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tindez · 5 years

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In private, many of my colleagues agree that the president is reckless and unfit. They admit his lies. And they acknowledge what he did was wrong. They know this president has done things Richard Nixon never did. And they know that more damning evidence is likely to come out.

So watching the mental contortions they perform to justify their votes is painful to behold: They claim that calling witnesses would have meant a never-ending trial. They tell us they’ve made up their minds, so why would we need new evidence? They say to convict this president now would lead to the impeachment of every future president — as if every president will try to sell our national security to the highest bidder.

(full article under the cut for those without access to NYT)

Opinion In Private, Republicans Admit They Acquitted Trump Out of Fear One journalist remarked to me, “How in the world can these senators walk around here upright when they have no backbone?” By Sherrod Brown Mr. Brown is a Democratic senator from Ohio. Feb. 5, 2020

Not guilty. Not guilty.

In the United States Senate, like in many spheres of life, fear does the business.

Think back to the fall of 2002, just a few weeks before that year’s crucial midterm elections, when the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq was up for a vote. A year after the 9/11 attacks, hundreds of members of the House and the Senate were about to face the voters of a country still traumatized by terrorism.

Senator Patty Murray, a thoughtful Democrat from Washington State, still remembers “the fear that dominated the Senate leading up to the Iraq war.”

“You could feel it then,” she told me, “and you can feel that fear now” — chiefly among Senate Republicans.

For those of us who, from the start, questioned the wisdom of the Iraq war, our sense of isolation surely wasn’t much different from the loneliness felt in the 1950s by Senator Herbert Lehman of New York, who confronted Joe McCarthy’s demagogy only to be abandoned by so many of his colleagues. Nor was it so different from what Senator George McGovern must have felt when he announced his early opposition to the Vietnam War and was then labeled a traitor by many inside and outside of Congress.

History has indeed taught us that when it comes to the instincts that drive us, fear has no rival. As the lead House impeachment manager, Representative Adam Schiff, has noted, Robert Kennedy spoke of how “moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle.”

Playing on that fear, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, sought a quick impeachment trial for President Trump with as little attention to it as possible. Reporters, who usually roam the Capitol freely, have been cordoned off like cattle in select areas. Mr. McConnell ordered limited camera views in the Senate chamber so only presenters — not absent senators — could be spotted.

And barely a peep from Republican lawmakers.

One journalist remarked to me, “How in the world can these senators walk around here upright when they have no backbone?”

Fear has a way of bending us.

Late in the evening on day four of the trial I saw it, just 10 feet across the aisle from my seat at Desk 88, when Mr. Schiff told the Senate: “CBS News reported last night that a Trump confidant said that Republican senators were warned, ‘Vote against the president and your head will be on a pike.’” The response from Republicans was immediate and furious. Several groaned and protested and muttered, “Not true.” But pike or no pike, Mr. Schiff had clearly struck a nerve. (In the words of Lizzo: truth hurts.)

Of course, the Republican senators who have covered for Mr. Trump love what he delivers for them. But Vice President Mike Pence would give them the same judges, the same tax cuts, the same attacks on workers’ rights and the environment. So that’s not really the reason for their united chorus of “not guilty.”

For the stay-in-office-at-all-cost representatives and senators, fear is the motivator. They are afraid that Mr. Trump might give them a nickname like “Low Energy Jeb” and “Lyin’ Ted,” or that he might tweet about their disloyalty. Or — worst of all — that he might come to their state to campaign against them in the Republican primary. They worry:

“Will the hosts on Fox attack me?”

“Will the mouthpieces on talk radio go after me?”

“Will the Twitter trolls turn their followers against me?”

My colleagues know they all just might. There’s an old Russian proverb: The tallest blade of grass is the first cut by the scythe. In private, many of my colleagues agree that the president is reckless and unfit. They admit his lies. And they acknowledge what he did was wrong. They know this president has done things Richard Nixon never did. And they know that more damning evidence is likely to come out.

I have asked some of them, “If the Senate votes to acquit, what will you do to keep this president from getting worse?” Their responses have been shrugs and sheepish looks.

They stop short of explicitly saying that they are afraid. We all want to think that we always stand up for right and fight against wrong. But history does not look kindly on politicians who cannot fathom a fate worse than losing an upcoming election. They might claim fealty to their cause — those tax cuts — but often it’s a simple attachment to power that keeps them captured.

As Senator Murray said on the Senate floor in 2002, “We can act out of fear” or “we can stick to our principles.” Unfortunately, in this Senate, fear has had its way. In November, the American people will have theirs.

Sherrod Brown (@SenSherrodBrown), a Democrat, is the senior United States senator from Ohio and is the author of “Desk 88: Eight Progressive Senators Who Changed America.”

#sherrod brown #ohio #donald trump #impeachment #gop #politics #usa #nyt

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squiishiichaos · 6 years

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☕️ How do you feel about ffxv as a whole and the fact that nomura is doing his original version of it in kh?

Oh shit did you open up a can of worms with this. Might wanna prepare yourself for this, because it’s about to get a little rocky in here.

So, let’s start with FFXV.

I loved XV. I did. I really, wholeheartedly did. I bought the deluxe, special FFXV PS4 that came out with its release, and I am so happy I did, because XV was exactly the kind of Open World Final Fantasy I ever wanted. The main 4 were hysterical and their banter gives me life! I have to just stan the Chocobros as a whole because you can’t pick one but if I had to choose, Noctis, you can meet me in the back with the jukebox and they had enough development throughout the 15 chapters to feel real and whole, and yeah. Also, I played the various episodes that came out, and Ignis with his hair down almost killed me, along with Aranea being the biggest badass of all time in Episode Prompto.

Anyway, the ending is what Video Games need in this day and age. 4 adult men in their thirties talking about their feelings and crying it out the night before the biggest decision in their lives should be a staple in every single bachelor movie that ever comes out. I swear to the Cosmos, Vozora, this shit had me crying for the entirety of hours! When they replayed the convo from the beginning of the game, which I laughed at for like ten minutes straight, and Stand By Me started playing, I was lost to humanity. I don’t normally cry, but I had three different family members ask me if I was okay, and I had to explain, while ugly crying, that, yeah, I was fine, and I was just crying over four fictional characters. No big deal, mom, just excuse me while I create a river of emotions.

I also play Comrades, and I have to take a moment to say that whoever created Character Creation for that game deserves all the fucking love. Like, okay, I have a problem. Like a Laura Bailey level problem of spending six fucking hours creating characters in character creation, starting the game, hating them, and going back in for a second character like, “Maybe we’ll get it right this time!” Comrades was the first game where I was able to successfully create Bibi in a style that looked like her–short, stout, clothes, and all. The only other game to date where that has been possible is JumpForce, so, yeah.

Anyway, moving on! I FORGOT THE MOST IMPORTANT PART! Chocobos.

Look. I have a problem, okay? I know I have a problem. I just really love Chocobos. I wish chocobos were real. For my Birthday or some shit, one of my harem friends bought me the Anniversary Stuffed Chocobo that Square released, and yeah, I immediately named that bitch Boco and it has a throne in my closet that no one can ever remove it from. XV brought back the ability to not only train your chocobo and ride it through the depths of hell but also the ability to change its plumage?! ALSO ALSO ALSO, the CHOCOBOS ARE SO FUCKING CUTE?!?!?!?!?! FFXIV, they’re kinda…meh. But no, XV was like, HERE, HAVE THIS CUDDLY MOTHERFUCKER YOU JUST CAN”T HELP BUT WANT TO HUG AND SNUGGLE WITH, OH AND WATCH IT STEAL PROMPTO’S FOOD!!

I MEAN, LOOK AT IT, VOZORA! ARE YOU LOOKING?! DO YOU SEE WHAT i MEAN?!

All...my photos from that game…were of Chocobos. Every. Last. One. I cried…to Stand By Me…while Chocobos of varying shades…flowed down my screen…

I regret nothing.

Okay, so, real talk. When Verum Rex started, I thought Square had actually put a real game trailer into the game. Like, I was actually like, “okay, Square, that was a bold move, take my money again, why don’t you.” I was ready to quit out of KH3, go to the PS Store and buy it. 100%. No regrets. Then, I remembered Toy Story and I was like, oh, right, okay, thanks for trolling me, Nomura, you literal piece of shit.

Yozora is the best name in the world, fight me, and I’m glad he has white hair and a red eye. The dude with glasses is fucking hot as shit, and I hope we get to play in Verum Rex one day without Gundam battles. As for its source material, Versus XIII, umm, can I just say? Fuck you, Square. I loved Noctis as an emo Prince, but can you imagine his royal pain the ass as a fucking gangster? Ugghhhhhhhhhh Saying shit like, “nani gantsukettenda omae?” (what the fuck are you looking at, by the way) “Uzai,” as he just shoves a fucking gunblade through someone’s eye. Oh my god, all the possibilities. Sorry, I have a thing for morally questionable heroes

ANYWAY, in short hah, I was fine with seeing Versus XIII in KH3 because it fits into the plot better than most. If Cloud and Squall can fit into KH, so can a Noctis knockoff who looks like Sora and Riku’s love child. XV was amazing, and I recommend everyone play it, if for nothing else than random people not recognizing the Crown Prince of their own country while simultaneously commenting on how hot all your other party members are. Chocobos are the greatest creation ever invented. And flying cars are bullshit.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk, I hope you have a lovely day.

