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A comment on Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy. Parent comment

Re:Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy by apozem on Wednesday November 28, 2018 @07:36PM (#18557126)
> Everybody loved big data and social media when Obama used it to win and when Arab Spring happened. But now it's a threat to democracy, I wonder what changed?

Obviously you are implying that Obama voters dislike "big data" and social media because Trump won. This is lazy strawmanning.

Perhaps we are unhappy with the role the internet played in the 2016 election for other reasons? Perhaps it is bad when voters are fed objectively false stories? Perhaps a democracy is only possible with an informed populace that uses common facts and a shared reality?

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Re:Common-Knowledge Attacks on Democracy by throwaway42501 on Wednesday November 28, 2018 @09:01PM (#18557481)
It isn't a strawman for so long as individuals with a certain brand of politics presuppose their own immunity to disinformation and a tacit monopoly on what is factual and what constitutes being 'informed'.

That the propaganda self-described 'progressives' consume tends to come from sources with a greater degree of social prestige and more subtle ways of misleading through omission and clever rhetoric doesn't make it anything but propaganda.

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