To argue that Facebook somehow magically tricks humans into voting against their will and overrides democracy is to argue that democracy itself inherently does not work.
It’s amazing that so many people don’t understand that.
It seems far harder to accept that people simply voted for trump because historical institutions had failed them so completely.
This would force the other party to recon with the failed parts of their platform. Which they still never have.
> To argue that Facebook somehow magically tricks humans into voting against their will and overrides democracy is to argue that democracy itself inherently does not work.
But we know that propaganda works. That doesn't sit well with your claims.
Yes there were. There were unscientific claims that the data was used to change the mind of voters in a complete magical and impossible way. Which later was proven entirely false.
Did you miss the entire event? Or are you so busy trying to be swarmy that you can’t remember it?
Is it surprising or an indictment against democracy that reminding people the election is in N days makes them more likely to vote?
If you only remind people who are likely to vote the way you want, that's likely to swing the vote a little bit.
Maybe you do a little convincing with your reminder and that helps a little bit more.
Some jurisdictions have a blanket ban on political advertisement or media coverage as a way to reduce the effects of campaigning in an attempt to get a less influenced result. But we don't have that in the US and I suspect it would fall afoul of US free speech, and may be hard to enforce, anyway.
Using popularity contests to pick rulers is the flaw of democracy. I think Sortition would be better at selecting people to write our laws, at least under current circumstances.
There is a difference between historical institutions failing people, and monkey A getting to a wrench quicker than monkey B (exactly what that email points to)
traditional media was already failing democracy well before social media. irrelevant news is the gateway to fake news. journalism was a prestige career that relied on access to advance, and access means you cannot always speak the truths required to inform voters.
It doesnt quite imply democracy does not work. It implies that propaganda works. And if propaganda works, then that would mean that having the bulk of the ability to propagandize concentrated in a few hands in a threat to democracy, as it means that few people effectively have a much more powerful vote. Which, if you'll allow me to shortcut the rest of the argument, just brings us to the fundamental threat to democracy is concentrated wealth and concentrated power.
It doesn't require concentrated wealth, but if wealth is evenly distributed, then presumably the power to apply propaganda is also equally distributed. Propagandizing information effectively become a meta-level form of voting. With concentrated wealth and power, those with all of the resources hold all of these meta-level votes.
It’s amazing that so many people don’t understand that.
It seems far harder to accept that people simply voted for trump because historical institutions had failed them so completely.
This would force the other party to recon with the failed parts of their platform. Which they still never have.