CSotD: And another thing …
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The Facebook thing isn't going away, and it's probably less a testament to the harm done than a testament to Facebook's ubiquity and how we all love a pile-on.
Tom the Dancing Bug has a nice roundup of complaints, though I'd argue with him, or at least with them, on the one at the upper right, because I tried paying Facebook to boost CSotD and never saw a blip in hits at the website, though if someone wants to give me a couple of grand to see what a significant payment would do, we could try again.
In terms of the scandal, while I saw many deceptive, divisive memes later attributed to Russian bots, no actual "advertisements" ever got through to me, nor have I seen any reported since.
I assumed the memes were being spread by having other bots like and share, but perhaps they were the ads.
If they were either being "boosted" or directly placed as ads, I wonder what their budgets were?
I wouldn't expect Facebook to keep up with everybody who threw in $60 to boost a personal posting, but $60 won't do squat, and I think they should be able to monitor bigger spenders.
Meanwhile, since there is no problem that doesn't allow people to feel superior, we're seeing articles about how the difference in the election was not Facebook anyway, but television coverage and mostly the amount of attention news programs lavished on Trump's antics.
Which was definitely a factor and was discussed at the time and news organizations should be ashamed of themselves for being played so readily, but wait a damn minute.
Advertising analysts have argued over media mix at least since 1905 when Earnest Elmo Calkins and Ralph Holden's seminal book on the topic, "Modern Advertising," dispensed advice on use of streetcar placards in addition to direct mail, newspapers and magazines.
No competent ad pro has ever advocated no mix at all.
Put bluntly, while those who say, "It wasn't Facebook; it was cable TV," may be vying to look like the smartest guys in the room, the idea that it was one or the other is imbecilic.
Juxtaposition of the Day #1
Both cartoonists are right, and I particularly like MacKay's use of "Test Your IQ" because it's sure an opportunity to do just that, though, as noted here yesterday and in the interests of not blaming the victims, the entire data-mining venture is based on already knowing the public's IQ.
Franklin Foer goes farther than I would in his call to regulate the Internet, but I certainly agree with this:
The law protects us from banks that would abuse our ignorance and human weaknesses—and it precludes the commodification of our financial data. When manufacturers of processed food have stuffed their products with terrible ingredients, the government has forced them into transparently revealing the full list of components. After we created transportation systems, the government insisted on speed limits and seat belts. There are loopholes in all of this, but there’s an unassailable consensus that these rules are far better than the alternative. We need to extend our historic model to our new world.
Though I'd allow advertisers to entrap the lascivious nitwits who haven't figured out what Arlo has.
After all, allowing wolves to harvest lame, sick deer improves the overall health of the herd.
Juxtaposition of the Day #2
(Everybody has a theory on this, and, while Lester attributes it to a liberal plot gone awry, Danziger focuses on Bannon and his moneyman, Robert Mercer, with both cartoonists attributing to Zuckerberg a level of intent and knowledge I find, at best, unproven.
Zuckerberg is an indisputed genius, but perhaps in using his engineering skills to create something that fed a human appetite, he simply lucked out over those who created things that didn't match the public appetite, and also above those who recognized the appetite but whose creations failed to feed it.
Intelligence and talent tend to specialize. My brother taught philosophy at the Naval Academy and so faced classes of extremely bright college students, which should have made it easy except that Middies are primarily engineers, not poets, and there were times he might as well have been teaching Plato in the original Greek for all they could absorb of it.
If I were a political cartoonist — which I am not — I might have depicted Zuckerberg this way, unleashing things that seemed like a really good idea at first and then got totally out of control.
Which doesn't let him off the hook for the damage done, any more than "I didn't see him" lets you off the hook for hitting a pedestrian with your car.
Though these pedestrians seemed awfully eager to run out in front of that car.
Speaking of people who are not political cartoonists
Jim Carrey is drawing fire for what may or may not be a cartoon or a caricature of She Who Must Not Be Mocked.
Granted, he's not Hogarth, but come on, folks.
That Washington Post writer is only one purported journalist suddenly gone blind:
The cartoon — believed to be White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders — shows a scowling woman, which he referred to as a “so-called Christian whose only purpose in life is to lie for the wicked.”
People Magazine calls it "a portrait … that many assume is of White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders."
And ABC News described it as "a caricature … that looks to be inspired by White House press secretary Sarah Sanders."
And Comic Strip of the Day said "Who do you think it is? Whoopie Goldberg? Shirley-fucking-Temple?"
Fortunately for my overall opinion of the human race, this writer from W explains it all in a spirit far more entertaining than (even) I could. Go read that.
But, seriously, if the mainstream media is too frightened of talk radio's troll army to report the obvious, Facebook's issues are small potatoes indeed.
(This picture of what many think is Dobby is also not a real political cartoon.)
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