Facebook Memories — What They Show
At the conclusion of the 2016 presidential election I remember posting on Facebook that Facebook Memories would come around in the future to remind us how Hillary Clinton’s campaign rigged the Democratic Primary and how Donald Trump’s campaign used the Crosscheck voter elimination system to rig the general election.
A fair nation would have invalided those 2016 election results and would have called for a new election. Oh, well. I guess this is why the United States of America is rated a “flawed democracy.”
In fact, many argue America has become a “Banana Republic.”
Back to Facebook Memories
Future Facebook Memories will also remind us exactly how false much of the RussiaGate propaganda has been, as espoused by the US corporate media which has daily-dosed parroted rhetoric from opportunistic politicians and CIA-Pentagon plants. Now a monopolized media of five conglomerates controlling 90% of all US media, it’s easy to understand why and how the press no longer is the last defense of free citizens. Investigative journalism budgets have been severely slashed, and the ombudsmen media critic positions all completely eliminated.
So, today, we’re left with a scenario whereby Trump is the one heralding how mainstream media is “fake media.” What’s ironic is the mainstream media is perfectly content letting Trump make this criticism as he is a renown a serial liar: Who better would you want criticizing you than a serial liar? Meanwhile, the necessary and objective criticism of the media washes over unnoticed much like water off a duck.
But then there’s the pesky matter of Facebook Memories. Facebook draws all kinds of criticism, and how could it not given the nature of this tell-all/tattle-tale beast inherently presenting — notwithstanding its censorship tactics — a delusion of “people power.” Still it remains a public record for any future earth-visiting alien to digest.
The Russians Are Coming — Er-Ah, They Came!
What would you like, salt and pepper or Russia-Russia-Russia over your meal? Perhaps a Putin-Trump buddy-buddy bed-time story before you go to sleep? And really now. What would it be like to wake up to a Kremlin sun?
The media has bombasted us with foul over how the Russians took over the 2016 election, enabling the electorate to pick not a mob-made man but rather a Russian-made man. Technically, however, given Trump’s multiple mobside business deals and his penchant for soiled linen, the Russians are the least of his problems. And if you truly examine our nation within, you’ll discover the Russians are the least of our problems as Americans.
So America’s media has deeply instilled the notion that a two-bit Russian click-bait advertising firm, the Internet Research Agency (IRA), actually helped to steal our election what with its advertising tactics on Facebook, Twitter, Google and Instagram where both anti-Clinton/pro-Clinton and anti-Trump/pro-Trump material got posted (for example, see NYT — Sept. 6, 2017, Fake Russian Facebook Accounts Bought $100,000 in Political Ads).
Wowza!
I’m not quite sure what to make of this, given Clinton pumped out a two billion dollar campaign and the weight of all the US publicity and advertising marketing machine went solidly behind both Clinton and Trump. So I’m left to wonder: Am I being indoctrinated by Putin’s Russia or good ole’-fashioned American capitalism? On balance, we all know the answer.
My 12/22/18 Facebook Memory Feed:
https://www.facebook.com/michael.r.weddle/posts/1998335023584669
Facebook wanted to prove it’s a good citizen (in America corporations are legally considered people — lol!) so it offered its users an after-the-fact look at whether we might have become bamboozled by the Russians. Facebook offered a search mechanism for users to determine whether they viewed or liked any of the IRC’s cruel electioneering advertisements.
So I did the search!
As background, I came in #3 of 220,000 contestants in CNN’s Political Prediction Market contest and I’ve been designated by Medium.com as a Top 2016 Election Writer. I’ve also been posting politics daily, near 24/7, since the presidential candidates made their announcements in 2015, and I’ve easily have made 10’s of thousands of political posts on Facebook and Twitter. According to the Facebook app, not once did I ever interact, view or like a Russian IRA bot account. How on earth did the Russians miss lil’ ole’ me — lol?
Indeed, if the Russians were so prevalent on the internet how could a political junkie like me miss their influence? Frankly, all I saw was American media indoctrination!
Interestingly, were Facebook to provide this same search service for Trumpbot or Hillbot accounts, I’m certain the list would be way-way too long. If any meddling were done in the 2016 election it was not from the Russians but rather it was what Clinton did to Sanders in the Dem primary and then what Trump did to Clinton in the general.
Here’s a great example of US meddling. Twitter censored 48% of tweets using the #DNCleak hashtag and 25% of tweets with the hashtag #PodestaEmails, according to Twitter general counsel Sean Edgett in his written testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee (read committee transcript).
A Commission should be formed to investigate the entire 2016 election. The reasons why Clinton lost had absolutely nothing to do with the Russians!
