Is Facebook Keeping You In a Political Bubble? 179
sciencehabit writes: Does Facebook make it harder for people with different political views to get along? Political scientists have long wondered whether the social network's news feed selectively serves up ideologically charged news while filtering out content from different camps. Now, a study by Facebook's in-house social scientists finds that this does happen, though the effect seems to be very small. "There's a growing concern that social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter allow us to more precisely engineer our informational environments than ever before, so we only get info that's consistent with our prior beliefs," says David Lazer, a political and computer scientist who authored a commentary on the paper.
Who gets their political news from Facebook? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah I know, the great unwashed.
Sad world.
Re:Who gets their political news from Facebook? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
So have no fear, even though it's fun to knock politicians, most of them and their respective advisers and think tanks are a lot smarter than that.
Re:Who gets their political news from Facebook? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
For me on Google+, it is utterly inundated by far right posts in the "what's hot" section. Ie, the ones that call Boehner a traitor because he allowed a bill to get to Obama. A few far left wing ones as well but not as many. No centrist positions at all. This has been going on since the last election - prior to that I never saw any political posts on G+.
So for me, there's no bubble, it's nearly the opposite of a bubble since I keep seeing crap I don't want to see. Now that could be good if we saw a ran
Re: (Score:3)
The problem that I see is so many people are stuck in their political ideology. And put the same faith in it as they would in a religion. (Sometimes causing confusion on what started their stance)
So they will not try to comprehend what they are saying, and jump to the worst case scenario and show how stupid the idea was.
We are taking the headlines and establishing them as truth or fiction. We are not reading an article to get the actual facts.
I got a headline that Obama policy is causing X to increase where
Re: Who gets their political news from Facebook? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It would be, but I am not authorized to release it.
Re: (Score:2)
Was it deliberate, your commenting on an unpublished article to illustrate a point about how people don't read articles?
Re: (Score:2)
I am incredibly suspicious of this anecdote.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't get my news from Slashdot either, you dirty, dirty men.
Dude, my mom's on Woo Woo (Score:5, Insightful)
No, because I dropped Facebook a couple of years ago. Too narrow a view on the world, too much of a social/political/financial echo chamber, too prying re personal detail, too much advertising, and too much extremely-creepy influence on ads I see externally. I miss a *little* of the content, but most of it was OCD junk from distant relatives and bloviating nonsense from industry "thought leaders". Good riddance.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You must be new here.
Re: (Score:2)
He is probably on here for the same reason most of us are, because we assume, people who work in IT have a better grasp of almost any issue, whether it is politics, science, human behavior, etc; A more nuanced and better researched grasp of the issues.
That is why were on
I'm a liberal, yet I detest nothing more than the hardcore politically correct a
Search engines are doing the same (Score:2)
DuckDuckGo and the like made a big deal about the big players doing search engine bubbling [dontbubble.us]. Depending on who you are, you get different results.
I don't use Facebook enough to comment on that, but I'd imagine the echo chamber would be deafening.
Re: (Score:2)
DuckDuckGo and the like made a big deal about the big players doing search engine bubbling. Depending on who you are, you get different results.
you can log out of google if you want to get the same results, sorted just by country and maybe geolocation depending on the type of content google thinks you're looking for. I can't comment on the search engines I don't use, though
Re: (Score:2)
Google does some tracking even if you're not logged in.
Re: (Score:2)
Google does some tracking even if you're not logged in.
Yes, but this was about personalized search results. Google doesn't personalize them for you if you don't log in, just for your region.
Re: (Score:2)
I've switched to duckduckgo as the default search engine, because with google the search results felt so targeted that it was creepy. Even when I log out from google, I can see that it sorts the possible completions of what I type differently from duckduckgo. Ie, google is showing names of computer games high up on the list, and I don't think it's because there are lots of computer game players in my office.
