The (Current year) General Political/Salma Hayek discussion Thread Part V

[Ingomike]

There are cabinet heads and undersecretaries and deputies that get appointed. Below them are the career people who really run the departments. I think it would be fine for those people to decide that the career management should go. But below that, nah. Unless they’re not doing the job their manager tells them to do, they’d be immune from administration changes.

If they cannot be fired for watching porn on government computers all day, what can they be fired for? I admit I do not have a solution, but not acknowledging that bureaucratic DC is biased for democrat policies and has a built in bias against republican priorities is to overlook the obvious.

 

[jamil]

If they cannot be fired for watching porn on government computers all day, what can they be fired for? I admit I do not have a solution, but not acknowledging that bureaucratic DC is biased for democrat policies and has a built in bias against republican priorities is to overlook the obvious.

That’s because they have a union. That needs to go. And so do the people watching porn on the government’s time.

 

[Kutnupe14]

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

WASHINGTON — A controversial arms deal for Arab allies approved by the Trump administration will allow U.S. hi-tech bomb parts to be manufactured in Saudi Arabia, giving Riyadh unprecedented access to a sensitive weapons technology.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/co...Tw0tV8b5PGk0n331PzImDnwkamwJPEYaP8L82uu8HpiOY

 

[nonobaddog]

I just had to laugh at this fragment in the article...

and is at odds with longstanding practice and cooperation between the Congress and the executive branch

 

[jamil]

[video=youtube_share;knfLORnwSQA]http://youtu.be/knfLORnwSQA[/video]

Politi-fact = politi-spin. Huh. Who knew?

 

[nonobaddog]

Fact checkers are a great idea. Corruption ruins many great ideas.

 

[ghitch75]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/co...Tw0tV8b5PGk0n331PzImDnwkamwJPEYaP8L82uu8HpiOY

when will the dems stop supporting Iran?????

 

[Phase2]

when will the dems stop supporting Iran?????

When Republican and Iranian interests align. Theoretical example: the Iranian people overthrow the mullahs and become much more friendly to US interests.

 

[Ingomike]

[video=youtube_share;knfLORnwSQA]http://youtu.be/knfLORnwSQA[/video]

Politi-fact = politi-spin. Huh. Who knew?

I like the way he thinks from that video... I'm sure he can equally do that the to the other side.

 

[Phase2]

I like the way he thinks from that video... I'm sure he can equally do that the to the other side.

False: The other side doesn't have any equivalent to an organization explicitly labeled as "fact checkers" that are used to justify saying that our president has lied thousands of times based on spin.

 

[Ingomike]

False: The other side doesn't have any equivalent to an organization explicitly labeled as "fact checkers" that are used to justify saying that our president has lied thousands of times based on spin.

There indeed are. https://checkyourfact.com is a part of conservative Daily Caller. The daily beast was whining that they were selected to be part of FB. That you have not heard of them is more indicative of the lefts penchant for creating authorities they can use to validate their beliefs...

 

[Phase2]

Thanks for the correction. I was not aware of them. They certainly don't have the wide reach of Politifact. Couldn't rep you.

 

[ArcadiaGP]

There's a YouTube channel called "Smarter Every Day". The guy that runs it, Destin, posts videos with deep but understandable explanations of how and why things work. Generally a well-respected channel all-around.

He just posted a bit of a thread on Twitter regarding propaganda campaigns: https://twitter.com/smartereveryday/status/1226916432363036673

A while back I made a video about misinformation on Twitter. In that video I noted that most attacks seemed to be inauthentic accounts masquerading as folks on the far right. The goal of these attacks is to make people on twitter hate each other.

Yesterday I asked a question about what it's like to subscribe to the @nytimes. I was genuinely curious about how much email I should expect so I'd know if I should sign up with one of my throwaway email addresses. A relatively benign tweet.

While doing my research for that original video I noticed that the manipulation of public opinion is often not overt.... it's often VERY SUBTLE....There's legit research that has analyzed what is effective and what's not.

