In Germany, social media algorithms are pumping out huge amounts of far-right, pro-AfD content.
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So after years of this happening in plain sight for everyone to see, people now notice days before an election?
AfD will make massive progress. These social media algos had to be banned years ago. Same thing will happen with Canada.
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No. Advertising exists to inform people about products and services. I do not subscribe to the notion that advertising can convince an average voter to vote against their best interests or contra to facts.
Then I commend for your idealism and congratulate you further for never having had anything to do with the cancerous growth on humanity's back that is the advertising industry. Keep it that way, you're already making the world a slightly better place by staying away. But no, it unfortunately does not work as you describe it. Spending X on advertising will increase your product sales by Y. That's the simple equation that justifies the industry's existence - and it works. Helping consumers (or voters) to make informed decisions does not factor into it.
Not in a Western society in which one can easily obtain the facts on the internet. This might be true in a country like China where the internet is tightly controlled and facts aren’t easy to obtain.
You'd think that, yeah, it's absolutely natural! But then you could also consider that even though a rural forest warden in the Harz mountains may hold and be entitled to opinions on, for example, both bark beetle control and foreign policy, he'll only ever be able to make a truly informed decision on how one these issues should be handled in his best interest. For the other he'll substitute a lifetime of proficiency with whatever is available. And that may or may not be in his best interest.
That's how everybody does it. Spending your lifetime immersed in academic peace-and-conflict-studies for example might leave you to conclude that in a world of squabbling monkey tribes, transnational governing bodies with actual agency and legislative weight like the EU are, so far, humanity's greatest and most unlikely achievement and that maintaining, growing and strengthening them while further eroding national borders is a reliable (and possibly the only) way to ensure sustainable peace and prosperity for everybody. And after reaching that conclusion you'd think "Why is this not obvious to everybody? The facts are freely available." They are not. They are there, but in a complex world the cost to aquire them is high. Few will spend six months researching a tricky solution if they already got tricked by somebody else into believing that there's an easy solution. That's not on them though, that's on the trickster.
And now I'll probably dive into reading about bark beetles for a week because I've nerd-sniped myself. But that's another thing: I can just do that. I have a well-paying job and plenty of spare time. In other words, I have a high budget to spend on informed decisions. That's a bit of a tangent from the original topic but the gist is: If you wish to assume ideal voters then you quickly arrive at ultimate socio-economic and educational equality as a necessary prerequisite for a working democracy.
Spending X on advertising will increase your product sales by Y.
Because it exposes products to customers who were otherwise unaware of their existence or features, not because advertising has special brainwashing powers.
I think there is an implied argument you are making that unless people vote the "correct" way, they're misinformed. I think some people just have different priorities. They care about different things and for this reason, consume different media. I was horrified to learn my wife clicks on ads when she's shopping. Apparently that works for her. It doesn't mean she's wrong. Just that she's not as rigorous about her selection process because she's ultimately happy with the outcome.
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No. Advertising exists to inform people about products and services. I do not subscribe to the notion that advertising can convince an average voter to vote against their best interests or contra to facts. Not in a Western society in which one can easily obtain the facts on the internet. This might be true in a country like China where the internet is tightly controlled and facts aren't easy to obtain.
Wait, you're both saying people voted for Brexit out of their own free will but also that advertising doesn't persuade people? How do you explain Cambridge Analytica literally influencing millions of people to vote for Brexit? (a vote won by 2% margin btw) - like why would the right-wing establishment pay for ads if not to sway public opinion?
Do you really think neoliberals spent millions to inform people why Brexit is good for them actually because that was factual information people couldn't have found otherwise?
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The issue here is decades of neglecting the wellbeing of citizens
Yes? But what does this have to do with immigration? Do you genuinely believe that immigrants are what's causing the decay of citizen wellbeing and not as you say "neoliberal governments grounding low and middle class workers into dust"?
You see the issue but you side with the neoliberals on their preferred solution?
Yes? But what does this have to do with immigration?
I'm not making that link. The user above argued Brexit was caused by appeasement. I was addressing that specific claim.
I generally side against the neoliberals. In this case, they have been tirelessly fighting for globalisation and high immigration. Like all economic policies, it comes with some good and some bad. It has certainly resulted in a lot of top line wealth generation. The problem is that most of it has been accrued at the top. This is not sustainable. I think this is why we are seeing a general backlash to globalisation: the experiment hurt a lot of middle and lower class people.
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Couldn't agree with you more there.
For what it's worth, I'm a member of the TUSC (trade union socialist coalition) and the Socialist Party. You're right they're not big hitters, smaller even than the greens, but they are there, they stand for what I stand for, and they're just a great bunch of people that I love hanging out with. Also, unlike Lemmy, it's a tankie-free zone!
They're good at building a community and they are active every day on a small, local scale.I've had some good conversations with local TUSC members collecting signatures and so on, I've a lot of respect for them but sadly the general public don't seem to. I think after the kicking by thatcher, unions and socialism in general are out of fashion. I do think there should be a broadly left party, allowing secondary membership maybe. Work on getting agreement on some issues, laser focus on what's most urgent and get decent people elected. I'd support any party with decent policies and which had the most chance of getting elected.
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Chancellor Scholz (SPD) is pushing a tougher stance on deportation.
To summarize:
AfD wants Nazi shit.
CDU/CSU, FDP and BSW are copying them on the topic, including demanding things that are obvious violations of European law and our constitution.
SPD is steering in that direction as far as possible without obviously breaking European law and our constitution.
The Greens are begrudgingly going along with it.
Among all the relevant parties here only the Left have a clear stance against all this madness.
I'm not sure if you read your sources but you are only corroborating what I argued. It's a lot of empty talk. None of them are willing to act. Take the example of the border security. It's theatre. Even if an illegal immigrant is stopped, they still have the right to reside in the country for many years, and indefinitely if they refuse to leave in most circumstances. All of this is paid for by German citizens. I can't believe you would use the Greens as an example of a party getting tough on immigration. They have zero policies to reduce immigration.
To summarise your sources: not a single party is willing to act on immigration. Don't be surprised when people vote for parties which will.
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Wait, you're both saying people voted for Brexit out of their own free will but also that advertising doesn't persuade people? How do you explain Cambridge Analytica literally influencing millions of people to vote for Brexit? (a vote won by 2% margin btw) - like why would the right-wing establishment pay for ads if not to sway public opinion?
Do you really think neoliberals spent millions to inform people why Brexit is good for them actually because that was factual information people couldn't have found otherwise?
I don't know what you think you're proving with that link. Do you think I'm arguing that political advertising isn't real? Because I never argued that. Cambridge Analytica scraped a lot of Facebook data, and it is claimed they used that data to advertise to potential voters. So what? That's how democracy works: convincing potential voters of the righteousness of your cause. Are you arguing that people should no longer be allowed to debate and inform each other in a democracy?
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I'm not sure if you read your sources but you are only corroborating what I argued. It's a lot of empty talk. None of them are willing to act. Take the example of the border security. It's theatre. Even if an illegal immigrant is stopped, they still have the right to reside in the country for many years, and indefinitely if they refuse to leave in most circumstances. All of this is paid for by German citizens. I can't believe you would use the Greens as an example of a party getting tough on immigration. They have zero policies to reduce immigration.
To summarise your sources: not a single party is willing to act on immigration. Don't be surprised when people vote for parties which will.
I am not wasting any more time by digging out statistics about any of this stuff. Since you apparently on purpose ignore the blatantly obvious part where 2 other major parties actively voted with AfD for exactly what they want on migration I don't think any amount of sources or data could convince you anyway.
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I am not wasting any more time by digging out statistics about any of this stuff. Since you apparently on purpose ignore the blatantly obvious part where 2 other major parties actively voted with AfD for exactly what they want on migration I don't think any amount of sources or data could convince you anyway.
No, please, continue to support my arguments. I very much appreciate it.
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Why would someone use boost instead of another option?
General curiosity
Familiarity for one; it was a great Reddit client and it's a good Lemmy one too as well; sensible layout, decent customisation etc.
I paid for ad free ages ago and never looked back.
It hasn't been updated in a while though, so.im playing with Thunder and it's been a pretty nice option as well. Plus, you know, FOSS and available on Droidify/F-Droid.
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Yes? But what does this have to do with immigration?
I'm not making that link. The user above argued Brexit was caused by appeasement. I was addressing that specific claim.
I generally side against the neoliberals. In this case, they have been tirelessly fighting for globalisation and high immigration. Like all economic policies, it comes with some good and some bad. It has certainly resulted in a lot of top line wealth generation. The problem is that most of it has been accrued at the top. This is not sustainable. I think this is why we are seeing a general backlash to globalisation: the experiment hurt a lot of middle and lower class people.
