New ways to stay informed about presidential politics.
From the post:
In just two days, Americans will tune in for the final Republican debate before the 2016 primary season officially kicks off in Iowa, and we’re teaming up with Fox News Channel to make sure every citizen can get the most out of it. To help people get informed before heading to the polls, we’re integrating three new components into the debate: a way to hear directly from candidates on Google; real-time Google Trends data; and questions from some of YouTube’s most prominent voices.
…
At first I thought this was a sick joke, given the “.be” domain extension. But using better known, https://googleblog.blogspot.com/, it turns out to be genuine.
What threw me was the idea of being “informed” being paired with “Google + Fox.” That’s what I hope the Stanford SNLI corpus classifies as a contradiction.
The three services are:
- “…publishing long-form text, photos and videos throughout the debate, campaigns can now give extended responses, answer questions they didn’t get a chance to on stage, and rebut their opponents.”
- “…key insights from Google trends…”
- three YouTube content creators will ask the candidates a question
To summarize, you will be “informed” by:
- Longer repetition of semantically null statements by the candidates
- Timely trend information of dubious value
- People possibly less informed than you asking questions
Fox’s involvement, given its emphasis on entertainment as opposed to useful and/or factual news reporting, is a given.
What is surprising is that Google is a voluntary shill to this sideshow.
If you watch the Republican Presidential debate, early card or the main event, you will be dumber for having seen it.