OK, y'all seem to want this

by liberal japonicus

As the last post goes merrily off the rails, I thought I'd post this, which functions as my observation on where that thread went. Placed below the fold so as to soften the blow a bit...

While there is no exact point where the diversion all starts (which some might call a threadjack, but that implies a planned attempt and I'm not sure if it was), what seemed to put the thing in overdrive was this link to a NYPost piece by Salena Zita with the title "Why Trump’s supporters won’t care about Cohen and Manafort’s convictions". bc also claims that this article was that Facebook 'censored' it. I have to point out, I think that if Facebook were censoring the NYPost, maybe we might have heard about it? I've got no idea why bc thinks that it was 'censored', but could it be that the person who was posting it was tacking a lot of other crap on to it? The Count links to this Balloon Juice post about the Claremont Institute which leads me to suggest that, as a first principle, claiming that something is censored when it likely was not is probably not a good way to start.

But let's take the piece, which is probably in some way related to Zita's thesis in her book “The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics”. Again, it is probably not fair as I haven't read the book, but the National Review's piece on the book (an outlet that I hope no one claims is suffering from liberal bias), questions of race and gender are not even suggested as having anything to do with the outcome of the last election. Two paragraphs from the NYTimes review of the book suggests why this is important.

Although Zito and Todd refer to “a culture careening leftward,” we get hints and code about what they mean rather than context or probing. Interviewees complain about the self-centeredness of protesters in Baltimore and Ferguson, and the laziness of workers who think “everything can be free.” (“The entitlement was crazy,” says a Rough Rebounder.) They dismiss Trump’s sexist hot-mic comments as “just locker room talk.” They repeat the discredited notion the Tea Partiers spread about President Obama’s “apology tour” through Europe. As for the authors, they criticize the Democrats for “multiculturalist militancy,” promoting “sensitivity over the stigmatism of Islam” and the “quest for transgender rights and an ever-lengthening acronym to describe them.”

The misogyny and racism of many Trump voters? The authors decline to consider either, dismissing them as fictional stereotypes of coastal elites. The most maddening example of this lack of context is when the authors mock business executives for “cowering to pressure from liberal activists” when they resigned from the president’s economic councils during “one week in August 2017.” They neglect to point out that this was the week after a march of white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., when President Trump insisted that the counter-protesters were equally to blame for the deadly violence there.

Yes, it is all about economic and cultural problems if you ignore race. That inability to even consider race plays out even here. While bc recently chided Russell for assuming bc's gender, and I have no idea how many of you are, as the New Yorker cartoon suggested, canines, my own impression is that we are overwhelming white and (a little less whelmingly) male here. Nothing wrong with that, some of my best friends are white males. But that we can have a long drawn out discussion about why the election turned out the way it did and only make a nod to race by coding it as 'immigration' suggests that we (and I use the first person plural here, so I'm putting myself in the same boat) are missing a big part of the picture.

This segues into Christa Blackmon's post on LGM about Childish Gambino’s “This Is America”. A lot to consider there, and one could claim that Donald Glover is warped to think that the US is like this in any way, so the problem is personal, not societal. But that he can juxtapose images and scenarios that are pretty mundane, judging from what you can see on Netflix, and put it to a rap seems to point less at the artist and more at the society.

Anyway, that's your stent, I hope it relieves a bit of pressure and lets people talk about Michael's ideas rather than taking them down the garden path.

Comments

[wj]

But that we can have a long drawn out discussion about why the election turned out the way it did and only make a nod to race by coding it as 'immigration' suggests that we (and I use the first person plural here, so I'm putting myself in the same boat) are missing a big part of the picture.

Well I can't speak for the other white males present. But personally I have largely stopped including race in my discussions (here and elsewhere) of Trump's victory.

First, I think it's manifest to anyone who thinks about it at all what a massive factor race played. (Obama's victories notwithstanding.)

Second, it has been my observation that mention of race in this penalizes discussion. Trump's devotees (save the really quite small number of out-front racists) are so loathe to admit that the white racists are his core that they just shut down.

[russell]

bc recently chided Russell for assuming bc's gender

i believe the chiding was directed to JanieM.

[laura koerber]

I don't talk about racism much in regard to the Republican base either. For one thing, there is no shared definition. Also the word brings conversation to a halt. And lastly, though it is obvious that racists are a subset of the Republican party, that does not mean that all or even very many racists are Repubicans. I perfer to discuss patterns of behavior that are easier to see and describe and more braodly applicable.

[JanieM]

i believe the chiding was directed to JanieM.

