President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

Sorry for the confusion.

I was only commenting on the notion that things like Facebook or Twitter couldn't be regulated for the kind of commercial tracking and selling they do.

That said, we've regulated, perhaps to our shame, and with varying degrees of success, certain kinds of mass/electronic political speech, paid and unpaid, in the past.

 

Stipulating their approach was made more effective by purloined data ... I'd put my money on hacked party data. Although given how cheap/effective brute force methods can be, I'm still skeptical as to the likelihood of the purloined data explanation.

 

You guys have it so easy!

 

These "brute force" approaches to which I'm referring ... you might think of them as escalating clickbait. A thing on Facebook catches your eye, you click on it ... you're now in set A. Those in set A, over time, reveal themselves via other clicks to be in set AA. And so on ... eventually, you've got an audience that's largely told you it's up for what you're selling.

 

Trump Misleads on Russia Hacking - FactCheck.org

 

If (for example) you wanted to hurt Hillary, you find a voting district that you think is close enough to swing, then get a list of black voters there. Then you tailor messages citing anything that you think might hurt her chances... "Superpredators", "bring them to heel", welfare reform under Bill Clinton, etc. Do everything you can to target those voters with the aim of getting them to vote against her or stay home and refuse to support her.

The same basics can be used against any candidate of any party using any vulnerability.

 

The Russians were doing their thing long before there was a Trump administration. The Obama administration knew it. But those folks were too busy with their own specific election manipulations.

 

did you read it or are you going by the title? It talks about Obama.

 

Absolutely!

 

Perhaps the saddest thing about being a journalist is that the media is never going to be trusted again.

 

If only congress hadn't scuttled joint resolution 21!

 

In September, 2013, when Obama went to the Republican controlled Congress for authorization to enforce that red line .... how did that turn out?