Facebook Employees Ask Mark Zuckerberg If They Should Try To Stop a Donald Trump Presidency (gizmodo.com) 387
An anonymous reader writes: Mark Zuckerberg didn't shy from condemning several of Trump's views at his company's developer conference earlier this week. Things are getting tenser now. Gizmodo's Michael Nunez is reporting about a political discussion inside Facebook wherein employees appear to be asking Zuckerberg whether the company should try to "help prevent President Trump in 2017." Every week, Facebook employees vote in an internal poll on what they want to ask Zuckerberg in an upcoming Q&A session. A question from the March 4 poll was: "What responsibility does Facebook have to help prevent President Trump in 2017?"An excerpt from the report which talks about Facebook's position :But what's exceedingly important about this question being raised -- and Zuckerberg's answer, if there is one -- is how Facebook now treats the powerful place it holds in the world. It's unprecedented. More than 1.04 billion people use Facebook. It's where we get our news, share our political views, and interact with politicians. It's also where those politicians are spending a greater share of their budgets. And Facebook has no legal responsibility to give an unfiltered view of what's happening on their network.
might as well (Score:2)
Non-Issue (Score:2, Interesting)
The fact the question is being asked so openly at a large, public corporation is proof that Trump has little chance in the general election.
Re:Non-Issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't confuse elitist CA politics with a consensus view.
Re:Non-Issue (Score:5, Insightful)
It will be fun listening to all the right-wing nut-bars after Trump goes down in flames.
Trump is not "right-wing". He draws his strongest support from independents, and tends to do poorly in more partisan closed primaries. Many of his views are anathema to the right-wing, and many conservative talk radio hosts detest him. Talk radio is credited with his defeat in the Wisconsin primaries. Trump is a populist, with a mish-mash of views, without any ideological consistency.
Re:Non-Issue (Score:5, Insightful)
without any ideological consistency.
I think that's a good thing. Or rather, it would be nice if policy decisions were made based on technical merit rather than passing some ideological test.
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Isn't "technical merit" just another ideology like "economic merit", "political merit", or "religious merit"? Everyone likes to think that their own carefully reasoned opinion is the only one consistent with the facts, while their opponents are just irrational ideologues. Meanwhile, your opponents are thinking the same thing about you.
Re:Non-Issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump only exists as a candidate because the Republicans have done such a bad job of representing the average working-class guy who votes Republican. (Conservative is almost meaningless now, as is Liberal, Right, and Left) He's certainly populist, but his supporters aren't populist idealogs for the most part there's just not a better answer being discussed.
Most people understand that "no immigration at all" and "totally open borders" are both really stupid ideas, but those are the only choices people are talking about, so if you have a low-skill job threatened by immigration, it's easy to chose between the two.
I think you're right that that's the only thing Trump has been consistent on this election (and even his populism is fairly recent).
Re:Non-Issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would the average working-class guy even vote for the Republicans? They are, unashamedly, the supporters of the employers of the average working-class guy.
Because parties are coalitions of a wide set of positions they support? Except in recent years, that's just not true any more, and both parties exist only to serve big-money donors and the voters interests don't matter to either side except as rhetoric. That's why both Trump and Bernie keep getting so many primary votes.
Re:Non-Issue (Score:4, Insightful)
Except the Democrats aren't representing my interests either. They want to destroy personal responsibility, discourage self-reliance, make people more dependent on the state, and destroy the economy with communist nonsense. It's gotten so bad that a communist is even running in the Democratic primaries.
I want the upcoming generations to be able to support me in my old age and for the quality of medical innovation to continue. I don't want the destruction of economic incentives that Democrats of all kind seem so fond of.
BOTH parties could do with a massive "rollback" to more sane positions.
Anyone that wants to subject you to Medicare is your enemy. So is anyone that wants to tear down Big Pharma. They make really cool stuff for diseases you've never heard of. They need to continue.
Castrate Skrelli but leave the guys still doing R&D out of your little purge.
Re: Non-Issue (Score:5, Interesting)
You're an idiot if you think no immigration is any different than limited immigration.
