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posted by on Tuesday April 11 2017, @11:48AM   Printer-friendly
from the did-runaway-and-OO-switch-bodies? dept.

Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956

Rightwing computer scientist and hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer was the top donor to Donald Trump's presidential campaign. He contributed $13.5 million and laid the groundwork for what is now called the Trump Revolution. Mercer also funded Cambridge Analytica (CA), a small data analytics company that specializes in "election management strategies." CA boasts on its website that it has psychological profiles, based on 5,000 separate pieces of data, on 220 million American voters. CA scoops up masses of data from peoples' Facebook profiles and uses artificial intelligence to influence their thinking and manipulate public opinion. They used these skills to exploit America's populist insurgency and tip the election toward Trump.

[...] We enter and participate in this digital world every day, on our laptops and our smartphones. We are living in a new era of propaganda, one we can't see, with the collection and use of our data played back in ways to covertly manipulate us. All this is enabled by technological platforms originally built to bring us together. Welcome to the age of platform capitalism—the new battleground for the future.

Source: http://projectcensored.org/top-trump-donor-big-data-billionaire-helped-tip-election-now-works-reshape-media/

Previously on SoylentNews: Do Advertisers Know You Better Than You Know Yourself?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @12:10PM (18 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @12:10PM (#492226)

    MSNBC, CNN, Wapo, NYT, ABC, Vice and so on. And on the other side, there's Fox. Not exactly comforting.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 11 2017, @04:16PM (10 children)

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday April 11 2017, @04:16PM (#492330) Journal

    Don't worry, Fox produces enough lies, bullshit, and distorted spin to counterbalance them a dozen times over, and I am no fan of MSNBC or CNN. Try another, less obvious fallacy.

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by linkdude64 on Tuesday April 11 2017, @06:50PM (8 children)

      by linkdude64 (5482) on Tuesday April 11 2017, @06:50PM (#492398)

      "I'm going to claim that a minority is equal in strength to a majority because it serves my cognitive bias to do so."
      -Azuma Hazuki (Translated quote)

      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @07:44PM (4 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @07:44PM (#492415)

        > "I'm going to claim that a minority is equal in strength to a majority because it serves my cognitive bias to do so."

        You don't seem to understand how information works, do you?
        Here's a clue, its non-rivalrous. [wikipedia.org]

        Turns out that liberals spread their news consumption pretty broadly across multiple sources.
        Conservatives have all clustered up around Fox news. [journalism.org]
        That's why Fox News has such high ratings - they get the lion's share of conservatives while the remainig pool of viewers is split N-ways between all the other sources of news who are consequently much more competitive, and thus accountable to their viewers.

        So, yeah Fox is able to produce enough disinformation to manipulate at least as many people as the so-called 'left' media is able to in aggregate.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @07:54PM (3 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @07:54PM (#492418)

          That is not at all what she was saying. You came in to attempt to justify anyway. For Fox News to be such a conservative bastian, it seems to be all of the liberal people I know who wait on it with baited breath to wail about what they just saw on it. I don't hear my conservative friends talk about it at all. Many of them actually listen to BBC and other sources instead.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @08:06PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @08:06PM (#492428)

            > That is not at all what she was saying.

            But it is exactly what dinkdude was saying and that is who I responded to.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @02:53AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @02:53AM (#492589)

              > That is not at all what she was saying.

              But it is exactly what dinkdude was saying and that is who I responded to.

              But linkdude is not too bright, so it is probably best just to skip over his posts, Definitely do not respond the them, it will only encourage him and lead him deeper into denial and delusion and destitude and desirata.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @02:34AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @02:34AM (#492582)

            FFS! If you are going to defend the "cuckservingtive" cause, please learn to spell, so you do not embarrass Bill O'Really.

            For Fox News to be such a conservative bastian, it seems to be all of the liberal people I know who wait on it with baited breath to wail about what they just saw on it.

            What the F is a "bastian"? Could it be a bastard bastion? Alt-facts and alt-truth are one thing, but you do not get alt-spelling.

            "baited breath" . . . Srsly? "Baited"? as in, to put something attractive upon so as to lure in victims? How do you do that with your breath? Oh! You probably meant "with bated breath", because that is the actual English phrase. "bated", as in held back, (as in rebate, probate masterbate), to waiting while holding your breath. Do not make this mistake again. It makes you look illiterate, and now everyone is going think all conservatives are just as uneducated, especially the ones who only now realize they have been using the wrong word for lo these many years.

