Tea at Trianon: Can Facebook Posts Destabilize the Nation?

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Can Facebook Posts Destabilize the Nation?

From Return to Order:

It is unlikely that Russia’s Facebook offensive had a major impact on the elections for three reasons. The first reason involves the scope of the operation. In this particular case, even thousands of social media accounts are a tiny drop in a vast cyber-ocean of hundreds of millions of accounts. It is unreasonable to think that this drop might have had any significant or quantifiable effect upon the elections.

Secondly, claims of destabilization seem to insinuate that social media posts are the elections. Exposure to posts does not mean actually reading them. Social media is merely a small part of any election campaign. Such posts do not determine the results. Moreover, anything the Russians may have employed during the elections is dwarfed in comparison to the social media assets brought to the table by both the Democratic and Republican Party establishments. The Russian effort is a non-issue.

Finally, the claims assign an almost fatalistic quality to Russian posts. Some people seem to believe that a carefully crafted post can change the convictions and beliefs of a person in an instant especially in a highly polarized election. It attributes an almost zombie-like lack of personality to voters, as if incapable of resisting the message posted by Russian agents. (Read more.)