Thanks for the ask! :D

#vozora #ffxv #chocobros #verum rex #kh3spoilers #i still play comrades by the way #and i still love xv #one day I'll even buy the royal edition #but not right now

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fred-frederator-studios · 7 years

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Frederator’s 20th Anniversary: 1998-2001

I promised to post a few Frederator highlights looking back from our 20th year.

Our first few years were dominated by figuring out how to be independent again. After five years with Hanna-Barbera and working for Turner Broadcasting running Hanna-Barbera, figuring out how to get my own thing going took a little while.

1998 was the year we debuted our first cartoon show, Oh Yeah! Cartoons on Nickelodeon. When we wrapped the season, the party poster had a last minute tongue in cheek joke that inadvertently set the promise for Frederator Studios: “Original Cartoons since 1998.”

Frederator itself existed completely to the beneficence of Herb Scannell and Albie Hecht at Nickelodeon and Tom Freston and Judy McGrath at Nick's parent, MTV Networks. We’d all worked together for a decade before I decamped to Hanna-Barbera, and when Ted Turner sold his company they kindly asked me back to make cartoons and consult on programming issues at their company.

On the first day it was just me and Stephanie Stephens in a temporary conference room in North Hollywood. Our building was right next to what would soon be a notorious bank robbery shootout, and within weeks we were joined by my Hanna-Barbera collaborator Larry Huber, and a teenage Alex Kirwan in his first full time production job, both ready to tackle Oh Yeah! (Steve Hillenburg was in the same space as us, working hard on some pilot about a sponge.) Within the year, Eric Homan had had it at Warner Bros. Animation Art and joined up for what’s turned out to be an amazing partnership, first to help develop properties from our short lived time at the helm of the Kitchen Sink Press, and then onto more cartoon-y pursuits.

Oh Yeah! was my second cartoon shorts incubator, taking up where the Hanna-Barbera back-to-the-future experiment, Cartoon Network’s What A Cartoon!, left off. All together the shorts featured 34 original creators and 99 original cartoons. Right from the go it spawned two hit series, Larry Huber's and Bill Burnett's ChalkZone and Butch Hartman's The Fairly OddParents, quickly followed by Rob Renzetti’s My Life as a Teenage Robot. Several of the other creators stayed in Frederator's circle of talent for the next two decades.

1999

Frederator looked everywhere for creators. During our first years, most worked in the Los Angeles animation industry, and many came from right within the Oh Yeah! crew. Mike Bell was a writer on Dave Wasson's Tales from the Goose Lady and went on to create Super Santa and The Forgotten Toybox; Tim Biskup was a Season 1 background designer. Co-executive producer Larry Huber had worked in the cartoon business since the 1960's. Alex Kirwan had been a high school student who won a contest we had at H&B. I was lucky that many –Hartman, Burnett, Moncrief, Thompson, Renzetti, Ventura, Eng, MacFarlane– came over with me from Hanna-Barbera. On the other hand, Pennsylvania based David Burd worked with me at MTV back in the day.

This season we also got introduced to our first tween creator, 12 year old John Reynolds on his Terry and Chris short, with a story, design, and directing assist from Butch Hartman. A grown up John has become a member in good standing in the Los Angeles animation industry.

2000-2001

Frederator Studios took a short break while I moved my family to New York from Los Angeles. Eric Homan took the plunge with me and we leapt into the brave new world that was the consumer internet, when I became president of MTV Networks’ online division with MTV.com, Nick.com, ComedyCentral.com among others.

But cartoons cannot be stopped! Frederator's Nickelodeon cartoons took their next steps with the start of series production based on Butch Hartman's Oh Yeah! short, The Fairly OddParents and Bill Burnett’s and Larry Huber’s ChalkZone (March 22, 2002). Debuting March 30, 2001, FOP would go on to a record run of 16 years (as of 2018) and counting.

Critically, this was the period it dawned on me that I no longer had it in me to be a good corporate employee. But the internet bug had hit squarely and I saw Frederator's future. Quickly, we set up shop as Frederator/New York with computer engineer and visionary Emil Rensing, and trolled around for some work.

We set ourselves up as frederator.kz out of Kazakhstan. It seemed less, um, common.

Little noted, and against the advice of counsel, was the addition to our team of a self taught engineer intern, high school freshman David Karp.

Frederator limited edition postcards

This period was where we started our tradition of Frederator limited edition postcards. The first three series (the “series” designation didn’t actually start for a few years) were the Oh Yeah! seasons, and a few non-series snuck in there too. One of the Frederator/NY clients was MTV's new acquisition, the former Nashville Network they'd rebranded as TNN: The National Network. We threw some Frederator t-shirts along with David Ramage when he went across the country proving the channel was indeed national.

More to come...

Artwork from the top: Frederator’s first announcement illustrated and designed by Arlen Schumer, color by Patrick Raske; Oh Yeah! posters by Hatch Show Print, Nashville; Oh Yeah! Cartoons limited edition sericel, creative direction by Eric Homan; Oh Yeah! postcard, Series 3, 2000.

#Frederator #20th anniversary #Oh Yeah! Cartoons #1998 #1999 #2000 #2001

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alanaknobel99 · 3 years

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Red Lipstick and The Green New Deal

Have you ever been told as a child, if something isn’t working then find a new solution? At this moment, our country is like that child, and it needs to be told to find a new solution. The way the United States of America has been operating works, but not for everyone, and our climate is changing. Not just our environmental climate, but the political climate as well. Our country is depleting, poverty is soaring, healthcare is unaffordable, student loan debt is atrocious, and climate change is quite literally killing people. Young people feel our country is stuck. The older generation is holding onto it like their youngest child leaving for college. Ultimately, no matter what, that child will leave. Everyone has to grow up, even this country, and it’s going to happen whether the parents like it or not. Every movement, and this is a movement, to push our country forward needs a voice. For us, that is Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or AOC is a 31-year-old Latina-American born and raised in the Bronx of New York City. Her parents ended up moving 30-50 miles north of the Bronx to a better neighborhood to afford better education and a future for their children. In a 2019 TIME Magazine article, AOC said that those 40-minute drives taught her that zip-code matters. What a lesson to learn, that where you grow up has more impact on your future than you do. Her mother cleaned houses, and her father owned a small architecture business. In 2008 her father died which spun the family into financial turmoil. This caused AOC to pick up multiple jobs, working for a nonprofit by day, and bartending by night. She has constantly said that she never saw herself going into politics, but it’s hard to deny that she was built for the political stage. Her brother submitted her for Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats who are actively looking for young people to run for Congress. They want people who are working class, poor, educated to be the Americans who represent other Americans. I believe it was on her way to a protest at the Dakota Access Pipeline when she received a call asking if she wanted to run for Congress. From there on began the development of a grassroots campaign, that is the ultimate underdog story.

She was running against Joseph Crowley, an incumbent who hadn’t been challenged since 2004. He was your average democrat, swearing loyalty to fight Donald Trump, and that was a majority of his campaign. What he didn’t pay attention to was AOC, who ran on true issues and the need to help the residents of the 14th district in New York. Her campaign was made up of volunteers, a majority of whom were actors, and they knew how to put on a good show. They didn’t accept any lobbyist money, and were completely donation based. That was quite fascinating that she was able to beat someone who had millions of dollars being poured into his campaign fund. However, her winning wasn’t about the money, it was about this newfound energy and spirit that she has that led her to victory. She really cares about people, she cares about what policies are being put forward in order to help those people in the future.

She continues to radiate this fiery passion to fight, even into her 3rd year in Congress. This passion and honesty are what make her so radical, likable, and attention-grabbing. Allowing her presence on social media to skyrocket over the years. We can see this in news clips that have gone viral of her during committee hearings where she pours her heart out. In one of her most famous clips where she exclaims, “People are dying” while using her passionate words to defend the Green New Deal. In this specific video, she is speaking the absolute truth. The climate crisis is about human lives, and there should be no debate around that whatsoever. It’s come to the point in politics where people need to speak up and fast because the climate crisis has a ticking time bomb, and if we do not tackle this issue before it’s too late there is no turning back. AOC is the person speaking up, she doesn’t sugar coat anything, and she does it with grace. Even if people don’t like her, whether that’s the haters and trolls online or her coworkers across the aisle, continues to not let others silence her.

youtube

I remember when a Republican congressman called her a “fucking bitch” she spoke up. Whereas others, I feel, would keep quiet, I’m sure Nancy Pelosi has been called that by some of her coworkers, but the world has never heard it. Alexandria took the time to approach the situation like the female hero everyone knows she is. There is no politician filter when she speaks, it’s raw, and it’s fully and truly her. She is not afraid to use social media to call out people on their stupidity, wrongness, or even disagreement with others.

Some will say that she just became a congressperson at the right time, during the social media boom. While that may hold some truth, it’s really how she uses social media to create a space of transparency that has caused the public to flock to her accounts like a moth to light. At the time the TIME article was written they said, “her Twitter following has climbed from about 49,000 last summer to more than 3.5 million.” Her Twitter following is now at 12.6 million. I believe, just from my own research, she has the most Instagram followers of her other coworkers at 8.8 million followers. When I look at her Instagram feed compared to Bernie Sanders, Nancy Pelosi, Ted Cruz, and other big political names, her feed is very different. Others have a lot of information pictures, news clips, and statistical slides that may grab some people's attention, but it’s very political because there is no connection. When you look at AOC’s feed a majority are videos of her doing live Q&A sessions. I haven’t seen this on any other politician's platform. She is directly and in real time, answering questions about current legislation in which she is able to clear up misinformation. I watched her live Q&A about what was in the second COVID relief bill, and I learned so much. She has created this space of truth, transparency, and faith all because she chose to include people in what she is doing for them. Just a few days ago she posted a short weekly vlog where she explained what she did during that week. You don’t see others in her same position doing that. Many may think it’s irresponsible, not politician-like, but in actuality it’s what they should be doing.

Now, is this a generational thing or something else? She’s 31 years old, grew up during the social media boom, tends to have younger interns, is more in tune with the “lingo” as the older people may say. While it may be all of the above, she has actively chosen to use her social media like this. Others can use their accounts like this but choose not to for some reason. AOC is one of the only people actively getting the younger generation involved in politics, and she does this through the internet. During the pandemic, she live-streamed her playing the vastly popular game, Among Us, where she talked about legislations and let people ask her questions. She has made countless statements that the older generation in Congress always talks about young people, but never makes space for us, allowing us to show our potential. It’s always, “it’s not your time yet” never “come show us what you can do now.” AOC is leading the path for young people to have a space in the political circle. There is also one more major reason why people like her so much, and that’s because she is a working-class American.

I have said my entire life that I would love to see Republicans switch shoes with a steelworker for one day. The majority of people who run our government have grown up in a life of privilege that afforded to get them there. They don’t know what real working class, poor Americans go through every day. Our government has a real problem that if they can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. AOC has lived check to check, been on the other end of taking someone’s order, worked overnight just to have some extra cash to pay off student loans. I’m not disavowing anyone's upbringing, but she has consistently put forward a policy that helps the average American. Even policy that helps everyone, like The Green New Deal.

The Green New Deal is a Resolution put forth by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts. It is not a piece of legislation, but a call to action that the federal government takes steps to cut its emissions of greenhouse gases to zero by 2030. The 14-page resolution has a ton of what seems like radical changes. This includes updating the country’s infrastructure, energy grid, and ensuring livable wages for all American jobs. There is a lot to discuss when it comes to the Green New Deal, as within those 14 pages the goals outline almost everything that makes up the US economy. There are so many benefits that could happen to our country if something like this is passed. For instance, guaranteeing higher education for everyone in order to receive the knowledge needed to acquire a job with a livable wage. The Green New Deal also addresses issues such as systemic racism and puts forth proposals to invest in certain neighborhoods. These are the types of legislation that need to be put forward in order for our country to evolve. The fact that not everyone is guaranteed higher education, shelter, clean water, healthy food, is unacceptable.

Most of the rebuttal to the Green New Deal is that it’s too expensive, unrealistic, and the federal government shouldn’t have that much power. While the GND is expensive, estimated to be around 50-90 trillion dollars, the federal government will end up spending more money in the long run from disasters related to climate change. The Green New Deal says the federal government could spend up to 500 trillion dollars in economic relief by 2100. The more we wait, the more money we will have to spend in the long run catching up to those problems, until we cannot. To those who say the Green New Deal is unrealistic, I ask them to read a history book and identify all the major life-changing events that others have said were unrealistic as well. Americans freeing themselves from Britain, the abolishment of slavery, the civil rights act, The New Deal. For my response towards the issue of government power, if the federal government isn't the ones putting forth legislation to protect American lives I don’t know what they are there for.

With all that being said, is AOC the right person to bring forth this Green New Deal? To that, I say absolutely yes. She represents the new millennium, the rise of the younger progressive generation who is fighting to make real change in this country. Her use of social media, and how she connects to people across the world set an example as to who we want our elected leaders to be. Transparent, honest, and inclusive in their media. Her story, who she is as a person, what she stands for is what the Green New Deal stands for. Rightfully so when someone mentions her they think of the Green New Deal, and vice versa. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is what the future of this country will look like, and she will continue to lead the pack.

Bibliography

Alter, C. (2019, March 21). Inside rep. Alexandria Ocasio-cortez's UNLIKELY RISE. Retrieved April 19, 2021, from https://time.com/longform/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-profile/

DSouza, D. (2021, January 26). The green new deal explained. Retrieved April 28, 2021, from https://www.investopedia.com/the-green-new-deal-explained-4588463

What is the green new deal? (2020, December 08). Retrieved April 28, 2021, from https://www.sunrisemovement.org/green-new-deal/?ms=WhatistheGreenNewDeal%3F

Grunwald, M., White, J., Sitrin, S., & Gerstein, B. (2019, January 15). The trouble with the 'green new deal'. Retrieved April 28, 2021, from https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/01/15/the-trouble-with-the-green-new-deal-223977

(2019, June 12). The Green New Deal Explained [Vox]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxIDJWCbk6I

'People Are Dying:' Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Defends Green New Deal | NBC News [Video file]. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGtuDCZ3t2w

#Youtube

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conservativefreepress · 6 years

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New Post has been published on Conservative Free Press

New Post has been published on http://www.conservativefreepress.com/politics/msnbc-pundit-rush-limbaugh-breitbart-have-blood-on-their-hands/

MSNBC Pundit: Rush Limbaugh, Breitbart “Have Blood on Their Hands”

One-time Republican strategist Steve Schmidt seems to pride himself in now being one of the most unhinged-from-reality commentators on MSNBC. There’s something about these NeverTrump conservatives that they wind up outdoing even the radical Democrats on these cable news shows when it comes to their unceasing hostility towards President Trump and his supporters. You go down the line – Schmidt, Nicolle Wallace, Ana Navarro, Bill Kristol, Jennifer Rubin – and it’s all the same. These people haven’t found one positive thing to say about the Trump era, which leads us to believe they’re more upset about what happened to “their” party than about actually implementing a nationwide conservative agenda.

Or they’re just dizzy from all the adoration they’re now getting from the liberal media.

In any event, Schmidt said Monday that not only was President Trump responsible for the mail bomber Cesar Sayoc and the synagogue shooter Robert Bowers, but so was the rest of the right-wing media.

“Mark Levin, and Rush Limbaugh, and Breitbart, and NewsBusters, and Judicial Watch, and all the rest of them, have blood on their hands for the incitements that they have made that have triggered and radicalized these crazy people,” Schmidt said. “What we are seeing is the co-option of the conservative project, the Republican Party in a cult of personality which is fundamentally unconservative led by Donald Trump, that is authoritarian in nature, that is antithetical to the orthodoxies of the Republican Party and the conservative movement as they have existed over the last 40 years. But it is something more. It is incitement.”

Look, we get that Schmidt and the rest of them are still sore from all the internet trolls who labeled them “cuckservatives” during the 2016 campaign, but the red carpet was there for them all along. All they had to do was swallow their pride, recognize that Trump would be WAY better for this country than Hillary friggin’ Clinton, and make that short walk back to sanity. It wouldn’t have been that hard to do. Ted Cruz managed to do it. Lindsey Graham did it. Ben Shapiro made the walk. Even Glenn Beck finally realized that it was futile to keep fighting against his own conservative interests.

Alas, that fat, regular paycheck from MSNBC must be getting in the way of Schmidt’s better nature. Now, doubly-incensed that the conservative individuals and sites he named are thriving by simply recognizing the greatness of the Trump administration and disavowing the INSANITY of today’s left, he wants to throw the whole damn movement under the bus.

Oh but Steve, they’re never, ever going to accept you as one of their own, brother. Don’t you know that? Don’t you know that they thought your precious “conservative project” was evil back when you were advising John McCain? Don’t you know they hate everything you always claimed to stand for? Don’t you realize that in your misguided passion against Trump that you’re giving aid and comfort to people who want to turn this country into a socialist nightmare?

You’re a pathetic sell-out, plain and simple. Have fun with all your liberal buddies, though. When and if the Democrats get back in power, they’ll have no more use for you. And that little walk back to your home…well, you’re going to find it’s gotten a lot, lot longer.

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judeblenews-blog · 6 years

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Google has a big advantage over Facebook in a crisis

There are bad bugs, and there are worse bugs. But until this week, there had never been a bug that killed a social network. Then the Wall Street Journal reported that a glitch had exposed private Google+ profile information to third-party developers between 2015 until earlier this year. A few hours later, the network — which once claimed 135 million users — was dead. For most of its seven years, Google’s effort to build a Facebook-style social network served mostly as a punchline. The company regularly touted suspiciously massive user numbers, but aside from a few pockets of enthusiasts, Google+ never managed to find a place in people’s lives the way Gmail, YouTube, or other Google services did. Google attempted to reinvent Plus several times, most recently as a kind of modern spin on message boards. And one part of Plus, which focused on helping you organize your photos, thrived once it spun out into a separate service. But mostly it was a wild goose chase — the most prominent example of Google’s many failed attempts to build a true social network. And it will be forever remembered as the social network that shut down over a security glitch — one that it didn’t tell us about until it was discovered by journalists. Why didn’t Google fess up at the time? Here’s what it told the Journal: In weighing whether to disclose the incident, the company considered “whether we could accurately identify the users to inform, whether there was any evidence of misuse, and whether there were any actions a developer or user could take in response,” he said. “None of these thresholds were met here.” As my colleague Russell Brandom notes in a good piece, this wasn’t a “breach” in the legal sense of the word. There are good reasons not to require companies to issue a public disclosure every time they find a simple vulnerability, without any evidence that it was exploited. (Chief among them: it can incentivize them to stop looking so hard.) Still: After Facebook’s painful fall from grace, the legal and the cybersecurity arguments seem almost beside the point. The contract between tech companies and their users feels more fragile than ever, and stories like this one stretch it even thinner. The concern is less about a breach of information than a breach of trust. Something went wrong, and Google didn’t tell anyone. Absent the Journal reporting, it’s not clear it ever would have. It’s hard to avoid the uncomfortable, unanswerable question: what else isn’t it telling us? Google will likely pay a price for this data exposure. (Probably in Euros.) State attorneys general are have taken an interest. US Sen. Mark Warner, D-VA, called the cover-up “pretty outrageous.” And yet Google seemed to shrug off all those worries on stage Tuesday, when its executives appeared to announce the company’s fall hardware lineup. There was a new phone, a tablet, and a competitor to the Echo Show and Facebook Portal that distinguishes itself by omitting a camera. There was no discussion of Google+. That speaks to how dramatically the company has shifted since its social network was born — and why, despite their similar advertising businesses, Google and Facebook occupy such different places in consumers’ minds. Google has focused consistently on being a utility. It builds powerful services that don’t require an understanding of your family structure or your friend relationships. Google Maps iterates constantly in search of the perfect commute; Gmail adds automatic replies to speed up your inbox; Google Photos absorbs all the pictures on your phone and uses machine learning to understand their contents and make them searchable. Google gives us sincerely new and useful things. And so, when we learn that it has exposed our data inadvertently, we might be more likely to give it a pass. At Facebook, on the other hand, the prime directive is still user growth. The company talks about a shift to foster more “meaningful” connections, but in practice this simply means growing different parts of its product suite. Facebook is useful, but it is useful mainly in the way that a phone book is useful, and after you have reached a certain number of friends that usefulness plateaus. Its biggest hit products in recent years — Instagram and WhatsApp — have been acquisitions. The new features it adds are often imported from other social networks. Its News Feed is essentially an entertainment product, but as a mirror for our times, it is often more distressing than entertaining. It gives us less, we like it less, we trust it less. I’m oversimplifying, of course. But I once spoke with someone had worked at both Google and Facebook who described the difference between how those two companies are perceived in exactly those terms. Sometimes a company misses the boat on a trend, and regrets it forever. In the case of Google+, I suspect many executives wish the company had simply avoided building a true social network altogether. David Byttow, who worked on the project and is now at Snap, put it this way: “As a tech lead and an original founding member of Google+, my only thought on Google sunsetting it is... FINALLY.”

Democracy

Researchers: No Evidence That Russia Is Messing With Campaign 2018—Yet Here’s a great story from Kevin Poulsen and Spencer Ackerman that asks: why hasn’t Russia made more obvious attempts to interfere in the midterm elections? Today the troll factory is using a mix of surviving accounts and new ones to do what it’s always done, spread fake news and fan division on Twitter, said Ryan Fox, a former NSA official now serving as COO of the smear-fighting startup New Knowledge. It’s also sneaking back onto Facebook, which discovered and deleted a fresh batch of fraudulent IRA-linked profiles and group pages in July. So far, though, none of the accounts are doing anything special for the election. “Lately, it’s been Kavanaugh all day, all the time,” said Fox. “My assessment of the situation is they’re having to reconstitute. I also would assume that because most of their accounts were taken down that they don’t have the same robustness available,” Fox said.The indicted Russian businessman who funded the IRA is now pouring resources into a new venture called USA Really, a Russian site dedicated to pushing anti-American propaganda. Unlike the IRA’s deceptive websites and Facebook groups, USA Really doesn’t disguise itself as a domestic U.S. entity, and it has real people on its masthead. In the short term, that makes it less effective at influencing Americans, but it also makes the site harder to target with a rational social media policy. Fox thinks that model is the future of Russia’s information operations. “They’re out in the open now,” said Fox. “You can’t just call them out as Russian bots. You have to get into a debate about who counts as a journalist.” Trump Campaign Aide Requested Online Manipulation Plans From Israeli Intelligence Firm Mark Mazzetti, Ronen Bergman, David D. Kirkpatrick and Maggie Haberman have the tale of how Rick Gates, a top Trump campaign official, requested proposals from an Israeli company to create fake digital identities as part of its campaign strategy: The campaign official, Rick Gates, sought one proposal to use bogus personas to target and sway 5,000 delegates to the 2016 Republican National Convention by attacking Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Mr. Trump’s main opponent at the time. Another proposal describes opposition research and “complementary intelligence activities” about Mrs. Clinton and people close to her, according to copies of the proposals obtained by the New York Times and interviews with four people involved in creating the documents. Leaked Transcript of Private Meeting Contradicts Google’s Official Story on China Ben Gomes runs search for Google. Publicly, he has called Project Dragonfly “an exploration.” But privately, he wanted it completed “as soon as possible,” Ryan Gallagher reports, in a damning new story based on a transcript of Gomes’ comments to his team. Gomes, who joined Google in 1999 and is one of the key engineers behind the company’s search engine, said he hoped the censored Chinese version of the platform could be launched within six and nine months, but it could be sooner. “This is a world none of us have ever lived in before,” he said. “So I feel like we shouldn’t put too much definite into the timeline.” Google Drops Out of Pentagon’s $10 Billion Cloud Competition In the midst of a small-scale employee revolt over Project Dragonfly, Google decided not to compete for the Pentagon’s cloud-computing contract, Naomi Nix reports: “We are not bidding on the JEDI contract because first, we couldn’t be assured that it would align with our AI Principles,“ a Google spokesman said in a statement. “And second, we determined that there were portions of the contract that were out of scope with our current government certifications.” No One Knows How Bad Fake News Is On WhatsApp, But If Brazil’s Election Is Any Indication, It’s Bad Ryan Broderick travels to Sao Paulo to try to understand how the electorate is using WhatsApp: WhatsApp is also a nightmare for fact-checkers. Nieman Lab called it a “black box of viral misinformation.” Brazil’s political activists, especially on the far right, have been extremely aggressive about using it to organize. Last year, Movimento Brasil Livre (MBL), or “Free Brazil Movement,” a right-wing pro-Bolsonaro youth movement, was the subject of an investigation by one of the country’s biggest papers, which reported from inside one of their WhatsApp groups. The paper discovered that MBL was using WhatsApp groups like “MBL merchants” or “MBL lawyers” to spread their content — including rumors and fake news. BuzzFeed News has reached out to MBL for comment. #ElectionWatch: Claims of Electronic Voting Fraud Circulate in Brazil Ahead of Brazil’s presidential election on October 7 vote, false narratives about electronic voting fraud have spiked and deepened mistrust as citizens head to the polls. The narrative has been… A Thriving Chat Startup Braces For The Alt-Right Joe Bernstein checks in on the alt-right chat rooms on Discord: In a Discord chat server called “/pol/Nation” — named for the controversial 4chan imageboard — more than 3,000 users participate in a rolling multimedia chat extravaganza of Hitler memes, white nationalist revisionist history, and computer game strategy. And in a voice-over-IP chatroom within the server, users keep up a steady chatter about the same subjects. It’s like a cutting-edge, venture-backed version of its namesake; 4chan on steroids.

