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Facebook reportedly discredited critics by linking them to George Soros (theguardian.com)
259 points by nsedlet on Nov 15, 2018 | hide | past | favorite | 270 comments





If you work for Facebook, what do you do in this situation?

Can you all please just leave? Is there some acceptable amount of collateral damage for you to maintain your lifestyle?

I’ll personally help you reconnect to your purpose and go out and live a life you’ve dreamed of.

Go start a company better than Facebook and hire all the people.


I agree in spirit, but just-leave-now is the wrong remedy. Sorry. There is no rush -- quick outrages, emotional appeals and media frenzy are poor guides for major life decisions.

Do consider leaving if you think it is warranted (personally, I do), but do not rush. Write a short note to yourself on what you want to do and why, then think hard about this at least once a week, but keep going for a month. If in a month this still seems like the way to go, leave (and if not, stay; there is no shame it that).

That way you also build up resolve to stick to your guns if you get a last minute appeal to stay -- this is a lot easier if you thought about your decision for a long time and decided that what you are doing is right for you. My 2c.


Nah, just leave. Tomorrow morning. Unless you need a few days to download a few internal documents that you believe the world should see.

If you work at Facebook, I'm reasonably certain you (including family) won't starve. By delaying you will also risk losing the courage of conviction. Because anger dulls over time.

Delaying also diminishes the effect of leaving, because the causality is no longer obvious. Imagine the power a mass exodus would have! With the significance the workforce has in this sector, it would instantly become the most significant motivation to behave ethically beyond the minimum required by law.


imagine adding this to your resume: 2018: I protest quit my job at facebook because of a comment on hacker news about a news story about a new story. The advice to think important personal decisions through is good.


It’s about much more than a news story..

And you can put whatever you want in your resume. Doesn’t need to say protest quit


Imagine working for Facebook

It's about the bigger picture.


Notice how easy it is tell others what to do.


Wooo encouraging strangers to make impulsive financial/career decisions


Also, if you use facebook, stop. I haven't used facebook in years, and I feel pretty fine. I still have friends; we hang out; we show each other pictures. And, best of all, our communication isn't being injected with ads meant to distract us from communicating with each other. Texting, email, slack, whatsapp (yes, I know), signal, discord, and gchat work pretty well. If you're a user of FB, stop, and their power over you and your friends will begin to evaporate (if that's something you're concerned about)


> whatsapp (yes, I know)

Hold on a sec... what do you mean by this?

How is using WhatsApp or Instagram not essentially the same thing as continuing to use Facebook?


I’m not sure why aside from the fact that end-to-end encryption should make it harder (impossible in theory) for them to read your messages. They still have access to your contacts book, which is kinda scary since some people I know keep Social Security numbers in their contacts.


They don't have to be able to read your messages server-side to pick out keywords client-side and send those unencrypted.

It would still be truthful: all messages are encrypted e2e, but the app on your device parses decrypted messages to "deliver relevant ads".

Also:

>kinda scary since some people I know keep Social Security numbers in their contacts.

That is absolutely terrifying.


> some people I know keep Social Security numbers in their contacts

That's now how this works. That's not how any of this works!


He knows.

I too have deleted FB account long ago but I use Whatsapp. I realize it is much harder to quit Whatsapp than Facebook because I really 'need' whatsapp. But as of now I don't see any strong reason to quit Whatsapp because Facebook isn't using it to show ads in creepy ways.

If only I could persuade my family members and few friends to ditch Whatsapp...


I've been part of moving several hundred people away from WhatsApp so it's definitely doable. (My family was the worst. They're possibly more stubborn than me.)


Where did you move them? I moved a few to Signal, but most complain that their friends aren't on there and the quality isn't quite as good.


Telegram. Maybe I'd chosen something else today but it has served us very well.


But is it though? WhatsApp is an inherently less monetizable platform due to e2e encryption. If all of the people who use Facebook completely switch to WhatsApp the revenue of FB will plummet.


E2E but both ends are Facebook...


How? Isn't it encrypted from the senders device and decrypted at the receivers?


Which both run an app made by Facebook.


The name is different... ;)


Seconded! I "deleted" my account some 5 years ago.

Just to add: I also don't use Whatsapp.

I refuse to touch any property, which is connected in any way with this evil, slimy carbuncle of a company. No matter if I'm slightly inconvenienced in the process.


I posted to my facebook yesterday that I'm deleting my account today. I can be reached in other ways... but yes, with this week's news, my own personal inclination to maintain my FB account has evaporated.


The bigger impact would be to convince everyone you can to stop spending money on their ads, but I have to say it's not easy to do because marketing managers are usually convinced that fb is the web 3.0


>"Also, if you use facebook, stop."

It sounds so easy, but unfortunately it's not feasible in a lot of cases. As an example, my entire social group organizes just about everything through Facebook events.

Monthly music quiz, including signup and updates about subjects and prizes, Christmas/Easter/others lunchs, pre-concert meetups, festival line-up "study group", and all the other various get-togethers. All discussion about these subjects happens in FB groups.

FB Messenger is the IM platform here in Denmark. WhatsApp is a very distant second.

Quitting FB cold turkey would cut me off from a lot of social interaction. Not with my closest friends of course, but with everyone else. And all of my closest friends use FB Messenger exclusively. I've tried getting people to adopt Signal or Slack or just something other than FB, but so far haven't had any success. There's too much friction, and FB has the userbase and appropriate lineup of features.


I feel like at this point, anyone using Facebook still is using it because of their addiction or for business purposes.


I see it as much more like Linkedin - I have to maintain a presence to communicate with a few people, but I don't spend my free time there.


When your product is compared to Linkedin, you’ve gone way off piste.


I occasionally share kid pics with relatives, and keep in touch with the martial arts school I attend. It's a perfectly fine tool for me, but I see how everyone else uses it and it makes me feel slightly sick each time I open it up.


Or because it's still one of the best ways to keep in touch with people, like all the people I'm not close enough with to call (so, almost everyone).


At a certain point in a company's lifecycle, you go from attracting people who are excited by the mission to people who are there for the money. Facebook has long shifted from the first to the second phase. I don't think things that have happened recently will phase most people who work there unless it materially hurts their share price.


Instead of just leaving Facebook (or Google or whatever), they should put pressure on the company they work for and try to make some influence.

If all the `ethically conscious' engineers leave FB (which will not happen), what FB will do is that it just recruit engineers who are less aware of the wrongdoing of FB, who are less likely to challenge a company policy that people consider unethical.

Think of Google and DoD. If those Google employees who opposed the deal all walk away, then Google will just carry on working with DoD and let engineers who don't care if their work will be used to kill people to work on it.

(Using a green account because I don't want the above rant to appear in my main account's posting history.)


The best thing is probably something similar to what people at Google have done, with respect to Project Maven and the China stuff, as well as the recent walk-outs.

If you just leave, nothing changes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/technology/google-pentago...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/technology/google-employe...


Google updated their sexual misconduct policy as a result of employees taking action and speaking out. The policy is a good iteration, but moreover, symbolically it means a great deal for a company of that size to show it listens. I don't work at Google but can only assume that these changes have changed the culture for the better.


If they leave, they'll just be replaced by others who are willing to do what they weren't. The allure of wealth and status is powerful, especially in a time when people are divided into a small group that does extremely well and a much larger one that has to work harder every day just to get by.

The solution for Facebook employees is not to leave, it's to organize. If Facebook employees were organized they'd have power, and then they could use that power to force management to stop running the company in ways that make them ashamed to tell people they work there.


If they leave, they'll just be replaced by others who are willing to do what they weren't.

Which, alas, may not be the best and the brightest.


"The graveyards are full of people the world could not do without." -- Elbert Hubbard


Leaving is strictly better that organising, because at a first approximation they could just make you leave if it were different. Which they would never do.

The argument about others just replacing you is, of course, best known from chess, where it's called the "German Defense" and consists of everyone pretending they are just pawns.

