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[Reelya]

The notable point is that the core team behind this also does psy-ops against third world nations to help corrupt leaders, and now they're using the same methods against the populations of UK and US, complicit with the new alt-right media barons but also some tech billionaires in Google, Facebook, Uber etc.

This goes a lot deeper than just saying a few people gamed google searches, they're gaming society itself. Reputable media being unsearchable has an exponential effect, people don't follow news they can't read, therefore it doesn't get linked, and then you end up with an ecosystem where the new portal sites such as Facebook dictate what is news.

Facebooks "personalization" of news is actually more insidious than it sounds. They can filter only progressive/moderate voices to a smaller and smaller group of people, and before you know it, most people are in fact getting Alt Right News and you're not even aware of it, because what's replaced newspapers has different headlines for everyone.

They can sell this as freeing and personalizing things, but it is in fact the perfect way to take over a society. People who read CNN and nytimes can be kept in their bubble while the right wing message is rolled out to an increasing large number of people, all the while they can assure us that they're only a "fringe".

[Lord Shonus]

We have a nominee for FBI director.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-to-nominate-christopher-wray-as-next-fbi-director/2017/06/07/a3cf7790-4b78-11e7-a186-60c031eab644_story.html


I can't really find much about him overall, other than the fact that he directed a lot of fraud investigations in the 00s, and was Christie's attorney.

[Baffler]

Filter bubbles are neither new, nor an exclusively right-leaning phenomenon. It, like most things, is not a Russian conspiracy to sow chaos in western democracies. The only organizations responsible for any bias in those tools are those who build and maintain them in the firsf place, and you don't need to look very hard to see where tech companies' political leanings go.

[Dunamisdeos]

We have a nominee for FBI director.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-to-nominate-christopher-wray-as-next-fbi-director/2017/06/07/a3cf7790-4b78-11e7-a186-60c031eab644_story.html
I can't really find much about him overall, other than the fact that he directed a lot of fraud investigations in the 00s, and was Christie's attorney.

Wikipedia says:

"In 2003, President George W. Bush nominated Wray as assistant attorney general in charge of the Criminal Division of the Justice Department. Wray was unanimously confirmed by the Senate. Wray was assistant attorney general from 2003 to 2005, working under Deputy Attorney General James Comey. While heading the Criminal Division, Wray oversaw prominent fraud investigations, including Enron."

[smjjames]

That's interesting that he used to work for Comey back when he was a deputy AG.

[Playergamer]

the funny thing about the trump propaganda machine article is that if you change names and pics, you can literally reverse it on main-stream media. i don't dispute that breitbart, dailywire, etc. are part of the right-wing bullshit machine, but the MSM bullshit machine exists too. media outlets copy-paste sensational stories from each other, either for clicks or to push an agenda. it's all BS these days, just different types.

basically what i'm saying is, as a former trump supporter who now doesn't bother, we're in a cold civil war and nobody has really figured out what tactics to use yet.

edit: yes i read the article. no i'm not trying to deflect from the system gaming. but this is to be expected, the right and the left are at war now.

[Sheb]

We have a nominee for FBI director.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-to-nominate-christopher-wray-as-next-fbi-director/2017/06/07/a3cf7790-4b78-11e7-a186-60c031eab644_story.html
I can't really find much about him overall, other than the fact that he directed a lot of fraud investigations in the 00s, and was Christie's attorney.

Wikipedia says:

"In 2003, President George W. Bush nominated Wray as assistant attorney general in charge of the Criminal Division of the Justice Department. Wray was unanimously confirmed by the Senate. Wray was assistant attorney general from 2003 to 2005, working under Deputy Attorney General James Comey. While heading the Criminal Division, Wray oversaw prominent fraud investigations, including Enron."

To think that there was a day where relatively competent people could get confirmed by the Senate unanimously.

[Dunamisdeos]

I just sort of assumed he was going to nominate like, a hobo or something, but yeah this guy seems relatively ok.

[Reelya]

Filter bubbles are neither new, nor an exclusively right-leaning phenomenon. It, like most things, is not a Russian conspiracy to sow chaos in western democracies. The only organizations responsible for any bias in those tools are those who build and maintain them in the firsf place, and you don't need to look very hard to see where tech companies' political leanings go.

Neither I nor the articles blamed the Russians for this.

The "core team behind this" I was referring to is the one discussed in detail in the articles, a UK based PR firm that does work for third-world crooked politicians, as well as the UK/US right, that has links to a number of right-wing silicon valley billionaires. They're probably only the tip of the iceberg but they had a big hand in a lot of the recent stuff. Saying things like "russian trolls are manipulating media" is actually a smokescreen.

I agree, the Russians were doing a few things but that fixation is to hide the fact that the manipulators were closer to home. The Russians couldn't overthrow normality unless someone on the inside also wanted to overthrow normality. Foreign pressure is normally about pushing over a house of cards.

[smjjames]

Full article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_A._Wray

He is a partner with the same law firm that Dan Coats (the Director of National Inteligence), though I don't know how much interaction with Dan Coats he had in the past.

We have a nominee for FBI director.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-to-nominate-christopher-wray-as-next-fbi-director/2017/06/07/a3cf7790-4b78-11e7-a186-60c031eab644_story.html
I can't really find much about him overall, other than the fact that he directed a lot of fraud investigations in the 00s, and was Christie's attorney.

Wikipedia says:

"In 2003, President George W. Bush nominated Wray as assistant attorney general in charge of the Criminal Division of the Justice Department. Wray was unanimously confirmed by the Senate. Wray was assistant attorney general from 2003 to 2005, working under Deputy Attorney General James Comey. While heading the Criminal Division, Wray oversaw prominent fraud investigations, including Enron."

To think that there was a day where relatively competent people could get confirmed by the Senate unanimously.

Even so, the hearings are going to be especially brutal due to the circumstances that Comey got fired under. His involvement with the Bridgegate scandal might become an issue. Both sides will definetly probe at all sorts of things. On the surface of it, he doesn't seem particularily controversial in any way, and the fact that he used to work with Comey may reassure Democrats.

And apparently key Senators learned of the announcement via Twitter.

I just sort of assumed he was going to nominate like, a hobo or something

lol

[Dunamisdeos]

I don't have a problem with the bridgegate involvement, because he was just the lawyer. He got hired, did his job, and that was that (from what I can tell).

[Sheb]

Filter bubbles are neither new, nor an exclusively right-leaning phenomenon. It, like most things, is not a Russian conspiracy to sow chaos in western democracies. The only organizations responsible for any bias in those tools are those who build and maintain them in the firsf place, and you don't need to look very hard to see where tech companies' political leanings go.

Neither I nor the articles blamed the Russians for this.

The "core team behind this" I was referring to is the one discussed in detail in the articles, a UK based PR firm that does work for third-world crooked politicians, as well as the UK/US right, that has links to a number of right-wing silicon valley billionaires. They're probably only the tip of the iceberg but they had a big hand in a lot of the recent stuff. Saying things like "russian trolls are manipulating media" is actually a smokescreen.

I agree, the Russians were doing a few things but that fixation is to hide the fact that the manipulators were closer to home. The Russians couldn't overthrow normality unless someone on the inside also wanted to overthrow normality. Foreign pressure is normally about pushing over a house of cards.

One thing I really dislike about this targeted ads kind of things is that politicians can now serve different narratives to different people without you knowing what they promised to other people.

[Baffler]

Neither I nor the articles blamed the Russians for this.

Some articles on the ongoing, highly organized right-wing misinfo campaigns: https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/06/how-the-trump-russia-data-machine-games-google-to.html
Related, and also linked within:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy

In summary: The true dangers of unregulated corporate surveillance, machine learning, and ad-tech are here, and are being exploited by the wealthy to flip governments in their favor.

Actually yes, they repeatedly did (also that first article is Pravda-tier, and lel the Leave Campaign campaigned to influence the result of the Brexit referendum toward Leave who'da thunk it?), but that's not the issue here.

The "core team behind this" I was referring to is the one discussed in detail in the articles, a UK based PR firm that does work for third-world crooked politicians, as well as the UK/US right, that has links to a number of right-wing silicon valley billionaires. They're probably only the tip of the iceberg but they had a big hand in a lot of the recent stuff. Saying things like "russian trolls are manipulating media" is actually a smokescreen.

I agree, the Russians were doing a few things but that fixation is to hide the fact that the manipulators were closer to home. The Russians couldn't overthrow normality unless someone on the inside also wanted to overthrow normality. Foreign pressure is normally about pushing over a house of cards.

Exactly, a smokescreen. But it's not necessarily for a wider conspiracy, whether you think that's globalist or nationalist subversion. The situation has been progressively degenerating for the average person, and rallying people against an external enemy is much easier than shaking up the political order of the Western world.

[scriver]

, and you don't need to look very hard to see where tech companies' political leanings go.

...Generally right-wing, like most companies do?

[smjjames]

, and you don't need to look very hard to see where tech companies' political leanings go.

...Generally right-wing, like most companies do?

You mean left-wing.

*proceed to discuss the difference between American Left and Right wing vs European Left and Right wing*

In all seriousness, in general, yeah, companies tend to be right wing (because business), but they can just as easily be anywhere on the political spectrum.