I believed it was too, but I decided it wasn't worth the bother of addressing. Since it has come up again, however, I would love for bc to point to where I, or anyone, assumed bc's gender. I certainly did not; as far as I can tell, bc's assertion that someone did assume it was mind-reading.

[laura koerber]

I think this quote is revealing: Although Zito and Todd refer to “a culture careening leftward,” we get hints and code about what they mean rather than context or probing. Interviewees complain about the self-centeredness of protesters in Baltimore and Ferguson, and the laziness of workers who think “everything can be free.” (“The entitlement was crazy,” says a Rough Rebounder.) They dismiss Trump’s sexist hot-mic comments as “just locker room talk.” They repeat the discredited notion the Tea Partiers spread about President Obama’s “apology tour” through Europe. As for the authors, they criticize the Democrats for “multiculturalist militancy,” promoting “sensitivity over the stigmatism of Islam” and the “quest for transgender rights and an ever-lengthening acronym to describe them.”

Note the stupid stuff the interviewees believe. Note how the stupid stuff shows..almost jealousy: Those people over there are lazy! They are getting something for nothing! They think they are better than me! Then the very people who are having their little pity party over who supposedly those people over there are such bad people proceed to behave badly themselves by rationalizing obnoxious behavior.

So I don't see the R base as racist so much as god awful snobs who give themselves license to behave badly--see themselves as being entitled to behave badly--while condemning everyone else with negative stereotypes.

The latest is DEMOCRATS WANT OPEN BORDERS!!!!!! While Republican politicians gleefully exploit the death of a young woman to promote their anti-immigrant message. There's a reason why R politicians run for office with "We will protect you from those bad people over there: messages--that's the combo of snobbery and negativity toward others that the base loves. Prvious messages in clude OH MY GOD KNEELING FOOTBALL PLAYERS ARE NOT PATRIOTIC and HILARY HILARY HILARY!!!! It's all very Pavlovian.

[JanieM]

This has been addressed while I was writing the comment, but since I bothered to put it together, here it is:

bc: Or, ignore trying to figure out Trump voters and lose again.

wj: This isn't to say that they don't also have some valid concerns. Those should be addressed. But failure to do so isn't electoral suicide going forward.

From Wikipedia, 2016 presidential vote tallies:

Total: 136, 669, 276

Clinton: 65,853,514

Trump: 62,984,828

All others: 7,830,545

Almost three million more people voted for Hillary than for Clickbait. More than ten and a half million people voted against Clickbait than voted for him.

Considering the need to devote time, thought, and money to issues like turnout, voter suppression, gerrymandering, hacking by foreign (and who knows, perhaps domestic) actors, messaging, and Electoral College strategy, never mind considerations of actually communicating about policy, priorities, and goals, spending precious resources trying to “figure out” Clickbait voters would be a colossal waste of time, on a par with imagining that James Comey’s advice about what people want from Democrats is offered in good faith and worth considering.

[JanieM]

Even if there weren't a long list of actual potentially productive ways to spend time on the problems we face as a country, I don't know why so much ink is wasted on the question of what Clickbait's voters want. He tells us, they tell us, incessantly. They want people like me back in the closet. They want people like my grandparents (brownish) not to be allowed into the country, and they want a wall that for whatever utterly stupid reasons they think will make that wish come true. They want Hillary locked up. They want abortion outlawed. They want their crooked pussy-grabbing president to go on grifting. They want the safety net to keep fraying until it breaks.

What they want is not what I want. If I were fit to run for office, I would not try to get elected by pretending I was going to give them what they want, and I don't know why anyone else should either.

[laura koerber]

There is also the possibility that stupidity is a bigger factor than racism when it comes to understanding Trump voters. http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/403549-trump-meets-with-promoter-of-qanon-conspiracy-theory-in-oval

[Marty]

Just to note, 4 million more people voted against Hilary than voted for her. So perhaps the real question is why did all those people not vote for her.

[Countme-a-Demon]

The four million more voted for mp.

Yes, you did. Note that.

Stupidity and racism have gone in hand in hand since they met up in Eden.

They use the same republican outhouse. They don't even knock or require a signaling wide stance.

QAnon is in the fucking Oval Office.

One grows sentimental about when Monica chastised Clinton for not cumming in her mouth.

Partition is the least we need.

[Marty]

It's also true that Hilary got as many votes as Obama did in 2012. So 2 million more people voted for Trump than Romney, or 2 million more decided it was important enough to go vote. Maybe just against her.

Those 4. Actually 7 million people voted for something that looks more appealing today than it did then. Neither crappy candidate and neither party.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Capone, the victim:

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2018/08/24/nra-spokesperson-compared-trump-to-al-capone/

Loesch made a big mistake giving all of us military grade weaponry.

