
Donald Trump Won Because of Facebook - abhi3
http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/11/donald-trump-won-because-of-facebook.html
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gragas
I think he won indirectly because of Facebook. The real powers behind the meme
magic on Facebook were /pol/ and /r/The_Donald. This is evidenced by the
amazing growth rate of /r/The_Donald and the huge traffic to and support from
/pol/.

And I don't think misinformation won Donald the presidency. The main theme
pushed by the two forums I mentioned was that Hillary and the DNC were
extremely corrupt. Every new WikiLeaks release was scoured by /pol/; there
were daily /cfg/ (Clinton Foundation general) threads on /pol/ in which tons
of anons investigated the corruption of the Clinton Foundation and then made
memes and organized social media movements about their findings.

It wasn't misinformation that won Donald he presidency, it was the organized
effort of people trying to expose corruption. Whether the corruption was over-
exaggerated is another story.

~~~
solotronics
/pol is the core of the memetic power, doxing, psyops, and investigation

/r/The_Donald is much more public oriented

~~~
gragas
Yep. /r/The_Donald is essentially the main distribution channel of /pol/.

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maxfurman
On the Left, we used to make fun of Republicans for living in the Fox News
bubble (Jon Stewart memorably dubbed it "Bullshit Mountain"), and how easily
they were fooled by the constant stream of fake scandals (Death Panels!
ACORN!). But this time we fell into our own bubble, hard. I'm sure
conservatives in this thread will say we were in one the whole time, and maybe
they're right. This election isn't Facebook's fault as much as humans' desire
to believe what they want to believe.

~~~
cheald
> This election isn't Facebook's fault as much as humans' desire to believe
> what they want to believe.

I like to say that humans are very efficient bias confirmation machines.

Of course, I may now just be saying this because your comment confirms my bias
that humans are bias confirmation machines.

Objectivity - true objectivity - is _incredibly_ hard, and most people are
deluding themselves if they think they're anything approximating objective
(and I count myself in that number!), IMO. I want to believe that I'm
objective, but my observation that just about nobody else seems to be very
objective suggests that I'm not, either.

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deavmi
He won because the election was fair. Get over it. The election was democratic
and that's that.

