Big Data, Big Money, Big Right-Wing Propaganda Machine

[annabenedetti]

It isn't disinterest in the quote about Trump's digital campaign. Obviously, in this age of silly social media obsession, there was a digital campaign. And obviously it is effective in modern society.

My point is you are using Trump as a springboard, rather than utilizing his digital campaign as an effective point. I mentioned not defending Trump, and you immediately said that he wasn't the focus or point.

You're missing the entire point of this thread.

Yes, these are conservative "mainstream media" groups. Yes, they are loud, proud, and thriving.

Yes they are.

But, this does not negate the fact that the highest grossing, highest in funding, and highest in quantity are liberal leaning "mainstreams."

Your original point is still false. Liberal is the majority, highest grossing, and most funded.

That wasn't my point. That was your point.

I agree. The information does stand on its own.

It does. Try addressing it.

You are the one generating false conclusions, ignoring honest comparisons.

You're the one trying to change the point of this thread to fit your own conclusions.

You can call this an "attempt at coming across rational and scientific;" but when it is a rational, scientific, and honest (unbiased) approach, it is the appropriate one. And, it generates accurate conclusions, free of falsehood and bias.

I know my bias. The difference between you and I, is that I set it aside when observing and studying statistics, in order to obtain an accurate view of factual reality.

Actually, I don't think you can see your biases.

Maybe someday.

 

[annabenedetti]

More from Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media

Last December, I wrote about Cambridge Analytica in a piece about how Google’s search results on certain subjects were being dominated by rightwing and extremist sites. Jonathan Albright, a professor of communications at Elon University, North Carolina, who had mapped the news ecosystem and found millions of links between rightwing sites “strangling” the mainstream media, told me that trackers from sites like Breitbart could also be used by companies like Cambridge Analytica to follow people around the web and then, via Facebook, target them with ads.

On its website, Cambridge Analytica makes the astonishing boast that it has psychological profiles based on 5,000 separate pieces of data on 220 million American voters – its USP is to use this data to understand people’s deepest emotions and then target them accordingly. The system, according to Albright, amounted to a “propaganda machine”.

. . . .

These Facebook profiles – especially people’s “likes” – could be correlated across millions of others to produce uncannily accurate results. Michal Kosinski, the centre’s lead scientist, found that with knowledge of 150 likes, their model could predict someone’s personality better than their spouse. With 300, it understood you better than yourself. “Computers see us in a more robust way than we see ourselves,” says Kosinski.

 

[SabathMoon]

With underpaid Russian programmers, defecting from the DNC offices, one wonders what is really going on. The e-mails have damaged Hillary and the DNC permanently, but people don't notice how Trump still comes from the left. He is a capitalist who benefits from socialism. He evades incomes taxes, ignores paying government contracts, and continues to want his wall done by his construction companies of course. He has not apologized for using slave-like labor in other countries used to make any of the family clothes lines.

And if you think Hillary had a chance. She is a woman who lied about Down's Syndrome, and thought Tim Kaine could be commander-in-chief. If anything, the insurgent capitalists aren't rich, but the cronies are. And the DNC has been full of it for quite some time.

 

[jsanford108]

You're missing the entire point of this thread. (Talking about Trump)

That wasn't my point. That was your point. (Talking about how Liberal media sources outnumber Conservative Media sources)

Okay, let us examine your final paragraph of your OP.

And any whining about the mainstream media being against the right wing is now is going to be a little hard to support, because it looks like you're being done by quite well.

And you're being used quite well, too.

Interesting. Let us also examine your response when I mentioned not defending Trump in any capacity.

This is tangentially about Trump, but specifically about big data and big money.

I would appear that you are using the claim that I am using a Ignoratio elenchi fallacy. When in fact, you are using evasion. When I addressed the error in your conclusion, derived from incomplete statistical comparison, you suddenly claimed that this is about Trump. When I point out the error with that conclusion, you switch back to majority mainstream media being conservative.

It does. Try addressing it.

I did. Please note, post #31, #34, and #40. All of them contain my position addressing the prevalence of liberal ideologies in mainstream media. AKA: I am addressing the factual statistics of greater quantities of higher funded liberal mainstream media.

