[JohnJamesRambo]

These large dominating companies are monopolies in every sense of the word and need to be broken up. The Bell System was broken up and didn't have a tenth of the tracking and control of people's lives that Google and Facebook do. Ma Bell didn't actively harm its users and cause depression. Ma Bell didn't collude with Russia to influence a presidential election and install a puppet president.

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

https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/185/3/203/2915143 "Association of Facebook Use With Compromised Well-Being: A Longitudinal Study"

[AlexB138]

> [Facebook colluded] with Russia to influence a presidential election and install a puppet president.

This is a conspiracy theory, and really diminishes the level of the conversation here.

[moosey]

A US company took money from a foreign government and used it to spread foreign propaganda, while calling it advertising.

Money is pooled into massive organizations called 'PACs' that are used to fund campaigns that get folks into government, then offer them sweet high paying jobs afterwards as long as they do their bidding while they work there. It's not corruption, that's lobbying.

It gets tiresome calling things what they are when there are dozens of definitions that the corrupt use to alter the nature of what they do with language. Corruption and propaganda are rampant, but once they can all be called 'marketing', or whatever the people with the power to influence via the media want to call them, that's the language that we use, and truly harmful things become easy to defend.

[m0zg]

Disclaimer: I'm Russian-American. I do not believe Russian "siloviki" are competent enough to pull off anything like what you're implying.

Russia spent $100k on FB in total, and they ran ads on controversial issues from both sides, not just Trump (and also organized "resist" protests after Trump won). For comparison, Trump's campaign alone spent $100 _million_. I don't know off the top of my head how much the Clinton campaign spent, but it did have 2x the money advantage, so it probably spent twice as much. If we assume the total FB spend of $300M for both campaigns, Russian money represented 0.033% of ad spend, and they likely used far less sophisticated targeting than the campaigns, and riled up both sides.

Tell me again how this could have altered the outcome.

Their goal seemed to be to sow discord, not to elect a particular candidate. I believe that's still their goal, and you, HN poster, is a great help to that end. They could not imagine a better outcome than Trump (or Clinton) getting mired in controversy and partisan gridlock, and unable to do anything about anything.

If you're going to talk about foreign influence, there are countries that are much more influential in US politics than Russia. No US president can even win a primary without pledging allegiance to Israel, for example. Clinton Global Initiative accepted millions from all over the world (donations dropped massively once Hillary lost, suggesting influence peddling). When it comes to hacking, China hacks the US far more than Russia ever will.

I don't quite get this raging hard-on for Russia that the mainstream media has manufactured. If it's outrage you want, there are far better targets.

[moosey]

With FB, propaganda campaigns are cheap, and the advertising, while small scale, doesn't really deal with the entire issue. Modern social tooling allows for broad propaganda with minimal interruption, and companies are happy to allow it because it brings additional advertising dollars. This can be seen in the various groups created by Russia and internal groups during the campaign, and the reach of them, many spreading falsehoods and propaganda... and yes, to both sides. The goal is to divide, not necessarily a full take over.

I admit that these groups pushed both Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter, Anti-Vaxx and Pro-Vaxx groups, etc., etc. I'm suggesting that the problem is that we have corporations that are apparently 'US' corporations that make money from the process and have a perverse incentive to push it, as it creates increased activity from certain users. It's this 'sharing' economy in propaganda that groups during the election took advantage of, and once set up it's almost free and self-expanding.

I agree: Israel, China, SA, Europe, and other groups and nations have a lot more impact here. My anger is not towards them for what they are doing here in this country. My anger is directed towards the regulatory and corporate structures in the United States that make propagandizing the populace possible in the first place, while also being legal and producing profit.

[m0zg]

Sure, but campaigns also engage in "grass roots" propaganda efforts. For instance, _the entirety of US mainstream media_ aired propaganda in favor of Hillary Clinton campaign for a year and a half. Bad news were suppressed, good news were circulated, angles and crops were picked for the rallies to show crowds that weren't really there, Trump (American icon just months before his run) was smeared head to toe, including allegations of rape (which disappeared immediately after the election) and pee-pee "dossier" which turned out to be completely bogus and paid for by the Clinton campaign. That's not even considering the official "social media" propaganda efforts like Shareblue etc, on which millions were spent.

Are you going to tell me that given all these blatant propaganda forces at play Russia still had any effect on the election? I understand this meme looms large in US liberal psyche, but I'm struggling to understand why anyone would rationally believe this.

