Yes, Facebook does influence elections. Significantly, Trump’s win in 2016.
And Facebook trying to address that with fact-checks etc has caused the Trumpets to move to Parler.
Credit: Stop the Anti-Science Movement on Facebook
BLM Bidens laptop matters
#Kraken ???
Cut off one head, Two will grow in it's place.
Hail Hydra
There's a pretty reasonable theory that "broken windows" was basically the making of modern day lunatic Giuliani- it made him into a celebrity and then over time it made him controversial and he enjoyed both.
But, also, he was aware at the time how dubious it was and how much he'd lucked out with the general fall in crime, so he started putting more effort into maintaining the myth- he'd started out working only with friendly reporters and studies, then doubled down on that, restricting access only to people who guaranteed a positive reading, and attacking any sort of criticism (I can't find the article now but supposedly he phoned up the president of Notre Dame to rant about a phd student that he'd granted some access too, as he didn't like that the project wasn't going to declare broken windows a total success, accused the student and phd supervisor of being politically motivated, and tried to get both kicked out)
Seems like at some point, he got to enjoy it for its own sake- not "I fought crime and I won" but "I fought the truth and won", the power games and the lies. Kind of like his own personal conspiracy theory, it's nice to know stuff and feel smart but it's nicer still to have people think you know stuff and make you feel smart when you're also being extra super smart and fooling them all. I mean, just being famous and respected for something you actually did, that's for normal people.
Hehe those names are excellent GrahamS. Did you see some of the screen grabs from Parler in the comments though :-/
Yeah that's my concern @grum - Parler (and OANN, NewsMax etc) will greatly enforce the existing information bubbles: "facts" will go unchallenged, viewpoints will not be contested, and people will become even more radicalised. 🙁
There is a real danger there IMO.
“facts” will go unchallenged
doesn't make a blind bit of difference. they hear what they wanna hear and disregard the rest (copyright paul simon :D)
radicalised
That really is the word isn't it. I hadn't thought to use that word about the situation but you are correct. The truth and facts are not particularly relevant at this point. History tells us this tends not to end well.
That really is the word isn’t it. I hadn’t thought to use that word about the situation but you are correct. The truth and facts are not particularly relevant at this point. History tells us this tends not to end well.
The same happened with the daily mail reading pensioners over here.
But the important difference is that very few UK pensioners have access to automatic weapons.
Y'All Qaeda is a work of comic genius
and yes to the radicalisation idea. Once you start thinking of it in those terms it gets a little scary
And I thought I had a clever word play on OANN but you are never first on the internet
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Oananism
Cometh the hour, cometh the man; Rudy to the rescue in Pennsylvania...
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/526304-giuliani-files-to-represent-trump-campaign-in-pennsylvania-case
trump's new lawyer in the state is Marc Scaringi...
https://lawandcrime.com/2020-election/conservative-radio-host-got-less-than-24-hours-to-win-trump-campaign-lawsuit-that-he-knows-wont-change-election-outcome/
Have a look at his twitter posts if you want a laugh.
Here’s an excellent thread explaining who is behind the disinformation on Facebook/parler and how they gained the system to spread lies
https://twitter.com/trollzoo/status/1328019915006234633?s=21
That is creepy somafunk - I think most of us knew/suspected that some of the same money/people were behind this far-right propaganda on social media but it's interesting to see it laid bare like that.
But the important difference is that very few UK pensioners have access to automatic weapons.
They've arguably done more damage to the UK by voting for the Tories and Brexit
grum : Yeah it's bad (understatement of the new millennium), I cannot see how this genie is ever going back into the bottle (so to speak) and every single election around the world is now laid open to influence by social media and those who crave control at all costs.
I cannot see how this genie is ever going back into the bottle
When the "good guys" get in power, they have to sort out the voting systems, campaign financing and lobbying finance and power. It is no good continuing to work under corrupt systems, just because they have traditionally benefited them half the time in the past. The game has changed now, they need to get up to speed and move to true democracy instead of a façade for an oligarchy.
Banning targetted political ads would seem feasible, wouldn't it? There are already strict controls on political advertising in the UK so it's not without precedent.
Harder in the US mind.
Senate hearing with Facebook and Twitter is going on at the moment. Same as before.
Democrats asking why Trump and friends are being allowed to get away with what he's posting, and how can they crack down harder.
