Slashdot Mirror
Social Sites Offer 'New' Way To Experience Presidential Debates
News.com notes that the social sites have been burning up in the wake of the debates, as users create more content than it's possible to follow. Facebook specifically set up an area for debate viewers to post messages and take surveys during the events. Some participants found it a bit worthless, and the article refers to the experience as 'information overload'. "No doubt, the political twitterers must've felt empowered to know their Soundboard comments were being beamed out to an audience of potentially millions of Facebook users, and, if plucked by ABC's designated Facebook-monitoring reporter on TV, millions of offline viewers as well. Still, it's a little unclear whether the comments will prove all that useful for campaigns looking to boost their candidates' standing."
At Christmas I was talking to my grandfather about the 1930s. He was mentioning how much American politiking has changed since then. In particular, he talked about how the candidates then didn't have the huge teams that they do today. The politicians themselves did much of the grunt work, and interacted directly with the voters.
One thing he said is that it made the politicians seem more real. These days, a normal American citizen would have very little chance of meeting face-to-face with their representatives, especially at the higher levels of government. But in those days, such meetings were quite easy to arrange, especially before an election. He recalled meeting with one candidate for office. During their meeting, the candidate got a bad case of diarrhea. He told me grandfather straight out, "I'm about to shit my pants full of liquid. Excuse me." So my grandfather did, and was so impressed by this candidate's honesty that he voted for him.
I just don't think we'll ever see something like that from a politician today. And with YouTube being an outlet for embarassing videos, politicians today seem less likely than ever to appear at non-scripted events.
Facebookers opined that Hillary Clinton is "onto Barack like a Rottweiler" one moment and "has about as much experience and common sense as an avacado [sic]" the next. Ron Paul is a "looney" to some, but "the only one who understands economics" and "the only logical and realistic choice," to others.
So, put it that way, people say anything and its opposite about candidates, and we hardly have any way to quantify what they think as a whole. So we can (pretty much) qualify what people think but not quantify. Sounds like a problem.
Here's what I wish would exist on the web, sort of polls in which no poll choices would be defined by the poll creator, but would emerge from what people say. I'm going to use TFA's Mitt Romney example to illustrate the idea : "Mitt Romney, who arguably endured the largest share of attacks during the Republican debate, drew mixed reviews: everything from "the only one who understands insurance," "looks younger than 60," to "is getting creamed," and "lost this debate.""
Basically, from such a polling system's user input would emerge dominating trends, for example "Only Romney understands insurance", "Romney lost the debate", "Romney looks young", and people's input would be categorised under these self-grouping ideas and thus you could both qualify and quantify at the same time what people think and agree on.
Unfortunately the "grouping user input into a few categories" thing might be the difficult part.
You just got troll'd!
What percentage of the MySpace, Facebook and YouTube audience are old enough to actually vote? My guess is the answer to both these questions are relatively low numbers.
I'm embarrassed to admit this, but most of my family (all adults) have Facebook accounts and keep bugging me to create one since it's how they keep in touch these days.
My mother also recently went on her first date in years. It was an ex-high-school-boyfriend that she hadn't seen in 30 years who had run across her Facebook profile.
Both are reasons that I *don't* have a Facebook account but pretty much everyone I know seems to have one these days it seems.
facebook is (used to be?) mostly college students, eg, those who are old enough to vote.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
I saw that last time I checked to see if I got an message from Ms. Mount Holyoke but I thought I would rather be bitten by a vampire
Added Pressly: "Oh, and by the way, milk is nothing but liquid meat."
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
What percentage of voters are affected by Social Networking sites? What percentage of the MySpace, Facebook and YouTube audience are old enough to actually vote? My guess is the answer to both these questions are relatively low numbers.
Aside from my 13 year old son, every facebook user in my friends list is old enough to vote.
