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Your Political Facebook Posts Aren't Changing How Your Friends Think (qz.com)
An anonymous reader writes:It may be hard to resist airing political grievances or appealing to voters on social media during a U.S. presidential race as heated as this one. But no one wants to hear about your politics, least of all on Facebook. Those long rants about how Trump is a bully and a buffoon, Hillary is a crook, and conspiring against Bernie Sanders has doomed America forever aren't changing voters' minds, a new study found. A staggering 94% of Republicans, 92% of Democrats, and 85% of independents on Facebook say they have never been swayed by a political post, according to Rantic, a firm that sells social media followers. The firm surveyed 10,000 Facebook users who self-identified as Republicans, Democrats, or independents. The only thing those opinionated election posts are doing is damaging your friendships. Nearly one-third of Facebook users surveyed said social media is not an appropriate forum for political discussions. And respondents from each political affiliation admitted they've un-friended people on Facebook because of their political posts.
But they are changing how your friends think ABOUT YOU!
They're looking at the wrong number by using the 94%.
If 6%, 8%, and 15% of people are swayed, and the vote is nearly 50/50, then these posts are in fact potentially effective...
I don't say anything political on Facebook because as the study says, whose mind would it change? In the end it's only virtue signaling at best, semi-trolling at worst. And there's the potential of friends I like going cold because they can't handle different political views (even though that's a flaw in people it's the kind of flaw I forgive friends for, even if a little sad).
That doesn't stop everyone ELSE on Facebook ramping up political expressions though, which is why I've pretty much stopped reading Facebook (and Twitter) until after November.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Negative advertising (and ranting in general) reduces a person's motivation to vote for their candidate. They won't change their mind and vote for the other person, but they might stay home on election day.
Can darn sure change peoples opinions. Saying you hate Hillary because "insert subjective drivel" won't change anyone's minds. Posting the damning email evidence that she is lying crook will change the minds of any sensible people. The problem is how little your vote really matters and how you're forced into a two party competition rather than a real candidate competition.
It's ironic, but the same is also true for Democrats. Democrats constantly use pseudo science to justify their non-scientific position and ideology. Worse, for many on the left, science is becoming their religion. So you wind up with two religiously dogmatic zealots arguing about who's idiocy is best.
Those incessant political Facebook posts have certainly changed the way I think.
First, they have changed my opinion of many of my Facebook friends due to their endless attempts to shove political arguments (of all persuasions) in my face (thank God for the "unfollow" button).
Second, they have changed my opinion of Facebook and social media as a whole. Social media continues to devolve into more yelling, screaming, threats, trolling, guilt by association, and mob justice. And what makes it bad for Facebook is that the harder they try to "fix" things, the worse it becomes.
I learned long ago to be extremely careful about discussing politics or religion, especially with friends. I sincerely wish more people would take that lesson to heart.
As a moderate conservative and registered Democrat, I believe in both God and Science. Believing in one doesn't cancel out the other.
That's not quite a fair assessment of their stance. In general they believe that the profit motive applies to scientists as well as business-persons such that scientists will bias their results to get more money just like any salesperson would. You could argue they are projecting their own greed into scientists, but they can claim that human nature is human nature, and most humans are naturally greedy (which is the basis of capitalism's feedback mechanism).
You can argue specific climate facts, but they can always find a scientist (or a shill acting like a scientist) to poke holes in such facts.
It's true that the Earth is a complex system with lots of "moving parts" such that its climate is the aggregate result of jillions of factors.
You could point out that in most models, more CO2 warms the earth, and we know the CO2 increase is largely man-made due to the isotope signature.
But they may reply that not all models show CO2 warming the Earth and/or the temperature readings are rigged by those "greedy scientists" I mentioned above such that there is no excessive warming beyond the normal natural ebb and flow.
How does one prove scientists didn't rig temperature readings? There were no cameras following them 24/7. Ultimately it relies on trust, and if they believe scientists don't deserve our trust, there's not much one can do.
Unfortunately we may have to wait until their tushies bake off or their houses are under the sea until they get a clue. Reality is merely poking them right now, but they'll only notice it when it kicks them in the nuts/cunt.
Table-ized A.I.
"94% of Republicans, 92% of Democrats, and 85% of independents on Facebook"
THINK that they have never been swayed. They are wrong. Maybe no individual post has ever swayed them; however, multiple people posting opinions almost certainly has. There's a reason why WWII Germany, modern day Russia, and political parties worldwide put out propaganda. IT WORKS.