Back in 2016 election the tactics were more overt. This photo for example is a post that was made to try to divide Americans. As a Christian from the South with politics pretty much in the middle of the bell curve.... I do not know of a single Christian who thinks like this:

This post does 2 things.
1. It tries to convince the Left that people on the Right are legitimately stupid and buy into this stuff.
2. It tries to make the Right think that the Left are Villains and pull them further Right.

By masquerading as one side they attack both.

It's honestly very clever, and it works on a lot of people. I realized America was under attack so I did a ton of research and got smart on the techniques. For example, I spoke with people at @STRATCOMCOE, who uncover social media attack for @NATO

I spoke with the smart team at @Twitter and learned that there are a ton of fake accounts that look like real people, but are actually cleverly crafted to make you hate others. Every account you see here was fake and tried to create divisiveness ahead of the 2016 election.

The entire goal of these accounts during the 2016 election was to slowly lull you into a sense of hatred for your fellow citizen. They were effective.... but the "nudges" were often VERY strong and easy to spot for a socially intelligent person who knows the playbook.

I've kept my antenna up waiting to see when this stuff would kick into full swing for the 2020 election... and I'm here to tell you it's, NOW. But I think the playbook has changed just a little bit....

As twitter develops countermeasures to find these accounts and kill them... the accounts change to look more human. There's a natural selection feedback loop at play here, creating pressure so only the most subtle nefarious accounts survive.

The folks at @Twitter (@delbius @yoyoel and others) have been doing a great job creating tools to find these accounts. In my favorite interview from last year, Yoel talked about the fact that there's an "arms race" around platform manipulation. The video game analogy is my own.

When looking at your screen..... it used to be pretty easy to tell the difference between an actual person and an evil twitter bot..... Because Twitter has been so effective at knocking down the baddies, the bad guy playbook seems to now be "look as real as possible" so it can fly under the radar.

So, I've been watching this for a long time now, this is what I'm seeing as we approach election 2020. The manipulation is becoming more personal, and is happening in smaller threads, at a more granular level. I think it's being done by actual humans, often to great effect.

 

[BugI02]

There's a YouTube channel called "Smarter Every Day". The guy that runs it, Destin, posts videos with deep but understandable explanations of how and why things work. Generally a well-respected channel all-around.

He just posted a bit of a thread on Twitter regarding propaganda campaigns: https://twitter.com/smartereveryday/status/1226916432363036673

If one can be 'manipulated', which I take to mean believe or do something you otherwise would not have, by anonymous strangers on twitter then perhaps you are the problem

I find the belief that everything manipulative or disagreeable on the internet/social media being part of a sinister plot, including bots, to stir the (melting) pot to be just another form of conspiracy theory. In a nod to William, the simplest theory (and therefore the likeliest) is that there exist in America today two incompatible visions for the future that cannot be reconciled and one or the other will be defeated within our lifetimes

If one is so concerned about being manipulated by propaganda, why is the suggested solution never to shut off the supply. @jack has not demonstrated anywhere near a deployed commitment to fair play and true support for a marketplace of ideas for me to applaud his latest alibis for the tendencies toward censorship he exhibits. IMO he doesn't want to encourage discussion so much as he wants to control and direct it

 

[nonobaddog]

If one can be 'manipulated', which I take to mean believe or do something you otherwise would not have, by anonymous strangers on twitter then perhaps you are the problem

I find the belief that everything manipulative or disagreeable on the internet/social media being part of a sinister plot, including bots, to stir the (melting) pot to be just another form of conspiracy theory. In a nod to William, the simplest theory (and therefore the likeliest) is that there exist in America today two incompatible visions for the future that cannot be reconciled and one or the other will be defeated within our lifetimes

If one is so concerned about being manipulated by propaganda, why is the suggested solution never to shut off the supply. @jack has not demonstrated anywhere near a deployed commitment to fair play and true support for a marketplace of ideas for me to applaud his latest alibis for the tendencies toward censorship he exhibits. IMO he doesn't want to encourage discussion so much as he wants to control and direct it

I think they are doing exactly that by eliminating the bots.