In my experience, very young kids are more interested in the 'rapid high' aspects of the net. That being flash games, MSN, and mmorgs. Things like facebook and such, social networking sites, usually take some work by the user in order to generate that all important network. On MSN the same is true, but since the only content is chat, its a simpler, faster process.
What makes you think having more college student voters would lead to better elected officials? Are they somehow smarter than people who finished college ten years ago, for example?
-- Support a free market in the field of government
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Well, perhaps it's worth noting that in 1932 only about 33 million people voted in the Presidential election, while in 2004 the figure was closer to 110 million. Takes a bigger organization, with more layers, to reach four times as many people.
More importantly, in the 1930s many people tended to get their voting patterns from local organizations that more or less owned their vote, e.g. unions and "machines." FDR worried quite a bit about keeping the "machine" and union boss vote. Harry Truman was selected as his veep in part to get that vote (Truman was widely understood to be the protege of the Pendergast Kansas City machine). He more or less dumped his much more intellectual (and socialist) former veep Henry Wallace, who was more in tune with him (and arguably the country) on the "issues."
So the amount of actual true personal interaction required -- which might usefully be deployed to change someone's mind, whose vote wasn't already "owned" -- was pretty modest in the 30s. To put it another way, there were a lot fewer voters who had the option to vote as they pleased, and it took a lot less personal effort to reach them. You'd really only need to reach the bosses, the key players, those who could tell fleets of other people how to vote.
Today's elections are far more direct candidate-to-citizen appeals. Machines and union endorsements hardly matter at all; people tend to make up their own minds independently, and directly from what they see and hear on the tube. To reach 110 million voters directly requires, indeed, a massive, tightly controlled communications heirarchy. And, not surprisingly, the average amount of personal time the candidate can give to each of 110 million totally independent voters is measured in microseconds.
It's called "Watch the debate with other people, turn your head and talk to them" - social site just offer the ability to talk to people who can't spell.
http://timcol6.freehostia.com/
Basically, that sounds like Slashdot tags, but with a little more information about how many people actually tagged a candidate that. I figure that something like that would really confuse some people.
:]
I mean, what would the media think if someone like Hillary Clinton got tagged "mafiaa"?
I noticed the new "Debate" feature on Facebook the other day and decided to take a look. In my opinion, this feature would be a lot more useful if it had been released two or three years ago when Facebook was just college students and the level of discourse was much more civilized. Now that Facebook is open to anyone, the debate goes to the lowest common denominator, so it's about as much fun as reading Youtube comments.
Chilled is the traditionalist way!
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
You don't have a facebook account because you don't like keeping in touch with your family?
:)
And should you ever become a widower or divorced you never want to go on dates again? Especially not with someone you knew.
-
I WAS able to get my family on board. I've been trying for a while to setup a portal where we could all post pictures or keep in touch. 8 kids and 12 grandkids and 5 (so far) great-great grankids under my late grandmother. All a relatively close knit family but didn't quite make it into the digital age. We don't have places to share picture, something that used to be done via postal mail or just the next time we got together.
Well could never talk them into my OSS portal. They didn't want to create an account, blah blah. Well since my mom saw me log into facebook she was more or less hooked. I showed her how to sign up. She uploaded some pictures with the java applet, tagged me ("Oh wow, this is so nice you can pick out who is in each picture!").
Since then she's added a college roommate some people from work. She loves it.
My family (adults) also have my limited profile
I, for one, am interested in seeing candidates differentiate themselves more than I'm interested in how they reach their users. It feels to me like new-buzzword-marketing is making little difference in the REAL problems with the presidential race.
In fact, the information overload inherent in face-space/etcappears to be guiding candidates to focus on all appearing THE SAME, rather than helping voters make better decisions.
I know a little sig that's just ten words long
In other news: Slashdot's very own 'Anonymous Coward' accused of raising the tone of the presidentual debate. More in 15 minutes after the second half of Fast Animals, Slow Children.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Ten years, probably not. 40 years, definitely so. The percentage of voters that are part of senior citizen groups that vote as a group and force candidates to either cave to their special interests or risk losing that large chunk of support is certainly enough to influence elections. More young voters would counteract that.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
You don't have a facebook account because you don't like keeping in touch with your family?