See, this is what I mean. You're probably against admitting invading armies, or convicted child rapists escaped from jail, or people with a declared (not assumed) intent to commit terrorism. You probably against admitting so many people so fast that it would unquestionably cause mass starvation from simple lack of infrastructure to move people and food around the first year.
You take the obviously wrong extreme position not because you've actually thought about it, but because you want to declare "see, I'm one of the good people, I hold the correct belief"! As do those who state the opposite end, of course.
Black and white answers are for children.
Re: Non-Issue (Score:4, Funny)
There won't be riots as long as Trump supporters continue to get their disability checks on time.
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You got me. I control every account with UIDs between 3000000 and 4000000. Now I'm in negotiations with Slashdot to give me control over the Anonymous Coward account so I can troll myself.
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You complete me.
Re:Non-Issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Having worked at Facebook- there's H1Bs there, but pay isn't a problem at FB. In fact they were one of the few large companies not caught up in the wage fixing lawsuits. They had no problem paying me a ridiculous amount of money in equity. The company has issues, but pay isn't one of them.
Contribution in Kind? (Score:3)
If Facebook did work to defeat Trump, could that be seen as In Kind contribution [wa.gov] to his opponents?
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i may not be the typical american but i say, i hope they don't step in.
be anti-trump on your own time. As i'm not particularly thrilled of newspapers endorsing a candidate I'm not thrilled of any corporation endorsing a candidate. Or do they think this wouldn't contribute to a fucking hostile workplace for people who don't share their POLITICAL opinion?
As an american, i'm not going to let anonymous, or facebook, even think they can tell me what to do. I'd vote for trump in protest of facebook, if i weren
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If they're Facebook employees, then it's Facebook's own time.
Funny how support of corporate involvement in elections depends on whether it's your candidate that's getting support or opposition from the corporation.
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Ironed out my position. any corporation can say "the editorial board of x endorses this or that candidate" but that's the end of it. anything more, promoting puff pieces, tamping down on other pieces, charging less of one side or the other. that leads to directions that i think would make our democracy weaker.
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As long as the endless hours of Fox News Trump boosterism is also seen as an in kind contribution.
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Only a complete moron would think that Denmark is a communist country.
Why not go the whole nine yards? (Score:4, Funny)
Skynet us already, all these decisions are taking away valuable Candy Crush playing time!
facebook should stay out of it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:facebook should stay out of it (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook is just a forum they should stay neutral and let the Democratic process work.
This. All damn day long.
And touting that Facebook has a billion users so they should have a say is akin to asking China or India to help out with the US election. Pure numbers mean fuck-all with this, and it rather disgusts me that employees of a social media system assume they hold any responsibility to "prevent" (read: manipulate) the election of one of the most powerful positions on this planet.
TL;DR - Know your fucking place, Facebook.
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Facebook's place is whatever Facebook wants it to be, which will be determined by its management, its employees, and perhaps most importantly how this affects its long term interests (both in user reaction and Trumpian threats to loosen up defamation law to make people who criticize Trump far easier to punish).
No law requires organizations to uphold mid
Re:facebook should stay out of it (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't the conservative view that corporations have similar rights to people, especially when it comes to politics? So presumably many Trump supporters would support Facebook's right to take a political position and support the candidate of their choice.
The New Mind Control (Score:3)
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Not only that but whoever they work against will have friends in high places and you can about bet laws will be passed designed to harm Facebook the company.
Some of these laws could be data protection where they have to get explicit permission to collect information on a user and explicit permission every time they want to share it with advertising or other partners and that permission cannot condition access to the service. One might be that users are entitled to a portion of the gross revenue generated fr
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The key is whether they're doing it during their own time (donating/campaigning/etc) or during company time (e.g. writing an algorithm that determines whether and article is pro- or anti-Trump and ranking it in a Facebook feed accordingly). The former is perfectly fine. The latter is not acceptable - regardless of what Zuckerberg says.
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Says who? And that's not an academic question.