Republicans saying social is restricting their speech, should be doing less.
Banning targetted political ads would seem feasible, wouldn’t it?
Twitter has banned them, haven't they? Facebook banned them for the week before the election I thought, and recently announced this ban will continue?
Republicans saying social is restricting their speech
Banning a Facebook post isn't restricting Trumps speech, it's restricting what he can say on their platform. He can still say what he likes, that's his right, but he can't necessarily say it on Facebook.
I hope they do ban him - maybe he'll start Trumpbook, that'd be a laugh.
When the “good guys” get in power,
The flaw with that is that to get into power they will have had to sell out at least a little.
Yup. I build a stage, i get to invite people to perform on it. You don't have any right to come and throw shit at people from it.
If you don't like that, build your own stage, with hookers and blackjack and butthurt alt-right people who can't accept that tehy just got their arses kicked, and throw shit at your mates.
I was watching the senate hearings earlier this afternoon but lost the rag when Lindsay Graham began his questioning of Jack Dorsey regarding the footnote warnings on trumps tweets being so unfair (Whiney republican cockbag alert) so I sensibly switched off and went out on a bike run to the shore and watched the sunset hitting the water, much more conducive to a happy life
These are the Facebook/Twitter political ad bans...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-50243306
go away silly people
https://twitter.com/mjs_DC/status/1328802522094563328
odd
https://twitter.com/JustinGrayWSB/status/1328808336985296896
though it's not going agent oranges way
https://twitter.com/stphnfwlr/status/1328807972223537153
so I sensibly switched off and went out on a bike run to the shore and watched the sunset hitting the waterwhilst having a toke, much more conducive to a happy life
I hope.
So in GA so far the Dem areas have been almost “to the vote” and the Rep ones negligent in their ability to actually add up their votes??
Judge in the PA case with Judy representing
https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1328827815001792512?s=19
In Wisconsin Biden's declared winning margin is 0.6% so it's above the 0.5% threshold for automatic recount.
trump's team have been advised that they can, of course, request a full recount but they will be required to pay the $7.9 million cost...up front!
Two messages there - you lost and we don't believe you're good for the cost.
What a hoot.
Unfortunately not alpin, but I did have a bottle of sativex in my jacket purely for medicinal needs of course 😉
Shits, giggles, etc. Ignoring the votes for “others,” and working on current figures on CNN...
Biden: 79,003,702
Trump: 73,323,297
98% Counted
51.86 : 48.14
Looks familiar. 😀
Wtf is going on in Michigan? Republican County electors refusing to approve results.
https://twitter.com/nytmike/status/1328769667868004352
https://twitter.com/BrendanNyhan/status/1328843116359676007
I’ll do it for a tenth of that and I’ll deliver exactly the same results as Giuliani.
dantsw13 - what's your source for post re Michigan?
thols2 - Krebs' departure was telegraphed and expected by him; put your head above the parapet...
No doubt Rudy will present his day in court as a big win; I'm surprised he hasn't been reprimanded or disbarred by either or both of NY state or American bar associations.
CNN article on that @frankconway
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/17/politics/michigan-detroit-election-results/index.html
Frank - it was on Guardian Live feed, but as posted above ^^ they have bowed to pressure and certified the count.
[strong]dantsw13[/strong] wrote:
they have bowed to pressure and certified the count
For a minute then I thought the US authorities had put Trump in a mental institution! The I remembered I am a bit dyslexic 🙂
For a minute then I thought the US authorities had put Trump in a mental institution! The I remembered I am a bit dyslexic
Bravo sir, bravo
Sounds like Arch-Grifter Giuliani is really earning his 20k/day fees! He didn't understand basic concepts of constitutional law and just kept spouting the usual conspiracies. Luckily he had local radio presenter/part time attorney Marc Scaringi to help him out.
Is this all really about the dodgy fund raising to pay down campaign debts and a final payday for Rudy?
For a minute then I thought the US authorities had put Trump in a mental institution! The I remembered I am a bit dyslexic
🙂
Sounds like Arch-Grifter Giuliani is really earning his 20k/day fees! He didn’t understand basic concepts of constitutional law and just kept spouting the usual conspiracies. Luckily he had local radio presenter/part time attorney Marc Scaringi to help him out.
