recedite wrote: » I'm not all that perturbed about it one way or the other. Maybe its because I assume that I personally cannot be influenced by Facebook. Maybe I underestimate their ability to swing a referendum in favour of the highest bidder. Its an issue that will grow in importance as time goes on, but right now I see a lot of whingers moaning about it. Just because they can't accept that votes like The Donald and Brexit could have happened in a democratic world. But hey, that is democracy.
david75 wrote: » It doesn’t matter what you believe, the governemt are looking at it and will be legislating.
If I, in the US, pay Facebook, in the US, using US dollars, to run particular ads promoting pro-life (or pro-choice) views or values, or urging a vote one way or the other, targetted at Irish viewers of Facebook, how are the Irish authorities going to regulate that effectively? Nobody involved is within the jurisdiction of the Irish courts, no Irish funds are used, no funds are ever remitted to Ireland. And if Ireland can't regulate that, there may not be much point in passing laws that pretend to regulate it.
david75 wrote: » Sounds like you don’t care about financial support and foreign interference so long as it’s your political preferences benefitting from it.
recedite wrote: » I don't believe. I'm not all that perturbed about it one way or the other. Maybe its because I assume that I personally cannot be influenced by Facebook. Maybe I underestimate their ability to swing a referendum in favour of the highest bidder. Its an issue that will grow in importance as time goes on, but right now I see a lot of whingers moaning about it. Just because they can't accept that votes like The Donald and Brexit could have happened in a democratic world. But hey, that is democracy.
david75 wrote: » I believe they’re looking at legislating for that right now but no way will it be done before this referendums ballot day.
aloyisious wrote: » So what say you about the present foreign interference on the 8th amendment [trying to steer the Irish people towards keeping it in the constitution] would it meet your approval? If it did meet your approval [for the common good] would you not then [within your own definition] be an internationalist ? Or even more so, the way the introduction of the 8th into our constitution was promoted by foreigners, would you class the last as interference?
Peregrinus wrote: » I have to say that I don't have a problem with international funding coming in for the Repeal-the-8th referendum (on either side of the issue) or, for that matter, with international concern about US gun laws. Discourse about these issues is framed in terms of human rights and, if there is one topic that should transcend national and political borders, isn't it human rights?
recedite wrote: » Maybe, maybe not. Maybe its just the people in one country interfering in the laws that govern people in another country. But then if you're an internationalist, you don't have a problem with that, as long as you think the interference is "for the common good" (ie the liberal agenda).
Peregrinus wrote: » Well, it may be a practical issue. If I, in the US, pay Facebook, in the US, using US dollars, to run particular ads promoting pro-life (or pro-choice) views or values, or urging a vote one way or the other, targetted at Irish viewers of Facebook, how are the Irish authorities going to regulate that effectively? Nobody involved is within the jurisdiction of the Irish courts, no Irish funds are used, no funds are ever remitted to Ireland. And if Ireland can't regulate that, there may not be much point in passing laws that pretend to regulate it.
aloyisious wrote: » That's left me wondering how they get around the currency exchange problem, dollar to euro, in respect to the US donations. I know there are ways of making payment electronically but there has to be a start point in the US, so in theory, if a complaint was made [to: say SIPO] about a US funding source there must be a trail for the investigators to follow back to the donor.....
david75 wrote: » There’s a crowd on twitter called transparent ref looking into all that and they reported last week that they’ve discovered something like 100 PLC ads have been paid for from the US directly. So the money isn’t going through the PLC here at all, so it seems it’s a sneaky loophole they’re using in order to get around SIPO “But “the (SIPO) Act does not cover expenditure that occurs outside Ireland.” Link to the articlehttps://www.dublininquirer.com/2018/03/20/with-facebook-ads-us-groups-seek-to-influence-outcome-of-referendum/
recedite wrote: » As Peregrinus said... ..and what human right is more important than the right to life itself?
david75 wrote: » And if it’s US pro life groups pouring money into Ireland and buying ads for the PLC to skew the referendum?
if there is one topic that should transcend national and political borders, isn't it human rights
Peregrinus wrote: » I have no problem with the "US" bit. The merit, or lack of merit, of the arguments advanced on either side of this issue is unrelated to the nationality of the people advancing the arguments. Democracy is pretty pointless if you don't think citizens can scrutinise arguments and decide which ones they like and which ones they don't.
recedite wrote: » Maybe, maybe not. Maybe its just the people in one country interfering in the laws that govern people in another country. But then if you're an internationalist, you don't have a problem with that, as long as you think the interference is "for the common good" (ie the liberal agenda). So if its Amnesty International promoting a liberal agenda in Russia, its OK. But if its the Kremlin promoting Donald Trump, its "the end of democracy".
