9 thoughts on “Monday Open Thread”

1. Morning.

   Log in to Reply

   1. Tune of Short Shorts

      –0-

      Who thinks Trump stinks?

      We thinks Trump stinks!

      Such foul Trump stinks.

      We hate Trump stinks.

      We smell Trump stinks.

      Let's repel Trump stinks.

      Vote straight Democrat today!

       

      Log in to Reply

2. WOTD from Ezra Klein at Vox: "The Rise of Youtube's Right"

   Vox has an important article about how Youtube algorithms are helping build the reactionary right. I'm sure that you've noticed how your video choices suggest other videos. Have you also noticed how your feed leads fairly quickly to quite disturbing videos? Even my kid's feed (cute puppies and animal shows) strangely ends up in all-too-many violent videos.

   It's a long read, but it explains a lot about how of social media algorithms work – Facebook last year, and Youtube next.

   The digital scholar Zeynep Tufekci has written about YouTube’s role as an engine of radicalization. She retells watching Donald Trump videos and then being pointed toward “white supremacist rants, Holocaust denials and other disturbing content.” Watching Hillary Clinton rallies led her to “arguments about the existence of secret government agencies and allegations that the United States government was behind the attacks of Sept. 11.” Even nonpolitical topics followed the pattern: “Videos about vegetarianism led to videos about veganism. Videos about jogging led to videos about running ultramarathons.”

   Extremism is interesting. That’s part of the YouTube right’s programming strategy and it’s part of YouTube’s algorithmic strategy. But whether anyone intends it to or not, this mixture of social, political, and algorithmic preferences for extremism means that a 17-year-old kid who begins watching videos on the YouTube right can get drawn into very dark places very fast.

   Log in to Reply

   1. ParkHill…..This is frightening, and worthwhile, I think for my students to read, since so many of them are youtubers. FB is passe, now – youtube, instagram, snapchat are the aps of choice.

      Thanks for the heads up.

      Log in to Reply

3. Can’t wait for the urgent pleadings to bipartisanship from our Rule of Law, Party of Family Values and Party of Personal Responsibility friends on the other side of the aisle after November. 

   We need to tell them to shove it up their ass…literally. 

   Log in to Reply

4. As the immoral, crime spree that is the T***p administration is exposed more and more for what it truly is, it holds up to the light the moral bankruptcy and wholesale devotion to money and power now obsessing the GOP.

   Everywhere you look, the moral and ethical decay of the fabric of America is being overseen by the Trumplicans©. On what day and at what time did the Republican party sell its soul to the kleptocracy (or T***ptocracy, if you will) for a shot at holding on to power in the face of a demographic inevitability that dooms their greedy, racist, homophobic, (and on and on… ) agenda?

   At every turn, the Trumplicans© are perverting and subverting American democracy. We have one chance to stop them….vote.

   Log in to Reply

5. This takes Focus on the Family to a whole new level…..

   https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/23/politics/jim-knoblach-minnesota-ends-campaign/index.html

   Log in to Reply

6. Is Stormy Daniels part of the #MeToo community…..

   https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/23/politics/stormy-daniels-ben-roethlisberger-donald-trump/index.html

   Log in to Reply

7. I wonder what Anthony Kennedy is thinking right about now?

   Log in to Reply