Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

You're presuming a whole lot about my political views. We've seen for a long time that the size of a political campaign in dollar amounts doesn't really correlate with who wins. We're not talking about official campaigns here. We're not talking about Hillary vs. Trump, although I see that you're getting all offended because you mistakenly thought I was slighting your boy. Calm down, this has nothing to do with him.

This is about the future. Social media moguls will arguably have immense power to choose which candidates can win or even compete in elections by selectively limiting or pushing coverage and managing incredibly insular social circles of people online. Forget superPACs or whatever. People who control a system this powerful don't need to campaign through the old-timey official political advertising system, they just push their agenda on their own network with no rules whatsoever.

And it's not national. It's global. Tons of actors are seeing just how effective it can be, and you better believe that people will be grinding that axe like mad in elections from here on. It's going to be very difficult to even quantify how broad an effect it has. As these algorithms get even more effective than they already are, we're going to essentially see the end of legitimate elections. PAC advertising has absolutely nothing on this new tactic.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: