onfocus

"Though this adds some extra friction for those who simply want to Retweet, we hope it will encourage everyone to not only consider why they are amplifying a Tweet, but also increase the likelihood that people add their own thoughts, reactions and perspectives to the conversation."

This. But seriously, happy to see Twitter adding some friction to the system to slow misinformation. If friction helps the system during an election, why not all the time?

"Your vote is your most tangible connection to the idea of democratic government. It’s the only form of political power most Americans possess. It’s proof that government of, by, and for the people hasn’t yet perished from the Earth. Your vote is personal. For a president to throw it out would be an audacious undertaking."

Voting has become a partisan issue: Democrats want everyone to vote and Republicans want to limit access. Keep that in mind as you hear arguments about the futility of voting—that argument works in favor of one party. If there’s no difference between the parties for your life, think about friends and neighbors like Elaine Atwell. I thought this tweet was a heartfelt way to explain the difference.

"President Trump berated his own cabinet officers on Thursday for not prosecuting or implicating his political enemies, lashing out even as he announced that he hoped to return to the campaign trail on Saturday just nine days after he tested positive for the coronavirus."

It has been a super normal series of days that have been regular and downright hinged. In a functioning society this wouldn’t be happening. Please vote for a functioning society.

“We have to think about the QAnon networks as the rails upon which misinformation is driven,” said Joan Donovan, research director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

It’s never too late to do the right thing. Like Casey Newton, it does make me wonder why now?

"The staff found, after a 16-month investigation into competitive practices at Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google, that the four businesses enjoy monopoly power that needs to be reined in by Congress and enforcers."

Findings! This all sounds promising but I’m skeptical that we’ll see meaningful change. That monopoly power has been very useful to the government.

"Our results are based on analyzing over fifty-five thousand online media stories, five million tweets, and seventy-five thousand posts on public Facebook pages garnering millions of engagements.  They are consistent with our findings about the American political media ecosystem from 2015-2018, published in Network Propaganda, in which we found that Fox News and Donald Trump’s own campaign were far more influential in spreading false beliefs than Russian trolls or Facebook clickbait artists."

People believe the President and he’s a disinformation campaign.

"But there was no sweeping transformation in the way many of the president’s most devoted supporters view the virus — and no sense of urgency to alter their behavior to better protect themselves. The president’s many arguments about the coronavirus...seemed to inoculate many in the Trump camp against rethinking their approach to the virus."

This cult of personality and magical thinking will not change easily and the damage it causes is going to be with us for a long time.

The world doesn’t deserve another mouth sounds but we got one anyway. (On your wedding day.) Yahoooo!

"While Facebook allows politicians to make false claims in their ads — arguing that voters deserve an unfiltered view of what candidates and elected officials say — advertisements by super PACs and other independent groups are subject to the company's policies on misinformation"

"Despite the rules, the super PACs have not faced significant repercussions, said Avaaz, nor have users who engaged with the ads been notified that they have been exposed to misleading content."

10 million micro-targeted views of misinformation. How much damage can one monopoly do before we use our antitrust laws? We're going to see this same story over and over until we do. Facebook is so handy for swaying voters for people in charge of using antitrust laws that I'm not sure we'll see it without public pressure.

"Call it the Interregnum: the interval from Election Day to the next president’s swearing-in. It is a temporal no-man’s-land between the presidency of Donald Trump and an uncertain successor—a second term for Trump or a first for Biden. The transfer of power we usually take for granted has several intermediate steps, and they are fragile."

Oh nothing, just doing some light reading about America's pending existential crisis. We've seen so many unlikely events around the minority party ruling after elections in this country that I think we should take the current minority vote-getting President's frequent threats to democracy seriously.