Overview: Politics

An MP blaming his own failings ... on evil Russians ... without a slither of evidence. Post-truth much? ... Remainers cannot accept that a majority of people are simply rationally opposed, to ... the EU.... he’s so stunned that there are people out there who think differently to him that the only way he can make sense of it is by imagining thes…

the science on how to best communicate science across different issues, social settings and audiences has not led to easy-to-follow, concrete recommendations... becoming increasingly clear that the “deficit model” ... if we just “fill people up” with science knowledge and understanding, they’ll become increasingly rational decision-makers – simpl…

Echo chambers aren’t just a product of the internet and social media, however, but of how those things interact with fundamental features of human nature... Understand these features of human nature and maybe we can think creatively about ways to escape them... our tendency to associate with people like us. Sociologists call this homophily.... t…

Scottie Nell Hughes ... drove a stake into the heart of knowable reality: “There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore, of facts... So, how should Trump’s statements during the campaign have been covered? Should reporters have added something like this in the second paragraph of every news story? “Trump probably didn’t mean that he would appoin…

Tech companies may face new legislation after struggling to comply with voluntary code of conduct... Under a code of conduct announced in May, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Microsoft agreed to review and respond to “the majority” of hate speech complaints within 24 hours

There’s large-scale, statistically significant research into the impact of search results on political views... Google is doing a horrible, horrible job of delivering answers here. It can and should do better... people are finally saying, ‘Gee, Facebook and Google really have a lot of power’ like it’s this big revelation. And it’s like, ‘D’oh.’”…

Propaganda warfare is increasingly shaping narratives, policies and lives around the world.

what a few decades ago would have just been a matter of internal politics could now become an international economic shock.

Do we really want to set up Facebook or Google as censors ... to decide what is real and fake, true and false?

a post for my Facebook friends about my personal experience with narcissistic personality disorder and how I view the president elect... who almost certainly suffers from it or a similar disorder.

The Five Star Movement controls ... sprawling network of websites and social media accounts that are spreading fake news, conspiracy theories, and pro-Kremlin stories to millions... profitable sites that describe themselves as “independent news” outlets but are actually controlled by the party leadership... crossposted scores of fake stories... o…

democracies are not as secure as people may think... since 2005, Freedom House’s index has shown a decline in global freedom each year... signs of democratic deconsolidation in the United States and many other liberal democracies are now similar to those in Venezuela before its crisis.

these efforts seek to produce a divided electorate and a president with no clear mandate to govern. The ultimate objective is to diminish and tarnish American democracy... We’ve monitored more than 7,000 social media accounts over the last 30 months and at times engaged directly with them. Trump isn’t the end of Russia’s social media and hacking …

the evidence of this orchestrated Russian intelligence effort to hack the outcome of the American election... seems flimsy at best... saying is that Russia took advantage of the social web’s desire to just share things without reading them. It may be true, but so does every other media outlet.

foolish to assume that “experience” is an unalloyed asset ... In this age of rage against anything or anyone that can be depicted as “the establishment” ... a handicap to be an “insider” and a great advantage to be an “outsider”... calling them dangerous did not amount to an answer to the grievances driving substantial numbers of voters ... tell…

Seven years ago I started working full time at the Guardian in the glamorous role of SEO editorial executive. ... very like being in the Matrix but with less kung fu and more Polly Toynbee and Nigel Farage... here are a few of the things I’ve learned…

Confirmation bias is usually described as a tendency to notice or search out information that confirms what one already believes, or would like to believe, and to avoid or discount information that’s contrary to one’s beliefs or preferences. This presidential election was undoubtedly the most contentious of any in the memory of most voters... Th…

the groundbreaking work on “post-truth” was performed by academics, with further contributions from... middle-class professionals... Instead of “the truth”, which was to be rejected as naïve and/or repressive, a new intellectual orthodoxy permitted only “truths” – always plural, frequently personalised, inevitably relativised... all claims on trut…

As Facebook attempted to capture the fast-moving energy of the news cycle from Twitter... it built a petri dish for confirmation bias... Here’s how... ‘Share’ Button ... encouraging people to share quickly and without much thought... “original sharing,” where people post their own photos, text updates... was declining..., content from celebritie…

We do not estimate the integrity and ability of an acquaintance by his flabby willingness to accept our ideas… But when a candidate for public office faces the voters ... he faces a mob of men ... quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental ... whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understa…

the age of identity liberalism must be brought to an end... many good effects... But the fixation on diversity ... produced a generation of liberals and progressives narcissistically unaware of conditions outside their self-defined groups, and indifferent to the task of reaching out to Americans in every walk of life.

Power gets into our heads... give us confidence to indulge in our base urges. It can make us less empathetic, more likely to see our own success in a positive light and harshly condemn failures in others...power is only likely to magnify the negative characteristics in a man like Trump... “power simply brings our true nature out into the open”... …

If you think this election is insane, wait until 2020... technologies like AI, machine learning, sensors and networks will accelerate. Political campaigns get ... so personalized that they are scary in their accuracy and timeliness. The single most important factor influencing your voting decision is your social network… so you can bet that politi…

If we think closely about anger, we can begin to see why it is a stupid way to run one’s life... how a leader has to operate: forget about the strike-back mentality, and forge a future of warmth and partnership... He asks only, how shall I produce cooperation and friendship?

trillions of dollars are spent on making the world technologically ‘smarter’ ... but very little is spent on getting humans ready for that future... We will need to decide, very soon, where humans end and machines start, and vice-versa- and this is an ethical question NOT a technological challenge.

information bubbles didn’t burst on 8 November, but ... mainstream media and polling systems underestimated the power of alt-right news sources and smaller conservative sites that largely rely on Facebook to reach an audience... fake news is not a uniquely Republican problem... What is ... is the validation given to fake news by the now president-…

Breitbart News Network is expanding its U.S. operations and launching sites in Germany and France... as it seeks to monetize the anger and anti-immigrant sentiment unleashed by Donald Trump’... Milo Yiannopoulos is ... explore launching a new television show... an opening to tap ... a wave of American populism similar to forces driving Britain …

Democracy is other people, and the ignorance of the many has long galled the... the few who consider themselves intellectuals... Still, democracy is far from perfect... if we value its power to make good decisions, why not try a system that’s a little less fair but makes good decisions even more often? ... Estlund coined the word “epistocracy,” m…

Nowhere is this interplay of darkness and light more nuanced, nor more prescient, than in Cohen’s song “Democracy.”After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Western world was ablaze with the euphoria of a blind faith that democracy was coming to the East. I was there — that’s not what happened.

How to make sense of Donald Trump’s election? Here are some articles which helped me. Maybe they’ll help you.