
What Facebook Did to American Democracy - dankohn1
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/10/what-facebook-did/542502/?single_page=true
======
nocoder
For how long will Americans blame FB for the rise of Trump? One he is
democratically elected and two Americans have voted for him. Now dont argue
about vote share, it does not matter as far as the way American electoral
system works, its like talking about possession share in soccer when the
winner is decided based on goals scored. The whole thing about Russia, the
fact is the ground conditions & discontent amongst large population of
Americans existed, it may have been fanned by Russia but it could have been
simply done by any political party using ads, there is nothing ground breaking
about it except the use of Russian money perhaps, most of it is marketing.
Instead of acknowledging & working towards a more united society, (the U in
USA), most media is just fanning further divisions by trying to sensationalize
& scandalize every single thing. If so many of your fellow countrymen feel
disenchanted enough to vote for a reality tv star, then the society needs
deeper introspection. Coming to interference in election, America has done
this & destroyed many countries, there is nothing scandalous if it is
happening to USA. This is just another tactic employed by countries to get
some benefits for themselves. IT might be morally incorrect, but just because
it has probably happened to US does not make it something to scream about
especially when US has done this probably the most.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_electoral_intervention](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_electoral_intervention)

~~~
panarky
For a democracy to give good results, voters need to work from good
information.

Even in the absence of intentional manipulation, Facebook is hyper-efficient
at spreading bad information.

Now America's adversaries have weaponized this, and are actively pushing
sophisticated and targeted disinformation through Facebook.

Zuckerberg's malign naïveté allowed this to get bigger, faster than he could
manage. It's a monster that he doesn't know how to control.

Until Americans understand how thoroughly they've been fucked, and until
Facebook reckons with their outsized role in this, it's really important to
keep beating this drum.

Zuckerberg himself is only gradually coming to terms with it.

Here's his "preposterous defence" eviscerated ->
[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/opinion/mark-
zuckerberg-f...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/opinion/mark-zuckerberg-
facebook.html)

~~~
wilde
People don’t vote based on facts. They vote based on identity and feelings.
Democracy for Realists has an explanation at length.

------
humanrebar
At the end of the day, individual citizens decided to show up at the polls and
vote for candidates. The premise of this article seems to imply that sometimes
when that happens, it's not fair. In particular, citizens are too ignorant or
easily manipulated to be trusted to choose their own leaders.

A core tenet of democracy is that the voters are capable of governing
themselves. Or at least the popular vote is better than other alternatives.

> The informational underpinnings of democracy have eroded, and no one has
> explained precisely how.

I'd argue that the desire to make sure that the education and motivation of
the populace is properly supervised is more dangerous to democracy than a
giant pile of pizzagate spam.

~~~
hsod
You state this as an absolute, but taken to it's conclusion it seems to be
arguing that no one should attempt to influence the vote of anyone else.

I see nothing undemocratic about examining the ways in which voters receive
information and attempting to address deficiencies.

Controversial statement: It's better for voters to believe true things than to
believe false things.

~~~
humanrebar
I'm arguing against the government doing things to make sure voters vote the
"right" way. Reductio ad absurdum, my argument would turn into this: voters
are always right. But that's simple enough to refute. Pick some examples of
democratically elected leaders who ended up being terrible. Pick some Jim Crow
laws enacted through the democratic process.

I think it's more likely in the U.S., at least right now, that the government
starts interfering in speech or elections in undemocratic ways than that the
electorate would elect a tyrant.

That being said, there are some provably false stories floating around out
there. There should be a good case for revisiting American libel and slander
laws, or at least revisiting how they are prosecuted and enforced. If the
slanderer is a foreign power, Washington has a responsibility to judiciously
ensure that doesn't happen again.

But babysitting the American voter is a bad idea. If they can't be trusted,
we've picked the wrong form of government. And while liberal republican
democracy has its issues, it has proven better than the alternatives, at least
the ones attempted so far

------
jister
I am not American nor do I live/work in the US but every time I read articles
from Western media that mentions Trump I am 100% sure that the "Russian" word
will be mentioned somewhere in the article. For an outsider like myself the
blaming on Russia is getting out of hand. Maybe Russia did something or NOT
but I still haven't seen any evidence up to now.

