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Wednesday 21st of January 2026

2016 Presidential election After the election, I made a comment that I thought the idea misinformation on Facebook changed the outcome of the election was a crazy idea. Calling that crazy was dismissive and I regret it. This is too important an issue to be dismissive.  Mark Zuckerberg, after Facebook agreed to provide Congress with 3,000 ads paid for by Russian agents  © 2017 Kwiple.com
2016 Presidential primaries carlyfiorina.com home page contains images of 30,000 sad faces representing employees she fired while at Hewlett-Packard  © 2016 Kwiple.com
2016 Presidential primaries Jeb Bush's campaign never bought JebBush.com so its owner redirected it to Donald Trump's website © 2016 Kwiple.com
2016 Presidential election Regrettably, it appears that the platforms may have misrepresented or evaded in some of their statements to Congress. From a report published by the Senate Intelligence Committee about the responses submitted by Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media platforms to its requests for data about Russia's attempts to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election © 2018 Kwiple.com
Afghanistan War The VA augmented its mental-health hotline in case Afghanistan veterans began to see their interpreters beheaded on social media. citation George Packer, Atlantic Monthly, March 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Bad news Making “what your friends liked” a main criterion for distributing news © 2016 Kwiple.com
Bad news A study once found that using the Fox News website as a news source made you less informed than watching no news at all. It's the Ozempic of knowing things. And still not as bad as the “news finds me” people.  That's the growing cohort of Americans who believe that if a story's important enough, it will find it's way to their social media feed. Yeah. These are the people who trust their  Facebook friends to watch Hannity for them. Bill Maher,  Real Time with Bill Maher, June 21, 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Big brother Given the massive scale of social networks such as Facebook, small effects can have large aggregated consequences. conclusion, Facebook research report about an experiment it conducted on its users without their knowledge that demonstrated it could control their emotions and behavior by controlling the content of news feeds sent to them © 2015 Kwiple.com
Big brother Social media © 2016 Kwiple.com
Bullshitters say We are committed to our customers and we never sought to deceive them in any way, nor would we ever. Spokesperson for Lord & Taylor, the department store, which settled with the Federal Trade Commission for running an article in a fashion magazine about one of its clothing collections without indicating the article was a paid ad, and which also failed to require social media influencers to disclose they had been paid to post photos of themselves wearing the clothes Quoted in Wall Street Journal, Dec. 29, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Adults 35 to 49 were found to spend an average of 6 hours 58 minutes a week on social media networks, compared with 6 hours 19 minutes for the younger group [18 to 34]. More predictably, adults 50 and over spent significantly less time on the networks: an average of 4 hours 9 minutes a week. New York Times, January 30, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers People tapped, swiped and clicked a whopping 2,617 times each day, on average.  For the heaviest users – the top 10% – average interactions doubled to 5,427 touches a day. Per year, that's nearly 1 million touches on average – and 2 million for the less restrained among us. dscout, June 16, 2016 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Social-media sites such as Facebook and Twitter Inc. shoulder “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of responsibility for preventing the distribution of fake news, according to 71% of the U.S. adults polled [by Pew Research]. Wall Street Journal, December 16, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
By the numbers There are 4.7 million searches every year for Jesus Christ. The pope gets 2.95 million. There are 49 million for Kim Kardashian. … On social media, it's the same story. Ms. Kardashian has 26.3 million likes on Facebook. Jesus has 5.6 million; the pope, 1.7 million. Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, New York Times, September 20, 2015 © 2015 Kwiple.com
Civil wars But political polarization does not increase the likelihood of civil war. What increases the likelihood of civil war is factionalization — when citizens form groups based on ethnic, religious, or geographic distinctions — and a country's political parties become predatory, cutting out rivals and enacting policies that primarily benefit them and their constituents. And nothing abets and accelerates factionalization as much as social media. … A central driver to factionalism has always been conspiracy theories. If you want to incite people to action, give them an “other” to target. Barbara F. Walter, How Civil Wars Start  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Civil wars This isn't the first time in modern history that populists with anti-democratic leanings have come to power. It is also not the first time that democracies have experienced backsliding. What's different is the mechanism: before, autocracy came about when military generals launched coups. But now it's being ushered in by the voters themselves. This is happening in large part because social media allows candidates to sow or capitalize on, doubts that citizens might have about democracy as a form of government. … To make good decisions about candidates in democracies, voters must have good information, and social media has flooded voters with bad information. Barbara F. Walter, How Civil Wars Start  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Corporate welfare Congress grills flak clatchers from Facebook, Google and Twitter about subverting American democracy by enabling trolling by Russians in the 2016 presidential election and, shortly afterwards, plans to cut corporate tax rates nearly in half © 2017 Kwiple.com
