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A Facebook executive warns the company’s employees not to tilt the scales against Trump
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | January 8, 2020 | The New York Times

Posted on 01/08/2020 10:59:45 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks

SAN FRANCISCO — Since the 2016 election, when Russian trolls and a tsunami of misinformation turned social media into a partisan battlefield, Facebook has wrestled with the role it played in President Donald Trump’s victory.

Now, according to a memo obtained by The New York Times, a longtime Facebook executive told employees that the company had a moral duty not to tilt the scales against Trump as he seeks reelection.

On Dec. 30, Andrew Bosworth, head of Facebook’s virtual and augmented reality division, wrote on his internal Facebook page that, as a liberal, he found himself wanting to use the social network’s powerful platform against Trump. But citing the “Lord of the Rings” franchise and philosopher John Rawls, Bosworth said that doing so would eventually backfire.

“I find myself desperately wanting to pull any lever at my disposal to avoid the same result,” he wrote. “So what stays my hand? I find myself thinking of the Lord of the Rings at this moment.

“Specifically when Frodo offers the ring to Galadrial and she imagines using the power righteously, at first, but knows it will eventually corrupt her,” he said, misspelling the name of the character Galadriel. “As tempting as it is to use the tools available to us to change the outcome, I am confident we must never do that or we will become that which we fear.”

(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: California
KEYWORDS: 1stamendment; 2020election; andrewbosworth; balance; censorship; elections; facebook; fakebook; fascistbook; markzuckerberg; politicalads; socialmedia; trump; trump2020; zuckerberg
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To: Buckeye McFrog

“Zuckerberg met Trump for lunch a couple of weeks back.
Coincidence??”

Yep, two days day after Warren said she was going to break up Google and Facebook.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.


21 posted on 01/08/2020 11:18:47 AM PST by setter
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

“As tempting as it is to use the tools available to us to change the outcome...”, he says. Way to admit they have the power and ability to alter elections and remove the civil rights of millions of voters! When do the lawsuits start?


22 posted on 01/08/2020 11:18:59 AM PST by Retrofitted
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Individuals don't have to scrub Trump ads, the already slanted logarithms will do the dirty work for them.

Good grief, no one could eyeball the ads, it has to be done by the system itself.

23 posted on 01/08/2020 11:20:36 AM PST by USS Alaska (Nuke the terrorist mooselimb savages, today.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Are you a moral person if you're THAT CLOSE to doing it and you're ONLY SAVED by a book?

To me, that's telling -> that's it's not par for the course to just do the dang obviously ethical thing and not mess with numbers.

Imagine 100 democrats at polling stations with responsibility. Do they all have the difficult internal struggle? Of course of half of them lose the struggle.

And this is really very telling about the projection of democrats. Those 50 who struggled and won -> they think very highly of themselves, they think THAT is morality. But it's NOT morality. It's 'being not yet totally corrupted but probably next time.'

So with racism for example -> you have some democrat who is very tempted to think he's better than a black person, but he really tries hard and is able to not think that ... and he thinks he is 'not racist.' Yet most of us out here on the right don't really give a crap in the first place and don't have to go through a struggle. Of course we're not 'woke' we were never asleep.

But as a result of these inner struggles, they think they are moral. MORAL is not having the struggle about, say, stealing votes, in the first place.

24 posted on 01/08/2020 11:20:53 AM PST by tinyowl
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

A token, plausible deniability, gesture.


25 posted on 01/08/2020 11:23:35 AM PST by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not Averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
On Dec. 30, Andrew Bosworth, head of Facebook’s virtual and augmented reality division

Hey Andy...time to update your resume.

26 posted on 01/08/2020 11:26:30 AM PST by spokeshave (If anything, Trump is guilty of attempting to obstruct injustice.)
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To: Ancesthntr

He isn’t being honest. He is telegraphing the staff what to do. He expects them to attempt to tip the election against Trump. Haven’t you realized yet, liberals do the exact opposite of what they say.


27 posted on 01/08/2020 11:32:28 AM PST by EBH (DNC=Party NON GRATA)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Guess who wants plausible deniability? Fecal matter is about to impact the fan.


28 posted on 01/08/2020 11:38:36 AM PST by Steamburg (Other people's money is the only language a politician respects; starve the bastards)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

As Subotai Bahadur so eloquently said elsewhere -

subotaibahadur 20 hours ago

The sole purpose of the memo is a doomed attempt to achieve plausible deniability.

Subotai Bahadur


29 posted on 01/08/2020 11:47:35 AM PST by Sir Napsalot (Pravda + Useful Idiots = USSR; Journ0List + Useful Idiots = DopeyChangey)
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To: Ancesthntr
. . . but at least he is an HONEST liberal who understands that power corrupts

It seems to me that he is a liberal rather than a progressive.

If all of the Democrats were this kind of liberal, this would be a totally different country and Congress would be a worthy place to hash out differences. They aren't and Congress isn't.

30 posted on 01/08/2020 12:19:03 PM PST by newberger (Put not your trust in princes, in sons of men in whom there is no salvation.)
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To: Eleutheria5

here in Hollywood, I have the same answer when they keep saying “check out my Facebook page” which is “I dont do Facebook and never will”. The look on their faces is almost the same way they saw a rotary phone..


31 posted on 01/08/2020 12:21:36 PM PST by max americana (Fired ONE libtard at work at every election since 2008 because I enjoy them crying)
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To: rktman

Watch what they do not what they say


32 posted on 01/08/2020 12:22:14 PM PST by gibsonguy
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Paging the guy with the hunger games girl rolling her eyes and doing a thumbs up gif.


33 posted on 01/08/2020 12:22:27 PM PST by ChinaGotTheGoodsOnClinton (Go Egypt on 0bama)
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To: max americana

Well then tweet me or instagram me? LOL! Here’s your rotary dial phone. Me too.


34 posted on 01/08/2020 12:27:43 PM PST by rktman ( #My2ndAmend! ----- Enlisted in the Navy in '67 to protect folks rights to strip my rights. WTH?)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Reminds me of the Susan Rice CYA memo she wrote to herself in which she claims Obama told the intelligence and law enforcement communities to go “by the book" in all matters related to the Trump investigations..
35 posted on 01/08/2020 12:37:39 PM PST by Kid Shelleen (Beat your plowshares into swords. Let the weak say I am strong)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

The correct CEO response is: “Continuing to use FB as a political weapon will put our company in danger of violating Anti Trust.


36 posted on 01/08/2020 12:59:52 PM PST by Zathras
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

He’s not saying not to do it because it’s wrong, but because it might bite them (him) in the ass.

We’re he noble, he would say:

“We’re here to facilitate conversations, not to direct them. Period. We do not and will never favor one side over another: not Democrat over Republican, not abortion over adoption, not women over men, not colored over white, not queer over straight, not socialism over capitalism, not vegan over animal, not spying over privacy.”


37 posted on 01/08/2020 1:03:51 PM PST by polymuser (It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and so few by deceit. Noel Coward)
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To: newberger

Most actual liberals are either dead or drooling all over themselves in nursing homes. Their children and grandchildren (those not aborted, IOW) are mostly a bunch of raving Leftists (I thoroughly dislike the term “progressive,” since the very word is intended to mislead people into a belief about those who are Leftist scum).


38 posted on 01/08/2020 1:06:07 PM PST by Ancesthntr ("The right to buy weapons is the right to be free." A. E. van Vogt, The Weapons Shops of Isher)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Too late Gollum.


39 posted on 01/08/2020 1:22:12 PM PST by glorgau
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Which means they will.

They are also admitting they have the power to do it.


40 posted on 01/08/2020 2:28:50 PM PST by headstamp 2 (There's a stairway to heaven, but there's a highway to hell.)
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