Elsewhere

Facebook will soon rely on Instagram for the majority of its ad revenue growth The next time Facebook does something to smother Instagram and you find yourself asking why, remember these data points: Last quarter, Instagram generated an estimated $2 billion, or about 15 percent, of Facebook’s $13 billion in ad revenue, according to estimates from Andy Hargreaves, a research analyst with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Hargreaves expects Instagram to grow to about 30 percent of Facebook’s ad revenue in two years, as well as nearly 70 percent of the company’s new revenue by 2020 — driving the majority of Facebook’s growth. Video Swells to 25% of US Digital Ad Spending According to eMarketer’s latest ad spending forecast, video will grow nearly 30 percent, to $27.82 billion, of which Facebook and Instagram are expected to capture nearly one quarter. Snap is ‘Quickly Running Out of Money,’ Analyst Says Snap Inc. “is quickly running out of money” and may need to raise capital by the middle of next year, according to one analyst: In order to reach Chief Executive Officer Evan Spiegel’s goal of profitability in 2019, Snap would need to grow “massively faster” than expected and cut costs aggressively, analyst Michael Nathanson wrote. He expects a loss of more than $1.5 billion in 2019 as Snap looks to rebuild its user base. Beware the viral Facebook hoax that’s tricking people into thinking their account was hacked There’s a new copy/paste hoax making the rounds on Facebook: Snopes, the fact-checking site, explains that the hoax appears to reference fears about “cloned” Facebook accounts, where would-be scammers copy the name, profile picture, and basic information from a real account to create a second, nearly identical account on Facebook. Then, they send a bunch of friend requests to the original account’s friend list, to try to scam the person’s unsuspecting friends into granting access to their personal information by accepting the request. A Facebook spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the company had “heard that some people are seeing posts or messages about accounts being cloned on Facebook,” messages that they likened to a chain letter or email. Although account cloning is a real thing, the volume of messages spreading across Facebook don’t reflect any actual spike in cloned accounts on the service WeChat Rival Removed From Apple App Store in China ($) Amid a broader and somewhat mysterious app crackdown in China, Bullet Messenger, a Chinese messaging app that surged in popularity in the past few months, is no longer available in Apple’s App Store, Juro Osawa reports. How Gym Selfies Are Quietly Changing the Way We Work Out Today in the increasingly popular genre of “Instagram changes everything” stories: the gym. The gym selfie, experts say, is more than just a visual brag or photo-driven pep talk. Social media is fundamentally changing the way we work out—and the way we see ourselves in the mirror. In a recent study, professors Tricia Burke and Stephen Rains found that individuals who saw more workout posts in their feeds were more likely to feel concerned about their own bodies, especially if the posts came from a person they felt looked similar to them. This means that even a passive scroll through Instagram can be more about stoking self-consciousness, in oneself and in others, than providing motivation—and that we internalize these lessons more easily than we think. “If people become preoccupied with their weight, that could manifest itself in less healthy ways,” Burke told me.

Launches

Instagram is using AI to detect bullying in photos and captions Can you really detect a phenomenon as abstract as bullying using artificial intelligence? Instagram says it can now: Interestingly, Instagram says it’s not just analyzing photos captions to identify bullying, but also the photo itself. Speaking to The Verge, a spokesperson gave the example of the AI looking for split-screen images as an example of potential bullying, as one person might be negatively compared to another. What other factors the AI will look for though isn’t clear. That might be a good idea considering that when Facebook announced it would scan memes using AI, people immediately started thinking of ways to get around such filters. Along with the new filters, Instagram is also launching a “kindness camera effect,” which sounds like it’s a way to spread a positive message as a method to boost user engagement. While using the rear camera, the effects fill the screen with an overlay of “kind comments in many languages.” Switch to your front-facing camera, and you get a shimmer of hearts and a polite encouragement to “tag a friend you want to support.” Instagram now supports third-party authentication apps on Android Instagram previously rolled out support for third-party authentication apps like Authy on iOS. Today, it brought that feature to Android. Meredith is developing 10 original shows for Instagram’s IGTV Here’s a win for IGTV: magazine publisher Meredith is developing a slate of 10 original series for Instagram’s 3-month-old experimental vertical TV app, the first of which will premiere later this year. Facebook Workplace adds algorithmic feed, Safety Check and enhanced chat The most interesting nugget in this Josh Constine update on Workplace from its first-ever user conference: while more than 30,000 organizations are customers, Facebook hasn’t updated that number in a year. It suggests that the product has been slow to catch on during a trying year for the parent company. The 5 biggest announcements from the Google Pixel 3 event Google launched many new things today, including a phone, a tablet, and a competitor to the Facebook Portal and Echo Show that is most notable for its lack of a camera. Read about the biggest announcements here. Google rebrands AR stickers as Playground and adds new animations Playmoji is the new name for Google’s augmented reality stickers, which will be familiar to any Snapchat user: Initially announced last fall as AR Stickers, these virtual animations were similar to the lenses and filters that Snapchat popularized a few years back. But a key difference is that these are entirely in 3D and are deployed with a much smarter sense of spatial and object recognition, thanks to Google’s advances in artificial intelligence. Google launched Strangers Things stickers, as well as a pack for Star Wars during The Last Jedi theatrical run late last year. In the new Playmoji packs, Google lets you pick from a selection of cartoony pets, visual and interactive signs, comic strip-style sports animations, and anthropomorphic weather effects:

Takes

Facebook Isn’t Sorry — It Just Wants Your Data Charlie Warzel says that Facebook Portal is only explicable in the context of Americans’ apathetic view toward their own privacy: It’s also further confirmation that Facebook isn’t particularly sorry for its privacy failures — despite a recent apology tour that included an expensive “don’t worry, we got this” mini-documentary, full-page apology ads in major papers, and COO Sheryl Sandberg saying things like, “We have a responsibility to protect your information. If we can’t, we don’t deserve it.” Worse, it belies the idea that Facebook has any real desire to reckon with the structural issues that obviously undergird its continued privacy missteps. But more troubling still is what a product like Portal says about us, Facebook’s users: We don’t care enough about our privacy to quit it. Facebook, are you kidding? Taylor Hatmaker is similarly agog at Portal: It stands to reason that if Facebook cannot reliably secure its flagship product — Facebook itself — then the company should not be trusted with experimental forays into wildly different products, i.e. physical ones. Securing a software platform that serves 2.23 billion users is an extremely challenging task, and adding hardware to that equation just complicates existing concerns. You don’t have to know the technical ins and outs of security to make secure choices. Trust is leverage — demand that it be earned. If a product doesn’t pass the smell test, trust that feeling. Throw it out. Better yet, don’t invite it onto your kitchen counter to begin with.

And finally ...

#HimToo mom inspires infinite ‘this is MY son’ memes and a rare Reverse Milkshake Duck Navy veteran Pieter Hanson became a Twitter sensation on Monday night, after his mother tweeted a photo of him in his dress uniform claiming Hanson was “afraid to go on solo dates,” because of “the current climate of false sexual allegations.” Hanson created a legendary Twitter handle — @thatwasmymom — and in a literally perfect first tweet, disavowed her comments and claimed himself an ally of women in their struggle for equality. Pieter — call me.

Talk to me

Send me tips, comments, questions, and your best-ever Google+ post: [email protected]. Via: Theverge Read the full article

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kacydeneen · 6 years

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Interactive: See Political Ads Targeted to You on Facebook

Political ads on television are easy enough to spot: anyone who lives in a battleground state or watches TV in late October can recognize the attack ads and candidate promos that blanket the airwaves, always with a disclaimer.

Facebook ads have been much different: Ahead of the 2016 campaign, each user saw a tailored set of advertisements and political ads that often appeared as just another post in the newsfeed.

Facebook Finds Coordinated Effort to Influence US Politics

Facebook has changed its rules to make political ads more obvious. New data released by Facebook and collected by researchers at NYU shows that Americans are still seeing plenty of political ads there — at least 2.2 billion times since May.

Use the tool below to explore political ads that were targeted toward your state, gender and age group, sorted by the advertisers who reached the most people in the demographic you select.

Russian Bots, Trolls Test Waters Ahead of US Midterms

Some pages that Facebook announced this week had been banned for taking part in "coordinated inauthentic behavior" ahead of the midterm elections did not appear in the Political Ad Archive database.

Still, the database shows both the size and the continued murky nature of political advertising on Facebook, even after Facebook started requiring that ads disclose their source of funding.

Facebook Stock Down Billions on Slower Revenue Growth Report

While some ads clearly support political campaigns, others promote a cause and some sell politically charged merchandise — clothing brand American AF has the second-most impressions of all advertisers on the platform. And some of the biggest political groups in the country, like Democratic super PACs Priorities USA Action and Senate Majority PAC, run ads through "community" pages that don't appear political on their surface.

"Advertising is a deliberate and strategic behavior seeking to influence voters, and voters have a right to know who is influencing them," said Young Mie Kim, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has studied political advertising on Facebook. "In the 21st century digital media environment, it's incredibly difficult for voters to understand who is targeting them."

The new data comes from Facebook's Political Ad Archive tool, a transparency initiative the social media giant began after receiving bipartisan criticism over the spread of misinformation on its platform in 2016. The tool is one of several the company created to better regulate its own platform — social media is largely unregulated in the U.S., though lawmakers are considering ways to step in.

The database indicates that political advertisers spent between $21 million and $108 million between May 1 and July 18, receiving between 2.2 billion and 5.9 billion impressions in the time period. (Facebook does not provide precise numbers, instead offering a range for each figure to protect advertisers’ confidential information.)

Trump’s Make America Great Again Committee was the top overall spender in the period, spending between $344,000 and $2.3 million. Also included in the top 10 are advocacy groups like Planned Parenthood, companies like ExxonMobil and politicians like Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, who is running to replace Republican Ted Cruz in the U.S. Senate, and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

TRUMP CAMPAIGN'S INNOVATION Trump's 2016 presidential campaign was one of the first political campaigns to use Facebook advertising on such a large scale, spending tens of millions of dollars on narrowly targeted ads. Sometimes each ad would have thousands of variants, with subtle tweaks in color or wording to test what would perform best.

After the election, Facebook executives internally praised the Trump campaign as an "innovator" in advertising on the platform, according to BuzzFeed News.

But this year, Trump-affiliated firm Cambridge Analytica was revealed to have obtained personal data of 87 million Facebook users through a personality quiz taken by only a few hundred thousand people. Authorities are investigating whether Cambridge Analytica used that data to influence the campaign.