Practically, there is also the almost tautological fact that whatever replacement can be found is second-best (if that). With these tech giants essentially hiring everyone that meets requirements, 20% of tech workers taking a stand will effectively mean a reduction of their workforce by the same amount, unless they are willing to lower standards.


Future interview question for a company with a mission statement it takes seriously: "I see that you worked at fb from 2018 on. Tell me about your broader career goals and how that fits into them."

If employers publicized such questions now, it could discount the future value of having worked at fb.


Why don't you start with removing the Facebook share button on your website?


You hit the nail on the head. It's super easy to attack employees of these corporations when people won't even evaluate their decisions.

If you were to evaluate each of the big companies, most of them have done some really shady stuff to get a leg up.


Which website? Happy to.

(Many of the websites out there I’ve created are legacy or not longer maintained by me.)


The one you reference in your HN profile.


Changed the link in my HN profile, will remove The share button when that site is redone. Thanks!


I have a couple friends who work there. As far as I can tell they're not interested in all the political news about Facebook and are probably not aware of most of it. Their attitudes are typically "if the management messes up, but I'm just building cool useful tools, I'm not part of the problem". And honestly, I kinda sympathize. Facebook can be a shitty company regardless of whether they're also building good infrastructure.


I definitely don’t/can’t sympathize with those people. It’s about personal responsibility, and they’ve found a lovely modern way to say “I was just following orders.”


They're not the ones deciding, nor the ones carrying out unethical actions. Employees working on technical infrastructure are not even enabling censorship or fake news, that's been possible on any centralized social media site forever. I don't see how "I was just following orders" even applies here.


Anyone intelligent enough to be building these tools should have a good idea of how it can be misused. It’s not like Facebook has a solid history of doing the right thing.


I know I'm being extreme her but just playing devil advocate here for a second and responding to your question regarding acceptance amount:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials

If you read it carefully you can see each one of them never truly felt they are at any blame till their last breadth. If as humanity some of us could be put in charge of putting fellow humans through gas chambers and treat it as "just another job", then I doubt some engineer at Facebook coding all day would have a guilty conscience.

Edit: I stand corrected - only FEW of these felt like they were at any fault at all.


"...each one of them never truly felt they are at any blame till their last breadth"

That's not accurate, even based on the link that you provided. That page explicitly states that 5 of the 24 in that table "expressed repentance" in the notes.


It's pretty clear at this point that if you still work for Facebook you don't care whether they do evil or not and, if you do, the money trumps your morals.


i try to be respectful but this is some bs virtue signaling devoid of any nuance and steeped in economic privilege that you were likely fortunate enough to grow up with. you have no right to look down on people working a job you perceive as morally dubious for money. and you seem to think that every job at fb is about glueing eyes to ads. what about people who work on cybersecurity, or counterterrorism, or combating child exploitation? there are thousands of positions where you make measurably good impact on the world.

EDIT: you certainly can look down on people for whatever, i just don't think it's justified in this case.


People working at Facebook are the ones who are economically privileged


With all due respect, you have absolutely no reason to speak to anyone like this. Phrases like "bs virtue signalling" are not only rude, but they make it extremely hard to engage with you. Part of engaging in dialogue is accepting that people are free to believe whatever they want.


we are engaging fine, it's ok. i removed the harsher wording that was admittedly knee-jerk, although "bs virtue signaling" is still a bit rough around the edges


If you can get hired at Facebook you can get hired anywhere. Seriously.


that's true, there are other opportunities, but i don't think it's fair to make a blanket character assessment of these people just because of the organization they work for.

in a similar vein, i wouldn't condemn someone who works at Exxon building analytics software, or engineering some rig valve, but i WOULD condemn someone who works there with the responsibility of absolving oil & gas from any responsibility for climate change.

is my position wrong? honestly im a bit unsure if it makes any sense.


If you vehemently disagree with the core business of a company and you can easily find an equivalent job at a better company, why does your position in that company have any impact on your decision to work for that company? How is building analytics software for Exxon to help them produce oil any better than a lawyer who works to ensure they can continue producing oil? As the engineer, you know your company is "working to absolve the industry from any responsibility for climate change" You know that's wrong but you can dismiss your responsibility in helping them grow and be successful? This is just lying to yourself.


yeah, i think you're right, particularly with this example. the position i gave of analytics software was a bit contrived and off the mark for the point i was trying to make. a better example would be, "engineer whose job it is to reduce the deleterious effects of burning oil on the environment" or something like that, which is more analogous to the position of trying to remove harmful content at fb


I bet there were Nazi's whose jobs were to feed the poor in Berlin. Doesn't immunize them from what the rest of them were doing.


yeah that's not a false equivalence or anything


You could probably say that about 90% of the people in the Bay Area.


Could be a way to advertise that you like collecting money for dubious causes.


Yess. Please leave. More job openings for me.


Not at fb, but if this is a genuine call to promote disruption via career activisim, its heartwarming. That said, i feel like it may merely delay some timelines as tje queue for working there is large


The queue is large, but the number of engineers capable of working competently at Facebook's scale is not. They already had a code quality issue when I was there (briefly, leaving for reasons of conscience) - the site will fall down and never recover if they have to replace the right 10% of their engineers.


Always found the obsession about Soros odd, how can one guy be at the root of everything wrong in the world, like a comic-book super-villain? Just because he donates to some political causes, like most billionaires?



Soros represents everything that is wrong with wall street (so certain people on the left hate him), but he also is known to support democratic candidates so people on the right hate him.

The guy manufactured the 1997 asian financial crisis.



Soros is the equivalent to the Koch brothers. The older I get the more I realize the Left and the Right are the same damn people.


Soros and the Kochs both function as bogeymen, that's true.

It's also true that both are engaged in various forms of activism.

What their goals are seem to be different, though, and as far as I can tell, though, it's more frequently true that the Kochs are actually doing the things "the Left" calls out than it is that George Soros is actually doing the things that "the Right" calls out. So it's possible there are important differences between the two that "the same damn people" papers over.


This is an oft-repeated platitude that doesn't really say much. What does it mean for them to be the same? Objectively, we can state that "the left" and "the right" have completely different policy objectives, so in the context of politics, how do we reconcile "being the same" with "supporting totally different government policies"?


Except I'm pretty sure most people on the left understand that Soros is unquestionably an economic terrorist that collapsed the economy of Thailand and the larger 1997 asian financial crisis, and also profited by breaking the bank of England.

The right is far less concerned with the actions of the Koch brothers who are massive polluters due to their work around oil.


In my experience, the vast majority of people on the left (and on the right for that matter) don't know much about Soros besides "a rich guy that donates to democrats".


It's a fight over who gets to steal the pie this year, sure. But, there are second order effects.


Propaganda. Soros fear was manufactured in response to (very legitimate) concerns about the Kochs’ influence on US politics. The right needed their own boogeyman and so they blew up Soros far out of proportion to his actual influence.


they really are. Almost everything in the left or right has its mirror in the other side. This is why I think it's so unproductive/harmful when we move further from compromise and closer to a partisan divide - neither side wants to balance the priorities between their interest groups and the other side's, as you would do in a healthy society.


There's a big difference in that Soros spends his money on causes, as an actual food for hungry people and actual teachers to teach actual students. Whereas the Kochs are far more focussed on US domestic politics.

Soros has become somewhat more active since 2016, but he's quite upset that it has come so far that his values need defending in the US, and that there are billions wasted in zero-sum political campaigns.


It's been mentioned elsewhere in the comments here that the Koch bros also spend money on actual causes.


> There's a big difference in that Soros spends his money on causes, as an actual food for hungry people and actual teachers to teach actual students. Whereas the Kochs are far more focussed on US domestic politics.

"Let me short US dollars and fund those that promote economic policies that would lead to the collapse of the currency"


Right-wing people have decided that George Soros is a proxy / representative for "globalism" (an anti-semitic dog-whistle). When people are angry at Soros, it is a dog-whistle for prejudice / hatred against Jewish people. It's not obvious that this is the case to people outside of right-wing groups, which is why it gets so much unexplained press.


If you read the original New York Times article [1], part of this strategy was actually Facebook attempting to smear anti-Facebook demonstrators as being anti-Semitic when they clearly weren't. (So, they're accusing Facebook critics of anti-Semitism while simultaneously paying people to criticize Soros.) Facebook is playing all sides here with one goal: to suppress criticism and anti-Facebook demonstrations.

That said, it's disingenuous to insist all criticism of Soros is from anti-Semites. While many people on the right do believe lots of absurd conspiracy theories about Soros, I believe only a small percentage of those people are anti-Semites or intend any anti-Semitic undertones in their criticism. Mention of Soros is definitely an anti-Semitic dog whistle for alt-right/far-right people, but it's not for a lot of other people who are right-adjacent. The majority of conservatives who complain about Soros probably aren't anti-Semites; I bet you'd find massive overlap with support for Israel, for example.

It is certainly possible that some of the conspiracy theories originate from anti-Semitic sources, but as they trickle down to the general public, you'll see that most conservatives basically just consider Soros the left-wing version of the Koch brothers - a billionaire who's funding everything they dislike. Which isn't wrong, to an extent.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-data-...


I don't think it's productive to declare everything secretly racist, sexist, or whatever else. Soros and his Open Society Foundations are the most visible representation of globalism today. But this has nothing to do with him being Jewish and in fact his political views are not even in line with those of Israel which tends to hold a more Zionistic and consequently nationalistic view.

As an example of the disconnect there, consider the influx of individuals trying to claim refugee status in Israel and Israel's reactions [1], against what Israeli media openly declares "infiltrators". Israel's actions here have drawn the ire of groups directly supported by Soros' organizations. The point is that just because a Jewish man happens to be one of the most well known names associated with globalism hardly means that globalism is now suddenly a secret word for Jew. It doesn't even make any sense.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_from_Afric...


Or, you know, people can be genuinely against global centralization and not have anything to do with anti-semitism. In my view, the attempt at linking anti-globalist views to anti-semitism is just an ad hominem attack.


Is Soros supporting "global centralization?" Or is that more misinformation? Also that term is a bit vague for me, not sure I understand all the implications.


Maybe thats true of some alt-right factions (like the white nationalist types).

Typical republican conservatives tend to be the opposite of antisemitic. They are very pro Israel, for instance. They are the people who might applaud Trump for moving the US embassy to Jerusalem.

There's a twinge of antisemitism that creeps in on the fringes of the left too, also stemming from Israel (and its conflict with the Palestinians).


but jews DO make up a majority of the top 1%. it doesn't have to be hatred against jewish people. its just talking about the facts. sounds like textbook social justice.

I don't agree with it, but i see the hypocrisy in being able to talk about whites (who make up the majority of the top 10%), but not the jews (who make up a majority of the top 1%).

I'm in the camp that recognizes success, but seeks to be associated with it and emulate it rather than "dog-whistle" as you say (I work at a jewish company)


Wtf is a jewish company? Get your head on straight dude. This is the type of hatred where you misattribute your boss' success to their "otherness" which makes anti-semitism so elusive. Re-evaluate.


Sorry for responding late but my company gets all the Jewish holidays off and most of the leaders are Jewish. We even work half days on Friday in preparation for sabbath. There’s no hatred or “anti” anything. Quite the opposite.


You may have worded that incorrectly. A majority of the 1% are most certainly not jews.


I'm simply explaining a cultural phenomenon (the name "George Soros" being a hidden proxy for "Jewish people" in hate circles), not ascribing that it is Right or A Good Thing For Society.


Just to add, when you say "right wing" you really mean "half-insane Neonazi alt-righters." There are plenty of people who consider themselves "right wing" that don't buy into this nonsense.


Nah. With the exception of Trump support, I agree that the "alt-right" is not the as "the right" (hence the titular "alt"), but the Soros nonsense has been a right-wing staple long before the alt-right came along, they were saying the same things about him back in the Bush years.


I consider "right wing" to be the same term, but I also agree with you that there are plenty of people who have conservative views (fiscally or otherwise) who have nothing to do with this


Soros is not a proxy for 'the jews'. You are derailing the argument yelling racisim with no proof. Citation?


Soros is the largest single donor on the left and so tends to symbolise such donors to his right wing opponents.


People need simple answers.


I spent the last two years reflecting on FB (was an early employee in social media), and put some reflections on the bubble at Facebook:

https://www.nemil.com/tdf/part1-employees.html

Management will laud what employees do, show them selective facts that justify their views, and hire/promote those who behave similarly to them. Employees in isolated teams with training in a single function may not realize the broad, unintended effects of their company's work. They'll assume the best of their friends and coworkers, without inquiring into the larger effects they're having.


Interesting difference in opinions between this thread and this recent post about FB needing to censor it's platform: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18458938

Not sure why the surprise. Pretty obvious that FB (and all other entities) will use it's power only to advance its own interests.

> People just submitted it. I don't know why. They "trust me" Dumb fucks.

- Mark Zuckerberg


Just like the last election, they literally played both sides of this. For thoose of you who don't know, Soros is a the Koch boogyman of the alt-right, and the frequent conspiracy charges against him start with the fact that he is Jewish.

"Facebook employed a Republican opposition-research firm to discredit activist protesters, in part by linking them to the liberal financier George Soros. It also tapped its business relationships, lobbying a Jewish civil rights group to cast some criticism of the company as anti-Semitic.

In Washington, allies of Facebook, including Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, intervened on its behalf. And Ms. Sandberg wooed or cajoled hostile lawmakers, while trying to dispel Facebook’s reputation as a bastion of Bay Area liberalism."

In other words, they hired someone to make racist claims, and then hired someone to call anyone who criticized facebook racists. Then they got engaged with political groups on both sides, to play into stereotypes.

This is literally the tactics that Putin used in the last election. I wonder who he got it from


So, were the critics connected to Open Society Foundation on any other Soros controlled organisation?

Also, describing him as a philanthropist and not mentioning his shady businesses like causing "Black Wednesday" or what he did to Thailand is... curious.

And the fact he's Jewish doesn't make looking into his actions racist.


this is embarassing


Has any George Soros conspiracy theory ever panned out? Hearing his name come up is a bright red flag that the person you're talking to has had his brain poisoned by right wing nutjobs.


Read pre 2016 articles on OSF. It will give a more accurate image on what they do (not saying I agree with all their actions, but a lot of the 'conspiracy theory' stuff won't have been circulated)

That being said, I have no sympathy for billionaires who act in an activist way (be that right or left leaning)


There's a reason why George Soros is singled out among liberal billionaires by certain right wing groups, and it certainly isn't evidence.


I assume you mean singled out by Russian trolls because of Putin's dislike for him?


I believe the parent is referencing anti-semitism


No. It's a tradition far older than that.


If that were true, why George Soros and not other liberal jewish billionaires, who no doubt exist? I think it's absurd to state that he's not being singled out due to his political activities.


Well, first of all, something like antisemitism doesn't have to be self-consistent to be a thing. Second of all, actually, other Jewish billionaires are also targeted: https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/28/politics/tom-steyer-mccarthy-...

I don't understand what you're so skeptical about. What is the standard of evidence for antisemitism you're seeking? I'm not going to find many mainstream adherents to Soros conspiracy theories that are going to flat-out admit it, am I?


> I don't understand what you're so skeptical about. What is the standard of evidence for antisemitism you're seeking?

I suppose a good counter example would be liberal jewish billionaires being attacked despite not contributing to liberal philanthropic endeavors. Or non-jewish liberal billionaire philanthropists NOT being attacked despite contributing on the same scale as George Soros.

I'm just saying that the "George Soros is only being targeted because he's jewish" argument is a shitty cop out.


> I'm just saying that the "George Soros is only being targeted because he's jewish" argument is a shitty cop out.