She'd better fucking hide.

[Countme-a-Demon]

65 million voted for Putin. Add seven, carry the two.

Count it out like the Stooges counted out change for a ten.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/8/24/1790735/-CIA-s-Kremlin-sources-go-dark-hamstringing-intelligence-on-Putin-s-midterm-plans

mp requested this action from Putin. mp ordered the killing of CIA Kremlin sources.

Kill.

[bc]

JanieM:

bc's assertion that someone did assume it was mind-reading.

I said "apparently," which to me is not equal to an assertion. So I did not exactly assume. It was simply in response to the August 22 8:52 comment on "Something Else" that implied I was being sexist in calling Sen. Warren "crazy." At least it implied it to me. Asking whether I would call a man "Crazy Uncle Charlie" clearly implied to me that I was being questioned about being sexist. And being sexist in this context would normally mean that I was assumed to be male.

Honestly, I am a lot more free and loose with my sarcasm and hyperbole in writing than I am in person. I've thought a lot about that since you posed the question, and that is a good thing. I had no sexist thought in mind when I wrote that. And, in the interest of improving the dialogue, I withdraw the comment about the Right Hon. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (I say that with no sarcasm to be clear).

To the extent that I offended you, JanieM, or anyone else, I apologize.

[bc]

I've got no idea why bc thinks that it was 'censored',

I should have been clearer. The author claims so. I don't follow her on Facebook, so I didn't see that for myself.

Also reported by the Washington Times.

[JanieM]

And being sexist in this context would normally mean that I was assumed to be male.

In my circles, it would not "normally" mean that at all. Despite the progress we've made (IMHO), women are perfectly capable of demeaning women, of valuing men over women, and of internalizing their own devaluing. Check out the Wikipedia entry on misogyny if you think I'm the only one who thinks so.

But I appreciate the apology, and that is sincere too.

[liberal japonicus]

Apology from me too for confusing Russell and JanieM. My excuse is that I was rushing to write the post to get it up and hopefully separate out talking about Michael Cain's post and the question of who's zooming who.

(I'd also note that I'm not the only one to try and make a joke out of the Aretha Franklin song, check out here and here)

Anyway, there's more to say, but it is the weekend here, so it will have to wait.

[russell]

Apology from me too for confusing Russell and JanieM.

no worries.

[liberal japonicus]

I'm back and wanted to tackle the question of censorship mentioned by bc. I'm not sure why, but the link to the Washington Times piece doesn't work, I've pulled it up and it is here

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/aug/23/facebook-temporarily-bans-salena-zitos-pro-trump-n/

However, if you look at it, there is no reporting, it is simply repeating what Zito says. And if you look at what Zito says, you'll see that what happened was that the piece disappeared for a while and then reappeared with, (cue suspicious music) 'no explanation of what had happened.' Zito also notes that she contacted Facebook and "turned to their own page and asked through a series of confusing messaging options that appear to require a Ph.D. to access let alone find, still no answer."

So she knows the process is problematic, but of course, there are operators standing by as soon as she tweets. Facebook is all about waiting on people hand and foot, right? So obviously, the 'decision' to first pull, and then miraculously repost, her piece is a simple one. EIther someone complained, [and why do they have that power, wonders Zito ominously] or someone made a decision to pull her column.

Yet a little bit of googling would reveal that Facebook is working with algorithms and they are flagging all sorts of things

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/07/05/facebook-censors-americas-declaration-independence-hate-speech/

Facebook is trying a number of algorithms that end up having bizarre results

https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/social-media/2018/05/haunted-your-dead-friends-will-facebook-ever-let-us-mourn-peace

https://www.recode.net/2016/11/11/13602870/facebook-dead-2016

Yet if you just follow Zito, it's simple. It is one of two reasons why she was censored.

The article was based on my conversations with Trump voters. It had no expletives, conspiracy theories, hate speech or sexual language. What sort of algorithm would find it, much less censor it?

Perhaps someone doesn’t like my stories and complained about it. But then, who is that person and why does Facebook give them that sort of power?

The third [sic] option is that someone working for Facebook actually saw it and made the decision to take it down. If that’s the case, what standards are they working from?

The fact that she only thinks there are two options suggests that Zito is not very imaginative. There are lots of reasons why her piece might have been up, then down, then up, and the alacrity that she seizes on censorship is, at least to me, a red flag. I realize that the thing is to get eyeballs, and maybe Zito's need to have her piece seen rather than having a predisposition to assume that the liberals are out to get her, but it blinds her to the idea possibility that she got shared by the wrong people and that, rather than 'censorship' is the problem. Still, it gets someone like bc to share it because OMG she's being censored! "You can't handle the truth", right?

