March 18, 2018

"Can we just say it? Facebook is evil. Its entire raison d'etre is the balkanization of communities and nations in pursuit of financial profit."

"It monetizes and sells the most intimate details of private human relationships. It conflates human friendship and sincerely political beliefs with unrestrained consumerism and campaigns of disinformation. Facebook revels in the glories of unrepentant and unrestrained narcissism. It captures us and seduces us and then uses us for its own very specific ends. It elevates the id and destroys the super-ego. It gives mendacious trolls the powers to usurp our democratic freedoms. Isn't it time for us to stand up as thinking, self aware citizens and just say no?"

That's the top-rated comment — with 2,200+ likes — at the NYT article "How Trump Consultants Exploited the Facebook Data of Millions."

This is my third post on the Facebook story. The other 2 posts are directly below this one, so try to aim you comment at the most apt post. I'm resisting the overheated fear of Facebook (even though I broke my own Facebook habit a month ago).

Let's look closely at the basis of this fear. The commenter says that the "the balkanization of communities" is a terrible thing to do — or is it just terrible if you make money doing it? You wouldn't say a car company is evil because its entire raison d'etre is the mobility of individuals in pursuit of financial profit. What's wrong with making a profit delivering something good?

So let's assume that the commenter thinks "the balkanization of communities" is evil. But why isn't it good to break up insular groups and give individuals new power to find others who think like them and share their goals? Why do you want people to stay put where they are, speaking within a preexisting set? Because the preexisting set of people is a "community" and the new set formed by new connections is  insincere or not really human or based in character flaws like narcissism? It's the counterpart to "fake news" — "fake community"?

But that assumption could be wrong, and it's good or neutral for people to be able to form new communities through very efficient on-line speech, but it's bad for a company to facilitate this process for profit. But why would that be? Do you need humanity in the mechanism of forming new communities for those new communities to be genuinely human? If your answer is yes, please observe that we are only talking here because Google gives us Blogger. And I have had people I know in my real-world community tell me they think the comments community I have here is evil.

113 comments:

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Hard to characterize a vast international database on personal thoughts and habits as 'balkanization', at least if you have access to the data.

Tank said...

Pretty sure were reveling in our deplorable evilness.

Evilness is a feature, right?

Paco Wové said...

"...it's good or neutral for people to be able to form new communities through very efficient on-line speech, but it's bad for a company to facilitate this process for profit. But why would that be?"

Because it lead to Trump, that's why.* It's all about the outcome.

--
*This is assuming as true the highly dubious assumption of the article that anything having to do with Facebook did lead to Trump.

Ray - SoCal said...

Facebook is decreasing the friction of social interactions over distance. That is what the internet does. They is why I can comment on Althouse blog and she is in Wisconsin, And I’m in So. Ca. Before the internet, it was expensive to have this type of interaction long distance. Expensive in time and money. The result has been decreased local activities, as potentially long distance communities are a better fit for my interests.

I don’t read my local papers much anymore. LA Times I just see as biased, and boring. The web has given me choices and exposed me to new sources / alternatives.

Fernandinande said...

I guess the hysteria over Facebook means they have finally given up on the Russian angle.

tcrosse said...

Does "the balkanization of communities" differ from Identity Politics, even when leavened with Intersectionality ? Let me get out my Buzzword Bingo card.

Paco Wové said...

Besides, anything tainted by something as ugly as commerce seems to bother the Left a great deal. If you can somehow persuade people to simply give you millions, as opposed to scrabbling in the dirt for them, that's a different story.

Michael said...

We're Trump and the Republicans the only ones smart enough to figure out how to use this data?

tim maguire said...

It would be one thing if Facebook allowed us to pursue our tendency to Balkanize, but Facebook encourages that Balkanization through the curated newsfeed and the ranking of posts by "influencer score." As a result, you don't just see a list of posts by people you've friended, you see list of posts from among people you've friended, but ranked and promoted according to Facebook's sense of what will keep you coming back for more.

As a result, my feed is dominated by idiot friends posting about their dinner last night and other idiot friends who can't shut up about their stupid politics. Even if I try to friend and unfriend for reasons unrelated to politics and dinner bragging.

