Facebook mistakenly threatened Christian satire site The Babylon Bee with demonetization and reduced viewership after the left-leaning Snopes website “fact checked” one of its articles Thursday.
Snopes fact checked the Bee article titled “CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine To Spin News Before Publication,” and found that it was false. Facebook then used the fact check to warn Babylon Bee Founder and editor Adam Ford that publishing more “disputed info” would result in demonetization and reduced viewership.
Snopes has repeatedly fact-checked The Bee–once it was fact-checked to be sure it was NOT A FEDERAL CRIME to play Christmas music before Thanksgiving, and that California Christians DO NOT NEED to register their Bible’s as assault weapons.
Snopes acknowledged that the Bee’s article was satire, but claimed the fact check was justified because “some readers missed that aspect of the article and interpreted it literally.” We understand Liberal America is a few donuts short of a dozen, but wouldn’t you think Snopes would get it? However, Snopes has a long history of dubiousfact checks and has targeted the Bee’s satire 13 times and The Onion’s satire 17 times.
Facebook’s ultimate apology and statement does not undo what happened to the Bee, nor does it erase the very serious implications of the social network’s power over information. In April, the social network announced it would let troll mobs decide what is and what isn’t fake news. A few months later, Facebook announced it would block ads from users it thinks are sharing “fake news.”
What happened to the Bee is just one example of the way the social network can arbitrarily decide what information they will bury and what they will lend a platform too. Similar arbitrary standards got them in trouble when former employees revealed that they routinely suppressed conservative news on purpose.
Not sure which is more worrisome, that Facebook would try to block free speech, or that they would rely on Snopes to determine so-called “fake news”.
Note: This is not a satire.
Paul Plante says
Does anyone have a clue as to what world we are living in anymore?
Just the other day, Marketwatch had an article entitled “Fake news is 70% more likely to be shared on Twitter than true stories, ‘stunned’ MIT researchers find” by Kari Paul published: Mar 8, 2018 4:36 p.m. ET.
Why these MIT researchers would be “stunned” by that frankly eludes me.
Did they think that TWITTER had been invented to dispense the gospel truth to the people of America 180 characters at a time?
According to the Marketwatch article, the study found falsehoods travel farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth, “in all categories of information, and in many cases by an order of magnitude,” according to Sinan Aral, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and co-author of the paper.
On Twitter, false news stories are 70% more likely to be retweeted than true stories, and it takes true stories about six times as long to reach 1,500 people as it takes for false stories to reach the same number of people.
Falsehoods are also retweeted more widely than true statements at every depth of a “cascade,” which is how the study refers to unbroken tweet chains.
These chains travel 10 to 20 times more quickly than facts.
end quotes
The article then posed this question: Why are falsehoods so alluring?
The answer according to the MIT study was as follows:
Usually because they are more interesting than the truth, said Aral.
“False news is more novel, and people are more likely to share novel information,” he said.
It also creates a false sense of expertise for some.
“People who share novel information are seen as being in the know,” he added.
end quote
Is that a statement about the people of America today, or what?
And truthfully, this is nothing at all new, and in fact, is quite old.
Back before WWII, in Germany, Joseph Goebbels said as follows:
“It is a mistake to believe that the people cannot take the truth.”
“They can.”
“It is only a matter of presenting the truth to people in a way that they will be able to understand.”
end quotes
That last sentence pretty much explains things, don’t it?
Maybe that is something the people at Facebook simply cannot yet understand.
As to how long outright likes and untruths have been a part of our political climate in this country, here is what the Mental Floss article “Adams vs. Jefferson: The Birth of Negative Campaigning in the U.S.” on September 9, 2012 has to tell us on that subject:
Negative campaigning in the United States can be traced back to John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.
Back in 1776, the dynamic duo combined powers to help claim America’s independence, and they had nothing but love and respect for one another.
But by 1800, party politics had so distanced the pair that, for the first and last time in U.S. history, a president found himself running against his VP.
Things got ugly fast.
Jefferson’s camp accused President Adams of having a “hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.”
In return, Adams’ men called Vice President Jefferson “a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.”
As the slurs piled on, Adams was labeled a fool, a hypocrite, a criminal, and a tyrant, while Jefferson was branded a weakling, an atheist, a libertine, and a coward.
Even Martha Washington succumbed to the propaganda, telling a clergyman that Jefferson was “one of the most detestable of mankind.”
end quotes
So was that fake news?
Or what exactly was it?
I wonder if the rocket scientists at Facebook can tell us.
Getting back to the Marketwatch article:
The research comes at a time that “fake news,” a loaded term the authors of the study deliberately chose not to use, has been cited as an epidemic.
Congress is investigating how Russia may have infiltrated the 2016 election with fake bots spreading inaccurate or falsified news reports.
Meanwhile, President Trump has used the term “fake news” to criticize negative coverage of his policies or reports of his poor approval ratings.
A previous Ipsos Public Affairs study found that fake headlines fool American adults 75% of the time.
end quotes
Check out that percentage again: fake headlines fool American adults 75% of the time!
So what can be done about fake news?
A spokeswoman for Twitter said the company is actively seeking solutions to the so-called fake news problem, citing a recent announcement from chief executive officer Jack Dorsey.
Unlike Facebook, Twitter allows anonymous accounts or those with pseudonyms or multiple accounts, but these policies are difficult to enforce.
“We are looking to outside experts to help us identify how we measure the health of the public conversation on Twitter,” she said.
“As part of this we’ve issued a request for proposals; selected applicants will collaborate directly with our team, receive public data access and meaningful funding for their research.”
end quotes
Ah, yes, the scientific approach to the problem, which is what Facebook is doing by relying on Snopes.
Getting back to the Marketwatch article:
David Mondrus, founder and chief executive officer of Trive, a startup that targets fake news, said there have been failures on the part of foreign governments and domestic governments, as well as private entities like media companies that have led to the rise of fake news.
His program uses crowdsourcing, rewarded and incentivized by cryptocurrency, to root out false stories.
“This is a way for us to take the power of crowds to do verification work away from news organizations and give it to people,” he said.
end quotes
So, they are going to solve the problem of fake news by having the adults who are fooled by it 75% of the time debunk that which is fooling them!
Sounds like a plan to me, alright.
And getting back to Marketwatch:
Researchers were “surprised and stunned” at the magnitude of the problem uncovered in the study, said Deb Roy, an associate professor of media arts and sciences at the MIT Media Lab and director of the Media Lab’s Laboratory for Social Machines, who is also a co-author of the study.
The researchers found some people were spreading fake news purposely while others were unwittingly sharing unverified stories.
Because of this, more careful studies and varied responses to the two-part problem are required.
And until then?
“Think before you retweet,” Roy said.
end quotes
And there we have it, people!
Think before you retweet and the problem of fake news will be solved.
Now, if we only knew what fake news t=really was, what a grand world this would be!
Jack Trump says
I’ll tell you what I don’t get at all. Social media. How did that crap ever become popular and accepted in the 1st place ? Ever heard the phrase you get what you pay for ? It defines the value of social media. Don’t create an account. Don’t listen. Like the ex mother in law that meddled in everything in your life, but still gives your kids birthday presents……accept the good and Thank Her. The rest ? Set up parameters and keep her at that valuable distance.
Google and Facebook tell you every day what they are. on The birthday of George Washington Google had a bug crawling down the side of their logo on their home page. Today ? 3/12 they note the birthday of an obscure chemist who created purple dye. Idiot liberals. I appreciate their search engine. It’s the best, but they have a very distorted, non-inclusive and narrow minded view of the greatest democracy in the history of the world.
Zuckerburg and his Facebook ? He became wealthy over defining people’s lives for them ? And now he exerts influence on what you are allowed to read and see ? Is that a democratic principle ? Maybe you developed the wrong habit of where to get info. BREAK THE CHAIN. Don’t allow the bully to push you around. You joined, right ? You joined a club that won’t let you be yourself and see what you want to see ? Uh, hello !! Is anybody home ? And you helped your kids to learn how to “play” in there with those narrow minded people ? Well, you got what you paid for; but you can still fix it. Just divorce him.
Paul Plante says
While we are on this subject of “fake news,” which we have had in this country at least since 30 June 1950 when Harry S. “The Buck Stops Here” Truman issued a terse statement to the press, terming our military adventure in Korea a “police action,” never fear, because Progressive Democrat Young Andy Cuomo of New York State, who is going to be our next president, is here to put an end to the problem, at least according to the Albany, New York Times Union article “Cuomo pushes to regulate political spending on social media – Governor cites Russian meddling in 2016 federal election” by Rick Karlin published Wednesday, February 28, 2018, as follows:
ALBANY — Warning of a potential crisis in the democratic system, Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday turned up the bandwidth on the push to regulate political ads on social media sites like Facebook.
end quote
See that, Jack Trump – Young Andy hears you loud and clear and he is right on top of things here so you can sleep comfortably in your bed at night, knowing as you do that Young Andy has your back covered, as a future American president should, and that our cherished democratic system will be safe from crisis when you wake up in the morning.
And what other presidential candidate is making that promise for you?
And look at what the dude is saying here about social media, Jack Trump:
“You have the explosion of the power of social media which has transformed politics in a way no other transformation has,” Cuomo said during a conference call touting the Democracy Protection Act, which the Democratic-controlled Assembly passed later in the day.
end quotes
That sounds very much like what you are saying, does it not?
And look at the political horsepower a future American president like Young Andy in New York state is able to bring to bear here on bad actors like Facebook and Twitter that have, according to Young Andy, caused a potential crisis in the democratic system:
Assembly Democratic Majority Speaker Carl Heastie as well as legal and good government experts participated in the conference call.
“You have a total lack of regulation of the social media space.”
“We’re eight months from an election.”
end quotes
A total lack of regulation over what people can or cannot say in the social media space?
Am I hearing that right?
The Democrats want to regulate freedom of speech in the social media space?
Now, why would the democrats want to regulate freedom of speech in the social media space?
Wouldn’t it be to suppress the voices of those who don’t like Democrats?
Getting back to the Times Uni0n article:
“You have to assume that it’s going to happen again,” Cuomo said, referring to the growing imbroglio over the Russian government’s digital meddling in the 2016 presidential elections.
end quotes
Why do we have to assume anything here, given that we don’t even know what happened the supposed last time?
According to the Times Union article, in the run-up to the 2016 race, numerous postings on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms originated from Russian operatives, according to federal authorities.
Critics have said it was part of an effort to boost support for President Donald Trump who defeated Hillary Clinton.
Clinton, the former secretary of state, senator and first lady, is known to be more hawkish toward Russia than Trump.
end quotes
Now, truthfully, did we really need the Russians to tell us about Hillary Clinton?
How about this excerpt from a Marketwatch article by Darrell Delamaide on Sept, 2, 2015, to wit:
The 2016 presidential campaign is turning into a huge game of liar’s poker.
And now we are faced with a presidential campaign where the two frontrunners, Donald Trump for the Republicans and Hillary Clinton for the Democrats, are engaging in a series of bluffs and double-bluffs with voters in an elaborate game of liar’s poker.
Trump is telling Republican primary voters exactly what they want to hear, even when it is at odds with things he’s said in the past, to make them believe he is a serious candidate for president.
Clinton’s bluff is more audacious.
She is betting that voters will accept all the baggage she carries from decades in politics — from suspicious futures trades and real estate investments in Arkansas to the latest controversies over dubious email practices and questionable donations to the Clinton Foundation.
She is also betting voters will believe that she really intends to defend the middle class from the predations of Wall Street, despite the millions in donations from financial institutions, the sweeping deregulation of Wall Street implemented by President Bill Clinton, and the avarice driving the Clintons to amass a fortune since leaving the White House.
But the very boldness of the bluff makes it more transparent, and a Quinnipiac poll last week found that the first word most often coming to mind at the mention of Hillary Clinton was “liar,” followed by “dishonest” and “untrustworthy.”
But “crook” and “untruthful” still made the top 10.
end quotes
There is the kind of speech in the social media space that Democrats like New York’s Young Andy Cuomo and Assembly Democratic Majority Speaker Carl Heastie want to suppress, for the good of the party, of course.
Getting back to how Young Andy is going to tackle the problem of free speech on the internet, the Times Union clues us in as follows:
The measure passed in the Assembly on Monday expands the state’s definition of political communication to include paid internet and digital advertisements.
It also requires digital companies to keep on file a list of political ads.
They also will have to verify that the ads aren’t being purchased by foreign governments.
end quotes
Now, reading that last sentence above, one has to wonder if a foreign government that really wanted to influence our elections by telling us that a Democrat like Hillary Clinton is known in America as a pathological liar would purchase advertisements on Facebook and TWITTER in their own names, so everybody would know what they were doing.
Seems kind of silly to think they would identify themselves as a foreign government when purchasing political ads on social media in this country to influence our elections, but hey, if Young Andy Cuomo thinks they will, then it must be true, since Young Andy never puts out fake news on anything, himself.
Don’t that make you feel better about yourself, Jack Trump, knowing Young Andy Cuomo of New York state has your back for you when it comes to finally roping Facebook and TWITTER in to make them toe the line he sets for them?
Bet you will sleep real good tonight knowing that finally, somebody is out there with the guts and grits to take on Facebook and cut them down to size when it comes to restricting what can be said in the social media space.
Paul Plante says
As can be expected from someone who is going to be our next president, Young Andy Cuomo’s efforts to control speech on the internet just isn’t for New York state, where Young Andy rules like a tyrannical king; they are for the nation, as well, as we can see from the Albany, New York Times Union story “Cuomo gets boost in Congress for his social media disclosure push – Federal lawmakers also want disclosure of social media ads” by Rick Karlin published Thursday, March 8, 2018, as follows:
Albany – Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential elections remains one of the leading political stories of the day.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo worries that such foreign interference could turn up in the individual states’ elections.
“I don’t think the Russians say, ‘We’re only going to interfere in federal elections,’ ” Cuomo said.
“I think part of the goal is to wreak havoc.”
His comments came Thursday during a phone conference with a fellow Democrat, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, to promote bills – his on the state level and hers in Congress – that would force disclosure by buyers of political ads posted on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Google.
end quotes
I think Young Andy thinks the Russians are going to target not only him, but all Democrats in New York state, right on down to the local dog catchers.
According to the article, currently, people and organizations buying political ads on broadcast media must disclose their identities under federal law which explains the disclaimers we all hear at the end of radio and TV ads around election time, assuming any of us bother to listen to any of that crap spew.
Additionally, foreign entities are restricted from purchasing broadcast election ads, but no such requirements exist for social media despite the fact that more and more advertising is going to those platforms.
Some, like Facebook, are starting to require disclosure on their own, but it’s mandated by law.
“All the money is migrating over there,” Klobuchar said of ads on social media.
end quotes
Now, who really even sees those ads on social media, let alone pays any attention to them?
I am not a “Booker,” as Facebook users are known up this way, nor am I a TWITTERATI or TWITTER user, but there are ads on other “social media” sights I visit, and I simply tune them out, because who is going to believe anything in a political ad, or any other kind of ad for that matter?
Getting back to Young Andy and the Times Union:
Cuomo didn’t say the Kremlin is looking, for instance, to help his opponents get an edge by using blind internet ads, as is the charge regarding the presidential race.
Instead, he said Russian government operatives, and perhaps others, could be using false and misleading internet ads and postings to undermine the democratic process in general.
They can do that by spreading false rumors and generally trying to sow chaos, and that, Cuomo, said could be done on the state and even local level.
end quotes
Ah, yes, the “democratic process,” whatever on earth that might be.
And talk about Russian government operatives, and perhaps others, using false and misleading internet ads and postings to undermine the democratic process in general by spreading false rumors and generally trying to sow chaos, isn’t that what the Republicans and Democrats themselves do?
And here come Young Andy’s presidential aspirations here:
Cuomo’s phone conference was one of several in recent months in which he has joined forces with leaders from other states to pursue an issue.
That has fueled speculation that he is looking at a 2020 presidential run.
In addition to Klobuchar, Cuomo since December has held phone conferences with Govs. Jerry Brown of California, Phil Murphy of New Jersey and Dannel Molloy of Connecticut on the federal tax overhaul which is viewed at harming Northeastern and other largely Democratic states where state and local taxes are high.
end quotes
And there is some more American history in the making, right before our eyes!
Todd Holden says
Look at Me, Look at Me, Look at Me, Look at Me, Look at Me….Social ‘Me’-deia.
Sick stuff right there….and the sheep embrace it.
tkenny says
You do realize that you are participating in Social Media right now, yes?
Note: It is always helpful to read the article, which is not so much a criticism of social media, but of censorship in general.
Paul Plante says
Ah, tkenny, dude!
We’re in the midst of a huge blizzard here to the north of you, tkenny. a nor’easter up this way, so people aren’t really going anywhere, which had them bored, so to speak, and all of a sudden, here you come to save their day.
Let me tell you, tkenny, their spirits really perked up when the call went out, “hey, tune into CCM , tkenny is in the house!”
And lo and behold, it’s true news, not fake news, for here you are.
And you raise an important point that I pondered and wrestled with this morning – is the Cape Charles Mirror really “social media?”
Where does the category “social media” really begin and end?
According to the simple definition on Google, the term “social media” refer to websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.
Is that what you see us doing or accomplishing in here, tkenny, with your assertion that the CCM is indeed “social media?”
Merriam-Webster has as their definition of social media as follows: forms of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos).
So, tkenny, is that us in here?
Have we indeed “created” a “community” in here to share information and ideas?
If so, why would we want New York State Governor and Despot in the fashion and manner of Lord Cornbury, Edward Hyde, 3rd Earl of Clarendon, Young Andy Cuomo regulating what we can say to each other in here?
Are you for having Progressive Democrat Young Andy Cuomo of New York State being the arbiter of what we can say and what we can think, for the good of the nation, of course?
And tkenny, dude, you are pretty savvy about pretty much everything, which is but one of the many qualities that people admire you for in here in poll after poll.
While we are on the subject of fake news, do you recall the Smith-Mundt Act, as enacted January 27, 1948?
People up this way figure if anyone in here would be familiar with that, it would have to be tkenny.
And that brings us to an article in Foreign Policy entitled “U.S. Repeals Propaganda Ban, Spreads Government-Made News to Americans by John Hudson on July 14, 2013, as follows:
For decades, a so-called anti-propaganda law prevented the U.S. government’s mammoth broadcasting arm from delivering programming to American audiences.
But on July 2, that came silently to an end with the implementation of a new reform passed in January.
The result: an unleashing of thousands of hours per week of government-funded radio and TV programs for domestic U.S. consumption in a reform initially criticized as a green light for U.S. domestic propaganda efforts.
end quotes
As you will recall, tkenny, there they are talking about the Smith-Mundt Act, as enacted January 27, 1948, legislation which authorized the U.S. State Department to communicate to audiences outside of the borders of the United States through broadcasting, face-to-face contacts, exchanges including educational, cultural, and technical, online activities, the publishing of books, magazines, and other media of communication and engagement.
What is interesting to us in our times, what with all this talk of fake news and Russian interference with our sacred “democratic processes,” as Progressive Democrat Young Andy Cuomo, who is going to be our next president, is the fact that Congress harbored significant reservations about empowering the State Department, and well they should have when you think about it, given the partisan political nature of the State Department.
As Wikipedia tells us, tkenny, a key issue was oversight over State Department programs, including exchanges, which books were distributed abroad, art that was distributed as representing the United States, and the radio programming.
The legislation was introduced in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in January 1945 by Rep. Mundt, a member of the Committee.
It was modified a few months later at the request of the State Department.
The bill was reintroduced with the State Department’s requests and renamed the Bloom Bill, after the committee’s chairman, Rep. Sol Bloom (D-NY).
When the Bloom Bill (HR 4982) went to the House Rules Committee in February 1946, committee Chairman Eugene Cox (D-GA) informed Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs William B. Benton that ten of the twelve committee members were against anything the State Department favored because of its “Communist infiltration and pro-Russian policy.”
end quotes
That was in February of 1946, tkenny, and look at us today, all these years later, with Russians literally coming out of the woodwork over here to dominate and control our thinking through manipulation on social media.
