05-12-2016, 08:58 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-12-2016, 09:16 AM by Peter Lemkin.)
In a scandal that could upend the outcome of the election, new documents reveal that President-elect Donald Trump coerced Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg into tweaking his website's algorithm in a way that benefitted the GOP nominee.
Earlier this year, Facebook was accused of shutting out conservative outlets from its "Trending News" column. Trump, who was worried that this could cost him the election, spent $9 million of his own money to hire several private investigators. They were tasked with digging into Zuckerberg's background.
They struck gold in late July, shortly after Trump had accepted the Republican nomination in Cleveland. His investigators found the smoking gun showing that Zuckerberg had screwed Eduardo Saverin out of an ownership stake in Facebook. The document further showed that Zuckerberg had not been the inventor of Facebook but, rather, had stolen the idea from Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, which had been alluded to in the movie "A Social Network."
In an August 3 phone call, Trump threatened to go public with the documents, which WhoWhatWhy obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. That would have put Zuckerberg in a precarious situation. To ensure Trump's silence, he agreed to help his fellow billionaire win the presidency. For his part, the GOP nominee promised to unleash Steve Bannon's army of offshore pepe trolls.
The impact of his assistance could be noted immediately. As readers may recall, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton had built a very large lead in the race following her convention. On August 4, she was up by 8 points in the average of national polls.
However, after Zuckerberg ordered his Facebook Premium Algorithm Loop Mapping (FacePALM) team to tweak his company's software, the dynamics of the race changed and Trump was closing the gap quickly.
A simple change to the algorithm ensured that anti-Trump stories would no longer be visible by Facebook users who were registered as Independents. Instead, they saw a barrage of articles about Clinton's private email server, the Clinton Foundation and rumors of Clinton's affair with her campaign chair John Podesta.
Zuckerberg's involvement shows the incredible power that social media companies have. WhoWhatWhy warned about the outsized impact of Facebook, Google, etc. more than a year ago and it looks as though our fears were well founded.
Earlier this year, Facebook was accused of shutting out conservative outlets from its "Trending News" column. Trump, who was worried that this could cost him the election, spent $9 million of his own money to hire several private investigators. They were tasked with digging into Zuckerberg's background.
They struck gold in late July, shortly after Trump had accepted the Republican nomination in Cleveland. His investigators found the smoking gun showing that Zuckerberg had screwed Eduardo Saverin out of an ownership stake in Facebook. The document further showed that Zuckerberg had not been the inventor of Facebook but, rather, had stolen the idea from Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, which had been alluded to in the movie "A Social Network."
In an August 3 phone call, Trump threatened to go public with the documents, which WhoWhatWhy obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. That would have put Zuckerberg in a precarious situation. To ensure Trump's silence, he agreed to help his fellow billionaire win the presidency. For his part, the GOP nominee promised to unleash Steve Bannon's army of offshore pepe trolls.
The impact of his assistance could be noted immediately. As readers may recall, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton had built a very large lead in the race following her convention. On August 4, she was up by 8 points in the average of national polls.
However, after Zuckerberg ordered his Facebook Premium Algorithm Loop Mapping (FacePALM) team to tweak his company's software, the dynamics of the race changed and Trump was closing the gap quickly.
A simple change to the algorithm ensured that anti-Trump stories would no longer be visible by Facebook users who were registered as Independents. Instead, they saw a barrage of articles about Clinton's private email server, the Clinton Foundation and rumors of Clinton's affair with her campaign chair John Podesta.
Zuckerberg's involvement shows the incredible power that social media companies have. WhoWhatWhy warned about the outsized impact of Facebook, Google, etc. more than a year ago and it looks as though our fears were well founded.
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass