throwawaybchr

I wonder if there are any advertising agencies in Portugal

Cambridge Analytica had pretty much no impact. There was a study on this done in the UK. Much of the world wanted Brexit and Trump. Random ads on Facebook simply aren't that effective.

More accurate title: Ethiopians create posts which are unwittingly optimized for amplification by Facebook's algorithms.

Most Canadians can stop using it then

This entire topic is very silly. Parents are free to forbid their kids from using it. Adults can make their own decisions.

What it is starting to become is that people want other people to stop using it because they want them to consume the content that they see fit.

It is, I chose one example. Do I have to document all such examples?

China has been denying people human rights daily, what does the UN do to them?

If you used Facebook to login to some other service then that account also essentially became inaccessible

Aside from obvious cases of intentional abuse:

The world is filled with people who have different ideas about what is funny, what is offensive, what is fun, what is boring, etc.

On the internet it is expected to have a clash of cultures since people from different backgrounds are collaborating. There will naturally be well intentioned misunderstandings. Rather than creating a system that allows for these to take place peacefully without incident, any example of a joke gone wrong or a word out of place will result in an inquisition.

Why do so many westerners want to live like this? Constantly thirsty for purifying others. It seems to come from some kind of emptiness that must exist in one's life to be so obsessed over minutiae.

With the kind of water resistance that's typically available can you really "wash" the phone like under a faucet?

These tools seem pretty decent for non technical people to build and test out ideas.

If anything it forces them to think about their problems and recognise where complexity exists.

Is this the only instance in recent history where a traitor has been tortured and/or killed? It's the only one everyone is talking about. The reason for that is for the common folk to develop a bias. A well deserved bias, but a manufactured one nonetheless.

If the story didn't blow up they would never have done it.

My point remains. There are conspiracies about Russia feeding talking points to members of the US government and that those who are doing the bidding of Russia should be tried for treason.

This is not some fringe point of view you read on some imageboard on the internet, this is that has been airing on American news tv regularly over the past 4 years. You don't get banned on twitter for saying this, you don't get banned on Facebook for saying this. This is a very popular thing to say and believe in America.

The Saudis simply followed through with the same principle, and it's being presented as some kind of heinous outrage when it's essentially what's being proposed in the USA.

At best one could argue the method of killing, and if we're there my point is pretty much made. They followed their criminal justice system. They're doing a song and dance now because it got blown up.

What is the reason given for treating Chelsea Manning the way she was treated by the Obama administration?

Is it uncommon for countries to leave their traitors alive? Saudi Arabia has had public beheadings, it's not unusual for a place like that to murder a guy who was sitting in the USA and publishing the talking points he was getting from Qatar.

The idea that he was 100% a noble crusading journalist is pure propaganda.

This whole story is artificially amplified. Has everyone woken up and suddenly learned what punishments in Saudi Arabia are like?

Take for instance Chelsea Manning - someone who made the US government look bad by leaking diplomatic cables. Torture, solitary confinement, all sorts of inhumane conditions. Is it that much of a stretch to see a monarchy like Saudi Arabia chopping up their guy for making them look bad? Not really. It's what you would expect in a place like that.

It's always been that way, and everyone has known about it. To pretend as if it's unexpected is quite insincere and reeks of some alternative agenda. The way Khashoggi is presented to the public as some kind of hero is really telling.

This show started off slow but slowly became an all-time favorite of mine.

For many who don't have experience, lisps are intimidating

Based on polling there are plenty of folks in both parties who think things were fishy with the election. I am confident that if you took each claim and systematically argued it out in public you would have seen that number go down drastically to an insignificant one.

I think GOP lawmakers had the right idea to hold some kind of public audit of it. Giuliani had a lot of incorrect / blatantly false facts and so he was dismissed out of hand, but many of his witnesses came across as credible and describe things very differently from your explanations.

Logistically I don't think anyone wanted to back the election fraud argument for political reasons but there is still very much a need for it because plenty of people feel like it was stolen.

As for the President - whether he's making it up or whether he's among those who believe it was stolen, nobody reads minds so you cant know one way or another unless you add your own personal bias into it.

Now you can be very angry about the fraud claims because they are baseless etc and be emotional about it or be a problem solver and recognize that those people are fellow citizens and there is no divorce option. Railing against Trump 24x7 actually makes the problem worse because nobody is going to be persuaded. You can also call me also irresponsible for bringing their concerns up, but what you can't really do without being dishonest is to deny that there are millions who believe this stuff, out of whom a few dozen got mad enough about it want to break in to the Capitol, and succeeded.

The fact remains that the media does a tremendous disservice to the public by not casting a wide tent, and the President capitalised on this because frankly what other option is there if you want to win? The American media hoaxed the public into thinking he called Nazis very fine people when he instead said they should be condemned totally, and was said in the context of the broader debate about statues of controversial historical figures.

Now you can again cheerlead for the media and say they are the finest journalists on the planet, but the fact is that more than half the country doesn't believe them. You can dismiss them all as brainwashed or stupid or whatever you like but they're going to be around for a very long time.

In India recently, a TV commercial depicted an inter faith marriage. This enraged some hindu groups and the ad got pulled because there was a vocal online outcry, calls for boycotts, doxxing, etc. The corporation protected itself from the negative externality.

I'm all for it, but I recognise what is also happening as a result.

While in the above case it's the corporation pulling its own ad, and in the Facebook case they're a platform, the end result is the same. Some activist group tells the advertiser not to advertise because their ad equates them to X and X is bad, here are a bajillion deeply offended people.

At Facebook you have employees colluding with activist groups giving them tips on how best they can "effect change" on Facebook policy. Which advertisers to target, which controversies to use in their activism. It's all to bring about the desired political outcome of some radicals - limit the reach of my political enemy or their strongest arguments.