      • (Score: 3, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 11 2017, @07:59PM (2 children)

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday April 11 2017, @07:59PM (#492421) Journal

        Really now? Creo que estás usando este software de traducción de forma incorrecta. Por favor, consulta el manual.

        Yeah, you don't get to drag me down to your level, asshat. Fox is well known to be full of shit. They've done to our parents what our parents worried violent video games would do to us. And you, ironically, are the one doing what you accuse me of here; simply plugging your ears and going "Nuh uhhh, they're WORSE!" without actually doing the research.

        Yes, mainstream news has gone to hell, and no, I don't really trust any of those networks now, but I'd be a hell of a lot more inclined to trust the BBC than Fox and with good reason.

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @01:28AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @01:28AM (#492569)

          "News" doesn't matter much these days. The conversation is driven by talk radio on one side and late-night comedy on the other.

        • (Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Wednesday April 12 2017, @02:47PM

          by linkdude64 (5482) on Wednesday April 12 2017, @02:47PM (#492782)

          "you don't get to drag me down to your level, asshat."

          If money is speech, and it ABSOLUTELY is when it comes to fucking television broadcasting, all of the other news conglomerates combined have more speech than Fox News does. This is just the economic reality. How that claim could be construed as trying to "bring you down to my level" is beyond me, so please explain your reasoning.

          "simply plugging your ears"

          Where the fuck is your argument, then? Where is your supporting evidence to your claim that ALL OTHER NEWS STATIONS are EQUAL in influence to a SINGLE one of their competitors? Of course there are subtleties, but do you know what supports my claim that they are still ultimately in competition with each other? The fact that clickbait headlines and misrepresentative sound bites are used to garner attention by every one of them. They are in competition with each other bar fucking none, and you are grasping at straws and falling back to ad hominems faster than your terminal velocity would be if you were physically taking such huge leaps in logic.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @07:04PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @07:04PM (#492402)

      That was true ten years ago. Nowadays every one of the "mainstream" sources including AP, BBC, has caught up to Fox in bullshit production quantity.

      The root problem is corruption, the force multiplier is incompetence. When you see journalists block and insult sources on social media for correcting their stories, you can tell that they are not interested in accuracy.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @07:52PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @07:52PM (#492417)

    Not one of the outlets you mentioned is Anti-Capitalist.

    They are all on the Right side of the political palate. [politicalcompass.org]
    BIG HINT: Trying to use a 1-dimensional term to describe an entity's position is bound to make you look foolish.
    When it comes to The Working Class/workers' rights, all of the entities you mentioned are lukewarm at best--and you can forget any mention from them of workers' collective ownership of the means of production.

    Finding someone in the USA who is actually Left of the center line is a real challenge.
    Politics in the USA has been skewed by The Red Purge, McCarthyism, and The Cold War.
    In the USA, the fist step of "political discussion" is to chop off the entire Left half of the political palate.
    That leaves the Overton Window. [google.com]

    Actual Leftists in broadcast media in the USA are few.
    If you want to check out some that are, check out Pacifica Radio and its affiliates.
    They are pretty much the extent of that paradigm.

    I recently mentioned some Anti-Capitalist voices heard on my SoCal affiliate. [kpfk.org]
    Looking at the list that you think is "Left", if you were to listen to Michael Slate (a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party), your head would explode.
    Others I previously mentioned: Eric Mann, Jim Lafferty, and Blase Bonpane.

    Economics professor Richard Wolff is the most obvious of the Anti-Capitalists.
    On his program Economics Update, he constantly points to ways that Capitalism has failed recently and how Socialism would be better for The 99 Percent.
    That program recently become available on Free Speech TV (cable).
    KPFA has an excellent archive of the audio webcasts.

    I previously forgot to mention Indy Media on Air, hosted by Chris Burnett.
    His theme music is "Subvert". [google.com]

    .
    Pacifica presenters who are Progressives (e.g. pro-union, anti-police state) but are not Leftists (not Anti-Capitalist) include Ralph Nader, Amy Goodman, Maria Armoudian, Lila Garrett, the Sheer family, and many more.
    Brad Friedman (BradBlog) is one of the best voices anywhere WRT verified voting/voting fraud.
    Jimmy Dore and David Feldman are comedians/comedy writers who I compare to Jon Stewart WRT good political analysis.