[aldous]

Some fair points, though I don’t agree with all of them. What are your thoughts on the DNC hack and subsequent leaks btw? It seems reasonable to credit the disclosure and the way the Trump campaign encouraged it and then capitalised on it as significant. 12 alleged Russian intelligence officials have been charged as part of Mueller’s investigation. Also there was the the Internet Research Agency "troll farm", based in Saint Petersburg and the alleged intrusions into state voter-registration systems. It’s a combination of all of these events that I believe is making it ‘loom large’ and it’s fair to say this transcends the categorisation of ‘meme’ doesn’t it? What do you think?

[onlydeadheroes]

Hillary lost, in spite of the immense effort to support her that you described. If there isn't an all powerful boogie man in the picture hindering their efforts, like Fantasy-Putin, then the only inescapable conclusion left is that the democrats lost because at least some of their ideas suck even more than Trump. And that is not something they are able to face.

[jvzr]

I'm not American. However I think the current president is entirely on Americans. Sure, Russians may have helped a little by running those ads. But most of it is the Democrat candidate, and the general attitude towards America's Red populace in the Middle states.

[drugme]

[Facebook colluded]

I'm not sure what source you're quoting, or what the original text was that you're attempting to simplify.

EDIT: missed the quote when reading the message above somehow - sorry.

[daveFNbuck]

> Ma Bell didn't collude with Russia to influence a presidential election and install a puppet president.

In the context of an argument about why Facebook is a more dangerous monopoly than Ma Bell, this implies that Facebook did collude with Russia.

[drugme]

OK, agreed - that was definitely unjustified hyperbole. By all accounts, they did not intentionally "collude" with the Russians.

But what looms larger in my mind is the fact that FB was egregiously negligent in allowing the manipulation of their platform to take place to the extent that it did --- both in the context of that fiasco, and in much worse situations, e.g. in regard to the genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar.

[AlexB138]

The person I'm replying to said "Ma Bell didn't collude with Russia to influence a presidential election and install a puppet president". They're implying that Facebook, in contract to Ma Bell, did do these thing.

[bedhead]

The right had Obama birth certificate conspiracies, the left has Russian election hacking conspiracies. Different sides of the same idiotic coin for stupid people.

[r00fus]

Except it's not just the left, and there are open indictments against many of the President's team.

[bedhead]

The difference between the two is that even the majority of the right dismissed the birthers as idiotic nutjobs, while today the Russian election conspiracies are basically mainstream among the left. It's crazy

[rorykoehler]

The Russian election influencing (not gonna call it hacking because it's not) is not a theory. It's not on the same level as he birther BS which is total fantasy. Of course Russia are trying to influence US elections. Why wouldn't they?

[cheeseomlit]

All of which are for process crimes committed after the investigation started, or for completely unrelated white collar crimes from years ago

[r00fus]

So-called "process crimes" that cover up real crimes are still crimes. Or do you think Capone's tax evasion rap wasn't just the tip of the iceberg?

[fromthestart]

That so far, two years in, have nothing to do with collusion.

Russia has been playing both sides to destabilize the country, and the left's selective hysteria is playing right into the strategy, straight out of the KGB playbook.

The easiest man to fool is the one who thinks he cannot be fooled.

[mycorrhizal]

I definitely don't contest the amount of tracking these companies do. I wouldn't even be surprised if it goes beyond what I can even imagine. But when it comes to control can we at least attempt to quantify it or at least make it a bit more exact. For example I'm positive these companies have influence over what brand of headphones I buy next, but I'm even more positive, at least on a personal level, that these companies have zero influence when it comes to convincing me to take money out of my IRA and using it to buy something I can't afford. Frankly what I'm getting at is I buy into the argument that these companies can influence smaller behaviors, like restaurant A or B but I'm really dubious of their influence reaching to more important decisions like to get a divorce or not maxing out my 401k and/or IRA. So I find myself not really caring about their influence because I don't think it pertains to the big decisions that I really care about.

[stevenicr]

Any idea how many people are using fbook that do not have the same level of education that you have? and how much time is spent on the fbk by this group of people?

How many people are using the fbk that do not have the same familiarity with tech and apps? Same eye sight, finger dexterity?

Did you miss the recent stories about the thousands of people bilked out of thousands of dollars via sneaky game app purchases? Certainly some of that hurt some people's IRAs.

Funny you mention divorce. This is an anecdotal 1 data point out of millions.. but in the past year I watched a friend go through the struggles of considering separation and divorce for about 6 months. As I often rail against the use of fbk, she confided in me that the ad tech did indeed influence her on this decision.