Even my friend, a liberal, agrees on the conclusion, nay, the fact, that the mainstream media is majority liberal. Bill Maher also agrees. As does Joe Rogan. These are liberals that both agree with me, a conservative, that liberal media dominates mainstream.

You're the one trying to change the point of this thread to fit your own conclusions.

No. I disagree. But, let us say you are correct. Then tell us, what is the point of this thread?

 

[annabenedetti]

A lot has happened since I posted this last year.

More from Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media

Last December, I wrote about Cambridge Analytica in a piece about how Google’s search results on certain subjects were being dominated by rightwing and extremist sites. Jonathan Albright, a professor of communications at Elon University, North Carolina, who had mapped the news ecosystem and found millions of links between rightwing sites “strangling” the mainstream media, told me that trackers from sites like Breitbart could also be used by companies like Cambridge Analytica to follow people around the web and then, via Facebook, target them with ads.

On its website, Cambridge Analytica makes the astonishing boast that it has psychological profiles based on 5,000 separate pieces of data on 220 million American voters – its USP is to use this data to understand people’s deepest emotions and then target them accordingly. The system, according to Albright, amounted to a “propaganda machine”.

. . . .

These Facebook profiles – especially people’s “likes” – could be correlated across millions of others to produce uncannily accurate results. Michal Kosinski, the centre’s lead scientist, found that with knowledge of 150 likes, their model could predict someone’s personality better than their spouse. With 300, it understood you better than yourself. “Computers see us in a more robust way than we see ourselves,” says Kosinski.​

 

[Catholic Crusader]

Knowing those stats now, it's going to be really funny to see anyone complain about "the mainstream media" again.

Only an imbecile would think the stats mean anything. The problem lies in the editorial section. People who choose the stories and run the programs and anchor the shows for the mainstream media are leftwing propagandists and liberal extremists, just like you. They decide the content. This entire thread is an example of sheer stupidity and wanton ignorance. Par for the course

 

[annabenedetti]

Rereading the original article with post-Cambridge Analytica hindsight:

"The danger of not having regulation around the sort of data you can get from Facebook and elsewhere is clear. With this, a computer can actually do psychology, it can predict and potentially control human behaviour. It's what the scientologists try to do but much more powerful. It's how you brainwash someone. It's incredibly dangerous.

It's no exaggeration to say that minds can be changed. Behaviour can be predicted and controlled. I find it incredibly scary. I really do. Because nobody has really followed through on the possible consequences of all this. People don't know it’s happening to them. Their attitudes are being changed behind their backs."​

Keep an eye out for Cambridge Analytica's new name: Emerdata.

Cambridge Analytica dismantled for good? Nope: It just changed its name to Emerdata

 

[Rusha]

Rereading the original article with post-Cambridge Analytica hindsight:

"The danger of not having regulation around the sort of data you can get from Facebook and elsewhere is clear. With this, a computer can actually do psychology, it can predict and potentially control human behaviour. It's what the scientologists try to do but much more powerful. It's how you brainwash someone. It's incredibly dangerous.

It's no exaggeration to say that minds can be changed. Behaviour can be predicted and controlled. I find it incredibly scary. I really do. Because nobody has really followed through on the possible consequences of all this. People don't know it’s happening to them. Their attitudes are being changed behind their backs."​

Keep an eye out for Cambridge Analytica's new name: Emerdata.

Cambridge Analytica dismantled for good? Nope: It just changed its name to Emerdata

Of course ... though MSNBC always keeps me updated. What sort of surprised me in all of this is that so many people actually go to Facebook for their news source.

 

[patrick jane]

23 minutes - first few minutes are good so far

 

[annabenedetti]

23 minutes - first few minutes are good so far

I watched the entire video (which isn't my preferred way of getting info), but the subject is one I'm interested in. I intentionally watched it before checking the source.

The most interesting parts of the video were the clips of the interviews of the two ex-FaceBook executives, and definitely worth following up on to find the entire interviews. But overall the video felt rather gimmicky, both audio and visual - and it felt manipulative, which is ironic, since psychological and behavioral manipulation is the whole point of the video.