Dead-in-the-heads say The Solution to Online ‘Harassment’ Is Simple: Women Should Log Off headline, Breitbart News, July 5, 2016 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Decision making Collective preferences tend to be solid. They tend to reflect the underlying needs and values of the whole body of citizens, in light of the best available information from experts and commentators. … [An] important caveat is that collective opinion sometimes does not reflect the best available information because individuals' errors do not always “cancel out.” This is particularly true if systemic misinformation is fed to many Americans at once and is not effectively contradicted. Examples include “fake news” transmitted by social media or … presidents or … executive branch officials who have a near monopoly on intelligence sources. Benjamin Page and Martin Gilens, © 2019 Kwiple.com
Dreams It’s literally my dream come true. Serena Kerrigan, 27-year-old social media influencer, on being photographed lunching with her dolls at the American Girl Cafe in midtown Manhattan © 2022 Kwiple.com
Fox News To an extent that many people still don't recognize, Fox News is a grinding, daily cesspool of white grievance, mistrust of deep-state government, and a belief that liberals are literally trying to destroy the country out of sheer malice. Facebook and other social media outlets might have made this worse over the past few years — partly by acting as a sort of early warning system for new outrages bubbling up from the grassroots that Fox anchors can draw from — but Fox News remains the wellspring. Kevin Drum, Mother Jones, September/October 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Information [I]nformation wants to be free, but so does misinformation. Andrew Marantz, The New Yorker, September 30, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Journalism  We know where the audience is going. There is a huge migration of eyes from TV to the small screens on your cellphones. So we have to go there. But here's a big problem. We don't know how to money on social media. Jorge Ramos © 2016 Kwiple.com
Kwiple dictionary social media (sō'shəl mē'dē ə), n. The  place for dick pics and nude selfies of adolsecents and others seeking “likes” © 2016 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Fine celebrities, bloggers and other “influencers” $1.00 per follower for each product endorsement they post without clearly and conspicuously saying how much they were paid and/or what benefit or freebie they got for the endorsement © 2016 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say The lying has to stop. The liars have to be put down. © 2018 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Require Internet researchers using public data, including data from third parties, to have their research reviewed by an institutional review board or to obtain informed consent, as is required for research involving human subjects © 2017 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Require public records of all political ads sold by Facebook, Google and other online advertisers, just as they are already required for ones sold by radio and TV stations and by print publishers © 2017 Kwiple.com
Loneliness What is it that has made people so lonely? It's their stupid phone, which was supposed to connect people, but which studies have found has made them more lonely. It's like a vibrator designed by Mike Pence. Bill Maher, Real Time with Bill Maher, August 16, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Making money the new-fashioned way Becoming a huckster by becoming a social media star © 2016 Kwiple.com
Making money the new-fashioned way Being an esports competitor © 2018 Kwiple.com
Making money the new-fashioned way Being your own paparazzi © 2021 Kwiple.com
Markets  What social networks have done to society, trading apps have begun doing to markets. Rana Foroohar, Financial Times, July 25, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Public discourse Bob Mueller brought a book to a Twitter fight. Ari Melber, May 30, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Public discourse Troll culture became a way for fascism to hide in plain sight. Jason Wilson, The Guardian, May 23, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Punt returners say You're the president. Your're not, like, somebody's crazy uncle who can just retweet whatever. Savannah Guthrie, responding to Trump's defense for retweeting a QAnon theory that Obama and Biden had members of SEAL Team 6 killed to cover up the fake death of Osama bin Laden by saying, “That was a retweet. That was an opinion of somebody. And that was a retweet. I put it out there. People can decide for themselves. I don't take a position.” © 2021 Kwiple.com
Resisters say Would Twitter ban Hitler? Uphold your policy, ban Donald Trump We need a leader, not a creepy tweeter Messages projected on the side of Twitter's headquarter © 2017 Kwiple.com
Selfie Hey I'm Rudy Giuliani and I'm on Cameo. Rudy Giuliani's opening message on Cameo, an app where washups sell personalized messages in exchange for cash © 2020 Kwiple.com
Selfie If I don't have social media, I probably would not be standing. Donald Trump, Phoenix rally, August 22, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Social media  As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Hitler approaches 1. Godwin's law © 2017 Kwiple.com
Social media At some point, the instrument of misinformation becomes less troubling than the underlying receptiveness to it. … … social media users are discussed as if they were passive victims of demonic possession. The implication, that they would be model citizens were it not for the apps, slips by unquestioned. The politics is impeccable. It is safer to challenge a business than the public. But if the point is to fathom the problem, the evasion becomes self-defeating. Janan Ganesh,, Financial Times, July 20, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Social media The cliché used to be that people had moved to social media for news. Well, they have moved to social media, but increasingly not for news.  After all, why let journalists you don’t trust tell you about politicians you don’t trust? Meta says news now accounts for under 3 per cent of what users see on its biggest platform, Facebook. Instagram, too, has deprioritised news. TikTok won’t even show political adverts. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, March 21, 2023 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Social media The crusade against these apps is hardly groundless. But it has become a way of dodging the age and depth of civic rot, and not just in the US. Facebook is easier to confront than the prospect that mature democracies must live with a permanent mass of essentially unreachable citizens. To curse social media is to exonerate society. Janan Ganesh,, Financial Times, July 20, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Social media The dose makes the poison. toxicological adage © 2020 Kwiple.com
Social media I'd still rather do this than work 9-5 somewhere. A Cameroonian immigrant quoted in Get Rich or Lie Trying, Symeon Brown's book about social media  influencers, who starred in a live-streaming show where Americans paid to racially abuse him © 2022 Kwiple.com
Social media If you don't have haters, you ain't poppin'. A woman quoted in Get Rich or Lie Trying, Symeon Brown's book about social media influencers, who was trolled for a video that went viral of her performing a sex act on a robot © 2022 Kwiple.com
Social media If you want to know why it's called social media, I’ll tell you why: Because Karl Marx was hired by  Henry Rothschild, by the Rothschild family, to develop a system of social control. So when you see social, it is a form of control — that’s all it is. Social media is a form of controlling us all. Lara Logan © 2023 Kwiple.com
Social media In a leaked memo, a Facebook executive, Andrew Bosworth, describes this willful disregard for truth and meaning: “We connect people. That can be good if they make it positive. Maybe someone finds love. … That can be bad if they make it negative. … Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack. … The ugly truth is … anything that allows us to connect more people more often is “de facto” good.” In other words, asking a surveillance extractor to reject content is like asking a coal-mining operation to discard containers of coal because it's too dirty. Shoshana Zuboff, New York Times, January 29, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Social media In an era of social media and nonstop news from endless outlets, the politicians who get the most attention are those who create unusual, supposedly “authentic” characters for themselves. This system rewards narcissists and what the philosopher Harry Frankfurt calls “bullshitters”: people distinct from liars in that they have no interest in what's true or not. They just say what sounds good. Their high verbal intelligence reduces their need for analytic intelligence. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, July 2, 2020,  on the rise of the attention economy and mediagenic rightwing nationalists  © 2020 Kwiple.com
Social media Left unchecked, the presently evolving information environment must be expected to unmake our democratic constitutional systems. Perhap not imminently, but with certainty over time. Larry D. Kramer, former dean of Stanford Law School © 2024 Kwiple.com
Social media My use of social media is not Presidential - it's MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL. Make America Great Again! Donald Trump, 3:41 PM - Jul 1, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Social media On social media, we have all become hammers searching for nails. Roxanne Gay, New York Times, July 18, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Social media Social media companies' mistake has been to assume that  unregulated speech from powerful people is a hallmark of democracy rather than a threat to it. Emily Bell, Financial Times, January 13, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Social media Social media doesn't just drive countries down the democratic ladder. It also heightens the ethnic, social, religious and geographic divisions that can be the first step in the creation of factions. That is, of course, because myth, emotion, and the politics of grievance — all of which drive factionalism — make for incredibly engaging content. Barbara F. Walter, How Civil Wars Start  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Social media Social media is not a public square but a private one governed by machine  operations and their economic imperatives, incapable of, and uninterested in, distinguishing truth from lies or renewal from destruction. Shoshana Zuboff, New York Times, January 29, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Social media Social media isn't a tool that's just waiting to be used. It has its own goals and it has its own means of pursuing them by using your psychology against you. Tristan Harris, formerly a design ethicist at Google specializing in the ethics of human persusion © 2020 Kwiple.com
Social media Tapping a "Like" button is not friendship; it's a data point. Adrienne LaFrance, The Atlantic, July/August 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Social media We built Reddit around the principle of “No editors. The people are the editors.” Steve Huffman, co-founder of Reddit © 2019 Kwiple.com
Social media We now have to reckon that any election we have is actually being subverted before it begins. I fear for democracy. It's being made unworkable. Onora O'Neill © 2019 Kwiple.com
State of the union Everyone is distracted. All of the time. Justin Rosenstein, creator of Facebook's “like” button © 2017 Kwiple.com
Surely you jest 71 genders and counting © 2016 Kwiple.com
Tech bros say If you're not making money selling the product, make it selling data about its users © 2016 Kwiple.com
Tech bros say Wrap users in filter bubbles --> © 2017 Kwiple.com
Technology Social media’s mutation from Speaker’s Corner to Gin Lane roughly tracks the smartphone’s conquest of BlackBerry. It comes down, I think, to the diffuculty of typing anything of length, and therefore of nuance, on a touch screen. The currency of the internet changed from the paragraph to the sentence, from the blog to the tweet, from the word to the image. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, September 25, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Television The future of television is not on television. The future of television is on social media. Jorge Ramos © 2016 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say Maybe it is time to change the traditional relationship the press will have with the White House. In this day and age of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, does Trump really need to be granting access to biased journalists that openly oppose him? Sean Hannity © 2018 Kwiple.com
Truth We don't have a policy that stipulates that the information you post on Facebook must be true. Facebook, defending its decision to not take down a video created by Trumpists that depicts Nancy Pelosi as drunk and that its fact checkers labeled as “false” © 2019 Kwiple.com
 
Work In the new work culture, enduring or even merely liking one's job is not enough. Workers should love  what they do, and then promote that on social media, thus fusing their identities to that of their employers. Why else would LinkedIn build its own version of Snapchat Stories? This is toil glamour and it is going mainstream. … Workplace indifference just doesn't have a socially acceptable hashtag. Erin Griffith, New York Times, January 26, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com