While this in theory shouldn't cast doubt on what she wrote, the paranoia she has about it suggests that her reporting isn't really on a firm foundation. And if the NYT review is anything to go by, she's doing a trope that is not uncommon, the idea that no one wants to defend what Clickbait does, so they point at the people who do support Clickbait and then say 'ahh, I'm reasonable, I understand all the problems with Trump, but you have to explain it to them [or you will never win another election]' It's a way of sliding out from the burden of supporting someone who any person that you would want to have a debate with (and is therefore constrained to actually answering questions like that). Gee, I hate him too but...

I understand why they have to do this, to stake out a claim on Clickbait's good points is obviously going to be a losing bet. So the only way to stay in the conversations is to focus on Clickbait's voters rather than Clickbait himself. But it's bullshit and should be marked as such by people who actually follow the arguments and the rhetoric.

Now, I'm not saying that I agree with Facebook's decisions. I think there are a lot of problems with the way Facebook approaches content and sometimes, I'd like it to go the way of Myspace. However, Zito's idea that there is someone carefully reading her piece and then weighing the arguments to pull it down, or getting a strongly worded complaint from someone who doesn't agree with her and so immediately, her piece is taken down, reveals a person who doesn't really understand much about how these things work. That sort of blindness on how things work suggests a similar blindness when writing about why people voted for Clickbait.

[cleek]

more people voted for Hillary than have ever voted for a Republican.

[russell]

I think it's fair to say that, at this point in time, Facebook's curatorial policies are less than coherent.

I'm not sure intent should be assumed.

[russell]

I more or less factor the race issue out as far as what motivated Trump voters. Was race a factor? I'm sure it was. Race is a factor in everything that happens in this country.

Race is to Americans as water is to fish.

Folks who make less than $50K a year were more likely to vote for Clinton.

Folks who don't have a college degree were more likely to vote for Trump.

White men were more likely to vote for Trump.

People who live in cities were more likely to vote for Clinton.

I don't really know what to take away from those statistics in terms of "understanding Trump voters".

Trump began his campaign with claims about Mexican rapists. His rallies were characterized by promises to jail his opponent and by vilification of the press. He openly mocked a disabled reporter, to cheers from the crowd.

Should I go on?

I get that "everybody hates Hillary", but this is what people chose instead. So the whole "it's all because Hillary is so horrible" thing doesn't really make a lot of headway with me.

As best as I can make out, people voted for Trump because they liked what he said he would do. They want the wall. They want tax cuts. They want out of international trade and defense arrangements that they think are not advantageous to us, or at least to them. They want aggressive rounding up and deportation of people who are here illegally. They want the ACA destroyed.

They want the people who they think are getting stuff for free to not get that stuff for free. They want the government to stop, as they see it, catering to weirdo special interests, people who aren't like them. They want pinhead government bureaucrats to stop telling them what they can do with their stuff. They want a big bull to run amok in what they see as a corrupt and decadent national government.

Trump promised all of that, so they voted for him. He's actually doing a not-bad job of delivering it, so they continue to support him. He's a flaming narcissistic asshole and an obvious crook and grifter, but they don't really care. Because he's delivering what they want.

I don't want any of that stuff. Those are not my values. I do not expect to persuade any Trump voters that they should not hold those values, and I sure as hell am not going to change my values to be like theirs.

The (R)'s have done a good job of gaming the electoral process to gain advantages in power that they don't deserve. Folks whose values don't line up with either Trump, or the (R)'s, or his and their supporters, are going to do their best to change that.

Trump supporters are gonna be Trump supporters, because they want what he's delivering. I am more than hard pressed to think of one damned thing I have in common with them as regards any area of public life, and I have no desire to have their values imposed on me. So I, and people like me, are going to do our best to get what seem to us to be a pack of pathological grifting scoundrels the hell out of office.

And I think that about sums it up.

See you in November.

[bc]

Still, it gets someone like bc to share it because OMG she's being censored! "You can't handle the truth", right?

lj, let's get real. I never breathlessly said anything close to that. I cited the article and, as a sort of disclaimer lest anyone think that I routinely search out articles on why people voted for HE/Clickbait/he who shall not be named (as I kind feel like russell does), I said that I "somewhat" follow censorship by Silicon Valley of conservative speech. But since we are parsing, let me be clear:

I am not sure if Facebook censored her here. I too can think of several other possibilities. But if "algorithms" are this pathetic, I wonder why they are deployed in the first place. And it's not like there isn't other evidence out there. I think Alex Jones is either a fruit loop or has a very low estimation of his fellow man and exploits people for purely economic reasons (and I don't follow him or know much about him) but it is undisputed he is censored. Prager University'a videos are being censored resulting in a lawsuit that I think is on appeal to the 9th after being dismissed. Dismissed not because there was no censorship, but because Google/YouTube is a "private forum." Hmmm.

