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from the psychological-warfare-in-peacetime dept.
The Guardian has an article about a whistleblower from Cambridge Analytica, who claims to have devised a strategy to "weaponize" Facebook profiles, in order to use those profile for targeted advertising to sway the US elections in 2016.
(The Guardian headline titles are often crap). I read a few older articles, presumably by the same author: she had a series of articles in March--May 2017 about Cambridge Analytica being used as a weapon to convince British voters to vote for Brexit in the referendum. It seems that her investigative journalism encouraged this wistleblower to "come out" and be interviewed by her.
Here's one: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy
Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others (Churchill), but when does advertising cross the line into psychological warfare against your own population?
Additional coverage at The Register
(Score: 5, Informative) by fyngyrz on Monday March 19 2018, @04:09PM (8 children)
If that were uniformly true, we'd be talking about president Clinton right now.
In the US, presidential elections are decided upon the basis of the input of the state entities via the electoral college. Not the popular vote. These two sets of intents don't always line up, as was the case in the November 2016 US election, where Clinton won the popular vote, and Trump won the electoral college vote.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 19 2018, @04:42PM (7 children)
Electoral college vs popular vote is splitting hairs, you could create scenarios where a 40% minority would win the election because of the electoral college system, and in modern elections with candidate messaging driven by political science we are coming down to 51-49 decisions quite often, and these are won and lost by how well the votes like up with electoral college divisions - but the fact remains: the decisions are driven by popular vote per district/electoral representative.
When is the last time a member of the electoral college voted against the majority of the people he represented?
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(Score: 5, Informative) by fyngyrz on Monday March 19 2018, @04:59PM (6 children)
Not even close.
When the votes of state power in a national election are not precisely weighted according to the actual population of that state, it's not "splitting hairs." It's more like splitting the Midgard Serpent. [wikipedia.org]
The EC vote is a mechanism of state power.
The popular vote is a mechanism of voter power.
In the US, the former carries considerably more weight than the latter. So it's a non-trivial distinction.
Also, as the last election demonstrates very clearly, it's wholly consequential distinction, unless your contention is that a Clinton presidency would have been exactly like a Trump presidency (and if you make such an assertion, I'm pretty sure that very few people in the entire world are going to agree with you.)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 19 2018, @06:31PM (2 children)
When 41% of the eligible electorate does not even bother to mail in an absentee ballot, EC vs. popular is, indeed, splitting hairs.
The EC discretizes the voting data by state, but that is not as significant an outcome influencer as a 10% increase in voter turnout would be.
Is EC "pure popular democracy" - no, neither is any form of representative government. There are much more important things to focus on than the EC if you want the interests of "the people" to be represented in government, starting with:
Get those, and a few more, under control, then start worrying about whether or not the EC is unfairly distorting the process.
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(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Monday March 19 2018, @10:48PM (1 child)
One of those things is not like the other, and furthermore, the problems are not related, although both affect a common outcome.
You are making an argument analogous to "murder doesn't matter because more people die from disease."
So, still no.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 20 2018, @03:35AM
No, the argument is more of the form: side impact airbag optimization doesn't matter when you haven't even got a working frontal airbag system, crumple zone, intrusion prevention bars in the doors, or even a collapsing steering column.
Sure, you might save some lives by retrofitting a side airbag system on a fleet of '58 Bel Aires that are taken out and driven once every 4 years, but you might want to start with that collapsing steering column and some headrests first, and maybe some seat belts too.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 19 2018, @08:20PM (2 children)
Gerrymandering, forgot gerrymandering - and you're complaining about the Electoral College as if it were a form of gerrymandering... no, good sir, the Electoral College is weak tea in that realm [buzzfeed.com].
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(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Monday March 19 2018, @10:50PM (1 child)
Gerrymandering does not affect the presidential election, so again, it is an entirely unrelated problem WRT the EC.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday March 20 2018, @03:32AM
Why isn't Puerto Rico a State? Seems they've asked to be admitted to the union, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico#Political_status [wikipedia.org] and due to not wanting to change the current status, as in they might vote the wrong way, they're being denied. Seems like a form of gerrymandering.