I don’t happen to agree with the premise that the so-called “free marketplace of ideas” is an unmitigated good or that unlimited, untraceable, unaccountable campaign spending should be considered a protected form of speech.
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Late Monday, Facebook said in a post that about 10 million people had seen the ads in question. About 44 percent of the ads were seen before the 2016 election and the rest after, the company said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/technology/facebook-russia-ads-.html
The goal of the dog lovers’ page was more obscure. But some analysts suggested a possible motive: to build a large following before gradually introducing political content. Without viewing the entire feed from the page, now closed by Facebook, it is impossible to say whether the Russian operators tried such tactics.
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Laika also had a secret career piloting the Steklov. She unfortunately missed her target re-entry date by a few hours. Having learnt her lesson well, ads will be correctly placed for our 2020 spectacle.
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yeah, well citizens united is an entirely different topic altogether. any thoughts on the gist of my comment?
also slightly off topic, but for the sake of cognitive dissonance, i’ll leave this here:
I wholeheartedly reject the premise that we should be happy to allow a hostile foreign power to covertly influence our elections by secretly buying up ads on social media just because it falls under some naive notion of “the free marketplace of ideas.”
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ok, i’ll take that as a ‘no’.
I quoted you verbatim and explained why I disagreed with you so I don’t see why you think I’m ignoring the gist of your comment.
You seem to think this is all still fine just because Russia didn’t “force” anyone to vote for Trump. I would point out that the conspiracy in The Manchurian Candidate didn’t involve forcing voters to back the conspirators’ candidate of choice either.
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You’re missing the point. The U.S. has a history of interfering in foreign elections, therefore Americans should ignore what Putin is doing now and do nothing about it.
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Not even call attention to it, apparently!
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Now you’re getting it. What’s the big deal? It’s just Putin expressing his heartfelt support for BLM in America’s free marketplace of ideas (perfectly consistent with the even larger expressions of heartfelt support he gives to racist GOP politicians and alt-right causes).
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