I have also heard of liberal sites or persons and victims of sexual assault, racism etc. having posts temporarily removed accidentally due to the language being used to describe what happened. I get that. Zito's may have fallen into this category for some reason.

I am simply interested in the free speech issue. There are what I would consider not only fairly powerful, but almost monolithic/monopolistic entities on the internet that swing left (and I think that is beyond reasonable dispute in the case of Facebook, Google/Youtube). They censor speech. I follow the issue and have more than a passing concern. So I read her article to see what was censored, whether accidentally or intentionally.

And the takeaway for me wasn't so much the alleged censorship, but what I said it was: (1) many Americans reject the Deep State/DC Morass/administrative state or whatever you want to call it and (2) Bending the populist viewpoint to the left with the right candidate might be to the DNC's advantage.

[russell]

But if "algorithms" are this pathetic, I wonder why they are deployed in the first place.

The algorithms are that pathetic.

Why were they deployed:

* Facebook has historically had a business model of selling everything they can hoover up about everyone who uses their service to whoever wants to buy
* As it turns out, that information was and is quite often used maliciously
* This makes Facebook look bad
* Now they want to cover their asses, in a hurry

So they're flailing around to try to "responsible corporate citizens" so their stock price doesn't tank again.

In general, software written in "cover your ass, here come the lawyers!" mode is not of very high quality.

There are hundreds and thousands of amusing stories about "what did Facebook ban today?". We could probably run an ObWi thread just on that.

I'll share one.

My wife recently had surgery for breast cancer. She is fine, will be fine, we are fine, and we are extremely grateful.

A friend gave her a small bit of embroidery to cheer her up. A simple circular frame, around the edge of the frame a beautiful ring of flowers and vines.

And in the middle, in perfect cursive script, the phrase "fuck cancer".

If you knew our friend, you would recognize the combination of sweet prairie wife hearts and flowers and general street bad-assery as distinctly and precisely her. It gave us a laugh at a not-particularly-funny moment. Mission accomplished.

My wife put a picture of it on Facebook. They banned it. I was impressed by their ability to recognize the profanity in the form of embroidered cursive script, but overall thought this was perhaps an example of straining a gnat and swallowing a camel.

So yeah, the algorithms are not quite dialed in at this point.

[Girl from the North Country]

I know this isn't why you put this up, russell, but infinite amounts of good wishes to you and to your wife for continued good health and happiness.

[russell]

gftnc, thank you. we are, really and truly, fine. many thanks for the good wishes!

[cleek]

but it is undisputed he is censored.

FB is not the government.

Alex Jones violated the FB terms of service.

either companies are free to set their own rules about how they do business or they aren't. pick one.

[JanieM]

either companies are free to set their own rules about how they do business or they aren't. pick one.

They're not, and I don't want them to be. (See the Elizabeth Warren thread for more, from a number of people.)

It's a false dichotomy, because it just isn't that simple. And unless I've totally misread you for years, there are other contexts where you wouldn't be appealing to the right of businesses to make their own rules. Either companies are free to refuse to do business with gay people, or they're not. Either companies are free to dump waste into the rivers that run behind their factories, or they're not.

This issue involve a complex interaction amongst various laws, rights, privileges, and cultural norms. I'm perfectly happy with FB banning Alex Jones and with their terms of service if they forbid incitements to violence (for example). And yes, FB isn't the government, and it's slippery, at best, to pretend that FB's terms of service are the same thing as government censorship. But that doesn't make the bottom line questions any easier to sort out.

[cleek]

we're talking about reasonable terms of service, not about choosing to serving gay people or not.

a company forbidding people from using its services to promote hatred and violence is quite different from a company banning people based on who they are.

[Marty]

So, seriously, what is the difference between FB and Typepad in that regard. Is it simply that typepad hasnt included those restrictions in its TOS?

[russell]

Your point is unclear, at least to me.

[Marty]

Does fb have greater latitude in banning speech than typepad or tumblr, or is it simply a business decision?

[cleek]

one big difference is that FB decides what you see in ways that Typepad doesn't. Typepad TOS basically says "whatever you post or allow to be posted is all on you. you're responsible for it, not us. also, we can delete whatever we want for any reason."

but FB effectively chooses what we see and what we don't. so they have some responsibility for what gets shown.