Look at all the politicians who were against LGBT rights 10 years ago compared to now. Someone has changed their mind. It is the gradual acceptance of people and the political zeitgeist. People preaching acceptance have made a difference on their audience. A single post may not change anyone's mind. Dozens of people expressing an opinion might change someone's mind without them even knowing it.
Sure, some things may never change. Trump's die hard supporters are never going to give him up- and Hillary's won't either; however, chances are at some point in our lives EVERYONE has changed their opinion on something- and it might have been the opinion of another that changed our opinion but we just didn't realize it.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Even better, people have distorted thinking. When the political party line changes tack, people change with them. The old Republican line was that a raise in minimum wage would push all wages up, because a middle-class worker doesn't want to be $5 away from a McJob; the new Republican line is that prices will go up instead, and everyone's wages won't react, and we'll all get poorer (this is more correct, but they take it to an incorrect extreme). Veteran Republicans argue fervently that the ideal of minimum-wage increases causing a lock-step increase in all wages WAS ALWAYS A LIBERAL-DEMOCRAT LINE and was never a position they had--even when, 15 years ago, they were the ones arguing exactly that.
They actually believe their new beliefs are their old beliefs, and their old beliefs are some ancient Liberal lie they'd never bought into. They believe they've professed their new beliefs all their lives, and never professed their old beliefs.
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Your Political Facebook Posts Aren't Changing How Your Friends Think
This study is just a rip-off of earlier research into human psychology--specifically, of all previous research into human psychology--which has proven pretty conclusively that nothing anyone says has ever changed anyone's mind about anything ever.
That's certainly true in the studies, and of course the scientists couldn't think of any other avenue to research so it must be true.
OTOH, listening to Brian Tracy's "The Psychology of Selling" gave me the chills because, listening to him explain the methods, I got the distinct feeling that these methods would work on me *and* I can recall many times when they were used on me.
The audio is downright scary at times, but I highly recommend it simply because it'll help you put your guard up against some of the techniques.
He points out, quite correctly, that you can't get someone to change their mind without first pulling them out of heuristic mode and into systemic mode. The easiest way to do this is to ask a question, but there are other methods.
Then you need to phrase the concept in a way that's important to the listener. You don't come in to an office and say "our copiers make xxx copies per minute, and are very reliable", you say "our copiers can save you $2000 per month in expenses, would you like to know how?". The $2000 is something the listener is interested in, and the question pops them into systemic mode. It's how you start a successful sales call.
Most political screeds don't do this - they just state the position, and mostly it's not very convincing to begin with. Donald Trump has been called every bad name in the book, but I don't see how any of that would be persuasive or even make him a bad president. Donald Trump is behind in the polls *if the election were held today*, that's not persuasive *and* I don't even see the point of posting something like that.
So if I wanted to convince people to vote for Trump, I might point out that amnesty for 14 million illegals will bring unemployment to 20% and decrease job security, then ask if there's any other issue that's more important to them than their own job security.
(Is there? I'd be interested to know.)
So if I wanted people to vote for Hillary, I might suggest that Trumps policies will cause economic decline in the US, and companies will flee to other countries or go out of business, then ask if there's any other issue that's more important to them than the economy.
(Is there? I'd be interested to know.)
And then there's people like Scott Adams, who has put a completely original spin on everything about the election, and predicted everything that actually happened from the viewpoint of hypnosis. (Even Nate Silver mis-interpreted Trump's popularity, which is what you get when you look solely at the numbers and not at the situation.)
So no, I don't think it's quite correct to say "nobody has ever changed anyone's mind about anything ever". It happens all the time... in sales.
(Here's Scott Adams talking about trying to purchase a vehicle. It's quite an interesting story, and shows a first-person view of one of the techniques of sales.)
Rallies aren't valuable because the attendees are swayed. They're valuable because they appear in glowing terms on local TV. They're valuable because they pump up the attendees to vote/donate/volunteer. They're valuable because without them diehards won't have seen the candidate and may lose faith.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
The really hilarious thing is the way they practically worship at the altar of Ronald Reagan. This, despite the fact that the modern republican party has lurched to far to the extreme right that when you actually review Reagan's implemented policies, he'd be viewed as too liberal to be welcome in the GOP. About the only thing Saint Reagan and the modern republicans have in common is the cold-war militarist mentality and their hatred of the GLBT community. Hell, even Nixon would be a stark-raving liberal by modern GOP standards, what with the creation of that pesky interfering-with-industry EPA, and the policy of rapprochement with China vs. sanctions and trade wars.
Imagine all the people...