Hillary Clinton’s Silicon Valley Advantage
Digital Media & Election Hackers
To see examples of technology uses to change election outcomes, look no further than Central America. Andrés Sepúlveda, recently profiled in Bloomberg , has been instrumental in tilting presidential elections in the favor of candidates who pay him to do things like launch fake Twitter accounts that advocate for them to win or break into their opponent’s donor databases. It’s no wonder he’s so well known in global political circles. His services, as unethical and illegal as they are, make a difference. Sepúlveda claims to have influenced the outcomes of elections in at least two countries in Latin America. While it’s difficult to corroborate the truth from a man who admits to being paid to sabotage political campaigns for high amounts of cash, Sepúlveda claims to have been recently contacted by someone on the team of an American candidate for president. He doesn’t share the name of who it is, of course, but made it clear that he wouldn’t work for Trump.
Mobile Media Bias Against Trump
Clinton’s up close and personal ties to the tech community have enabled her to benefitting from more than just its money. Game and app designers feel that Apple demonstrates a preference for Clinton by not releasing products that are critical of her. “Capitol HillAwry,” a game ridiculing Clinton’s “emailgate” scandal was rejected by Apple for being offensive, according to its developer, John Matze. Countless apps ridiculing Trump, however, have been approved, one even going by the blatantly politically critical name. “Dump Trump.” After receiving scrutiny from the media for its obvious bias towards Clinton, Apple has allowed the “Capital HillAwry” app to be sold on its platform, however. Twitter has been accused of banning accounts that are pro-Trump while giving liberal users as much freedom to promote their viewpoints as they want. Twitter recently shut down the account of Milo Yiannopoulos, a conservative writer, for example, for posting comments that were reportedly racist. There’s never a backlash against Twitter users who advocate for killing police officers, however. Clinton posts on Twitter, but Trump rants.
Valley of Democrats
Maybe the tech community doesn’t consider it unscrupulous to use their popularity and pull to make sure that Clinton makes it into the White House, but the relationship between Google and the Democrats has become difficult to separate. Some might say that Google has become the digital arm of the Democratic party. Whether or not you agree, there’s no better company for Hilary to have on her side when it comes to big data expertise. Big data is as crucial to a candidate’s success with voters as it is to a corporation’s success with customers, and no one has a better grip on the large and complex data set that comprises the American public than Google. Making sense of massive quantities of information about millions of people falls into their area of specialization. Hilary, simply put, has an ability to build relationships with voters that no other presidential candidate has.
Election Technology Talent
Getting high paid digerati to take jobs in politics isn’t easy. The salaries they’re paid isn’t enough to leave lucrative tech careers for. Campaigns are short-lived and don’t offer the benefit packages available in the private sector. Clinton has the usual array of young professionals around her. There’s nothing about her campaign that’s out of the ordinary. She has a prowess for getting support from rich donors in the country’s most progressive industry. That’s it. This is how Clinton apologists reply to theories that Clinton’s magic influence over the tech world is legit.
Stephanie Hannon, Chief Technology Officer at Hillary for America, was an executive at Google. It’s said that there are a host of other former Googlers that comprise Clinton’s campaign staff. This is particularly troubling when accusations that Google’s search results are biased in behalf of Ms. Clinton abound. Google has, of course, shot down the premise that their algorithms are rigged. They categorically deny that they suppress negative news on Clinton while making sure that it proliferates about Trump.
Is Google Helping Hillary?
Matt Lieberman, the host of a popular Youtube channel, isn’t buying their claims of being neutral and fair, however. He’s done enough searches using Clinton’s name on multiple search engines to be sure that Google protects her. He claims that doing a search starting with her last name and the letters “cri” and the predictive search feature will finish your query by offering you choices such as ” crime reform,”. Use Yahoo or Bing, he points out, and the words “criminal activity” are retrieved.
Naysayers moan that it’s business as usual. The Clinton campaign is just how politics looks in the tech era. Because of Clinton’s unfair influence over the technocracy and the media, Trump has already begun pointing out that a fair election isn’t coming. It’s anticipated that he’ll inflame his opponents by saying the system is rigged. Even as voters across the political spectrum complain that Election Day seems more and more like a spectacle to convince Americans that democracy is not dead, American media continues to manipulate audiences to support Hillary. Without the slightest bit of journalistic integrity, they continue to cut the Trump campaign to bits. It takes a village to raise a child, Clinton is famous for saying. Perhaps she’ll also share what it takes to swing an election.