[wj]

if "algorithms" are this pathetic, I wonder why they are deployed in the first place.

There is the ass-covering that Russell mentioned. But the reason why they are used is simple: there's just too d*mn much data to deal with any other way.

Even with every English speaker in India and China signed up, there just aren't enough potential Facebook employees to read and evaluate every post. So you have to have the computers crunch the data. And since computers have no judgement, that means algorithms.

Now why the algorithms are so poor is a different question. Turns out we don't understand language nearly as well as we had thought. Which means we are deep in the trial and error stage.

Eventually, all these spectacular algorithm failures, at Facebook and elsewhere, will lead us to a much better understanding of our language and how it works in reality. But we aren't close to that point yet.

[wj]

Does fb have greater latitude in banning speech than typepad or tumblr, or is it simply a business decision?

I'd say they have the same latitude. But Typepad doesn't have nearly the reach that Facebook does. Which means, they haven't, yet, had the business need driving them to enforce their terms of service the way Facebook has.

I suspect (like everybody else, I don't actually read the things . . . unless I expect to do something problematic) that the same terms are in both companies' agreements. But until they start getting slammed about abuses, Typepad won't bother to expend the resources necessary to monitor actual behavior.

[cleek]

the very first item in FB's TOS is:

Provide a personalized experience for you:
Your experience on Facebook is unlike anyone else's: from the posts, stories, events, ads, and other content you see in News Feed or our video platform to the Pages you follow and other features you might use, such as Trending, Marketplace, and search. We use the data we have - for example, about the connections you make, the choices and settings you select, and what you share and do on and off our Products - to personalize your experience.

right off the bat they claim responsibility for what you see on FB. and then have a long detailed "Community Standards" doc that tells you all about how FB is a community and how they maintain it and what you should and shouldn't post and what to do if you see bad things.

Typepad says "you posted it. you assume responsibility."

[russell]

there's just too d*mn much data to deal with any other way.

yes, that is absolutely why FB relies on algorithms rather than human review when it decides what to allow to be posted.

the algorithms will improve, and in fact the algorithmic platform they are probably using is one that improves itself automatically.

i'm not privy to the decision-making process at FB, my guess is that the whole business around the Cambridge Analytica stuff simply caught them out. it hadn't occurred to them that they needed to police how the data was used beyond what was, basically, a handshake.

so now they scramble.

that's not a good environment for building good systems. so right now the curating policy is kind of incoherent.

[Tony P.]

Putin's next ploy will be to hack Facebook and delete the occasional post from a Trump apologist so as to fuel RWNJ paranoia about "censorship". You heard it here first.

--TP

[laura koerber]

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/what-trumps-supporters-think-of-corruption/568147/?utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=the-atlantic-fb-test-312-4-&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_medium=social

For those who can stand another article about the mentality of Trump voters. I think it is right: the issue is their sense of themselves as the only real true genuine Americans and everyone else is at best an hyphenated American or even worse a threat to them. They want to feel that they are in the seats right behind the driver of the bus and don't want to share those seats. And they are too poorly informed to understand taht we are all at the back of the bus with the exception of Republican pliticans who get to sit upfront with the drivers--the one percent.

So Trump voters are voting for the illusion of getting preferential treatment to which they feel entitled. They are the kids who stand behind the bully and urge the bully on because they thin the bully is somehow enhancing their standing in the middle school hierarchy.

They support Trump BECAUSE he is a mean nasty horrible person--they know he is. That's what they like. They like him because they think he is directing that mean nasty horribleness away from them toward everyone else.

[laura koerber]

This is a quote from the article: The answer may lie in how Trump and his supporters define corruption. In a forthcoming book titled How Fascism Works, the Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley makes an intriguing claim. “Corruption, to the fascist politician,” he suggests, “is really about the corruption of purity rather than of the law. Officially, the fascist politician’s denunciations of corruption sound like a denunciation of political corruption. But such talk is intended to evoke corruption in the sense of the usurpation of the traditional order.”

Fox’s decision to focus on the Iowa murder rather than Cohen’s guilty plea illustrates Stanley’s point. In the eyes of many Fox viewers, I suspect, the network isn’t ignoring corruption so much as highlighting the kind that really matters. When Trump instructed Cohen to pay off women with whom he’d had affairs, he may have been violating the law. But he was upholding traditional gender and class hierarchies. Since time immemorial, powerful men have been cheating on their wives and using their power to evade the consequences.

The Iowa murder, by contrast, signifies the inversion—the corruption—of that “traditional order.” Throughout American history, few notions have been as sacrosanct as the belief that white women must be protected from nonwhite men. By allegedly murdering Tibbetts, Rivera did not merely violate the law. He did something more subversive: He violated America’s traditional racial and sexual norms.