In the USA the religious group doing the activism is not Christianity anymore - back in the 70s and 80s the Christian lobby had the same degree of influence over TV show content. Today there is a secular belief system occupying that same position, with the opposing political party at the helm, much like the religious right of a few decades ago.

This is absolutely correct, and it would benefit society immensely if #2 is solved quickly. A free marketplace of ideas, no matter how blasphemous, must always exist. President Obama said it best at his speech to the UN when he discussed the infamous YouTube video released prior to Benghazi. The answer is always more speech.

In 1954 a Puerto Rican group fired shots into Congress - there was no social media back then. Jimmy Carter pardoned them.

The suggestion now is that social media is ok to use as a tool to organize the kind of looting and arson that results in the killing of people like David Dorn, but not organize a protest that results in vandalism of the hallowed halls of insider trading.

A few years ago, Steve Scalise was shot at a congressional baseball game. YouTube, Twitter, Facebook did not see themselves as responsible for the online hate that led to it. Was it MSNBC that radicalized the shooter then? Where was he getting his information from?

The fact of the matter is that violent language against specific political figures is acceptable, and violence from others is not acceptable. This is further proved in specific cases like the Kathy Griffin decapitation video, the drawing of Trump's head being cut off (Facebook sent a specific memo to Cognizant that this was a valid exception).

This is being done because the vast majority of people working at these companies see fit to lecture the world on topics like unconscious bias, and then selectively apply their policies when it aligns with their personal politics - completely oblivious to the other cases where enforcement should be equal.

This will be seen as an escalation and further undermine the credibility of these companies in the eyes of millions. If at all they stay it will be because of prevailing trends and network effects only.

I guarantee you that at this very second you could search twitter and find folks freely expressing their admiration for Rand Paul's neighbour, who attacked him so violently that he was critically hospitalized. There is a sickness in political discourse that is being selectively attended to by people suffering from the very same sickness.

This was going to happen regardless of yesterday's events. Anyone working in close proximity to the activist groups on campus knows this already.

Yesterday has provided perfect cover for folks to do what they want to by using their positions in these companies for political reasons.

Unfortunately many folks think the ends justify the means. Patriot act, WMD in Iraq, FISA courts, now arbitrary banning of politicians by morally dubious companies.

What could possibly go wrong?

If you made a list of Trump's top 10 most outrageous posts they would all hinge on some opinionated postmodernist take on his statements.

Isn't it implicit?

"We scored a goal, the umpire didn't see it and they stole our championship away from us. This is a disgrace. Go home in peace"

The order is important. Despite outrageous A, de-escalate and do B. Had it been the other way around I would agree with you.

On the other hand, today's events are almost opposite. It's been driven/lead by senior members of government. Using lies and propaganda, conditioning a group of citizen sympathizers over a long period of time to distrust media, distrust opposing "facts" or anyone that disagrees with Trumps agenda. Weaponize this group of people to seize power and considerably fracture our democracy. It's the least patriotic and perhaps treasonous thing I could ever imagine. But they think they are the patriots. It's just so backwards to me.

This is correct to a degree but it is debunked by the President's plain language in his speech prior to the violence at the Capitol where he asked the crowd to "peacefully and patriotically" protest at the Capitol.

It becomes difficult to make the accusation that the violence is incited when it is very explicitly said that the protest should be peaceful.

During the nomination of Justice Kavanaugh, members of Congress were confronted in elevators and hallways of the Capitol building by protesters. These protests were also based on unproven accusations and the people were weaponized to seize power as a ploy because they did not have the requisite votes as per the constitutional process. Intimidation and invasion of the building was seen very differently when it came to a lifelong appointment of a Supreme Court justice.

I would argue that the politicians from both parties share blame in allowing the discourse to escalate like this. To condemn only one party for it is not helpful at all.

The rules are subjective so they are more like whims really.

The President put out a video asking people, in plain language, to go home and co-operate with Capitol police. In this same video he reaffirmed his contention that the election was fraudulent, and said that the protesters were loved. Whether he did this sincerely or as a ploy to increase the likelihood of being obeyed, nobody can say without mind reading powers.

One camp will say this video can be interpreted as harmful because it contains the claim that the election was fraudulent

Another camp will say you are allowed to hold the position that the election was fraudulent and at the same time condemn violence.

Twitter has chosen to interpret the video to say that there is a risk of violence despite a plain spoken appeal against violence. They are essentially interpreting the meaning of the message in a way that is contrary to the plain language used in the video.

In such a scenario I would probably not treat it as a rule, since this kind of rule can be made up spontaneously and can be used to stop anyone from saying anything really.

I think it should not be celebrated when a corporation decides to enforce arbitrary rules based on its own interpretations of someone else's plain words.

Some of the Republican leadership, including the President, have presented evidence of election irregularities. Much of this evidence is worrisome, even if it does not impact a single vote. For instance - if you run a poll monitoring system and the county operations team cheers and claps when one party's monitors are asked to leave, it does not inspire confidence in the process. If you rely on a voting machine vendor whom both parties have expressed strong reservations against, it does not inspire confidence either.

When people do not have confidence in the most basic aspect of democracy, you start to see what you did in DC. Regardless of party or country. Absolutely nothing has been done to assuage these concerns, and most responses have been dismissive. It is most likely going to reoccur whenever something like this happens.

When you examine the specific actions here, the President's remarks immediately prior to the incident exonerate him because he said in plain language to "peacefully and patriotically protest at the Capitol". There is no way to credibly accuse him of inciting a mob to be violent, but one could certainly accuse him of inciting a protest. This would not be unusual since there have been many peaceful protests at the Capitol during supreme court hearings and gun control related protests.