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Comment by blfr | Hacker News Reader

the company had hired a right-wing opposition research group, Definers Public Affairs, to dig up dirt on George Soros, after Soros gave a blistering speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos decrying the power of social media, especially Facebook and Google, for their “far-reaching adverse consequences on the functioning of democracy, particularly on the integrity of elections.”

What is this about? Because it's weird friendly fire. Both Soros and Facebook/Google want largely the same outcome from elections: liberal politicians who keep the markets humming while allowing for easy international trade and migration.

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George Soros is very open publicly about what he wants to achieve. If you read "The Open Society and its Enemies" by Karl Popper, that's the intellectual foundation of what Soros is shooting for. THat's why his foundation is called something like the "Open Society Foundation". So: Democracy, scientific reasoning, strong institutions etc.

He has been extremely critical of the large tech monopolies (eg his Davos speech covered here and elsewhere https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/25/george-soro... ) so it's no surprise that Facebook would do "opposition" research on him. Facebook has a very large pavilion and visible presence at Davos so the criticism must have been particularly embarrassing in that context.

I think Facebook would like to be perceived as a liberal tech startup but keep in mind they knowingly sold the user info to Cambridge analytics for the republicans. The truth is their in it for the money like every other company. Apart of that means maintaining public perception.

I think it would be reasonable to assume they sold user info to anyone who could afford it.

Afaik the Democrats had done the same thing in 2012 with their micro-targeting "strategy" and they were praised for doing that (even here on this website). From here[1]:

> They used classic micro-targeting online advertising to reach those groups. Obama's team's use of Facebook this time was also very clever, tapping into Facebook's individual profile data. A million users downloaded the Obama 2012 app on Facebook. The app was able to identify their Facebook friends that fit favorable profiles located in key swing states, encouraging them to contact these friends to remind them to vote. Sources say one in five of those contacted this way were influenced positively by this contact.

If it matters I'm not a US citizen and I've never set foot in the States so I had almost no direct stake in the 2012 and the 2016 US elections.

[1] https://www.mediavillage.com/article/how-data-and-micro-targ...

Overtly. With opt-in. Big difference.

> A million users downloaded the Obama 2012 app on Facebook.

I'm pretty sure that the friends of those 1 million people that had opted-in were not consulted about anything, though, but I may be wrong of that. And I'm pretty sure that those friends were the real target of said campaign.

People shouldn't encourage their friends to vote?

Yeah, if he calls me directly on the phone or via text messaging (SMS, chat), there's nothing wrong with that. A definite no about my name and other info being in the database of a political party without my consent, based only on my friend's approval.

Just so I understand:

You oppose 3rd party voter databases, like these:

  https://www.ngpvan.com
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGP_VAN
  https://www.i-360.com 
  https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/I360

You support foreign intelligence agencies covertly, anonymously meddling with our elections. Especially through our social media platforms, like Facebook. Because Obama's campaign had an app.

no-one in this comment chain has supported intelligence agencies meddling in elections. Please don't be disingenuous. If anything, the parent was arguing against both.

Yeah, I most certainly oppose 3rd party voter databases like the ones you linked to, I only see them as tools to win elections by using "sales marketing"-like strategies.

I think that winning elections in such a manner is very bad for the future of democracy as you cannot fool the electorate indefinitely, because at some point the electorate will resort to other political "products", meaning the general populace will start looking at democracy and the electoral process as a "fake product" (as it usually happens to products that are pushed down consumers' throats based on marketing alone) and will choose other, "truer" products (like the rule of a sole individual that will not rely on the electoral process etc).

I don't generally support intelligence agencies but I most certainly do not support them meddling in any country's elections. I was just saying that the Obama campaign had used tactics similar to the ones used by the Trump campaign in 2016, that is all.

I think there is also a distinction in the granularity of the data harvested and what it was used for.

Knowing someone's location, age, etc and using that to classify whether or not someone should reach out to them to remind them to vote is one thing.

Harvesting everything they've liked on facebook to classify them by big five personality type to predict how to use disinformation to manipulate someone (often by scaring them into thinking they needed a gun to defend themselves, or that they needed to deport immigrants because they were gangerous, or into thinking islamic extremism was a real threat to their lives, as people high in neuroticism are more heavily motivated by arbitrary negative emotional impulses) into skewing their political preferences is an entirely separate game.

I think what you identified is merely a shared instrumental goal, not an objective goal for either of them.

I think, from how they talk, that Facebook wants to have everybody watching it all the time. From how they talk, more even than making money.

I think Soros wants intellectual freedom. Not so sure about that, but it looks that way from the philanthropy.

Both just happen to be using free markets to work towards their goals.

I've never understood why Soros is such a bogeyman to so many people. As far as I can see (from my position as a believer in so-called "western values" like freedom of speech, rule of law and fair elections), his goals seem entirely noble.

I get why despots like Viktor Orban hate Soros, but what about all the others? Do they hate him because he's rich and spends his money on politics? Because he comes off like a meddler, butting into other countries' affairs? Because he's (apparently?) Jewish? What is it?

>I've never understood why Soros is such a bogeyman to so many people.

Anti-Semitism.

Simple solutions for ...

While I'm not well informed enough to have a strong opinion on the matter, the bad things I've heard are mostly related to his profits from currency speculation and similar, which many people feel were immoral actions taken by Mr. Soros and untimately harmful to the nations who's currency he profited off by shorting. That's plenty of information regarding his past financial dealings if you are interested.