Amid the fallout, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was called before Congress to testify about how his platform was used in 2016 and to explain what it would do to ensure foreign actors couldn't influence future elections. Facebook was also hit with fines in the United Kingdom and could face more in the U.S. for allowing Cambridge Analytica to collect data without users permission, while the data firm eventually filed for bankruptcy amid investigators' scrutiny.

Cambridge Analytica wasn’t the only group to be accused of using Facebook unethically during the election.

In late 2017, the House Intelligence Committee revealed that Russian intelligence services had purchased thousands of Facebook ads in support of the Trump campaign, many of which promoted false news stories or aimed to suppress voter turnout among people who were likely to support Hillary Clinton. Russians created Facebook groups with names like "Secured Borders," "Blacktivist" and "Heart of Texas," according to an indictment filed in February by special counsel Robert Mueller.

And on July 31, the company announced that it had already discovered suspicious activity from bad actors who were running pages to try to influence voters ahead of the 2018 elections. Thirty-two pages and accounts with tens of thousands of likes were taken down. They had names like "Black Elevation," "Mindful Being," and "Resisters" and shared a variety of content to make their pages harder to identify than in 2016.

Nevertheless, the Trump campaign's Facebook strategy was effective, so other campaigns are now trying to learn from it. A New York Times report on an earlier version of the NYU dataset cited political consultants who said Republicans generally spent more on digital ads than Democrats did, but noted that trend may be changing — some prominent Democrats appear high in the lists of top spenders.

Boston University professor Tobe Berkovitz, a former political advertising consultant, told NBC that the Trump campaign's micro-targeting strategy has become an important tool for campaigns because traditional, unifying messages aren't as effective on social media.

"Very few people are persuaded by social media because it all comes from a highly partisan position," he said in an email. "It's better to reinforce existing attitudes or target people with weakly held positions and political affiliations."

IDENTIFYING ADS This spring, Facebook announced a number of new policies, among them creating the Political Ad Archive, to protect the platform from misuse of data, misinformation and foreign interference.

In a blog post explaining some of the new rules, Facebook said it would apply extra scrutiny and disclosure rules for ads that have "the goal of either influencing public debate, promoting a ballot measure or electing a candidate." The policies aim to prevent malicious activity from interfering in the 2018 midterm elections.

This brings the platform more in line with rules for broadcast political ads, which require that advertisements state the candidate or group that paid for them. Yet there are no legal regulations on political advertising on the internet, which means it's up to companies to make rules it as they see fit.

Many of the advertisers whose activity Facebook has flagged as political are similar: generic-looking news or community pages that share local stories, memes and short viral videos.

But one top advertiser in many locations is shirt vendor American AF, which offers apparel with phrases like "Kill a commie for mommy," "Guns don't kill people, I kill people" and "Shut up Hillary."

Its products are broadly supportive of Trump — shirts shows him riding a T-Rex or pumping iron — while all 15 products on the website that appeared in a recent search for "Hillary Clinton" were critical of her, including one that alludes to a vulgar word for women.

The brand has a large national presence on Facebook with more than 1 million likes and appears in the database as a top advertiser for men in age groups from 18 to 44 for most states across the country.

In an email, brand founder Shawn Wylde told NBC his page spent approximately $900,000 in Facebook ads since May. He said the ads do "remarkably well," although he disputes why they should be included in the political ads database.

"We don't feel the majority of our patriotic products are political in nature," Wylde said in an email. "American AF is a humor page where we make fun of both parties; however, since we find President Trump so funny, we currently offer more products based on him."

Yet, American AF has had run-ins with Facebook's ad moderators, Wylde said: "We have had ad representatives revoked, patriotic ads and posts removed, profile accounts banned and were denied the blue checkmark verification badge. I think the page gets punished because some Facebook employees think it’s conservative."

Devon Kearns, a Facebook spokesman, said the company regularly bans fake accounts but will allow anyone who goes through their verification process to post political ads. Facebook then evaluates each ad on a case-by-case basis, taking down ones that violate the rules — including an ad from American AF that contained a slur against Native Americans, which was removed when NBC brought the page to Facebook’s attention.

Many of these rules are recent, and Facebook is still working to balance free speech and regulations for ads on its platform. Berkovitz, the former political advertising consultant now with Boston University, explained that political advertising on the internet was once a free-for-all and the rules are still evolving today.

"There were basically no rules until Cambridge Analytica," he said. "Now there's an effort to create guidelines and procedures. ... I think increased transparency on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube is a trend that will continue."

The election advertising researchers who spoke to NBC for this article said Facebook's disclosure requirements aren't stringent enough. Facebook requires that groups put their legal name in the "paid for" statement, which is sometimes vague: the database includes sponsors like "One Nation" and "American Action Network" which don’t provide much more context for the average viewer.

"Now we have one more layer of information," said Kim, who said the change is a step in the right direction, but she would prefer more. "We really need to look beyond not just the face of the ad but the pages and the sponsors – and the payer who could even be different."

WHERE THE MONEY COMES FROM It isn't always clear from looking at a page that it is being used for political purposes. That's the case for "Hoosier Country," a top advertiser in Indiana that calls itself "a community for anyone who wants to show their Hoosier pride" and has run attacks against Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Braun.

The page appears at the top of the list of advertisers for most demographics in Indiana, and it spent between $78,000 and $384,000 in the state, according to the Facebook data. All of those ads are funded by the Democratic super PACs Priorities USA Action and Senate Majority PAC, a fact that Facebook now points out on the advertisements.

Buying this kind of ad is an extension of the common political practice of creating small targeted websites to share information with voters, explained Priorities USA Action spokesman Josh Sherwin.

"These are locally focused pages for sharing articles and information from reputable news outlets," he said in an email, adding that the pages are "clearly labeled" as political sites. Yet as of Aug. 1, the page's "about" section did not mention its political aim or backers.

Before May 24, when the political advertising rules went into effect, it would have been much harder to know these ads were funded by two of the largest super PACs in the country. And researchers say there are thousands of smaller "dark money" groups across the country who quietly spend on advertising campaigns.

Kim and her team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers looked at political ads on Facebook in 2016 and found that it was usually difficult to determine who was behind them.

"More than half the groups we examined were unidentifiable," she said, noting that if academic researchers had trouble identifying advertisers, voters would have an even harder time.

Her team found that in the six weeks before Election Day in 2016, some voters saw about 35 ads a day. "It's unfair and unreasonable to expect voters to figure out who are behind them," she said.

Facebook now says it's planning ahead and doing all it can to limit the misuse of political advertising on the platform for the upcoming midterm elections in November. In an interview with Recode's Kara Swisher this month, Zuckerberg admitted that the company was unprepared in 2016.

"This was a new thing," he said. "I think we understand that we were slow to it and need to do a better job ... defending against nation-states, which is not really a top-line thing that was a major focus before."

Now that Facebook has close to double the number of users as the population of China, this is the new reality the company will have to face. In the interview, Zuckerberg reiterated his commitment to doing better.

"A lot of people are using [Facebook] for a lot of good," he said, "but we also have a responsibility to mitigate the darker things that people are gonna try to do."

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser. Interactive: See Political Ads Targeted to You on Facebook published first on Miami News

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jade-green-butterfly · 2 years

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Because...UvU 'ahem'...Eveeeerybody's doing it~!🎵8D...again! X’D Besides, the meme ninjas urged me too...~ >w>...<w< Hehe, wow...it’s really been a whole year since I did this meme (how time flies! o0o) and it still looks like a Mega Man stage menu after a year! ;p ✨ Enjoy as always, my dears~💕👍=^.^=

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democratsunited-blog · 6 years

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Four Takeaways from the Texas Democratic Convention

https://uniteddemocrats.net/?p=4484

Four Takeaways from the Texas Democratic Convention

Sat, Jun 23, 2018 at 4:49 pm CST

Beto O’Rourke speaks at the 2018 Texas Democratic Convention. Christopher Collins

More than 7,000 delegates for the Texas Democratic Party convened in Fort Worth over the past few days to ruminate on the prospects of a blue wave in November. Activists packed caucus meetings for Hispanics, women and rural folks, attended forums on gun violence, running online voter registration drives and an “introduction to transgender topics.” The number of times politicians asked crowds whether they were going to turn Texas blue were innumerable, as were the adjectives and descriptors attached to the Republican Party and President Donald Trump.

The energy and eagerness to do something — anything — in the lead-up to November was palpable, as was the enthusiasm for the party’s new slate of statewide stars. Lieutenant governor candidate Mike Collier’s convention speech was a huge hit; “Lupe!” chants responded to gubernatorial candidate Lupe Valdez’s speeches several times; and, of course, Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke proved that he is the new face of the party.

Here are a few main takeaways from the convention.

Pink Tsunami

Prompted by the election of Donald Trump, women have been at the forefront of the organizing and activism that’s driven the political backlash to his presidency. And they’re also are also running for office at historic rates, forming the tidal force behind a much-anticipated blue wave — or what’s become known as the “pink tsunami.”