Who knows, tkenny, but that you too are just another Russian bot come over here on the internet to sow chaos in our democratic processes simply for the sake of sowing chaos.
Getting back to the Smith-Mundt Act, as enacted January 27, 1948, that the House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously reported the bill out was meaningless House Rules Committee Chairman Eugene Cox (D-GA) told Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs William B. Benton, as the Foreign Affairs Committee was “a worthless committee consisting of worthless impotent Congressmen; it was a kind of ghetto of the House of Representatives.”
Cox then publicly characterized the State Department as “chock full of Reds” and “the lousiest outfit in town”.
end quotes
And people thought we were rough on poor Hillary Clinton.
Getting back to the Smith-Mundt Act, the information component of the Bloom Bill was seen as a revitalization of the Office of War Information, for which many in Congress held contempt as a New Deal “transgression”.
The cultural component was held in greater disdain, which caused Benton to change the name of his office from the Office of Cultural and Public Affairs a year after it was created to the Office of Public Affairs.
Other comments were similarly tough.
The ranking minority member of the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee, Rep. John Taber (R-NY), called for a “house-cleaning” of “some folks” in the State Department to “keep only those people whose first loyalty is to the United States.”
The FBI was also concerned over the ability of State to monitor and control participants in the exchange programs.
end quotes
That is pretty powerful language is it not, tkenny?
When it comes to fake news and manipulation, you really do have to wonder what is going on at the State Department in that regard, especially in the light of the above Foreign Policy article.
Getting back to the Smith-Mundt Act, Congress, in recommending passage of the bill, declared that “truth can be a powerful weapon.”
Notice the qualifying language there, tkenny – the truth CAN be a powerful weapon,
But as those politicians also know, lies can be a far more powerful weapon, and they are, even in here, as we have seen in other threads where a bogus court decision or “fake news” from New York state was brought into here in a futile effort to discredit one of the posters in here so as to suppress the truth.
Getting back to the Smith-Mundt Act, Congress further declared six principles were required for the legislation to be successful in action:
* tell the truth;
* explain the motives of the United States;
* bolster morale and extend hope;
* give a true and convincing picture of American life, methods, and ideals;
* combat misrepresentation and distortion; and
* aggressively interpret and support American foreign policy.
As a Cold War measure, it was intended to counter and inoculate against propaganda from the Soviet Union and Communist organizations primarily in Europe.
The principal purpose of the legislation was to engage in a global struggle for minds and wills, a phrase used by Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower.
It established the programming mandate that still serves as the foundation for U.S. overseas information and cultural programs at the Department of State.
end quotes
A global struggle for minds and wills, tkenny, and that global struggle goes on to this day, and it will be still going on long after you and I have departed this earthly plain.
Did you ever think of yourself as engaged in a global struggle for minds and wills in here, tkenny?
And actually, you might not be, for amendments to the Smith-Mundt Act in 1972 and 1985 reflected the Cold War’s departure from the “struggle for minds and wills” to a balance of power based on “traditional diplomacy” and counting missiles, bombers, and tanks.
And think about that for a moment, tkenny, if you will – if the struggle for minds and wills is really over, as Congress thought back when, what really is it about any more then?
No wonder people in this country are so confused today, tkenny.
Getting back to our own history here, there are three key restrictions on the U.S. State Department in the Smith–Mundt Act.
The first and most well-known restriction was originally a prohibition on domestic dissemination of materials intended for foreign audiences by the State Department.
The original intent was the Congress, the media and academia would be the filter to bring inside what the State Department said overseas.
end quotes
I bet you jumped right on that word “filter” in there, tkenny!
Now, what kind of truth are we really going to get from the Congress, the media and academia being the filter to bring inside this country what the State Department said overseas?
And what was the State Department saying overseas that we could not know directly about, especially as Senator J. William Fulbright (D-AR) argued in 1972 that America’s international broadcasting should take its “rightful place in the graveyard of Cold War relics,” that as he successfully amended the Act to read that any program material “shall not be disseminated” within the U.S. and that material shall be available “for examination only” to the media, academia, and Congress (P.L. 95-352 Sec. 204).
And consider this, tkenny:
In 1985, Senator Edward Zorinsky (D-NE) declared USIA would be no different than an organ of Soviet propaganda if its products were to be available domestically.
And we wonder why there is so much fake news today.
Perhaps it is because our State Department did such a bang-up job of creating it in the first place.
Just a thought, anyway, tkenny, now, back to you!
Paul Plante says
The title of this thread, “How Stupid Have We Become?” begs many questions, chief among them the question of were we ever not stupid?
Can anyone in here go back to a time in their lives when they thought the people and the world around them were not stupid?
As to the use of the word “stupid” as in “have we become more stupid,” or “how stupid have we become,” there it is an adjective meaning “having or showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense,” as the “BOOKERS” over at Facebook certainly were doing when they threatened Christian satire site The Babylon Bee with demonetization and reduced viewership after Snopes fact checked the Bee article titled “CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine To Spin News Before Publication,” and found that it was false.
Or were they, really?