Correct.
And should you ever become a widower or divorced you never want to go on dates again? Especially not with someone you knew.
Not that. I'm just not interested in having people from my past stumble upon public information of mine and hit me up. It happens every once in a while even without Facebook and it's always an unpleasant experience for me. I always feel obligated to exchange kind words and try to get some kind of ball rolling as if it was a crime that we fell out of touch to begin with, and I'm very rarely interested in actually becoming acquainted with those people again. If I ignore them or be honest I feel like an asshole. So I try to avoid the situation in the first place.
I have a MySpace account that I used mostly for business / promotional reasons but I let a bit of personal stuff flow in. It's been ages since I've even logged in. There's thousands of pending friend requests and messages etc. that haven't been looked at. I just can't be bothered. I find social networking sites to be far too much of a drain. I prefer e-mail. Quick and to the point. In fact, e-mail is pretty much the only way I really like to communicate (besides face-to-face of course) at all. Every thing else (including phone) annoys the hell out of me (and no I do not own a cell phone).
You obviously haven't read your history.
And you've got a very strange definition of "successful government".
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Facebook isn't for kids - in fact they seem to be in the minority.. it's the older people, even grannies, who have taken to it like ducks to water. I've actually had phone calls from family members offering to ferry me halfway across the country to set it up on their PCs.
Facebook is the new email (inevitable since spam killed the old one).
Either everyone will ignore it (victory for traditional media since they have the 'official' message) or everyone will find the news/opinion feed that they are most comfortable with and ignore objective reporting (can't find it anyway in all those zillion youtube reactions to the debate).
Seriously, it's great that everyone can now publish and broadcast, but it's kind of a mess this way.
Maybe it won't lead to better politics, but at least in a democracy wider anticipation is always a good thing, because the more people back up political decisions the better. I personally don't see democracy as "the best" form of governance, but in the long run it grants the highest satisfaction of citizens one can archive. However, decisions become rather arbitrary if most people don't vote anymore. Hence it's a good thing if college kids vote even if most of them vote differently than you or me...
On a more general note the percentage of people using such services and being able to vote might be quite low, but some of them are what can be called "disseminators". If you convince them then they might influence many people in their surrounding...
I don't read replies by ACs.
I think Facebook doesn't appeal to younger teenagers or kids much because they don't use what it's best at -- arranging nights out partying/drinking etc. They see their friends at school every day. And if they're anything like me, then aged 13/14/15/16 they won't remember to take photos when they're drunk so they have nothing to tag either :-p
Good thing we'll always have high quality thoughtful deep comments to read on Slashdot.
> I find social networking sites to be far too much of a drain. I prefer e-mail. Quick and to the point. In fact, e-mail is pretty much the only way I really like to communicate (besides face-to-face of course) at all. Every thing else (including phone) annoys the hell out of me (and no I do not own a cell phone).
I agree with almost everything in that. I bet there are a lot of people like us. If only there was some place for us all to hang out and chat, a forum or something... I'm only half being sarcastic - where does one bitch about what
is wrong with cellphones and how much better the world would be if people
had more deterrent between being able to share every trivial little mental
fart that pops into their heads ?
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
http://www.aspiesforronpaul.com/
There seems to be a big misconception about how Facebook works that I keep seeing repeated by slashdotters that don't have it.
If you go to type in someones name that has *default settings*, if you're not in their network all it shows you is their face and name and what network they are on. (A network was originally a 'college', but has since been expanded to "Work" and "Regional"). From there the privacy settings are very very customizable.
I can make it so NO ONE can find me in search. More or less invisible and I have to add friends. I can make it so only 1 network (Say my college network) can see my drunken bar photos while only my Work network can see me helping old ladies across the street. I can put people on a limited profile so that crazy stalker girl I can add as a friend and not have her see my phone number. But just because someone can find you on search doesn't mean they get ANY of your personal information and even then you can limit it.
