How Conservatives Are Being Destroyed by Facebook, Twitter and Google Without Even Realizing It

Townhall.com ^ | Jan 13, 2018 | John Hawkins

[Trailerpark Badass]

Facebook is dying. I only check it because many niche products I enjoy reach their customers directly through. The number of posts by individual “friends” has dropped off dramatically in the last year, and we are 50-somethings. My kids don’t even look at Facebook.

[SunkenCiv]

Try switching it up to Fuzzie and Mag, and see if the, uh, algorithm still flags it.

[Chauncey Gardiner]

I do not participate in social media other than Free Republic for this very reason. It’s a cesspool. If there were a conservative equivalent to these sites, I’d be all in.

[Chickensoup]

there was a time you could search free republic in parentheses and add the words of the title or in the thread and you would get pages of FR links.

Gone. All.

[Chickensoup]

Well I have done searches way after the 2003 date and received many many searches. Google spends a lot of time crawling FR. But they are not indexing the way they used to. Just gathering information.

[Chickensoup]

But from the succeeding post #27 I did a google search for the sentence: “I realized a couple of years ago what FB was doing and how it was luring the naive into it’s net”. Google found the post.
__

bizarre.

of course the goog only shows you what it wants each individual to see. It gives you results based on your past searches. Manipulated information.

[arrogantsob]

Federal Anti-Trust laws may be of use here.

[dsc]

“They know he won because of the relative freedom of the internet, and are focused on removing that obstacle to their complete control of the media.”

That prospect terrifies me.

Before the Internet, Kennedy was able to steal the election from Nixon, and if you said anything about it, you were regarded as a nut.

They were able to drive Nixon out of the White House for no reason. Reagan was only able to resist them because of his ability to speak directly to the people. They drove Marcos out of the Philippine presidency.

Of course, it’s not a yes/no thing. We still had Xlinton and Obunghole, both two-term presidents.

With the Trump campaign, though, it seemed as though the Internet was maturing as a conduit for uncensored information.

The left, the deep state, all factions of the forces of evil, know that you are right, and they are desperate to choke off our communications channels.

[StAnDeliver]

"You see, what Facebook giveth, Facebook can take away."

And then 13 more grafs of disbelief. Huh.

Ad-based, not subscriber-based; something straight out of 2009 (3-column stacked portrait boxes ugh) - clearly not a viable business model in 2018. Overreliance on FB start to finish. And I say that as the first last always to describe FB as the shithole country of the internet.

To: C19fan

"You are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole."

26 posted on 1/17/2017, 9:34:52 AM by StAnDeliver (Prosecute the win. Run up the score.)

[StAnDeliver]

"You are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole."

[Chickensoup]

magic fingers?

[StAnDeliver]

Anyone who would rely on a Millienial psychopath for anything other than Millienial psycopathic results, probably needs their head examined too...

To: StAnDeliver

Gage: "Mr. Zuckerberg, do I have your full attention?"
Mark Zuckerberg: [stares out the window] "No."

Gage: "Do you think I deserve it?"
Mark Zuckerberg: [looks at the lawyer] "What?"
Gage: "Do you think I deserve your full attention?"
Mark Zuckerberg: "I had to swear an oath before we began this deposition, and I don't want to perjure myself, so I have a legal obligation to say no."
Gage: "Okay – no. You don't think I deserve your attention."

Mark Zuckerberg: "I think if your clients want to sit on my shoulders and call themselves tall, they have the right to give it a try, but there's no requirement that I enjoy sitting here listening to people lie. You have part of my attention – you have the minimum amount. The rest of my attention is back at the offices of Facebook, where my colleagues and I are doing things that no one in this room, including and especially your clients, are intellectually or creatively capable of doing." [pauses] "Did I adequately answer your condescending question?"

36 posted on 1/17/2017, 9:50:04 AM by StAnDeliver (Prosecute the win. Run up the score.)

[StAnDeliver]

Gage: "Mr. Zuckerberg, do I have your full attention?"
Mark Zuckerberg: [stares out the window] "No."

Gage: "Do you think I deserve it?"
Mark Zuckerberg: [looks at the lawyer] "What?"
Gage: "Do you think I deserve your full attention?"
Mark Zuckerberg: "I had to swear an oath before we began this deposition, and I don't want to perjure myself, so I have a legal obligation to say no."
Gage: "Okay – no. You don't think I deserve your attention."

Mark Zuckerberg: "I think if your clients want to sit on my shoulders and call themselves tall, they have the right to give it a try, but there's no requirement that I enjoy sitting here listening to people lie. You have part of my attention – you have the minimum amount. The rest of my attention is back at the offices of Facebook, where my colleagues and I are doing things that no one in this room, including and especially your clients, are intellectually or creatively capable of doing." [pauses] "Did I adequately answer your condescending question?"

[arrogantsob]

Most of these companies have no or low profits. FB earned 5.16 dollars per share last yr and is expected to make $1.94 this year. That is not quiet 0.13 percent return though FB does not pay a dividend.

[enumerated]

Yeah we’ve probably crossed paths - the problem of conservatives being unwitting tools for leftist propaganda is pretty much my pet peeve.

Where we may differ is that I don’t really think conservatives need their own alternative propaganda machines to counter the leftist ones.

I say we elect conservatives, pass conservative legislation, appoint conservative judges etc. but skip the media blitzes, the protests, the marches, the celebrity causes - that stuff is for leftists.

The best way I’ve found to make my point is with the example of local politics: in my very small suburban town, there is a mayor, a town council, various committees, chairs, officers, boards - and they all wind up being liberals even though the townsfolk are fairly conservative. Why? Because leftists like to get involved, run for office, so they can mind other people’s business.

Whenever I complain, people (both conservative and liberal) always say the same thing: “if you don’t like what’s happening, why don’t you get involved, speak up, join a committee, start a cause, run for office?”

But wait a minute - the thing I don’t like is all the people getting involved, joining committees, championing causes, running for office, minding other people’s business. So, how is it going to help if I do the same thing?

This is what I call the libertarian’s dilemma - you can’t get rid of the bully so your only choice is to become the bully.

I say screw that - and screw starting our own media outlets so we have our own set of talking heads and our own fake news that’s fake the way we want it.

I think conservatives want to be left alone to live their lives in peace - like you said - there is rarely any real news content that anyone needs to know in order to live their lives.

I would very much like to see CNN disappear, but I’m not sure I want anything to take their place.

[arrogantsob]

Some the of upper levels of taxpayers will have a tax increase but the vast majority will get cuts. Do the math using the Gross Household Income as a basis.

You need to get rid of the idea that corporations pay taxes, they don’t because the alleged tax is passed on to consumers. Business taxes are just hidden individual taxes.

[StAnDeliver]

Sheryl Sandberg (sort of) Apologizes For Psychological Experiments on Facebook Users

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[enumerated]

Yes, I agree but then blame it on the Byrd rule, not the corporate tax rate cuts.

Look at it this way: if the police catch the burglars that robbed your neighbor’s house, but not the burglars that robbed your house - you have a a legitimate complaint - namely that they should get off their ass and catch the theives that stole from you.

But if you complain that the police shouldn’t have caught the burglars that stole from your neighbor - that’s not the right complaint (IMHO).

Yes, it sucks our taxes weren’t cut but any tax cuts are a good thing.

That Byrd rule is crap - and so are all the supposedly nonpartisan scoring agencies that fail to account for the growth impact of tax cuts, and fail to account firthe fact that the government is way to big.

Blame the leftists that overtax and over spend, don’t blame the people who cut taxes.

[arrogantsob]

Facebook has something for everyone. I have never had any of my political rants censored and don’t read things I am not interested in. There is a ton of information there and lots of interesting posts some of which are hilarious.

It is a tool and I make full use of it. It is true that I am on there less but that is just because I have periods where I just am not interested. Days may go by without my presence, a few hours of not being on FR is insufferable.

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

That would take care of 0.01% of what FB should apologize for.

[Eleutheria5]

Start our own social media sites, and do the same to libtards who post there. So long as Facebook, Twitter et al. want to be that way, turnabout is fair play.

[DivineMomentsOfTruth]

The same can be said for Google.. no privacy WSE.. as I type way on my Samsung..