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How Two Facebook Developers Could Decide the Election
Scout ^ | 07/26/2016 | Berit Anderson

Posted on 07/26/2016 2:05:26 PM PDT by tosh

Thanks to Facebook’s renowned hacker culture, just two developers working together could push an update to the site’s news feed algorithms that changes the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. According to former Facebook developers Scout has spoken with, it takes one engineer to write the code and one to approve it and push it to production.

Done smartly, these kinds of manipulations would be very targeted and extremely difficult to detect. Imagine two developers pushing Facebook’s ‘I Voted’ banner to the top of news feeds among liberal voters in swing states to drive more of them to the polls. Imagine showing politically moderate users more favorable posts about Hillary — or about Trump — in their feed in the weeks leading up to the election...


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: ai; facebook
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To: tosh

I despise Facebook, and REFUSE to be on it!!!!

I despise Mark Zuckerbird!!!! I despise Sheryl Sandbird!!!!

I despise organizations that require or prefer you to “sign in with Facebook” to access their sites! This is monopolism that the Robber Barons of the 19th Century could not even dream about!!!!

If you’re on Facebook, government and politicians spy on your every move!!!!

Please—everyone—delete your Facebook accounts!!!! Do what you can to destroy any connections between Facebook and your other accounts, especially your own websites.

This MONSTER must be destroyed NOW!!!!


21 posted on 07/26/2016 2:37:19 PM PDT by Honorary Serb (Kosovo is Serbia! Free Srpska! Abolish ICTY!)
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To: tosh

I have been on FB for years and never use that feature. I can read and
decide for myself.


22 posted on 07/26/2016 2:37:30 PM PDT by MamaB (Heb. 13:2)
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To: tosh

I don’t even have a Facebook account.

My kids do but I don’t think they pay much attention to it. It seems people are bombarded with so much crap that even the stupid ones would learn to filter.


23 posted on 07/26/2016 2:41:02 PM PDT by toast
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To: opus1

I think it’s the lack of homogenization that drives the pendulum. The fact that there’s always some group of people who don’t like how it’s swinging making noise, blaming the world’s problems on it, drawing people to their thinking, eventually stacking enough people to make it start swinging the other way. Leaving behind people who like the other direction, lather rinse repeat.


24 posted on 07/26/2016 2:44:01 PM PDT by discostu (Joan Crawford has risen from the grave)
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To: discostu
Articles like this pre-suppose people will just do what FB says. And how were people managing to vote for the years before FB? It’s bunk.

I think it's more that Facebook can shape the understanding of the world that people who spend all their free time on Facebook have, to the point where Facebook doesn't have to tell people to do anything.

If the only information somebody gets is information inspired by a certain view of the world they'll vote the way the information controllers want them to.

25 posted on 07/26/2016 2:45:31 PM PDT by x
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To: Ransomed

Post $6 ~ “ Supposedly the dumbest 10% of voters decide the outcome of national elections, no matter the outcome, pub or dem, con or lib. All campaign money is meant to sway the swing voters, the ones who do manage to vote, but will vote one way and then another and usually can’t give a rational reason why.”

Yes, the independent/undecided bloc has always been a mysterious anathema to me. Undecided? How can a cognitive citizen be undecided after a year long primary and now currently Conventions?! Whaaa?

Independent, Libertarian, etc. ~ Don’t they know how they are wasting their votes? Maybe they think a non-vote will help their candidate?

With the help of God, Trump will win a monumental victory in November...


26 posted on 07/26/2016 2:47:44 PM PDT by heterosupremacist ("Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." Thomas Jefferson)
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To: tosh

Congratulations to all conservative minded individuals having facebook accounts. So, tell me. How does it feel to wallow in facebook filth for the sole purpose of convenience? I never knew how cheaply human souls were until facebook came along. Hope you “conservative” or “religious” facebook-ers are happy with just how convenient facebook has made your lives. Sorry but I have too much respect for myself to ever swim in the human filth of facebook. You all are dancing with the devil. I hope it’s worth it! SUCKERS!