So you're acknowledging that it's a problem of wealth extraction but your proposed solution is for left wing parties to adopt a more anti-immigration stance instead of resolving the issue of inequality?
Right wing parties platform on isolationist policies (Brexit) while massively boosting globalization (how there's now more migration post-Brexit than pre) and using migrants as a scapegoat for people's economic issues.
Pinning the issue of globalization on migrants is like putting the blame on the exploited for the crimes of the exploiters.
Globalization isn't bad because it allows people to resettle, escape political and environmental instability in their own countries - but because neoliberal interests specifically funnel away wealth from their local lower classes and destabilize poorer foreign nations to provide cheap labour for their businesses at home.
So instead of saying how great Denmark is for adopting "zero asylum" policies why not spend your energy advocating for wealth redistribution on a global scale? I agree, ideally people wouldn't need to migrate to richer counties - but I don't see the same "anti-globalist" parties advocating for paying reparations or providing zero debt aid to poorer nations instead either.
Denmark's approach seems to prioritize protecting their domestic welfare system rather than addressing the global systems that create inequality. They've maintained many of the same neoliberal international policies while building higher walls around their own social safety net - exemplifying a "freedom for me, but not for thee" approach.
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I don't know what you think you're proving with that link. Do you think I'm arguing that political advertising isn't real? Because I never argued that. Cambridge Analytica scraped a lot of Facebook data, and it is claimed they used that data to advertise to potential voters. So what? That's how democracy works: convincing potential voters of the righteousness of your cause. Are you arguing that people should no longer be allowed to debate and inform each other in a democracy?
You're equating Cambridge Analytica's targeted psychological manipulation based on secretly harvested personal data with ordinary citizens debating each other. Do you really see no difference between billion-dollar campaigns using Al to exploit psychological vulnerabilities and regular people discussing politics? Who exactly is doing the 'convincing' in your version of democracy?
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I've had some good conversations with local TUSC members collecting signatures and so on, I've a lot of respect for them but sadly the general public don't seem to. I think after the kicking by thatcher, unions and socialism in general are out of fashion. I do think there should be a broadly left party, allowing secondary membership maybe. Work on getting agreement on some issues, laser focus on what's most urgent and get decent people elected. I'd support any party with decent policies and which had the most chance of getting elected.
I dunno, I've lost faith since Corbyn. He was prevented from being elected. I believe the left are kept from power, because in my lifetime, most of the people I talk to are to the left of the people who've been power. Jeremy Corbyn being character assassinated wasn't surprising to me. So I'm not fixated on getting lecturers into Westminster. I don't think it's possible.
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The AfD won't sweep but they will likely become the 2nd strongest party, after the conservative CDU whose right wing loves the Republicans:
Among others in this image: Former traffic minister Andreas Scheuer, a prominent CDU member (CSU to be more precise but it's basically the same party).
If AfD + CDU achieve a majority it's not unlikely that they will form a coalition - or at the very least vote for the same bills.
Fascism is on a global rise. The fascist Reform UK is surging in British polls, Italy has a fascist government, the fascist Ă–VP has gotten the most votes in the recent Austrian election etc etc
Fascism is on a global rise and actively supported by Russia, China and the US. I doubt that democracy can survive efficient Russian disinformation + the full resources of China and the US.
I'd say it will only get worse from here.
Fascism is also supported by many billionaires, because they won't be targeted anyways.
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Change apps!
Other than the ads, is there a compelling reason to?
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BAAAAANNNN THEEEEEEMMMM
Jesus fucking christ if I could go back in time and destroy the internet I would.
Yes ban tiktok and X... And meta too... All social media is infected! They're all impure!!! The state must attack! smh \s
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Almost like some American tech giants are aiding Russia or something.
Almost like capitalism promotes fascism.
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Capitalism -> Fascism.
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This is an easy problem to solve. Denmark solved their right wing problem years ago. The centre left party adopted slightly tougher immigration policies and the right wing party last half their supporters almost overnight. Poll after poll across Europe finds the same: immigration is a major issue for voters. Get tougher on immigration and watch AfD disappear. It’s the easiest political win in history but so many parties refuse to do it. Bleating about social media influence is a losing battle. The internet is free and will remain free. It’s literally designed to work around censorship like it’s a damaged part of the network.
It worked great for genocide joe and kamalacaust then they passed the torch...
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Ok, so shut them down. Block them nationally. I know people will get around it but take some kind of protective measures before it is too late for you.
