What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[The Brain]

Ohio State University researchers say that yes, fake news probably affected the election.

Link

A team of researchers at Ohio State University conclude in a new study that "fake news" stories had a significant impact on voters in the 2016 presidential election that may have impacted the final result.

The study, first reported by The Washington Post on Tuesday, sought to measure the degree to which false news stories dissuaded voters who cast ballots for President Obama in 2012 from voting for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016.

While the researchers emphasized that they could not definitively say that fake news "caused" Obama voters to defect from Clinton in 2016, they nevertheless concluded that these stories had a "substantial impact" on voters that may have been sufficient enough to swing the election to Donald Trump.

"Our analysis leads us to the conclusion that fake news most likely did have a substantial impact on the voting decisions of a strategically important set of voters—those who voted for Barack Obama in 2012," the researchers wrote.

"Indeed, given the very narrow margins of victory by Donald Trump in key battleground states, this impact may have been sufficient to deprive Hillary Clinton of a victory in the Electoral College."

As part of a broader campaign to influence the 2016 election, Russia used social media trolls and state-run outlets to peddle fake news stories. Special counsel Robert Mueller has indicted 13 Russians over the stories, alleging an elaborate plot to use social media to spread divisive political and cultural content.

The extent to which Russia's activity influenced the outcome of the election has been a source of fierce debate. The U.S. intelligence community made no such judgment in its unclassified report on Russia's influence operation.

Trump and members of his administration have insisted that Russia's efforts did not have any impact on the outcome of the election. Meanwhile, Clinton has blamed Russia, in part, for her loss.

In order to quantify the impact of fake news on the election, Ohio State University researchers Richard Gunther, Paul A. Beck and Erik C. Nisbet conducted a YouGov survey in late 2016 and early 2017 of 585 voters who supported Obama in 2012 out of a total sample of 1,600.

Ten percent of these voters cast ballots for Trump, 4 percent supported minor parties and 8 percent declined to vote; the researchers sought out to determine what accounted for the defections from Clinton.

Specifically, they asked the voters 281 questions that included fake news statements, two of which were negative statements about Clinton and one positive about Trump, and all of which were propagated by traditional and social media. The researchers, for instance, asked voters if they believed the statement, "Hillary Clinton is in very poor health due to a serious illness."

The researchers found a significant correlation between belief in the fake news statements and vote choice. Specifically, a much larger percentage of those Obama voters who did not believe any of the fake news statements voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 (89 percent) than those who believed one of the statements (61 percent) and those who believed two or three of them (17 percent).

The study also took into account other factors that could have dissuaded Obama voters from casting ballots for Clinton, including age, race, political identification and gender.

Using what is called "multivariate regression analysis," they found that belief in the fake news statements still accounted for a significant portion of the defections when other factors were considered, including the extent to which voters disliked Clinton or liked Trump.

"Former Obama voters who believed one or more of these fake news stories were 3.9 times more likely to defect from the Democratic ticket in 2016 than those who did not believe any of the false claims, after taking into account all of these other factors," the researchers wrote.

Still, the study emphasized that one cannot conclude from the survey that fake news caused Obama voters to defect from Clinton in 2016. It notes that it is possible a voter first decided not to vote for Clinton, and then in turn cited false stories in order to rationalize their vote.

"We cannot prove that belief in fake news 'caused' these former Obama voters to defect from the Democratic candidate in 2016," the researchers wrote.

"But if these estimates are even remotely accurate as measures of the impact of belief in fake news on defections from the Democratic candidate, it is highly likely that this pernicious pollution of our political discourse was sufficient to influence the outcome of what was a very close election."

The researchers said making a judgment about whether the fake stories determined the outcome of the election would have required a larger survey sample.

The researchers said the study has not been published in an academic journal yet, but likely will be in the coming months.

Disinformation has been a staple of election life since, well, always. I fail to be shocked by this.

[Jacob]

Disinformation has been a staple of election life since, well, always. I fail to be shocked by this.

I fail to be shocked by your lack of shock - it seems your default response to, well, pretty much everything (except the times you feign shock, to sarcastically underscore you not shocked you are).

[The Brain]

Disinformation has been a staple of election life since, well, always. I fail to be shocked by this.

I fail to be shocked by your lack of shock - it seems your default response to, well, pretty much everything (except the times you feign shock, to sarcastically underscore you not shocked you are).

What's your point?

[Jacob]

What's your point?

That I am not shocked 

I thought that was pretty obvious?

[The Brain]

What's your point?

That I am not shocked 

I thought that was pretty obvious?

Not to me.

[Grey Fox]

Jacob understood but not YI, that must be a first.

[Eddie Teach]

Disinformation has been a staple of election life since, well, always. I fail to be shocked by this.

I fail to be shocked by your lack of shock - it seems your default response to, well, pretty much everything (except the times you feign shock, to sarcastically underscore you not shocked you are).

What's your point?

Beyond what he said, if you have the same reaction to everything it lessens the impact of any single reaction.

[grumbler]

For the record, I was making fun of Grumbler.

For the record, I was making fun of GF.

[grumbler]

Please fill me in.

Yeah, what dps said.

Amazon exists because it's capitalizing on an opportunity in the economy. Smacking down Amazon with Trump level tools will not solve brick & mortar stores' woes because someone will continue to fill that need whether it's Amazon, Bezos doing business under some other name, or other companies stepping in.

In a nutshell: internet + good logistics created a paradigm shift for retail once the credibility gap was bridged (and that's well past). Taking out the entity Amazon will not set back that clock.

And that's pretty much to opposite of what GF said, which is why I was making fun of him.  The problem brick & mortar stores have was exploited by Amazon, not created by it.

[garbon]

Why are we giving so much to a record?

[DGuller]

Why are we giving so much to a record?

On an Off the Record forum no less.

[katmai]

What's your point?

That I am not shocked 

I thought that was pretty obvious?

Not to me.

I'm shocked!

[Grey Fox]

Please fill me in.

Yeah, what dps said.

Amazon exists because it's capitalizing on an opportunity in the economy. Smacking down Amazon with Trump level tools will not solve brick & mortar stores' woes because someone will continue to fill that need whether it's Amazon, Bezos doing business under some other name, or other companies stepping in.

In a nutshell: internet + good logistics created a paradigm shift for retail once the credibility gap was bridged (and that's well past). Taking out the entity Amazon will not set back that clock.

And that's pretty much to opposite of what GF said, which is why I was making fun of him.  The problem brick & mortar stores have was exploited by Amazon, not created by it.

While that is true I think that doesn't give enough credit to Jeff Bezos & the monster he created.

[celedhring]

I wonder if Amazon had not existed, wether the Ebay model could have triumphed instead. That is, an online retailer that aggregates small individual sellers and puts them in contact with customers, instead of somebody like Amazon that has its own inventory and replaces those retailers (I'm aware that Amazon now runs 3rd party sellers too, but I don't know how big that part of their business is).

EDIT: Doing some research, I see that 50% of Amazon sales in the US com from 3rd party sellers. That's interesting.

[Grey Fox]

The Ebay model was more auction style than aggregating resellers.  Jeff Bezos handle on how to play the bankers against themselves for his benefits is astonishing.