[laura koerber]

The Trumpian reaction to kneeling football players shows the same pattern. Patriotism is defined as flag and anthem worship, not an understanding of or support for abstract principles. And somewho kneeling football players which has nothing to do with vets, got twisted by Republican politicians --who know their voters--into an attack on vets, who are treated like a talisman since rightwinger take it as an article of faith that they and they alone are the real true supporters of vets (they do no follow though of course. It bothers them not at all the the management of the VA has been outsource to three of Trmp's golfing buddies). All that matters is their self-definition of the only real true keepers and possessors of the symbols of patriotism. Others cannot be as patriotic as they.

[Girl from the North Country]

I think laura koerber's 01.47 has a great deal of truth to it.

[Marty]

Thanks cleek. That's clearly az difference.

[Pro Bono]

Back in the last millennium, ten years ago say, censorship meant the government stopping you publishing something. No private actor had such power, and therefore no private actor had any obligation, legal or moral, to facilitate publication by any other private actor.

But social media changed that. A platform like Facebook is a natural monopoly: there can be only one platform of each type: all but the biggest will wither and die.

So should we let Facebook and its algorithms decide what gets published and what doesn't?

There are what I would consider not only fairly powerful, but almost monolithic/monopolistic entities on the internet that swing left (and I think that is beyond reasonable dispute in the case of Facebook, Google/Youtube)

I dispute it. If you tell me they're unsympathetic to Trump, I'll believe you. If you tell me their CEOs broadly prefer the Democratic Party to the Republican Party, I'm willing to believe that too if you have evidence for it. But neither of these things makes them left, as understood by the world outside the USA.

[Pro Bono]

(Sorry, sloppy editing in the first sentence)

[russell]

But neither of these things makes them left, as understood by the world outside the USA

"left" doesn't mean the same thing in the US as it does outside the US.

that fact alone confirms Americans for whom "the left" is a boogie man in their belief that their understanding of the word is the right one.

[joel hanes]

why did all those people not vote for her.

Among those I know personally, the overwhelming number did so because they had internalized a passel of lies about Sec. Clinton, lies that were deliberately implanted in the public mind by a well-funded thirty-year campaign of dishonest propaganda, and exacerbated by the inability of the media to resist baseless innuendo.

Low information voters of my acquaintance were utterly convinced that Sec. Clinton must be "crooked", somehow, though they could not say exactly how. Most of the men chronically referred to her as "that bitch". Not one of them ever came up with a substantive reason: always up front was the fact that they despise her. As they continue to.

So : propaganda, a feckless media, and misogyny.

[JanieM]

joel hanes, thank you.

Marty's mention of Hillary's numbers is, I take it, one of a string of responses (or maybe I should say reactions) to my rundown of numbers from the 2016 election.

I cited those numbers in response to some "advice" that bc offered, and which I quoted and will quote again: Or, ignore trying to figure out Trump voters and lose again.

I cited the numbers to support the assertion (perhaps not stated explicitly enough) that there are a lot of things Democrats can and should do to try to win next time, and it's hard to think of anything that's likely to have a lower ROI than spending time trying to figure out Clickbait voters.

All this free advice from people who detest Hillary and think she was a crap candidate, and people who don't like Democrats and prefer the sexist crook now in office to the possibility that Democrats will be able to enact any policy or confirm any judges or justices -- well, the advice is worth what we paid for it. Or probably even less than that.

joel's comment reminds me that countering slime like swiftboating from the other side is another task that needs to be on the list.

[cleek]

internalized a passel of lies about Sec. Clinton

they've internalized the myth so thoroughly, that they still spend their time and energy chanting "lock her up" and rubbing their little hands together in anticipation that she's about to get her comeuppance. and she deserves comeuppance so much that they've had to invent a whole universe of perfidy to justify it.

the GOP is a cult

[Tony P.]

A feckless liberal media, joel.

The right-wing media have plenty of feck. They do not cower at the thought that somebody, somewhere, might accuse them of "bias". So they boldly pump out the propaganda that "low information voters" can digest. And of course, they stand ever ready to accuse the liberal media of bias. Which works a treat, the liberal media being so feckless.

--TP

[Marty]

"Sec. Clinton, lies that were deliberately implanted in the public mind by a well-funded thirty-year campaign of dishonest propaganda, and exacerbated by the inability of the media to resist baseless innuendo."

No the left is as blind to her faults as the right is to Trumps. Her advantage is sh is part of the machine so no one dare I'llnvestigate her too closely. A lifelong part of the ruling cabal. Trump as an outsider is easy to take down with little collateral damage.

