If You're Blaming Facebook For The Election Results, You're An Idiot

from the there's-real-anger-at-the-status-quo dept

Yeah, okay, I know there are a million and one "hot takes" going on across the media about what happened yesterday and "what went wrong." I already wrote about what the election means for tech policy and civil liberties, but the trite setup of the blame game is getting really stupid, really fast. I had already started writing up a response to this silly Vox article about how "Facebook is harming our democracy" before the election (the story came out over the weekend), but now that I'm seeing more and more people (especially in the media) blaming Facebook and "algorithms" for the results of the election, I'm turning it into this post: if you're blaming Facebook for the results of this election, you're an idiot.

Facebook's algorithm and whatever "echo chamber" or "filter bubble" or whatever it may have created did not lead to this result. This was the result of a very large group of people who are quite clearly -- and reasonably -- pissed off at the status quo. Politics has been a really corrupt game for basically ever, and for the past few decades, lots of people have been trying to pretend it wasn't as corrupt as it really is. The fact that Trump is likely to be as corrupt -- if not more so -- than those who came before him didn't matter. People were upset and voted against a candidate who, to them, basically defined the status quo and the problems with the system. This was a "throw the bums out" vote, and many of the bums deserved to be thrown out. That they voted in someone likely to be worse (especially given who he's surrounded himself with so far) wasn't the point. Just as with Brexit, this was a vote of "what we have now ain't working, let's try something different."

It's no surprise many people argued that Clinton was the wrong candidate to go against Trump. She absolutely was. She was the status quo candidate in a time when lots and lots of people didn't want the status quo.

But that's not Facebook's fault. And the idea that a better or different algorithm on Facebook would have made the results any different is just as ridiculous as the idea that newspaper endorsements or "fact checking" mattered one bit. People are angry because the system has failed them in many, many ways, and it's not because they're idiots who believed all the fake news Facebook pushed on them (even if some of them did believe it). Many people don't think Trump will be any good, but they voted for him anyway, because the status quo is broken. The idea that people are just such suckers they believe whatever Facebook puts in front of them is silly. That's not how it works:

The fundamental problem here is that Facebook’s leadership is in denial about the kind of organization it has become. “We are a tech company, not a media company,” Zuckerberg has said repeatedly over the last few years. In the mind of the Facebook CEO, Facebook is just a “platform,” a neutral conduit for helping users share information with one another.

But that’s wrong. Facebook makes billions of editorial decisions every day. And often they are bad editorial decisions — steering people to sensational, one-sided, or just plain inaccurate stories. The fact that these decisions are being made by algorithms rather than human editors doesn’t make Facebook any less responsible for the harmful effect on its users and the broader society.

Yes, many people are falling for fake or bogus or sensationalized news -- and the Trump campaign expertly took a kernel of truth (that many mainstream media sources didn't want him to win) and spun it into the idea that no media story highlighting his flaws, lies or corruption (no matter how carefully and factually reported) could be believed. But people are believing those stories because they match with their real world experience of seeing how the system has worked (or not worked) for too long.

I've already expressed my concerns about what a Trump presidency will do for the issues that I spend my days focused on -- and it's not good. But as loyal readers here at Techdirt should know well, we've never been particularly supportive of the way things have been running in the government all along -- and that's through 10 years under Democratic presidencies and 8 years under GOP presidencies. The federal government has a long history of doing bad stuff: stomping on free speech and expanding surveillance (who cares about the 1st or 4th Amendments?), pushing policies that will harm innovators in favor of legacy industries (including in both the copyright and patent spaces) and generally disregarding what's best for the public. I fear that Trump will make things significantly worse, but I certainly recognize the need to change the status quo overall. And not because of Facebook's stupid algorithm.

Filed Under: algorithms, anger, democracy, donald trump, echo chamber, filter bubble, politics, status quo
Companies: facebook

Our 'Copying Is Not Theft' T-Shirt Seems To REALLY Upset Some People

from the slow-down-folks dept

So, last week we launched our new Copying is Not Theft t-shirts (and hoodies, and stickers and mugs). It's a nice shirt: We thought the message was fairly straightforward, building of the wonderful song and animation done by Nina Paley: Copying Is Not Theft: That doesn't necessarily mean that copying is always legal or morally correct. But it pretty clearly is not theft.

The shirt is selling fine (get yours soon, because it's only available for a few more days!), but what's been surprising is how much it has resulted in pure rage from some people who seem really, really pissed off that we'd dare suggest the simple fact that copying is not theft.

