US Politics Mega-thread - Page 9227

On November 13 2017 23:44 IyMoon wrote:


Every single person I know wanted Biden to run in 2016, and most still want him to run in 2020 (I would want him to run myself if he wasn't so old)

After trump all of Biden gaffs seem like nothing so I don't think anyone would really have a problem with him.

On November 13 2017 23:57 ticklishmusic wrote:


Biden finished bottom of the pack both times he ran, and he would have been a footnote in history had Obama not picked him as VP (of course, there were plenty of good reasons to pick Biden for VP). People are remembering Biden the VP for the last 8 years, not Biden the guy who's been in DC for decades who has quite a lot of baggage.

I don't have anything against Biden, but there's no way he's number one (he may not even be top 3) among those that will run in 2020.

On November 13 2017 23:56 TheTenthDoc wrote:


It's hard to say, there's not a lot of real evidence. On the one hand you have a few polls showing him down 2 points, on the other Alabama is about as red as you can get and there was a poll in the state showing that it made evangelical voters, a big part of Alabama, more likely to vote for him, not less (grist for the fake news mill in their mind).

On November 13 2017 23:51 Ryzel wrote:


Sorry, I'm stupid and need more clarification. What is it that you're wondering if I think I did? My intention was to convey that the most effective way to sway the mind of an intelligent person confident in their beliefs is to find common ground, typically by embracing their beliefs since they won't make the same effort for you, and then making your argument from that framework.

Do I think I made that effort to sway your mind? Honestly I could have done better, I only just kind of gave lip service to the difficulty you would have without going into detail, so it probably comes off that I don't acknowledge that difficulty.

Again I'm stupid, but I'm also not quite sure what you mean by "what I do", or empowering people that do "what I want". Is that in reference to what I think I did? And what do you mean by "consistent assertions"? I think I've brought something like this up before, but I don't remember if it was directed at you.

And I'm having trouble deciphering the point of your last sentence. There's always people saying that MLK Jr emphasized focus and restraint, which is similar to my point, yet he didn't actually say that?

Do you not agree with the point I'm trying to convey (which I outlined 1st paragraph of this post)? I was of the understanding that point was pretty universal, but if you don't agree we could certainly argue that point.

On November 13 2017 23:57 ticklishmusic wrote:


Biden finished bottom of the pack both times he ran, and he would have been a footnote in history had Obama not picked him as VP (of course, there were plenty of good reasons to pick Biden for VP). People are remembering Biden the VP for the last 8 years, not Biden the guy who's been in DC for decades who has quite a lot of baggage.

I don't have anything against Biden, but there's no way he's number one (he may not even be top 3) among those that will run in 2020.

On November 13 2017 23:57 ticklishmusic wrote:


Biden finished bottom of the pack both times he ran, and he would have been a footnote in history had Obama not picked him as VP (of course, there were plenty of good reasons to pick Biden for VP). People are remembering Biden the VP for the last 8 years, not Biden the guy who's been in DC for decades who has quite a lot of baggage.

I don't have anything against Biden, but there's no way he's number one (he may not even be top 3) among those that will run in 2020.

On November 14 2017 00:23 Wulfey_LA wrote:


Biden's white minstrel act was old hat back in 2008. He can't marshal Obama's coalition. Dems have heaps of 40-50 something men and women who could easily run over Biden in the primary. I get that Biden has appeal to dying white boomers in a way that Obama/HRC didn't, but turning out the rainbow coalition is how Dems actually win. Biden would bring policy baggage all the way back from the 70s.

Dems could run someone like Garcetti, who better represents the modern Dem coalition without the ideological tie downs of Biden's old votes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Garcetti

On November 14 2017 00:41 ticklishmusic wrote:
A minority candidate will run away with the minority vote (Harris or Booker most likely). Then the potential Biden voters will be split by like Klobuchar, Franken, Gillibrand and Warren. I pulled these names out of a hat, but swap 'em around with whoever your 2020 faves are and Biden really doesn't look like he's gonna be number 1 on many people's ballots.

Journalists working for Facebook say the social media site’s fact-checking tools have largely failed and that the company has exploited their labor for a PR campaign.

Several fact checkers who work for independent news organizations and partner with Facebook told the Guardian that they feared their relationships with the technology corporation, some of which are paid, have created a conflict of interest, making it harder for the news outlets to scrutinize and criticize Facebook’s role in spreading misinformation.

The reporters also lamented that Facebook had refused to disclose data on its efforts to stop the dissemination of fake news. The journalists are speaking out one year after the company launched the collaboration in response to outrage over revelations that social media platforms had widely promoted fake news and propaganda during the US presidential election.

Facebook has since revealed that it facilitated Russia’s efforts to interfere with US politics, allowing divisive political ads and propaganda that reached 126 million Americans.

“I don’t feel like it’s working at all. The fake information is still going viral and spreading rapidly,” said one journalist who does fact-checks for Facebook and, like others interviewed for this piece, was not authorized to speak publicly due to the continuing partnership with the company. “It’s really difficult to hold [Facebook] accountable. They think of us as doing their work for them. They have a big problem, and they are leaning on other organizations to clean up after them.”

Facebook announced to much hype last December that it was partnering with third-party factcheckers – including the Associated Press, Snopes, ABC News, PolitiFact and FactCheck.org – to publicly flag fake news so that a “disputed” tag would warn users about sharing debunked content. A Guardian review this year found that the fact-checks seemed to be mostly ineffective and that “disputed” tags weren’t working as intended.

Now, some of the factcheckers are raising concerns, saying the lack of internal statistics on their work has hindered the project and that it is unclear if the corporation is taking the spread of propaganda seriously.

Another fact-checking source said it was rare to see the fact-checks actually lead to a “disputed” tag on Facebook, raising questions about how the tool was functioning. Factcheckers said they had queries about how often the tags were placed on articles, what effect they had on the content and what sites were most often targeted – but said that Facebook had not provided information.

“We’re sort of in the dark. We don’t know what is actually happening,” said Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the International Fact-Checking Network at Poynter, which verifies Facebook’s third-party factcheckers.

He said he appreciated that there “are a lot of people at Facebook who really care about this” but, he added, “the level of information that is being handed out is entirely insufficient … This is potentially the largest real-life experiment in countering misinformation in history. We could have been having an enormous amount of information and data.”

A Facebook spokesperson said that once an article had been labeled as false, its future “impressions” dropped by 80%.

“Our work with third-party fact-checkers is not just meant to educate people about what has been disputed – it also helps us better understand what might be false and show it lower in News Feed,” the spokesperson said in an email, adding that the data informed its algorithms to “more quickly and accurately detect future false stories”.

Facebook has also launched a “related articles” initiative and other features meant to promote articles about similar topics, including reports from factcheckers, the spokesperson said: “We’re giving people the information they need to make informed decisions about whether or not to read, trust, or share.”

One of the factcheckers said it seemed clear that Facebook was opposed to internally hiring large numbers of journalists and experts to do the difficult fact-checking work necessary to clamp down on fake news in a meaningful way.

“The relationship they have with fact-checking organizations is way too little and way too late. They should really be handling this internally. They should be hiring armies of moderators and their own fact-checkers.”

Some fact checkers said they also felt the paid relationships with Facebook were creating a conflict, in effect silencing those in the best position to investigate the way the platform facilitates fake news.

“By offering this money, which journalistic outlets desperately need, it’s weakening our ability to do any fact-checking of these disinformation purveyors like Facebook,” said one third-party factchecker. “They are basically buying good PR by paying us.”

The journalist noted that Facebook users could still easily purchase ads without scrutiny. Facebook “have been and will continue to take money to spread disinformation”, the reporter said, adding: “They’re trying their best not to affect their bottom line.”

Aaron Sharockman, executive director of PolitiFact, said some of the factcheckers had been frustrated with the limits of the tools, noting that fake news writers can easily put their debunked content on different websites or links, allowing the articles to continue posting without “disputed” tags.

“They are able very easily to spread misinformation to different URLs,” he said.

While Sharockman said he would also like to see more transparency from Facebook, he said he was pleased that the company was continuing to collaborate with journalists: “I think to go from nothing to where we are now is good progress.”

Recent research has also raised fundamental questions about the effectiveness of tags labeling disputed stories. A Yale University survey found that the tag had a minimal impact on whether a user believed a headline was true, and that the presence of the tags could make users more likely to believe other fake stories are true, simply because they did not have the tag.

“It is possible that it is doing more harm than good, and it’s unlikely that it’s doing much good,” said David Rand, a psychology professor and co-author of the study.

(Facebook responded that the research was not based on data from real Facebook users and noted that it was an “opt-in study” based on paid survey respondents.)

Facebook also recently faced heat for a test that prompted comments with the word “fake” to appear at the top of some users’ feeds under news articles, which some critics said just caused more confusion. At the same time, conspiracy theories and fake news about two mass shootings have spread on numerous social networks, in some cases leading to online abuse of victims and survivors.

In the case of an article that falsely claimed the shooter was linked to anti-fascist groups, multiple factcheckers debunked the piece.

It was still shared more than 260,000 times on Facebook.

On November 14 2017 01:06 Plansix wrote:
I think ticklishmusic is underestimating Biden’s power to be genuine and earnest about helping people. His sort of unrehearsed, foot in mouth style was a liability in the 1990s and early 2000s. But it is totally as asset in the year of our lord 2017. He and Howard Dean were running in the wrong eras of politics.

On November 14 2017 00:22 GreenHorizons wrote:


I was wondering if you think you were employing the technique you were suggesting.

The style of argumentation I use and the type of action I support empower people who use the style of argumentation you are suggesting.

Not sure who "he" is? But my point was that the abrasive approach I prefer, and claim empowers people who use your preferred approach, is validated by people's constant calls for folks like myself to be more like the sanitized version of MLK they are familiar with.

As to your point, I think it has it's times and places, and would quibble with what you probably mean/think by "most effective", and would frame my argumentation style differently than you would in relation to your preferred style but other than that, mostly yes, I would agree.

On November 13 2017 15:40 Kyadytim wrote:

Capitalism is how selfish people provide moral justification for the accumulation of wealth at the expense of society.

On November 14 2017 01:41 Ryzel wrote:


Sorry if I'm being pedantic, just want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly. You're saying...

1) Your style of argumentation (which as you say is abrasive, and I interpret as "telling it how it is" without "holding back" i.e caring about the opinion of the recipient), and the type of action you support (basically "making them see the error of their ways") is empowering to people that use my approach. I'm interpreting that as "lots of us have tried what MLK Jr. supposedly preached, and it's gotten us nowhere over the last 50 years. It sucks to just sit back and take it, so it feels good to dish out the truth". Is this about right?

2) People saying that you should "dial it back" is evidence that your form of argumentation is effective, and that your idea of "effectiveness" probably differs from mine (but, presumably, includes the desire to sway minds like Danglars and xDaunt)?

Just want to clarify those before proceeding further.

1) Your style of argumentation (which as you say is abrasive

On November 14 2017 01:47 Plansix wrote:
MLK sort of preached exactly what GH is saying right now. MLK had very frank speeches about moderate whites and their inability to care about racial injustice.

On November 14 2017 02:24 GreenHorizons wrote:


No. You are not understanding me correctly.



That's about as much as you got right. I could (in the mathematical sense) explain what's wrong with the rest, but we're pretty far apart already/still and I sincerely doubt you're going to bring an argument on this that I haven't heard, probably not even one I haven't seen here.

I don't mean that to hurt your feelings, but to say it plainly as to not lead you on to believing you were making a new or slightly persuasive (to me anyway) argument.