Were the “BOOKERS” over at Facebook showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense when they threatened Christian satire site The Babylon Bee with demonetization and reduced viewership after Snopes fact checked the Bee article titled “CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine To Spin News Before Publication,” and found that it was false?
Or were they really exercising a vital civic duty by protecting the legitimately stupid people who use Facebook from being confused by satire?
Looking at how Merriam-Webster defines “stupid,” we have as follows:
1 a : slow of mind : obtuse
b : given to unintelligent decisions or acts : acting in an unintelligent or careless manner
c : lacking intelligence or reason : brutish
2 : dulled in feeling or sensation
3 : marked by or resulting from unreasoned thinking or acting : senseless ·a stupid decision
4 a : lacking interest or point ·a stupid event
b : vexatious, exasperating ·the stupid car won’t start
end quotes
There we are presented with several choices to have to consider.
If the management of Facebook feels it has a duty to protect its users from obvious satire, which is the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues, is it because the management of Facebook sees its users as slow of mind or obtuse, which is to say, annoyingly insensitive or slow to understand?
Do they see them as given to acting in an unintelligent or careless manner when exposed to obvious satire, which then puts a duty on the Facebook management to keep that from happening by keeping obvious satire away from them on Facebook?
Does the management of Facebook feel a need to protect its users from obvious satire because they are lacking intelligence or reason, in which case, is it still censorship?
In that case, wouldn’t it be more a form of guardianship, instead, with the management of Facebook acting a responsible big brother for those people?
The candid world would certainly like to know.
Paul Plante says
If you ask somebody in the legal trade, assuming you have the coin to buy the answer with, they will tell you to never ask a question to which you do not already know the answer, so with respect to my question above, “can anyone in here go back to a time in their lives when they thought the people and the world around them were not stupid,” the answer is yes, I certainly can.
I am of course going way back to the early-1950s, when there were actual adults still around, as opposed to children who have merely aged past eighteen, as seems the case so often today.
And those were people, both men and women, who were forced to become adults by the Great Depression followed by WWII.
The other thing they did not have were all the things deemed necessary to basic survival today, like cellphones and wide-screen TVs and microwave ovens and automatic coffee makers, the BMW SUV, and on and on and on.
One of those adults who was around when I was young who definitely was not stupid was a lady up the road in her nineties who had been born after the Civil War and had grown to adulthood without any of what is deemed necessary to survival today, to include central heat and running water and indoor plumbing, and she was one of the most sensible people I have ever met, although she was far from the only one.
“Stupid” started coming in up here where I am with the proliferation of the television in the 1960s.
When I was young, we lacked two distractions that are commonplace today – the telephone and the television.
They were around somewhere, but not out on the dirt road in the country that I lived on, so I never really got a dependence on either.
Here where I am, in the latter fifties, there was just one TV station, and it was essentially local broadcasting – a fishing show, a fashion show, some music, and then the test pattern.
As the 60s progressed, two more TV stations came to the area, along with the advent of color TV, and there is where the “stupidization” of this area began, a “stupidization” process that reminds me so much of what happened to the kids who went with Jimmy Lampwick in Pinocchio.
All of a sudden, kids who lived on farms in the country with chores that had to be done were being confronted with kids in Philadelphia who got to dance on American Bandstand, and then there were the Muskateers, who lived a life of leisure out at Disneyland.
And what an appeal those two programs had on farm kids who had none of that stuff to do.
And instead of the reality of the countryside they actually lived in being their reality, the reality became what was inside the TV box, not what they were surrounded by.
Talk about siren songs, alright!
The “stupidization” of America had begun, and here were are today, where you now have to search far and wide to find an actual adult who was not already “stupidized” in this country.
This morning, I asked Google this question: are Americans stupid?
These are only some of the 38,700,000 results I got back, and the consensus opinion seems to be that yes, we are a very stupid people in this country, which begs the question – is stupid born or is stupid made:
How to Fix American Stupidity | Time
time.com › Ideas › Philosophy
Sep 12, 2017 – Nadler, a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction, is a professor of philosophy and the humanities at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the coauthor of Heretics!: The Wondrous (and Dangerous) Beginnings of Modern Philosophy. When so many obviously intelligent and …
Are Americans just stupid? | National Observer
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2017/11/15/opinion/are-americans-just-stupid
Nov 15, 2017 – How is the United States such a powerful superpower and yet Americans seem to be so stupid? I mean, seriously, haven’t we all pondered this at one time or another – or just about every frickin’ day since November, 2016, when 63 million Americans walked into voting booths and pulled the lever for …
Alan Caron: America is suffering from a dangerous knowledge deficit …
https://www.pressherald.com/…/alan-caron-america-is-suffering-from-a-dangerous-kn…
Jan 1, 2017 – The country is drowning in a rising tide of stupidity. It represents a far greater threat to our future than a thousand Islamic State cells or all the nuclear missiles aimed at us from Russia. The Stupid Movement has been on the rise in America since the mid-1950s. But it’s now becoming a mainstream force in …
Are American Voters Stupid? | WYSU
https://wysu.org/content/commentary/are-american-voters-stupid
(1) These revelations, and many others, come from Rick Shenkman, an Emmy Award-winning reporter and historian, in his new book entitled Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter. (2) The vaunted wisdom of the American people, Shenkman says, is a myth. When it comes to government and …
Are Americans as stupid as foreigners seem to think we are …
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/eric…/article77485617.html
May 15, 2016 – Are Americans as stupid as the rest of the world thinks we are?