The reports that I have read say that Zuckerberg has a majority of the voting power in Facebook shares. That was no secret when others bought into Facebook's public offering. Therefore if Zuckerberg says so there's virtually nothing that the board of directors, shareholders, or God can do to change it.
If you think that shareholders can simply sue the company becaus
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That brings up an interesting issue. How do social media sites such as Facebook handle posts by their employees? If I post something to my company's web site or intranet (even during off-hours) it better be both professional and business related.
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FB doesn't. As long as we weren't saying "As an FB employee, blah" they didn't care what we posted, and we were encouraged to use their software heavily (they believe in dogfooding). Now if you tried to make it sound like you were speaking as Facebook, that was a problem. And if you were an executive you probably had some more scrutiny. But as an engineer, you were allowed to use your profile as normal. (Normal caveats apply- if you posted a racist rant that got national newspaper coverage you'd proba
Re:facebook should stay out of it (Score:4, Informative)
Facebook is not a forum, it's an ad delivery system.
Re:facebook should stay out of it (Score:5, Insightful)
The same accusation can be leveled at any platform that is ad supported. Google is not a search engine, but an ad delivery system. YouTube is not a video sharing service, but an ad delivery system. Even Slashdot itself is not a forum for nerds who think they know more than they do, but rather an ad delivery system.
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Your comment is not a comment, it's an ad delivery system for wtf segfaultband is.
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Facebook is just a forum they should stay neutral and let the Democratic process work. While people may not agree with Trump it doesn't mean stop him from running for president. After all we are the same population whop allowed 2 terms for "W"
The Koch brothers are just a couple of stuffy ultra conservative business men, they should stay neutral but they aren't doing that and won't stop their political meddling any time soon. In a perfect world businesses and wealthy individuals would all stay neutral and allow the Democratic process to work but we don't live in a perfect world. So why should Facebook, which is basically a collection of latte slurping liberals, not use their money and position to mobilise other latte slurping liberals to get off
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Re:facebook should stay out of it (Score:4, Interesting)
Facebook is just a forum they should stay neutral and let the Democratic process work.
Should Fox News stay neutral and let the Democratic process work?
If the answer is "Yes" for Facebook and "No" for Fox, why?
Yes the do (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, they do have a legal responsibility. It's one thing to say they have no responsibility for what people post, although they do in their terms in regards to hate speech and the like.
But the officers and Directors of Facebook have a legal responsibility to protect and maximize the value of their shareholders. If Facebook were to take an active stance in filtering content to attempt to alter the political landscape, they risk alienating a rather large userbase those political ideas. The fact is that enough users support Trump that if Facebook attempted to skew the results, they risk alienating that userbase and losing them, which in turn affects Facebook's value and revenue that their officers and Directors are legally required to protect.
And even if it did work, and Trump was defeated and Clinton or Sanders got elected, both the Republicans and the Democrats would unify and pass a law stopping that from ever happening again. Neither party wants a bunch of millenial nitwits having that kind of political clout; that kind of manipulation would be regulated into oblivion with full bi-partisan support.
Attempting to sway a political discussion risks a blowback that could result in a shareholder lawsuit and throwing out the Board and Officers, and is a really stupid idea for a company. Despite the ideology of Facebook employees which most likely skew one particular direction, this would be a very bad idea for Facebook. Their prupose is to provide a social media service to users and in turn sell those users' viewing minutes to advertisers, not to attempt to sway political opinion.
Re:Yes the do (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a political "just so" story, describing a possible line of argument about how "a legal responsibility to protect and maximize the value of their shareholders" might be interpreted. It is not a necessary, or even likely, conclusion.
There is abundant data showing that political spending has, on average, an extremely large ROI, exceeding 100-1. Regulatory rulings can cause tens of billions of dollars to change hands. It is an easy case to make that efforts to influence political races is not just wise, but incumbent on a corporation explicitly to protect shareholder value.
And in an age where unlimited corporate political spending on its own influence operations is legal, and where the content delivered by a news channel is legally regarded as "entertainment", with no sanction for out-right fabrications being passed off as fact, it is hard to know what sort of activity by a corporation would be impermissible.