It's really very flexible.
I don't see why everyone is up in arms about facebook 'privacy' concerns . So Facebook knows my name and movies. I don't care. I'd rather have them try and push a new ad to a movie I'd like than a chick flick. And until I start putting in either financial information and SSN, I really don't care if they store the passwords in plain text.
I'm guessing you also don't pay much attention to maxi-pad or home pregnancy test ads. There's a reason the word "Demographics" exists. Everyone on slashdot (and I'm not saying you) seems to think that because THEY do or don't do something that EVERYONE must think the way they do. If you don't like social networks fine. There are plenty of us who do. Just like there are plenty of us who prefer Debian over Ubuntu and OS X over XP.
Why is it sad that a Fox News viewers vote is effective?
Somewhat like the link in my sig.?
-metric
Now that Facebook is open to anyone, the debate goes to the lowest common denominator
I'm sure it doesn't help that the demographic is wide open, but there's unfortunately very few forums anywhere I've seen that don't tend that way. You have to start with a critical mass of well-informed, thoughtful people who have a minimum of axes to grind... and even then, you'll see outbreaks of simplistic thinking, petty attacks, and trolling. College students are a half-decent bet, but since a good number of them are still basically adolescents, it's no guarantee.
In particular, though, I think Facebook has a specific problem that's bigger than the open demographic: the UI and culture both seem to encourage lots of little soundbite/bumper sticker expressions. Substantial and nuanced stuff just doesn't emerge in that circumstance, for some of the same reasons it doesn't emerge in political advertising or nightly news coverage.
Tweet, tweet.
You insensitive clod! We Romans are the benevolent superpower; it was the Greeks who were warmongers!
(Another step into the past, cue the Greeks: "You insensitive clod! We Greeks are the benevolent superpower; it was the Persians who were warmongers!" A few steps into the future, cue the Martians: "You insensitive clod! We Martians are the benevolent superpower; it was the Americans who were warmongers!")
for much of Roman history, it was even legal for a man to kill his wife or children.
Sadly, in many places in the world today, a man killing his wife or children is likely to get a slap on the wrist at most, if the wife or child "dishonored" the family.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Facebook, at least in the UK, is practically a must-have for a university student, since so much is organised through it. If the situation is similar in the US, I guess there'll be lots of university-age voters on facebook, maybe other networks as well. That said they're probably also thoroughly disillusioned.
im in ur
Here's what I wish would exist on the web: Empirical data and the dissemination thereof. This whole "web as a social tool" is simply turning into another leash like television, where we get to be inundated with ads and the same bullshit we're spoon fed on TV, in the newspaper, magazines, billboards (well I don't have cable and conveniently have no local reception at my house).
They aren't viewing the web a new useful tool just another way to slap their mantra all over everything to swing the tools out there who don't realize the Republicrats are the same party.
I really don't want any more opinion polls, exit polls, or overly broad trite bullshit being put all over the web. Too bad we're already fucked. What's worse is the "nerd" crowd seems to be reveling in it because now they're little clique-y thing is just as hip and cool as football games were.
I want to qualify people's opinions through the election of candidates that will actually do something. Not by "Do you think Fred Thompson looked tired and puffy eyed?" Why do you want to even try to "qualify" that crap ("Romney looks young") as a useful opinion?
No sig for you!!
and i might add to that "dishonoring" falls under shit like not wearing that fucked head gear.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Thats Interesting but I think sites like this one: Politicalsocial.com seem to be more focused on bringing news, and long term information. They might stay around for a while.
Presidential campaigns are not the time for people to be "sounding off." Presidential campaigns are the time for LISTENING! Opining on any site about a political campaign is pointless, if not counterproductive. I watch the debates to determine for whom I should vote. Unless people can ask a direct question to a candidate, they should keep their hands off the keyboard and their mouths closed. I am not interested in a person's opinion on the race unless that person is part of a scientific poll or focus group. Besides, I doubt that the social networking sites are populated by the great political minds of our time.