Ray - SoCal said...

What Facebook does is destroy privacy, by selling your data to advertisers and requiring you use your real name.

Facebook and other social media is designed to be addictive through nudges and such.

I read about a company, that through a few minor coding changes, can get you to use a piece of software more. To make it more addicting.

Facebook is an advertising machine, that is where they get their money from. You are the product.

tim maguire said...

Michael Brand said...Were Trump and the Republicans the only ones smart enough to figure out how to use this data?

The "Trump analytics" story has virtually nothing to do with Trump. Fake scandal with disingenuous headline because clickbait.

buwaya said...

I compartmentalize life, hobby x and hobby y and hobby z (you are hobby y), personal and professional, and its hard to do that with Facebook, so I avoid it.

The NYT commenters argument makes no sense. Mendacious trolls fill the pages of the daily newspapers and always have. People have self-organized and created their own bubbles before Facebook. Perhaps the real problem is that it is just too easy to break out of bubbles with these tools, and people are upset by that.

Ray - SoCal said...

Software I mentioned:

Dopamine Labs slings tools to boost and reduce app addiction
https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/13/dopamine-labs-slings-tools-to-boost-and-reduce-app-addiction/

CJ said...

The interesting thing is that despite the censorship attempts by Google, Facebook, and Twitter - it’s the Left that fears them so much more than the Right.

Why is that?

The Left has a very low opinion of humanity, borne from their inability to empathize - to understand their opponent’s point of view. The Right understands the Left’s opinions, and simply disagrees.

It’s why the Left thinks the Right is evil and the Right thinks the Left is simply stupid.

All of this is generalized, of course.

But the Left does understand that if they don’t control the narrative, they lose. Every time.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

You wouldn't say a car company is evil because its entire raison d'etre is the mobility of individuals in pursuit of financial profit.

You are correct, I would not say that, nor would you. But 2200+ NYTs commenters likely would.

robother said...

I recall a number of commentators here were slagging Ann for profiting from Amazon, as if that itself called into question her candor or legitimacy of her opinions.

Folk marxism is strong in the NYTimes readership. But of course, there's nothing balkanizing about portraying half the electorate as deplorable. And there's no problem with profiting from selling newspapers and advertising targeted at the NYT demographic.

buwaya said...

Newspapers and magazines were advertising machines.
Magazines especially were highly targeted.
If you subscribed to Scientific American, they had your number.

rhhardin said...

Profit is the name on the other side of consumer surplus.

Nobody disparages consumer surplus, getting more than you gave for it.

Phil 314 said...

A year ago I counted up the number of Facebook friends who were:
-clearly left of center
-clearly right of center
-impossible to tell.

I got about 1/3, 1/3, 1/3.

I then challenged my Facebook to do likewise and if they found they only had friends of a center political stripe, to go out and make some friends with people you disagree with politically.

Nobody responded.

Roger Sweeny said...

That guy really sounds like a preacher.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Phil 3:14 said...
Nobody responded.


Cause it's kind of a downer. Try a funny video with your grandkids.

Wince said...

I don't want a long-term relationship with Facebook, but given this description is there any way I can pay for a few hours with it at a seedy motel?

Facebook revels in the glories of unrepentant and unrestrained narcissism. It captures us and seduces us and then uses us for its own very specific ends.

Bob Boyd said...

"Facebook revels in the glories of unrepentant and unrestrained narcissism. It captures us and seduces us and then uses us for its own very specific ends."

Which is something only the government should be doing.

tcrosse said...

"Evil" is one of those words, like "Incredible", that the intellectually lazy throw around to express their disapproval.

Fernandinande said...

Rather than emitting these long rambling articles, maybe they should just come out and say:

"That Trump character really is a horrible person, and he had to trick people into voting for him! BTW, I was too good to be tricked.!"

"Facebook revels in the glories of unrepentant and unrestrained narcissism. It captures us and seduces us and then uses us for its own very specific ends."

That person sounds a bit feeble-minded, what with his getting captured and seduced by some website because of his unrestrained narcissism.

"Isn't it time for us to stand up as thinking, self aware citizens and just say no?"

Uh...no, it's not time?

