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Thursday, October 8. 2020

I don't know how many Maggie's readers utilize social media, in particular Facebook. I do use Facebook, for a variety of reasons, even though I am aware of the privacy issues it poses. It remains a very good tool to share thoughts, experiences, moments in time, etc. It has helped me re-connect, and stay connected, to many family members and friends. I have investigated other, less intrusive, media like Parler, but I have not made that move to utilize yet.

I am not writing about social media, per se, though. Whatever your thoughts on its benefits or detriments are yours and you're welcome to them. Social media is a reality now, and I doubt it will be going away anytime soon. Personally, I don't use Instagram, Twitter, or most other social media. I limit myself to Facebook and Linked In. One for personal, the other for work.

What I find particularly troubling lately is the number of friends I have posting pictures of themselves mailing in ballots and writing "I voted, make sure you do, too - you know who I voted for." This is no different than taking a selfie while you're in the voting booth and saying "I voted, you know who I voted for." And while some people have done this, most people would find it very distasteful.

This may be the new reality, though. If it is, it's a troubling problem for the democratic process. The social pressures to 'vote the right way' are being ramped up. A new generation may not understand the problems with this, and many people who don't understand Democratic Theory may not, either. Here is a view supporting selfies which I find abhorrent, since the premise is based on the reason it being good is that it allows millienials to "convey information about their political views and engage with their friends about elections." No offense, but the vote itself is, and should be, private. While many of us share our political views, and even how we voted, that's a personal choice - not a fashion statement. Turning voting into a fashion statement is a dangerous thing. For what it's worth, the article supporting selfies points out that fraud is typically engaged via mail-in votes - a fact I'm sure Slate has shifted its position on in the last few months...

A final note. As I pointed out in the first sentence, the privacy issues of Facebook are problematic. Imagine sharing your selfies on Facebook, which already has collected a ton of information about your political views from your posts, what you've clicked on, even sites you've visited (just a reminder - not having a Facebook account does NOT mean you're immune to them collecting your data. They can do it whether you're on there or not - and they certainly do collect it.), and now they can prove from your selfie that you 'did the right thing for the party.' It's a pleasant thought.

Posted by Bulldog in Politics at 10:35 | Comments (27) | Trackbacks (0)

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The problem I have with facebook is that it is like taking a shower in the window of Macy's during the parade. Everything is on display for everyone, you have zero control. We have relatives who post really stupid things on facebook and we often remark don't they know that the aunts and uncles see this? I think too that facebook forces many people to double down on mistakes. That is they say something political and stupid and get called out on it. They become defensive and say even more stupid stuff which of course brings a whole new round of calling out. So now that person is totally committed to their stupid position just to prove how stubborn they can be. Facebook becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

#1 Anon on 2020-10-08 11:02 (Reply)

Go join GAB @GAB.com

No censorship; good communities and good FUN!

Continually working to offer the same features as FB and Twitter, ONLY BETTER!

#1.1 Old Codger on 2020-10-09 10:34 (Reply)

You know the old joke "If elections could change anything, they'd be illegal". What passes for "voting" nowadays is just a fraud. Politicians have a wide range of tools at their disposal to make sure that incumbents stay in office. Districting, Union deals, etc. And as you may note: There are never two platforms from which to choose. We're only offered a confusing mixture of options by both parties. In fact, the entire process is so fraudulent that it's pointless to even talk about voting reform. There is huge bureaucracy in Washington which will block any attempt at transparency. And since the system can't be fixed, the best thing to do is appoint interim Congressmen, and other elected officials. We should replace our entire House and Senate bodies with acting politico's, who can make the hard changes which is something that the real elected officials would never do. Take 95% of the laws off of the books, cancel public and military pensions, and close many unneeded government offices and agencies. Then reduce the tax code to ten pages. Citizens would be very happy after they see the positive effect that these changes would make. Lower taxes, simpler rules, and a legal environment which is good for business. A fresh start.