No, but your own choices are. (Score:5, Informative)
If you de-friend someone (or large groups of someones), their stories are basically not going to be on your feed in the first place, and liberals have been shown to be more likely to de-friend conservatives over political differences than conservatives de-friend liberals http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/10/21/liberals-are-more-likely-to-unfriend-you-over-politics-online-and-off/ [washingtonpost.com]
Unless you're a complete recluse or are making a conscious effort to sequester yourself from any popular culture, it's virtually impossible to be in your teens or 20's and not be exposed to various legitimate liberal political stances -- most often during college years. OTOH, it's quite easy to never interact with any "real life" legitimate conservative arguments, other than straw men that the liberal political arguments are using.
Thus you end up with 25 year olds who have no basic understanding of conservative economic principles, or presume that there's no other possible motiviation for some random socially conservative policy than abject hatred and/or slavish religious belief.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Thus you end up with 25 year olds who have no basic understanding of conservative economic principles, or presume that there's no other possible motiviation for some random socially conservative policy than abject hatred and/or slavish religious belief.
Which differs from XX year olds who have no basic understanding of liberal principles, or presume that there's no other possible motivation for some random liberal policy than abject hatred (especially of America!) and/or slavish devotion to the government that is stealing their money/freedom/religion in what way exactly?
Why exactly has that base riled up over Jade Helm anyway? And why shouldn't we unfriend them? There's nothing to hear but noise..
Re:No, but your own choices are. (Score:5, Insightful)
Which differs from XX year olds who have no basic understanding of liberal principles, or presume that there's no other possible motivation for some random liberal policy than abject hatred (especially of America!) and/or slavish devotion to the government that is stealing their money/freedom/religion in what way exactly?
My point is that's is very hard to NOT have a "basic understanding of liberal principles", because they're the "default" view you see in most media and entertainment, and in most humanities coursework. "Income inequality is ipso facto bad" and "raise the minimum wage" are not difficult to understand the meaning behind; there's no need to assert a hatred of America. OTOH, "raising the minimum wage won't really help" is not easy to understand (at first), and it's quite simple to simply assert that someone who'd say that is "greedy" and wants more money, screwing over everyone else, and leave it at that.
Re: No, but your own choices are. (Score:2, Insightful)
And I don't agree with your point as it seems quite easy for people to misunderstand liberal principles and dismiss them with handy mantras and slogans. Like for the minimum wage, where those who are advocating for such are waved off as lazy, greedy for other people's money and otherwise derided.
Treating liberals an America haters is indeed unnecessary though, but it is strongly favored and quite easy to do.
If people are actually working hard at this kind of thing...I am now even more afraid.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Reality has a well-known liberal bias...
Re: (Score:2)
You really don't get the point of that saying.
Re: (Score:2)
From what I read in American media, the liberal stance is "Too much income inequality is bad". ie, if enough people have too little to live on, because too much wealth accumulates to the wealthy, that's bad. You get revolutions that way, and no one wants that. Liberals tend to believe wealth gap is too large, and needs to be shrunk. Not obliterated in some communist's wet dream, but shrunk. The only straw man I see is what you just wrote about the liberal stance.
Disclaimer: I'm Dutch. Our liberals are our r
Re: (Score:2)
To use your example, raising the minimum wage will cost jobs. Anyone can follow that "logic", unfortunately, it doesn't hold up in the real world.
Another example is "death tax", it kicks in when you die...
It actually doesn't, it only kicks in when an estate over a certain amount is transferred, hence inheritance tax.
What about abortion, it's bad to kill a baby. Sounds simple and everyone agrees, however, the issue of abor
Re: (Score:2)
And you see the same simplistic breakdown on the liberal side. The assumption is that that "minimum wage == more wealth for the poor person", as if money grows on trees. In reality, the additional expense has to be dealt with. A liberal just assumes the company owner is going to
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Look my American friends: raising minimum wage is the opposite of liberal and also the opposite of conservative. One problem of this world is, that you cannot use the correct name for it, because that word is a criminal in USA the land of the free speak.