Or, "no", you're not self-aware, you're feeble minded?

Ambrose said...

"Evil" is the new "racist" - meaning something I don't like today.

Bob Boyd said...

""Evil" is one of those words, like "Incredible", that the intellectually lazy throw around to express their disapproval."

Awesome.

Sebastian said...

"I have had people I know in my real-world community tell me they think the comments community I have here is evil."

Prog judgments are strictly instrumental. If community serves the cause, it is good and empowering. If it helps cons, it is bad and must be opposed as "evil."

The wrong people doing the wrong thing is balkanization. The right people doing the right thing is Resistance or Connection or It Takes a Village.

The real problem for progs is that the creation of the web has empowered cons to converse and organize and seek information in a way they could not before. The internet has reduced prog control. That is the evil of evils.

Facebook abets that evil to make money: a double sin. Though it is run by progs, it cannot escape their wrath. Question is, how will it make amends?

the 4chan Guy who reads Althouse said...

The main analytic point I derive from this is how some people identify evil.

A larger, more expansive government, in control of our health care and control of liberties, is GOOD until it is run by someone people dislike, then it is EVIL.

A large digital social platform, where people can gather and -- indeed -- organize is GOOD until the information is shared by someone people dislike, then it is EVIL.

Not many seem to connect that giving these ever-larger entities their information and more power may lead to things they will not like.

GOOD does not scale upward well; EVIL scales upward efficiently, with shiny toys and promises.

The escape valve for those who do not see these things coming is to -- finally -- attribute something to basic human nature:

"Facebook revels in the glories of unrepentant and unrestrained narcissism."

Which actually is more accurate as:

"Facebook revels in the glories of people's own unrestrained narcissism."

People want to tell their stories; they want to show people the great meals they are eating, the great places they are at, the Big Things they have thought, and how damn good-looking they are doing that sloe-eyed selfie thing.

It is their narcissism that grew Social Media in the first place. If they didn't feel compelled to share, there would be no data to mine.

Their answer would be the need for a Benevolent Social Media, most likely controlled by a Benevolent Government.

And not connect the analytical dots that Nothing Is Free.

Like a Heroin Addict that just needs a more Benevolent Dealer, rather than reflect on the drug usage that necessitates such a desire.

I started this by writing:

"The main analytic point I derive from this is how some people identify evil."

After thinking this out I amend this to be:

The main analytic point I derive from this is how some people are willfully stupid.

Because they believe Big Social Media and Big Government could never turn on them.

And they think they could somehow change this, after having given all of their power for change TO Big Social Media and Big Government.

Their Prius is gonna need a bigger bumper sticker.

The Germans have a word for this.

tcrosse said...

"Facebook revels in the glories of unrepentant and unrestrained narcissism. It captures us and seduces us and then uses us for its own very specific ends. It elevates the id and destroys the super-ego. "

Which is to say "Look ! I took Psychology 101 and believed every word of it."

Unknown said...

I thought the liberals were pro multicultarism and diversity

Ignorance is Bliss said...

The internet greatly enhances both the breadth and depth of the information we have access to.
Turns out, most people prefer greater depth of opinion they agree with, and largely skip the greater breadth available. ( or only skim it looking for typos or minor misstatments upon which to pounce. )
Facebook and other social media platforms only encourage the depth-first bias. Of course, most media outlets do the same.

rhhardin said...

Nobody's identified Big Comment yet.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Capitalists like Facebook, good for advertisers. Communists like WeChat, good for totalitarianism. Only the socialists in Europe have expressed consistent skepticism.

Facebook in Europe

the 4chan Guy who reads Althouse said...

John and Yoko once sang "War is Over / if You Want it."

Connect the dots to:

Facebook is Stasi / if You Let It.

Because people will bemoan Facebook gleaning their likes from the recipes they post, but would gladly turn in information to The Authorities about people they don't like.

At least the East Germans were secretive about their informing on others; today many people are Proud of crying for someone to be banned from Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc.

In Soviet America you do not use Facebook, Facebook uses you.

The Germans have a word for this.

Peter said...


It's entire raison d'etre is the balkanization of communities...in pursuit of financial profit

Non-profit balkanizing is much more noble.