The Internetâ(TM)s #1 Wholesale Janitorial Supply Company. Everyone is Our Customer! See our online janitorial supp
I think that you need to not trust everything you read on or about the Internets.
Ah, nevermind. I see now that you're referring to a 3rd party facebook app, not the ABC one. My mistake :o)
so facebook is owned by microsoft...... facebook spies on what you do and what purchases you make and displays them for everyone to see..... facebook is doing government advertising....... and its favored by slashdot?! Im confused......
The guys that cut Kucinich out of the debate. Surely to prevent any "information overload" that might divert public attention away from the front runners of their choosing. All before the very first primary. I would hope that there will be noise about that on the social sites.
What?
Maybe in your country, but in my country it's illegal to buy alcohol if you're less than 18 years old, but not illegal to drink it, so long as you are at least 5 years old. My mum has a picture of me drinking sparkling wine with orange juice in at a friends' 7th birthday party, that's fine!
Don't blame me, I voted for non-chilled.
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
Ironically, I often wish other sites had Slashdot type moderation.
expandfairuse.org
Gotta say if the shock and awe strategy in Iraq was benevolent, I don't want to see the US go malignant. (Waits for comments to be misconstrued for me saying the war itself was a bad idea, rather than the way it was executed)
A little snipping here and editing there helped that sentence make sense. Now I know why the current (and past) administrations are so fond of black markers.
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
The VoteMatch site (http://eenvandaag.nl/index.php?module=PX_Story&type=user&func=view&cid=465) determines your political preference through statements from the largest democratic and republican candidates taking part in the preliminary US presidency elections. You can answer the statements by clicking on agree, disagree or don't know. You can add extra weight to any statements you find especially important. In a separate screen you can choose which candidates you would like to include in your result calculation. In the result screen you can see the candidate you agree with most. In descending order you can how the other candidates match your preference. Next to it, you can also see the other candidates' opinions on the statements and can click on for an explanation. Helps you to vote on content in stead of a pretty face.
How may I subscribe to your newsletter ? I am keenly interested ... i forget the rest of the meme.
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
Try ten percent
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
Maybe peeked or seen sound bytes on the network news. Seems to be a lot of hoopla about something no ones ever seen. Dead silence when Jay Leno asks the audience to clap if they've watchone of the 24 debates.
If that's a measure of our military might, well, Rome didn't have anyone matching theirs. So you know what, I'm going to continue to link to another generic Wikipedia article, because you obviously need to read them.
This really, honestly doesn't sound familiar to you?
Oh, right. We were "liberating" them.
No thanks to you, or whoever the original AC was. Do "socially stable" societies denigrate and repress large chunks of the population? Have you completely forgotten crap like Gitmo, the "Patriot" Act, and the DMCA?
You just answered yourself. Apparently "Around the world" means "everywhere except Europe". Oh, and India.
That's right -- used to be, if you were an Indian looking to move up in the world, you came here. Now, you stay in India, and watch Americans lose their jobs to you.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Sure - maybe this is a good thing... or just more of the same. I mean these debates are on television, radio, hell they're probably broadcasted in morse code. The fact of the matter is as sad as it might sound, the large majority of young Americans simply aren't interested in these presidential debates. This is evident in voting percentages from the following years. Why would anyone think a debate through a social networking site will change this.
Quite frankly, in my opinion, I think just about everything to stress the importance of voting that can be done, has been done. We can drag these people out of their homes if need be, but the facts remain, I'd rather someone who choses to remain ignorant of the issues not vote at all.
I never thought I'd say this, but I really hope the parent was just a clever troll.
Mr. Period: Nine is the one that's right by ten!
Nine: One day I will kill him. Then, I will be Ten.