America’s Golden Age of Stupidity – The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global…/wp/…/americas-golden-age-of-stupidity/
Jul 25, 2017 – “Hello, you have reached the United States of America. We’re sorry no one is here to take your call right now. We have taken leave of our senses and are unsure when they’ll return. Please try again in three-and-a-half years.” If America had a voice-mail message to the world, this would be it. We are running …
Why Are Americans So Stupid — And Proud of It? – aNewDomain
anewdomain.net/why-are-americans-so-stupid-and-proud-of-it-ted-rall-analysis/
Americans are dumb. That’s what people say. Especially non-American people. But lots of Americans think that Americans are stupid, too. They don’t think they are the dumb ones, of course. They think other Americans are stupid. It will not, even if you’re an idiot, come as a shock when I admit here that one of the Americans …
Straight Up | Herman | ‘Why Are Americans So Stupid?’ – ArtsJournal
https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2017/02/why-are-americans-so-stupid.html
Feb 9, 2017 – The theorist causing the greatest stir at the moment is Thomas Frank, the 39-year-old, Missouri-born, founding editor of The Baffler magazine, whose best-selling book What’s the Matter with Kansas? makes the case that blue-collar and middle-class Americans have been seduced to vote against their own …
The Disadvantages of Being Stupid – The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/the-war-on-stupid…/485618/
American society increasingly mistakes intelligence for human worth.
How Ignorant Are Americans? – Newsweek
http://www.newsweek.com/how-ignorant-are-americans-66053
NEWSWEEK gave 1000 Americans the U.S. Citizenship Test–38 percent failed. The country’s future is … When NEWSWEEK recently asked 1,000 U.S. citizens to take America’s official citizenship test, 29 percent couldn’t name the vice president. …. “The problem is ignorance, not stupidity,” Hacker says.
Paul Plante says
So, are there consequences to our constitutional form of government in this country as a result of the stupidity which is proliferating seemingly at an exponential rate in the United States of America?
Perhaps an answer to that question can be found from a comparison of these two following letters in the Albany, New York Times Union, to wit:
LETTER No. 1:
Letter: Cuomo, the Constitution also applies to your office
To the editor, Albany, New York Times Union
Published 9:25 pm, Friday, March 2, 2018
With respect to article, “Cuomo won’t release names,” Feb. 16, Section 4 of Article IV of the state Constitution, titled “Reprieves, commutations and pardons; powers and duties of governor relating to grants of,” states in clear and unambiguous language that a hot-shot lawyer like Gov. Andrew Cuomo ought to be able to comprehend that:
“The governor shall have the power to grant reprieves, commutations and pardons after conviction, for all offenses except treason and cases of impeachment, upon such conditions and with such restrictions and limitations, as he or she may think proper, subject to such regulations as may be provided by law relative to the manner of applying for pardons.”
“Upon conviction for treason, the governor shall have power to suspend the execution of the sentence, until the case shall be reported to the legislature at its next meeting, when the legislature shall either pardon, or commute the sentence, direct the execution of the sentence, or grant a further reprieve.”
“The governor shall annually communicate to the legislature each case of reprieve, commutation or pardon granted, stating the name of the convict, the crime of which the convict was convicted, the sentence and its date, and the date of the commutation, pardon or reprieve.”
Does our illustrious governor, who wants to be our next president, think or believe our Constitution does not apply to him as if he were a modern-day Lord Cornbury come to be our royal governor?
The candid world would like to know before the next presidential election.
end quotes
There we see New York State Governor and Progressive Democrat Young Andy Cuomo. who intends to be our next president, being taken to task by an upstate New York state resident for ignoring the provisions of the New York State Constitution which Young Andy routinely ignores, across the board, as if constitutional government were an anachronism.
Which brings us to LETTER No. 2 on the same subject:
Letter: Governor understands reason not to list names
To the editor
Albany, New York Times Union
Updated 5:55 pm, Saturday, March 3, 2018
Gov. Andrew Cuomo deserves our unwavering support for protecting the identities of 140 people he pardoned in 2016 and 2017.
These are individuals who, as children of 16 and 17, were convicted of nonviolent crimes 10 years or more ago.
Both brain science and practical experience teach us that there is a profound difference between the decision-making abilities of teenagers and adults — certainly something every parent understands.
Those the governor pardoned have since built productive and successful lives; they have had no new convictions; and they’ve paid their dues — and their taxes.
By releasing their names now, their futures and the futures of their families would be jeopardized.
They would be at risk of discrimination in employment, education and housing and face possible unemployment and homelessness.
The sad fact is people with criminal histories face lifetimes of such discrimination at great cost to them as well as society.
The governor’s decision not to release the names shows a deep comprehension of the harm that collateral consequences of a conviction can do even 10 years after the fact.
