Daily Archives: 10 April 2018

Social Media Censorship

Posted on by
Reply

Facebook’s management is making some moves in the name of its version of transparency.

Facebook Inc will soon require that advertisers wanting to run ads on hot-button political issues go through an authorization process first, a move the social network hopes will prevent the spread of misinformation across its platform.

And

In October, Facebook unveiled a similar authorization requirement for election-related ads. The latest move will cover “issue ads”—those that don’t specifically mention a candidate but weigh in on a divisive issue, including during an election campaign.

These moves strike me as just move by Facebook management and IT types to facilitate their efforts at censoring the speech of which they personally disapprove.  These steps have nothing at all to do with separating fake from truth—which is the sole responsibility of the reader, anyway.

Messaging and the Midterms

Posted on by
Reply

Here’s a bit about income taxes, via Laura Saunders in Friday’s Wall Street Journal.

For 2018, households in the top 20% will have income of about $150,000 or more and 52% of total income, about the same as in 2017. But they will pay about 87% of income taxes, up from about 84% last year.

And

[T]he lower 60% of households, who have income up to about $86,000, receive about 27% of income. As a group, this tier will pay no net federal income tax in 2018 vs. 2% of it last year.

And this:

…the top 1% will pay for 43% of income tax, up from 38% in 2017.

So much for tax cuts being for the benefit of the rich.

Here’s another bit about who pays and who benefits:

[I]ncome includes earnings from wages and investments plus untaxed amounts, such as from health coverage. These additions nearly double the income of people in the lowest tier and add about 20% for those in the highest tier.

Republicans are shockingly silent about this in their respective local press outlets.  If they don’t start getting these messages out to their constituents early and often, each mid-term candidate needs to fire his communications director and replace him with someone who knows how to talk to local folks.