Pretty much the only think illegal these days is paying Congressfolk a sum of money for a specific vote. It is fine though to keep them on retainer, paying regularly to their "leadership PAC" (from which the can keep all of the proceeds), and telling them periodically how they should vote, with the politician knowing that the sugar stops if the lobbyist is not obeyed. Not for sale, but all them are being rented.
Trump is not the worst (Score:3, Insightful)
Cruz is far worse than Trump. Even Hillary is worse than Trump on some issues.
National polls have shown that Bernie stands a far better shot at defeating any Republican candidate than Hillary does. If Facebook wants to stop Trump and similar demagogues, their best bet is to support Bernie.
Fiduciary responsibility? (Score:4, Interesting)
Isn't the argument that firms don't have any responsibility other than the fiduciary interest of their shareholders?
So shouldn't Facebook only care about which Presidential candidate will increase the profitability of Facebook?
Given all the time people seem to spend posting anti-Trump messages on Facebook now, you could almost argue that they have a fiduciary interest in assuring a President Trump because it will surely create the "social dynamics" which leads to more Facebook use.
Or if that analysis isn't good enough, shouldn't they look to support a Presidential candidate whose economic policies will support multinational corporations (lower taxes, more H1Bs, etc etc)?
They've lost me when they can't find "good deeds" to do with higher priority than "stopping" a candidate unlikely to end up on the ballot.
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Facebook has a duty to protect its core business. People are more likely to abandon Facebook if they try and push a political slant. People are not stupid and see through crap like that. The general discourse on Facebook is already so low that I closed up shop there months ago and have no plans to return. It has become a cesspool. If Facebook wants to become the next Myspace, they should be sure to give those on the edge of quitting a little push.
Trumped (Score:2)
Old "news"... (Score:2)
I don't think Facebook's and Zuckerberg situation is anything new, historically speaking.
It seems very similar to me to the power that newspaper conglomerate owners held over the past few centuries in America: William Randolph Hurst, Rupert Murdoch, etc.
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Right you are. Both those men aggressively manipulated the political environment (Murdoch still does) without any fear of sanction. Not even the Fairness Doctrine on public airwaves still exists. Of course Facebook can influence the election, if it wants. It is the American Way.
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I don't think Facebook's and Zuckerberg situation is anything new, historically speaking.
It seems very similar to me to the power that newspaper conglomerate owners held over the past few centuries in America: William Randolph Hurst, Rupert Murdoch, etc.
Actually, I'd say it's quite different. Ginormous "social network systems" are ubiquitous enough that their singular (rather than collective) power far exceeds any particular media outlet, in part because it's not clear that you're dealing with "press" at all.
Facebook, Twitter, Google^H^H^H^H^H^H Alphabet, etc. tread the line between media facilitators and pure communications methods at this point. Perhaps not quite as "common carrier" as AT&T's land lines, but something in between in terms of monopolis
Weird, I thought this was Trump? (Score:2)
I've read many articles comparing Trump's manners with Facebook posts. Hey Mark, maybe you could use this to your advantage?
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To drive this home a bit...
Trump is outlandish.
Trump speaks often without thinking through what is said.
Trump says things that aren't true.
Trump puts people on edge.
Now think about Facebook posts.... get it?
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I'm thinking Facebook Poster Boy?
Never, never assume! (Score:2)
It's where we get our news, share our political views, and interact with politicians.
Really? I have never got my news from Facebook, never! People forget that many of those so called Facebook accounts are accounts held by single entities, and for others, they are kind of dormant.
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It's where we get our news, share our political views, and interact with politicians.
Really? I have never got my news from Facebook, never! People forget that many of those so called Facebook accounts are accounts held by single entities, and for others, they are kind of dormant.
Broadly speaking, among heavy web users, you're a rarity. Facebook, Twitter, and other social network sites (but those two in particular) are exceedingly popular. Facebook and Google essentially control the advertising market, and in many cases FB has enough aggregate data on its users to predict things about them before they know it (eg, a relationship forming). With that type of data, it's easy to manipulate presentation and Facebook has in fact already admitted to doing it experimentally on unwitting use
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Maybe it depends on your age or your country, but I asked my friends about it and there's only three of them who use Facebook and none use Twitter.