    .
    Text-based outlets that are actually "Left" include the World Socialist Web Site (Socialist Equality Party).
    Jacobin Magazine is strongly Leftist.
    N.B. The WSWS guys often call workers.org (Workers World Party) and socialistworker.org (International Socialist Organization) pseudo-Left for those places' wishy-washy positions on workers' rights and their willingness to cheer e.g. back-to-work orders by labor union officials or the conclusion of a labor action which includes concessions to corporations.

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

    • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 11 2017, @08:02PM

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday April 11 2017, @08:02PM (#492426) Journal

      Modded up because you're right, but don't confuse the alt-reich with facts; they put feelz before realz, as it hath been written, and the first feel they put before what's real is that they feel everyone ELSE puts feelz before realz. They're hopeless; the best thing we can do is ridicule them until they drop dead of ischemic insult.

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @11:20PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @11:20PM (#492523)

      >Entertaining socialists and communists
      Right, into the helicopter you go, nothing ever goes well with your kind.

      • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @01:04AM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @01:04AM (#492557)

        Well, if you ignore a third of the economy of Emilia-Romagna and the thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of Socialist workplaces there.

        Add thousands more Socialist workplaces in South Tyrol for good measure.

        Leaving Italy and moving on to Spain, there's (Socialist) Mondragon which has gone from 6 worker-owners in 1956 to over 100,000 worker-owners today.

        ...and for those who don't understand "helicopter", that refers to a meme among those with small minds, an activity done by murderous allies/clients of murderous USA regimes.
        "Communists like free stuff[1], so let's give them free helicopter rides." [google.com]

        [1] The Fascist morons who say that don't know what they're talking about.
        Tiny weak minds to match their tiny weak dicks.

        -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

        • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @02:15AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @02:15AM (#492577)

          Small minded? You haven't understood the implications my friend.
          How do you tell a communist and an anti-communist apart? The former merely read Marx, the latter understood it.
          Capitalism is dog-eat-dog while Communism is wishing you had dog to eat.
          Communists were so ahead of its time, it destroyed the concept of wages only to reinvent it a few years later.
          Communism is so class-free they had a new Communist Official class.

          But enough bantz.

          Free helicopter rides is what communism needs. Every time it fails, apologists will circle around and claim "oh it wasn't TRUE communism". How communist do you think the Soviets were? How communist do you think modern China is? How communist do you think North Korea is? How communist do you think Venezuela is? How communist do you think Cuba is?

          Last I checked, Italy and Spain isn't exactly a beacon of economic prosperity in contrast to multinational corporations with more than twice the number in worker-slaves. If your answer to that is that WE NEED MORE COMMUNISM, you might as well start rounding up reactionaries into labor camps for the greater good when actual FASCISTS starts showing up to present themselves as the alternate THIRD WAY.

          You might think I'm being hyperbolic to confuse socialism with communism, but that's more of a branding issue, socialists are just communists with more patience, eloquently put by Trotsky "The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end". Do you think communists would give up on their promised land as foretold by its prophets?

          • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:00AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:00AM (#492619)

            How do you tell a communist and an anti-communist apart? The former merely read Marx, the latter understood it.

            Spoken like a true Nazi! You Fascist, misogynist, racist bastard! I fart in your general direction. But that is only because I know what you do not! I, am not left handed! Wait, that is not it. I know both that you have never, ever read Marx, mostly because he uses big words, and I know that since you never read him, you obviously do not understand him. You might understand the version that your obercommandant has given you to memorize, as is appropriate for someone so low down on the buggering order, but it remains the same. You have no idea about what you are talking about, because you are a stupid, uneducated, illiterate, cuckservative! There! I said it! Up against the wall with you, my dear counter-revolutionary. Not so much because we disagree with you, but because of all the children you gave free helicopter rides to, of all the young people you killed in the Soccer Stadium in Chile, because of all the murder and mayhem you carried out at the behest of your masters because you were too stupid to realize you were being used. That kind of ignorance is unforgiveable, it is unhuman and monstrous, and your fate is sealed. You are an enemy of humankind. Probably a lizard person.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @11:50PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @11:50PM (#492534)

    MSNBC, CNN, Wapo, NYT, ABC, Vice and so on. And on the other side, there's Fox. Not exactly comforting.

    Have you listened to AM, and some FM, radio lately? It is a right-wing as it gets.