Monday, April 25, 2022
Sunday, April 24, 2022
Obama Warns Us About The Evil Of Misinformation
The following op-ed is by Zeeshan Aleem at MSNBC.com:
On Thursday, former President Barack Obama traveled to Silicon Valley and delivered one of his bluntest critiques yet of tech companies, which he said have fostered discord and disinformation at the expense of democracy.
Tech analysts correctly pointed out that Obama’s speech had its shortcomings — that it was vague on key details about solutions and didn’t advance a novel analysis of the way social media companies operate. But he did make nuanced points about the origins of and scope of the problem.
Most importantly, he used his enormous influence to counsel the public to think proactively about tech not just as consumers, but also as citizens. He eloquently made the case against “fatalistic” despair about technology, and encouraged people to think about how technology can be reshaped to serve, and not undermine, democracy.
Obama's speech, which he delivered at Stanford University, had the potential to be a stream of clichés about how we’re so divided as a society because we’re all glued to our phones and read different news sites. Fortunately, it wasn’t that. He took care to point out that major social media platforms exacerbate pre-existing divisions in our democracy, which emerged and persist for many reasons, including economic displacements from automation and globalization, the nationalist backlash against multiculturalism, dysfunction in our political system, and the ways in which the rise of successful authoritarian regimes such as China have made it easier “to discount democracy’s appeal.”
Looking back on his time in office, the former president said he regretted his “failure to fully appreciate at the time just how susceptible we had become to lies and conspiracy theories” — and he said he thinks Russian-backed social media disinformation operations in the run-up to the 2016 election exploited divisions that were already pervading domestically. Referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin, he said, “Putin didn’t do that. He didn’t have to. We did it to ourselves.”
With those qualifications — and with a general acknowledgement of the positive qualities of the tech revolution — Obama argued that the business models of social media platforms have now decisively tilted the experience of the internet toward less understanding and more rage:
Twenty years ago, pillars of web search were comprehensiveness, relevance and speed. But with the rise of social media and the need to better understand people’s online behavior, in order to sell more advertising, companies want to collect more data. More companies optimized for personalization, engagement and speed. And unfortunately, it turns out that inflammatory, polarizing content attracts and engages.
Over the course of his speech, Obama called for democratic oversight of social media companies while protecting free speech rights. He endorsed the Platform Accountability and Transparency Act, a bill that would require social media companies to disclose data to independent researchers on how their products work. He also called for the reform of Section 230, a law that protects companies from legal liability for what’s on their platforms. And he argued that there need to be explicit criteria for how to reform social media companies that go beyond discussing profit models:
The way I’m going to evaluate any proposal touching on social media and the internet is whether it strengthens or weakens the prospects for a healthy, inclusive democracy; whether it encourages robust debate and respect for our differences; whether it reinforces rule of law and self-governance; whether it helps us make collective decisions based on the best available information; and whether it recognizes the rights and freedoms and dignity of all our citizens.
As a number of tech experts expressed, Obama’s proposed solutions are vague. For example, it’s unclear how he wants to tweak Section 230. A mandate for tech companies to moderate content couldpotentially restrict free expression in ways that are at odds with the First Amendment, and it could encumber smaller companies far more than bigger ones. And Obama’s guiding principles of creating rules that strengthen healthy democracy are vague enough that companies like Facebook — no virtuous friend of civic health — can claim they’re already upholding some of them. They’re also broad enough to support diametrically opposed views on issues like content moderation. For example, less content moderation might be seen as the best defense for political dissent — a clear measure of the health of democracy; more aggressive moderation might be argued to be the best way to protect against harassment and incitement to violence. Obama presented us with dilemmas, but he did not pierce through them.
But that may be because he, himself, isn’t really clear on the answers. (That’s the case for me as well.) And on balance, Obama pushed the debate in a distinctly positive direction by encouraging people to shake off a sense of “grimness” regarding social media. Leaning into his signature optimism, he encouraged the public to think of technology as a tool, not just the way the world is.
“The handwritten sign was a tool. TV’s a tool. The internet is a tool. Social media is a tool,” he said. “At the end of the day, tools don’t control us. We control them, and we can remake them.”
“It’s up to each of us to decide what we value and then use the tools we’ve been given to advance those values,” he continued. “And I believe we should use every tool at our disposal to secure our greatest gift: a government of, by, for the people, for generations to come.” That's a paradigm I can get behind.