Peregrinus wrote: » isn't it human rights?
Peregrinus wrote: » O'Toole's points are very valid. But we'd be naive, wouldn't we, to think that the tools of data analysis, micro-targetting, etc are only available to, or likely to be employed by, those on the regressive side of issues?
The Brexit referendum and the Trump campaign have shown in the starkest terms that we are no longer in the era of national democracy
smacl wrote: » One wonders if SIPO are becoming involved in this, given the recent outcry over George Soros. It certainly seems like a case of highly objectionable and undue foreign influence, regardless of which side you're voting for.
aloyisious wrote: » I know that, by itself, marketing can't but be a help to guide people toward making a choice favoured by an interested group. We've been "bracketed" by Ads from all the "interested groups" to give them their desired result, and I'm including the Irish Amnesty international branch here as such a party. We know we've been targetted for decades by supermarket chains [through discount offers based on returns of goods sales figures] and by Ads on TV. It's just a political use of the same ploy, target what/whom will favour you most. This might seem a strange simile to make but I can see how the nice image of babies scooting away from mummy when she wants to put on a new nappy or smiling when given a bottle of milk, or aome soothing cream on you know where and baby smiles/gurgles up at you/the screen in happiness, would be appreciated by the Pro-Life anti-abortion side of the argument as the little babby is being projected into homes all over the country regularly from the nations TV's. I see it has the chance of being subliminal advertising free of charge to the Pro-Life anti-abortion side of the debate. Floor open to debunking of mine above now. Edit: @ david75... the article used the US dollar sign. There is at present a bill going through one of the US states elected houses now seeking to ban abortions in that state. It won't happen and those promo-ing it know it won't as the USSC has thrown out similar bills in the past on the basis that women are allowed abortion operations in the US as a right. Look at it as a US anti-abortion movement ploy to point to Ireland as a shining example of a nation free from abortion "if they can do it in Ireland, so can we".....
The Irish vote matters deeply to the hard right internationally. The Eighth Amendment has always been a model for what it wants to see elsewhere, especially in the United States. Money will be no object – as the main anti-abortion website LifeSite News asks in a fundraising appeal attached to an article posted last week, called Will Ireland Rise Up and Do Battle for the Unborn? “Can you donate just $10 for PRO-LIFE? Every person you help reach becomes equipped to engage in the culture war.” The firestorm of fake news is coming. We need to know what plans the Government has to ensure a free and fair vote.
Irish Times wrote: If you like my stuff you’re an ignoramus. Many people would agree with this as a general proposition, but I mean it in a more specific sense. If you’ve ever liked or shared one of my columns online, data-analysis firms probably identify you as a hopeless lefty liberal. And you will therefore be ignorant of the big social-media campaign against the repeal of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, which bans abortion in almost all circumstances. That campaign will be modelled on those that helped both Donald Trump and Brexit to victory. It will use microtargeting to direct specific messages to those who can be most easily swayed by them. You won’t see them – and as things stand Irish regulations will do nothing to control them. The Brexit referendum and the Trump campaign have shown in the starkest terms that we are no longer in the era of national democracy. The online space in which the opinions of increasing numbers of voters are formed is unbounded. Russia can target voters in Ohio. So can a UK-based digital-campaigning firm like Cambridge Analytica. An obscure data firm in Canada, AggregateIQ, can target voters in Sunderland. (I see, by the way, that AggregateIQ has now removed from its website a quote from the director of the Vote Leave campaign, Dominic Cummings: “Without a doubt, the Vote Leave campaign owes a great deal of its success to the work of AggregateIQ. We couldn’t have done it without them”.) It would be naive to think that this kind of influence will not be brought to bear on the Irish abortion referendum. We already know that a UK-based data-analytics and political-campaigning company, Kanto, has been hired by the Save the 8th campaign to help persuade Irish people to vote against repeal. Kanto is headed by Thomas Borwick, son of the former Tory MP Victoria Borwick. It is hard to think of a single person who better embodies the transatlantic nexus of right-wing digital influencers. Borwick is an alumnus of the now notorious Cambridge Analytica, which is owned by Robert Mercer, the billionaire Trump ally who also funds the far-right website Breitbart. Borwick was also a consultant to Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, SCL Group. And Borwick was technology director of the Vote Leave campaign, which spent more than half its entire budget with AggregateIQ, as well as the sole shareholder of Voter Consultancy Ltd, which came to prominence in Britain last November, when it used highly targeted Facebook ads to urge protests against specific anti-Brexit Tory MPs. Taking us back across the Atlantic, these ads were placed on behalf of a shadowy Florida-registered organisation called Brexit Realities. Borwick has also recently formed a company called (I kid you not) Disruptive Communications Ltd with the former Ukip MP Douglas Carswell. According to John McGuirk of Save the 8th, Kanto has been hired merely to create a website and track its use. This may well be so, but it is decidedly odd. Kanto is Thomas Borwick. According to its filing with Companies House in London, Kanto Systems has two registered officers, its company secretary, Thomas Borwick, and its company director, Thomas Borwick. There is also Kanto Elect, registered at the same address. It too has two directors: Thomas Borwick and Kanto Systems. Save the 8th hasn’t hired web services. It has hired Borwick. And hiring Borwick to create and manage a website is like employing the SAS to run security at a school hop or bringing in Einstein to tot up your shopping bill. He seems awfully overqualified for the job. There are probably thousands of people in Ireland who could create a campaign website that would allow McGuirk and his colleagues to tell, as he puts it, whether “600 people from Tipperary are logging on”. I am sure there are highly motivated anti-abortion idealists who would even do this for free. So why do you need to bring in the person who ran the Brexit operation, one of the most successful campaigns of digital persuasion yet seen? How do you just happen to hire someone who is right at the heart of the Trump-Mercer-Brexit data-manipulation nexus? If the anti-abortion campaign can really afford this kind of overkill, we can also expect every Save the 8th leaflet to be delivered to our doors on a silver platter by a liveried courier riding a white charger. But assuming that Save the 8th really has no intention of using the dark techniques that were so successful for Trump and the Brexiteers, the certainty is that someone else will. The Irish vote matters deeply to the hard right internationally. The Eighth Amendment has always been a model for what it wants to see elsewhere, especially in the United States. Money will be no object – as the main anti-abortion website LifeSite News asks in a fundraising appeal attached to an article posted last week, called Will Ireland Rise Up and Do Battle for the Unborn? “Can you donate just $10 for PRO-LIFE? Every person you help reach becomes equipped to engage in the culture war.” The firestorm of fake news is coming. We need to know what plans the Government has to ensure a free and fair vote.
recedite wrote: » I see the point you are trying valiantly to argue Peregrinus, but I don't see very much merit in it (and I don't think you do either) Taking the argument to its logical conclusion, there would be no need for referendums in the first place, because the courts would be sovereign, not the people. They would decide directly which rights people should be entitled to, and which ones they should not be entitled to. Yes, the concept that human rights already exist as natural rights is a valid one, but who divines or enumerates these rights? The people do, not the judges.
recedite wrote: » Similarly when somebody is tried in court for a serious offence, who decides whether they are guilty or innocent? The jury does, not the judge.
recedite wrote: » Anyway, that judgement is out of date. In the modern era (after that Mary Robinson referral) we have allowed the ECHR to become the ultimate arbiter of human rights. So we can no longer amend our constitution in any way that is incompatible with ECHR.
recedite wrote: » Presumably we could repudiate that treaty and go back to being sovereign ourselves, if we wanted to, via referendum (a Brexit).
