this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2024
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Democrats were fooled by their social media echo chamber in 2016. Now Republicans may be falling into the same trap

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[–] Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 156 points 1 month ago (2 children)

“Democrats were fooled by their social media echo chamber” is an interesting way to spell “an inherently anti-democratic institution set up to make some voters worth more than others elected the candidate with fewer votes.”

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Probably more accurate to say "Democrats fooled themselves with their social media echo chamber" and really only if you are referring to the national Democratic Party and groups like Correct the Record. Doesn't really apply to the voters or state-level Dems.

The Clintons and using media to "massage" the message goes back to the '92 election and using satellite feeds back to the campaign headquarters in Arkansas to do things like communicate with their campaign team on the ground at events to say "Hey, can you pan the camera to the right just a little bit, then the protestors won't be in the frame." This is well documented by the 90's documentary film Spin.

So Clinton signed up to use Correct the Record to massage the message on the internet, fooling themselves into thinking that was enough. It's also why we've seen very little progress on making laws to force paid political operatives to have to state that they're paid advertisements online, because both parties participate in this practice and don't want to stop. Which is part of why its hard to stop other nation-state actors from doing it as well, because we won't even criminalize it in our own political parties. It makes no sense that a political ad on television must disclose its funding and who endorses it, but when it's a sockpuppet online it's a fucking free-for-all.

[–] qprimed@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 month ago

the real insanity is that your excellent observations are being downvoted.

people just have to create their preferred echo chamber any where they are and we all suffer for it.

[–] Hegar@fedia.io 18 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Exactly. So many peoplev still trying to analyze what the Democrats did wrong in an election they won 🙄.

[–] linearchaos@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

To be fair we did win, But it was only because It wasn't by a narrow margin. There's enough wrong right now that if we had a true 50-50 race there's no way we'd win it. And that needs to be fixed. We've got swing states with openly corrupt voting management. DeJoy is trying to f*** over the mail, he ripped out the sorting machines last time to try to slow things down and he's trying to slow it down again. You're still going to have voting sections in poor sections of town moved miles away, you're still going to have people arrested for bringing people water who are standing in really long lines.

Yeah, we're still looking at things for an election we won because things are still pretty f***** up

[–] negativenull@lemmy.world 45 points 1 month ago

Wouldn't it be delicious of Musk's takeover of Twitter, and his endorsement of Trump, ends up costing him the election?

(something something, don't forget to vote.gov)

[–] PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 month ago

I would say that in 2016, everyone was “fooled” - the Russian troll farm was something we had never seen before.

I like to think we’ve learned how to recognize those tactics by now and that we’re a bit smarter. Some of us, at least…Republicans seem to still be in their Putin controlled Q-pronoun-book banning-conspiracy theory phase.