing out these domestic threats because I believe the response that we have, at a personal level, should be similar: become better consumers of media, and become especially wary not of each other, but of news sourcing. This is true of random articles linked on Facebook or Twitter, and it’s true of TV journalism as well. Also, as mentioned above, we could be talking about better ways to educate media consumers.

Well, the education thing would take years to fix, if it it even possible at this point. It is also compounded by things like automation, which are going to leave our students further and further behind over time.

I have argued, and still believe, that mainstream US media sources did tremendous damage by failing to take Trump seriously as a candidate. Many voters didn’t think he had a chance to win. Combined with a dislike of Hillary, I think it kept some voters home that might have gone to the polls had they seen Trump as a legitimate threat. Again, I wouldn’t describe that as terrorism.

And since the election, those same outlets are happy to write stories about every stupid thing he does or the WH says in search of clicks, and repeatedly allow important issues that deserve attention to get buried.

Despite all that, I still think a free press is integral to our democracy and the repeated attacks on it by the president demonstrate his lack of fitness for the office.

The problem with the education suggestion is that even at the pinnacles of American education – for example, Yale Law School – we have repeated instances of willful disinformation spreading and hysteria. Connor Friedersdorf wrote an article in the Atlantic this week about Yale student’s and faculty’s reaction to the Kavanuagh pick, and how even highly accomplished students and some faculty chose to rely on emotion and hatred, rather than logic and evidence, despite their legal training:

This is what makes me skeptical that education can fix broken ideologies, or that Russia is to blame for the biggest sources of domestic misinformation that threaten democracy. So many people, on both sides of the political spectrum, can be afforded world-class educational opportunities, and fall into the hysterical trap of moral shaming and personal invective we’re seeing on this forum.

There are plenty of things that threaten our democracy. I agree with you there. Many of those things are of our own making, no argument there either. But I don’t think that means we should let a hostile power off the hook for meddling in our political affairs, any more than they should do the same for us.

Can’t argue with that. In the meantime, I’ll be avoiding Facebook!

Two years ago Malcolm Nance erroneously stated Jill Stein hosted an RT news program.
(She didn’t, just did an interview.)
MSNBC are terrorists! Everyone is caught in a trap! OHNOES.

Sean Hannity, right wing pinnacle of truth!

Can’t forget Breitbart!

Or progressive hero Glenn Greenwald!

Unlike posters here, I do not believe that only one side practices domestic misinformation. But you are helping make my point that domestic misinformation, i.e. non-Russia misinformation, is a huge threat. Anyway, the Atlantic article is great, because it touches on exactly what occurs on this board: this tendency (even among very bright people) to morally shame and silence others, arising from an apparent inability to comprehend that someone could disagree with you in good faith.

Greenwald has done some good work, but his russia pieces have been sadly lacking in journalistic integrity. I liked him when he was early in his career and writing for Salon, but he’s gone down a dark hole since then.

I’m morally shaming you for your actions, not because I think you are arguing in bad faith.

I’m shaming you because your actions harm America.

This is a questionnaire you can use on conservatives; the world isn’t symmetric and the same test for liberals would have different questions.

If you can’t imagine anything a Republican candidate (ie, past the primary) for President would or could do that would compel you to vote for any Democrat, no matter how extreme that imagined thing is - if the best you could do is abstain from voting -… you’re not a moderate, but a partisan.

If you think news is fake, yet still believe most of the negative things you’ve heard about Democrats… you’re not a moderate, but a partisan.

If you think being a conservative is relying on expertise to advise government policy in your industry, but reject expertise in every other industry because you don’t like what they say… you’re not a moderate, but a partisan.

If you think Republicans and Democrats are perfectly symmetric and polar; one does X, one does Y; one says up, one says down; and that all politicians are the same and that there’s no difference between them and everybody lies and it’s just your team vs my team… you’re not a moderate, but a partisan.

If you feel compelled to dig around for dirt on a Democrat - any Democrat - to balance the scales whenever a Republican is caught doing something wrong… you’re not a moderate, but a partisan.

This isn’t really directed toward gman per se, but the older conservatives you know.

Everybody PANIC!!! Did you go to Yale Law by any chance?

What on earth is particularly desirable about being a “moderate”? I assume you meant to say “you’re not arguing in good faith” or something here? There’s nothing wrong with holding strong conservative or liberal views; this doesn’t necessarily make anyone a partisan. But anyway, it seems like a self-evident “questionnaire” otherwise. Always good to remind people to see things from other perspectives.

Many or most conservatives i know genuinely believe they are coming from a position of “moderation” - that it’s those damn liberals that are extremists. It’s a very typical conservative point of view. The moderate view, ie, we believe in American and momma and apple pie and guns and god in every home and the world is going to hell in a hand-basket and Obama isn’t a citizen and Killary and Maxine Waters said what? and ect. Most don’t realize how immoderate their views actually are, because they’ve bought into the narrative of Fox News and conservative media and have no other point of understanding. There’s no point in arguing details; hypotheticals are better.

If you genuinely think you’re “moderate” yet can’t imagine a single Democratic candidate you’d support, a single Democratic policy you’d support (or even be able to name) and can’t imagine voting for a Democratic candidate for President under any circumstances - even if, for ex., the Republican was receiving, say, hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign nations - than you’re not a “moderate” in any sense of the word.

Sure. But those people’s first mistake would be assuming there’s some inherent value to having moderate political views. But anyway, there’s some Democrats worth supporting out there. They tend to exist in red states, which is a good sign that partisanship isn’t completely dominant everywhere.

The first step to a cure is admitting you have a problem. If you want to have actual policies in politics and not endless ideologues and stalemates, you have to be willing to consider at least the boundaries of reasonableness.

If you’re a typical conservative and can’t imagine voting for a Democrat under any circumstances, then the quality and policies of the Republican candidate are irrelevant. You can’t hold conservative politicians accountable if you have no standard of accountability other than “not a Democrat”.

Yes that is correct.

Ah, but if policy doesn’t matter, than pundits don’t matter either ;). May as well yell at the wind like Alex Jones.

I don’t think you can deny that there are those in America who try to subvert social media to their own ends, not all of which are noble, however, it is kinda like the family that likes to fight among themselves. They might beat the crap out of each other, but get in between them and it is you that becomes the problem. Russia is the outsider in this scenario.

What is amazing is how the right, the same group that would have crucified any democrat for ignoring Russia, now seems to see Russian interference as being no different than some US ad agency selling diapers.

Russian officials were just indicted for interfering in the election.

So, @gman1225, I’m curious. Do you agree with Trump that this is a witch hunt, and all made up? Or do you diagree with POTUS?

CNN and MSNBC are reporting on the indictments. Are they attacking America and Trump, or reporting news?