OK, this [oxforddictionaries.com] presumably isn't the word you're thinking of, because 1) "the means of production, distribution, and exchange [being] owned or regulated by the community as a whole" doesn't necessarily mean that there will even be a minimum wage, or wages of any sort and 2) you don't have to have "the means of production, distribution, and exchange [being] owned or regulated by the community as a whole" in order to have a minimum wage with a given level.
So, either 1) the word in question doesn't (solely) mean wha
Re:No, but your own choices are. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you de-friend someone (or large groups of someones), their stories are basically not going to be on your feed in the first place, and liberals have been shown to be more likely to de-friend conservatives over political differences than conservatives de-friend liberals http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/10/21/liberals-are-more-likely-to-unfriend-you-over-politics-online-and-off/ [washingtonpost.com]
Perhaps because, as the article you cite says:
so maybe liberals have more conservative "friends" to de-"friend" than conservatives have liberal "friends" to de-"friend".
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
I live in California, if I stuck to Conservative only friends I would have....
oh wait.
Re: (Score:2)
They can be many to one, All liberals could know only one conservative who just likes to have a large number of friends.
Re: (Score:2)
so maybe liberals have more conservative "friends" to de-"friend" than conservatives have liberal "friends" to de-"friend".
This is impossible as these are one-to-one relationships; for every liberal that has a conservative friend, that conservative has a liberal friend.
Can you explain what you mean by one-to-one? Most models of relationships are graphs, not functions. I am unsure what one-to-one means in this context. It does not appear that you mean each node may only have one mapping to another node, which would be, perhaps, the most sensible reading of a one-to-one relationship here.
In any case, node may be connected to any number of nodes, which means that a construct where you have six nodes, one self-identifies as "conservative" and five self-identify as "liberal".
Re: (Score:2)
Born, raised, and still live in the mid-west. I'd say my county is about 70% right leaning. I was a republican until my mid 20's, then I opened my eyes and thought about what exactly republicans actually want and it was just not logical.
Not that I'm a liberal.. I'm a little bit of everything I guess so it's hard for me to find someone to vote for because I can't stand candidates
Re: (Score:2)
Unless you're a complete recluse or are making a conscious effort to sequester yourself from any popular culture, it's virtually impossible to be in your teens or 20's and not be exposed to various legitimate liberal political stances -- most often during college years. OTOH, it's quite easy to never interact with any "real life" legitimate conservative arguments, other than straw men that the liberal political arguments are using.
Thus you end up with 25 year olds who have no basic understanding of conservative economic principles, or presume that there's no other possible motiviation for some random socially conservative policy than abject hatred and/or slavish religious belief.
What you describe is the reality, and a reason that makes many of right-wing persons (like i am) to question the ethics and criticize the hypocrisy of the left-wing; pretending that they "save" people from ignorance, when any knowledge of the other's side arguments from those to be "saved" is absent or, worse, based on lies - note that i am not refering to their actual ideology (that i oppose, but it is irrelevant to my point): it is about their ethics and hypocrisy!
Usually people become wiser with age - y
Re: (Score:2)
If you de-friend someone (or large groups of someones), their stories are basically not going to be on your feed in the first place, and liberals have been shown to be more likely to de-friend conservatives over political differences than conservatives de-friend liberals http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/10/21/liberals-are-more-likely-to-unfriend-you-over-politics-online-and-off/ [washingtonpost.com]
In my experience, the reason for this is that conservatives push out a lot of hate in their postings and liberals don't. No one wants to read a lot of nasty name-calling.
Re: (Score:2)
If you de-friend someone (or large groups of someones), their stories are basically not going to be on your feed in the first place, and liberals have been shown to be more likely to de-friend conservatives over political differences than conservatives de-friend liberals http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/10/21/liberals-are-more-likely-to-unfriend-you-over-politics-online-and-off/ [washingtonpost.com]
In my experience, the reason for this is that conservatives push out a lot of hate in their postings and liberals don't. No one wants to read a lot of nasty name-calling.
In my circle, it's been widely the other way around... or at least it used to be, circa 2008 (Obamamania) - early 2012. By the time of the actual election things had moderated down somewhat, and it's been better since. But my feed was *filled* with pro-leftwing, anti-rightwing links of vitrol, often to ThinkProgress or Salon during that time, with lots of associated name-calling ("Those damn Rethunglicans", etc.)
I've been heavily involved in the arts community over the years, and had (and still do have) man
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Of course, ymmmv, but I've never seen so much hate and vitriol directed at any president as what Obama has had to endure. Endless anti-Obama bumper stickers, even after he has no more terms to run for! And of course all the endless propaganda about how he's a secret muslim out to destroy the country. I find that the liberals tend more to argue the policy, whereas the cons do the name-calling and conspiracy theories. I never pay attention to how many friends I have on FB, so I can't say how many cons de-friended me. I don't defriend people for having a different point of view, though I may hide them if I just can't take the constant stream of hate.
Were you politically involved, or anywhere near a college campus, during the 2000's? The Bush hatred was strong. They didn't call it "Bush Derangement Syndrome" for nothing. And this was even before 9/11 and the 2003 Iraq War... Liberals never really got over the Florida election recount, hence faculty members turning their backs on him during mid-2000 commencement speeches.
Of course, the Internet was quite different then, and social networking as we know it was basically pre-infancy, but various political
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I keep one right wing nutjob in my feed just for a laugh. He is one of those that believe Chuck Norris and Rick Perry along with the national guard are going to protect Texas from a Federal government takeover from the Isis-loving-Obama.
No this is not a joke:
http://www.salon.com/2015/05/0... [salon.com]
And that Sandy Hook was a conspiracy for the gove
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Slashdot does! (Score:2)
Keeping You In a Political Bubble?
YES - SLASHDOT!
Facebook isn't. But Slashdot is. (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't use Facebook, so it isn't doing anything to my political viewpoints.
Slashdot, on the other hand, is. Every day we're subjected to one or more dumb social justice stories here. If it isn't yet another article about how there aren't enough women in tech (and which also totally ignore how there are some fields that are female-dominated), then it's an article about how the police are "bad" for having to use deadly force in self defence against some black youths who physically attacked them. Then there's the total nonsense about Aaron Swartz that comes up so often, and the articles are always defending him (although he acted maliciously) and blame others for his death (although it was due to his completely voluntary suicide). And just yesterday, I believe it was, there was yet another article scare-mongering about climate change.
Slashdot wasn't always like this, mind you. But since it has oriented itself toward social justice causes, I've found myself becoming less and less supportive of what is becoming a very extremist, intolerant political mindset. Social justice is no longer social in nature; it's about creating division among people. Nor is it about justice; it's about promoting severe inequality under the cloak of equality.
Re:Facebook isn't. But Slashdot is. (Score:4, Interesting)
Then there's the total nonsense about Aaron Swartz that comes up so often, and the articles are always defending him (although he acted maliciously)
What's malicious about downloading papers which the public is permitted to see?
and blame others for his death (although it was due to his completely voluntary suicide)
I vote we lock you in a box undeservedly next. Not that you exist.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Unarmed lone black youths who viciously attack groups of armed police officers. In repeated situations. If you really think your police force is justified in executing unarmed young people. Liberal as Slashdot may be, this is a civil rights issue. If it does not get resolved, you *will* get lynching of cops, only it won't be unarmed lone black youths at that point.
Re: (Score:3)
What I particularly love about the recent use of the phrase "social justice" is that the people using it seem to think it's a negative one. How the hell can you be against social justice? Are you campaigning for social injustice?
Re: (Score:3)
What I particularly love about the recent use of the phrase "social justice" is that the people using it seem to think it's a negative one. How the hell can you be against social justice? Are you campaigning for social injustice?
I'm against social justice and for a meritocracy with actual equality. SJWs tend to use statistics to prove injustice against a class merely by the existence of differences. Like for example men generally earn more than women, that's enough to turn on the hate meter and cry about social injustice. If you start breaking it down on age, education, grades, jobs, actual experience (part-time vs full-time, overtime, time on leave) you find that most these differences disappear and you have close to equal pay for
Re: (Score:2)
Do you have any sources for this "breaking it down on age, education, grades, jobs, actual experience (part-time vs full-time, overtime, time on leave) you find that most these differences disappear"?
Re: (Score:2)
Do you have any sources for this "breaking it down on age, education, grades, jobs, actual experience (part-time vs full-time, overtime, time on leave) you find that most these differences disappear"?
I'm afraid most my primary sources are in Norwegian since I live in Norway, but I can start here [www.ssb.no]. On average, women have an income of 326400 NOK and men 487800 NOK so about 67%, unfair right? Well, first of all 5.6% less of working age are in the workforce (77.1% vs 82.7%), I can't be bothered to cross-reference with medical or unemployment data but it's mostly stay-at-home moms, not that they're unable to work or unable to find work. In addition 34.7% of women work part time compared to 13.9% of men and w
Wait... (Score:3, Funny)
Facebook is an informational environment?
Re: (Score:2)
Facebook is an informational environment?
About as much as Fox News or MSNBC.
Irrelevant to the individual. (Score:4, Insightful)
When algorithms rule (Score:3, Interesting)
In the future our algorithmic overlords will decide for what's good in everything we do, from our gadgets to our leaders to our lovers. It would be a technological utopia for the sheeple, a dystopia for the freethinkers. Rather than war, it's our Facebook likes, Google searches, Amazon (Alibaba?) buys, aggregated and analysed by machines, that will bring about the Matrix.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but (Score:3, Funny)
Balanced rather than a bubble (Score:5, Funny)
Actually I find that Facebook presents a fair and reasonable range of views on all issues, now that everyone finally agrees that global warming was a myth.
Self-policing always works! (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, a study by Facebook's in-house social scientists finds that this does happen, though the effect seems to be very small.
My. Asshole. Back before I stopped using facebook I noted several design issues with Facebook which magnified this effect. When posting pages to facebook, meaningless drivel would often post correctly even when pages were very large and complex, but political content would often fail to post even when the content was very simple and loaded very quickly even on my rinky-dink connection. Going back through my feed, I found that links had disappeared (or one might say "had been removed") from political content, but the links were still attached to the meaningless drivel. Some of it was stuff I had posted for amusement value, but I actually inserted some dummy content in there as well. Finally, even when you ask to see all the posts from specific users in your feed, you don't. You have to drill down to their user page to see all the content. Facebook won't show you all the content you ask to see in your stream.
Anyone who takes Facebook's word for it is dumber than dumb, and deserves to be taken advantage of all day.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If you want to see all posts from certain users make them Close Friends and/or create lists putting a few in each, they act as independent Newsfeeds. Pruning of your main Newsfeed is inevitable if you have a few hundred Friends or more,
Pruning of my main newsfeed occurred even with just a few dozen friends. With a little over a hundred (I used it for people I actually knew, and not just random internet bozos like I will circle on G+) it was unbearable. I shouldn't have to pick through a bunch of different circles on a webpage to see everything from all the people in my actual real-life social circle.
Hostility to debate (Score:5, Informative)
My politics, such as they are, are slightly to the other side of the line than most of the people in my Facebook contacts. A good number of those contacts are prone to posting what seem to me to be quite biased, divisive articles essentially preaching the moral superiority of the choir to the choir. My preferred style of engagement is to ask questions rather than assert "truths" and I try to steer clear of speculation on motive, appeals to authority, and all those rhetorical cop-outs. When I try to engage people on this stuff, the result is often quite hostile and sometimes personal. This makes me suspect that many people posting these things aren't really looking for debate, they're just looking for approval from their group. It would save me a lot of grief if Facebook provided a flag so people could indicate what kind of responses they're looking for when they post these things.
Having said all that, I find pretty much the same thing here on Slashdot and on most on-line fora. I just don't get the impression that many people see debate as a constructive way of testing one's beliefs and ideas.
Re: (Score:2)
Having said all that, I find pretty much the same thing here on Slashdot and on most on-line fora. I just don't get the impression that many people see debate as a constructive way of testing one's beliefs and ideas.
Not just on the Internet. It's nothing new.
People tend to visit online forums they like, and political forums are chosen on the ones that support their views (e.g. anti-vaxxers won't visit pro-vaxxer's sites). Before that, people chose the TV channel to watch based on the ones that best supported their views. Before that, it was the newspapers.
Slashdot is to me a bit of an exception as it's a tech site with a primary tech audience that's doing quite some political stories, so the bias in audience is not too
Re: (Score:2)
It seems as though there's no other way to have these discussions. My thought is that people need to be more willing to get in a heated discussion a
Re: (Score:2)
NBC? (Score:2)
I think you've got it backwards. When I was growing up, a thousand years ago, there were only three sources of news: NBC, ABC, and CBS. The evening national news television shows were standard and the only available source of news for anybody.
Now people have the World Wide Web which connects them to others all over the world. You can follow friends in Norway and India and Hong Kong. Yes, you can restrict it somewhat. But the global connectivity will leak through.
My American ex-wife still lives in the s
News at 11:00 (Score:2)
Your choice of friends my create a feedback loop that reinforces your views - join us at 11:00 for more news on this discovery!
Seriously, people, how and why do you choose friends, on the net, or in real life? How and why do CB and ham operators become friends, or enemies? How and why do people learn to love one news commentator, but love another?
I strive to avoid creating a bubble for myself - but I suspect that I merely end up living in a larger bubble than I would live in otherwise.
Anyone who wishes to
Whew (Score:3, Funny)
Politics is tyranny (Score:2)
Does Facebook make it harder for people with different political views to get along?
Politics is about making other people do what you think is right. It's just like forcing your religion on someone except that somehow if there's not a God involved it's considered to be morally acceptable. It's the worst form of blind faith in the face of evidence to the contrary, and it's used to justify tyranny. We replaced hereditary tyrants with taking turns being tyrants, instead of replacing tyranny with freedom.
I'm not talking about people defending themselves from others who would wrong them - th
Re: (Score:3)
Does Facebook make it harder for people with different political views to get along?
Politics is about making other people do what you think is right. It's just like forcing your religion on someone except that somehow if there's not a God involved it's considered to be morally acceptable. It's the worst form of blind faith in the face of evidence to the contrary, and it's used to justify tyranny.
I really disagree with this assertion that politics is all about dominance. In skipping directly to tyranny you fail to see the positive aspects of debate and personal influence - is it bad to try to make someone see something different? Are people incapable of changing their opinions with time and wisdom? Are you removing someone's choice by having a conversation with them?
A problem happens when both sides become intractable on issues. What you're really talking about is what we've got today, incredibly po
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't see a problem at all with having a conversation with someone. The problem is the belief that we need "leadership" to make rules our neighbors have to live by. I don't see that there's any comparison between those two things.
Well, until you become a completely self-sustaining individual your concept is incredibly short-sighted. I've read those self-sustaining books. Just find five acres and a cow, right? A nice stream near it. Grow your own sh*t, right? Well, are you doing this all alone? If not, you need someone to run it. That requires basic leadership and rules to live by.
OK let's say you run it all solo. How are you going to keep the cows in their pasture? Maybe a fence, right? Well you'll probably need some metal for that,
Re: (Score:2)
I didn't say a single thing about being self-sustaining. Nothing you wrote has anything to do with what I said.
And in our society, we elect those leaders. In some societies, people obtain leadership through brute force. It's not pretty.
Brute force is wrong even when you are elected.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, let's bring in a business leader to protect the environment (since he makes money from...), or a business leader to police the people, or a business person to jail people who do bad things like assault or steal or murder. We of course subcontracted the whole making laws thing out to a business person. They will totally not use their greed to game the system to their advantage, like all the business people in the history of the world who did so.
Libertarian principles of a totally capitalistic society: g
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, I'd suggest that any given society could easily avoid almost all need for "rules" and "leadership" if all men in the society accepted and lived by one simple rule: no person has the right to force another to do something they do not volunteer to do.
What happens when one of those people insists on shitting in the communal water supply?
Re: (Score:2)
It's not about dominating friends, it's about informing them
Did you vote for 8 years of George W. Bush? Did you have to live under him for 8 years? You were dominated.
Substitute anyone else for George W. if you did vote for him. (I did - my mistake.)
If you vote for a guy, you are appointing a ruler for other human beings. Not just having a respectful conversation where you try to persuade them to willingly follow his leadership.
Re: (Score:2)
All this talk about domination and subjugation is not constructive. You are conflating government with politics with no subtlety. We have three branches, so at what point does an elected Congressman rule? (And please don't tell me Speaker, Boehner can barely keep his own party in check. Hell his second in command Cantor couldn't even keep his seat.) How about a judge? Judges can't make laws, only rule on existing ones. And those executives, the ones running things? They also cannot make laws.
As far as rulin
Re: (Score:2)
All this talk about domination and subjugation is not constructive. You are conflating government with politics with no subtlety. We have three branches, so at what point does an elected Congressman rule? (And please don't tell me Speaker, Boehner can barely keep his own party in check. Hell his second in command Cantor couldn't even keep his seat.) How about a judge? Judges can't make laws, only rule on existing ones. And those executives, the ones running things? They also cannot make laws.
Actually Judges can and do make law, at least in common law jurisdictions. Most criminal law was originally made by the courts and even today most contract law and torts are not statutory.
The Executive can also make law in the form of regulations though the basis of those regulations usually come from statutes passed by the legislature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
And the great thing about politics is that politicians, the people you and me vote for (or don't vote for) are ultimately elected by people. And those people have opinions. And those opinions can and do change. And when you share an unpopular opinion it can make you unpopular. Most politicians try not to share their unpopular opinions, at least the ones unpopular to their constituents.
Nobody's opinion should ever be forced on another person, no matter how popular their opinion is.
Re: (Score:2)
So, what you're saying it, if you filter tyranny through enough people, it isn't tyranny anymore? In other words, the large companies that have been described as having tyrannical management don't have it so long as the CEO's iron-fisted rule goes through the VP, to an executive, to a senior manager, to a manager, and finally, to your team lead? Even if the same message is heard from the start to the finish of the conversation?
I'm saying it isn't tyranny, period. I'm saying you don't know what tyranny is, you've never lived under it, and your third grade understanding of it is tiresome.
The closest we have to tyranny in the US is racism, the drug war and the prison industrial system. People are actively fighting it, and it isn't endemic.
The second you assign every problem in the world to 'tyranny' is when you lose me. Hey but that's why you're anonymous, right, so you can simply spew troll sh*t all over a board.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree that we don't have tyranny in the USA. What scares me is that the legal framework for tyranny has largely been established. It has even been exercised to a limited extent. For example, with indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without charge or trial. The 4th, 5th and 6th Amendments have been practically eviscerated by draconian laws and court decisions.
The First and Second Amendments are in perpetual danger from one angle or another. Speaking of "racism", so called "hate speech" laws are prob
Re: (Score:2)
Once again, a completely muddled understanding of what the word 'tyranny' means. It's literally impossible to have a conversation who views every decision made by a politician as a tyrannical one. Both sides are bad. All sides are bad.
This is the forum equivalent of screaming 'Help I'm being oppressed! I'm being oppressed.' And it's not constructive and defeatist and obviously since you're picking Slashdot to post this it is entirely counterproductive. Instead of doing something about it, simply whine about
Re: (Score:2)
Does Facebook make it harder for people with different political views to get along?
Politics is about making other people do what you think is right.
In a dictatorship maybe. In a democracy, politics is about navigating decisions which there is never a clear winner or loser. Each decision you make will have losers so whichever course you take will result in complaints of cronyism or corruption by the side that gets the shorter end of the stick. And even the side with the long end of the stick will complain the didn't get enough of the pie. Politics is a game where everyone thinks they are missing out while overall society is being improved.
Re: (Score:2)
There's a reason why democracy is called "The Tyranny of the Majority". The OP is correct. Democracy, and to a large extent, even the USA's Constitutional Republic is still about forcing your personal views on other people. No clear winners and losers in a democracy? What about when the 99% vote to murder the 1% and divide up their assets?
Under a Constitutional Republic, such abuses are technically prohibited by limiting government power to commit such atrocities and the elaboration of certain fundament
I use intentional filtering (Score:4, Insightful)
I purposely have crackbook block the right wing lunatic websites/pages, the bigoted anti-muslim sites/pages, and a host of others.
I see no reason why I should have crap like that shoved in front of my face when I'd never seek it out on my own. And the people who *post* that racist crap get themselves removed from the "friend" list and blocked. I'll have no truck with bigots.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem is when you define those that don't agree with you as bigots, and have no problem engaging in bigotry yourself. You call it social justice and really can't see why anyone would disagree with your extreme left-wing views. It's an affliction that, in my estimation, will only get worse. Why should any leftist listen to people who are obviously dissidents?
"What our enemies oppose, we will support. And whatever our enemies support, we will oppose."
-- Mao Tse-Tung
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, but when someone is ranting about how Arabic peoples or Islam followers are all terrorists and should be kicked out of the country, there is no other viable label but "bigot." There is NO EXCUSE for such attitudes, and there is NO WAY I'm going to tolerate it from someone I'm willing to call "friend".
The same goes for those who are against the First Nations people, immigrants, or any other sector of society that they're choosing to judge based on their culture, religion, or race.
Re: (Score:2)
Why would I, as a Canadian, want to read the poisonous bile that right wing American "interest groups" spew on the 'net?
Re: (Score:2)
As another Canadian, my response is "know thy enemy".
On of the few times... (Score:2)
Does Facebook make it harder for people with different political views to get along?
Far too many people on Facebook (or elsewhere online!), instantly froth at the mouth at any mention of The Other Party(tm).
Re: (Score:2)
There is no news bubble for one simple reason (Score:2)
Think about ALL of the political sites you have seen - they all have one thing in common. They like to ridicule the "Other".
Only to do so, you end up reading both sides.
Now it's true your first source is going to be pushing you to believe something a certain way. But rather than only seeing things you agree with, instead you are CONSTANTLY reading things you disagree with in order to laugh at or complain about it.
The end effect is basically no bubble whatsoever, at least in terms of input. Ideologically
Of course, but nothing's different (Score:2)
Of course Facebook is keeping you in a bubble... of exactly the things you chose to put in your bubble. It's no different than any other source of news. Fox News, MSNBC, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post - all bubbles telling one part of one side of the story.
If you don't actively look for other sources of information or other sides points of view, your news sources aren't going to give you "fair and balanced" information.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't live in an echo chamber (Score:2)
There is a simple way to avoid having fb or any other social network keeping you in a "bubble". Pop the bubble! Meet people with views you don't share, and talk to them. I am "far-left" by US standards, though I believe the NFA needs to be destroyed and the ATF dismantled, because I believe in personal liberty and rights while restricting the liberties and "rights" of corporations but still believe that estate taxes are necessary to prevent certain families from accumulating all the wealth. Friends include