Saturday, April 23, 2022
Biden Job Approval Low (But Not As Low As Trump's Was)
The chart above is from the Gallup Poll. The survey was done in February, March, and April of a nationwide sample of 3,043 adults, and has a 2 point margin of error.
It shows that President Biden's job approval in the fifth quarter of his presidency is low (41.3%). But it's not as low as Trump's in his fifth quarter (39.1%).
The Core Of The Republican Party Is Rotten
The Republican Party is no longer the loyal opposition -- willing to negotiate for the good of this country and its democracy. It is a cult of hate that's only interested in gaining and keeping power -- even if it destroys our democracy in the process.
The following op-ed is by Mark Z. Barabak in The Los Angeles Times:
There’s a rot at the core of the Republican Party, and neither the party nor the country will heal until it’s excised.
The latest evidence of that malignancy comes in a New York Times report about the Jan. 6 insurrection and how GOP congressional leaders responded in the immediate aftermath. The shock and revulsion reflected in their words and deeds present a stark contrast to today’s party line, which essentially amounts to move along, nothing to see here.
The article, published Thursday, reported that House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy and his Senate counterpart, Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, told associates they believed President Trump was responsible for inciting the attack on the Capitol. It also said the two vowed to drive him from politics.
“I’ve had it with this guy,” McCarthy reportedly told a group of Republican leaders, saying he would advise Trump that he was going to be impeached and should resign. The article said McCarthy even considered ways to invoke the 25th Amendment, forcing Trump’s removal, before concluding that was not viable.
Pity. It seems that only after weighing political calculations and parsing self-interests did McCarthy and McConnell back away from saying and doing the right thing.
McCarthy flatly denied the New York Times’ account. “Totally false and wrong,” the Bakersfield Republican said, though hours later he was heard on an audiotape broadcast on MSNBC saying that Trump would probably be impeached and should resign.
McConnell did not comment.
But there is ample evidence, starting with McCarthy’s own statement on the House floor, to document his timidity, his change of heart and his scurrying, after condemning the president, to place himself back beneath Trump’s thumb.
“The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters,” McCarthy said, bluntly and without equivocation, days after the riot. But within weeks — after the anti-Trump backlash that McCarthy and others had braced for failed to materialize — he was back at Mar-a-Lago on bended knee.
McConnell, who delivered a scorching floor speech calling the former president “morally responsible” for the attack on Congress, subsequently stated he would support Trump if he becomes the GOP’s 2024 presidential nominee.
Time and distance may have dulled recollections, so it’s worth remembering what happened on Jan. 6, 2021.
An unlawful mob spun up by Trump’s incessant and irresponsible lies resorted to violence in an unsuccessful effort to frighten Congress into overturning the clear-cut result of the November 2020 presidential election.
You may not like the fact Joe Biden won, or the result of any election, for that matter. You can disagree with one or all of a party’s policy positions.
However, under our system of government, those differences are resolved through elections. That, more than anything, undergirds our democracy. The voluntary, peaceful transfer of power is all.
That’s what came under assault on Jan. 6 and why McConnell and McCarthy, among so many others, reflexively recoiled. The visceral horror they felt at those events and the shocked disgust they directed at the riot’s orchestrator, the president of the United States, was telling.
Their evident change of heart is also telling.
McConnell, who has repeatedly proved himself as politically shrewd as he is ruthless, suggested it came down — as always — to maintaining his power.
“I didn’t get to be leader by voting with five people in the conference,” the New York Times quoted him as saying, by way of explaining why there was no standing on principle to remove Trump if it meant separating himself from the majority of Senate Republicans.
McCarthy’s motivation is just as plain. He wants to become speaker of the House. His chances rest not just on a robust November turnout by a unified Republican Partybut, more importantly, on staying in the good graces of the Trump acolytes whose votes he’ll need to become leader if, as seems likely, the GOP takes control in January.
The fact that politicians say one thing and do another is hardly revelatory.
What is repugnant about the evident deceit of McCarthy, McConnell and many others in Trump’s thrall is that they know better than to believe the lies he keeps spreading. (Some acknowledge as much in private.)
They see the damage he has done, and continues to do, with his persistent devaluation of truth and campaigning to undercut future elections. Time and again, Trump has shown that his interests begin and end with himself.
Even if McCarthy and McConnell have backed off, Republicans should follow through on the actions they reportedly prescribed when Jan. 6 was still raw: seeing to it Trump is forever kept away from elected office.
Power at any cost is a steep price to pay, and it’s bankrupting the GOP. It’s also hurting our country.
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