Data Hacking Elections

Democracy Now has an interview with a Cambridge Analytica whistleblower and others about data hacking of elections on the lines of Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. The cost to democracy and even self autonomy is very high... we are all being manipulated by our information consumption in ways we cannot untangle. It's very much worth viewing.

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/1/7/the_great_hack_cambridge_analytica

Wisdom of Democracy

A functioning democracy relies on the Wisdom of Crowds to elect good representatives. The Wikipedia article describes four attributes of crowd intelligence: (1) Diversity of opinion, (2) Independence, (3) Decentralization and (4) Aggregation. In the past, these were all reasonable emblematic of the Democratic Party. But today's Democrat Party is very much under the control of the business establishment and closed to alternative views.

The election of 'POTUS' DJT was a failure of crowd intelligence. The intelligence of Trump voters have been under direct assault by the right wing media for decades. Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Breitbart and InfoWars are only a small selection of media which deliberately deceive their audience with slights of reason, misdirection and outright lies. The election of 'POTUS' DJT was their highest achievement.

What makes for good journalism...

I just listened to a story on NPR by Ofeibea Quist-Arcton about The Boko Haram 'Brides' and it struck me the stigma these girls face on returning to their families and homes might be shared by the journalists and translators reporting their stories, after all, like all people, journalists are the products of their environments... so...

(1) do foreign reporters bring a useful outsider perspective to reporting?
(2) do local/native reporters bring better insight?
(3) what biases are brought by each group of reporters and (a) how to minimize its effect on reporting and (b) would it help to inform the audience of reporters' biases?
(4) similar issues of editorial bias...

BTW, I am not accusing Ofeibea Quist-Arcton of bias. I know I consume information with my own bias and wondered how bias in journalism can be managed to best serve news consumers.

Truthout has disabled comments

It's sad but apparently they couldn't moderate quickly enough to maintain civil exchanges.

Trumpism isn’t politics or ideology; it’s idolatry, a cult

Comment at DWT:

The Rise of Trumpism
(1) Sensory organs evolved over billions of years to provide animals mechanisms to detect and interact with their natural environments in order to survive.
(2) Theistic religions disengage human sensory input from knowledge of the universe/environment. Believing does not require seeing; invisible god(s) are real.
(3) Right wing media feeds the cognitive dissonance opened by religion (Christian Right) an unending stream of logical fallacies about American culture and politics. This completely hobbles the critical thinking ability of their audience and makes them ever more receptive to, as the Bible would say, false idols.
(4) Enter Donald J. Trump, who spent a lifetime gilding his own image with gold colored dust, onto the pedastal built by right wing media to elevate idols to the level of God.

Trumpism isn’t politics or ideology; it’s idolatry, a cult. The cure will involve mass cult recovery.

Only the most gullible among us, who believe in the existence of all powerful beings in the universe can disengage reality from rhetoric to actually believe the response of Sarah Huckabee Sanders in this exchange:

[A reporter asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders, POTUS DJT's spokesperson,] "Clearly there is a concern from some Republicans that the president is not always being as truthful as he could be," Hallie Jackson continued. "How does he plan to address that?" 

[She answers,] "I think by being truthful and transparent as he has every single day."

States and corporations practice censorship

Comment thread at TRNN:

Gideon Levy was interviewed about: Israelis Shut Out Palestinian Calls for Freedom

SkepticalPartisan • 18 hours ago
This is why I support and watch independent journalism like TRNN. It's not only state sponsored/enforced censorship; MSM self censors their content on behalf of their financial interests. Secrecy and control of information is the enemy of democracy. Governments and private institutions use regulation to control information. Greater transparency enables informed choice which gives power to the voter/buyer, not the candidate/seller.

peepsqueek  to SkepticalPartisan • 11 hours ago
Can you think of anyone that does more censoring than Islamic Countries, repression of free speech and expression?
With the exception of Israel, all Middle East and North African Countries are signatories to the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights:
Article 19: "There shall be NO crime or punishment EXCEPT as provided for in the Sharia."
Article 24: "All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Sharia."
Article 25: "The Islamic Sharia is the ONLY source of reference for the explanation or clarification of ANY of the articles of this Declaration."
The Jews of Israel are the only religious and ethnic minority int he Middle East that have the full right of self determination. The banner of Islam flies over 99.9% of the Middle East land mass. What would you be asking if the the situation was reversed?

SkepticalPartisan to  peepsqueek • 9 hours ago
You illustrate the exact point of my comment. Our media censors information about Israel - we do not know and cannot respond without knowledge. Israeli media also censors what their internal media reports to their residents/citizens. We have been told about censorship in Islamic Countries which enables you to comment and take a position. Information about Islamic censorship gives you the choice to act. There's little media coverage of Israeli censorship.
And yes, I agree and acknowledge Islamic Countries censor. My original comment applies across the board without regard to borders, boundaries or religions.

peepsqueek to  SkepticalPartisan • 7 hours ago
We know a lot more about Israel because they have a whole range of non-Government media and foreign press all over Israel. Israelis do not have to be afraid to speak to anyone, nor do they have to be afraid to criticize the Israeli government. There is freedom of association, speech, and expression, and Israeli Jews,

SkepticalPartisan  to peepsqueek • 7 hours ago
I am an anonymous commenter; my opinion is largely irrelevant. And yes, "Israeli Jews, Christians, and Arabs come and go as they please"... but only in undisputed parts of Israel; there is very little freedom of movement which also restricts associated in the Gaza and the West Bank. That is why I originally commented. I appreciate TRNN providing Gideon Levy the opportunity to give a Palestinian slant. I want TRNN to continue to seek and report unreported stories and viewpoints. Political coverage in the U.S. is largely limited to the very narrow spectrum defined by the two major parties; anything slightly left or up, down and sideways are either labelled extreme or ignored. The control of information removes choice and thus democracy from voters/consumers.
BTW, do residents of Gaza and the West Bank have their own media to tell their stories? Or are they dependent on Israeli and international media?

peepsqueek  to SkepticalPartisan • 7 hours ago
Gaza and the West Bank have never in history had their own newspaper. The first newspaper in the area was the Palestinian Post, which became the Jerusalem Post after Israel became an independent state.
As far as walls and fences, before the occupation and the walls and fences, who protected the Israeli civilian population from regular attacks? Now there are very few attacks. Who is protecting the civilian populations in the other 28 conflicts and border wars around the world today involving repressive Islamic regimes? Are they all freedom fighters and martyrs for Islam?
Just for balance and proper context, there are many walls and barriers involving Muslim Countries: Malaysia-Thailand border, Melilla border fence in Spain, Indo-Bangladeshi barrier, Indo-Burma barrier, Indian Kashmir barrier, Iran-Pakistan barrier, Kazakh-Uzbekistan barrier, Kuwait-Iraq barrier, Pakistan-Afghanistan barrier, Russia/Chechnya, Saudi-Yemen barrier, Arab Emirates/Oman, Saudi/Yemen, Turkmen/ Uzbekistan, Egypt/Gaza, Syria/Turkey, Sudan/Sudan, Kenya/Somalia, etc, and many more walls and fences within Muslim Countries to separate different sects from having at each other.

SkepticalPartisan to  peepsqueek • 6 hours ago
"...for balance and proper context..."
Thank you for your continual reinforcing of my original comment. Knowledge is power. Without knowledge of the barriers you describe, we have no foundation upon which to voice support or dissent; without a voice, our votes can only support the the story we are spoon fed. I would appreciate any efforts by TRNN to interview people affected by the barriers you list.

peepsqueek  to SkepticalPartisan • 6 hours ago
Without those barriers there was chaos-- religious, tribal, sectarian, and nationalistic violence. There are 7.5 billion people on the planet today, in a world with dwindling resources. Without these lines, there would be continuous violence and chaos. This is why the Western world does business with all these Middle East dictators and totalitarian governments that maintain some measure of control, even though they are repressive governments.

SkepticalPartisan  to peepsqueek • 6 hours ago
The political leaders of "the Western world does business with all these Middle East dictators and totalitarian governments". It isn't clear that the people and voters of the Western world would choose to do "business with all these Middle East dictators and totalitarian governments". Voters need information to make decisions. Without transparency, voters are choosing between packaging with no clue of what's inside, like choosing between multiple doors in a game show; they could all be hiding the same 'prize'.

Need transparent elections

My comment a C&L post decrying legitimacy of elected officials in light of their lack of transparency:

The intent of the first amendment's free speech right is the freedom to speak truth to power without threat of imprisonment. In a democracy, power lies in the voters, so speech directed at voters (press) is free of government intervention. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has allowed media to lie in supposed news programs. The damage to media credibility is amplified by accusations of liberal bias and fake news. We now have a President whose every word has questionable veracity.

For years I have said the greatest reform to our political and economic system can only come about through a massive increase in transparency. Markets aren't free because consumers don't buy with full knowledge of the products (pollution controls, worker's rights/safety, etc). Citizen's aren't free because voters don't vote with full knowledge of candidates (candidates lie, financial support, etc).

Great post.

Sign of fear

The New York Times published an op-ed by Mark Penn and Andrew Stein arguing that Democrats need to shift to the center if they want to win elections. At TRNN, Nina Turner says Democrats lost because they've lost touch with their voters. My thoughts (comment at TRNN link):

As I see it, the Penn & Stein op-ed in the NYT was a pre-emptive attempt to frame the debate. In other words, the only news worthy of print ("All the News That's Fit to Print") is defined by the tiny ideological differences between Republicans and establishment Democrats. All other ideas and positions are 'extremist' views and unworthy of print. An excellent example of this bias was the way the NYT covered Bernie's campaign - by not covering it, they deemed his positions and policies 'not fit to print'. The galvanized resistance to the GOP healthcare plan and growing calls for single payer probably has the establishment quaking in their boots.

Political consequences of ignorance

TRNN spoke with Robert English about the FBI leaking the Comey Memo, the one where he recounts DJT asking him to drop the Flynn investigation. I left a comment:

"let's not fall off the cliff here over Trump sharing some intel about terror attacks with the Russians..." 

After watching this *twice* over two days so this would not be a knee jerk response, I am not reacting to Trump's idiocy; that speaks for itself. I am very angry at my own ignorance of many of the events/actions described. This reflects a major failing of the American news media which I have consumed for decades and major efforts of the American state to keep its citizens ignorant of its actions. We are fed small simple good-guy/bad-guy stories by the media. Our ignorance is constantly manipulated by the state and media; we've become sheep in the face of propaganda. I'm angry and sad and I want *much* *much* more transparency.

When we are constantly lied to by the state and media, we get sham political parties with similar candidates from mock elections. The front people change but the power never changes hands; it's always the powerful elite who call the shots.

Update: It's getting worse, the rollback of net neutrality will further impede transparency.

Culture of Harassment

NPR review Hulu's adaptation of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale ends with this:

In a country where sexual harassment scandals regularly land on the front page, the patriarchy of The Handmaid's Tale doesn't feel so far-fetched, which is the most horrific thing about it.

In light of the ousting of Bill O'Reilly from Fox News over sexual harassment, Alisyn Camerota of CNN recently talked about the harassment culture at Fox News. So three questions:

- Do news women have any responsibility to expose the news that they are subject to sexual harassment?

- Some these women at Fox News - Megan Kelly, Gretchen Carlson, Alisyn Camerota - were at the top of their careers at the time. Yet they did not feel they could safely challenge the harassment culture of Fox News. What about that culture made it so irresistible? 

- If women who are at or near the top of the power structure like the Fox News women can't challenge/expose sexual harassment, what tools do women with less power have to counter/defend from harassment?

Sexual harassment is also a mechanism of economic division - the divide and conquer strategy by demeaning women to a lesser status. United we stand, divided we fall.

Press failure

Comment at Crooks and Liars with video clip of Sean Spicer 'gaslighting' the press:

I blame the press for the sad state of affairs. Right wing news grew, profited and flourished under the failure of the mainstream press to contain their lies and doublespeak through benign neglect. Now we have a press secretary whose starting premise is a half truth which he follows with a ninety degree pivot to a full lie which rotates in a different direction to increase the base of the lie then he turns back around to accuse the press of misdirecting/misleading. Even a partial description of the spin is dizzying. 

I'm tired of DJT and company telling me what 'the real story is' and what's important. I want the truth.

Bernie should not start a political party

Comment at a TRNN story discussing the attempt to recruit Bernie to start a new political party:

The notion of creating another political party with the intent of advancing progressive policy through electoral success is silly on its face. 

The raison d'etre of the Republican and Democratic parties is to raise enormous amounts of money from big donors so between the two parties, the interests of big donors are always the forefront of all policy/regulations. The minor differences in social issues serve as icing on the cake to distract voters from the real underlying transfer of economic and political power to the big donor class. These are essentially political corporations. 

The raison d'etre of lesser political parties is either (1) express/disseminate 'non-standard' ideology that is ignored by the extremely limited options offered by the two major parties and/or (2) attract enough voters to achieve automatic ballot access. They are most often limited by campaign funds and media access. 

Any new party would have all the disadvantages of lesser parties with the risk of big money take over should any lesser party achieve any degree of electoral success. The problem with the system is too much power/money concentrated in too few hands. Another political party doesn't change that equation.

Insidious capitalism

Anyone who has read any portion of this blog knows I advocate strongly for information transparency. Net neutrality is essential to information transparency. Lee Fang has an article up at The Intercept about how telecoms have 'invested' (capitalist speak) in civil rights groups to persuade them to lobby against their larger interests against net neutrality.

This is another example of the power of the elite to push the economic narrative to their advantage (and profit). It is also more evidence of the importance of information. The power of the elite is derived directly and indirectly from the information they control. To free ourselves of their influence, we must have free access to all this information. Without net neutrality, telecoms control much of our information infrastructure.

What is Journalism?

My comment at a piece Lewis Wallace wrote called Objectivity is dead, and I’m okay with it:

In no particular order: 

    1.    Textbooks are carefully vetted for their content. In recent years, there have been any number of partisan battles to rewrite a historical bent but these seldom occur in backrooms. This means what schoolchildren learn has undergone some degree of scrutiny. The information available to adults by way of media does not undergo an equivalent degree of scrutiny for accuracy; in fact, it is legal for media to outright lie. This placed the burden of critical evaluation on consumers who more often than not, do not have the wherewithal to carry out that responsibility. ‘You decide’ is by definition, not journalism. I am not knowledgeable of most topics, I need knowledgeable journalists to accurately *and* pointedly highlight lies, mis-directions and distortions. 

    2.    Today’s news in tomorrow’s historical record. Consider how little we know about the past (very little is known about lives of slaves, women and poor) because only white male voices were recorded, often silenced by deliberately and maliciously enforced illiteracy. There’s is no excuse or justification for that in this day and age of near universal literacy and vast mechanisms of information dissemination. 

    3.    Some examples of false binaries that the media promulgates by never deviating beyond their boundaries: (a.) Political ideology is not fully covered by the Democratic Party’s definition of ‘liberal’ and the Republican Party’s definition of ‘conservative’. Alternate models of organizing health insurance (user pays vs single payer) or childcare (private vs. state subsidized) or criminal justice (reform/punitive) for example. (b.) Social gender is not biologically defined by sex; neither is biological sex always clear cut. All issues related to sexual identity and sexuality. (c.) Socialism is always public and capitalism is always private. Private insurance providers run by socialist principles; publicly owned utilities operate much like capitalist corporations. 

    4.     What it means to be ‘objective’ or ‘neutrality’, journalistically speaking? (a.) to not insert any voice outside of the news item — journalism by stenography or “ ‘you decide’ journalism”; (b.) insert ‘opposite’ voice of news item — journalism as sports commentary; (c.) insert corrections of specifically mentioned lies; (d.) insert relevant factual context — for example, “…the millions of dollars mentioned by the Senator lost to fraud accounts for less than 1% of the overall program.”; (e) insert long term context — future cost/savings; past injustices. 

Your essay was couched primarily in terms of journalistic integrity; it’s critical to also include the responsibility journalism has to public and social integrity.

He was fired for posting his piece. I hope things work out well for him. We need journalists of his caliber.

Not only right wing media

Comment posted at Crooks&Liars:

Stoking fear and resentment is the major source of division in the U.S. body politic. Racism, immigrant bashing, religiosity, bigotry, homophobia/transphobia, feminism/abortion/reproductive issues etc. can be seen as propaganda. They are social definitions that divide people into 'in' and 'out' groups. When you are distracted fighting your 'out' group, you don't notice when the government changes/enacts/enforces dry policy that takes from you and gives to the rich. Right wing media excels at marketing fear but the rest of the media supports divisive culture/political distinctions with its constant emphasis on conflict.

Nation or people

There's a post at DailyKos titled 'New Poll Reveals The Eight CRAZIEST Things Trump Voters Actually Believe'. It would appear that non-Trump voters, presumably Democrats, are less stupid/crazy... except the numbers don't reflect all that well of non-Trump voters, presumably Democrats.

If anything, this further reveals a failure of the U.S. Constitution. The ignorance reflected in these poll results is a measure of the lack of a free press. The failure of Congress to confirm Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court is the failure of the Constitutional power/duty of the sitting President to nominate Supreme Court justices. The Constitution is a 'living document', capable of revision, modification and change in order to strive for 'to form a more perfect Union'. Yet for all this built in flexibility, it has not been sufficient to correct a major representation imbalance in the presidential election system because not all votes for president carry the same weight.

Democrats needn't be smug over their seeming superiority over Republicans when little divides them in terms of their actions.

The U.S. Constitution essentially defines the nation of the United States of America. A major cause of its failures can be attributed to the elite advancing nationalistic themes to gain more power, economic and otherwise. It's high time to carefully consider the priorities of the larger population of any nation... is it the responsibility of citizens to support (pay for and populate) a country or is it the responsibility of a nation to support the wellbeing of its citizens? Bear the difference in mind after DJT becomes president; he will likely define 'what is profitable for DJT' as 'good for America'.

Independent media is essential for transparency

A major goal of this blog is to advocate for increase transparency. For most part, And although not always explicitly state, the directive tends to be primarily focused on economically valuable information along the lines of intellectual property - patents, copyright, proprietary information, etc. But a recent piece by Robert Reich about how Trump controls/manipulates the media should remind all of us of the importance of transparency at the level of power brokers. By controlling the media, Trump aims to control the narrative of his actions and decisions. How he is perceived and the support/opposition he garners is determined by his 'story'. By controlling the media, he controls the story regardless of its veracity. Independent media may not provide the entirety of 'truth' but it will be more than a controlled media. Thus independent media is essential to increasing information transparency.

News triggers

There have been studies documenting differences between liberals and conservatives. And studies have shown a relationship between news source and understanding of current events. Now there's even a documentary 'case study' of the relationship between news consumption and political ideology.

I'm curious if anyone has ever looked to see what emotions are triggered by news source. Do partisan news media deliberately use emotional triggers to skew consumers to their ideology? If so, what emotions? Do liberals and conservatives fear the same issues depending on their source of news? This really goes to the question of the fine line between news/information and propaganda.