For some time when she used the fbk system she saw ads saying she could sell her wedding ring for cash quick and easy.

This coming at a time of emotional distress, when searching for options for places to go, with the need of funding to do these things...

I'm glad you do not find yourself in a position to care to about these issues. I myself worry more about the influence of the less tech savvy, whether they can vote or not, have IRAs or marriages or not, these things affect people around us, and not always in a "lets connect the world to make it better and have a kumbaya party with fresh goat and laser beams" kind of ways.

[mycorrhizal]

I appreciate the response, but I definitely did not mean to imply that I don't care about other people's problems, but was simply questioning and hoping to get a more exact and maybe quantitative picture of the control these companies have. Perhaps I made a mistake in thinking too much about my own (important) personal decisions and the information and processes I use to make them.

With respect to the sneaky game purchases are you referring to the stories of facebook letting children make purchases and not reimbursing the parents? Because the ability to control children is much different than the ability to control adults.

The wedding ring for cash is definitely creepy and I can see how that would add additional distress to your friend. But I guess my point is: how much did that ad contribute to your friend deciding to get a divorce? Had she not see that ad and probably other similar ads would she have not gotten a divorce? I think at least attempting to quantify these questions is important when trying to understand the level of control of these companies. We have to go beyond "This company showed a creepy ad(s)" to "This company showed a creepy ad(s) and this is the extent it influenced my final decision."

[stevenicr]

"letting children make purchases and not reimbursing the parents?" - yes those recent stories. I think it was more than 'letting them make purchases' in what docs came out, it was more 'knowing that they racked up huge bills and often without the knowledge or consent of adults paying the bills' - yet purposely not doing anything about it.. but I did not read the documents only the headlines (admittedly from media companies that have a financial interest in pushing info to be detrimental to time spent getting news there on fbk instead of elsewhere - and just headline scanning - so guilty of that in this instance.

wedding ring sale - yes it led to separation, as it made a backup plan avenue for travel money more of a reality, and the constant reminder seemed to come at a time when reaching out to others for comfort / strength? help in making a decision?

in some ways it could be said that this is great! better to get an ad that is relevant! I know some close, for lack of a better understood description 'mutual feminist friends' - that think this ad is great, and they encouraged leaving, pawning the ring for a good lawyer and travel on the guy's dime - etc.

I know some, for lack of a better term, 'religiously conservative mutual friends" - who would of preferred the "relevant ads" to be marriage counseling services of clergy of local clergy or other similar pro-family things.

This is just one data point, but certainly there are many other, what I would consider abuses of these systems that many of us will never know about.

I for one would like to know more about ads and posts / pages and how they get into the feeds of people with info about alcohol and gambling, even non-money gambling - I think more transparency should be out there for things like this,

and people should be able to publicly report interesting intersections of things like these controversial mind influence images / ads / text - so public debate can occur -

not that I think things should be censored by govs, but certainly people should be more aware of these things, how they could be used to influence less mentally strong people, and people should have options to set settings to avoid some of these things easier.

Its hard to judge these systems when our view of the systems is not very controversial. We have no idea how millions of others see their feeds though.

I applauded fbks decision to make available a list of all ads run by 'whatever group' in light of the election interference investigations. I think we need more tools like this, more transparency.

To see what others or having pushed in front of their eyeballs, it could be shocking.

[pixl97]

> because I don't think it pertains to the big decisions that I really care about.

Because you dont want to think that, or because you've studied this and know it is the case?

With companies like FB being directly involved in the study of emotional manipulation of their users by altering their news and friends feed, I really think you are off base on the potential power they could have over a large number of individuals. Maybe you are somehow immune to their propaganda, but that is not a risk I want to take at society scale.

[mycorrhizal]

Right, so I was speaking personally there and I can confidently say among the priority of things I care about my relationship with my wife, how I manage my budget and my overarching career goals all of the decisions related to these things are done with a great deal of deliberation and research. So I'm not saying I'm somehow special and immune to propaganda, but I think when practically anyone takes the time to research and deliberate on big decisions and asking people they trust for advice these companies have a marginal effect.

I can specifically point to times where these companies have and have not influenced my decisions. For example my wife and I decided we could afford a 3k vacation this budget was informed by looking at our incomes, expenses, savings and job security. But social media definitely influenced where we chose to go and what we did once we got there. I'm much more concerned with the first decision (I can afford to blow 3k) than the second (where we ended up going).

[dantheman]

The bell system was a government granted monopoly, as in it was illegal to compete with them.