It's a shame that we are in the last quarter of the year and yet people there
still haven't moved on.

~~~
StevePerkins
For decades now, there has been a significant chuck of the nation's fringe
(10-20%) who simply CANNOT accept a member of the opposite political party as
a legitimate President.

All through the 90's, the talk radio fringe used the same argument that Bill
Clinton's victory wasn't _truly_ legitimate because he didn't win a majority
of the popular vote. And they had a special prosecutor follow him around for
his entire Presidency, pretty much on a fishing expedition (younger people
might not remember this, but Ken Starr stumbled across the Monica Lewinsky
thing _years_ into the process).

All through the 2000's, the fringe left rejected George W. Bush's legitimacy,
because they felt that it was decided by a Supreme Court with a thin majority
of Republican appointees.

President Obama spent 8 years assuring people that he isn't a Muslim, and
wasn't really born in Kenya. It sounds like parody, but roughly 1/3 of
partisan Republicans seriously believe in this conspiracy theory
([https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/poll-
persiste...](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/poll-persistent-
partisan-divide-over-birther-question-n627446)).

Today, partisan Democrats just can't let go of the "Russia hacked the
election!" conspiracy theory... even though, from an independant's
perspective, they sound flatly insane. At BEST, someone with ties to Russia
leaked some embarrassing emails from a criminally insecure mail server. If HRC
hadn't been the worst Democratic nominee in decades, then it wouldn't have
mattered regardless.

I don't know what's going to happen with the next inevitable handover in 4-12
years. But it's a pretty safe bet that the next Democrat will be seen as
"illegitimate" by roughly one-fifth to one-quarter of the nation as well. This
is just the not-so-new normal.

~~~
dTal
I feel that, while you're not wrong about the ongoing de-legitimization of the
presidency, there's a danger of drawing a false equivalence here.

The 2000 election really was decided by a Supreme Court with a thin majority
of Republican appointees (in a state governed by the winning candidate's
brother, under circumstances of serious, fraudulent voter disenfranchisement).
And there really was foreign interference in our last election, in favour of
the winning candidate - it's not really a "conspiracy theory" when President
Obama literally called Putin on the red phone to ask him to stop. Whether you
think it was effective or not (and there's no possible way you can know),
there's no doubt at all they tried.

Conversely, Obama was definitely not in any shape or form born in Kenya, and
Clinton's lack of popular vote was as immaterial as Trump's.

Only one of these sides looks "fringe" to me.

------
simonsarris
The only(?) good thing to come from the Trump election is that more people are
slowly realizing that democracy isn't all its cracked up to be, from a systems
view.

All systems will eventually be gamed, evolution knows this very well. The only
surprise here is that in this iteration of democracy the obviousness took so
long. Plenty of other nations have known it for their whole democratic
history. The Greeks knew it forever ago. Aristotle:

> _It is accepted as democratic when public offices are allocated by lot; and
> as oligarchic when they are filled by election._

Facebook didn't do so much as it allowed more of the same and slightly
revealed just how much manipulation gets attempted. If you like modern US
democracy, you like the idea of _everyone_ , no matter how stupid or easily
manipulated, having a vote. You can't complain about it _only_ when it doesn't
go your way.

You cannot just blame Facebook. It's not like this was the first time the two
teams tried to buy an election. Look at the 2012 figures for campaign spending
(per OpenSecrets):

2012 OVERALL SPENDING

BLUE TEAM $1,144,965,831

RED TEAM $1,254,323,304

A couple billion spent sound like they were trying their hardest to "do
something" to American Democracy.

~~~
leereeves
There's far more manipulation and deception coming from the establishment
media.

For example, how many people heard that Trump removed two countries from the
travel ban list (Iraq and Sudan)? The media practically ignored that. Ignoring
events like that, which would show Trump in a more reasonable light, is a form
of deception: a lie by omission.

~~~
simonsarris
Yeah, most established media has been shameful lately. From one angle it's
hard to blame them, since they are largely just trying to post stories that
they know their current subscriber base wants to hear. This is even true of
the NYT. There was a great comment chain on HN about it a while back
(comparing the coverage from stories vs looking at what their linked sources
said), but I can't find it. It was similar to coverage like this:
[https://randomcriticalanalysis.wordpress.com/2016/05/09/my-r...](https://randomcriticalanalysis.wordpress.com/2016/05/09/my-
response-to-the-nytimes-article-on-school-districts-test-scores-and-income/)

------
watwut
It is much more comforting to blame Russia or Facebook for who won election in
USA or general state of politics then to accept that most blame should go much
closer. The reasons why majority of voters are disengaged have nothing to do
with Russia. The reasons why people are skeptical of both parties in two party
system have nothing to do with Russia too.

It is not like USA would be a poor country with both Democrats and Republicans
being peny-less helpless parties unable to get their version of story to news.
We are still talking about the most powerful country with most powerful
countries that take money from billionaires.

Lately it seems that Russia is responsible for everything in America and there
is Russian behind every tree. As much as comforting it might be, the real
causes of problems are not Russia.

~~~
Clubber
I agree with a lot of this. I've said before that whatever Russia did pales in
comparison to what Limbaugh and Fox does every day. The Democrats didn't have
a good candidate, obviously, and Americans were ready to shake things up.
Trump just happened to be standing there with a shaker when it happened.

Even if Trump doesn't get re-elected, the likelihood of electing another
candidate that is an "outsider," is significantly high.

------
throw2016
It seems the country is not comfortable with diversity. There has been an
insular and closely managed narrative by main stream press that is now
confronted with true diversity of opinion.

This confrontation with a whole array of opinions that are not in the
mainstream is throwing people off their comfort zone and has created an unreal
hysteria and panic about bogeymen.

------
Udik
Modern democracies are always an interplay between mass media and electorate.
The schema is roughly circular:

people in power => media => voters => people in power

The Facebook problem (and more generally the Internet problem) is that it
vastly reduces the control that people in power have over the information
consumed by the voters. Which could be a good thing in some cases, a very bad
thing in others, as the powerful are usually _also_ a highly educated elite
that is capable of steering public opinion towards better choices.

However, I also agree with others when they say that blaming Facebook for
Trump's election is an exceedingly self-absolving way of dealing with the
problem of a very unsatisfied, poorly educated electorate. And the risk now is
that a global, pervasive censorship will be applied by Internet giants to
please the powerful elites of their home country.

~~~
Clubber
>that blaming Facebook for Trump's election is an exceedingly self-absolving
way of dealing with the problem of a very unsatisfied, poorly educated
electorate.

I'm not sure poorly educated is the right term, but they are definitely poor
financially across the vast majority of the US. I hesitate to say poorly
educated because wading through the bullshit of politics isn't taught in high
school and it takes years of getting burned before you realize just how much
bullshit there is.

I mean when you want to learn about something, you go to a source or two and
learn about it. With politics, your source is the news, and there are really
no consistent good sources that are consistent over decades. Also, the nature
of politics is highly subjective.

~~~
Udik
> I hesitate to say poorly educated because wading through the bullshit of
> politics isn't taught in high school and it takes years of getting burned
> before you realize just how much bullshit there is.

I didn't mean "poorly educated" in a derogatory way. Poor education can be the
result of many factors, among which individual choice is probably the least
relevant. The quality of education is influenced by family wealth, and on a
bigger scale by political choices and a certain cultural attitude (I have long
had the intuitive idea, _which might be completely wrong_ , that USA's cult of
freedom entails a rejection of the value of a common basic educational
standard).

------
jokoon
I live in france, and a friend who did not use her real name on facebook was
flagged and asked to provide her id card to prove her identity.

I mean there are not that many structures in the world, not to mention
international ones, that can do such things (or should).

We even did a little research, and apparently if she did provide a
photoshopped version of her id card, it could end up in a tribunal (the mere
act of falsifying false documents). Meanwhile we live in france and an
american private company can ask for such documents, it feels a little odd.

I mean facebook can now justify asking users for their real identity paperwork
to fight against bogus accounts.

------
bloaf
People not viewing the information we want them to view? Why not make your
good information mandatory, and prohibit the bad information!

Facebook didn't do anything to democracy; the electorate has always been
mostly simple salt-of-the-earth, common-clay people [1]. The kind of people
who've been swayed by yellow journalism before, and would eagerly spread
completely fabricated rumors about candidates amongst themselves.

The article also rings hollow when talking about how "no one could have seen
this coming" since evidently Russia, the Trump campaign, and Beitbart (and,
honorable mention, Scott Adams? [2]) had all managed to see it coming.
Instead, I suspect the author is simply bitter about the fact that Clinton was
unable to buy as the same kind of impressions as Trump, despite spending twice
as much.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHJbSvidohg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHJbSvidohg)
[2] [http://blog.dilbert.com/post/161777338226/russia-hacked-
our-...](http://blog.dilbert.com/post/161777338226/russia-hacked-our-election-
so-what)

------
Melk
What's up with all the angry comments here? The article is about the influence
of social media. People here take it as an assault on Trump supporters. Relax.

------
chronid
Wasn't also the Obama campaign helped (in 2008 and 2012) by massive social
media/web presence? I remember articles of newspapers writing fondly of how
"innovative" it was and "transformative".

It's amusing how quickly and easily tables and narratives turn.

------
Simulacra
The worst is yet to come, just wait till Zuck runs for president.

