
Facebook Exec: We Got Trump Elected, and We'll Do It Again - vincent_s
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/01/facebook-memo-trump-2020-andrew-bosworth
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anthonygd
While it might feel nice to give Facebook all the credit(/blame) it's just way
too simple of a explanation. Ads have been effective for a long time
regardless of the type of media. There were complaints about running
presidential campaign ads during I Love Lucy in the 1950's.

Whenever I see one of these blame Facebook articles, I always think of what
it's saying about the American public. If a significant number of people think
of Facebook as a reputable source of truth, there really isn't much hope for
the nation. Without an educated population capable of critical thinking there
can't be a real democracy (or even a representative democracy).

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pdkl95
> “As tempting as it is to use the tools available to us to change the
> outcome, I am confident we must never do that or we will become that which
> we fear.”

> “If we limit what information people have access to and what they can say
> then we have no democracy at all,” Bosworth wrote.

You manipulate the information people have access to _every day_ as a core
feature of your business! You started using those tools and became a curator
of what information people receive many years ago when you decided to use your
propriety, hidden algorithm to filter and order what people see. If you
actually believe in taking an idealistic "maximum free speech" approach, you
would return to a simple chronological ordering.

~sigh~

I usually don't like wasting energy worrying about past decisions. Investing
time and energy on regrets and blame is usually a waste of resources.
_However_... the one thing in my past that I really do regret is _introducing
this asshole to computers and teaching him to program._ Bosworth! Instead of
undermining democracy and creating a surveillance capitalist dystopia, could
we go back to writing silly graphics hacks in QBasic?

------
jka
(note that this article dates from January 2020, although there doesn't appear
to have been much discussion of the news previously on HN)