I believe there exists a segment of the population that can be manipulated by propaganda. Certainly not me because I am too smart for that but, you are right, it is a problem. That aspect of the problem won't be going away anytime soon, if ever. Before there can be an effective solution to a problem, it helps to understand the problem. It appears to me he is attempting this.

Also I don't call eliminating bot accounts censorship.

 

[ArcadiaGP]

If one can be 'manipulated', which I take to mean believe or do something you otherwise would not have, by anonymous strangers on twitter then perhaps you are the problem.

Not that simple. No one cares where something came from (anonymous stranger), but that it was shared by people you do know. A nobody with an impactful or clever meme can have that content spread quite far. I doubt many people run a background check on the source of the creator... but just read it, feel how they feel about it, and move on. The jesus/satan example being a good one, and very similar to the sort of thing we see here in the Political Funny pic thread... just facebook memes, sometimes inaccurate when fact-checked, shared for humor/reinforcing beliefs.

Botnets are absolutely a thing on Twitter, and sometimes easy to spot... One of the less complex ones during the 2016 election was "name-numbers" format usernames... a standard name followed by around 8 random numbers. Profiles were full of stereotypical "patriotic" things, photos were very basic, probably scraped from somewhere... and they all tweeted very similar, and retweeted from a lot of the same sources.

This is the information age, is it not? Information is power, and manipulating information to gullible people willing to spread it for you without question is a viable tool, regardless of which side uses it (or outside actors, as well).

I don't think this is much of a conspiracy at all, I think it's pretty well documented and going on everywhere.

 

[BugI02]

I think they are doing exactly that by eliminating the bots.

I believe there exists a segment of the population that can be manipulated by propaganda. Certainly not me because I am too smart for that but, you are right, it is a problem. That aspect of the problem won't be going away anytime soon, if ever. Before there can be an effective solution to a problem, it helps to understand the problem. It appears to me he is attempting this.

Also I don't call eliminating bot accounts censorship.

So James Woods is actually a bot or something? It is more likely Dorsey is amping the problem in order to garner support from the victims of his own brand of censorship for more censorship. Social media is the propaganda mothership

Edit: Declaring an account a bot would seem to be governed by some opaque algorithm if it is governed systematically in any way. Twitter is rife with examples of people banned or shadow-banned for no discernable rules violation. I fail to see how the 'a bot is what i say it is' attitude @jack can fail to be one-sided censorship. But, but .... twitter gets me (some faceless, anonymous censor's corporate approved version of) the news a little faster, and that is cool

 

[ArcadiaGP]

So James Woods is actually a bot or something? It is more likely Dorsey is amping the problem in order to garner support from the victims of his own brand of censorship for more censorship. Social media is the propaganda mothership

Talking about two different situations... banning people for their wrongthink is a whole different problem than misinformation campaigns.

However, people like James Woods can certainly be used by fake accounts to spread misinformation. He's one of those "out there" sorts that shares a lot of unvetted stuff. Or he did.

 

[BugI02]

Talking about two different situations... banning people for their wrongthink is a whole different problem than misinformation campaigns.

However, people like James Woods can certainly be used by fake accounts to spread misinformation. He's one of those "out there" sorts that shares a lot of unvetted stuff. Or he did.

How, exactly, is it a different situation? If @jack's minions decide @GPIA7R is a bot, what recourse do you have? Are you not still silenced? Control the definition of bot and you control who can participate in the discussion

 

[ArcadiaGP]

How, exactly, is it a different situation? If @jack's minions decide @GPIA7R is a bot, what recourse do you have? Are you not still silenced? Control the definition of bot and you control who can participate in the discussion

No one decided James Woods was a bot. Just pointing out your example of his ban was different than this.

And he had recourse, as many do: "Delete the tweet and you can keep your account."

Obviously that's twitter flexing its power... they can delete anything, but no, they want you to bend the knee and do it in a show of humility...

I don't know how many people are misidentified as a bot, though. AI isn't that good, yet. Usually pretty easy to tell.

Side note: The entire existence of Twitter bots has become a dismissive insult in itself... people just call each other bots to dehumanize and shut off conversation. That whole division thing working pretty well with that (un)intended consequence.