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Comment by citilife | Hacker News Reader

> Back in 2012 we ran a study showing Google's filter bubble may have significantly influenced the 2012 U.S. Presidential election by inserting tens of millions of more links for Obama than for Romney in the run-up to that election

Thank god someone is discussing this. I think it's a real shame that the "media" is focusing only on the 2016 election is discussing how Trump manipulated voters. Sure, they ran advertisements (and Russia did), but the reality is this is no different than any of the recent elections.

Obama was right at the forefront of this tactic:

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/media/10carr.htm...

Yet, when Trump does it (perhaps better executed, or the platforms are better) it's "manipulating an election!"

Please, continue this research and keep it unbiased.

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From your own reference:

All of the Obama supporters who traded their personal information for a ticket to a rally or an e-mail alert about the vice presidential choice, or opted in on Facebook or MyBarackObama can now be mass e-mailed at a cost of close to zero.

That's a ...newsletter? Right?

How is that comparable, except in "It's on the internet" terms, to the Russian government secretly funding ad campaigns using illicitly gained psychometric data?

The obvious difference being state sponsored actors from a foreign entity weaponized this “feature.”

Not sure how you’re equating the two, but it’s disingenous.

I don't care whether it's a foreign entity or a domestic one...it's dubious and not good for the future of American politics.

If the entity is uncovering a fact then what does it matter whether it's a foreign or domestic entity who uncovered it? The fact itself is what's interesting.

I get that an entity could be more interested in uncovering facts about one party than another but in this particular case, the fact was that the Democratic Party was acting "unethically" in some people's eyes. If they hadn't been then it wouldn't have "influenced" people's opinions.

Another way to look at it: that entity didn't annotate the emails, the content of the emails was enough to anger people.

I'm not try to fork this into a flame war, I'm genuinely interested in what other users of this site think, particularly those who think differently than I do.

> If the entity is uncovering a fact then what does it matter whether it's a foreign or domestic entity who uncovered it?

How's that even a legitimate question? I can list a few reasons why it matters:

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

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

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

I actually would argue it doesn't matter if it's an internal or foreign actor that's doing it. The results / outcomes are effectively the same, the problem is the same.

It's disingenuous to claim a feature like targeted advertising is also "weaponized". There's always been targeted propoganda, that doesn't make it a weapon. Everyone is capable of self deception and their own decisions. If you argue against that, then we probably should start debating whether or not democracy is a good idea.

The problem here, is that we've gotten to a point anyone can target any person or subset of people. They don't even need to be a state actor. If we view that as bad, then we should probably research it (not just the 2016 election, but all elections).

The point is about the wording. That this is possible at all is bad regardless of whether it's pro-democrat, pro-republican, pro-communist or whatever.

But you complain people are calling it "manipulating an election". They're calling it that because of who is doing it (foreign agents) and why they are doing it (to gain control over a powerful enemy state). That is what makes it election interference and it seems very purposefully blind not to acknowledge it.

Trump's not even mentioned in the article.

In fact I would even buy a filter bubble if it had a "Not Trump" switch.

The point the GP is making is that it's the 2016 election (involving Trump) that is usually brought up (though not in this article) when it comes to filter bubbles as opposed to the 2012 election.

"Yet, when Trump does it ..."

How about when a foreign state, an enemy state at that, does it?

Unfortunately, many countries have long histories of doing so. America has arguably the worst track record on this score. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_electoral_interventi...

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