Comment by LowDog | Hacker News Reader

Comment by LowDog | Hacker News Reader

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Yeah, the American people elected Trump in an extremely rare case of the public taking back the election from corporate behemoths.

But let's pretend that Google hasn't had enormous sway over the White House and hasn't been rubbing shoulders with Obama and other Democrats [1][2][3][4]. Let's also ignore the fact that much of Silicon Valley publicly supported Hillary and opposed Trump, with big outspoken critics including Microsoft, Faceboook, and Apple.

It's a shame to see indoctrination stretching to users of this site such that people here legitimately believe that a bunch of Russians locked away in some computer lab single-handedly elected the only man who challenged the prospect of perpetually living under the oligarchical thumb of the Bushes and the Clintons.

[1] https://theintercept.com/2016/04/22/googles-remarkably-close...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-google-is-transf...

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/18/google-polit...

[4] http://dailycaller.com/2017/08/09/google-higher-ups-love-don...

This is off-topic, and your idea of how Trump got elected is not the only — or even one of the popular — view.

Closer to the topic: what Facebook enabled was far more effective targeting, by agents not authorized by the targets, on a massive scale. That's a lot different than the "bunch of Russians locked away in some computer lab single-handedly elected" rhetoric.

It's as on topic as the parent comment. I have to yet to see even a single fact to back up your claim. If someone is going to spread disinformation and not present any facts, then I am going to post a sourced rebuttal. Feel free to change my mind with actual facts instead of undermining the voters who disagreed with your political outlook and then blaming the results on some ludicrous notion of a bogeyman.

Yes, your parent comment introduced the topic of Trump's election, though still in the context of online tracking. Pardon my poor choice of words above.

> I have to yet to see even a single fact to back up your claim.

Here's the first result from a Google search I just did: https://www.wired.com/story/russian-facebook-ads-targeted-us...

> If someone is going to spread disinformation and not present any facts, then I am going to post a sourced rebuttal.

I don't see any sourced rebuttal.

> instead of undermining the voters

I didn't undermine any voters. I made no claims about any voters. I commented only on the targeting, and that the targets hadn't consented to their data being accessed.

> blaming the results on some ludicrous notion of a bogeyman.

A calmer rhetoric would be more productive to discourse. Targeted advertising is not a "bogeyman". Stolen data and privacy concerns are not bogeymen. That people put up lots of private info that can be used to accurately profile them is a fact. That ads can be effective has been proven from the time ads were invented, and that targeted ads can be even more effective — especially in a political context — has also been studied and concluded lots of times. See [1] and [2].

Frankly, now that you've brought up backing of claims, I'm a bit discouraged to have to defend stuff like this against clearly biased political rhetoric.

1: http://politics.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/978019022...

2: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/publications/a...

There is a strong perception across the world that facebook swung the election, which means that the world concentrates on the power of facebook, which drives that perception.

"How Facebook Helped Donald Trump Become President" -- https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2016/11/09/how-faceb...

"How Facebook ads helped elect Trump" -- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-facebook-ads-helped-elect-t...

"Here's How Facebook Actually Won Trump the Presidency" -- https://www.wired.com/2016/11/facebook-won-trump-election-no...

There is no such perception about how google "won trump the presidency".

Which is why I think that "all the focus on Facebook", despite the fact "Google tracking is so much more widespread"

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