By saying China's using Tik Tok to subvert "democracy," aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda? I sometimes cannot believe it's those who so loudly cry about threats to "democracy" that simultaneously take such a cynical view of the democratic process. Rather than tackle the narratives substantively, they'd argue about who gets to manipulate the mob. It's just wild to me. If that's your view of the electorate, then the whole "democracy" thing is just a cover for elite power. Honestly, maybe there's some truth to that, but it sure flies in the face of the sanctity of voting and "democracy."
> voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda
Who is even saying this is not true? The United States government is more aware than maybe anyone else that influencing human opinion and action is a statistical problem once you have enough scale.
Just look at the history of the USIA [1] and its successor the USICA.
And today's Bureau of Global Public Affairs[1]. Which "engages media to shape the global narrative on American foreign policy and values [and] communicates U.S. foreign policy objectives to the American public." Of course, it's difficult to pierce the veil and determine exactly how they go about doing this. Narratives are propaganda.
I think anyone who says democracy is good and the will of the people should be respected is implicitly saying that is not true. Implicitly saying voters are individual agents and not a mob.
Otherwise, if democracy is good and votes should matter and at the same time voters are a mob subject to manipulation... democracy is what? A system of government by whoever can do better propaganda? Why would that be good for anyone except those who do propaganda?
So yeah, I think many people are claiming that is not true.
One question I would ask if people are just a mob, who is actually pushing the buttons? Owners of media, political leaders, are also humans, no? They have the same weaknesses, at least in principle.
If you accept some people are different (those who command and control propaganda) then we must conclude that not all people are vulnerable to it, so maybe it's a spectrum. But still democracy sounds like a bad idea, as a majority are probably on the low end of the spectrum, and the majority rules.
> I think anyone who says democracy is good and the will of the people should be respected is implicitly saying that is not true. Implicitly saying voters are individual agents and not a mob.
Both are true. We are individual agents and a mob.
Democracy, as we all know, is the worst political system except for all the others. At scale people on average behave about average and make decisions perfectly aligned with their systemic incentives and available information.
You (and me) are not immune to propaganda.
Strong recommend watching/readingupon Manufacturing Consent and Chomsky’s life work in general.
> Democracy, as we all know, is the worst political system except for all the others.
Honestly it would be about time we stop repeating this Churchill's quote as if it's one of the ten commandments. The man wasn't certainly a god and humans are often mistaken.
The actual meaning of democracy is the "power of the people". Nowhere that implies a western-like electoral system.
I'd argue in your average western democracy the people have very little power, with lots of symbolic processes to reinforce the illusion.
> The actual meaning of democracy is the "power of the people". Nowhere that implies a western-like electoral system.
Correct. “we” used to do it simply by killing the leaders that were disliked. Elections are a bit friendlier than that :)
You might enjoy this Zizek video on the border between the west and the balkans: https://youtu.be/bwDrHqNZ9lo . I think he captures the sentiment well.
> I'd argue in your average western democracy the people have very little power, with lots of symbolic processes to reinforce the illusion.
This was Chomsky’s whole point in Manufacturing Consent.
I think then we can agree that if the people hold very little power, what we have today in the west is definitely not democracy.
A study[0] came to the conclusion that the US is in fact closer to an oligarchy, and I'd extend that to most other so-called democratic countries. The interests of a few always trump the interests of the many.
In this context, that Churchill's quote seems out of place and mostly serves the purpose of shutting down the discussion.
In Russia? Worse in terms of popular participation in the decisional process, but it still works because the majority of people believe (rightly or not) that their interests are protected by Putin. So for all they care, as long as Putin does his job right, it is for all purposes a democracy in its true meaning. Much unlike us, where most of the electorate feels that governments work against their interests and the quality of life stagnates or worsens, life conditions in Russia have improved greatly since the fall of the USSR.
In China? I'd say they have it better than us. Anyone can join the CPC/government and work their way up the decisional apparatus based on an actually meritocratic process, anyone can participate in administrative decisions through consultations. It's what they call "whole-process people's democracy". Do some research on this if you haven't, you'll find out that Chinese people are much more involved in the decisional process at all its stages than we are.
I'll tell you the truth, I sincerely believe that the only true marker of democracy is for the conditions of the people to keep improving constantly, even for the poorest. That is the realization of the power of the people, the only way in which their interests are actively pursued.
Everything else is just fluff that we added on top to make the term better fit us and exclude our adversaries. Democracy can be direct, representative, authoritarian, it doesn't matter so much to me as long as it makes our lives better.
I find this hard to believe. Isn't Western society/democracy ostensibly setup to allow meritocratic advancement as well? Yet I think it's fairly well-established at this point it very much does not work that way in reality. So what is it about Chinese government/society that makes them impervious to the same factors that make meritocratic systems so difficult in the West? Greed, nepotism, and hunger for power to name but a few.
Well for one corruption is punished heavily in China, even with death penalty. Just recently an official has been executed for a $412 million corruption case. So of course there's going to be corruption and greed like anywhere else, the difference is how the system reacts to it. In comparison I believe the hardest bribery sentence in the USA is 13 years of imprisonment.
Another interesting thing is that for their poverty alleviation project, when an official is assigned to a province they have specific targets to achieve. As long as they don't achieve the targets, the official can't be promoted or transferred[0]. Meaning if they ever want to get a better job or earn more they have to actually reduce poverty.
I have a hard time taking Chomsky seriously after he felt his need to make his uninformed opinions on Russia's aggression and AI public.
Was Chomsky ever an expert? Maybe, I wouldn't know because I haven't read what he built his legacy upon. But that he wrote so poorly on two topics he has little experience with does him no favors.
Chomsky is a Linguistics Professor, he has no formal training in media or political theory. So yes, he is not an expert, and funnily enough he's the kind of leftist who straight up admits he is biased and selectively picks facts to support this arguments.
> Was Chomsky ever an expert? Maybe, I wouldn't know because I haven't read what he built his legacy upon.
My entire life anything I hear from him has been misinformed and anything I hear about him is "Chomsky disproven". I have to imagine whatever he was known for happened before I was born - which I've never been exposed to. Granted I've never sought it out either.
To me he feels like an academic Kardashian: Famous for being famous, and it's not really clear how it started.
> I think anyone who says democracy is good and the will of the people should be respected is implicitly saying that is not true. Implicitly saying voters are individual agents and not a mob.
I think that is a pretty hardline interpretation, but there's another way of thinking about it:
democracy has worked pretty well up to now and there hasn't been a better replacement.
That doesn't mean it will continue being a good solution as technology and society change.
Democracy is not a new concept, just current implementation is different. Democracy, in some form, dates back over 2500 years to ancient Athens (circa 5th century BCE). Around 1500 years ago (~500 CE), formal democracy as it existed in Athens had largely faded, particularly with the decline of the Roman Republic (509 BCE – 27 BCE), which had elements of representative governance.
It struggled with corruption, inequality and power struggles, so all the problems that are getting stronger with time in our democratic systems.
The idea of democracy reemerged during the Enlightenment (17th–18th centuries) and became formalized in modern political systems - United States (1776) and revolutionary France.
We live in cycles, democracy probably will fade again, and again it will be considered anarchic and unstable until the cycle repeats itself.
Not sure about what's really "typical", nor which name would best describe what direction the USA (let alone anyone else) is even heading in.
The ancient Greeks had ideas about the κύκλος (cycles) of government: Plato's cycle went [aristocracy > timocracy oligarchy > democracy > tyranny]; Polybius' cycle was [ochlocracy -> monarchy -> tyranny -> aristocracy -> oligarchy -> democracy -> ochlocracy] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_cycle_theory
> I think anyone who says democracy is good and the will of the people should be respected is implicitly saying that is not true. Implicitly saying voters are individual agents and not a mob.
Disagree. Democracy can basically be mob rule and still be “good” if mob rule is better than alternatives like “divine right of kings,” “rule by military despot” and so on.
I think Democracy is critically important. However, the main reason I believe this is because Democracy allows for the transfer of power without violence. That's THE value prop.
> Otherwise, if democracy is good and votes should matter and at the same time voters are a mob subject to manipulation... democracy is what? A system of government by whoever can do better propaganda? Why would that be good for anyone except those who do propaganda?
Yes. And you are already waking up to that in your next question.
> One question I would ask if people are just a mob, who is actually pushing the buttons? Owners of media, political leaders, are also humans, no? They have the same weaknesses, at least in principle.
> If you accept some people are different (those who command and control propaganda) then we must conclude that not all people are vulnerable to it
Why would those who do propaganda not be susceptible to disinformation, or the Dunning-Kruger or Gell-mann Amnesia effects? Every person is susceptible to disinformation. The difference is that those in power can disseminate disinformation at scale.
> so maybe it's a spectrum. But still democracy sounds like a bad idea, as a majority are probably on the low end of the spectrum, and the majority rules.
Hence "tyranny of democracy". Many places in the First world are now experiencing this, where 'green' programs and and social progress are being dismantled en masse because of a slight majority. Worst of it is, long term these decisions will carry a massive financial burden. The LA fires with $250 billion+ in damages are a herald of that.
Just because you share an opinion does not mean that opinion has not been shaped, directed or influenced.
"The Overton window is the range of subjects and arguments politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time.[1] It is also known as the window of discourse. "
The word populist has ended up with a confused set of meanings (intentionally). What we have now is a war between different groups of elites, both sides co-opting populist ideals and language, and blaming the people for the other side’s efforts to destroy democracy.
Realistically we do not have a single group running in the US with the intention of delivering on the people’s preferences or with an intent to deliver a government that functions more democratically. Both are increasingly authoritarian in the name of populism.
> The word populist has ended up with a confused set of meanings (intentionally). What we have now is a war between different groups of elites
Of course. The masses never exercise political power directly. As you point out, it's disaffected factions of the elite that claim and wield the moral authority of the masses to defeat other elites. It's been this way since the Optimates and Populares persecuted each other in a centuries-long spiral of escalating stupidity culminating in political upheavel.
Nevertheless, disaffected elites can't swing the club of popular opinion against other elites with any effect unless there is some non-zero dot-product alignment between their governance and popular opinion. In exchange for at least partially enacting popular policy, upstart elites get a tool for deposing other elites. The people win in the end.
"What do you think happens when people realize that "democracy" is a sham in the sense that their preferences don't translate into the rules they follow in daily life?"
Growing up, it's always been said that no one is above the law, even the president. People would point to Nixon as an example, that even he was forced into submission by his party and SCOTUS.
Well now SCOTUS has determined POTUS is actually above the law, and I don't think it's a coincidence that not long after, someone like Luigi manifests out of the population.
The contract has always been, we have a rule of law, and all people are subject to it no matter their station. That's over. Maybe it always has been but SCOTUS put it in writing. JFK said it before, but if certain people make it so that they cannot be held accountable by the law, people will find other ways to bring accountability. People of history perceived to be invincible at the height of their power, tend to meet untimely ends at the hands of their people.
Yes. This is well known since Antiquity when the Athenian Democracy voted to condemn Plato to death.
Read more about the period and you will see that the Democratic cities of yore, Athens first and foremost, often swinged towards taking bad decisions, and that a whole corporation of "sophists" manipulated public opinion without shame (read e.g. Gorgias).
The great progress that enabled the restoration, extention and stabilisation of Democracy in the modern era has been indirect, representative democracy and base, written bill of rights/constitutions that aren't asily modified, requiring majorities of 2/3rds or more and constraint what can be voted on.
> ...when the Athenian Democracy voted to condemn Plato to death.
That was Socrates, not Plato.
Socrates was allowed to choose his own punishment too, so he wasn't exactly condemned to death right away. He also had the opportunity to escape prison. He chose not to.
Qhat you doesn't make much sense, starting with your claim Plato was sentenced to death by Athenian democracy, which there is no evidence of that I know of.
I agree with everything you're saying, but I also can't fully square up that the equivalent American apps aren't allowed in China. This is about freedom of speech on app built by a country that has no freedom of speech. I realize this point is orthogonal, but is still an important element of the decision.
At its core free speech is about the freedom from government influence and the complaint is about government influence.
It’s one thing to allow the CCP to say whatever it wants, it’s something else to allow them the ability to manipulate of what other people can say. Allowing such a highly restricted platform seems like it hurts free speech more than it helps.
It's not a highly restricted platform at all, there were literally videos of translated Hitler speeches trending with hundreds of thousands of likes, even though the CCP absolutely hates western nationalism.
This is the platform that led to the proliferation of newspeak terms like "unalive" to circumvent content restrictions. Such speech restrictions were never a thing on FB, IG, X, or YT, yet this form of self-censorship has spread to those platforms anyway, because TikTok users have become so used to it.
While there aren't direct speech restrictions in platforms like YouTube, you're leaving out the crucial detail that mentioning words like "suicide" gets your video demonetized, which directly causes similar self-censorship.
YouTube pays creators based on advertising deals making some topics far more valuable, while other topics have become very sensitive to advertisers. That’s related, but different from censorship.