#2 Ron Liebermann on 2020-10-08 11:22 (Reply)

I find the voting pressures on social media equally distasteful, even as a millennial. You hit the nail on the head when you said "social pressures to vote the right way are being ramped up," and it's become the new cool thing to do to tack a #vote sticker (either real or augmented-reality style), and people are hopping on board that train en masse. I've deactivated my facebook and deleted instagram from my phone for that very reason.

100% agree that voting is a personal, private thing. The social pressures to vote at all and to vote a certain way are extremely high for people who've allowed themselves to be locked into social media and its virtual culture of fishbowl life.

PS-- even if you've never had a Facebook profile, they're collecting data on you by aggregating the data posted about you by others. If your face is in a photo on someone else's account, their facial recognition technology files that away in a "shadow profile" dedicated to you. Ostensibly, Facebook's excuse for doing this is to make your life easier (should you ever sign up for an account) by having all your data linked to your account, just waiting for you to claim it. There's also plenty of circumstantial coincidences to suggest that Facebook is a DARPA project that (quite insidiously) gets individuals to post their personal information and life details on the internet for the government to track, namely that a DARPA-funded project called "LifeLog," whose premise sounds remarkably like a social media platform, was publicly killed on the same day that Facebook incorporated as a company (Feb 4th, 2004). Food for thought!

https://www.wired.com/2004/02/pentagon-kills-lifelog-project/

#3 jolizbish on 2020-10-08 11:45 (Reply)

afterthoughts-- Facebook owns Instagram and a few other platforms, so it wouldn't be far-fetched to assume that the data aggregation and shadow profile compilation is happening across all those platforms. Additionally, the term "crowdsourced spying" comes to mind.

#3.1 jolizbish on 2020-10-08 11:48 (Reply)

As I pointed out, that's not the only way they do it. They collect tons of information on you when you visit web pages with a Facebook "share" button on it (which is, after all, EVERY page on the web these days).

They use this to create 'shadow accounts' of individuals so that they know who you are as you move around the web. FB denies this happens, but there is more than enough evidence to prove it is occurring. I first stumbled on this 8 years ago when doing some work for my firm and learned that having those FB "share" links collected massive amounts of information whether they are used or not.

I'll add this. If you buy online, Amazon is doing the same thing. Don't think they aren't.

#3.2 Bulldog on 2020-10-08 15:30 (Reply)

Take your selfie voting for Harris-Biden. Then tear up the paper, throw it in the trash. Now, grow up, go to the polling station and vote for Trump-Pence. Seems like a good compromise?

#4 Nat Brooks on 2020-10-08 12:10 (Reply)

Oh, Nat! I really like that idea!

#4.1 Linda S Fox (Link) on 2020-10-08 14:02 (Reply)

While I completely understand the frustration with folks broadcasting their personal choices regarding voting, social media in general, and Facebook in particular, is almost completely driven by that behavior. While privacy is a concern for me, the reason I left Facebook shortly after joining many years ago was the level of oversharing people do about themselves personally. I simply don't need that much information about my friends and neighbors, and one's voting habits are a fairly minor aspect of that. It may be that it would be easier to remain connected with my family using Facebook, but I'm old enough to have experience doing that without it and it works just fine.

#5 SurferJunkieDude on 2020-10-08 12:43 (Reply)

The social pressures to 'vote the right way' are being ramped up.

As long as there is the privacy of the voting booth I just don't see how this is a problem. There has been social pressure to vote a certain way as long as there has been a republic. It may indeed be amplified because of social media, but one's peers/social circle has long pressured the odd man out to vote the 'right' way. After all it strengthens the tribe and improves group harmony.

If pressure to vote a certain way on social media is a problem, just turn it off. It's way easier to deal with than having to deal with co-workers or a boss that want you to vote their way.

I am still a 20th century man in a 21st century world. The social media formats hold no appeal for me.

#6 feeblemind on 2020-10-08 13:16 (Reply)

If you're on the web, you're on Facebook, that was kind've my point.