Larry J said...

"Blogger tcrosse said...
Does "the balkanization of communities" differ from Identity Politics, even when leavened with Intersectionality ? Let me get out my Buzzword Bingo card."

Indeed. The Democrat playbook is to assemble a voting coalition of balkanized factions in an attempt to win political power. With that power, they and their cronies profit handsomely. In that regard, the Democrats operate like an organized crime gang that does politics on the side as a means to gain and maintain power.

buwaya said...

Reddit was not good for advertisers but they run political purges there anyway.

Fernandinande said...

One time I spent a few hours balkanizing a community but I didn't make any money at it. What's the secret?

Fernandinande said...

Maybe my sign wasn't big enough.

Phil 314 said...

ARM said:
Cause it's kind of a downer. Try a funny video with your grandkids.


Oh I do that a lot and get lots of likes across the political spectrum.

I will also periodically post bible quotes. Interesting which quotes get likes from my liberal friends and which are liked by my conservative friends.

tcrosse said...

Who balkanized the former Yugoslavia ?

Michael K said...

Facebook as a company is paying the price with the left for being associated with the Trump campaign.

Paddy O said...

Don't blame the snake.

What you're seeing? It's a mirror of humanity. Facebook just gives a place for that.

Anonymous said...

Oh noes! Right-wingers with money are using social media to arm their side in a culture war! Won't anyone think of the children?!

CJ: The interesting thing is that despite the censorship attempts by Google, Facebook, and Twitter - it’s the Left that fears them so much more than the Right.

That's what makes it so funny. Facebook, Google, and Twitter are Good Guys, supporting every SJW dogma. But even the dullest SJW is dimly cognizant that, hey, aren't these giganto money-making kkkapitalist kkkorporations? So enter the NYT with a helpful hand here, shouting loudly about conservatives exploiting social media platforms for evil conservative purposes. Pay no attention to those nice progs providing you with a community platform!

Robert Cook said...

It's up to each Facebook user to decide how much of their private personal information to disclose. One can be as open or as anonymous as one chooses to be. One should always assume these internet services are harvesting what they can from each user, to sell to advertisers. We are the product, and the service, (such as Facebook) is the means by which we are delivered to the buyers.

One can choose not to participate at all, or can take steps to stay as opaque as possible.

Robert Cook said...

"What Facebook does is destroy privacy, by selling your data to advertisers and requiring you use your real name."

I know people on Facebook who use fake screen names. It's not that hard to get around the "requirement" one use one's real name.

Darrell said...

The cool kids send coded messages at Althouse.
Fuck the Left.

JPS said...

I use Facebook only grudgingly, to check in on or catch up with people I'd lost track of, but am still grateful to know. This is the reason I haven't ditched it yet - every time I'm ready to sign out forever, I see a snippet from someone I'd forgotten, but wish all the best.

It seems to be my wife's main source of current events links. As far as I can tell, once it figures out you lean one way, it sends you links meant to reinforce you in your current position. Or, more often, links calculated to outrage you, so you can high-five all your "friends" about what horrible people you're up against.

As I've pursued two careers, one in a strongly left-leaning culture and one in a generally right-of-center culture, my friends are about equally weighted on either side. I can see no difference in quality between the outrage crack on the left and on the right. It all seems designed to help you find the worst and dumbest examples of the other side's arguments and proponents.

Sometimes I wonder how it would go if they had an algorithm that challenged your preconceptions by finding you the strongest and most intelligent argument against your position. Less market for that, I'd guess.

robother said...

I used to repent my narcissism occasionally. But after Time named me Man of the Year, I realized its all good.

tcrosse said...

How can Facebook be evil if that nice Mark Zuckerberg goes around in a t-shirt like that nice Steve Jobs, and not a collar and tie like nasty old you-know-who ?

Paddy O said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

He's not saying it's wrong to reach outside of communities - but Fuckbook weakens any realistic meaning in the concept of community itself. We are becoming a species that knows no such thing as solidarity of any sort, and that's a really bad and dangerous (and boring!) thing.

I'm so glad I never took to Fuckbook. I find that the more snazzy people make themselves look on it, the more fucked-up and worthless they become as human beings. The commenter is right - I can tell. And I didn't even read through it entirely.