Overall I agreed with some ideas (emotional contagion, feedback loops, dopamine, etc., all based in science) but as things went along, it went downhill from there. Zuckerberg's jacket... really? A pentagon with Walt Mossberg in the middle which the video narrator says is a goat? The cnet article referenced - from 2011 no less - didn't have any comments. I was really hoping for comments. And then the apple computer for 666.66.... :chuckle:

So afterward, looking up the video source: Truthstream Media, purveyor of conspiracy theories and the same kind of pseudoscience pushed by Natural News. (Speaking of feedback loops, no surprise that Truthstream Media links to Natural News, and Natural News links to Truthstream Media.)

Thanks for posting, patrick, I'll follow up on those FB ex-exec interviews, but the rest of the video sounds like the stuff out there that it's protesting against.

It's basically just adding to the maelstrom with its own conspiratorial or fake or real-mixed-in-with-fake-with-the-edges-blurred noise.

Lastly: Truthstream Media can be followed on FaceBook and Twitter. lain:

 

[annabenedetti]

Memes That Kill: The Future Of Information Warfare

 

[annabenedetti]

Watch This Very Carefully

As Kate Riga reported earlier, someone has created a series of highly realistic and yet provably doctored videos running on Facebook which appear to show Nancy Pelosi slurring her speech or drunk. The Post was first on this, showing conclusively how the doctoring had happened and the real video it was based on.

This is a growing issue, the increasing ability to created phony videos which look very real and are very difficult to show are not real. They are referred to as “deepfakes” and they’re getting talked about more and more in media and intelligence circles.

They’re of course a great tool of disinformation. I suspect they’ll be a big part of the 2020 campaign story. In any case, who made the Pelosi videos? I suspect this isn’t just some random hoaxster. I suspect there are bigger players behind it.

But note this. I happened to flip on Lou Dobbs show a short while ago – just randomly turned it on. And there was Corey Lewandowski, one time Trump campaign manager and now outside advisor to the President clearly referencing this faked videos as real and discrediting. The news conclusively showing they were phonies came out in the afternoon. This is a few hours later.

https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1131711121373716480

​

 

[ok doser]

They’re of course a great tool of disinformation.

kinda like claiming trump colluded with the russians, eh? :chuckle:

 

[annabenedetti]

kinda like claiming trump colluded with the russians, eh? :chuckle:

Trump Keeps Saying “No Collusion” Because He Doesn’t Understand Collusion
To be fair to the president, almost no one does.

 

[ok doser]

Trump Keeps Saying “No Collusion” Because He Doesn’t Understand Collusion
To be fair to the president, almost no one does.

did the hillary campaign "collude" with foreign nationals as well?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/mani...da-to-help-hillary-clinton-campaign-1.3831559

 

[annabenedetti]

did the hillary campaign "collude" with foreign nationals as well?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/mani...da-to-help-hillary-clinton-campaign-1.3831559

No.

A foreign national can volunteer for a U.S. party and, in fact, Canadian and American campaign workers regularly help parties across the border. The federal Liberals even lease the same voter-outreach software used by the Democrats — so Conley-Strange knows the system well.
Foreigners cannot, however, make financial donations.

 

[ok doser]

Foreigners cannot, however, make financial donations

so these canadian nationals didn't spend out of pocket to get to florida, they didn't rent cars, they didn't eat meals while down there?



btw - rex was uncertain where this might sort out as well- didn't think it was as cut and dried as you seem to

 

[annabenedetti]

so these canadian nationals didn't spend out of pocket to get to florida, they didn't rent cars, they didn't eat meals while down there?

Did they pay the campaign for their cars and their meals? Come on now.

btw - rex was uncertain where this might sort out as well- didn't think it was as cut and dried as you seem to

What is this? A new logical fallacy called Appeal to Rex?

I totally admire and appreciate rex's knowledge, but using him like this is just bizarre.

 

[ok doser]

Did they pay the campaign for their cars and their meals? Come on now.



What is this? A new logical fallacy called Appeal to Rex?

I totally admire and appreciate rex's knowledge, but using him like this is just bizarre.

ummm, i was just mentioning that rex and i had discussed it and...

but you want to win, so...


you win! :roses:

 

[annabenedetti]

ummm, i was just mentioning that rex and i had discussed it and...

but you want to win, so...


you win! :roses:

Is this your way of working around your sudden realization that Hillary's campaign would have actually had to benefit from the Canadians' car rentals and meal purchases for your argument to have any merit?