'Cool to vote': Hollywood election telethon aims to get youth to polls

Hollywood celebrities will make a push next week to urge young people to the polls in Tuesday’s U.S. elections, when control of Congress and many state governorships are at stake. In a first-of-its-kind event, more than 50 actors, comedians and YouTube stars will join a two-hour, live-streamed telethon on Monday night aimed at firing up younger voters, the age group least likely to cast a ballot. Stars will not ask for money during the “Telethon for America.” Instead, they will urge viewers to call in to a celebrity phone bank and pledge to vote the next day.

Comedian Chelsea Handler, who left her Netflix (NFLX.O) talk show a year ago to focus on activism, said she believes young people expect “older, more responsible adults” will act to solve problems through government. “They just think someone else is going to take care of it, it’s not their problem and they may not be directly affected by it,” Handler, who is 43, said in an interview. Turnout in midterm elections is traditionally lower than in presidential elections. Reuters/Ipsos polling found that in October only 25 percent of people aged 18-29 said they were certain to vote in the election, the lowest percentage of any age bracket.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt on Friday added their voices to the campaign to get out the vote. “This election might be the most consequential of our lifetime,” DiCaprio said in a video message with Pitt released on social media, mentioning issues like gun control, the environment and immigration, without referencing any political party. While the organizers of Monday’s event say it is a nonpartisan effort, increased turnout among young voters could help Democrats. Forty percent of people in that age group identified as Democrats, while 22 percent called themselves Republicans.

Jane Fonda, Charlize Theron, Judd Apatow and others will participate in the telethon. Created by comedian Ben Gleib, the telethon will be streamed live from a YouTube production space outside Los Angeles on YouTube(GOOGL.O), Facebook Live (FB.O) and Comedy Central’s(VIAB.O) website. Viewers will be directed to information about how and where to vote in the elections.

The elections, widely viewed as a referendum on Republican President Donald Trump, represent a chance for Democrats to break his party’s hold on Congress. Opinion polls show Democrats with a good shot at picking up the net 23 seats they need for a majority in the House of Representatives, but only a slim chance of winning back the Senate. The telethon could add momentum to a trend already underway: there has been a surge in early voting this year by young voters. Initial estimates modeled from survey responses, voter registrations and other data show huge increases in early turnout of voters ages 18-29 compared with the last midterm elections in 2014.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-hollywood/cool-to-vote-hollywood-election-telethon-aims-to-get-youth-to-polls-idUSKCN1N7273

>>3711186

I believe they believe it's their last attempt everything else seems to be falling apart. kek

>>3711223

Right there with you…last attempt..pulling out all the stops…Really? I don't see these people as headliners..

>>3711254

Agreed, and coming full circle..

>>3711278

I have always thought that is what the whole migrant thing was about in the first place..didn't everyone else? Dem's depend on these people constantly sort of the free candy mind set…

>>3711318

It really is..I try imagine all of the stuff we know as bad as that is, how much worse what we don't know is. Looking back on previous elections..it seems to follow a trend with them..they find something that works and let it run it's course until they are found out and move on to the next new trick up their sleeves. They will not stop until they are stopped.

>>3711358

Right there with you anon..

Exclusive: Twitter deletes over 10,000 accounts that sought to discourage U.S. voting

Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) deleted more than 10,000 automated accounts posting messages that discouraged people from voting in Tuesday’s U.S. election and wrongly appeared to be from Democrats, after the party flagged the misleading tweets to the social media company. “We took action on relevant accounts and activity on Twitter,” a Twitter spokesman said in an email. The removals took place in late September and early October.

Twitter removed more than 10,000 accounts, according to three sources familiar with the Democrats’ effort. The number is modest, considering that Twitter has previously deleted millions of accounts it determined were responsible for spreading misinformation in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Yet the removals represent an early win for a fledgling effort by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or DCCC, a party group that supports Democrats running for the U.S. House of Representatives. The DCCC launched the effort this year in response to the party’s inability to respond to millions of accounts on Twitter and other social media platforms that spread negative and false information about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and other party candidates in 2016, three people familiar with the operation told Reuters.

While the prevalence of misinformation campaigns have so far been modest in the run-up to the Congressional elections on Nov. 6, Democrats are hoping the flagging operation will help them react quickly if there is a flurry of such messages in the coming days. The Tweets included ones that discouraged Democratic men from voting, saying that would drown out the voice of women, according to two of the sources familiar with the flagging operation. The DCCC developed its own system for identifying and reporting malicious automated accounts on social media, according to the three party sources.

The system was built in part from publicly available tools known as “Hoaxley” and “Botometer” developed by University of Indiana comThe collaboration with RoBhat has already led to the discovery of malicious accounts and posts, which were referred to social media companies and other campaign officials, DNC Chief Technology Officer Raffi Krikorian saidputer researchers. They allow a user to identify automated accounts, also known as bots, and analyze how they spread information on specific topics. “We made Hoaxley and Botometer free for anyone to use because people deserve to know what’s a bot and what’s not,” said Filippo Menczer, professor of informatics and computer science at the University of Indiana. The Democratic National Committee works with a group of contractors and partners to rapidly identify misinformation campaigns.

They include RoBhat Labs, a firm whose website says it has developed technology capable of detecting bots and identifying political-bias in messages. The collaboration with RoBhat has already led to the discovery of malicious accounts and posts, which were referred to social media companies and other campaign officials, DNC Chief Technology Officer Raffi Krikorian said in email. Krikorian did not say whether the flagged posts were ultimately removed by Twitter. “We provide the DNC with reports about what we’re seeing in terms of bot activity and where it’s being amplified,” said Ash Bhat, co-founder of RoBhat Labs. “We can’t tell you who’s behind these different operations, Twitter hides that from us, but with the technology you known when and how it’s happening,” Bhat said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vietnam-socialmedia/vietnam-releases-cybersecurity-draft-decree-idUSKCN1N71XY