Is this all really about the dodgy fund raising to pay down campaign debts and a final payday for Rudy?
you'd hope for some kind of statement from the supreme court along the lines of "The court feels that the US 2020 was free, fair and without fraud" to put and end to this nonsense.
I'm surprised Rudy even passed the bar, although possibly he has dementia these days
I suspect Giuliani has mental illness of some sort. Paranoid delusions anyone?
I think you may be right TJ. Apparently when his bid for President fell apart, so did he.
Fuzzy, he wasn't qualified to work in PA, he had to apply for dispensation.
I'm not quite sure why news from the states still shocks me; you'd have thought I would have learnt by now. But for me the news that Trump has fired Krebs is up there. Not so much that he did it; Trump is a despot and Krebs was off message. But it's the fact that he was able to fire him. Could you imagine a parallel election race in the UK where the side that lost fired the person overseeing the election monitoring because they didn't like the result? Not that they were proven to have carried out mass fraud or even that he was a political appointee by the other side and therefore biased but because he spoke the truth. This is out of the playbook of the very worst banana republic tinpot leaders.
If the UK government (and the EU come to that) had any moral standing they should now be condemning Trump and his hangers on and making it clear he is not welcome in this country again.
Biden needs to make one of his aims of his tenure to put the running of elections beyond the reach of political interference. I appreciate that is harder to do in the US's ****ed up system. Along with a root and branch reform of political advertising and lobbying fit for a 21st century free world levels of ****wittery.
and Krebs was off message.
Trump is also saying look he's a conspirator, he's one of them.
I suspect Giuliani has mental illness of some sort.
I think it's much more likely that he's just fundamentally a **** who is surrounded by sycophants and doesn't realize how deluded he is.
Edit. Although a bit of cognitive decline would be pretty normal at his age too, so that's probably not helping him see reality clearly.
I think it’s much more likely that he’s just fundamentally a **** who is surrounded by sycophants and doesn’t realize how deluded he is.
The Republican party machine is all about winning. It's like one big marketing campaign. Rational government has NOTHING to do with any of what they do. So it's just a question of 'what can I say that will get me the support I want?'. Truth, reliability or sense do not factor in at all. They are just playing a game.
shot himself in the foot does pose the question would he have won in Arizona and Wisconsin etc
Trump is also saying look he’s a conspirator, he’s one of them.
Is this Krebs chap also a baby eating Satanist now?
pie monster & dantsw13 - thanks re Michigan; I had found the CNN piece but after the time window closed to edit my post.
Is this Krebs chap also a baby eating Satanist now?
to a trumpet yes.
Could you imagine a parallel election race in the UK where the side that lost fired the person overseeing the election monitoring
hyperboyle aside, given the state of the Torys currently , I genuinely wouldn’t put it past them. I think right wing parties in democracies all over the world can see the writing in the wall for their future chances of election victory as their main demographic support slowly dies away, they are becoming more and more desperate
I suspect Giuliani has mental illness of some sort.
I don't like this labeling people you disagree with as mentally ill. Far too often it's used to push your viewpoint while suggesting that the other person's views are invalid because they are cognitively impaired. It can be really disgusting in some cases because it's used to dismiss or silence opposing viewpoints while dressing it up as concern for the person's well being.
I have no way of diagnosing Guiliani through a TV screen and neither does anyone else.
I do, however, think he's a total prick.
Klunk - that is poetic!!
This made me smirk this morning...
https://politics.theonion.com/gop-leaders-begin-search-for-prissy-miserable-shithead-1845698547
I'm with Brucewee on this. I don't credit the "lunacy" of what he's saying to him actually believing it because he's ill, but simply bare face lying to suit his own ends.
Above someone asked why Giuliani had changed. Its one possible explanation. Its not that I disagree with the man - its that his detachment from reality has become so pronounced.
I’m with Brucewee on this. I don’t credit the “lunacy” of what he’s saying to him actually believing it because he’s ill, but simply bare face lying to suit his own ends.
I wonder with people like him & Trump, do they deep down know they lost fair & square but just decide to say **** it - lets see what we can get. Or do they genuinely believe the election was fraudulent?
There's enough people on Twitter & Facebook who are lapping it up.
Having some experience of narcissistic sociopaths, I'm not sure whether they really know or care whether what they are saying is true - it's irrelevant.