Creators are still free to use YouTube as a platform to discuss sensitive topics with a very large audience without paying per viewer, unlike say advertising or standing at a street corner talking to passersby. As such YouTube is still supporting the discussion and distribution of said content.
Restrictions become more effective when they are less obvious.
When as has been demonstrated their algorithm ignores the number of upvotes in favor of massively promoting viewpoints it cares about, that’s also vast suppression of opposing viewpoints but in a way o get creators to quietly comply rather than try and push the boundaries.
> Ok, that’s their country what does it have to do with us?
I mean, nothing really. You could say the same about Israel and Palestine, or Saudi Arabia and Iran, or China and Hong Kong. Human rights abuses are perfectly acceptable in today's society, as long as they're out of sight and out of mind. He who controls visibility into human suffering controls the way people perceive his control. Hasbara, in Israeli vernacular.
> Also why do we do this:
Because Zionist lobbying exerts disproportionate control over both the US tech industry and the legislative apparatus regulating it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws
You're not going to drive a wedge between people by repeating the Israel stance, though. If you tried to expose China's same abuses for working slave labor to death or suicide, you'd be suppressed in exactly the same way America suppresses your anti-Israel content. From a national security perspective, TikTok's existence is about whether another country can impose their own double-standard on top of America's own populist opinion. Today it's the war in Gaza, but tomorrow it will be about suppressing democracy in Taiwan for the "betterment of global peace" et. al. You can't deny China's plans to use TikTok for war with a straight face - by many accounts it's already started.
People trying to act like this Chinese controlled vehicle supports free speech is so weird to me. They're not "censoring" anything - they're using it as a straight unimpeded funnel to subvert the west.
Rupert Murdoch got US citizenship because of foreign ownership rules. From his wiki page:
> On 4 September 1985, Murdoch became a naturalized citizen to satisfy the legal requirement that only US citizens were permitted to own US television stations.
China doesn’t allow for or recognize dual citizenship, so it doesn’t matter unless they also gave up their Chinese citizenship (rumor has it the CPC relaxed this rule for a certain snowboarder). But ya, that Murdoch is also Australian is probably benign.
Nothing about Murdoch's politics is benign. They've done more damage to democracy worldwide, but particularly in the US, than China ever will.
Speaking of hostile foreigners, a prominent South African was just giving the crowd a few Nazi salutes at the inauguration. Is that also benign? At what exact point do we start observing that the enemies to democracy are inside the house?
They are about as dangerous as Chinese Americans, which is to say, not at all.
Particular people are problematic. But you can only judge that by actions, not by their country of birth.
Which is what makes this foreign manipulation rhetoric and ban rubbish. It refuses to identify what the bad actions it's trying to protect us from are, it's just a lazy, prejudiced rubric that gives the most egregious ones a free pass, because they have the right color stripes on their pin.
I already mentioned that dual citizenship isn’t possible for Chinese. There is no person over 18 that holds Chinese and American citizenship, but you keep somehow ignoring that. Any Chinese can get American citizenship, get rid of Chinese citizenship, and buy a tv station in the states, the process is straightforward, and they won’t deny you because your ethnicity is Han or Hui or whatever.
In founding of the United States lies tariff stories. The United States does not reject government and nations as entities at all. It just asserts rights for its citizens which doesn't include everyone on the planet.
If stooping down to their level is the move we make, then we should immediately stop acting as if we are more “free” or democratic than China. You can’t have it both ways.
you're implying that these elections are on equal grounds with truthful candidates. I think that's a small part why America has become decreaingly distrustgul of politicians but still vote. Many people on both sides of the aisle have admitted 2024 felt like choosing the least bad candidate.
The root cause of this sort of comment is people often equate the outcome of democracy == good or desirable to them or even the majority, which is not necessarily the case. People can whine about the outcome of a democratic process all they want, which even if done perfectly could be a compromise that is distasteful to all parties but still democratic.
You'd normally be right. But the US did just have the richest man in the world setup a lottery to buy votes, and walked it back to "oh it was rigged anyway" when called out on it. Any lawsuits is pennies compared to the results.
It was subtle before with stuff like Gerrymandering that the layman would never notice. But it's so blatant now that the democratic process is compromised.
Yes. I also realize that a democratic system allows for making decisions that do not align with such a system, and can in fact destroy such a system from within.
Is this not what we have all been saying about Trump? Or are you saying that is OK because his moves have been made within the framework of a democratic system?
This isn't blanket censorship, period. Every single user that currently voices their stance, values or opinions can continue to do the exact same thing on any other platform they choose. Just not TikTok, because they are a business owned by an adversarial government that deliberately uses their soapbox to manipulate democratic audiences: https://kyivinsider.com/russia-and-china-just-rigged-romania...
Also don't forget - TikTok has remediation options where they continue to operate in America as an American business instead. They are the ones that refused that and chose censorship. America just forced the choice between eating the cake and having it.
Edit: Correct, it is not. The part that is censorship on China's behalf is the enforcement of the Great Firewall and enaction of laws prohibiting citizens from owning or consuming foreign news or entertainment. China's ban on foreign apps could just as well be explained by a desire for better domestic software markets - the same cannot be said for the Firewall.
Edit 2: Yes, secession would settle this. China has proven that they cannot be trusted to disseminate information through a state-owned apparatus. If the owner continues to be a government entity, then continuing to let them do "business" is like letting the Trojans wheel in their horse so the citizens can marvel at it.
Feel free to record a 30s video on the topic of Tiananmen Square and post it on X, Facebook and Chinese TikTok. Report back with results in 24h. In the conclusions section, point out the difference between censorship and moderation.
I will try to reiterate my initial point since people keep losing track: banning TikTok is a slippery slope that moves us in the direction of China’s GFW, and we can longer claim a moral highground once we do.
You seem to be unable to reconcile that China can use a platform with some positive aspects for ill. I abhor Israel's actions and the role of their extremist sects in rejecting international oversight. But I also abhor China for using prisoners, slaves and North Korean indentures to harvest Xinxiang cotton. These topics won't be given a fair shake on TikTok because China's focus is on which destabilizes America fastest, not which is the most popular among bleeding-heart liberals. Of course they selectively provide moderation support for offensive topics that makes America look bad - do the same thing for China or Bytedance and the double standard rears it's ugly head. It was never about free speech, just creating a cycle of dependency on China for news and opinions.
On this basis alone, American consumer protections should have banned TikTok from the start. There is no tangible outcome where state-owned social media is given a holistic directive, especially not when China is the owner. I pity you for not keeping up with modern geopolitical tensions, but this is just the beginning of the "censorship" if you're reliant on China to voice your opinion. They had their chance to demonstrate detente, but they chose to fight instead.