1HB's are scared (Score:2)
1HB's are scared.
We need to end this enslavement now!
The Company Should Not Have Influence At All (Score:2)
Politics, campaign funding, and voting is for people.
not "Neutral" (Score:4, Interesting)
To take another example, when you Google some offensive terms, Google will show you or give you an explanation of why those results have risen to the top.
Who decides whether some issue rises to the level that it should get some explanation or special treatment? And who decides what the right side of it is -- such that the "democractic" search results should be interfered with? Then, what's the action to be taken, and what outcome is the action attempting to accomplish? Here, the goal would be contributing to someone losing a political race. That's very different from explaining a search result difference... And the problem is that these issues are not imminent threats, like a bomb or child abduction or terrorist threat. They are ideas, not yet actions. That is a hard line to cross, to figure out when it rises to a threshold to act.
Finally remember, as a insightful saying goes, "neutrality or refusal to take a position generally favors the aggressor in a fight". But knowing what to do instead of whether to stay neutral is a very different question.
Abusing positions of trust bites you bad (Score:2)
It's one this for Facebook, Inc. to take a political position and back it with money or what-not.
It's another thing all together for Facebook as a service provider to treat their custumers differently based on their political views or to allow some political discourse but not other dscourse.
The latter usually backfires unless the "silenced" topics are almost universally reviled by your customers and prospective customers or at least that the censorship has nearly-universal customer support.
In other words, i
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It's one this for Facebook, Inc. to take a political position and back it with money or what-not.
It's another thing all together for Facebook as a service provider to treat their custumers differently based on their political views or to allow some political discourse but not other dscourse.
The latter usually backfires unless the "silenced" topics are almost universally reviled by your customers and prospective customers or at least that the censorship has nearly-universal customer support.
In other words, if Facebook treated pro-Trump content differently than pro-other-candidate material, it will bite them bad.
That's where monopoly positions, especially monopoly positions in mass communication, come into play. If there are little other options compared to the "ease" of staying (because everyone else is there) then you don't have any realistic leverage.
This was different in the days of Altavista vs Yahoo vs Google, and Friendster vs MySpace vs Facebook, but not any more. Google and FB (and Apple, at an OS level) essentially control your fortunes.
Just ask any business whose Google pagerank has been mysteriously obl
I suppose they could (Score:2)
Zuck's job is to maximize shareholder value and therefore it would be wise not to. It might just be Trump voters he pisses off and they might be mad enough to quit. Maybe they move on to something else at some point, which is dangerous because those people are the product Facebook sells.
And it's not going to just be about Trump once they set the precedent. Facebook could just decide who it wants to see promoted on their site and silence dissent. That should be far more concerning to you if you're an investo
People still use Facebook? (Score:2)
I'm surprised they have influence enough to make this an issue.
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None (Score:3)
The obvious answer is "None."
Facebook should not interfere with the political process. It has no responsibility to be a political entity.
If you don't like Trump, then it is YOU that has the responsibility to do something about it. Not a private corporation.
the election is in November 2016 (Score:2)
but sure, stop Trump from running in 2017, if you must.
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Torn (Score:3)
My immediate reaction is, "No, as a company they should not try to interfere in the political process."
However, there are so many *other* companies that are already doing just that, going so far as to crease fabricated 'grassroots' organizations to push specific candidates, that I want to say, "You know what? Screw it. Go ahead. At least you're being honest about it."
Hardly unprecedented (Score:4, Interesting)
NY Times and other national newspapers had a similar reach within the US only a short while ago... And their electoral endorsements mattered — and were actively sought-out by the politicians. Maybe, not so much any more [cjr.org], but there was never anything illegal or even unethical about it. You have an opinion — you voice it. If you happen to have a bigger megaphone, good for you...
Why can the media [nytimes.com] endorse a candidate, but not other corporations?
