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US Presidential Election Was Most 'Talked About' Topic In 2016, Says Facebook (phys.org)
What may come as no surprise to Facebook users, the social media company announced in a blog post that the U.S. presidential election was the most "talked about" topic on Facebook in 2016. Phys.Org highlights the other most-discussed topics in its report: The bitterly contested election in which Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton was ranked as the leading issue, followed by Brazil's political developments which included the impeachment of president Dilma Rousseff, Facebook said in a blog post. On the lighter side at number three was the runaway success of Pokemon Go, the location-based augmented reality game for smartphone users.
Other subject matters shared among Facebook's 1.79 billion users were more sober, with the fourth leading topic the "Black Lives Matter" movement, followed by the election in the Philippines of Rodrigo Duterte. Number six on the list was the Olympic games, followed by Brexit, the Super Bowl and the deaths of rock star David Bowie and boxing icon Muhammad Ali. Facebook said it measured leading topics by how frequently an issue was mentioned in posts made between January 1 and November 27.
We had an election? Why wasn't there any news about it?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I spent months blocking all the stupid posts people were putting up and sharing. Both sides were ridiculous.
Nobody I know liked either candidate. I, and probably 1 other friend, went for Gary Johnson. Yeah, I went GJ.
All my other friends bitched about the 2 choices, yet voted for one of the evils anyway.
Let's talk about it some more!
Pop music. Talk about. Pop music.
Pop - pop - pop music.
It's not like it's a single one day event. The whole thing is dragged out for over a year with the primaries and everything.
TRUMP! Was Most 'Talked About' Topic In 2016, Says Facebook
FTFY
Unless you're talking about Clinton, this is off-topic. ;-p
Ezekiel 23:20
when it is revealed the elections were hacked and a new on is taking place!
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
It'll never change. Short of what ever causes the USA's* end we're never going to end first past the post or expand to 5-10 parties like Europe has.
* We're barely teens on the timescale of nations. The people that honestly think the USA is the most amusing country ever and will last for ever have never opened a history book.
- Podesta in constant danger of somebody proving what "pizza" he's talking about
It's entertaining watching the 13 year old 4Chan/The_Donald not understand why anyone would talk about Pizza that much.
It's fairly evident they've never worked in an office. I'd say a good 80% of my work related e-mails are "WTF are we going to eat lunch on Friday".
Trump's in violation of the Emolument clause
Not yet. He has to be sworn in first to be in violation. It probably will not take more than 24 hours before a transaction that violates it occurs.
Someone had to do it.
* Ranked preference / instant-runoff voting in primaries and in the November general election
This. There is no perfect electoral system, but of all of them, runoff (and as a compromise, instant runoff) has been shown mathematically to be the "most" fair.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Is analyzing 90.7% of the year enough to establish most talked about in 2016 facts? What if a more iconic person dies tomorrow? There's still 23 days to talk about that.
That FEC election disclosure form, already has a 1 year prison sentence for making false claims. He claims to have 'overdisclosed' but actually he didn't reveal his own finances at all. He revealed a selected set of company finances that can be verified are fictional.
That form alone has a 1 year prison sentence and $50k fine.
But I really think people in the press missed the big picture here. His debt is far bigger than he claims $900 - $2 billion. His income is a tiny fraction of the amount claimed, the largest income I could find was $19 million from buildings he doesn't manage, offset by losses in other business. So where's the money trail from funding this?
I looked at his mortgages to see if he was increasing his borrowing... and he is, but everything is already maxed out there. Even his house, he's selling the land around the house to developers to raise money and he owes $7.5 million on it (it cost $7.2m).
It doesn't seem to be Putin donating cash, or similar direct money flow, rather it looks like a simple Ponzi scheme. If you read the Indian co-investors statements (in Indian), they're investing in his US properties too. Yet this investment isn't covered at Trump's end, loans to Trump co, against properties in Trumps name appear to be the full value of the property. i.e. he's duping investors, they pay the property, hne borrows against their property, then using the money for himself to fund his other businesses.
And he's a truely terrible businessman. One the few disclosed businesses he has the returns are abysmal, less than 2%. The Scottish one makes a loss. He claims hundreds of millions in investment, yet the earth bank he built cost $5000 (he sent the bill to his neighbours).
This would be the first Ponzi President.
I also reject the title "President Elect" since fewer people voted for him he's not elected. It's "We the people", not "We the gerrymandered districts". /Rant
Ranked preference / instant-runoff voting in primaries and in the November general election
Why would the results have been any different? If you add up all the Stein/Johnson votes it's not enough to have the whole election results turn out differently, even IF all such voters listed Hillary second - many would not have.
You're right, the results might not have been different for this election, However, an instant-runoff system would increase the viability and influence of down-ballot alternatives in the long run.
Arrow's Impossibility Theorem shows that it is impossible to devise a voting system that will not fail in some situations. However, there is evidence that some systems are better than others, and instant-runoff is one of the better ones.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
One has to admire your bravery and honesty in revealing your true name in this forum, mr Coward; I personally prefer to hide behind a pseudonym, because I am scared that anybody finds out.
So, as you say, your guy seems to have it all his way; of course that also means that later, when his policies turn out to be major disasters, you can't hide behind "Oh, but the senate/house/... opposed us all the way, so of course it didn't work out." And unless he turns out to be a truly astoundingly brilliant leader, he will face growing, popular opposition - starting from 50%, in fact - and popular opposition is not as easily controlled as the senate and the house.
Here is what I think is likely to happen: He'll start out in typical, bumbling style, maybe initially he will have the support of the Republicans, but fairly soon the deep resentment that was all too visible during the primaries, will come to the surface again, and they will start opposing him in growing numbers. The popular opposition will spread from the current 50% to something much higher, because a lot of the people who voted for him don't like him much, and a lot of the angry people who voted for him, did so because they hope against hope that he will make things better - when he fails, as he must, they will turn against him with fury. And then come the midterm elections, where he loses the senate and the house.
Meanwhile, the Democrats will have 4 years in relative peace, where they have the chance to do some serious rethinking of their whole setup, and can work on reconnecting with the voters. They won't be in power anywhere, and will therefore not get their name attached to unpopular policies that come out of government, but they will still be under pressure from their electorate to improve their ways, so it is conceivable that they will actually do so.
So, all in all, it will be worth watching, certainly. Where the whining will come from, though - we'll see, won't we?
18 months to run an election that should take 6 weeks.
Time spent discussing the issues : 0%
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff