Trump/Russia/SDNY investigation

In the digital age with big data and algorithms that get more and more sophisticated as time goes on, it stands to reason reason that the ability for powerful bodies to manipulate the public at large will become more and more effective.

It is something we should be worried about.
 
Kentonio said:
We’re literally living in a time where a majority of people can believe things that would once have been the preserve of extremist whackjob conspiracy theorists, and that is massively the fault of social media (reinforced by cable TV).
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For real, conspiracy theorists aren't exactly the tiny minority that they were 15+ years ago. They have huge platforms now and there are a few reaching top positions in government. Its foolish to ignore it or play it down.
 
Kentonio said:
If I remember your age correctly, you’re not old enough to make a sweeping statement like that. Do you even remember the pre-internet era?

Yes people have always bought newspapers that conform to their pre-existing political views, and people naturally socialize with likeminded people. The difference is that with the mass explosion in cable TV offering vastly more choice for partisan news sources, and more importantly the new social media phenomena where people are seeing a constant barrage of extremely partisan propaganda, they don’t have a reasonably unbiased arbitrator of what is real or not. In the past people might read the Guardian or the Sun but they were almost without fail also seeing one of the mainstream TV news shows like the BBC which provided a stabilizing influence. Now we see people denying the reality of those sources in a way we just didn’t see before. ‘Fake News’ wasn’t a Trump invention, it has been a slow and steady delusion that the internet has played its part in spreading. Now we’re seeing the previously neutral internet trusted fact sources like Snopes come under heavy attack too, largely based on social media attack campaigns intended to undermine their reputations to allow the flow of disinformation to spread even more freely. We’re literally living in a time where a majority of people can believe things that would once have been the preserve of extremist whackjob conspiracy theorists, and that is massively the fault of social media (reinforced by cable TV).
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I think you're looking at it from a distinctly UK perspective, and a very rose-tinted one at that. How many Americans do you think believed JFK was assassinated by the CIA, just a decade after it happened?
 
Grinner said:
I reckon Mueller just loves going to work. Can't wait for the weekend to finish so he can get back to it.
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He's probably working weekends...I imagine he's not really had a break in the past year.:lol:
 
Brwned said:
I think you're looking at it from a distinctly UK perspective, and a very rose-tinted one at that. How many Americans do you think believed JFK was assassinated by the CIA, just a decade after it happened?
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What do you mean by asking that?
 
Raoul said:
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Not exactly the most hi-tech solutions! Hard to separate truth and lies with them lot but either way, what a bunch of wankers. The nastiness of politics and the fakery of consultancy is a pretty lethal combo.
 
Facebook gone to delete evidence like a boss.
"Comprehensive audit"...yeah, I believe that cause I'm a goat. :rolleyes:
 
The information commissioner tried to get a warrant to raid Cambridge Analytica tonight but apparently no judges were available to grant them one. In the meantime, Facebook was granted access to the CA offices. If this winds up taking Facebook down there's gonna be no limit to how hard my dick gets.
 
Silva said:
The information commissioner tried to get a warrant to raid Cambridge Analytica tonight but apparently no judges were available to grant them one. In the meantime, Facebook was granted access to the CA offices. If this winds up taking Facebook down there's gonna be no limit to how hard my dick gets.
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They will take a hit but there's no way it can take them down.
 
Grinner said:
Right, you could at least trust the basic facts back then. These days you don't have that. News divisions needing to be profitable, large mergers leading to media conglomerates under a particular editorial bias, the decline of print media (most hometown newspapers are dead or in terminal decline), the rise of infotainment, reduced attention spans and the fact that people really are getting stupider. I don't see us coming back from it quite frankly.

I get far more information from the CE Forum than I get anywhere else. This place should be cherished because we get an incredibly diverse array of posters informing us on events and issues all over the globe. Sadly most people are getting theirs from Facebook and the Daily Mail. Truth is getting lost in noise.
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Indeed. Local news used to be independent local news. Now, the Koch brothers in the US through Sinclair and Meredith control almost a monopoly on local newspapers and TV.
And I agree about the forums here. This is probably the best overall forum now IMO for offering a wide range of views with good discussion and good mods to keep the trolls from ruining good discussions.
 
I can't imagine Dowd and Cobb staying after this new hire. Trump is clearly moving from normal lawyers to conspiratorial hucksters

 
sglowrider said:
There is going to be more reality TV drama for sure -- Life imitating Art.
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Could be a major turning point as Cobb has been a moderating influence. Dowd as well. This new guy seems like a conspiratorial nutjob who could lead Trump off legal cliff.
 
Raoul said:
Could be a major turning point as Cobb has been a moderating influence. Dowd as well. This new guy seems like a conspiratorial nutjob who could lead Trump off legal cliff.
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TV will get even more interesting like it is right now!!

Reminds me of this cartoon from The New Yorker:

DC030818.jpg

Just woke up -- anything bad happened?

It will be 24/7 Trump TV.
 
Silva said:
The information commissioner tried to get a warrant to raid Cambridge Analytica tonight but apparently no judges were available to grant them one. In the meantime, Facebook was granted access to the CA offices. If this winds up taking Facebook down there's gonna be no limit to how hard my dick gets.
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#DeleteFacebook is trending. I’ve been calling on its death for years, would love to see it happen.
 
Dan said:
#DeleteFacebook is trending. I’ve been calling on its death for years, would love to see it happen.
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I wrote a paper 3 years ago about this. Mark Zuckerberg is playing victim when it comes to people's information and a lot of us aren't paying attention to the amount of data we hand over to him. I decided to delete my Facebook account as a result of my research on this company.
 
Il Prete Rosso said:
I wrote a paper 3 years ago about this. Mark Zuckerberg is playing victim when it comes to people's information and a lot of us aren't paying attention to the amount of data we hand over to him. I decided to delete my Facebook account as a result of my research on this company.
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Aye: I have been beating this drum too.

I stopped using Facebook in 2012. That was easy enough because I largely think it is pointless anyhow. I would stop using Google too if I could figure out a way to eliminate it from my life. It is ironic really: as someone who works with data analytics, I used to love Google and other trail blazers back when they first arrived. Now, I think they are unethical.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
In the digital age with big data and algorithms that get more and more sophisticated as time goes on, it stands to reason reason that the ability for powerful bodies to manipulate the public at large will become more and more effective.

It is something we should be worried about.
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You can start by deleting your Facebook and Twitter accounts. It's kinda hard to get Google entirely out of your ecosystem and almost everyone on the planet comes into contact with a product from Google.
 
Its next to impossible to get away from this sort of thing as most social media and even web sites collect so form of ones data. You can of course limit this by severely curtailing use of all social networks, but you're not going to get out of using search engines or their apps.
 
Raoul said:
Its next to impossible to get away from this sort of thing as most social media and even web sites collect so form of ones data. You can of course limit this by severely curtailing use of all social networks, but you're not going to get out of using search engines or their apps.
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DuckDuckGo is a good start. I fully expect there to be a shocking revelation that they’re like every other corporation at some point though.
 
Raoul said:
Its next to impossible to get away from this sort of thing as most social media and even web sites collect so form of ones data. You can of course limit this by severely curtailing use of all social networks, but you're not going to get out of using search engines or their apps.
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When you really think about it, you don't need Facebook or Twitter. Deleting those two accounts would be a great start.
 
I don't understand the Zuckerberg for POTUS thing. Is he even popular at all? Whenever I've seen him he looks like a boring geek. You need a strong personality to even hope to connect with people. Can anyone see him empathising with some West Virginia coal miner or a bible belt conservative?
 
devilish said:
Anyone watching Hitler's and Mussolini's speeches to the masses now would struggle not to laugh. It feels so fake and exxagerated. Mussolini used to mirror his poses from a famous Cinema character of his time known as Maciste. Maciste the Italian version of Hercules. You can imagine how ridiculous that must have looked. I mean can you imagine Theresa May or Donald Trump copying poses from Wonder Women or Superman?

Yet.....in their time they were brutally effective. People were so gullible those days weren't they? Well....not exactly. I was raised in the golden age of TV advertisement. God knows how much I salivated at new toys advertised on the Italian media. These days, tv adertisement is dying out. Fewer and fewer people are buying stuff because of them. If few words We got sanitised.
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To be fair if you watch a Trump campaign speech its not any less ridiculous than a Hitler or Mussolini one.
 
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