Red Mosquito

Fresh Air's recent episode on Mike Pence was quite illuminating:

http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2 ... 2017-10-18

Simple Torture wrote:Why are all these people putting her name in quotes? Is that like the <<<>>> thing people do with Jewish names?

Bots and Russian trolls did that a lot during the election. Either still playing or it caught on with their targets.

I think a lot of you need to stop engaging in these right-wing Twitter wormholes. In this day and age, you can find any and all opinions online, including the most disgusting and soulless (see Sandy Hook). Of course people are going to say she's a paid operative, that she's an actress, etc. But you're choosing to engage in that nonsense by reading it, retweeting it and posting it elsewhere online.

There was a time before the internet where batshit crazy was appropriately marginalized. And while it still should be, it's up to the people and media who know better to stop engaging with this stuff and put it back to the fringes where it belongs.

I've pretty much given up on anything changing in the next couple of years at least, so I'm choosing to tune out pretty much everything except maybe a weekly news update. I feel like many on the left have turned into the equivalent of the "OBAMA IS A MUSLIM" people on the right that we laughed at for 8 years, and it makes me sad. I refuse to be turned into that and to take the bait of these fucking trolls.

1. Dismissively assuming marginalization of these narratives is part of how we got here.

2. Reading/discussing misinformation efforts such as these is not the same as retweeting or other acts which unintentionally assist in their successes.

3. Some species thrive in the dark.

For real, though.

Trump tried to deport a Chinese political dissident because a casino billionaire who needs the Chinese government's support asked him to.

McParadigm wrote:The well of shocking behavior is bottomless, and this is an amazing story.

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/chinas ... 1508717977

The president, surrounded by his top aides, including Vice President Mike Pence, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, his former chief strategist Steve Bannon and other national security and economic advisers, asked to see policy options in 90 days. In the meantime, he said he knew of at least one “Chinese criminal” the U.S. needed to immediately deport, according to the people.

“Where’s the letter that Steve brought?” Mr. Trump called to his secretary. “We need to get this criminal out of the country,” Mr. Trump said, according to the people. Aides assumed the letter, which was brought into the Oval Office, might reference a Chinese national in trouble with U.S. law enforcement, the people said.

The letter, in fact, was from the Chinese government, urging the U.S. to return Mr. Guo to China.

The document had been presented to Mr. Trump at a recent private dinner at the White House, the people said. It was hand-delivered to the president by Mr. Wynn, the Republican National Committee finance chairman, whose Macau casino empire cannot operate without a license from the Chinese territory.

A White House spokesman declined to comment.

Some aides tried to shut the topic of conversation down, including by noting Mr. Guo is a member of the president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., according to the people familiar with the meeting. The aides later worked to prevent any possible attempts to deport Mr. Guo, an action they believed would deprive the U.S. of a key point of leverage to use against Beijing, the people said.

McParadigm wrote:1. Dismissively assuming marginalization of these narratives is part of how we got here.

2. Reading/discussing misinformation efforts such as these is not the same as retweeting or other acts which unintentionally assist in their successes.

3. Some species thrive in the dark.

100% devil's advocate post:

1. Giving these narratives voice also gives them strength.

2. SEO/web analytic bots are absolutely watching RM, and these exchanges are just more fuel for the fire.

3. Some species thrive in the light.

I really don't care. I don't use Twitter, and I typically scroll past the sorts of posts McP made this morning. But his argument seemed like something that could be pretty easily refuted.

McParadigm wrote:For real, though.

Trump tried to deport a Chinese political dissident because a casino billionaire who needs the Chinese government's support asked him to.

McParadigm wrote:The well of shocking behavior is bottomless, and this is an amazing story.

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/chinas ... 1508717977

The president, surrounded by his top aides, including Vice President Mike Pence, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, his former chief strategist Steve Bannon and other national security and economic advisers, asked to see policy options in 90 days. In the meantime, he said he knew of at least one “Chinese criminal” the U.S. needed to immediately deport, according to the people.

“Where’s the letter that Steve brought?” Mr. Trump called to his secretary. “We need to get this criminal out of the country,” Mr. Trump said, according to the people. Aides assumed the letter, which was brought into the Oval Office, might reference a Chinese national in trouble with U.S. law enforcement, the people said.

The letter, in fact, was from the Chinese government, urging the U.S. to return Mr. Guo to China.

