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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.
Previously on SoylentNews: Do Advertisers Know You Better Than You Know Yourself?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday April 11 2017, @03:29PM (9 children)
If that were true, a conspiracy that big, involving that many people, could not be kept.
Other radars would pick up that plane also.
More people would come forward.
All you seem to have is mere hearsay, if it is even that.
I could make up crazy stories too. But we now live in a time when facts no longer matter. Only ideology seems to matter.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday April 11 2017, @04:48PM (8 children)
That is the trick, these secrets aren't kept they are merely suppressed. If the media doesn't report it most people won't believe it happened. Since the media are essentially on the Democratic Party's org chart that means they can get away with all sorts of things. Media bias is not just the lies they tell right to our faces, it is the stories that get declared non-stories and thus anyone who persists is trafficking in 'conspiracy theory.'
Secret Service agents can retire and write books on what they saw and, nope no coverage so still just a "conspiracy theory." Bill Clinton raped multiple women but the media still insist it isn't a story so "conspiracy theory." Somehow it always works in one direction, Rolling Stone almost gets away with destroying someone's life over a lie that advanced the Narrative and that is fine. Bill Clinton actually does rape women and the NOW promulgates the One Grope Rule (like even that excuses actual rape rape) and the media declare the story a non-story so anyone still discussing it is a crazy conspiracy theorist. Hillary Clinton broke multiple laws and the media declared it off limits so "conspiracy theory." She took a hundred million from Russia. Roll that number around in your mind a moment and repeat after me, this is not a story.
Or take the current conspiracy theory that it is not only acceptable to discuss, it is mandatory: RussiaGate. What is the accusation exactly? They want low info voters to think the Russians hacked voting machines to install their puppet, Trump. But if you actually read the media's accusation it is about WikiLeaks and Hillary Clinton's crimes being exposed and the accusation the Russians did it instead of Seth Rich. So at bottom the accusation is that the Russians committed Journalism. That is it. If the NYT splashed someone's email on page 1 (Sarah Palin... cough!) they would get another Pulitzer to put on the shelf in dishonor along with Duranty's for his crimes against sentient life. But how dare Putin commit Journalism! Bomb him now!
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Tuesday April 11 2017, @05:08PM
The problem with conspiracy theories is that people like to believe them, even on flimsy evidence. It is fun to think you know something others don't.
Ostensibly, the media may refrain from carrying many stories because they lack independent verification. For something like a rape accusation, that may not always be possible. However, you are alleging a pattern of behaviour (with Bill Clinton anyway), which may imply more than one victim. Now that I think about it, The Rolling Stone article you are alluding to [wikipedia.org] may be a case where they did not fact-check well enough before publication.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @05:09PM (2 children)
> If the NYT splashed someone's email on page 1
You mean like all those times they splashed Clinton's email on page 1?
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday April 11 2017, @05:20PM (1 child)
Different. WikiLeaks and the dastardly Russians did it, once it was out and a story the NYT had to cover it, who else could provide the proper context to the raw information? Who else could assure panicked Hillary supporters that there wasn't any real news here, to keep calm and donate again.
You don't get a Pulitzer for carrying someone else's big breaking news exclusive. Point being, just like the media sitting on the Lewinsky scandal until Drudge broke it, it sat on Susan Rice's latest crime until Cernovich broke it and the NYT would have sat on Seth Rich had they been given first shot at it, the media won't break a story harmful to Democrats. Once out they will decide if they can help with damage control by spinning it or burying the story. As CNN did with Susan Rice for example, at last check they had still refused to admit that story exists other than a few snarky "that is an attempt at distraction we ain't falling for" lines from idiots on live air.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @05:49PM
Who else could assure panicked Hillary supporters that there wasn't any real news here, to keep calm and donate again.
Yeah, because near constant coverage is how you assure people that there is no real news here.
What alternate reality do you live in?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday April 11 2017, @06:39PM (3 children)
That is the trick, these secrets aren't kept they are merely suppressed.
Ah ha! Now I get it! The reason this is all true is that there is no evidence of it, and it must have been suppressed since it would be impossible to keep such things secret, and since we do not know that these things did not happen, that means for certain they did! jmorris, you are too much of a crazy person to even argue with, and it gives me no pleasure to mock your intellectual deformities, but I feel we must do it for the sake of others.
You are engaged in the well-known argumentum ad ignorantiam, an appeal to ignorance. More or less, you are saying, since we don't know (can't prove) something is false, it must be true. Unfortuneately for all you "false equivalency" right-wing conspiracy nut-job types, there is an equivalency here. Just because you cannot prove something is true (AGW, anyone?), that does not mean it is false. Equally, just because you cannot prove something is false, that does not mean that it is true.
The point is that what we do not know has no bearing on what we do know. Of course, this might explain the attraction of this fallacy to the conservative mind, since there is so much it does not know. In fact, there is almost nothing for a conservative to base knowledge on, since all they start with is ignorance. And so they loves them some conspiracy theory! Hey, have you heard of David Ickes? You know, no one has been able to conclusively prove that we are not ruled by lizard people! Just saying!!
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by jmorris on Tuesday April 11 2017, @10:43PM (2 children)
Now you are just being a douche. There is plenty of evidence, you just go to great effort not to know about it. Guess ignorance is bliss. Wasting an hour digging up links would be a pointless effort. Learn to use Google. You want sworn testimony? It is out there. On the record accounts from former law enforcement / secret service / intelligence agents? Yup. Giant infographic posters carefully detailing the dozens of dead people under violent and suspicious circumstances swirling around the Clintons? Find one, compare to similar lists of who died on The Sopranos and note which list is longer. Think some of the entries might be bogus? Get a list and poke around on a couple at random. They tend to check out to the extent you can check as a civilian, i.e. the person named existed, was closely associated with the Clintons and died under violent but mysterious circumstances. But I already know your reply: You. Don't. Care.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @11:01PM
Learn to use Google.
Lol! Go Google It!
What, you didn't learn your lesson the first time? [soylentnews.org]
Brings to mind that line about the definition of insanity.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday April 11 2017, @11:25PM
It is out there.
Not only is "it" out there, but you are really "out there", jmorris! Do you want I should dig up some links on the Lizard People?
There are many differing theories. If you look at the forums on Icke's site, there are numerous posts either telling people how to spot lizard people or asking how to pick a lizard person out from the crowd.
Bump, one of the top lizard person journalists in the field, made a handy guide last year that culled lizard-person identifiers. Here's the list of lizard person tells:
Green eyes
Good eyesight or hearing
Having red hair
A sense of not belonging to the human race
Unexplained scars on the body
Love of space
Low blood pressure
A brief survey on Icke's forums also point out physical features like having a smile where bottom teeth show, eyes that change size, or eyes with abnormally-sized pupils as potential lizard-person tells.
First hit! http://www.vox.com/2014/11/5/7158371/lizard-people-conspiracy-theory-explainer [vox.com] But kinda MSN rife with SJWs so BBC. LOL.
.
And, it's not just me, jmorris. No one cares about your nutjob conspiracy theories, except your (((fellow travelers]]], and of course, the Illuminati and the Reptoids.