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NY Times and other national newspapers had a similar reach within the US only a short while ago... And their electoral endorsements mattered — and were actively sought-out by the politicians. Maybe, not so much any more [cjr.org], but there was never anything illegal or even unethical about it. You have an opinion — you voice it. If you happen to have a bigger megaphone, good for you...
Why can the media [nytimes.com] endorse a candidate, but not other corporations?
Excellant points. I agree corporations can endorse a candidate, just like newspaper can endorse a candidate. Th question is where is the line between endorsing and contributing to a campaign? It's also illegal, IIRC, to tell employees to act on behalf of a candidate or reimburse them for contributions. Would that apply to acting against a candidate rates than endorsing one? I don't know, and Federal election law is very complicated so a corporation wading into an election rates than setting up a PAC to do
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Endorsements are very different than "trying to stop" a candidate.
Having said that, it's never made any sense to me how an objective and "fair" news organization can possibly officially endorse anyone and keep their objectivity. Just doesn't click.
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Are they? What about other activities — such as selectively printing readers' letters or (not so) subtly editorializing when reporting news?
You can neither stop nor even limit it without running into the First Amendment — better to not even try, it will be worse...
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Free press? Apples or oranges?
Actually this isn't quite the same as an endorsement. They are talking about going a lot further and actually campaigning against someone.
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I understand. My argument is, a government in a country with the First Amendment can't do anything about it.
I'd be happy to see Trump on the ballot come November — and in office come January, and I think his haters are fools. But it is their right to oppose him — and whichever law says otherwise should be abolished...
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Is Facebook too big to break up? How about the Internet?
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Why? Yes, there are laws against that sort of thing, but let's stick to pure ethical reasons...
If the First Amendment allows me to spend hours each day talking (or posting on the Internet) about a candidate on the street myself, why shouldn't my paying somebody else to do it be similarly protected?
Because I happened to be rich? Fine — what about the good looking people, or those with a better voice? Sho
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No, no, no and I don't understand the question.
They are a social networking company it really shouldn't make them that much diffrence what people talk about.
But I don't think they should continue on this path of mass manipulation regardless of whether its legal or not.
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s/get/seek/
There, fixed that for you.
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I use Facebook to communicate with family (some) and very close friends (from real life). I don't get news from Facebook.
I visit or call mine.
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Just about every media organization is pushing a viewpoint. I've no doubt that Facebook will do whatever it can to shape public opinion until it crosses the boundary of being good for business.
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If that's the case, I'm interested to see how facebook receives (or doesn't, or manipulates) stories that show a strong connection between heavy facebook usage and mental illness.
Although I have a facebook account, I rarely use it. In fact, facebook recently kept sending me an email every day bugging me to send them all of my email contacts so that I could find more friends on facebook...so, I unsubscribed from facebook emails. I only keep my account on there because people I actually know IRL ask me to. An
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No matter how big your company is, directly interfering in a nation's politics is not a long term winning strategy.
Riiiight. Directly interfering with a nation's politics has had such a detrimental effect on Oil, Pharma, and Banking.
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This should be modded up "funny"! You had me going, but saying "long term winning strategy" was just too much! Zuckerberg will diversify long before the fortunes of Facebook affect his vast wealth, just as Bill Gates did.
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didn't stop Koch Industries or Goldman Sachs.
Re:Low information voters are a scourge of democra (Score:4, Insightful)
You know what, I have to second that notion. They're the reason I don't bother to vote for political offices anymore. I'll vote for the referendum issues, i.e. legalize cannabis, the signal to noise on the political offices is polluted by low information voters so bad, it's just not worth bothering.
An example of low information: Most of the anti-Trump crusade thinks he makes racist statements all the time. I don't know whether or not the man is racist, but I personally haven't seen him make any comments that come off to me as racist.
Most commonly cited is stopping Muslims from entering the country; not only do I like Scott Adam's take on it (see this [dilbert.com] for reference) but Islam isn't a race, and talking down or otherwise disparaging their religious views isn't anymore racist than doing the same thing to a Scientologist or a Christian (something that seems PC to do, in spite of being decidedly un-PC when done to a Muslim.) The exception I take to that is it goes directly against the first amendment, which is unacceptable, but it's not in any way shape or form racist.