No use discussing this, her crimes are so well documented as his. Her supporters as unswayed.

[joel hanes]

her crimes

Name one, Marty.

[russell]

there are a lot of things Democrats can and should do to try to win next time, and it's hard to think of anything that's likely to have a lower ROI than spending time trying to figure out Clickbait voters.

exactly and precisely this.

No use discussing this

yep

[laura koerber]

Low information voters of my acquaintance were utterly convinced that Sec. Clinton must be "crooked", somehow, though they could not say exactly how. Most of the men chronically referred to her as "that bitch". Not one of them ever came up with a substantive reason: always up front was the fact that they despise her. As they continue to.

So : propaganda, a feckless media, and misogyny.

I've observed that many times: people who assert that she should be locked up, but they don't know for what crime. And they insist hat there is evidence for the unknown crime but the FBi is suppressing it. Straight outta Orwell. They are the kind of people in 1984 who screamed at the images of Goldman.

[russell]

No use discussing this

yep

actually, I take it back. if folks want go down the deep state "part of the machine" rathole, go for it.

I for one do not wish to suppress dissenting points of view.

[Marty]

I just deleted a really long reply Joel. Not worth my time to rehash. If I somehow brought it up sorry, nrvermind.

[JanieM]

I for one do not wish to suppress dissenting points of view.

Nor I.

But that's different from wasting any more time acting as if it's worth the bother of engaging with them. Once we get to Hillary the criminal, we are, as Silverman always says at BJ, off the looking glass and through the map.

We have a person (presumably along with her also-powerful husband and probably Obama and who knows who else) who is capable of committing high crimes of some sort and manipulating the legal system so effectively that no one can call her to account, and yet who is -- again, with all those powerful allies -- incapable of preventing the disaster of Clickbait taking over, or doing anything about it after the fact.

Hey, I got spreadsheets to design.

***

Last words, it is to despair:

If I somehow brought it up....

If?!?! Somehow?????

No use discussing this, her crimes are so well documented as his.

[Marty]

Well I was responding to something as I recall.

[Countme-a-Demon]

If mp really wanted Hillary indicted, arrested, and jailed, he should have nominated her to his Cabinet or a White House post, or made her part of his legal team.

[joel hanes]

Marty is not mostly who I was talking about, although his reply was as expected. Marty was never going to vote for a Democrat.

In that context, I'm sorry to have brought it up. Pax, Marty, and thanks for continuing to talk to us in a forum in which you are outnumbered.

No, I was talking about ostensibly Dem voters, people who have voted liberal in the past but who do not closely follow politics, and who get their news from TV, if at all. The propaganda worked on them, too. They despise Sec. Clinton with a hotter flame than burns in their memory of Nixon or W. And so they wouldn't come out to vote for her, and so we got Trump.

[joel hanes]

I would say that I brought it up, and not Marty.

mea maxima culpa

[liberal japonicus]

Thanks for the reply bc and fair enough, you didn't say that and, as you could probably tell, I worked myself up into a rant. However, Zito strikes me in the same way that a concern troll does: Someone who claims to be sympathetic, but actually isn't. The person might not be actively lying, but by assembling reality in a way that fits her preconceptions, she is, as Harry Frankfurt observed, a bullshitter.

As for FB, I have lots of friends from my hometown who seem to get all their information from FB. (strangely enough, I don't note, at least to the same extent, that problem here in Japan. I don't think this means that Japanese are somehow 'better' for not falling for this crap. This may be because my social circle in constrained, or possibly because people don't feel comfortable expressing their political in quite a public manner. But that is another question)

Anyway, I don't want to say that's fine, but I'm not going to go into their timeline and start explaining why they are wrong. I'm not even going to put a snopes link there. But in the confines of this list, if someone brings something that they feel is evidence, I feel like they are also accepting that this evidence is going to get poked and prodded and not get hot under the collar when this happens. It is always a danger that you end up criticizing the person rather than the evidence, and though I tried not to, if you felt I was criticizing you rather than Zito, I apologize.

[Dave W.]

Somewhere in the last day or two I followed a link to a twitter thread that I now can't find, claiming that there were multiple "swing voters" that Zito had interviewed who were actually Republican officials. Here's one example from a couple of months ago: http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/06/bullshit-artist-turducken

Apparently, it seems to be a pattern.

[liberal japonicus]

Dave, thanks, some googling pulls up this that you may have seen?

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1033541566307033090

which goes to this
https://twitter.com/rod_inanimate

Ouch. I think we can put a fork in it, she's done...