General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIf you're on Facebook, you're supporting white nationalism
Remember when Peter Thiel invested $500,000 in Facebook, then donated $1.25 million to Donald Trump right after the Access Hollywood tape?
The donation was well known. But what has not been previously reported is just how much Thiel was willing to gamble on Trumps MAGA movement during the 2016 election. His bet went far beyond money, speeches, or even mainstream Republican politics. Even as Thiel staked his reputation on the candidate in public, he met in private with the racist fringe that felt emboldened by Trumps rise to power.
BuzzFeed News can reveal that in at least one instance during the summer of 2016, Thiel hosted a dinner with one of the most influential and vocal white nationalists in modern-day America a man who has called for the creation of a white ethnostate and played a key role in an effort to mainstream white nationalism as the alt-right. And then Thiel emailed the next day to say how much hed enjoyed his company.
Among those on the racist right, Thiels outreach raised hopes that his financial bet on Trump would extend into the ascendant alt-right movement, which despite its prominence was a collection of small and often cash-strapped organizations. One avowed white nationalist privately speculated that Thiels money and influence could have made him our George Soros.
Thiels wager on Trump paid off, at least at first, and the Republican candidates victory ushered him into a new echelon of political power. Thiel seeded allies throughout the new administration and won a direct line of communication with the White House.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosiegray/peter-thiel-donald-trump-white-nationalist-support
Phoenix61
(17,019 posts)Response to Phoenix61 (Reply #1)
Name removed Message auto-removed
Phoenix61
(17,019 posts)Hobby Lobby, Chik-Fil-a, Publix, any company that donated to Twilter?
Response to Phoenix61 (Reply #7)
Name removed Message auto-removed
Phoenix61
(17,019 posts)To achieve the goal of making sure none of the money you spent ended up in Twitlers hands.
Response to Phoenix61 (Reply #9)
Name removed Message auto-removed
cyclonefence
(4,483 posts)Break your FB habit--there are other ways to keep in touch and to have political discussions.
As my grandmother used to say, "Save your money and starve the whores." If enough of us stop using FB it will die.
brooklynite
(94,745 posts)I use it for family news and cat pictures.
I suspect that nobody here would meet your purity standards if we looked at everything they spend time or money on.
Response to brooklynite (Reply #11)
cyclonefence This message was self-deleted by its author.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,902 posts)Plus, if we're concerned about such things, if you shop at Walmart you are seriously supporting Republicans and a company that so badly underpays its employees that new employee orientation includes a how-to on applying for food stamps.
I myself never shop at Hobby Lobby or Walmart, the only time I ever ate at Chick-fil-A I thought the food was terrible and never went back. I use a local bank, not one of the giant ones. I can only do so much, but I make an effort.
madaboutharry
(40,224 posts)Come on.
Thomas Hurt
(13,903 posts)sounds like no one trusts social media.
Sympthsical
(9,121 posts)I read around conservative sites and blogs sometimes (know thy enemy). They are forever whining that this or that right-winger has been deplatformed or suspended from various social media sites. They see Big Tech as a communist plot to take over all political discourse and enforce a uniform, authoritarian Leftist, socialist view upon the entire country.
Which is it? It cannot be both.
I'm a pretty absolutist First Amendment type. I like discourse. Assholes gonna asshole. I'm not much a fan of the woke Left either. There is some crazy racist, homophobic, sexist shit that comes out of them (Horseshoe theory?). And they want to clamp down on free speech just as much as the loony Right does.
I just don't like authoritarians who want to control speech. From any side.
So, a hard pass from me on all this nonsense.
Croney
(4,671 posts)Different Drummer
(7,650 posts)Heartstrings
(7,349 posts)Blecht
(3,803 posts)That is all.
BannonsLiver
(16,470 posts)Has been laid off from one job and had hours cut by 80 percent at another. Selling vintage items on Facebook Marketplace is keeping a roof over his head. So I tend to avoid painting with a broad brush aboit FB even if I dont like it. For some people its a ways to make ends meet.
mahatmakanejeeves
(57,621 posts)Sympthsical
(9,121 posts)At least by your metric. Anything made in China is going towards what is resulting in a genocide and the crackdown in Hong Kong. Have you seen a list of companies doing business and manufacturing in China? You'll basically be living in a cabin in the woods if you hold them to the same standards. And what China is doing is leagues beyond what FB is doing. FB just allows posts from a bunch of racist assholes.
95% of my FB consists of liberals. I do not discuss politics there. It is merely friends and family sharing their lives. I ad block, so I never see anything.
This is slacktivism at its finest. Hating FB is fashionable, so people boycott and feel like they've done Important Work. I promise, it's not. Hell, when I don't use an ad block on DU, all I see are pro-Trump and right-wing ads half the time.
And I never see these calls about Twitter, when it is just as toxic, if not more so. Half the posts on DU nowadays are just copies and pastes of Twitter posts. Why not calls against them? Hell, Trump does a hell a lot of damage from Twitter. No Tweetcott there? Huh. Curious. Maybe because people find it politically useful?
If you have pretty much any technological device, you're supporting a lot worse than a group of white supremacists on a social media site. So maybe ease off on accusing people of supporting things they clearly do not.
Brainstormy
(2,381 posts)Just baloney.
msongs
(67,453 posts)Dem2
(8,168 posts)& block the trolls.
hunter
(38,328 posts)Do you watch television?
SlogginThroughIt
(1,977 posts)Come on this is tiresome.
SlogginThroughIt
(1,977 posts)Nitram
(22,892 posts)climate change. Or if you use electricity powered by fossil fuel, your are a climate change denier. Or if you buy food packaged in plastic you are destroying the planet.