the less polite way to put it would be that Peter Thiel is balls-deep in all kinds of dark-money republican activism and would really prefer to keep Russian propaganda all over facebook because it's advantageous for his tax rates.
We shouldn't be comfortable with Russian influence, but we shouldn't allow our political opinions to be so dramatically warped by something that seems so proportionately small. As far as the Russians go, I think characterizing Thiel as being part of some "dark-money" republican machine that supports "Russian propaganda" is not accurate (or to the extent to which it is accurate, it doesn't matter). Not defending his position on other things, though.
I saw a lot of nonsense get spewed on Facebook- things that could be quite simply fact-checked, and people completely bought into them. Also, contradictory emotional appeals were spread (without, of course, the responders recognizing the contradictions). Finally, I was on a forum when someone gave stupid numbers concerning Obamacare, that I quickly checked and challenged (he left and never came back).
Having discovered that people by and large won't think critically about what you're saying, and using the viral nature of emotional appeals to create a general sentiment (which will later be rationalized) payed off for somebody. I don't know if it was the Russians or not.
-> I sponsor an ad targeting a certain audience
-> Byron Shifflett comments on the sponsored content in a way that makes it clear I reached him
-> Under another account, I reply to his comment
-> I send a friend request
-> He accepts
-> Now I can reach him just by posting my nonsense on my second account
-> He shares. That's what I like about him.
In 2013, I remember people were building Facebook audiences by ripping Facebook ID's from relevant open groups - that was insanely targeted audience, and while it wasn't general practice, it's definitely something advertisers were using. None of what comes from that is unexpected results. Your argument appears to be that Russian authorities with a $100k budget were 1000x better at manipulating Facebook's audience targeting tools than the people that had been paid to do just that for years - is that true?
I do not like Facebook, personally, and I don't like Trump. But this appears an unlikely scenario.
You say this very matter-of-factly. Do you have any evidence to back that up? Could you isolate that audience? As someone that has run a lot of political and consumer ads over the last 10 years, I'd really like to figure out who those people I can get for 100k that I can't get for 81 million are.
Propaganda does work. Russian propaganda does not work nearly as well as Madison Avenue propaganda, and that's been shown for decades. I'll give the edge to the Madison Ave guys spending tens of millions, here, over the Russian troll farm and 100k.
>If Russia could get a particular energy bill passed with $10k of Facebook propaganda, it would do that
Sure. I don't believe it can, though, and nobody has provided evidence to the contrary. Attempts, sure, but no real success.
It is my belief that the US FBI had much more to do with swaying the 2016 election than Russia's $100k Facebook ad spend.
These guys didn't have the clout they have now when broadcasters and content-owners were not allowed to monopolize the market.
We had 3 years of the mainstream media networks pushing the Russian-Collusion narrative and how Trump is going to be impeached for it.
Then the narrative get's utterly dismantled. It's such a farce at this point that the DNC didn't even list Russian collusion in it's articles of impeachment against the President.
Still, as this circus continues, very smart people still believe that Trump was elected because of Putin, and is in fact an agent of Russia.
It's mind blowing.
> The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion. Evidence of Russian government operations began to surface in mid-2016. In June, the Democratic National Committee and its cyber response team publicly announced that Russian hackers had compromised its computer network. Releases of hacked materials—hacks that public reporting soon attributed to the Russian government—began that same month. Additional releases followed in July through the organization WikiLeaks, with further releases in October and November.
>Dozens of IRA employees were responsible for operating accounts and personas on different U.S. social media platforms. The IRA referred to employees assigned to operate the social media accounts as “specialists.”42 Starting as early as 2014, the IRA’s U.S. operations included social media specialists focusing on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.43 The IRA later added specialists who operated on Tumblr and Instagram accounts. 44 > Initially, the IRA created social media accounts that pretended to be the personal accounts of U.S. persons.45 By early 2015, the IRA began to create larger social media groups or public social media pages that claimed (falsely) to be affiliated with U.S. political and grassroots organizations. In certain cases, the IRA created accounts that mimicked real U.S. organizations. For example, one IRA-controlled Twitter account, @TEN_GOP, purported to be connected to the Tennessee Republican Party.46 More commonly, the IRA created accounts in the names of fictitious U.S. organizations and grassroots groups and used these accounts to pose as antiimmigration groups, Tea Party activists, Black Lives Matter protestors, and other U.S. social and political activists. The IRA closely monitored
This is my understanding of how Peter Thiel views the world:
- Our entire economic system is structured for growth. With growth things are good and everyone can share in a piece of an ever-growing pie. Without growth you get a zero sum game and collapse.
- We are in a 'great stagnation' where growth is stalling in most industries. Every industry outside of tech (and arguably tech now too).
- The 'Neoliberals' (Obama and Clinton types, liberal centrists) don't see this stagnation as the existential threat it is and the institutions in place can't make the changes necessary to help correct for it.
- Without correcting for this problem you get an apocalyptic scenario and collapse of society.
- There's a dash of fair trade protectionism and an anti-immigration view somewhere in this that I don't totally understand (this is my weakest understanding of his politics, but it comes up when he talks and in his donations).
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Then with this framing Trump in this context:
- I think Peter Thiel thinks Donald Trump is an idiot, but his administration's willingness to ignore precedent may allow them to break out of some of the existing constraints that prevent large change.
- Focusing on anything except the stagnation problem is meaningless in the long run.
- The push back against China IP issues is good and something others were afraid to do.
- He thinks the immigration push back and protection of American workers is necessary for political stability.
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The questions I have with this view:
- He often asserts this stagnation problem exists, but without any real evidence (he just acts like it's obvious). I'd want some reason to think that now is different than historically - is it just a comparison to low hanging fruit in scientific discovery of the last couple hundred years? Something else? I think there are problems in academia, but I'm not sure I buy this 'great stagnation' argument up front.
- Trump seems like killing the patient to cure the disease, Peter Thiel would argue that actually things are mostly the same and Trump hasn't really changed day to day life for people. Currently this is largely true (unless you're an undocumented immigrant that had your children taken from you). This is playing with fire though and collapses of democracy are real - Putin was elected before becoming a dictator. I think he's playing dangerously here with his assumptions of what is possible.
- Continued support after this first term I just can't accept - it seems pretty clear at this point that Trump is a bad/criminal actor that only has his interests in mind with his actions.
Definition here: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dark_money
No - that's the highly editorialized, average "opinion" of Maddow, Lemon,... PBS is much better at not indoctrinating their audience on conspiracies
Did Russia hack the British elections recently?
Did Russia plant Tulsi into the DNC as a Trojan horse. Clinton seems to claim so.
Edit: The Russians have caught wind of this comment, and frantically down voting it, lest the media uncovers them lurking on HN
Edit: there's nothing to dispute in his post, it's all conspiracy theory and talking points barely strung together.
"Dark-money Republican activism" Lol.
Post some sources and I will show you the other side, as a bonus I'll give you a similar "dark-money" event from the Democrats.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/08/peter-thiel-wants-to...
(Wanting to live forever seems to be a not-uncommon desire among the hyper-rich. Larry Ellison's only known voluntary charitable contribution is similarly to a foundation he set up for researching the prolonging of life... specifically, his.)