I've cut out all kinds of media - for the better. By 2007 I realized there was no point to cable (and therefore any) tv. I've also drastically reduced my film interests. I don't listen to most commercial radio. And what's happened? A flourishing of more quality streaming televised content than anyone can ask for. Podcasts as far as the ear can hear. Some that are really great, heterodox, entertaining, edifying and fun all at the same time: Joe Rogan, for instance.

Zuckerberg has an agenda. His platform was used to hack elections. If that's not a huge wake-up call then nothing is. He's no better than the cable/telecom/Comcast execs who suck way more money out of the economy to build their glass sky temples than their product/service (or lack thereof) in any way justifies. We are making the people who rent-seek off of owning the pipes of our media and social commerce our own gods. Enough, already. God fucking dammit.

the 4chan Guy who reads Althouse said...

"And I have had people I know in my real-world community tell me they think the comments community I have here is evil."

Laslo has already apologized for that.

But there is an interesting dialectic there:

The people who have chosen to be akin to a community with you but only know you by your written words -- your commenters -- are seen as evil by the people who know you in person.

Why are these communities so divergent?

Do the 'real-world' community follow Althouse's words as deeply?

What other aspects of the 'real world Althouse' shape that community in a way that differs so greatly from her on-line commenters?

What are the demographic similarities and differences of these divergent communities.

I would say that many commenters here view Althouse as an outlier of her 'real world' of University professors and well-to-do Madison neighbors.

Does that community see the perception of 'Althouse as an outlier' as incorrect?

Does that community view themselves as Elite? (not in so many words, of course, but By Their Bumper Stickers You Shall Know Them).

Do they suspect that she may indeed be actually an outlier to their sense of community and fear her transgressing?

Is telling her that her online commenters are 'evil' a way of letting her know she could easily be shunned?

Class, Diversity, Entitlement: there are a lot of worms in this can when it is opened.

Can Openers are the best disinfectant.

The Germans have a word for this.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I've even bought fewer books. Have you ever noticed how everyone nowadays has to write a book to prove themselves? The number of food porn cookbooks alone is ridiculous. And then there's all these "big idea" books. Fuck you. If you have some big idea just put it right in the title and condense it down to 10 pages. Maybe 50 at most. No one should need the standard 200 pages+ to explain how they just figured out some insight that will shatter and enlighten my view on everything I knew about the subject. All that added pulp and pixels is just to persuade me to take the author seriously. Fuck that, too. It's time to realize that with all the wasted consumption in society, the biggest is now in media. Life is too short.

hombre said...

“And I have had people I know in my real-world community tell me they think the comments community I have here is evil.”

Isaiah 5:20
Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter!

Chuck said...

"And I have had people I know in my real-world community tell me they think the comments community I have here is evil."

Well...

Fernandinande said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Is this more leftwing butt hurt over Hillary's loss because the group-think have now blame shifted to facebook?

Achilles said...

The fall of Facebook begins.

Need to get my investment account set up again so I can sell them short.

Fernandinande said...

The Germans Have A Word For That. said...
Class, Diversity, Entitlement


Rock, Paper, Scissors.

Funny fake Drudge headlines:
SOCIALS WEAPONIZED; DATA HARVESTED...
BEHAVIORS PREDICTED, MANIPULATED......

"I Was Manipulated By A Weaponized Facebook Ad" is coming soon to a theater near you, but download it illegally because etc etc and because you're evil.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

anyone reading the drudge link about how 320 million facebook users brains were hijacked and loaded with false info about poor wonderful Hillary?


here's a snip:

But Wylie offers a unique, worm’s-eye view of the events of 2016. Of how Facebook was hijacked, repurposed to become a theatre of war: how it became a launchpad for what seems to be an extraordinary attack on the US’s democratic process.

Wylie oversaw what may have been the first critical breach. Aged 24, while studying for a PhD in fashion trend forecasting, he came up with a plan to harvest the Facebook profiles of millions of people in the US, and to use their private and personal information to create sophisticated psychological and political profiles. And then target them with political ads designed to work on their particular psychological makeup.
Advertisement

“We ‘broke’ Facebook,” he says.


Can we see an example anti-Hillary facebook ad that ruined it all for poor poor Hillary?



CT-ref said...

Try this: Substitute "NYTimes Comments section" for "Facebook". Do you think the NY Times is monetizing and profiling their readers and commenters who log in, accept the terms and conditions for commenting and liking articles and other posts? It seems to me that this is really just Facebook in another domain. There is all sorts of personal data in there, and what is the NYTimes doing with it? Making money, they certainly need it.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

“And I have had people I know in my real-world community tell me they think the comments community I have here is evil.”

Isaiah 5:20...


How you doing there, fake Israelite!

I've got an even better passage for you (or 32):


Proverbs 20:19

He who goes about as a slanderer reveals secrets, Therefore do not associate with a gossip.


Psalm 34:13

Keep your tongue from evil And your lips from speaking deceit.


Proverbs 11:13

He who goes about as a talebearer reveals secrets, But he who is trustworthy conceals a matter.


Psalm 141:3

Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; Keep watch over the door of my lips.

Inga...Allie Oop said...

"And I have had people I know in my real-world community tell me they think the comments community I have here is evil."

All one has to do is read the comments sections for a few days and that realization won’t be a difficult one.

robother said...

"By Their Bumper Stickers You Shall Know Them." Perfect.

Originally Harvard, Yale and the rest all started as divinity schools. They started imitating German universities as management/governing class training grounds after the Civil war, but in many ways, they never abandoned their core mission of training preachers.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

The real crack down we are seeing is that the news media and most every television show on the TV is a campaign ad against Trump.
Conservatives are banned from twitter and youtube, etc... The News media play clips of SNL, and that's "news". Late Night comedy shows are 1.5 hours of anti-Trump anti-R screeds. We were lectured about accepting the results of the election, and now the lecturers are stomping on free speech in every direction.

Democracy dies in daylight.

tcrosse said...

Inga's moral High Horse is spewing more Horse-shit.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Donating big money to democrats = OK

Donating big money to Republicans - evil and wrong!

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Only leftists should be allowed to profit.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Inga's moral High Horse is spewing more Horse-shit.

Would you really say that this comments section likes to avoid gossip?

bagoh20 said...

Every time I read about the latest issue with social media, I get a feeling of relief that I have mostly insulated myself from it. It's like reading about a disease in a foreign land or some natural disaster far away, except that the victims don't generally choose to suffer from those.

chuck said...

Facebook and free association is evil because Hillary lost the election. In a good world, everyone would have voted for Hillary. And the good people who read the New York Times are dedicated to creating that good world.

Rabel said...

"And I have had people I know in my real-world community tell me they think the comments community I have here is evil."

Damn. I'm busted.

SGT Ted said...

Progressives rely on balkanizing communities based on skin tone in order to gain and wield political power and the access to public money that it grants.

Identity politics, which is little more than anti-white racism and anti-heterosexual male sexism tarted up with "diversity" lipstick, is how they do it.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

“Blogger Robert Cook said...
It's up to each Facebook user to decide how much of their private personal information to disclose. One can be as open or as anonymous as one chooses to be. One should always assume these internet services are harvesting what they can from each user, to sell to advertisers. We are the product, and the service, (such as Facebook) is the means by which we are delivered to the buyers.

One can choose not to participate at all, or can take steps to stay as opaque as possible.”

Stop making sense, Bob. That’s not how this game is played.
What we are seeing here is the assumptions of those who grew up in a pre-Internet world (and those who inherited those assumptions) imposed upon a world where those assumptions no longer reflect base reality. Give it a generation and those assumptions will lie in the dust and all this will be moot. Or you could just take some fucking responsibility and say no.

Achilles said...

Inga said...

"And I have had people I know in my real-world community tell me they think the comments community I have here is evil."

All one has to do is read the comments sections for a few days and that realization won’t be a difficult one.

Anyone who disagrees with Inga is evil. Just ask her.

It is why she supports leftist violence against her political opponents. It is a characteristic that is prevalent on the left. Numerous times in history they have turned to violence on a mass scale and murdered their political enemies.