Earlier this week, we wrote about the head of the Global Anti-Counterfeiting Group promising to make counterfeit copies of our t-shirt (which seems a bit... odd, no?), but today I wanted to highlight some of the other responses we've received. The fact is, many people do understand the message and seem to appreciate it, but I'm somewhat surprised at those who disagree with it who feel the need to not just disagree, but to act as if merely stating a four word factual sentence is somehow offensive. It started in our comments where someone insisted that saying copying is not theft wasn't just wrong, but was "ignorant and irresponsible." Huh. There have been a few similar comments to our posts, and a few angry remarks on Twitter, but the real action has definitely been on Facebook, where some people are just really, really angry. Here's just a sampling: And, then, of course, you have that one person who always thinks they have the "gotcha" moment: Then there's the guy who's so confused and angry that he's sure we've got our offices stacked high with infringing material, so he's "reported" us (to whom...? no idea...) And then there are the people who get so frustrated that we're being accurate that they then need to mock us for using words as they're supposed to be used. Anyway, if you'd like to join in the fun, our Facebook post seems to be the biggest magnet for attracting these kinds of comments. But, we'll just leave you with one last one: the guy who found a different kind of "gotcha" by confusing our "Copyright" topic icon for a copyright notice on Techdirt, which he found ironic. And then he just wouldn't let go when we explained that it wasn't a copyright notice. We've been doing this long enough to recognize that it stirs a lot of passion and emotion, so it doesn't surprise us that some people don't like the message on the shirt (and certainly plenty of others seem to enjoy it). But, we're still fairly astounded at the level of brainwashing that seems to go on, such that people get so angry about trying to separate out the fairly fundamental differences between copying something and stealing it.

Either way, if you're looking for a t-shirt that is a... uh... proven conversation starter, check out our Copying Is Not Theft gear while it's still available...

Filed Under: anger, copying, copying is not theft, copyright, t-shirts

Intelligence Community Warns That Releasing CIA Torture Report Details Might 'Inflame Anti-US Passions' In Middle East

from the uh,-no,-it-was-the-torture-that-was-the-problem dept

James Clapper is pulling out all the stops to try to keep the details of the CIA torture report from seeing the light of day. He apparently made the decision (without asking the White House) to have the National Intelligence Council put together a memo explaining that releasing the details of how the CIA tortured people would "inflame anti-U.S. passions in the Mideast, resulting in potentially violent street protests and threats to U.S. embassies and personnel." Except, of course, this is bullshit. It wouldn't be the release of the report inflaming such passions -- it would be the torture performed by the CIA at the direction of the US government. If the intelligence community is so worried about the details becoming public then it shouldn't have engaged in torture in the first place. Otherwise, the intelligence community has all the cover it needs to do horrible things, because any move to expose those actions could be stopped under this same idiotic theory that the revealing of those actions would create anger, rather than the actions themselves.

And, yet, the memo is being passed around and used by the supporters of the surveillance state to protest the releasing of any details from the Senate Intelligence Committee's CIA torture report:

The Mideast is a tinderbox right now and this could be the spark that ignites quite a fire,” said one U.S. intelligence official who was briefed on the findings.

That concern was echoed Friday by a former top U.S. intelligence official who helped oversee the interrogation program. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out if you release a report like this at a time when terrorism is surging all over the Mideast you are handing the other side a recruitment tool,” John McLaughlin, a former CIA deputy director, told Yahoo News. “It’s blindingly obvious.”

Of course, the response to McLaughlin ought to be "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you release a report like this, it might embarrass folks like John McLaughlin for his role in the torture program. It's blindingly obvious." And, really, if McLaughlin is so concerned about how folks might react to this program, perhaps he should have, you know, stopped it.

Filed Under: anger, cia, intelligence community, james clapper, john mclaughlin, national intelligence council, senate intelligence committee, torture, torture report

Anger Against Red Light And Speed Cameras Going Mainstream

from the people-don't-like-'em dept

A bunch of folks have submitted this recent Washington Post article about the growing anger and resentment towards red light and speed cameras. We've posted similar articles in the past, but this is one of the first times I've seen the topic discussed in a major mainstream paper. The discussion basically hits on all the high points, showing that people really hate the devices and that the reason they're so popular is not safety, but revenue. It also looks at the stats, talking about a few different studies. It does mention one study claiming that the cameras have decreased accidents and fatalities, but then notes numerous other studies that disagree, and digs into the details of the original study to find that it does not account for multiple other factors. At best, the studies seem to indicate that red light and speed cameras do not decrease accident rates (in one damning study, a town that got rid of its cameras saw a bigger decrease in accidents than a neighboring town that installed them). In the end, it's quite clear that the cameras are entirely about money, and have nothing to do with safety -- and it's nice to see more people recognizing this issue.

Filed Under: anger, red light cameras, speed cameras
Companies: redflex