I understand the nuances just fine. Nowhere have I said that China is innocent here. Does this ban alone make the US as authoritarian as China? Of course not.
But I also understand that an outright ban of a social media platform is an authoritarian practice, and a bad sign for the future of this country. It is an easy way out, but at the cost of introducing a mechanism by which more censorship can take place.
To me, this ban indicates that the US is willing to ban any platform that does not cave into its demands for content “moderation” (if you will) - just like China has been doing for a while now.
We are not “better” than them anymore, and the sooner we realize this, the better of a chance we have of reversing this process.
Not at all. I know that Chinese censorship exists. You - or others, lost track since multiple people are involved here - are the one who’s trying to argue that US censorship does not exist, even in light of this TikTok ban.
Also, you probably don’t realize this, but censorship and moderation are many times two sides of the same coin - depending on the incentives and factors at play.
Censorship is very strictly defined as government’s doing. If this isn’t your definition, we aren’t even talking about the same things. I gave you a very concrete example with potentially serious consequences if you’re a Chinese national posting in China vs somebody getting deprioritized on one platform in yours.
This is an incredible point. Instead of using this crisis to pressure Beijing to crack open the China market to US companies or even just get some concessions, Trump just folded to look like a champ.
Ad-funded social media platforms make money by measurably altering people's opinions and behavior. It's literally their only job—everything else is in service to that goal.
Given that this is what they do day in and day out and that the successful ones are by all metrics very good at it, it seems totally reasonable to assume that one could trivially be turned from manipulating people into buying stuff to manipulating people to voting a certain way or holding certain opinions.
One person one vote is the guiding principle of democracy and, yes, it assumes that no person is able to actively hijack someone else's vote for their own gain. We have systems in place to prevent voter fraud, and I think that we should have systems in place to prevent systematic individual targeting of individuals for algorithmic manipulation as well.
What we don't need is a law that specifically targets foreign companies doing it. Our homegrown manipulators are just as dangerous in their own ways.
> aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda?
I disagree with this interpretation. It's creating a sort of false dichotomy -- voters can still be individual agents AND ALSO they can be manipulated by propaganda. And the key is that propaganda doesn't have to be wildly successful in order to impact a democratic process. It just has to convince enough people to sway an election. That is, and always has been, one of the trade-offs of democracy. That's why we say "democracy needs an informed electorate to survive" -- because an informed individual is less likely to be easily manipulated.
The advantage of democracy is that the propaganda game gets played every few years and current elites can lose. Under a system of freedom of speech, there is very little stopping a decently (but not massively) funded rag-tag group of competent individuals from running a more efficient propaganda campaign than the powers-that-be (think of Dominic Cummings' Leave campaign in the UK for the perfect example).
This is the best system we have found to establish the impermanence of the elite class. Because this is the real beauty of what we in the west call democracy: not the absence of an elite class, for there is no such system, but it's impermanence.
And while that is all well and good within a country, the argument is that it would be unwise to allow a foreign hostile power a seat at our propaganda game. Especially one which does not reciprocate this permission.
This is a thoughtful reply. But, if it's just propaganda games played by the elites, I suppose another way to ensure informed outcomes might be literacy tests. Or property ownership.
I guess more than anything I'm just surprised that it's the "threat to democracy" crowd that would be taking such a cynical view of democracy. They're admitting that Trump's propaganda was just better than theirs. Which is, in some ways, hilarious.
If I were the CCP this is perhaps the cleverest talking point I could have possibly come up with, propping up TikTok while simultaneously condemning democracy.
But to substantively respond: NO. This is exceptionally naive. Democracy assumes shared fates and aligned incentives among (both voting and communicating) participants. A foreign adversary mainlining their interests into half the population of the US absolutely violates this assumption.
Bingo. I never understood why "foreign influence" was supposed to be a bad thing. Free speech is grounded in the idea that people are capable of reasoning and forming their own opinions. If we truly trust in that, the source of the influence - foreign or domestic - shouldn’t matter. People who advocate for censoring foreign sources of influence are implicitly admitting that they don't trust their population to think critically.
> Free speech is grounded in the idea that people are capable of reasoning and forming their own opinions. If we truly trust in that, the source of the influence - foreign or domestic - shouldn’t matter.
Sure, but then why is electioneering banned by polling places? Or why is voter intimidation illegal? You have the draw the line somewhere.
> are implicitly admitting that they don't trust their population to think critically.
A democracy that is NOT a direct democracy is already admitting this. This is exactly the reason we have proxies in a representative democracy.
> Sure, but then why is electioneering banned by polling places? Or why is voter intimidation illegal?
Because those things are not just speech - they're implicit or explicit physical threats.
America runs most of the world's social media platforms and expects other countries to be happy with that, but then panics the moment another country dares to offer them the same thing? I don't know which scenario is worse, the one where this is just an excuse for an America First trade war or the one where the US genuinely believes that controlling a social platform means you control the countries that use it.
> implicitly admitting that they don't trust their population to think critically
I think that is the case though. I will come off as arrogant and my lack of vocabulary might make it sound less elaborate, but a huge chunk of the population is not able or willing to so. This is why every time a country is facing a crysis, the populist politicians gain in popularity. People are already stressed out by their jobs, paying the bills, rising cost of living, so who wants to spend time and effort to research the causes of this, evaluate which proposed solution seems most realistic, what the tradeoffs are, compared to the dude who tells them that the problem is very simple and that he has the solution that is equally simple. It's the immigrants stealing the jobs, or the heat pumps forced upon them, or solar cells.
And it doesn't even need foreign social media to come to that.
> I never understood why "foreign influence" was supposed to be a bad thing. Free speech is grounded in the idea that people are capable of reasoning and forming their own opinions.
You should invest a minute thinking about the problem. Pay attention to your own opinion: people are capable of reasoning and forming their own opinions. Focus on that. Now, consider that propaganda feeds false and deceiving information to the public. In some cases, the decision-maker is only exposed to propaganda. Even if that decision-maker is the most rational of actors, what kind of decisions can he do if they are only exposed to false and deceiving information?
There are plenty of reasons why libel and slander are punishable by law. Why do you think they are?
>There are plenty of reasons why libel and slander are punishable by law. Why do you think they are?
Also note: nobody is cracking down on libel and slander on social media because we consider internet publishers "common carriers" when infarct the should be held accountable for the things they promote.
> Also note: nobody is cracking down on libel and slander on social media because we consider internet publishers "common carriers" when infarct the should be held accountable for the things they promote.