Inga and her ilk will turn violent again this summer when McCabe Mueller Comey Schiff Brennan Holderet al are indicted.

Darrell said...

The "Facebook Did It" explanation is just as convincing as the one about the YouTube video causing the riots and attacks in Egypt and Benghazi. The Left needs a Magic 8-Ball of lies to generate better excuses.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

20 years ago I saw a Ford Megadon with an Earth First! bumper sticker parked outside a hipster record store. Nothing has changed regarding White middle-class Prog ideas of self-restraint, intellectual honesty, and personal responsibility.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

"It monetizes and sells the most intimate details of private human relationships [that we eagerly splash on the planet-wide bulletin board].... [We give] mendacious trolls the powers to usurp our democratic freedoms."

FIFY

Darrell said...

I just bought a "Vote for a Democrat? Don't be a fuckhead!" ad on Facebook. The election is now settled.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

It's the never ending "how dare you NOT elect Hillary. don't you know that it is illegal to NOT elect Hillary!?" party extends to facebook.

Yancey Ward said...

Just think about how all the news we are seeing today would be different if Hillary! had won. Today's story for example, if meriting a story at all, would be recast as how the extremely clever and high-IQ Hillary campaign used the exact same methods to defeat the inept-at-social-media Trump campaign. The story would have gone into great detail how Hillary! and her band of political geniuses were attentive students to the lessons of Obama's own social media operations from 2012.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Exactly, Yancy. When democrats do it, it's proof of how smart and sophisticated they are. When the other party does it, it's pure evil.

Achilles said...

Left out of this discussion is the fact that Facebook is blocking conservative news sites and changed their search algorithms to channel people to leftist news sources.

Facebook is an evil company. But not for the reasons currently being stated.

YoungHegelian said...

Wylie oversaw what may have been the first critical breach. Aged 24, while studying for a PhD in fashion trend forecasting, he came up with a plan to harvest the Facebook profiles of millions of people in the US, and to use their private and personal information to create sophisticated psychological and political profiles. And then target them with political ads designed to work on their particular psychological makeup.

And the difference between what Wylie was doing & the analytical engines used by every campaign at least since Bush vs Gore is what, exactly? The only difference I can see is the source of the data.

Why is the usage of FB data any more evil than Census or Voter Role data? As anyone who ever owned a business & has bought a "list" of customers can tell you, all sorts of data is out there about you. The only question is who does the searcher need to pay to get it. Does anyone here think that FB wouldn't have sold or given that data to the HRC campaign if they had asked for it? Hell, maybe they did, & that piece of info just hasn't come out yet.

But, on a related note, did ya notice that the sooper-dooper analytic engine that Robbie Mook used for the HRC campaign that was going to bring them In for the Win is never, ever discussed? Who exactly wrote that software, I wonder...

Achilles said...

It is long past time facebook and google were broken up.

Darrell said...

If Althouse Lefties can't sway the voting public with their brilliant comments, what chance do the others have?

I'm Full of Soup said...

Now that Russian collusion is not proven and non-existent, the oh so smart set at the NYT has to come up with another theory of how the evil dopey genius Trump stole the election by using a librul social media tool.

traditionalguy said...

FTR: Evil is a person.

Darrell said...

Hillary still has a 97% chance of winning the election. It's an eternal torment, hope never realized. On a completely different note, did you see the latest that the Democrats have a double-digit lead in all future elections? We might as well just pack it up now!

Yancey Ward said...

Young Hegelian wrote:

"Does anyone here think that FB wouldn't have sold or given that data to the HRC campaign if they had asked for it? Hell, maybe they did, & that piece of info just hasn't come out yet."

There is literally no doubt that the Clinton Campaign had a very similar operation of targeting people with specific ads/news utilizing the information companies like Google and Facebook have on their customers. I don't think there is a snowball's chance in Hell that the Clinton Campaign would have had to buy such information from Google or Facebook, even if the campaign didn't realize that the information was there for the taking without asking, which is also almost impossible to believe since both companies are stocked to the gills with employees and directors who would have happily pointed it out to the Clinton Campaign.

At the core of this story is this- the complaint is that Facebook didn't prevent the Trump Campaign from doing the exact same things Obama did in 2012, and Clinton was doing in 2016, too.

Darrell said...

Hillary should have made a greenscreen appearance in India, like she did with some of her later campaign appearances. It would have saved her a lot of pain. They could have surrounded her walk space with airbags, like they use in movies. Heck, Harvey Weinstein could have supplied them.

Unknown said...

Isn't this just what the vaunted Obama campaign did? And mocked the Romney campaign for not being effective? Now the very concept is evil because the Trump campaign is better at it. Cynicism unlimited.

Richard Dillman said...

Evil is whatever leftists don’t like or that threatens their agenda. They aren’t concerned with the real evils of Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao,
Castro, etc. They use Hitler only to bash conservatives. They tend not to recognize the role of evil in world history, the mystery of evil.
Where does evil come from? What are it causes? Why doesn’t it disappear? How could socialism create evil? Why is evil forever part of the human experience?

Jim at said...

All one has to do is read the comments sections for a few days and that realization won’t be a difficult one. - Inga

You promised to leave. Yet, here you are.

Seems like you're the one with the problem.

Inga...Allie Oop said...

“You promised to leave. Yet, here you are.”

Does my presence irritate you? Yes? Good.

Michael K said...

At the core of this story is this- the complaint is that Facebook didn't prevent the Trump Campaign from doing the exact same things Obama did in 2012, and Clinton was doing in 2016, too.

Exactly. Facebook, in a delicious example of irony, is being punished for letting the Trump data guys BUY data from Facebook.

Read Lewandowski's book. He has a lot about how they did it.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Evil, wrong, they cheated & Putin's puppet! The dictator inside the D-party Holders on.

the hivemind have their group-think. they ain't letting go.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Obama Schools Romney.

Good thing.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Obama , Good pals with the Russians. Geez Obama, that's no way to treat Hillary.

Earnest Prole said...

Your commenters are not evil. Still, you deserve better.

MadisonMan said...

Another story that would not have been written if Hillary had won.

At some point, will they run out of excuses and just realize that Hillary was a horrific candidate?

SGT Ted said...

"At some point, will they run out of excuses and just realize that Hillary was a horrific candidate?"

No. That would mean that they'd have to admit that Hillary was shittier than Trump.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

We're Trump and the Republicans the only ones smart enough to figure out how to use this data?

No personal offense intended, Michael B @8:35, but this illustrates why I deplore the proliferation of contractions in current writing. They are far too common in newspaper writing.

Martin said...

Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, Balkanizes communities like the Democratic Party and its identity politics.

I wonder what the NYT commentor and his/her 2200+ fans thinks about that...

I wonder if that commentor didn't really mean something more like "commercializes," because the rest of the quote is not about Balkanization, but commercialization...

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

“You promised to leave. Yet, here you are.”

She never left. She lurked obsessively for about a week and then the impulse to rebuke the deplorable became overpowering.

Henry said...

The bonfire of the vanities wouldn't have happened without fuel.

Bill Peschel said...

There is just too much stupidity going on from the left to be worth commenting on. In fact, it's a distraction from the real issues, which include unrestrained spending and an inability to enforce laws at the national level, whether it's the gun regulations already in place, or our leaders' inability to follow rules for classified information.

Instead, we get bumper-sticker arguments about who is evil and whether Facebook/Google/Amazon should be broken up, but no discussion about what is actually evil or whether the federal government should dictate how private companies run their business.

Bill Peschel said...

The fact is, the left cannot argue their positions because the facts get in their way. Pure and simple. Which is why they want restraints on free speech and can't admit that Hillary was a poor campaigner who many people in her own party didn't want to vote for.

Luke Lea said...

Social media certainly helped Obama win. What do they say to that? In the old days the people who owned the newspapers had a lot more sway. I remember when the NYT magazine ran a puff piece about Jimmy Carter the peanut farmer with his picture on the cover. It launched him nationally as a serious candidate. That one story was worth more than any amount of political targeting of Facebook users..

Luke Lea said...

Contra rhhardin -- profit forgone is the other side of consumer surplus

cronus titan said...

They NYT praised Obama for his modernity in using this data. It was fine for him and not for Trump. Usual reasons.