For more than 50 years, the Fortune Society has worked hard to undo the damage done by a justice system that treats youth like adults and then exacts perpetual punishment on those who have done their time and built constructive lives.
Releasing the names of these young people would perpetuate this vicious cycle.
The governor’s compassion must be applauded.
JoAnne Page
New York City
President and CEO, The Fortune Society
end quotes
There, the same governor is being applauded by someone from New York City for blowing off the Constitution as if it doesn’t exist, or does not apply to Progressive Democrat Young Andy Cuomo.
So, is it stupid to believe the Constitution exists and applies to Young Andy Cuomo of New York State?
Or is it stupid to believe the Constitution does not exist and therefore, in no way restrains Young Andy Cuomo?
And how is one to know the difference as to which is stupid and which is not in this world of today?
And if you believe in constitutional government as I do, then the question is not trivial.
A point perhaps not appreciated by people in other states without a huge city like New York City dwarfing the population of the rest of the state, is that in New York state, and this applies across the board to presidential elections and senatorial elections, who the liberal voters of New York City want is who they get, and the votes of the more conservative upstate voters for all practical purposes do not count for anything.
Hillary Clinton lost most of the state but won the state’s electoral votes because of New York City, where the entrenched Democrat machine with its ward heelers and whippers-in can flood the polls with liberal Democrat voters.
Similarly, it is the liberal Democrat votes of New York City that put Democratic Socialist of America Charley “CHUCK” Schumer into the United States Senate.
And it is the liberal voters of New York City who put Progressive Democrat Young Andy Cuomo on the throne in New York state, where thanks to them and their ignorance or stupidity or both, Young Andy has their permission to ignore the state Constitution and instead, do what his feeling tell him is the right thing to do, even if in conflict with the Constitution which the upstate people want enforced by this same governor, to no avail, however, because Young Andy knows we don’t have the votes to harm him with.
So we have a governor up here who routinely ignores our State Constitution with impunity and who intends to be our next president in 2020, and like Democrats Hillary Clinton and Hussein Obama before him, Young Andy is assured of the electoral votes of the state of New York.
Are there then consequences to putting a man who does not believe in Constitutional limitations on his authority into a position of power above us?
Or have we become too stupid to know the difference?
A question for our times.
Paul Plante says
Speaking of Facebook, according to the Marketwatch article “Facebook sheds nearly $40 billion of market cap as investors flee stock” by Mark DeCambre and Emily Bary, published: Marcj 19, 2018, Facbook itself is in the news today for being stupid.
According to that article, Facebook Inc. shares are on pace to post their largest percentage decline in four years, as the company comes under fire from regulators for allowing a third-party group to access user information without those people’s permission.
Now, how silly is that, people?
You would think these rocket scientists at Facebook who are protecting their users from satire would know better, but apparently, they don’t.
Getting back to the Marketwatch article, the social-networking giant is facing its latest bout of scrutiny over the role third-party groups played in using Facebook’s platform during the 2016 presidential election.
Regulators in the U.S. and U.K. have criticized the company for allowing Cambridge Analytica, a data firm that helped the Trump campaign, to access data on users without their express permission and hold that data for years despite saying that it had destroyed those records.
The stock plunged 6.8% in midday trading Monday.
Monday’s rout has wiped away almost $40 billion in market value from Friday’s close of $537.67 billion.
end quotes
One has to wonder if they heard that message.
According to Marketwatch, many analysts acknowledged that the latest episode represents a public relations and regulatory risk to Facebook, though they were divided on the company’s ability to weather such challenges.
“It appears that data access by the original app developer was properly permissioned (i.e., this was not a ‘breach’ per se) and we note that Facebook has since upgraded its user privacy functionality and app review process to prevent similar abuse,” wrote Wells Fargo analysts led by Peter Stabler.
“Nonetheless, this episode appears likely to create another and potentially more serious public relations ‘black eye’ for the company and could lead to additional regulatory scrutiny.”
end quotes
OMG, a public relations “black eye” for Facebook!
Who’d a thought it?
Getting back to Marketwatch:
GBH Insights analyst Daniel Ives commented that this new wave of scrutiny could prompt Facebook to make additional tweaks to its news feed and broader platform.
“It’s clear with more ‘heat in the kitchen from the Beltway’ that further modest changes to their business model around advertising and news feeds/content could be in store over the next 12 to 18 months,” he wrote.
Facebook announced at the start of the year that it would begin to prioritize content from friends and family members over content from publishers, and the company said on its latest earnings call that changes intended to de-emphasize viral videos had resulted in users spending 50 million fewer hours per day on the platform.
end quotes
Are people fleeing a sinking ship, perhaps?
Or just finding Facebook kind of tawdry and boring?
There is a question for the sociologists and psychologists among us to ponder.
Getting back to Facebook being stupid:
Stifel analyst Scott Devitt said Facebook hasn’t moved swiftly enough to address security concerns about its platform and that the company has been too quick to brush off concerns from critics.
He believes the changes Facebook needs to make to restore user trust and tackle these security issues could “ultimately lead to lower engagement and negative monetization implications.”
end quotes
So, will Facebook be able to get out from under its reputation for being stupid?
Stay tuned for only time itself will tell.