With regard to the idea that these pressures are mounting - I suggest watching 2 "Black Mirror" episodes. "Waldo" and "Downfall", in particular, are bleak futures of presumed 'fairness' and 'free speech'.

"Downfall", especially, because it's about social media and interaction. It even focuses on what happens to people who don't 'join' up. They live freer, but less fulfilling, lives.

My view is there are all kinds of trade-offs in life, but some are trade-offs we're not even aware we're making.

#6.1 Bulldog on 2020-10-08 15:33 (Reply)

Black Mirror. I wanted to watch that but the wife did not. However, she is traveling at the moment.

I'll do as you suggest, Bulldog and take a look.

My view is there are all kinds of trade-offs in life, but some are trade-offs we're not even aware we're making.

I concur. 100%.

"Downfall", especially, because it's about social media and interaction. It even focuses on what happens to people who don't 'join' up. They live freer, but less fulfilling, lives.

That may be the way it happens in the show but that outcome is debatable. I am not a joiner and life is mostly good. Is it less fulfilling? Who knows? I sure don't feel like there is a void in my life that social media will fill, unless of course you count Maggie's Farm as social media. ;-)

As for living freer, that can be fulfilling in itself.

#6.1.1 feeblemind on 2020-10-08 19:23 (Reply)

In last night's debate Pence was asked if he would support actions in Indiana to outlaw abortions, should authority over it revert back to the states. I saw it as an attempt to alienate the Trump ticket from Indiana voters. But she was also basically asking Pence how he would vote as a private citizen and resident of Indiana. I thought he should have told her that it's none of her damn business how he would vote on that or any other ballot question.

I find human behavior on FB disturbing. The airing of dirty laundry, personal fights, tributes to deceased, family matters, etc., that people put out there for all the world to witness. Have you run into old friends or girlfriends from high school, post FB era? It used to be a brief conversation and polite compliments, a few laughs about the good ol' days, and ending with a "Nice to see you, take care". Now, I already know your kids' names and ages, where you work, who you just divorced or married, where you went on vacation last year, who you voted for, and the political rant you got into with a mutual FB friend last week. It makes for a very weird chance encounter at the grocery store.

I said I find human behavior on FB disturbing. I deleted my account after finding out about the death of an old friend (and wife of an even older friend) on a FB post. This was less than 24 hours after she was deceased. I don't even think her family had been informed yet.

#7 Jack Walter on 2020-10-08 14:11 (Reply)

The situation is much more sinister than people think.

If people aren't aware of this, Facebook is a primary way a facial recognition system, a la Communist China, has been developed and can be instantly implemented in this country. It's called "Facebook" for a reason (cynical programming nerd humor here). Every time you put up a selfie or other photo of yourself, that gets put in the facial recognition database. Note that if you have a picture of yourself as your "cover photo," Facebook is constantly asking if you want to update that. More ID photos in the facial recognition database. Sometimes when things happen, like gay marriage, or Black Lives Matter, it asks you if you want to modify your cover photo to show your support. Then they will modify your cover picture to have a little rainbow in the background, or surrounded by a border that says "Black Lives Matter." But they also then have info about your political and social views through your cover photo.

Even if you just appear on photos in others' social media, note that there is a feature that always pops up when you are viewing group photos that puts a box around everyone's face and allows you to identify those in the photo. So you think you are doing your friends a favor by identifying them in photos, but all you are doing is just sending additional data to Big Brother for the facial recognition files. EVEN FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT ON FACEBOOK. (Think that's not true? Have you opened up your photos feature in your iphone and had it try to make photo albums automatically for you, identifying not only yourself but others such as your spouse. If you use that you are confirming to Apple the identities of those in the photos.) Also when you open Facebook, it will sometimes send you a recommended post showing a collage of the cover photos of you and someone else and saying that the two of you have been "friends for X years." Click on that and they not only have confirmation of the facial recognition photos but confirmation on how long you've been connected.