They are so used to lying cheating and manipulating that they don't really make the distinction any more between truth and fiction, it's all about what will feed their ego and get them what they want. On some level they probably know it's all BS but that's not useful information so why give it a moment's thought.
You always have to beware the Peter principle but I don't believe anyone can rise to their positions and not know exactly where they stand. They're just fronting it out now.
Mitch McConnell certainly knows full well what he's doing. Evil ****
I would say, everybody who's not calling him out from the GOP right now knows exactly whats going on and is happy to carry on their own grift until the game is up. Ive got to agree with the comment above re right wing parties the world over looking at the US and thinking 'lets push this as far as we can' witness the tories right now, money spaffing in all directions, come Feb when brexit is 'done' then the rats currently at the helm will be off like a shot and leaving it to others to mop up.
I think right wing parties in democracies all over the world can see the writing in the wall
Drivel, the right wing is far from dead, we've just had two examples of how absolute no hopers on the right can be elected.
People tend to become more right wing as they get older so unfortunately its not a case of waiting for the blue rinse brigade to pass on, they will be replaced.
Right wing parties also do blatant populism better, Brexit, immigrants, lower tax etc. Left wing parties tend to try and promote what they believe is a fairer society, there's a lot of people not up for that, the States are a good example, there's a lot of people in the states who see welfare etc. as a direct denigration of the effort they perceive they put into life by giving people not doing so well a leg up. They often can't get their heads around the fact they may benefit from support at some point as well, Obama care being a great example.
stumpyjon, can you back up your sweeping assertion?
People tend to become more right wing as they get older so unfortunately its not a case of waiting for the blue rinse brigade to pass on, they will be replaced.
On the run up to the election I started following Trump on Twitter. Yeah I know it's bad for health and I limit my time on there but there's many that proclaim (I expect including him) that the number of his followers is in some way reflective of his popularity. Personally I'm only there for the freak show that is his and his disciples (further) descent into madness. And I suspect many of his followers are also there to antagonise him and his supporters.
@scuttler I imagine a lot of folk have done the same as you and followed for that reason.
Probably has at least 10-15% bots, 25% rubber neckers intrigued about the car crash and the rest rabid fans.
People tend to become more right wing as they get older
I think it's fair to say that people tend to become more conservative as they get older, but that's not quite the same as becoming more right-wing. When you're young, you are more likely to want radical change, partly because you have less stake in the existing system. If the changes you push for become policy, you tend to favour retaining them as you get older because you have an emotional investment in them, plus, having kids, mortgage, etc. makes you much less keen on upsetting the apple cart. That's conservative in the sense of wanting to retain the existing order, not in the sense of right-wing politics.
In the U.S., Biden is actually a fairly conservative guy - he favours making incremental changes to fix faults in the system, not radical changes (i.e. conserving the existing order). That doesn't make him right-wing, just a fairly moderate centrist who believes that the fundamental structure of the country is sound, even if there are flaws in how it's implemented. Trump is not conservative, he's radical - he favours making fundamental changes to the existing system. This is sold to conservatives as returning to a mythical golden age, but that golden age only existed on tv shows and movies, not in real life. Trump doesn't actually give a shit about that, that's just a smokescreen for having the federal government turned into a piggy bank for him and his family.
Its a generally accepted (which doesn't make it right) that people get more conservative as they get older and accumulate more wealth - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/03/do-we-become-more-conservative-with-age-young-old-politics - is a good explanation of the phenomena
people tend to become more conservative as they get older,
I assume that be conservative with a small c...
I assume that be conservative with a small c…
& 4 letters...
I'm a life-long liberal lefty, and now at 45 I find myself uttering conservative and/or reactionary phrases in response to the behaviour of the kids I teach every day.
I think it's just a natural process to become more conservative as you age.
Not that I'll act on these impulses 😉
#leftyuntilidie
Drivel, the right wing is far from dead,
I didn’t say it was dead, but it is dying, attitudes all over the world that were commonplace 50 years ago are now no longer mainstream; from racism to equal rights to feminism, and espousing them won’t get you elected anymore like it used to. Republicans now have to fix the electoral borders to win in some states, otherwise they’ll never see power again and they know that as a party their donations are coming from a smaller and increasingly older and paler but wealthier demographic.
I think people become more reactionary as they get older, in the sense of harking back to previous political times when "things were better"