Losers Lose - Facebook Edition

WilburHooksHands said:

This is tricky because they are now in the business of influencing elections and other things with massive stakes. Should platforms like Facebook be allowed to take on political clients or their agencies? I don't believe they should as it goes well beyond marketing and promotion. It is psychological manipulation. And yeah, you can say well isn't that what marketing is anyway? For sure to a point, but imo there is a big difference between a sign in a front yard, a TV campaign ad, and what these data tools do.

I guess this begs the question about why we should be concerned that there are going to be influences on an election. Is it somehow wrong to want a candidate to win? Why do they care? Is there not a legitimate reason? Is it maybe because we've allowed the role of government to become so powerful that it can really fuck people over, and therefore people have a massive incentive to make sure the guy who doesn't fuck them over gets elected? If so, should we not look at ways of limiting government so that people don't have to resort to psychological manipulating a bunch of people on social media?

We don't even ask these questions. We just say "BAN IT! BAN IT! BAN IT!"...like, almost seamlessly and automatically. It's not healthy, IMO.

And like I was saying, I especially don't see the issue since we already know that these types of tactics are being employed by backers of various candidates from both parties. Elections are like sports. Whatever one team is doing to gain an advantage, you bet your as s the other team is doing something similar. In the end, the playing field is level.

Fenderbender123 said:

I guess this begs the question about why we should be concerned that there are going to be influences on an election. Is it somehow wrong to want a candidate to win? Why do they care? Is there not a legitimate reason? Is it maybe because we've allowed the role of government to become so powerful that it can really fuck people over, and therefore people have a massive incentive to make sure the guy who doesn't fuck them over gets elected? If so, should we not look at ways of limiting government so that people don't have to resort to psychological manipulating a bunch of people on social media?

These are definitely fair questions to ask.

Fenderbender123 said:

And like I was saying, I especially don't see the issue since we already know that these types of tactics are being employed by backers of various candidates from both parties. Elections are like sports. Whatever one team is doing to gain an advantage, you bet your as s the other team is doing something similar. In the end, the playing field is level.

The playing field is definitely level and politicians gonna politic, but these tactics start to become morally and ethically corrupt quickly. This is not a new issue for politics, but in this age the effects are amplified 100x.

Dude61 said:

Exxon spills oil, they clean it up and pay a fine.

Facebook spills personal data, people tweak their privacy settings and vow never to use Facebook again.

Amazon is nearing Sherman Anti-Trust territory.

Will be interesting to see how gubment deals with digital era problems.

Do something.

I deleted my facebook like 4 years ago. Jesus christ someone put sven in charge.

Why anyone felt the need to stay on it once their mom and aunt and such started messaging them I'll never know.

As soon as family was on it I was out. It was for creeping on hotties and posting pictures of being at parties.