The government is already constantly keeping track of you through your smart phone (enhanced by the Covid-tracker software that was installed without your consent in September which not only keeps track of your location, but everyone else you interract with). Don't believe me? On your Iphone go to Settings, scroll down and you will now find a new icon called "Exposure Notifications." That's the tracker. It's been sold as a way of warning you when you have had contact with someone who is Covid-positive, but it also allows the government to keep track of everyone and who they are interacting with.

On the voting, I constantly now get things on Facebook asking if I'm registered and now if I've voted (we are 100% vote-by-mail). It has links where you can go to to enter ID info to "confirm" you are registered. Again, all that info is going into the Facebook data system, and Facebook now has access to your unique registration info. Since you have a bar code as your ID now, which Facebook gets when you go check to see whether you're registered, when you return your ballot Facebook will also know you've voted because you've given them access to your registration info. Maybe even know who you voted for, although that requires an extra element of getting into the voting system. Or, maybe, even, vote for you.

This is just Facebook. Similar tracking and information gathering is going on on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, Discus, etc.

Everybody loves to sign up for all these services because they are "free." They are far from "free." Facebook and others are only putting billions of dollars into these things because they are spying on you and then are either selling the information commercially, or at some point will be collaborating with the government for a hefty fee.

#8 Jim on 2020-10-08 14:50 (Reply)

Facebook has never asked nor suggested I update my cover photo. Nothing of what you mention has ever happened to me on FB.

#8.1 barnhill on 2020-10-08 20:09 (Reply)

There are rules prohibiting electioneering and guaranteeing secret ballot in normal voting at polling places. Those things are out the window with mail-in ballots. It's why, up until now, people needed a valid reason to use an absentee ballot. Those are just a couple of the reasons mail-in is an abomination. We will soon look back at the adoption of mail-in voting as a big step toward the destruction of the republic.

#9 itsatax on 2020-10-08 16:18 (Reply)

I have a Trump - Pence yard sign in front of my house.
Not registered to FB.
My dwelling has received one egg strike in the five weeks it has been in place. That was three weeks ago (because of proximity of raw egg Strike deduce it was in protest of my sign).

feeblemind wrote about being a 20th century man. I join you. That’s the way politics was before social media and all of this cyber espionage. If I catch the neihbor who did the deed we can work out the details face to face.

Go online with your voting message and the ramifications are so far reaching a face to face confrontation is not really possible with an offending person.

Maybe you who post your politics for all to see are braver than me. Maybe you are more verbose in your allegiance. I don’t know. I am amused by this thread. Hope I’m not far off topic.

PS. I’ll try to let you know if I receive some new fowl strikes after Nov 3.

#10 Franknbean on 2020-10-08 16:29 (Reply)

Farcebook is demonic. Zuckerberg is evil. Why would any thinking person wish to help the bastard by being a part of the "thing?" May he rot in a place w/extremely high average annual temperature...

#11 OldASA on 2020-10-08 16:44 (Reply)

The share everything, including gonads, culture is inane. It seems a consequence of the tribe or group being more important than the individual. Sharing deeply seems a desire to be accepted. Without the group, one is none.
Individualists rightly desire privacy. While wanting to be accepted in society, they're not dependent on sharing their inner being, nor do they define their existence by being in a group. They choose groups as they desire, and are not bound to them like a spoke to a wheel.
Clones must show they're part of the team.
Individuals are OK with being in or out of the team. The team is a benefit, not a necessity.
Sharing one's vote is an unhealthy desire for acceptance and adulation.

#12 Mark on 2020-10-08 16:59 (Reply)

Most people are sheep. They will submit to the fashion of the moment, even if only a momentary enthusiasm. I remember when I was in the military and the Combined Federal Campaign rolled around. I gave to my favorite charities, but refused the pin (and also the crappy prizes). Invariably I'd be asked by someone (often in authority over me) why I didn't wear the pin. And I would say that it is a form of coercion. "Look at him! He doesn't have a pin! He must not have donated to the Gay Elderly Dating Service of New York City! (A real thing back in the 1980s). Selfies with ballots (or mail-in ballots) is the same thing. "Look at me! I voted, AND YOU KNOW I VOTED FOR THE RIGHT ONE!"