The "common carrier" status of services which hold editorial control over the content that's pushed and promoted is highly dubious.
maybe common carrier is not quite right but social media has no proof of identity. hence I cannot sue motorest for libel if you send a nasty personal-attack reply to this :)
This is an interesting thought experiment, but how is it relevant in practice? In free-speech countries, people are not exposed to just a single source of information. That simply doesn't align with reality. It's akin to criticizing capitalism by imagining a scenario where a single company monopolizes everything.
Truth is absolutely _not_ subjective.. a person is either alive or dead, the earth is either flat or not flat, e = mc2 is either true or false, .. I could go on.
Reminds me of a quote from 1984:
"In the end, the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it." [0]
opinion is subjective, truth means (can’t believe I have to write this) that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality. and it is not objective unless you live in a fantasy world half+ of this country lives in
Truth is absolutely _not_ subjective.. a person is either alive or dead, the earth is either flat or not flat, e = mc2 is either true or false, .. I could go on,
I can agree with you on this point but when someone is standing on the earth they can prove it is flat. Then you zoom out and prove it is not. The flat earth person will just say: "that's not what I meant."
Zoom out to the cosmos and think about the truth available to different observers. This same principle holds across the board. You have to reconcile with each observer, and until you do truth is subjective.
I just have trouble stating that my objective truth is also someone else's objective truth. What if my information is "the Bible." You can split hairs with these people until you die of old age and they can technically be wrong but their truth can work for them.
Just like we have all kinds of wild unintuitive math proofs that are very enlightening once they are communicated to all observers. Newtonian physics are true until they aren't, the same as those Bible "truths."
Given the infinite probabilities of the universe I have trouble declaring a set of objective truths that are immutable and try to give people a pass on what they hold as true. Can anything be known? We settle on some truths that work for us in the little time we have.
> people are capable of reasoning and forming their own opinions
The problem is that people aren't ideal rational agents. Our collective reasoning tends to be heavily biased by the environment, and that there are actors who abuse this (by injecting ideas that indirectly help their agendas) for their personal gains. And in China's case, they want to undermine freedoms, including freedom of speech.
We can consider ourselves as "rational, critical thinkers" all we want, but we aren't as there are myriads of ways we're gullible in one way or another. Plenty of examples in our history books.
Still, I think that free speech is still more important, as it's the only way for a society to recover. With freedom of speech, an antidote (for a lack of better term) can eventually be found and injected into the public discourse, without it the future looks bleak.
The way I see it, we need to encourage improvement of education on social sciences, human psychology, game theory and so on, encourage critical thinking but forewarn of all possible fallacies, and hope that it will be enough and that the inevitable counter-reaction won't prevail and undermine the effort.
I think there is also a lot to say that your speech is hardly free if you are drowning in tons of bot created content regardless of who is generating that content. I feel there is not to many good compromises that can be made it :*(
Sowing discord is the well-known age-tested strategy. It doesn't remove freedom of speech per se, but it drowns it in the noise.
The very goal of this attack on the freedom of speech is to make people lean towards the easiest and "naturally occurring" pseudo-solution to make those bots shut up. Then abuse the same censorship mechanisms to control the discourse.
Sadly, I don't know how to solve this. Censoring speech is a non-solution. Building web of trusts will inevitably create even stronger information bubbles (making it easier to divide and conquer - we're seeing this happening).
Okay, but why is Chinese influence any worse than that of some Australian billionaire who owns the biggest right-wing media conglomerate that broadcasts an absolute firehouse of damaging, divisive, and self-serving lies?
If TikTok is harmful to democracy, Fox News is more than an order of magnitude worse. A large portion of the electorate watches its insanity like a full-time job.
Most enemies of democracy, when measured by impact are 'domestic' and 'western', not some Chinese boogieman.
My personal opinion? It's not significantly different. Or maybe it is, but, at least, I don't see a need (and a meaningful way) to develop a scale of maliciousness.
Malicious agents have no nationality, race or some single origin. All they share is the mindset and some values, willing to abuse the system for personal gains or flawed misbeliefs (for a lack of better word - beliefs that are known to contradict our collective scientific understanding of the world).
> I don't see a need (and a meaningful way) to develop a scale of maliciousness.
I’m constantly amazed by how easily even smart people will retreat into whataboutism, and this is the most polite way I’ve ever seen to call them on it.
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. I can see how my poor choice of words possibly led to this interpretation.
I wanted to say that I believe it doesn’t matter who does something, only what they’re doing. So the same standards should be applied uniformly, irregardless of the actors’ identity.
Ideally, by no means entity X doing something we consider negative should absolve or justify entity Y’s negative (similarly or different) actions.
Certainly. I get that, I'm just saying you are remarkably patient to be willing to actually explain this to other people. Maybe you're not familiar with the term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
Personally I'm inclined to be more blunt and impatient. Whataboutism is intellectually lazy in the best case, in the worst case it means the interlocuter is manipulative or just actually operating at the emotional level of a 5 year old. Good people just don't like bad behaviour.. they won't wait around to find out which team committed the bad behaviour, and they won't refuse to fix 1 evil until another 2nd evil is addressed first, etc. Also relevant here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Poisoned_Arrow
I think you mean Rupert Murdoch. He was born in Australia but naturalized as an American citizen, due to restrictions on foreign control of broadcast media.
If TikTok moved to control by an American citizen born in China, then that would comply with the PAFACA. If the people already controlling TikTok naturalized as American citizens then that would also comply (though that's obviously not going to happen).
Restrictions on foreign control of the highest-reach media are nothing new. The PAFACA simply updates them to reflect new viewing habits. "Foreign" continues to be defined by citizenship, not birthplace.
Alt-right billionaires don't depend on democracy, all other things being equal, they'd much prefer an oligarchy with them and their friends at the top, and it's why many of them want to steer towards it.
Throughout history, big business and the mega-rich have regularly backed coups and authoritarians, compared to their democratic alternatives. It's a much better system for them than one where each person gets one vote, because there's a lot more of us than there are of them[1].
As for sworn enemies of democracy, I think the guy who launched a coup, as part of a broader conspiracy to steal the election when he lost would be towards the top of the list.
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[1] When times get tough, in a democracy, it becomes difficult for them to justify why they get to take three quarters of the pie, while the rest of us fight over scraps.
You make a good point. A crucial difference, however, is the types of entities and their motives.
A conventional U.S. corporation's motive is to generate profits. Efforts stemming from that motive have not always been in the public interest, and such cases are worthy of regulatory attention, but they typically do not present national security risks. In odd cases where pursuing profits could create national security risks, Congress has sometimes intervened, such as when Nvidia was banned from selling certain processors to certain countries.
A geopolitical entity is not a profit-motivated corporation, so the risk model is different, with national security factors being more salient.
Does everyone think critically and rationally? If not how many don't (especially during key election periods) and can this group cast an oversized influence on election results or public opinion?
Having the choice of two options at the ballot box, and social media meaning many people now form political opinions from anonymous accounts online does not fill me with confidence.
Exactly. To the degree elections are not rooted in a competition of ideas and individual agency, but rather are downstream of elite power and influence, then there are other more direct means of controlling populations, all of which tend to be a lot bloodier. All of this strikes me as a really dangerous path.
That angle would work if there wasn't so much disagreement about what constitutes lies. After the last few years, I am definitely not interested in having government actors decide for me what amounts to the truth. Personally, I suppose I much prefer a competition of ideas -- and the ability to decide for myself.
I think there's a reasonable argument that part of that disagreement is a result of the hybrid warfare that is being fought over the information and opinions of citizens in many countries. We know about a few of these where hyper-partisan influencers were paid by Russia (or entities closely connected to the Russian government, if you insist on nuances) to spread Russia's viewpoints and attack social cohesion in the US. Is that a competition of ideas?
Facebook and Twitter have in the past banned networks of account for inauthentic behavior. In other words: individuals (and you can probably narrows this to residents or citizens) are allowed to speak their mind and try to convince others of whatever they believe, but it has to be them, they cannot use bots, multiple accounts etc. It's not an easy thing to filter, of course. But pretend that it was, would you agree with that approach?
Don’t worry, chomskys manufacturing consent is also mentioned as relevant reading elsewhere in this thread, and then rejected, naturally on the grounds that learning stuff about propaganda might be propaganda
I read some, including 1984. What's your point? 1984 portrays exactly the kind of world I’d want to avoid - one where the government controls access to information and rigidly suppresses foreign influence.
> aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda?
I take the view that the reason freedom of speech is important at all, is that people can be convinced to act in certain ways by speech — if it couldn't lead to action, no dictator would fear it.
We, all of us, take things on trust. We have to. It's not like anyone, let alone everyone, has the capacity — time or skill — to personally verify every claim we encounter.
Everywhere in the world handles this issue differently: the USA is free-speech-maximalism; the UK has rules about what you can say in elections[0] (and in normal ads), was famously a jurisdiction of choice for people who wanted to sue others for libel[1], and has very low campaign spending limits[2]; Germany has laws banning parties that are a threat to the constitution[3].
I doubt there is any perfect solution here, I think all only last for as long as the people themselves are vigilant.
Theres an implication that The Internet meant we have a commons connecting the world that no one country can completely restrict. But a commons too important to all modern societies to blanket ban. In theory we should be less susceptible to propoganda than ever since we can see multiple viewpoints and interpretations in minutes. As opposed to being beholden to maybe 3-4 mainstream news programs on television.
Human nature proves to fall quite short of that ideal, though.
> aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda?
Yes, it is. Always has been.
> threats to "democracy" that simultaneously take such a cynical view of the democratic process
> then the whole "democracy" thing is just a cover for elite power
You'd have to have fallen hook, line, and sinker with America's propaganda to actually believe that democracy is NOT a cover for retaining control over a population.
The US has been playing this game in other countries for a while now, to keep a check on who comes to power and who does not (always using support for democracy as an excuse). Gautemala, the arab spring, bangladesh - these are just some of the examples. And it's become very blatant of late.
Why is illegal to put false stuff on products label, like food or medicine? Where is the free speech to lie and manipulate the user? With your point of view the EACH user should somehow find the skills to analyze and review each product each time they user or trust some other persons word.
The algorithm is not a person to have free speech, my issue is with the algorithm, I am OK with the village drunk to post his faked documents but I am not O with state actors falsifing documents then same state owned actors abusing the algorithm to spread that false stuff. So no free spech for bot farms and algorithms, they are not people (yet)
> aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda
Part of the reason Western democracies are failing is we forgot that pure democracy doesn’t work. The founders described this amply in the Federalist Papers. Democracy tends towards tearing itself apart with partisanship and mob rule.
It’s why successful republics have mechanisms to cool off public sentiment, letting time tax emotions to reveal actual thoughts underneath (see: the Swiss versus Californian referendum models); bodies to protect minorities from the majority (independent courts); et cetera.
> By saying China's using Tik Tok to subvert "democracy," aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda?
Well, we don't know what was said in the classified meetings, but yes, we know that propaganda works.
Excuse my European ignorance, but in what way is a system a "democracy" where one person can overrule actual democratic structures? The power centralized into one person is unheard of in what I would call "democracies".
I do find people's faith in Democracy, as opposed to Authoritarianism, somewhat exasperating. Two candidates, pre-selected by the powers that be to lead the nation, compete in inane televised debates, wave flags and make promises that everyone knows they are going to break. This everyone debates hotly, and then lines up to register one bit of Holy Democratic Choice, to be averaged with a hundred million similar bits to determine, by a margin of a few percent, the one and only legitimate Government of the People, by the People, for the People. My Ass.
In the end, "democracy" is about power and control, just like any other form of government, and the TikTok ban is just another power-play, however it may be justified publicly. Not that I'm overly sorry to see it banned, by the way :)
Until very recently, "Democracy" was a dirty way to describe a government. It was in the same class of failed government models as tyranny, the rule of the mindless mob.
Maybe, but my point is that democracy is not even the rule of a mindless mob, more like mob rule theater. Ruling implies receiving information and performing complex actions and giving many and nontrivial orders. From a purely information-theoretical perspective, it requires a lot of entropy flowing from the decision maker to subordinates. On the other hand, national elections collect a tiny pool of entropy from the supposed root source of power and legitimacy, the people. This is not enough to rule a country, by many orders of magnitude. The country is instead ruled by ambitious individuals, who seize power in various ways - connections, backroom deals, backstabbing. Some participate in the election theater.
> aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda?
If you want to view it that way, sure. But I could also just say you and I are both sacks of blood filled flesh.
> Rather than tackle the narratives substantively,
Meta (et al) are just AS guilty as TikTok. The difference is substantial and subtle - the US government could conceivably sanction a US-based entity to the point of them not existing. A chinese based one doesnt have to play by the rules. Fine them? No problem, their gov has an immeasurable amount of money. The only option is to simply not let them play at all.
> aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda?
I invite you to consider the possibility that this is true. That at the population level, propaganda actually works. This would support the fact that it's been a key tool used by regimes (including ours) since before the printing press was invented.
I don't really know for certain whether this is accurate, but it's hard for me to look around the world at global politics and determine that it isn't.
This is the fundamental problem with American democracy and democracies all over the world.
It only works if the voters are well informed, educated, and generally competent. Otherwise it’s just a manipulation game where someone can lie and lie and lie and be elected president. And at that late stage phase of democracy, who gets to manipulate these people better is who holds power.
Isn’t that the premise of the Enlightenment? That’s everyone will be well educated, or, if they’re not, at least they were the ones in control of their destiny?
i.e. “You crazy, translating the bible to the plebs? What happens if stupid people get to choose for themselves?”
I assume you are speaking about establishment politicians over the last 40-2000 years, but I suspect you are actually miming talking points about manipulation aimed at 1 very recent election where the established propaganda cycle failed to manipulate enough people and a different brand of manipulation brought in a different set of manipulators. Evidence of your own manipulated belief structures going without serious enough introspection to be held as a competent free agent
Allegedly, the biggest concern this time around was the economy. Millions of people complaining about inflation and the cost of goods voted for a guy promising to raise tariffs, and a party that historically caters to big business. The same big business that has moved a lot of jobs overseas, and has lobbied to relax restrictions on visas to hire more foreign workers for onshore jobs.
To me, this looks a lot like people voting against their own interests. I think that when people vote against their own interests, it's usually because they don't understand what they're voting for, i.e. it's an education issue. And it's not surprising that other people would be perplexed and frustrated by this.
But maybe I've just been misled by the wrong propaganda. I guess we'll find out.
Are you trying to argue that (many) democrats and republicans voters in the recent elections were not generally manipulated by their respective sides? I don't think this holds water.
Examples could be democrats control over Biden's health messaging or republicans repeating the message that the democrats are stealing the elections or democrat's messaging about if their side loses it's the end of democracy or republicans messaging about immigration, crime etc. Generally engaging at a shallow level with the goal of influencing people's emotions.
I don't think this is a 40-2000 years phenomena. It's certainly become a lot worse since Trump ran for president the first time. I remember turning on TV in my hotel room during a visit to the US maybe 8 years ago and switching between CNN and Fox, each of these channels were basically about endless bashing of the opposite side. I wouldn't call the content anything other than brainwashing and propaganda. CNN didn't use to be like that. With social media since every user gets their own view we don't even know what the "hidden hand" is pushing. It's much worse and a lot more dangerous.
No my point was that both sides are frequently manipulated, but I see comments on the Internet EVERY DAY to the effect of 'the other side is being manipulated', apparently oblivious to their own manipulated opinions.
And CNN has ALWAYS been a propaganda wing, they just didn't have a serious competitor during the era when both parties were controlled by the same group. (Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama)
I think it's definitely the case that the group of voters in 1789 was much smaller and more homogeneous than it is today.
I also think the nature of propaganda has changed a little as well. Today, messages can be delivered cheaply to everyone, everywhere, from anywhere, nearly instantaneously. There is far less of a propagation delay, and far less of a natural check on the rate and volume of propaganda.
Maybe not, but it strikes me as a really dangerous path. If we don't believe the electorate acts from a position of moral authority, but rather are downstream of elite power and influence, then there are other more direct ways of controlling populations. And they tend to be a lot more bloody.
It's the path we've been on for a long time and one that is made a lot more dangerous in the era of social media. Today more than ever people live in echo chambers and believe what they want to or what they think they need to so they can conform with their group identity. More than ever a few wealthy people or state actors have direct control over the reality people see without even the pretense of being "unbiased" media or any sort of ethical guidelines which in the past used to semi-exist for the traditional media/news etc.
Propaganda's job is to influence those people who think they're acting from a position of moral authority but lack the education, or critical thinking skills, or access to information, to be able to see through the manipulation.
I'm not sure what's the answer but I am sure this is not what the proponents of free speech had in mind.
The reason the more direct ways are more bloody is why we want to stick with democracy. Democracy is supposed to be based on an exchange of ideas in an open discourse. This is why it’s important to not let any one party have too much control over the discourse. That is also why freedom of speech exists. Somewhat paradoXically, banning a foreign-controlled platform can serve the same purpose as defending freedom of speech.
Yep, it basically amounts to agreeing 100% with the Chinese justification for their great firewall, which is that a free internet is subversive to their national interest and to their citizens. But Americans will argue that it's somewhat different, since when they do it it's not dystopian or something
I have it on personal experience that DARPA seems to be enthusiastically funding more digital twin and collective intelligence projects than ever. Simulated virtual publics are going to become more common in both war and politics. Collectives are going to be the driving force of the coming century, and the sooner the American public evolves beyond fetishizing the individual, the better.
By resorting to walled gardens that by definition have to provide a filtered experience via algorithms rather than raw experience of older internet forums and image boards, haven't many of these voters already made that choice of being wanting to be manipulated?
At least someone has to (currently) manipulate the voters into voting a specific way, instead of just ‘voting for them’, or threatening them at gunpoint.
> voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to
manipulation by propaganda?
That is true, yet it's not incompatible with democracy. In the US
Horace Mann established the foundational link between education and
democracy. It's why civics and other forms of intellectual
self-defence are essential.
The problem with social media (and BigTech lazy "convenient"
non-thought) is not that it's a propaganda conduit as much as that
it's antithetical to critical thinking. It's more complex than simply
the content, it's the form too.
The US gov has just made the case for banning US owned social networks around the world, because they truly believe that social networks is a way for a foreign agents to interfere in local politics.
> By saying China's using Tik Tok to subvert "democracy," aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda?
Did you already forgot about the episode about Haitians eating everyone's pets? Based on that episode alone, what's you observation?
> I sometimes cannot believe it's those who so loudly cry about threats to "democracy" that simultaneously take such a cynical view of the democratic process.
You should take a minute to think about the underlying issue.
Propaganda is a massive threat against democracy and freedom in general. If a bad actor invests enough resources pushing lies and false promises that manages to convince enough people to vote on their agent, do you expect to be represented and see your best interests defended by your elected representatives?
Also, you should pay attention to the actual problem. Propaganda isn't something that affects the left end of the bell curve. Propaganda determines which information you have access to. You make your decisions based on the information you have, regardless of being facts or fiction. If you are faced with a relentless barrage of bullshit, how can you make an educated decision or even guess on what's the best outcome? You cannot. The one that controls the information you can access will also control to a great degree your decision process. That's the power of disinformation and propaganda, and the risk that China's control of TikTok poses to the US in particular but the free world in general.
> By saying China's using Tik Tok to subvert "democracy," aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda?
Yep. Same thing as the people arguing to reverse the Citizens United ruling. Lots of lip service is paid to "democracy" by people who have no faith in the electorate to actually exercise democratic sovereignty.
You're dealing with 64% of the voting population, who inherently lean one way or the other so a small nudge can be the difference between one side or the other winning.
e.g. Candidate swapping might bring votes from minority groups or Women.
Imagine a scenario when even 5% more people voted, suddenly the margins are much wider and the results hold stronger validity.
If those people are eligible to vote but choose not to, than that is their vote. It's not appropriate to second-guess people who abstain any more than it is to second-guess the ballots of those who do vote. There's only a problem if people who want to vote, and are eligible to, are being prevented from doing so.
If you're trying to engineer the process to contrive specific outcomes, that itself is anti-democratic.
If TikTok was only targeted at voters then I think there would be less of a concern. My issue is more with what it shows to children. Science and law recognize that children aren't yet fully individual agents and are more susceptible to propaganda than most adults. Thus legislators and courts have been more willing to restrict commercial speech targeting children.
If that is truly your primary concern, you should be more worried about Instagram. TikTok is much better in that regard. It has parental controls, a restricted mode, screen time limits, etc.
We should be worried about all of them. But a hostile totalitarian foreign government could have motivations that are a hell of a lot worse than maximizing engagement/profits.
If the goal is to cause harm to the population (ala fentanyl distribution) rather than just to make as much money as possible, I’d say parents are right to be correspondingly more concerned.
I feel this is way too optimistic about the typical adult. Adults are most definitely affected by propaganda.
Problem is reality is so complex and usually all sides of a topic are right at the same time, in some way.
For any viewpoint A, there will be reels made by people in any demographic group who cares deeply about it for excellent and solid reasons. The same will be the case for anti-A.
Both of them will be convincing and TikTok can just choose which one of them to subtly nudge.
Your comment made me realize that politicians stopped "think of the children" along with the rise of social media. Before the rise of big tech they would routinely slam their fist on the podium demanding that we think of the children.
> aren't we really saying voters are not individual agents but rather a mob subject to manipulation by propaganda?
Like we've been saying since the founding of the country? yeah
"The body of people ... do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that they are frequently led into the grossest errors by misinformation and passion, would be a flattery which their own good sense must despise." -Hamilton
The founders did not think that electoral college was a good idea, senators should be appointed and not elected, and only a few citizens should be able to vote generally, because they were feeling mean. They did so because they thought these things and the act of voting itself were simply instruments to produce good government. They rejected a democracy, and favored a republic, for this reason.
Yes. But we're talking about children too - not just adult voters.
And the app collects every click, every face photo, all contacts, every keypress on external links, everything. The full social graph, shaping the trends of the younger generation.
Of course propaganda works. That's why companies spent tons of money on ads.
Of course it also works on politics, especially if people don't trust "traditional" media, but arbitrary publishers (there's room for a guiding which is more trustworthy)
History over and over has shown that a public can be led into their own demise, including brutal war.
How much active influence China takes I don't know (and I never used tiktok) but we are certainly in a time of massive disinformation and denial of facts. Globally.
The existence of democratic sociopolitical structures does not preclude the existence of targeted mass propaganda, or the weaknesses of the human psyche. Nor vice versa.
Why do you think The Rule of Law exists? Large groups of angry people often make bad decisions with long term consequences. We have known this forever.
That’s sort of the ironic bit. IMHO it’s been this way for awhile, but because it was pretty much as you described (“the elite”) with the reigns we pushed the argument that voters were individual agents.
The genius in strategies enemies are using are leveraging the exact same levers already being leveraged against be populous: free speech as a roadway for propaganda, misinformation/disinformation, and widespread social manipulation.
There was a time when it was more difficult to scale these sorts of strategies so there may have been an illusion of agency. Also, a hundred years ago issues were a bit less complicated/nuanced so your voters could probably wrangle ideas intelligently more independently.
I also suspect the corporate undermining of the general population for their own wealth grab has weakened the country as a whole, including the voter base. We want to undermine education at every turn and stability of your average citizen so they can be more easily manipulated. That comes at a cost because once we’re in that position, whose to say youll (the US elite) will be the ones with the reigns? By weakening the population for your own gain, you open up foreign adversaries to do the same and they’re doing just that.
We should focus on improving general education and the populations overall stability/livelihood. That has to do with pushing back on some of the power grab the ultra wealthy have taken, at the populations expense. These are of course just my unsubstantiated opinions.
I'm not sure it is- even if you think the electorate are educated and competent, it still makes sense to delegate the specific decisions to a smaller set of individuals who are given the time and resources to get into the detail. It just scales better.
For more than a century now the advertising industry has perfected mass psychological manipulation that aims to separate the masses from their dollar. These tactics as pioneered by the likes of Edward Bernays were plucked straight from the propaganda rule books, which has been successfully used for at least a century before that. We know that both propaganda and advertising are highly effective at influencing how people think and which products they consume. It's a small step then to extrapolate those techniques to get vast amounts of people to think and act however one wants. All it requires is sufficient interest, a relatively minor amount of resources, and using the same tools that millions of people already give their undivided attention to, which were designed to be as addictive as possible. We've already seen how this can work in the Cambridge Analytica exposé, which is surely considered legacy tech by now.
I'm honestly surprised that people are in desbelief that this can and does happen. These are not some wildly speculative conspiracy theories. People are easily influenceable. When tools that can be used to spread disinformation and gaslight people into believing any version of reality are widely available to anyone, it would be surprising if they were _not_ used for this purpose.
> If that's your view of the electorate, then the whole "democracy" thing is just a cover for elite power.
Always has been. It's just that now that we've perfected the tools used to sway public opinion, and made them available to anyone, including our enemies, the effects are much more palpable.
I hope Zuckerberg and friends, and everyone who's worked on these platforms, some of which frequent this very forum, realize that they've contributed to the breakdown of civilization. It's past time for these people to stop selling us snake oil promises of a connected world, and start being accountable for their actions.
Really? It is the most base fact that people can be manipulated by the ideas of others. Creatures trying to convince other creatures of one thing over another is just part of being a living animal. But the idea that people want to control who says what is wild to you? It flies in the face of the sanctity of "democracy"? Don't you think that's a bit of a hyperbole?
> If that's your view of the electorate, then the whole "democracy" thing is just a cover for elite power.
yeah. They don't necessarily want nor care to inform of the truth. they want that sort of manipulation as much as any other billionaire. Heck there's a good amount of people who simply want to be told what to do so they don't have to worry about the big stuff.
There's a reason many almost always choose convinience over anything else when working in practice.