You are moving the goalposts. You first asked why only Soros was being targeted and not other liberal, Jewish billionaires. That was proven false (Bloomberg, Steyer also targeted) and now you are trying out a new line of reasoning that is just as thin.


> You are moving the goalposts. You first asked why only Soros was being targeted and not other liberal, Jewish billionaires.

How I am moving the goalposts? The initial comment I replied to was "There's a reason why George Soros is singled out among liberal billionaires by certain right wing groups, and it certainly isn't evidence.", which I think I correctly interpreted as claiming that Soros was only being targeted for being jewish.

> That was proven false (Bloomberg, Steyer also targeted)

I've never heard of this Steyer guy, I know Bloomberg and I'm not aware that he's banned from Hungary, or that he has a dedicated wikipedia page to "Bloomberg conspiracy theories", so I don't think he can be remotely compared to Soros.

So yeah I don't know what you're talking about, honestly.


Here's your quote I responded to:

"why George Soros and not other liberal jewish billionaires, who no doubt exist?"

Evidence was provided to prove that other liberal Jewish billionaires have, in fact, been targeted.

> I've never heard of this Steyer guy, I know Bloomberg and I'm not aware that he's banned from Hungary, or that he has a dedicated wikipedia page to "Bloomberg conspiracy theories", so I don't think he can be remotely compared to Soros.

This is more goalpost moving. Nobody claimed they were targeted more than Soros or that you knew who they were. None of that changes the fact that they are liberal, Jewish billionaires who have been targeted. This is the criteria you created.


> Or non-jewish liberal billionaire philanthropists NOT being attacked despite contributing on the same scale as George Soros.

Bill Gates.


> why George Soros and not other liberal jewish billionaire

Haha, the Rothchild family would like a word about 'not being targeted'. The term "international bankers" is of course, famously, anti-semitic loon code for "jewish illuminanti".

If you think Soros is only singled out for his political views, the Soros-obsessed nut who just shot up a synagogue might also have a word with you.


I'm sure it helps if Putin has a personal antipathy for Soros, but the latter has been a go-to punching bag for conspiratorially minded right wingers for decades - easily predating the modern incarnations of Russian troll farms.


Dunno about conspiracy theories but he's certainly a political enemy of the right wing nutjobs.


[flagged]


> He said he would give $500 million to fund migration and he has also gone into a deal with MasterCard to give migrants cards they can use for cash on their journeys. Not a conspiracy theory.

The conspiracy is in pushing the narrative that people are being paid to migrate.

The money he committed is not "to fund migration". It is to help alleviate the effects of what he calls a global crisis of forced migration. Your characterization makes it sound like he is bankrolling and encouraging it, but instead he's focused on helping those forced to leave their countries for reasons like violence and/or extreme poverty. There is nothing wrong with trying to help those who need it most, and helping them integrate is beneficial for the host countries as well.

This is from your link:

> In response, I have decided to earmark $500 million for investments that specifically address the needs of migrants, refugees and host communities. I will invest in startups, established companies, social-impact initiatives and businesses founded by migrants and refugees themselves. Although my main concern is to help migrants and refugees arriving in Europe, I will be looking for good investment ideas that will benefit migrants all over the world.

As for the MasterCard claim, as another poster pointed out, there is no evidence for it.


Politifact says no on the Mastercard claims.

https://www.politifact.com/facebook-fact-checks/statements/2...


Since when is Politifact a credible source on HN?


The conspiracy theory is he is funding the migrant caravan, not that he has "earmark $500 million for investments that specifically address the needs of migrants, refugees and host communities."


Apparently his greatest sin is being an humanitarian?


[flagged]


How is this naive?

He's giving to people fleeing terror with literally nothing.


He was once a person fleeting terror with literally nothing.

Clearly wanting to help out others in the same situation is a crime against humanity.


The overwhelming majority of migration into Europe is not due to any war or terror. It is economic migration primarily from sub-Saharan Africa which is why you comparatively see so few women and children among the migrants.


Crazy how many "sub-Saharan Africans" take the scenic route via the Middle East and Turkey/Greece - it's almost as if they are middle Easterners fleeing war and terror.

> The overwhelming majority of migration into Europe is not due to any war or terror

Wrong[1]

> you comparatively see so few women and children among the migrants.

Wrong, again - there are many women [2] [3] and children [4] [5] [6] migrants, even though it's traveling long distances on foot is risky and more suited to healthy (young) adults.

1. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/26/boko-haram-nig...

2. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/01/migrants-more-p...

3. https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/21/world/italy-nigeria-sex-traff...

4. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/aylan-kurdis...

5. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/refugee-cris...

6. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/26/boy-symbol-spa...


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>When you start putting the pieces together, it all makes sense.

Ah yes, the exceedingly more common dog whistle for “I have no idea what I’m talking about, and I have no claims to back up my bullshit, but if you do the research for me it will prove me right”


Why is it that "truth seekers" are the ones with their shirts and tongues stained purple from how much Alex Jones-type Kool-Aid they've been chugging?

"Putting together the pieces" means "type into Google the wild, completely unhinged conspiracy theory you have and watch Google try fill in the blanks by surfacing the hare-brained detritus it's carefully indexed".


This type of innuendo has no place here. Either say what you want to say or keep it to yourself.


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> just to have it flagged in a few minutes?

Why do you assume a long, well-referenced comment would be flagged? What has your 1 day of experience on HN shown you to make that assumption?

> They way I've written it is more than enough to convey what I mean.

Maybe in your world, but not for me (and I suspect many others). It seems like you are apprehensive to say what you actually mean for some reason.


He's the left wing Koch bros.


You... do realise that this article says that George Soros really IS funding Facebook's critics, right?

> Color of Change is a not-for-profit civil rights organization. It receives some money from Soros

It's remarkably bold to suggest that every "conspiracy theory" about Soros is nonsense in response to an article that explicitly says that the claims his critics made about him were true.


Soros donated some amount to a PAC that advocates for minority rights, and this means he hates Facebook. Got it. I'm sure he's in their offices every week telling them how to attack Zuckerburg.

He is definitely not a fan of the way social media turns people's lives into a product to be sold on the open market, but that doesn't mean you can ignore criticism of said social media companies.

But the narrative that Facebook's PR firm is pushing is that you should ignore criticism of Facebook because it's just George Soros pulling the strings. It's a dog whistle.


> he hates Facebook

> he's in their offices every week telling them how to attack Zuckerburg

> you should ignore criticism of Facebook because it's just George Soros pulling the strings

I didn't say any of these things, nor does this Guardian article quote Facebook or their PR company as having ever, at any point in history, said anything that even implies a single one of these positions. Either you have some other source, in which case I invite you to share it, or you are criticizing a perspective entirely of your own invention.

> advocates for minority rights

> social media turns people's lives into a product to be sold on the open market

None of this has anything to do with my comment.


What's the conspiracy theory then?


That George Soros funded critics of Facebook.

Or at least, that's what I interpreted the parent comment that I originally replied to as characterizing as a "conspiracy theory". I didn't see what else it could mean given that that (according to the article, true) claim is literally the only claim about Soros that the article says Facebook's PR company made.


shady spin issues aside -

because some people criticize george soros for antisemitic reasons, automatically all criticism of george soros is antisemitic?

then again this opinion is from ADL which states that anti zionism is automatically anti semitism (effectively calling huge numbers of hassidic jews anti semitic)

oops, i criticized. must be a nazi.


What is the deal with George Soros anyway and why is he such a bogey man to the far right?


The same reason the Kochs are the boogeymen of the left (not even the far left. Pelosi and others attended a conspiracy movie about the Kochs, and they have been chastised in the Will Ferrel movie "The Campaign." Not to mention how they were accused of things from Maddow & co back in 2009.)

People need a boogeyman because the real world is far too complex to comprehend, so having puppeteering bad guys is easier to deal with than reality of people actually having genuine beliefs that you don't agree with.

There definitely is some Antisemitism, though I don't think that's the main driver, the left also chastises Sheldon Adelson, who is also jewish.


Except George Soros, and the Koch brothers are absolutely corrupt individuals who exert political influence to insure they don't get in trouble as they incite turmoil (both economic and environmental) around the world for their personal profit. Namely, Koch's being the owners of one of the largest oil companies, and Soros engaging in economic terrorism in south east asia.


This is a false equivalence. The Kochs are blamed by the left for the vast amount they spend in politics, which is something they actually do. The right blames Soros for insanity, like funding a migrant caravan from South American, or for funding crisis actors to pretend school shootings are happening. That's insanity. There's a clear difference here.


The only clear thing is your bias. People on the left also blame Kochs for insane consipiracies and people on the right criticize Soros for the money he spends on politics.

Which you get exposed to depends on your echo chamber. Echo chambers don't share the rational arguments of their opposition because nobody wants to think the outgroup has a point.


I'm always willing to hear outside opinions. I try to consume a variety of news sources. The reason I can so easily cite insanity coming from the right is because a man was moved to kill almost a dozen people just two weeks ago because of his ideas about Soros funding a caravan. That's not really something I picked up "in my echo chamber". Can you point to anything from the left even approaching that kind of level of insanity?


Man shooting up a baseball game of Republican congressmen while screaming "this is for healthcare!"


I'm not saying the there aren't nuts on both sides. Of course there are. This was about conspiracy theories. That some people in government are trying to take away healthcare isn't a conspiracy. That the Koch brothers are funding politicians who are trying to take away healthcare isn't insane.

That George Soros is funding a migrant caravan of invaders is a conspiracy theory. This theory was amplified by both the President and Fox News, so it's hard to claim it's not even a mainstream theory.


>Can you point to anything from the left even approaching that kind of level of insanity?

Unfortunately their go to right now, and probably for the next x number of years, is the guy who shot up the Republican baseball game. No doubt there are extremists on both sides, one side just seems to have way more


I don't know why you'd characterize that shooter as "the right". He really hated Trump. He was a socialist.

There are a lot of these cases, where a violent person is unjustly tagged as "the right".

When someone can't be crammed into that mold, they are dropped from the news. A prime example is the youtube office shooter, who was a female muslim immigrant. As soon as the demographics became clear, the news dropped the story like a hot potato.


I mean, if she shot up youtube because she got worked up by another alt-right 4chan conspiracy theory, then you'd have a point. But she wasn't, she was upset youtube wasn't paying her enough.


The point is that any violent person unable to be portrayed as "the right" is quickly dropped by the news. The shooting was on the way to being the big news story of the month... and then suddenly dropped out of the news entirely. This creates a bias in the news: all the memorable violent people are on the right because the non-right ones are dropped from news coverage.

Basically, the news wants an attacker who looks like their stereotype of an NRA member and/or Trump supporter. Anybody else is not deemed newsworthy.


Whether or not he hated Trump, he believed that Soros was funding a migrant caravan of invaders, a lie that both Trump and Fox News was pushing constantly, and continued to push even after the shooting. He didn't get those ideas from out of thin air. He got them from the right wing party establishment.


So, I'm curious, who exactly do you think is funding them?

That trip is not free.

Soros certainly has a history of funding exactly that sort of thing. For example, he paid to have boats pick people up right off the coast of Libya and take them to Italy. It would not be the slightest bit surprising for Soros to fund a mob of thousands to invade the USA.

If not Soros, then who? (and who paid that group, and who paid the payers... and does it not lead back to Soros?)


"If not Soros, then who?"

This sounds like if one cannot pinpoint the supposed funder (and prove that they act alone), then you'll feel free to assume it is Soros? This is nonsense.


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Obama singled out the Kochs in 2015. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/08/26/war-...

Pelosi and Reid attended a conspiracy movie about the Kochs in 2014 https://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/harry-reid-nancy-pelo...

Funny how we forget. I don't deny Trump is the loudest, he is Trump after all. But I could pull up Maddow, Moyers, etc episodes about the Kochs that are similar to how Tucker, Hannity etc have treated Soros. Trump has also attacked the Kochs (as has Tucker, Brietbart, etc,) fwiw. The Kochs are for DACA, for example.

The simple fact is, none of these men (the Kochs or Soros) are "evil," they believe in what they believe and they put their money towards it. Simple as that. And because of that they are boogeymen to each side; since somehow each side thinks they (Soros & the Kochs) have some huge influenced...and having worked in DC circles myself and having various friends that have worked on the Hill...that's just totally false. They all WISH they had that power, and honestly if they did the world would probably be a lot simpler.

Real politics is a lot more like Veep than it is House of Cards. That's not as thrilling as people want, but it's the truth.


> The simple fact is, none of these men (the Kochs or Soros) are "evil," they believe in what they believe and they put their money towards it. Simple as that.

It's one thing for Obama allege the Koch brothers are spending millions to advance an agenda in Congress. It's quite another for Trump to allege George Soros is funding a migrant caravan containing elements of terrorists, gang members, smallpox, and leprosy to invade the US southern border. That's why I'm saying its a false equivalence.


I never said those were equivalent. But in terms of being boogeymen, they are. Read any article about the Kochs from the left, and you'd think they were planning the 4th Reich. And the fact that this belief is extremely popular on the left, and that very mainstream outlets perpetuate this shows how widespread it is.

In fact many in this VERY thread are claiming that the Kochs are actually evil people, something you'd see scrawled in the comment section of Breitbart but in regards to Soros...and we're on Hacker News, a place of generally intellectual people.


I agree, but you do a disservice to the argument when you make blanket conclusions without elaboration or evidence.


the left also chastises Sheldon Adelson, who is also jewish.

I'm trying to connect this with the words preceding it. Do you think the left chastises Adelson for anti-Semitic reasons?


Apparently, if you decide to oppose someone and that person happens to be Jewish, then yes, you are now anti-semitic.


In some cases, maybe, I do think anti-Semitism is bipartisan. But I don't think it's the driving factor for either the left or right (in the US,) that's more of the fringe. I would be willing to bet most people who know of Soros and don't like him, have no clue he's jewish.


he's rich and Jewish (yes, I'm implying antisemitism) and had a major hand in a (legal) monetary speculation that produced a currency crisis in the UK and since then conspiracy theorists of all sorts think he's the mastermind behind the world's economy and all kinds of nefarious plots.


had a major hand in a (legal) monetary speculation that produced a currency crisis in the UK

He did not produce the crisis. He observed, rightly, that the pound was massively overvalued and that this was not sustainable.

He bet the bank on this fact and won.

He certainly didn't produce the crisis.


Yep. And it’s worth pointing out in the wake of the 2008 recession, Peter Thiel made a similar bet against the US dollar and lost.


Nonsense. If antisemitism played a significant role, Ben Shapiro wouldn't be the darling of the right. For example.

Soros would be the boogyman regardless, it comes down to the fact that he's pouring tons of money into political causes. Like the Koch brothers do on the other side. It's simple. No need to add additional theories.


Ben Shapiro’s facile arguments appeal mostly to younger, inexperienced politic fans and the right needs all of the youthful fervor they can muster. I am sure this has something to do with their embracing of Shapiro. He has followers.


I'm no fan of the right, but saying that Shapiro's arguments are facile is being intentionally blind to reality. There are not many who are better at debate and making strong arguments. He's one of the best and probably the best on the right.

At his events he asks the audience to disagree with him. He gets excited when a guest disagrees with him. He'll also call them out when they say something that can't be backed up. He's constantly sharpening his positions.

If you can make better arguments, then you should start doing so. Seriously. Because not many can.


> if you pay tuition, you're sponsoring the militant homosexual agenda. If you pay taxes, you're sponsoring the militant homosexual agenda. If your child majors in English, you're sponsoring the militant homosexual agenda. Tell Billy to major in math

- Ben Shapiro.

> Israelis like to build. Arabs like to bomb crap and live in open sewage. This is not a difficult issue. #settlementsrock

- Ben Shapiro.

> Renewable energy: dumbest phrase since climate change. See the first law of thermodynamics, dumbass. #tcot #teaparty

- Ben Shapiro.


Replace 'Ben Shapiro' with any political name and 'right' with the appropriate leaning and your comment carries as much weight applied to anyone.


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Aparently only straight white Christian men are allowed to be advocates for free markets — otherwise you’re called an Uncle Tom.

This is incredibly offensive and is itself racist.


> he's rich and Jewish

i find this amusing. some of the right (those who aren't pro-israel) DO believe in social justice when it applies jews (who do in fact make up a majority of the top 1%), and the left believes in social justice when it applies to whites.

you should at least be able to discuss both sides without "racist!", "cuck!", or in this case, "antisemitism!". I don't use any social media so maybe there's something i'm not picking up on.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Society_Foundations

In particular, OSF backed the pro-Western side in Ukraine. This has resulted in a well-funded disinformation campaign against it and him by Russia.


waitwait, i thought this was 100% popular and no foreign intervention was happening on either side, except of course for evil putler who is clearly a spawn of satan and attempting to control the whole world


I've never seen a clear explanation of the right's grievances regarding Soros, but what I can put together contextually is that he is a wealthy source of finance or power brokerage for political action involving anything left of far-right. There is also a deep, non-explicit anti-semitic tinge to it all as well.

However everything I have heard him about his didn't come from credible sources. I've honestly wondered for a long time as well.


His short of the UK pound was used by a lot of talk radio nutcases to link him to various conspiracy theories (rothchilds, elders of Zion, etc). Many of the modern internet provocateurs seem to have been raised on a steady diet of late night talk radio.

The key thing about those sorts of things is that the lack of evidence is itself evidence of the grand conspiracy.


Because exploiting anti-semitism for political gain has a reliable historical track record, and for modern anti-semites he is the new face of the protocols of the elders of zion.


He's Jewish and a billionaire.


But aren't most pro-Israel groups conservative?


They're pro-Israel because they're pro-apocalypse, not because they like Jewish people.


This is an interesting and strange viewpoint I have never heard before. Might you elaborate?



Ah, that is an interesting idea, and worthy of more study.

I had always understood the Christian basis of friendship with the people of Israel was from Genesis 12:3, which suggests that those who "bless" the children of Abraham would be blessed.


I don't know much about it, but I think there's an old Christian prophecy about Jews dominating the Holy Land as one of several omens preceding the actual Apocalypse, the Second Coming of Christ. People who want the Apocalypse would presumably support Israel because if Jews lose control of the Holy Land, then we're not there yet.


it's true, i'm trying to remember. there's a couple things in the bible about Jews and some temples and some other things, that once built or once the right people have control then that marks the beginning of the second coming. ...something like that, i left Christianity a long time ago.


That must be why he’s been condemned by such noted antisemites as the Israeli foreign ministry...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-hungary-soros/isra...


Are you saying that it is physically impossible for the Israeli government to collaborate with antisemites?


Well I think most people would find it curious for the jewish state to be antisemitic. At that point I think we should then officially redefine antisemitism to the meaning it seems to have acquired today, which is any criticism or negative comment aimed at a person of jewish descent.


Money and power have a way of seeing past such trivialities as prejudice and/or principles.


Case in point: Zuckerberg and Sandberg


Netanyahu has denied (that the Nazis instigated) the Holocost.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/netanyahu-absolves-hitle...


So is Zuckerberg.


In addition to other comments nearby: He has been an intellectual leader of the movement to integrate and democratize Europe, and he has been hawkish on Putin's intentions. You can read for yourself: he has written a bunch of articles at nybooks.com (e.g., https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/10/08/ukraine-europe-w...)


Because he funds tons of leftist causes. Sort of like how the Koch Brothers are the left's boogeymen.


Exactly. Billionaire’s funding political organizations are only bad if they don’t support your side.


I'd make a clear distinction b/t liberal causes and leftist ones. Soros is a very wealthy capitalist and he's not funding anything that would upset that order.


It's one thing to fund "leftist causes" that promote social good. It's another to fund climate change denial groups so you can mine more coal and build more coal plants and utterly destroy everything in the interests of making a few more bucks.


The Times actually did a great writeup on this exact thing recently: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/31/us/politics/george-soros-...


He's funding a lot of pro-migration and pro-open borders groups


Are there any groups that are actually in favor of “open borders”? It seems like that term has become co-opted to mean any border enforcement that’s anything short of what the extremists want.


The UN for instance supports open borders. This is obvious if you look at the views of those involved. The former director of the IOM was recently very involved in the UN migration compact. There's an interview with him on YouTube somewhere from the past year where he openly admits that he strongly supports mass migration into Europe, calling it "inevitable". Europeans are funding immigrantion into their countries, whether they like it or not.


I skimmed the UN migration compact and don’t see anything like “open borders” in it. It explicitly states, “We commit to manage our national borders in a coordinated manner, promoting bilateral and regional cooperation, ensuring security for States, communities and migrants, and facilitating safe and regular cross-border movements of people while preventing irregular migration.”


The compact itself is ideological babble. Carefully listen to this interview and his views:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88KuVlYFXsI

This guy was in many UN meetings in relation to the compact. If you watch the interview, his view is that Europe has colonized many places, so it only makes sense that Europe now open its borders. He specifically states in the interview he has no concern for nationalists or those who worry about mass migration. He says that they need to drive the fear of mass migration out of the people of Europe through public education programs. He says that it's a matter of people's viewpoints needing to change. He's very much pro-immigration. The view that mass migration into Europe is inevitable, and that the UN and its surrounding organisations need to facilitate that and make it "safe, orderly and regular", is widespread among the people writing and setting up these documents and allocating the money the UN and it's partner organisations spend. That's why I said, Europeans are funding the welfare behind the facilitation of mass migration into their countries. If you want to find out more, consider documents like these and their supporting studies. It is also largely filled with ideological babble, which is why I am less than optimistic about mass immigration and the supposed integrated Utopia that is supposed to arise from that:

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/theme...

We've seen how well integration works in Britain and Sweden...


I watched it. I didn't hear anything about open borders in there. He talked a lot about accepting refugees, which has been a standard part of international law for decades now, but that is very much not the same thing.

The part about how Europe colonized many places was just a description of how Europe itself was fairly insulated from the rest of the world for a long time, which can make it hard to suddenly start accepting a lot of people from elsewhere because it's a big change. There was nothing at all about this meaning Europe should open its borders.


> pro-open borders groups

Can you provide a link/source for these groups?


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I don't trust Breitbart to do factual reporting (based on their extensive history of false reporting) and this report from May 2016 shows nothing about a caravan in November 2018.

Even if it was related, this report says nothing about open borders. As I understand the migrants are looking for asylum, which is an extensive process with a low success rate. How is that "open borders"?


Puebla sin Fronteras, for one. Their name literally means no borders.


He does not advocate "open borders". He does humanitarian aid for refugees. In Europe, he supports many pro-European groups. That means open borders by extension, because the EU has abolished borders. But it's not a specific goal of his to increase migration.

The "Open" in "Open Society Foundation" also has nothing to do with "Open Borders". A open society is defined by freedom of speech, equality before the law, high social mobility, more interested in trying new ideas than in defending the status quo, etc.

It's the same ideology that made him spend his first billion on fighting the communists in the 1980.


Is this not the thesis[1] of (and motivation for) the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter? Weird to see this drivel repeated on HN.

1. https://www.vox.com/2018/10/29/18037580/pittsburgh-shooter-a...

edit: added reference for downvoters.


He’s one of the most wealthy contributors to left wing activism. It has absolutely nothing to do with him being jewish - those claims demonstrate the ignorance of the left regarding how right-leaning voters (who are overwhelmingly pro-israel due to their religious beliefs) think. Same thing the left says about Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson (also Jewish, oops, there goes that theory), etc, just reversed.

The left’s complete failure to understand the other side is why they were so shocked that Trump got elected. And it looks like we are in for a repeat in 2020, since they’ve learned nothing.


One difference between the Kochs, Adelson, et al and Soros is that for the former there is a very obvious link between the causes they fund and benefits to their own business empires (this is particularly stark with Adelson). Soros is harder to pin down and seems to be genuinely interested in the causes he supports, not just out of personal interest.


The Kochs have given lots of money to non-self serving causes, from gay rights to stem cell research to black scholarships to PBS.


No. It doesn't count when the other side does it. They always only do it for insincere reasons, and our side always only does it for sincere reasons.


The Kochs are libertarians, anything they do will be viewed as simply wanting to help their own business, even though that is not true when you actually evaluate what they have said.

I personally don't think the Kochs nor Soros are bad people, and likely want what they view as what is best for society. They put their money where their mouths are, nothing nefarious about that. If the Kochs were only for their own self interests their main focus right now wouldn't be criminal justice reform.


So a few donations to seemingly good causes make them good?

Don't be easily fooled by their "generosity" as it's not always as it seems to be, many times they fund "independent" organizations or think tanks which really are just foils for them to push their Conservative agenda.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/we-now-know-how-...

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/12/trump-koch-brot...

https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/global-warming/climate-denier...

https://www.ucsusa.org/publications/got-science/2017/got-sci...

I can keep going on, so please don't paint them as just some "nice" guys who give money.


You do know that Soros also funds think tanks, right?

Anyhow, you just cited 4 left leaning sites, so that's not helpful (and actually proves my point in other parts of this thread!) Charles Koch himself does not deny climate change (you can read about this in actual news sites like the Washington Post,) he is against corporate welfare like the government directly/indirectly subsidizing Tesla, etc. Which is perfectly in line with his libertarianism.

Even the one source you could argue is somewhat "real," was from an opinion writer. Here's the rest of his pieces, which uh, don't seem so unbiased. https://slate.com/author/mark-joseph-stern


You know conservatives can be generous and nice, right?


Except it doesn't matter what the Kochs have said, but rather what they have done for the past 50 years. Massive investments to overwhelmingly hardcore libertarian polices that have moved the needle of the nation to their ideals (except when those polices conflict with their business, like the amount of government deals they have taken and then block changes to).

They very much don't put their money where there mouths are, as they put their money through a massive chain of anonymous shell organizations to hide their involvement. This has given the appearance of many right wing "grassroots" movements appearing as by the people, though when donations have been investigated they are overwhelmingly from single donors traced back to the Kochs.

I don't really know that much about Soros, but the fact that people try to claim Soros is just the lefts version of the Kochs is very wrong on many levels. The most basic level is simply net worth, which is their influence ability. Soros is worth 8/9 billion, the Koch brothers are over 100 Billion. Their ability to buy politicians is that much greater.

I believe the Kochs believe they are doing what they think is right, but I also believe they are evil for the country. Their ideals are not what benefits the country in the long run, but continues this trend of money and influence being contained within a tiny minority.

The Kochs are very calculated people, they know what they are doing, and just being they are focused on criminal justice reform, doesn't mean they aren't also focused on other things that benefit them (and that criminal justice reform how they see it doesn't benefit them). The for profit prison industry owners are some of their peers who donate to their causes, they are playing every side they can.


You basically sound like Tucker Carlson, change every instance of "Koch" with "Soros" and you have the B block. Thanks for helping to prove my point. Every side needs a boogeyman, reality is too hard to comprehend.


That’s the same argument as saying “well the other side said this, so the truth must be some where in the middle”, when that has no bearing on the argument.

Please give Dark money a read. There’s a huge difference between media personalities spouting conspiracies and a well respected journalist spending years of there lives delving into something, whilst having their reputation under constant attack and being followed by private investigations hired to dig up any dirt on you.


>those claims demonstrate the ignorance of the left regarding how right-leaning voters (who are overwhelmingly pro-israel due to their religious beliefs) think

Those right-leaning voters are not pro-Israel because they like jews, they believe that if jews return to Israel it will bring about the apocalypse and they will be saved [1]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Zionism


I think you're right about antisemitism not being that big of a factor outside of the more extreme right wing corners. But I do think the nature of the Soros attacks highlight the mainstream right's propensity for believing in, or knowingly disseminating, false conspiracy theories.


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"Degenerate"? Soros was explicitly anti-communist before the fall of the Soviet union.


Yeah nothing to do with dog whistles of Globalists usually referring to wealthy men of "Jewish" faith in control of the world.

Also I don't think 2020 will be anything but a massive rebuttal to Trump and Republicans...

https://www.nbcnews.com/card/almost-six-10-americans-believe...


It has a tremendous amount with him being Jewish. At least one person has shot up a Synagogue because of it.

If you can point me to a left-wing agitator violently attacking Jewish people over the actions of Sheldon Adelson I'd love to see it.

Otherwise this is just intellectually-lazy "Both-sides"ism.


He's the Koch of the left. He funds groups that agree with him politically, and has out-sized influence because of it. Since our own biases allow us to interpret people positively when they agree with us, and vilify them when they disagree with us, Soros and Koch are the various bogeymen and/or heroes depending on a particular point of view.

He also gave a very poor and ill-advised interview, where he once stated that (despite being Jewish) he helped Nazi's confiscate properties from Jews in a sixty minutes interview.

He stated that he didn't help later in the interview, but the damage was done.


Given that this went way up, and then way down, I'm curious who is working to vote this way? I find it kind of curious who gets offended by statements like this.


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What you're calling "rational" is just more conspiracy theories. But nice try to appear impartial there in the beginning.

Soros started by funding most of the opposition in Poland in the 1980s, making him a key factor in the downfall of the Sowjet Union.

And he has basically not changed since... He's for "Open Societies". Practically, that means supporting opposition parties or groups in any country that lacks freedom of speech. Also journalism, job training for groups traditionally excluded from majority society like kurds or Roma.

I have personally worked with his Foundation, when they gave almost a million to the Debating World Championship. As in: Oxford & Harvard students arguing for/against anything, including extremely conservative positions.

He isn't trying to increase migration. He tries to improve the plight of those who have already fled. That may increase migration in the sense that shooting migrants at the border would decrease it, yes. But that logic is neither intended, nor accepted anywhere else. Unless you believe killing all sick people would be just as effective as vaccinations.


To be clear, this poster is espousing the "white genocide" conspiracy theory.


He's a Jewish banker. It's a dog whistle for the extreme right wing. Some people thinks he's the far right bogey man like the Koch Brothers are to the far left but there's an extra layer of anti-semitism attached when it's heard/read by certain groups. It's not just that he funds causes that are antithetical to the far right but the fact that he's a Jewish banker -- the favorite scape goat of various groups throughout history (both far left and right have targeted this group). It's gross and disgusting.


as long as peter thiel's on the board you generally have to assume they're doing at least this level of scummy shit.


this comment is ridiculous - what could you possibly have to back that up ? just because you do not agree with his political view doesn't mean everything he does is with bad intentions and "scummy".


Personally, I find Palantir pretty scummy. I don't see how what they are doing is much different than what China is doing. It's the tech that empowers the modern day police state. They might even be using Palintir there. We can't even find out where it's deployed in the USA. This is the type of tech that we can do without, imho.

https://www.wired.com/story/how-peter-thiels-secretive-data-...

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-palantir-peter-thiel...

https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/27/17054740/palantir-predict...


This is somewhat tangential, but what exactly does Palantir do? From what I understand, they're a glorified consulting company that does data visualization, so why do they get so much attention?


One of their primary functions is helping governments track people [1]. They market their suite as aiding the fight against crime/terrorism, but many argue that they're providing tools to governments to track their own citizens (see GP's Bloomberg link). I fall into the latter camp.

There are even some old (fairly unrevealing) demos on Youtube [2]

1 - https://www.wired.co.uk/article/joining-the-dots

2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51YYljuz4u4


It's not that clearcut. Did you know Thiel is a libertarian and hates the police state?

So why is he working with the government then? Well, a combination of something he wants to change and business opportunity. Sometimes to change something, it's best to work within the system and help steer it another way. The government has been invading people's privacy for a long time and increasingly so, with or without Palantir. At least this way he has influence over the direction. But who knows in reality how much is driven by trying to improve it vs making money and how that calculus works out.


On the other hand, maybe he's a hypocrite when it comes to making money. Or maybe he's a libertarian who values making money more than enforcing the NAP. Or maybe he's just really gung ho about arming the night-watchman state.


the entire saga with gawker media, for one thing.


just so we are clear, you do not like that fact that he paid hogans legal costs ?


Just so we are clear:

Hogan and Gawker had arranged to settle. Hogan was even going to be offered part ownership of Gawker, and had agreed to that. Until his (I mean Thiel's) lawyers met with him again.

And then he withdrew that offer.

And then after winning the lawsuit, withdrawing the only claim that would allow Gawker's insurance to allow Hogan to recoup some of his claimed damages (including an "estimated $50M loss of _future_ earnings, for a man who has only made $25M in his career and retirement so far).

Let's be very clear, Thiel's involvement in this was much more than "paid legal costs".

Regardless of the right or wrongs of thing, it is a generally accepted concept in modern societies and legal systems that you should have the right to face your opponent, not for them to have a legal 'proxy' or puppet acting at their behest.

Was Hogan wronged? Absolutely. But, as noted above, he'd agreed to settle until Thiel (and/or his lawyers) stepped in (again). He'd also settled with the person who _made_ the nonconsensual recording _and_ sold it... for _1/55,000th_ what he claimed in damages from Gawker.


let's also not forget that the reason Thiel had a vendetta against Gawker is that they outed him publicly. They were a horrible gossip rag and I have very little sympathy for them given their actions (which extend far beyond what they did to Thiel and Hogan).


No they didn't. He was out to a wide circle of people already, let alone that publishing that fact is in no way libelous or defamatory.

Feelings about Gawker aside, if they had really outed him and caused him damage because of it, he would have sued them for that instead of searching for another case he could latch onto and bankroll.


I don't think it has to be about damage. I can understand how such an imposition might make him want revenge on a personal level.

At the end of the day it's important to let people come out in a way they choose. He may well have already been out to friends and family but that doesn't mean all is done and dusted, especially for a public figure.


Hogan earned $13 million from just the WCW for a 5 year contract. There's zero chance his total lifetime earnings is $25 million. Probably add a 0 to that.


Those were the golden years. Not that I'm a wrestling expert (quite the opposite), but the WWF was not quite so grandiose - Hogan reported that headlining in Wrestlemania would get you about $150K.

I think the truth lies between. "After rumors of Hulk's infidelity, Linda filed for divorce in 2007. At the time it was revealed that Hogan's personal net worth was $30-40 million."

I don't see it hitting $250M.

And I don't see his future retirement income taking a $50M hit because of the video. He's still entitled to royalties and residuals. His multitude of racist remarks, perhaps, however...


Wrestlemania is a one day event.

Anyways, straight from the horse's mouth: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2043389/Hulk-H...


So 5 years with the WCW netted him $13M, but 10 in the WWF was $220M+?

"Wrestler exaggerates."

From another Hogan lawsuit: "Belzer sued Hogan for $5 million and later settled out of court. On October 20, 2006, on the Bubba the Love Sponge Show, it was claimed (with Hogan in the studio) that the settlement totaled $5 million, half from Hogan and half from Vince McMahon. During his June 23, 2008, appearance on Sirius Satellite Radio's The Howard Stern Show, Belzer suggested that the real settlement amount was actually closer to $400,000."

Regardless of this, the point still stands, Thiel was very much more involved in the Gawker lawsuit than "paying legal costs" and that, regardless of the validity of Hogan's claims, or the trashiness of Gawker, troubles me. "Billionaire bankrolls lawsuit against someone he has a beef with, but could not himself sue, and appears to stage manage case."


How could he win his case if his claimed damages wern't at least somewhat realistic?


Because the decision, and the damages are separate. You can win a case and have "damages reduced on appeal". Or a judge can be involved (depending on state). It can even be a separate hearing entirely.

And there's a litany of court cases where you can find 'unrealistic damages' due to a jury "sending a message".


I get your point, I guess my opinion on this is

1) gawker was trash and probably got what was coming to them. outing someone to get clicks is much more scummy in my opinion than what PT did. the world is a better place now that Gawker is not in it.

2) regarding "legal proxy's acting on someone behest,", I'm not a lawyer but what is the difference between this and HSBS acting as a "proxy" and paying the legal costs of mexican employees (executives actually) [1] who got caught illegal laundry money for the cartels. It is basically the same thing, someone or something with a lot of money throwing around money and affecting legal outcomes (Deferred prosecution agreements)

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hsbc-probe/hsbc-became-ba...


i wonder if the original offer (aka ownership of gawker) was worth more than the actual settlement, because the founder filed for bankruptcy and presumably he did not get 100M


I think that's taking the teeth out of it a little bit. I believe that he began working for Hogan in secret seeking revenge for being outed.


Yeah, there was a lot more to it than that.

And while I personally found Gawker trashy and not worth a lot of respect, Thiel had profile pictures on open social media accounts of him shirtless on gay cruises. Short of a formal press release saying "I am gay", this wasn't any particular revelation.

(As to the "well, it's still noone's business" - while I agree, the courts have repeatedly held that billionaires are considered "public figures" "by virtue of the undue or oversized influence they wield or are capable of wielding" - so Thiel had little legal claim to his own situation, so used someone else as a proxy for his own grievances).


The courts have also held that gawker should not exist anymore


That's... obtuse. They held that Gawker should not exist anymore because they became insolvent/ bankrupt due to this.

Not because of the quality/moral fiber (or lack thereof) of their business model.


Sure, but that doesn't change the fact that Hogan's case was a legitimate one, he just lacked the funding to see it through. AND you're forgetting that Gawker could've avoided the whole thing if they had obeyed the earlier court order to take the video down.


Hogan had agreed with Gawker to take part ownership of Gawker including revenues, and then that was reneged upon after meeting with Thiel's (his) lawyers again, and similar after multiple points of near settlement.

The damages were then upped to ridiculous amounts. Financial / economic (not emotional) damages were listed at $50M.

Bollea's net worth, at it's peak, was $30-40M (edit: from $25M), and is now estimated at $8M - though most of that has been stripped by divorce, before any of this happened.

I am not sure how someone whose likely career income didn't reach $50M can now, in retirement, state that he suffered $50M in purely economic damages from this (remember, the emotional damage is separate, as is the punitive) - from what? Not from residuals on old WWF repeats - he would still be entitled to these. The occasional celebrity endorsement?

I can't see any realistic justification that his earning power for the rest of his life would total $50M, let alone that $50M only covers the fraction of his income that he _lost_ because of this.


Maybe a message needed to be sent that journalists aren't above disobeying court orders. Perhaps they should've done the right thing when they still had the chance. Everything else is just whining about how something that could happen (a judgement against them), did.


That's a matter for the court to decide, then. Not for a plaintiff to claim non-existent or dubious factual claims as to lost income.


It sounds like the court did think his claim was accurate, I'm pretty sure the judge has the ability to make decisions on what damages should be.


Well, not for nothing, the initial award was $140M. That has been reduced by over $100M to $31M...


> this comment is ridiculous - what could you possibly have to back that up ?

Let's start with Palantir?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palantir_Technologies#Controve...


Any stories to back this up? Sounds interesting. Personally have a lot of respect for PT’s investment views


The one that jumps out at me is his association with James O'Keefe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Support_for_politi...). That seems most salient to this story.

I won't deny that he seems to be a very skilled investor though.


Skilled investor != Good person


Oh, for sure. Just agreeing with the above comment on that front.


This is like saying you like Stalin for his pragmatic approach to population control.


Nice, new account. Welcome.


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