The Facebook's business model and the electoral process

Rubén Weinsteiner

Facebook's business model is such a problem for the electoral process because what they have done is essentially incentivize the more polarizing and extreme communications. You don’t know if someone is calling in a neighbor to watch an ad on TV, but Facebook knows if you’re sharing it.


It makes sense if you're selling, you know, swimsuits. If you're Facebook, you should absolutely want to serve up better swimsuit ads. But when it comes to politics, it makes less sense because if you have a super fired-up community that's going to love your content even if it's nutty or racist or untrue, then the platform shouldn't give that stuff an advantage.

Despite this grumbling, the idea that Washington might write new regulations to rein in the tech industry has so far amounted to a lot of heated words. Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Mark Warner of Virginia have, alongside Arizona Republican John McCain, pushed a bill that would force the social media platforms to disclose who’s paying for political ads, one response to the past year's revelations about Russian interference. But that measure has failed to gain momentum.

Elsewhere in Congress, there’s been high-level idea-floating about the need for government to act as a check on the tech industry — Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and former Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) have been among those engaging in that discussion. But there’s been little appetite for turning that rhetoric into concrete legislative proposals.

Rubén Weinsteiner

Potential democrats candidates for 2020

At least a dozen potential candidates are bolstering their teams by adding aides with campaign experience.



Some aides — including one for former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe — who would likely play large roles in potential 2020 campaigns have moved on to top-tier midterm races for this election cycle.

The hiring stage of the 2020 shadow primary is underway.

At least a dozen possible Democratic presidential candidates have begun bolstering their teams by adding aides with campaign experience to their Senate staffs, personal offices or 2018 reelection payrolls.


The hires are never explicitly advertised or designed to be about 2020. But the behind-the-scenes shuffle is a long-overdue stage in the traditional precampaign scramble. Potential candidates who have run before — like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden — largely have their core teams in place.

Yet in many other cases, chiefs of staff and senior strategists are now actively looking for new talent after receiving clear instructions from their bosses: I don’t know whether I’m going to run for president, but do everything you need to do to get me in position, just in case.

Recent moves have come in a variety of forms. Some consultants are working more than ever with potential candidates who are first up for reelection in 2018. Barack Obama’s former top digital strategist, Joe Rospars, for example, has been helping Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s team.

In other cases, aides who would likely be expected to play large roles in potential 2020 campaigns have moved on to top-tier midterm races for this election cycle, sometimes in a bid to gain even more experience. Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s longtime aide Michael Halle is now running a gubernatorial campaign in Ohio.


And still other potential candidates have brought campaign veterans into their official offices: New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker recently hired Tamia Booker (no relation) — Hillary Clinton’s national African-American outreach director in the 2016 general election and a veteran of the Obama administration and the 2016 Democratic convention — as his deputy chief of staff.

“Given the number of potential candidates running in 2020, it’s even more necessary to start early, because the political consultants tap out: There’s only so many of them. It’s a race to get the quality folks,” said Patti Solis-Doyle, the Democratic strategist who managed Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2008. “It takes time to pull the team together: It takes time to really figure out whether you have the potential resources to run a national campaign, whether that’s national political support or the ability to raise money on a national level.”

By this point in 2016’s election cycle, Clinton’s core team had already been mapping out her political strategy for months, and Sanders’ top advisers were beginning to chart their own course.

“It’s time,” added Erik Smith, a former top aide to Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns, “to have a plan in place.”

Though they've mostly occurred behind closed doors, the moves paint a picture of a Democratic Party slowly but surely building up to a raucous primary contest. But desperate to avoid painting a Donald Trump-shaped target on their backs, the potential candidates have largely tried keeping almost all of their political maneuvers quiet — a significant break from the practice of recent election cycles, at least ahead of competitive multi-candidate primaries.

Eager to avoid the spotlight or appear to be looking beyond the midterms so early, few White House aspirants have ventured far into the early-voting state territory of Iowa or New Hampshire politics. Washington-based veterans of other national campaigns say that when the possible candidates call for advice, it’s seldom about primary state strategy, and more about top-line political guidance.

The relative circumspection is due largely to the massive list of Democrats considering a run: Dozens of pols have asked aides to look into what it would take to mount a real campaign, potentially stretching thin the staffing pool and leading political professionals to be extra-careful about signing on with any one possible candidate.

Rubén Weinsteiner

The countries where people work the longest hours

These are the countries where people work for the longest hours compared with the rest of the world.


Mexicans work far longer days than anyone else. Germans, on the other hand, clock up the least hours.


New data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development(OECD), whose 35 members include much of the developed world and some developing nations, found the average Mexican spends 2,255 hours at work per year – the equivalent of around 43 hours per week.
Image: OECD Data


Greeks work the longest hours in Europe, at an average 2,035 hours per year.


At the other end of the spectrum, German workers put in a comparatively meagre 1,363 hours per year. That’s 892 fewer hours spent at work per year than Mexicans.


Workers in the US are in the middle with 1,783 hours.


Different work cultures


Differing cultural attitudes and socio-economic factors play a key role in the amount of hours employers expect from workers.


In Mexico, long-standing fears about unemployment, coupled with lax labour laws, mean that the maximum 48-hour workweek is rarely enforced.
Image: Reuters/Jose Luis Gonzalez


In third-placed South Korea, longer working hours have been part of a drive to boost economic growth.


But following concerns about social problems, including a low birth rate and slowing productivity, President Moon Jae-in has led a push to reduce the country’s working hours and give workers the “right to rest”.


Despite having a term to describe death by overwork ("karoshi"), the average Japanese worker does 1,713 hours per year – below the OECD average.


This might come as a surprise in light of the country’s reputation for having a workaholic culture, which has led to calls for the government to impose a cap on overtime work.


Fewer hours, more productive


Despite enjoying the shortest working hours among OECD member countries, Germany manages to maintain high productivity levels. In fact, the average German worker is reported to be 27% more productive than his or her British counterpart.


The Dutch, French and Danes also work fewer than 1,500 hours per year on average. Just 2% of Danish employees – who enjoy the best work-life balance in the world – put in long hours compared to the OECD average of 13