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The majority of Americans support a progressive agenda but historically have lost because not enough of this majority have voted and made their voice heard. On the Right, we see the inability and lack of desire to govern time and time again, only there to placate the extremely wealthy while breaking government. The Republicans are very good at cheating. In fact it is the only way they win. Voter suppression and lies are their main tools to gain power. Facebook is just another one of those tools. The only way to change all this is for the majority to vote on a massive scale as what happened in the midterms two years ago. Short of that we lose our democracy forever. Facebook and Fox News are not going to change. But we have the numbers and power to redirect our future if we choose.

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In the early days of 2014 Bannon began testing slogans like “drain the swamp”, “the deep state” and “build the wall,” on Facebook and found a surprising number of Americans who responded strongly to them. It's become the tobacco industry of the 21st century, with Fox News as the Mother Ship.

However, studies show there is a neurological reason why conservatives are more susceptible to conspiracy theories and fake news than democrats.

Liberals are better at filtering the knee jerk fear response of the amygdala and acting in a more tempered fashion. This is in correlation with having a larger more complex part of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex, which among other things tempers the fear response of the amygdala.

This is one of the reasons you'll never see an analogue to Limbaugh, or Alex Jones or Mark Levin on the liberal end of the spectrum. Many have tried but they are never successful. Liberals simply don't respond to fear and conspiracy theories to the same extent that conservatives do.

I always thought that interesting - and not surprising.

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I imagine once upon a time Zberg was thinking people were fools for giving him a product (mass data) - for free - that he could sell for a fortune to groups interested in manipulating public perception, but in fact he was simply deceiving the public. People trusted that their data would be safe from criminal misuse by unethical individuals or else nobody would use FB and it would go bankrupt. Zberg's personal insecurities force him to show off his brilliance and cleverness, show sneering public disdain for the 99.9% of the population, and rabidly seek to increase his already meaningless wealth - just like President Tmp. Lying to people is nothing special, any 6 year old kid can do it, and get away with it - just like every media outlet. Why don't we have a National Media Watch, a non-profit org run by former journalists (et al), that fact checks questionable media stories and posts the inconsistencies publicly? A consolidated, one-stop source for the facts can't be too much to expect from this country, can it?

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A few quick points, in no particular order.

Facebook is managed by what are at least Republican sympathizers, assets in Peter Thiel (Zuck’s mentor) and Campbell Brown.

I’d dare say that Pelosi’s is therefore wrong or is herself pandering back at Facebook. Facebook is serving Trump, not pandering.

The worst thing about Facebook is that, like YouTube, it forces toxic crap on people. Being sociopathically greedy, they’ll never stop doing that because the pittance of revenue it brings (also by keeping people on the site longer and exposed to more ads).

Where I get lost in the political ads thing is why social networks should be held to higher standards than other media outlets.

I also highly approve of Twitter running Trump’s tweets without restrictions. For better or worse, they’re presidential statements and Twitter is preserving them — which the White House required to do but one can safely bet is not.

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I love them both. Thank you for Tennessee Plates recall. My favorite John Hiatt tune for driving and singing. I watched the streaming concert. My soul is refreshed.

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John Hiatt has written the soundtrack to my life! He and Lyle have a streaming concert tonight!

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