The document had been presented to Mr. Trump at a recent private dinner at the White House, the people said. It was hand-delivered to the president by Mr. Wynn, the Republican National Committee finance chairman, whose Macau casino empire cannot operate without a license from the Chinese territory.

A White House spokesman declined to comment.

Some aides tried to shut the topic of conversation down, including by noting Mr. Guo is a member of the president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., according to the people familiar with the meeting. The aides later worked to prevent any possible attempts to deport Mr. Guo, an action they believed would deprive the U.S. of a key point of leverage to use against Beijing, the people said.

Between raising a family and running a small business, not only do I not give a single fuck about this, but have to wonder that if I did, what could I do about it other than yell about it on the internet. It's a pointless exercise.

McParadigm wrote:The well of shocking behavior is bottomless, and this is an amazing story.

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/chinas ... 1508717977

The president, surrounded by his top aides, including Vice President Mike Pence, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, his former chief strategist Steve Bannon and other national security and economic advisers, asked to see policy options in 90 days. In the meantime, he said he knew of at least one “Chinese criminal” the U.S. needed to immediately deport, according to the people.

“Where’s the letter that Steve brought?” Mr. Trump called to his secretary. “We need to get this criminal out of the country,” Mr. Trump said, according to the people. Aides assumed the letter, which was brought into the Oval Office, might reference a Chinese national in trouble with U.S. law enforcement, the people said.

The letter, in fact, was from the Chinese government, urging the U.S. to return Mr. Guo to China.

The document had been presented to Mr. Trump at a recent private dinner at the White House, the people said. It was hand-delivered to the president by Mr. Wynn, the Republican National Committee finance chairman, whose Macau casino empire cannot operate without a license from the Chinese territory.

A White House spokesman declined to comment.

Some aides tried to shut the topic of conversation down, including by noting Mr. Guo is a member of the president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., according to the people familiar with the meeting. The aides later worked to prevent any possible attempts to deport Mr. Guo, an action they believed would deprive the U.S. of a key point of leverage to use against Beijing, the people said.

The idiocy is so bad I can't follow this. Jesus.

McParadigm wrote:For real, though.

Trump tried to deport a Chinese political dissident because a casino billionaire who needs the Chinese government's support asked him to.

Oh thank God, you explained it. I lost track of who was who halfway through.

I think when the President of the United States feels more at home with the fringe than anywhere else, it doesn't make much sense to call it a fringe anymore. The notion that you shouldn't acknowledge it seems fairly strange to me, personally.

meatwad wrote:

McParadigm wrote:For real, though.

Trump tried to deport a Chinese political dissident because a casino billionaire who needs the Chinese government's support asked him to.

McParadigm wrote:The well of shocking behavior is bottomless, and this is an amazing story.

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/chinas ... 1508717977

The president, surrounded by his top aides, including Vice President Mike Pence, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, his former chief strategist Steve Bannon and other national security and economic advisers, asked to see policy options in 90 days. In the meantime, he said he knew of at least one “Chinese criminal” the U.S. needed to immediately deport, according to the people.

“Where’s the letter that Steve brought?” Mr. Trump called to his secretary. “We need to get this criminal out of the country,” Mr. Trump said, according to the people. Aides assumed the letter, which was brought into the Oval Office, might reference a Chinese national in trouble with U.S. law enforcement, the people said.

The letter, in fact, was from the Chinese government, urging the U.S. to return Mr. Guo to China.

The document had been presented to Mr. Trump at a recent private dinner at the White House, the people said. It was hand-delivered to the president by Mr. Wynn, the Republican National Committee finance chairman, whose Macau casino empire cannot operate without a license from the Chinese territory.

A White House spokesman declined to comment.

Some aides tried to shut the topic of conversation down, including by noting Mr. Guo is a member of the president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., according to the people familiar with the meeting. The aides later worked to prevent any possible attempts to deport Mr. Guo, an action they believed would deprive the U.S. of a key point of leverage to use against Beijing, the people said.

Between raising a family and running a small business, not only do I not give a single fuck about this, but have to wonder that if I did, what could I do about it other than yell about it on the internet. It's a pointless exercise.

Nothing matters anymore, sure.

tragabigzanda wrote:

McParadigm wrote:1. Dismissively assuming marginalization of these narratives is part of how we got here.

2. Reading/discussing misinformation efforts such as these is not the same as retweeting or other acts which unintentionally assist in their successes.

3. Some species thrive in the dark.

100% devil's advocate post:

1. Giving these narratives voice also gives them strength.

2. SEO/web analytic bots are absolutely watching RM, and these exchanges are just more fuel for the fire.

3. Some species thrive in the light.

I really don't care. I don't use Twitter, and I typically scroll past the sorts of posts McP made this morning. But his argument seemed like something that could be pretty easily refuted.

First, the only links I've put up today have been to Good Morning America and the Wall Street Journal. I guess a Donald Trump tweet, too.

I do frequently take note of what narratives are building under the surface, however, and comment on them here because I think they are dangerous to ignore. I'd also argue that most of the actual pushback for this alternate universe of false fact-telling has come as a result of public response.

Mainstream advertisers spent years engaging entities like Breitbart. Increased scrutiny and outrage over crass distortion, post-election, led to organized boycott efforts. Social media platforms felt no pressure to start addressing fake news efforts, until everyone (and I don't mean journalists) realized their existence and impact. Traffic to reliable fact-checking websites increased more than 30% during the same time period when the inaccuracy of many of these narratives became more widely discussed (also around the time Fox was forced to publicly retract Seth Rich claims, and Alex Jones renounced Pizzagate). On the other hand, in retrospect we can see that a lot of the intelligence community’s and government’s slowness in addressing these campaigns in the past came down to the simple assumption that they were not a threat.

What I do understand and, to a degree, agree with you about is that there's a line to walk. According to a Pew poll, 88% of undecided voter respondents said that fake claims and stories "confuse" them about the issues, and nearly all of that group said they wished there was more clarity about what is and isn't true.

And they should. Research published by The American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology has found that undecided voters are far more likely to be influenced by a claim they read online if they are not *also* exposed to evidence that others disbelieve or disapprove of it, even if the claim is extremely conspiratorial. A study that occurred during the election found that they were more reliant than members of either party on what they read on the internet (and social media in particular) to provide them with news and insights.

So the point is: you can't refute or discuss the claims without being a part of the exposure, and that's a problem. But ignoring them allowed an entire narrative control system and industry to grow, over decades, and the people it is targeting are also among those most influenced by online exposure and least influenced by print and TV media reporting.

digster wrote:I think when the President of the United States feels more at home with the fringe than anywhere else, it doesn't make much sense to call it a fringe anymore. The notion that you shouldn't acknowledge it seems fairly strange to me, personally.

I hear what meatwad is saying, but I after a lot of thought, I agree with you digster. The amount of misinformation, that a huge swath of our country is consuming everyday, is something we should not ignore. I peeled back the onion with my dad two summers ago only to find that he believed Obama was serectly trying to take down the country and that Shariah law was rampant in Detroit.

My best friend thought that Bernie Sanders wanted to "gulags" to the US based on a brietbart article.

If we don't know what weirdness the other side is chewing on, we won't know how to solve this crazy situation.

edit: McP obviously said everything I was thinking, except in a much more intelligent, informed manner. McP wins again!

McParadigm wrote:

tragabigzanda wrote:

McParadigm wrote:1. Dismissively assuming marginalization of these narratives is part of how we got here.

2. Reading/discussing misinformation efforts such as these is not the same as retweeting or other acts which unintentionally assist in their successes.

3. Some species thrive in the dark.

100% devil's advocate post:

1. Giving these narratives voice also gives them strength.

2. SEO/web analytic bots are absolutely watching RM, and these exchanges are just more fuel for the fire.

3. Some species thrive in the light.

I really don't care. I don't use Twitter, and I typically scroll past the sorts of posts McP made this morning. But his argument seemed like something that could be pretty easily refuted.

First, the only links I've put up today have been to Good Morning America and the Wall Street Journal. I guess a Donald Trump tweet, too.

I do frequently take note of what narratives are building under the surface, however, and comment on them here because I think they are dangerous to ignore. I'd also argue that most of the actual pushback for this alternate universe of false fact-telling has come as a result of public response.

Mainstream advertisers spent years engaging entities like Breitbart. Increased scrutiny and outrage over crass distortion, post-election, led to organized boycott efforts. Social media platforms felt no pressure to start addressing fake news efforts, until everyone (and I don't mean journalists) realized their existence and impact. Traffic to reliable fact-checking websites increased more than 30% during the same time period when the inaccuracy of many of these narratives became more widely discussed (also around the time Fox was forced to publicly retract Seth Rich claims, and Alex Jones renounced Pizzagate). On the other hand, in retrospect we can see that a lot of the intelligence community’s and government’s slowness in addressing these campaigns in the past came down to the simple assumption that they were not a threat.

What I do understand and, to a degree, agree with you about is that there's a line to walk. According to a Pew poll, 88% of undecided voter respondents said that fake claims and stories "confuse" them about the issues, and nearly all of that group said they wished there was more clarity about what is and isn't true.

And they should. Research published by The American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology has found that undecided voters are far more likely to be influenced by a claim they read online if they are not *also* exposed to evidence that others disbelieve or disapprove of it, even if the claim is extremely conspiratorial. A study that occurred during the election found that they were more reliant than members of either party on what they read on the internet (and social media in particular) to provide them with news and insights.

So the point is: you can't refute or discuss the claims without being a part of the exposure, and that's a problem. But ignoring them allowed an entire narrative control system and industry to grow, over decades, and the people it is targeting are also among those most influenced by online exposure and least influenced by print and TV media reporting.

All totally sensible and well-informed, but again, I don't care. And that's not because I think this train of thought is not important; I just don't think it even scratches the surface of where we're really at as a country...

"Fake news" is a fair term for Trump to level at the liberal press. You've obviously seen the NYT's outrage over Harvey Weinstein, and the Washington Post's recent think piece "After Weinstein, Some Victims Wonder 'Why Not Trump?'" Well, why not Bill Clinton while we're at it? Why not Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, two A-list celebrity progressives who it seems may have covered for Weinstein?

My point is that we are so far beyond any possibility of a two-party system acting with efficiency and support for the populace.

Why can't we get a third party on to the debate stage?
Why can't I vote online?
Why can't I allocate a certain percentage of my tax dollars as I see fit?
Why are we still running the primary/general election system, rather than instant runoff?

Our two-party system, with the media from both ends of the spectrum acting as political mouthpieces for their corporate backers, is inherently dysfunctional. So all the Twitter stuff, Russian bots, and little slice o' life stories we get that are supposed to imbue some larger sense of political machinations, it's all so unimportant to me in the grand scheme of things. There are more foundational ills that get relegated to the deep pages of print journalism, or the fringes of the political blogosphere. So I don't mean to sound like a nihilist, because yes, this stuff does matter...But also, it doesn't really matter.

Hatfield wrote:

digster wrote:I think when the President of the United States feels more at home with the fringe than anywhere else, it doesn't make much sense to call it a fringe anymore. The notion that you shouldn't acknowledge it seems fairly strange to me, personally.

I hear what meatwad is saying, but I after a lot of thought, I agree with you digster. The amount of misinformation, that a huge swath of our country is consuming everyday, is something we should not ignore. I peeled back the onion with my dad two summers ago only to find that he believed Obama was serectly trying to take down the country and that Shariah law was rampant in Detroit.

My best friend thought that Bernie Sanders wanted to "gulags" to the US based on a brietbart article.

If we don't know what weirdness the other side is chewing on, we won't know how to solve this crazy situation.

Reminder: at the time when news media first started reporting on it (an eternity ago), 12 percent of Democrats and nearly a fourth of independents said that then-President Obama was probably not born in the US. So these narratives are not contained to their echo chamber just because we leave them there.

My biggest complaint about the 'other side' is that they don't like being talked down to like they're stupid. How else do you approach people who believe that Obama is a secret Muslin*? That there are Death Panels? That Donald Trump is a sane human being? They are idiots through and through and it's too God-damn taxing to try to talk to them.

Spoiler: show

Also, McP -- Just for the record, my detached sort of negativity doesn't necessarily carry over into my real life. I'm actually attending a Montana Democratic Party Precinct meeting this week in hopes of joining the committee (Mrs. Trag is already a committee member). I feel a far greater sense of power over local politics than the national stuff.

bune wrote:My biggest complaint about the 'other side' is that they don't like being talked down to like they're stupid. How else do you approach people who believe that Obama is a secret Muslin*? That there are Death Panels? That Donald Trump is a sane human being? They are idiots through and through and it's too God-damn taxing to try to talk to them.

Spoiler: show

This.

I guess I still have faith that when the next election rolls around, the independents who have sat on the sidelines or even voted Republican will have had enough of this shit and express it at the polls. Until then I personally can't get wrapped up in all the noise.

Why is she always wearing the cowboy hat of a lunch-shift dancer?

Why do all my strippers always dress like politicians?