The power of women in the Texas Democratic Party was on full display at the convention. On Thursday night, former state senator and 2014 gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis held a party — entitled “Still F****** Standing” — in commemoration of her state Senate filibuster that temporarily derailed anti-abortion legislation five years ago.

Women are running for office at historic rates. Christopher Collins

At the Women’s Caucus meeting on Friday, she introduced the dozens of Democratic women who were running for the Texas Legislature, saying they will help bring “balance” back to state government. State Representative Celia Israel, D-Austin, called on delegates to “Bring us more competent women” and to “channel our inner Ann Richards.”

Women are running in some of the most critical races around the state — from gubernatorial nominee Lupe Valdez at the top of the ticket to Beverly Powell and Rita Lucido, candidates for battleground Senate districts battlegrounds, to Lizzie Fletcher in the 7th Congressional District, Gina Ortiz Jones in the 23rd District, and MJ Hegar in the 31st Congressional District.

Beto or Bust

The Democratic convention could be summed up with three words: Beto or bust. The U.S. Senate candidate’s booth is the central attraction on the exhibition floor. His name comes up in seemingly every conversation or candidate stump speech and at every party caucus meeting. It was clear that the more than 20 speeches that came before Beto’s Friday were slowly — very slowly — building up to the main attraction. In short, Texas Democrats are on the Beto bandwagon.

The convention came less than two weeks after visiting his 254th county on the campaign trail. “When we show up everywhere, that’s how we win,” O’Rourke pronounced.

In a wide-ranging speech — albeit one that studiously avoided mentioning his opponent Ted Cruz, a foe of Democrats around the country — he implored state Democrats “to keep showing up” for women, teachers, workers, farmers, immigrants, and said, “I want to make sure that we’re talking to everyone, every day in the state of Texas. That everybody is treated with respect and dignity in the state of Texas, in the United States of America, everyone, everywhere, every single day.”

Despite the Betomania that has taken hold in the Texas Democratic Party, O’Rourke still has work to do increasing his name recognition and ensuring that he can maximize turnout in the five largest metro counties in the state.

Family Reunification at the Forefront

From the moment the convention began, Trump’s “zero tolerance policy,” which tore immigrant families apart, was a central focus, animating every speech and drawing the biggest responses from the crowd.

The ugliness of the family separation policy was used by Democratic leaders to create a moral contrast between them and Texas Republicans. T-shirts boasting the sloga “I care and I vote for Democrats” — a response to the jacket First Lady Melania Trump wore on the way to the border — were selling at a healthy clip.

In his speech, O’Rourke said, “It is up to the people in this room tonight: We stopped family separation, now it’s time to make sure that we get those families back together. When we show up, nothing can stop us.”

Family reunification was a central focus at the 2018 Texas Democratic Convention. Christopher Collins

On Saturday morning, hundreds of delegates attended a protest calling for family reunification inside the Fort Worth Convention Center. Signs reading “Su vota es su voz” and “No human is illegal on stolen land” dotted the crowd. Congressional candidate Sylvia Garcia said, “It’s not over until every family is reunited; it’s not over until we close every family detention center in the state.” From there, a long list of other Democratic candidates spoke as well, prompting someone to yell, “This is not a campaign rally. Let’s take it outside,” to the streets.

Every member of Congress that spoke Saturday talked about the separations, too. In her speech, Houston Congresswoman Sheila Jackson played the audio of children crying after being separated from their parents and implored to vote Democratic “if you never want to hear this sound in America again.”

The Sleeping Giant

As I reported Friday, Democrats are scrambling to keep Hispanic turnout from receding from general election levels to 2014 levels. The focus on family separation was also coupled with desperate calls from the party’s Latino leaders to awaken the so-called sleeping giant that is the Texas Hispanic electorate.

“I don’t know what we’re gonna do, but we have to wake up the sleeping giant. Kick it, throw water at it, put five-alarm clocks. I realize some of us are hard to wake up in the morning, but this is ridiculous. We gotta get that sleeping giant up,” Valdez said at a convention forum Saturday morning, according to Texas Tribune reporter Patrick Svitek.

The notion that Texas Latinos are a “sleeping giant” when it comes to potential political power has been around for a long time. Here, for example, was the cover of an issue of the Observer from 1969.

Click to go to the full issue.

If they have any chance of coming close to winning a statewide election in 2018, Democrats will need a massive increase in Hispanic turnout. The problem so far, though, is that the party doesn’t appear to have a plan to do so.

The Texas Democratic Party certainly was not short on enthusiasm at this year’s convention. The grassroots and their leadership is propelled by one part excitement about many of the Democratic candidates, and another, larger part, that is anger at Trump and Republicans in Texas and in Washington, D.C.

Since 2016, the national Democratic Party’s existence has become consumed with how to counter the ascendance of Trumpism. In Texas, the Democratic Party has been grappling with how to parry a similar ascendance of right-wing extremism for more than 20 years.

And for 20 years they’ve failed. One thing that was clear at the convention is that they still haven’t figured out how to craft a clear message and existential purpose that doesn’t depend on the evils of the other party. The Texas Republican Party was eager to troll the Democrats before and during the convention, including by driving a hearse outside the Fort Worth convention center that mourned the death of the Texas Democratic Party, “R.I.P: 1846-2018.”

November will tell whether this is just GOP hubris — pride comes before the fall, after all — or if Democrats are indeed still an opposition party, not a winning party.

Read full story here

#Democrats

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artstar1997 · 1 year

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Here’s my second gift for @jade-green-butterfly. Here’s Lil’ Ted and Holly Darlin’ in the Medieval AU. Their outfits are inspired by the Celtic era like the ones in Brave. Lil’ Ted is dressed in a tunic that noblemen wore while Holly Darlin’s dress is inspired by Merida from Brave but with some differences. Come to think of it, I kinda made Lil’ Ted’s face look like Samwise Gamgee from Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.

Enjoy your gifts!

trolls belong to Dreamworks

Lil’ Ted the Short Country Troll belongs to @jade-green-butterfly

#dreamworks trolls #trolls trollstopia #trolls oc #holly darlin’#lil’ ted #medieval au

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eliannno-blog · 7 years

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Ireland

Sun shiny day doesn't means it won't rain / wind

Dublin → not a tourist friendly country but they have nice pub foood! 😋

May 25 (first day)

7.30pm Reach Edinburgh airport and ready to fly.

10.15pm Flight reach at Ireland Dublin airport

Take a short nap on the hallway in the airport

Too hungry so we go MCD for supper. Had MCD spicy chicken burger €1.5, that's cheap!

Then continue nap at MCD

Spent €12.5 for return ticket to Dundalk

Get bus to sook yee's place at 12am and reach at 1.30am

Overnight at Sook's place and that's excited! Gossip gossip gosssip

Everyone sleep at 3am because of planning tomorrow trip to Bend the Boyne and Drogheda

I sleep at 4-5am because of the noisy walkway, people shouting, pressing doorbell and running.

May 26 (second day)

9.30am Wake up and walk to lidl to buy breakfast

Buy cheese bun and muffin €2 to prepare few days breakfast

Bought some strawberries and cilli €7

Breakfast had omelette with cilli, mushrooms, tomatoes and red onions

Went out at 1pm to walk around the street

Get to the tourist center to ask for the road to Bend the Boyne. Get taxi €15 to go over the place

New grange and Bend the Boyne

The place smells like zoo and walk through a jungle walkway

Got student prices to visit both New Grange and Bend the Boyne €6

To see the new grange from 2000bc which looks like trolls' house

No cement and machine but able to build up the whole things

Beside the walkway there's sheep, horse and pig that's why it smells like zoo

Inside the cave, the tour guide close the lights and see the lights changing to know what is the time now

This tour is like a tour of old uncle aunties which barely see youngsters

A Switzerland uncle say hi to us and he is a retired lawyer and travel around the world

We all super hungry and the Cadbury biscuit does not help much

After the trip, we went to Sook's part time buffet restaurant to have our lunch.

Sook's boss keep persuade us to drink wine and he gave us a bottle of white wine which cost €48

The fat HK manager keep staring at us when we eating

I'm not able to swallow the food properly because of his stares

When we're going home, run towards the bus station

And finally reach sook hostel at 11.30pm and tired die

Wait for shower and done everything already 1am

Arranging schedule for tomorrow and going to Kildare outlet

May 27 (third day)

Wake up at 7.30am and out at 8.15am to take bus to Dublin €13

Reach Dublin at 10.30am

Walk to city center to find tourist center

Buy bus ticket to Kildare €14 for both way

Got subway before go on bus €4

After 2 and the half hours bus, finally reach Kildare

Ask direction from tourist center

Heavy rain but continue walk to the outlet

Reach the outlet by the entire body wet

First station to Polo Ralph Lauren but nothing cheap

Walk around Ted baker, juicy couture, Radley, Clarks, Nike, Pandora, Cath Kidston

Bought a pair of Nike air max €45.5

Pandora £90 bracelet + 2 charms

Superdry tshirt €24

But forget to use the VIP card which the tourist center auntie gave us #LOL

Try on the public toilet in Kildare which cost €0.50

The toilet which will auto clean and door will be automatically open after 20 minutes

Get on bus on 5.10pm

Reach Dublin in 7pm

See 100X bus just across the road, we just run and straight hook on the bus back to Dundalk

Reach Dundalk in 8.30pm and go Kingfisher restaurant to eat fish and chips €5.5

The fish and chips skin too thick and taste not nice

Not able to finish it and just ate half of it

Go back sook yee home at 10.30pm after bought a MCD americano €2

But sook going to work and only home at 12am

We just siting infront of her house door hallway to wait her

A kind of Malaysian boy from opposite door offer us to go into his dorm living room to wait because there might be security saw us from the CCTV

But we reject and go downstairs hall and wait her home

After shower and plan for tomorrow schedule, 2am only sleep

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mda20009alicecd-blog · 7 years

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Welcome to the Revolution

‘The revolution will not be televised’ - Gil Scott-Heron ...it will be streamed.

Weeks 1-4

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter & Youtube (among others) have become such critical components of everyday 21st century life that they have become acceptable tools for professional communication, academic research, political messaging and personal diaries in the span of a decade or two (Wilkin & McCosker 2014).

In the tasks for week 2, students were encouraged to create personalised graphs of their social media use by logging into WolframAlpha using their Facebook credentials. So common is the usage of Facebook among millenials (88% according to the Pew Research Centre, 2016), that it is assumed students will have Facebook creditials (I, conincidentally, do not use Facebook).

Social media is gradually becoming an essential tool for not only one’s social and professional life but also for society as a whole. Over the past 18 months, the connectivity of social media has allowed:

Unorthodox political candidates to share their message to previously marginalised communities all over the world (Shepardson 2017, Vinocur 2017).

Unprecedented mass protests and social movements such as The Women’s March (Chenoweth 2017), #metoo Movement (Zacharek et al 2017) and, the growing list of countries legalising Marriage Equality (Hill 2017).

Of course with the power to mobilise, reach and connect people comes also the danger of reliance and under-regulation. Sherry Turkle, a Professor of social studies and technology, criticises the accepted replacement of human interaction with digital addiction. She warns that we are more engaged in content than ever before but that we are not fully taking it in. We are constantly flicking and sipping on tweets, texts and short clips but that it does not add to the ‘gulp of conversation or interaction that we really need (Turkle 2012).

It is impossible to reflect on the endorsements and criticisms we encounter in this unit without comparing our own relationship with social media with the arguments presented. Given the statistics referenced earlier, such a high percentage of us use this applications on a daily basis and they have become such a necessary component of our lives. However, it is important to understand the broader arguments being made. Perhaps digital communities have revolutionised the way Generation X conducts business but will it stunt the social growth of Millennials? Perhaps it has armed Millennials with a new skill set of research and interaction but will it remove the importance of writing and reading for generations to come?

I, personally am embracing the revolution. It has meant that my partner and I can live in separate continents for work but still be able to experience culture, news and family simultaneously in a way that our parents could not and that our grandparents wouldn’t have been able to dream about.

References:

Chenoweth, E. 2017, ‘This is what we learned from counting the women’s marches’ in The Washington Post, 7th February, <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/02/07/this-is-what-we-learned-by-counting-the-womens-marches/>

Greenwood, S., Perrin, A., & Duggan, M., 2016 ‘Social Media Update 2016’ in Pew Research Centre, 11th November, <http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/11/11/social-media-update-2016/>

Hill, J., 2017, ‘Social Media A ‘Once in a Lifetime’ Tool for Marriage Equality Supporters’ in The Huffington Post, 24th September, <http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2017/09/23/social-media-a-once-in-a-lifetime-tool-for-marriage-equality-supporters_a_23220664/>

Shepardson, D 2017, ‘Trump defends tweets as key to White House victory’ in Reuters, 22nd October, <https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-tweets/trump-defends-tweets-as-key-to-white-house-victory-idUSKBN1CR00B>

Turkle, S., 2012, ‘Connected, but alone’ in TED Talks, 3rd April, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7Xr3AsBEK4&t=2s>

Vinocur, N. 2017, ‘Marine La Pen’s Internet Army’ in Politico, 3rd February, <https://www.politico.eu/article/marine-le-pens-internet-army-far-right-trolls-social-media/>

Wilkin, R. & McCosker, A. 2014 ‘Social Selves’ in The Media & Communication in Australia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, pp. 214-295.

Zacharek, S., Dockterman, E. & Edwards, H.S. 2017, ‘TIME Person of the Year: The Silence Breakers’ in TIME, <http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2017-silence-breakers/>

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anchorarcade · 7 years

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Facebook, Google, Twitter Executives Face Tough Questions on Russian Ads

http://ryanguillory.com/facebook-google-twitter-executives-face-tough-questions-on-russian-ads/

Facebook, Google, Twitter Executives Face Tough Questions on Russian Ads

In Congress’s first chance to hear publicly from executives at Facebook, Google, and Twitter since the companies revealed that they sold political ads to Russian trolls, one thing became abundantly clear: Tech platforms have grown so powerful that adequately policing them is a near-impossible task.

Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch, Twitter General Counsel Sean Edgett, and Google’s head of information security and law enforcement Richard Salgado testified before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee Tuesday, the first of three hearings for tech executives this week. The hearing was supposed to be about “working with tech to find solutions” to extremist content and the spread of Russian disinformation online. But after more than two hours of questioning, both the executives and their senator inquisitors were long on concerns and short on solutions.

Case in point: In light of Facebook’s disclosure that Russian trolls purchased 3,000 political ads during the 2016 election and posted 80,000 pieces of content that reached as many as 126 million Americans, Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana asked whether either North Korea or China had purchased ads on Facebook. The company’s general counsel said that he wasn’t aware of any such ads.

“How could you be aware?” Kennedy replied incredulously. He noted that anyone can create a series of shell companies to hide the financial backers behind a given ad, making it difficult to see the true origins of the money. “The truth of the matter is you have 5 million advertisers that change every month, every minute, probably every second,” Kennedy said. “You don’t have the ability to know who every one of those advertisers is today, right now.”

“To your question about seeing behind the platform to understand if there are shell corporations, of course the answer is no,” said Stretch.

The hearing was nominally about Russian efforts to meddle in the 2016 election. But it was also a proxy for growing concerns in many corners of the US that internet companies have grown too big, too powerful, and too rich. Senators’ questions came with ample finger-wagging, as the committee wondered how companies that are wildly successful and employ some of the world’s top technical talent failed to see these threats coming. As Kennedy put it, “I think you do enormous good, but your power sometimes scares me.”

Beyond concerns about Russian-sponsored ads, for example, the tech companies also must contend with a flood of other content, coming from all corners of the globe, in a country where freedom of expression is valued and protected. Take too ham-fisted an approach to monitoring political posts, and they risk being accused of, as Republican Sen. Ted Cruz put it Tuesday, putting their “thumb on the scale of political debate.” But turn a blind eye to political chatter, and they risk allowing malicious networks to disrupt democratic elections.

While Facebook bore the brunt of Senators’ questioning, Twitter revealed some staggering statistics about Russia’s organic reach on its platform last year. In just two and a half months, Russian bot accounts tweeted 1.4 million times, yielding 288 million impressions. The fact that such coordinated campaigns went unchecked underscores the value Twitter has put on free speech.

The exchange over the potential use of shell companies to purchase ads showed how loopholes that have allowed dark money to flow into the American political system are magnified online. Sussing out who exactly paid for a political television ad backed by a Super PAC isn’t easy. But the sheer scale of ads purchased on platforms like Facebook makes it practically impossible. Facebook and other platforms used their technological prowess during the campaign to identify malicious actors and advertisers that might be connected to foreign entities, but those tools can miss the mark. That’s how Facebook ended up selling political ads to Russian entities that paid for the ads in Russian rubles, which ought to be an obvious red flag.

That proved a particularly sensitive issue for Democratic Sen. Al Franken, who challenged Stretch to state definitively that Facebook would not sell political ads to anyone paying in a foreign currency. The Federal Election Campaign Act, after all, bans foreign financing of American elections. Stretch declined, arguing that currency is just one of many signals the company will take into consideration when assessing an advertiser’s legitimacy.

“We’re not going to permit political advertising by foreign actors,” he said. “Our goal is to make sure we’re addressing all forms of abuse.”

“My goal is for you to think through this stuff a little bit better,” Franken retorted.

Complicating matters, many members of Congress investigating these issues appear to be unclear about precisely what these companies do and how they do it. That surfaced in questions posed by Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Sheldon Whitehouse on the topic of voter-suppression tactics. Blumenthal showed the committee a widely circulated tweet showing comedian Aziz Ansari holding a Photoshopped sign claiming Americans could vote from home. Blumenthal and Whitehouse pressed Twitter’s Edgett to tell them exactly how many people tried to vote by text, as the tweet suggested people do.

Edgett said Twitter would have no way of knowing the number, which would require phone companies to analyze the private texts of their customers. “Let me request that you endeavor as best you can do get us this information,” Blumenthal insisted.

That leaves us with tech companies that woke up to this threat far too late attempting to explain themselves to investigators who, in some cases, fundamentally misunderstand the platforms’ ability to address it. It’s little wonder then that those solutions Congress seeks are proving to be elusive.

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