There are a lot of these coercive, virtue-signaling tricks. I hate them all and refuse to submit to them.

#13 RetiredSOF on 2020-10-08 17:30 (Reply)

"I am not writing about social media, per se, though. Whatever your thoughts on its benefits or detriments are yours and you're welcome to them." I think the problem is that is very difficult for me to divorce the points you make in paragraph 4 from my thoughts on social media generally. The narcissism that social media encourages and depends on for its survival relevance (regardless of whether a limited portion of the population can avoid giving in to it) is, in my opinion, the natural precursor of the behavior about which you rightly complain.

#14 Doug T. on 2020-10-08 19:53 (Reply)

Bingo. When Chrissy Teigen lost her baby I thought it was a real shame. But then she did the most narcissistic thing ever by putting out videos and photos of her (and her husband) and her lost child. The intent was clearly not about the tragedy (in the modern sense) about the death of an infant but rather about Chrissy Teigen. Everything was posed. Even used black and white photography (which, no doubt, they thought highlighted the death but in fact was way more cool than an IPhone photo in color).

#14.1 RetiredSOF on 2020-10-08 21:37 (Reply)

I disagree.

I don't use social media for narcissistic reasons. It's not encouraged. It's enabled, certainly. But it's not necessary.

The big joke among many is the "humblebrag". "I'm so blessed to have been able to buy my own personal Lear Jet." "I'm so blessed to go on this round-the-world trip and learn about different cultures." Yes, these are narcissistic, but often garner negative reviews from people - if they are not totally ignored.

On the other hand, I keep my social pages limited to ONLY my friends and family. So I keep the net small, and when I post pictures of my travels, I will share a story, some history, or something else of interest.

My cousins, who are unable to travel for a variety of reasons, love it. As one said "You make it very interesting and it's as if I'm there with you I love learning about the places you go."

Still another friend told me the way I shared my trip to the Super Bowl made him feel like he was there with me - and he hates my team, but really enjoyed sharing the experience.

It's all in how you do it and what your goals are.

I'm not denying narcissistic tendencies (like the Teigen story) can shine brighter - but that's akin to saying we're a racist nation because the media only focuses on 'racist' events. Turning one item, or an unconnected series of items, into a trend is a common theme in our culture today.

Social media can accentuate this a bit. But it's not a net evil nor does it promote that kind of behavior.

If I were to be perfectly frank, Maggie's Farm could be classified as being just as guilty of doing that, at least on a small scale. We are encouraged to share our experiences and our ideas here. I certainly have been accused of being narcissistic by some commenters. Maybe, sometimes, a bit of that creeps in. We're not perfect.

#14.2 Bulldog on 2020-10-10 11:21 (Reply)

I'm banned for life from Facebook because of a my membership in a recently made famous men's club.

#15 Charles Coffer on 2020-10-08 21:52 (Reply)

I don't do social media. Not that I do antisocial media, or asocial media. I'm in my underground bunker, bunking, and being silly.
MWAHHHHHHHHH hah hah hah hah hah hah hah ahah...

#16 Sam L. on 2020-10-09 09:56 (Reply)

Pictures of ballots should be outlawed as enabling pay-for-votes schemes. For the same reason, remote voting should re-adopt its traditional requirements (i.e., out of the state for the entire voting period or physically unable to move).

>The social pressures to 'vote the right way' are being ramped up.
Just wait until employers/unions get in on that action. There are stronger levers than mere social pressure.

#17 OldCurmudgeon on 2020-10-09 10:19 (Reply)

I don't impose my political views on people who don't want to hear them. But anyone who's at all interested in what I think can readily find out that I voted for Trump in 2016 and will certainly do it again in 2020.

#18 Texan99 on 2020-10-09 11:23 (Reply)

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Thursday, October 8. 2020

Voting Publicly