The Facebook factor…
nytimes.com/2020/08/21/tech … e=Homepage
[b]'SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook spent years preparing to ward off any tampering on its site ahead of November’s presidential election. Now the social network is getting ready in case President Trump interferes once the vote is over.
'Employees at the Silicon Valley company are laying out contingency plans and walking through postelection scenarios that include attempts by Mr. Trump or his campaign to use the platform to delegitimize the results, people with knowledge of Facebook’s plans said.
‘Facebook is preparing steps to take should Mr. Trump wrongly claim on the site that he won another four-year term, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Facebook is also working through how it might act if Mr. Trump tries to invalidate the results by declaring that the Postal Service lost mail-in ballots or that other groups meddled with the vote, the people said.’[/b]
It speaks volumes given my own political prejudices that the largest slice of our pop culture “social media” can actually become an important factor in electing the president of the United States.
What does that tell us in and of itself about the “dumbing down” of American politics. For some, it’s not a question of intelligent voters only being “one of us”, but of just how unsophisticated literally millions and millions of American citizens seem to be in regard to grappling with the issues of the day. It goes beyond things like the Jaywalking clips from the Tonight Show. It’s the appalling shallowness of the stereotypical thinking that come to the surface time and again whenever one or another voter is interviewed on one or another newscast.
[b]'The preparations underscore how rising concerns over the integrity of the November election have reached social media companies, whose sites can be used to amplify lies, conspiracy theories and inflammatory messages. YouTube and Twitter have also discussed plans for action if the postelection period becomes complicated, according to disinformation and political researchers who have advised the firms.
'The tech companies have spent the past few years working to avoid a repeat of the 2016 election, when Russian operatives used Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to inflame the American electorate with divisive messages. While the firms have since clamped down on foreign meddling, they are reckoning with a surge of domestic interference, such as from the right-wing conspiracy group QAnon and Mr. Trump himself.
In recent weeks, Mr. Trump, who uses social media as a megaphone, has sharpened his comments about the election. He has questioned the legitimacy of mail-in voting, suggested that people’s mail-in ballots would not be counted and avoided answering whether he would step down if he lost.'[/b]
my emphasis
stay tuned…