Second most common is stopping illegal immigration. Mexico not being a race notwithstanding (hell, as far as I know I'm pure Caucasian, yet half of the Mexicans I know have lighter skin than I do) there have been many a politician who have called for the same thing and haven't been accused of being racist.
You have to have a somewhat low or at least loose standard for what qualifies as "racist" in order to say that (think PC Principal on South Park.)
Now that doesn't mean I endorse Trump; I think his economic ideas are boneheaded and he'll make a terrible chief diplomat. And to be honest, I'm also not particularly interested in a single person that is running for president.
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Well both of those actually are perfect examples of racism. But beyond that:
*His company has been sued by the Justice department on multiple ocassions for not renting to minorities, the first time in 1973
*His comments calling illegal immigrants rapists. Even if you want them out of here, the number of them that are violent criminals is a vanishingly small percent. "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending the best. They're not sending you, they're sending people that have lots of problems and th
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And yes, the anti-muslim hate is racist
No, it isn't. Looking down on a group of people that base their beliefs on a system of hate and sexual discrimination is hardly what I would call racist.
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Every bigot in the history of time has had a rationalization for why their bigotry is actually justified. A rationalization that serves to gives them permission to be bigotted but is really just an a circular expression of their bigotry. Your choice to characterize all muslims that way is just another example in that tradition.
It's especially telling that your rationalization is completely distinct from Trump's rationalization. Even if you were right it still wouldn't make Trump any less bigotted.
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> Every bigot in the history of time has had a rationalization for why their bigotry is actually justified.
That has absolutely no relevance.
Islam is a religion. It cuts across all racial boundaries. It has nothing to do with race. Hating on muslims simply does not satisfy the definition of the word racism.
You don't get to redefine words to suit your political agenda or because you are to FUCKING LAZY to use the right term.
Re:Low information voters are a scourge of democra (Score:4, Interesting)
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Trump did denounce the KKK. He just didn't know what people were talking about at first. A bigger question is why Hillary and Obama associated with former KKK leader Robert Byrd.
I've seen plenty of suspicions with regards to Ted Cruz's status (born in Canada). The birther sentiment isn't limited to race.
Halting immigration from countries with known terror problems is perfectly reasonable. Jimmy Carter did it during the Iranian Revolution and hostage crisis. Trump wanted a temporary halt until our immig
Re:Low information voters are a scourge of democra (Score:5, Informative)
Halting immigration from countries with known terror problems is perfectly reasonable
He didn't say that. He said halting immigration from Muslims, regardless of country of origin.
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I think you may be hung up on the term "racist". If you talk about the things Trump says that people object to think "bigoted" rather than "racist". Bigoted encompasses racism, sexism, religious discrimination, etc.
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So I rarely post anything and mostly browse through photos, events, and articles posted by my friends...because I only care about myself?
It's a tool. It is a way to connect with others. You can use it in a shitty way, or you can use it in a positive way. The only downside I see is that it gives the shitty people a lot more reach. Those people were shitty and obnoxious before they had facebook accounts...it was just that you only saw it if you were in the same ro
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Handing out bribes to voters is not the only way to influence elections. Every election billions are spent to influence the election without significant number of bribes being handed out, I am sure Facebook - or their employees - can manage to figure this one out.
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Which employee was this
Probably not the ones Zuckerberg has threatened to "investigate" for surreptitiously crossing out BLM slogans.
And the answer is sure, go ahead and make it Facebook policy to "stop Trump." Trump would love another chunk of red meat to dominate the news cycle through next Tuesday.
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I'm pretty sure Godwin had Fascism in mind too when "fashioning" his law.
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Obligated? No. Allowed to? Yes.
Believe it or not, some people might want a fascist state. Some might want more than we have now but not complete fascism.
So I guess the question might be "are others obligated to think like you or me"? A lot probably do to some degree but none are obligated.
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Facebook as a company should stay out of it and let the democratic process work.
Didn't you get the 2012 memo? Corporations are people too!