That might well be true, but I have to assume there are plenty of wealthy financiers out in the world making money from currency speculation, and you and I have never heard of them. It's hard for me to believe 'shady currency speculation' is really the root of the antipathy toward Soros.

It's like those climate change deniers who have a ready list of negative stories about Al Gore: I'm sure Gore has done some obnoxious things in his life, but you get the impression they went digging for dirt to justify their pre-existing distaste for the man.

He brought down Bretton-Woods in the 70s. That system was simply ripe for the taking, had almost collapsed in 68 (because the German Mark being fixed to the Franc and Dollar just doesn’t work when growth diverges), and would have collapsed eventually, possibly with more damaging results.

The criticism of Soros in Eastern Europe is simply the fear of the local wannabe strongmen of opposition. Soros funds mostly journalism and other civil society institutions (debate clubs at universities etc).

That criticism is channeled through anti-semitism, which still has currency in Hungary. Do a google image search if you don’t believe me.

In the US, he’s just a welcome foil for the alt-right to counter the Koch narrative, even though Soros historically did not actually support candidates, only causes. The anti-semitism is more subdued there, because it’s not (yet) acceptable in polite company. But polite company is almost as bankrupt as a Trump casino now, so we’ll see.

Those were essentially the UK's fault, and it's not like Soros was the only one taking advantage; if you're a market economy it's hard to blame a market for acting like a market. Today, it'd have been automated trading systems, probably.

Edit: I do think, by the way, that it’s telling that Soros is about the only example people ever give in cases of market forces harming a country. When Britain sold gold just before the gold bubble really inflated, no one blamed the gold traders; they blamed Brown, say.

There are several answers with a variety of cynicism.

At the lowest level of cynicism, both parties love to have a boogeyman, and often the level of attention and criticism these targets get goes way too far.

Next level of cynicism: he’s a Jewish liberal, and a large majority of antisemities vote right, not left. By now non-racist republicans are very good at ignoring or rationalizing the bigots around them, so really loud dog whistles have no negative consequences.

Final level of cynicism: republicans and right wing parties across Europe are no longer interested in democracy, and are now trending rapidly towards open fascism. Soros’ love of free speech and fair elections are a problem to them, not a shared value between otherwise political opponents.

Soros' foundation, Open Society, has supported censorship here in the US and Europe. Whether you agree or disagree with their objectives and methods, intellectual freedom certainly isn't one of their goals.

I do think the hyperbole over Zuckerburg and Soros by the media ( left and right ) is way overdone. The conservative media loves to portray Soros as pure evil while the liberal media paints him as a saint. And everyone ( left and right ) seems to hate Zuckerburg which I feel is ridiculous. Neither are all powerful demons nor saints who control the world. They are human beings just like you and me. Sure they have a lot of money, but lots of people in the US have money. They are influential, but not all powerful.

Maybe if we stopped painting people and sides as pure evil and pure good, we'd be better off and we could discuss the gray because most of life is in the gray.

Could you give sources to that claim that he supported censorship in the US and in Europe?

You might be mistaken about what Facebook "wants".

Facebook is nautorious for silently banning anything right of center.

Hardly - they let the entire leave.eu campaign alone, and there are plenty of far-right organisations on there. I believe that eventually, after much public pressure, they banned Infowars? That's about it.

Who says leaving the EU is a right-wing thing? The current leader of the Labour Party is far more anti-EU than the current leader of the Tories! Some things just don’t fit the classic left/right model.

It's an extreme/desperate-wing thing (left or right, doesn't matter).

Because that's the only way they know they can grab power: by making their people miserable, blaming the centrists or moderates, and triggering a revolt.

That's the playbook for Brexit and so far, it worked. That's the playbook running in France right now as well - although they're trying to piggyback the still popular, uncoordinated movement.

They're not even shy about it.

Lots of people are already miserable. Not the "experts" who have sold their intellects to maintain the status quo for the billionaires, of course. Lots of inequality, lots of bureaucracy, lots of rules, lots of violence, gives them lots of levers to pull. Unless you're such an expert, you shouldn't fear change.

I'm not an expert - and I'm well aware of people having miserable living conditions already.

And I'm well aware that in Europe, misery is more a matter of relative appreciation and of dynamics (which the media and the social networks nurture and feed on) than of absolute. Europe is rather well endowed, compared to the rest of the globe. Still...

What I fear is disorder, irrational, unwarranted violence, managed by unaware & unapologetic kids who make money on it today and will write history tomorrow.

Facebook/Twitter/Instagram & co are heavily contributing to set the world on fire by blowing on people's weaknesses and susceptibilities.

The question to me is not if/when their demise will happen. The question is how to make it happen faster: either they lose, either balanced democracies lose.

They've worked with others (CA) to hand the UK over to the right wing.

Do you have specific examples?

A very close friend of mine is a self-described “revolutionary” (Communist? Marxist? Something like that). She is convinced Facebook is biased against the left and secretly censoring all their content.

I mean, it says it right in the article. Soros (like many people) is worried about social media pseudo-monopolies. That's obviously going to be threatening to said pseudo-monopolies.

Pot calling the kettle black.

>Both Soros and Facebook/Google want largely the same outcome from elections

I think we are consuming wildly differing news sources.

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