27 posted on 07/26/2016 2:59:13 PM PDT by DonPaulJonesII (The only thing worse than a democrat is a lousy, dishonest, disloyal scumbag republican.)
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To: Honorary Serb

Puck Phasebook and the Suckerturd it rode in on.


28 posted on 07/26/2016 3:04:46 PM PDT by Gasshog (Clinton denies... Except to see a lot of this)
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To: tosh

It really IS that easy, and it really DOES work!

“The New Mind Control”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3402352/posts


29 posted on 07/26/2016 3:05:19 PM PDT by EasySt (Time to build that gulch..)
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To: All

Pretty dang sad that this is within the realm of possibility....

Not from a technological leftist activist corporate point of view, but that our society is so facebook addicted, reality deficient and so easily manipulated that anyone would entertain such a notion.

If such a thing would work (And I wouldn’t put it past Suckerberg and his minions to try) then we deserve to be ruled as slaves by Hillary and her like.


30 posted on 07/26/2016 3:06:08 PM PDT by LegendHasIt
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To: tosh

Trump can read too, as can Ivanka and his son and advisors.

We give him too little credit sometimes.

I have in the past, that’s for sure.

I’m sure quite soon someone will be on this.


31 posted on 07/26/2016 3:23:11 PM PDT by dp0622 (The only thing an upper crust conservative hates more than a liberal is a middle class conservative)
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To: tosh

That should read: “Government and corporations spy on your every move!!!!”


32 posted on 07/26/2016 3:28:36 PM PDT by Honorary Serb (Kosovo is Serbia! Free Srpska! Abolish ICTY!)
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To: tosh

I suspect that Google did something very similar in both of Obama’s elections.

Google’s CEO has said that he will never sell access to his election software to Republicans.


33 posted on 07/26/2016 3:30:31 PM PDT by marktwain
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To: tosh

They do, and it does. However, when I watch those interviews, I realize that they are selectively edited for the most dumb, most idiotic people out there. It’s for shock value.
I don’t think people on the whole are quite that dumb. Yet.


34 posted on 07/26/2016 3:56:59 PM PDT by vpintheak (Freedom is not equality; and equality is not freedom!)
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To: heterosupremacist

Well, to my understanding the swing voters are the swayable. But what could sway them is very unpredictable and irrational. Like it could be wearing an ugly tie, or being tongue-tied during a debate, or what a certain talking head points out about the debate. They are voting for someone for sure, but it’s a toss up as to who until whatever triggers them happens.

We haven’t had 65% eligible voter turnout since 1908. Most of the time it has been much less than that. But maybe that is a good thing.

Freegards


35 posted on 07/26/2016 5:17:20 PM PDT by Ransomed
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To: DonPaulJonesII

I am so glad this social media dog squeeze passed me by. Seems like it only causes problems for folks, changes the way they think or something. Maybe we weren’t meant to know what some person in china thinks about everything in these little discrete blurbs, much less our neighbors.

Freegards


36 posted on 07/26/2016 5:20:15 PM PDT by Ransomed
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To: Honorary Serb

Post of the Day.


37 posted on 07/26/2016 5:36:13 PM PDT by StAnDeliver (PS - Vote Trump. Vote Coal.)
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To: MamaB
"I have been on FB for years and never use that feature. I can read and decide for myself."

Doesn't mean you're not being spied upon by Facebook...

38 posted on 07/26/2016 5:36:53 PM PDT by StAnDeliver (PS - Vote Trump. Vote Coal.)
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To: DonPaulJonesII

Ouch. Am loving this thread.


39 posted on 07/26/2016 5:38:26 PM PDT by StAnDeliver (PS - Vote Trump. Vote Coal.)
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To: StAnDeliver
Boy, they sure learn a lot about me. Nothing on there to interest them unless they like to learn about new babies, deaths, etc. This 72 year old great grandmother does not lead a very interesting life. Oh. They learn I am a Bulldog fan and have been since the early 1950’s when Jack Cristil started play by play for the MSU Bulldogs. I learned football by drawing the plays he announced. RIP Jack. You are loved and missed. There is/was none better than “Wrap it in Maroon and White” Cristil.
40 posted on 07/26/2016 6:02:26 PM PDT by MamaB (Heb. 13:2)
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