Comments on: Party Foul: Facebook and “Political Views”

By: Special Birthday Edition of Monday Links: January 5th, 2009 | Tropophilia

Special Birthday Edition of Monday Links: January 5th, 2009 | Tropophilia — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 04:27:31 +0000

[...] Party Foul: Facebook and “Political Views” (381) [...]

By: Sammy

Sammy — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 05:11:24 +0000

To answer J-ROD's last question, I'm surprised that the real political compass (not the WaPo one, or the biased "World's Smallest Political Test" that turns people into Libertarians) - you know, the two-dimensional one available here - isn't a feature (outside of a under-used application). It's an amazing way to micro-target (for advertisers), it would foment and interesting political discussion, and it would be much more accurate than self-identification. For example, if Edwards were recruiting volunteers, he would love to find people who were economically left, even if they were more authoritarian than libertarian. OT- this is a great article about the brain and change you may have missed. It's really amazing. And scary.

By: Jarred

Jarred — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 12:45:50 +0000

I will not be changing mine from “moderate.” Even though I am 100% behind Barack Obama for this election and have generously given to his campaign, I’m not sure I’m really a Democrat (though I am registered as one in DC). In reality, I think only politicians and die-hards should “belong” to political parties. Voters should be free to support whatever candidate from whatever party at whatever time without any “ties” (or history thereof) to another party. To me, a Democrat makes sense for this election (a certain Democrat over another, but still). Maybe next time, a Republican will. Who says that political views cannot shift in different contexts?

I know political parties serve an important purpose, and maybe what I said above isn’t exactly how I feel. But I do think that diehard party loyalty is — duh — at the heart of the deep partisanship and divide we see in the country today. A lot of our national leadership won’t even listen to people from different parties. Is that what our political process is supposed to be like? Bitter gridlock?

That’s what I like about Obama and what I dislike about Hillary. A Democrat that opens his arms to independents and Republicans, recognizes that debate and dialogue are healthy, entertains other opinions, and recognizes that no leader — foreign or domestic, conservative or liberal — is too different to be listened to.

I think it’s silly for Facebook to have changed from ideology to party for political identification. OK, so maybe we have more choices now, but they’re not choices that correctly respond to the question. I might agree, though, that the scale from very liberal to very conservative is a little too narrow. Some people may be very socially liberal and very financially conservative, or vice-versa. What are they supposed to choose? Moderate?

By: Sammy

Sammy — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 05:28:31 +0000

The data from before wasn’t that much better. In Charlotte, NC (for example) over 60% of people didn’t have political info … and when I ran a facebook poll on a local controversy, facebook couldn’t even give me the crosstabs.

To me, it’s just another category that will now be filled with the words “It’s Complicated.”