Facebook and Politics

BDBoop

Platinum Member
Jul 20, 2011
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Don't harsh my zen, Jen!
Since 2008, Facebook users have risen from 100m to 750m. Granted, I don't know how many of them are Americans, AND old enough to vote.

I was just reading in another thread about how people who don't follow politics are likely to vote based on appearance. I'm just wondering, what with all the politically active people on Facebook, if more people are becoming politically aware.

In other words, might the number of politically aware Americans be rising. Might it be getting less easy to fool people, since there is fingertip access to so much information?
 
How many bullshit threads do you start every day ?

I think you have some sort of a USMB record for most idiotic threads daily.

Keep up the stupid work.
 
How many bullshit threads do you start every day ?

I think you have some sort of a USMB record for most idiotic threads daily.

Keep up the stupid work.

She's asking a simple question and not even taking any political sides in it. What's so stupid about it?
 
Since 2008, Facebook users have risen from 100m to 750m. Granted, I don't know how many of them are Americans, AND old enough to vote.

I was just reading in another thread about how people who don't follow politics are likely to vote based on appearance. I'm just wondering, what with all the politically active people on Facebook, if more people are becoming politically aware.

In other words, might the number of politically aware Americans be rising. Might it be getting less easy to fool people, since there is fingertip access to so much information?

And to answer the question....


Yes, people do seem to be more politically aware, but No, that doesn't appear to be stopping them from believing crap anyway.
 
In other words, might the number of politically aware Americans be rising. Might it be getting less easy to fool people, since there is fingertip access to so much information?

Almost certainly not. Increased availability of information is useless to a person if:

1) A person chooses not to access information (perhaps relying on certain ideological gatekeepers to sift through it for them, if they rely on anything at all); or

2) A person is unable to use, interpret, understand, or evaluate that information. Which just leads you back to the gatekeepers in point 1.

Both of these are rampant--read a few threads here if you want some quick examples.

Or, as Feynman put it, "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool." Still good advice and still largely unheeded.
 
Politically aware yes, but in a programmed way not in a self thinking decision making way.
That skill is vanishing rapidly.
 
Might it be getting less easy to fool people, since there is fingertip access to so much information?



And of course for a liberal, "fool people" means not supporting liberal positions. :rolleyes:
 
Since 2008, Facebook users have risen from 100m to 750m. Granted, I don't know how many of them are Americans, AND old enough to vote.

I was just reading in another thread about how people who don't follow politics are likely to vote based on appearance. I'm just wondering, what with all the politically active people on Facebook, if more people are becoming politically aware.

In other words, might the number of politically aware Americans be rising. Might it be getting less easy to fool people, since there is fingertip access to so much information?

I'm unsure how aware they will become more aware if Facebook continues to censor posts they do not like, such as Jan Brewers recent post. They called it a 'mistake' but IMO that was BS.
 
Since 2008, Facebook users have risen from 100m to 750m. Granted, I don't know how many of them are Americans, AND old enough to vote.

I was just reading in another thread about how people who don't follow politics are likely to vote based on appearance. I'm just wondering, what with all the politically active people on Facebook, if more people are becoming politically aware.

In other words, might the number of politically aware Americans be rising. Might it be getting less easy to fool people, since there is fingertip access to so much information?

I would say Facebook makes it much easier to fool people. I have politically conscience friends of all stripes on Facebook. Nine times out of ten when one of them makes a politically themed status update it consists of 99% propaganda commingled with 1% fact. Doesn't matter what side of the aisle - facebook is the Mecca for extremely vapid and superficial political dialogue.
 
Since 2008, Facebook users have risen from 100m to 750m. Granted, I don't know how many of them are Americans, AND old enough to vote.

I was just reading in another thread about how people who don't follow politics are likely to vote based on appearance. I'm just wondering, what with all the politically active people on Facebook, if more people are becoming politically aware.

In other words, might the number of politically aware Americans be rising. Might it be getting less easy to fool people, since there is fingertip access to so much information?
There are politically active people on FaceBook? I can post the same kind of stuff there that I post here and never get a response, only the occasional "like".

Post something like "Just got a StarBucks Coffee!" or "My Aura is Yellow!" or post a music video and I'll get dozens of responses.

FaceBook is for the petty, self centered types.
 

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