Facebook Wants You To Vote Tuesday

theodp (442580) writes "Six years in the making, Facebook's get-out-the-vote tool — a high-profile button that proclaims "I'm Voting" or "I'm a Voter" — will on Tuesday give many of the social network's more than 150 million American users a gentle but effective nudge to vote. "If past research is any guide," writes Micah L. Sifry in Mother Jones, "up to a few million more people will head to the polls partly because their Facebook friends encouraged them. Yet the process by which Facebook has developed this tool — what the firm calls the 'voter megaphone' — has not been very transparent, raising questions about its use and Facebook's ability to influence elections. Moreover, while Facebook has been developing and promoting this tool, it has also been quietly conducting experiments on how the company's actions can affect the voting behavior of its users." Sifry adds, "There may be another reason for Facebook's lack of transparency regarding its voting promotion experiments: politics. Facebook officials likely do not want Republicans on Capitol Hill to realize that their voter megaphone isn't a neutral get-out-the-vote mechanism. It's not that Facebook uses this tool to remind only users who identify themselves as Democrats to vote — though the company certainly has the technical means to do so. But the Facebook user base tilts Democratic." So, it's probably worth mentioning again that Facebook caught flack last summer for deliberately experimenting on users' emotions without their consent. And just last June, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us PAC put out a call for "pissed off Data Scientists" to data mine critical legislative districts and "growth hack" ways to motivate "registered voters who are registered Republicans who we think are likely to support immigration reform.""

Comments

Bad idea

[XanC]

People who only vote because they heard about it on Facebook (or via that stupid sticker people wear) shouldn't be voting.

Re:Bad idea

[ScentCone]

Actually, Democrats recognize that the Republican fetish for voter ID is just a tactic to manipulate outcomes of elections in the same way as poll taxes and literacy tests.

No, Democrats recognize that making sure people that nobody can check whether or not you're allowed to vote helps them with their vote-by-sheep-herding techniques. For example, our state was just shown to have thousands of voters who, when cross checked against their driving records, show that they are not citizens. Thousands of them. And Democrats in Colorado just set up new mechanism that is practically designed from scratch specifically to provide for bogus voting, stewarded by mostly partisan people and oganizations that skew to their favor.

You want vote suppression? Thousands of people voting illegally in my state, as liberal activist organizations circulate flyers explaining where it's possible to vote without your identity being tested - that nullifies thousands of legitimate votes.

If Republicans were really interested in their supposed problem, they'd support making ID a mandate on the government.

If you were paying attention, you'd see that legislation aimed at making sure that liars and illegals can't cast votes include provisions for photo IDs paid for by the state in question. Who, by the way, has no form of ID? You can't cash government checks without it. You can't use social services without ID. You can't sit at the library and use taxpayer provided computers and internet access without ID. You can't live in subsidized housing without ID, or get Medicare coverage (or Medicaid) without one. But thousands of people can cast votes without them, and millions in Colorado can now make a complete circus out of the idea.

Re:remember the old days?

[penguinoid]

Facebook isn't abusing their user base in this case -- at least, you'd have a hard time convincing me that encouraging your demographic to vote is some sort of abuse.

Obama's Chief Scientist on Use of Facebook in 2012

[theodp]

Interview with Rayid Ghani, Chief Scientist Obama 2012 Campaign: Q. How did you use facebook and other social networks as part of modeling? A. We used facebook for a few different purposes: We used facebook to reach young voters who were hard to reach using traditional channels such as phone, direct mail, and door-to-door canvassing. We built models using data from users who authorized our facebook app that allowed us to ask our supporters to contact their friends for specific reasons (voter registration, volunteering, going to vote, etc.). Our hypothesis was that getting their friends to ask them was more effective than us asking them directly by broadcasting on our facebook page. We also used facebook to determine people's interest and send them messages that were relevant to them and hence increase their likelihood of taking action.

Re:Lucky for Democrats

[theodp]

AARP membership: 37M. Facebook U.S. users: 150M.

Re:Lucky for Democrats

[Smallpond]

Since Facebook's users lean Democrat, more of them voting will mean a shift towards Democratic politicians. I bet the Republicans will be pissed.

This is a democracy. Everyone has a right and obligation to vote. I urge all Republicans to go out and vote on Wednesday.

Re:Lucky for Democrats

[penguinoid]

I thought both parties were out to destroy the middle class. The difference, of course, is that Republicans want to screw to poor to help the rich, while pretending they will help the poor due to trickle down economics. Conversely, the Democrats want to appear to help the poor while sabotaging their situation is less obvious ways, such as illegal immigrants and H-1B visas to drop wages, passing large taxes (with equally large loopholes) on the rich, and aid programs that will help you while you are poor but will cease if you start improving your situation.