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Facebook Wants You To Vote Tuesday 165

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.""
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Facebook Wants You To Vote Tuesday

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    Back when if you wanted to talk to your friends online you would just talk to your friends online, instead of talking to Facebook and having Facebook pass it on?

    Well guess what. The more you put a single third party in the middle of everything, the more room there is for them to abuse that.

    This is what all you Facebook users asked for. It'll get worse yet. This is only the beginning. Eventually you won't get to KNOW when they are using the power you gave them.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by penguinoid ( 724646 )

      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.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        until the tool shows up more frequently or more prominently for certain users, or certain users with specific types of 'friends', who facebook believes will vote the way THEY want them to..

  • Lucky for Democrats (Score:2, Interesting)

    by penguinoid ( 724646 )

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

    • by Anonymous Coward

      AARP also encourages people to vote, so any effect of this is probably nullified.

      • by theodp ( 442580 ) on Saturday November 01, 2014 @10:32AM (#48287493)

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

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

          AARP members who believe their interests are aligned with the organization: Millions.
          Facebook users who give a rats ass about Facebook's corporate opinion: 0

          • I give a rats ass

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

            AARP members who believe their interests are aligned with the organization: Millions. Facebook users who give a rats ass about Facebook's corporate opinion: 0

            Right, but there probably ARE more Facebook users whose views align with Facebook Corporate than there are AARP members whose views align with AARP corporate.

          • That's irrelevant. Facebook isn't tell people how to vote, just encouraging them to vote.
        • by prefec2 ( 875483 )

          First, I doubt that it makes any real difference if you vote for "Democrats" or "Republicans". In a real democracy you would be able to vote for more than one party. From a European point of view you have only the choice between conservative and neo-liberal party and a strong right wing party. Second, the mobilizing effect within AARP might be bigger than in the FB domain.

          • by epyT-R ( 613989 )

            That's pretty subjective. From an American point of view, Europeans only have the choice between socialist, socialist, socialist, and a tiny bit less socialist, with some different locality-driven issues thrown in for each. ..and before you tell me I know jack about your specific country, it's also likely you know jack about the USA.

            The term 'liberal' has been so thoroughly abused at this point that it's meaningless even with a ton of prefixes and suffixes. It used to mean someone who stands for individua

      • AARP also encourages people to vote, so any effect of this is probably nullified.

        Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't AARP been encouraging people to vote for ages already? I mean, if Facebook and AARP had simultaneously decided to start encouraging their members to vote, it would be a near-null effect. But since the Facebook GOTV initiative is new, it is a shift away from previous years.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Surely Republicans are true patriots who love America and the Constitution enough that they don't need to be reminded, unlike those Communist, freedom and god hating, heathen Democrats.

      • Actually, it's a not true scottsman situation. Many people identify themselves with one of the two major parties but do absolutely nothing to participate with them. For instance, a low income single mother is more likely to vote democrat if they ever voted. They however, may not have ever voted, do not even know the names of politicians running, or the names of politicians already seated in office. They likely registered to vote at one time because it was easy and secondary to something they were already do

    • by Smallpond ( 221300 ) on Saturday November 01, 2014 @11:29AM (#48287785) Homepage Journal

      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.

    • Surprisingly, youth are switching away from democrats, and voting republican [usnews.com]. Oh, maybe they're switching away from Facebook, too; that old, washed-up platform for hipsters and grandmas.
    • facebook donates to GOP causes...and as stated in the description, Zuck's FWD.us is actively lobbying to undercut American workers

      the idea that this system will "help democrats" is ridiculous...it's made specifically to influence votes...

      this is a product launch, and the product is a perception control system that you can pay to use

      • facebook has been caugh manipulating likes before, and gaming who and what becomes trendy on facebook, so its not unlikely that facebook at some point will start actively(and queitly) policing content to make voters more affable to their political positions, as well as their advertisers content, advertisers content, being whatever politicians pay them to make their opinions popular.

        Of course to help manipulation, you are required to use your real name, facebook grabs your location, and tracks your habbits.
    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      Rich democrats are out to destroy the middle class and make the working class too poor to fight back when they decide to take away all of your rights from you.
      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by penguinoid ( 724646 )

        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

        • 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.

          Sorry Mr. Democrat hack. You are following the divide and conquer method. You want to convince people who might vote Republican to stay home so your party can get our your base and keep control of the senate. Your fake neutrality does not sound convincing.

  • Bad idea (Score:4, Insightful)

    by XanC ( 644172 ) on Saturday November 01, 2014 @10:00AM (#48287337)

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

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by TFlan91 ( 2615727 )

      This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

      • Are you using "this" in the Java sense? If so I 100% agree.

      • This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

        Why? Clueless emoto-voters are why we currently have such an incompetent executive administration, and Harry Reid setting the legislative agenda.

        Low information voters (across the spectrum) are toxic.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      I think of it as a reminder. In our overly busy lives, it's real easy to forget Election Day. Also, it'll help to motivate people. In my state we have a Senate race between a moderate Democrat and an ex-Wall Street finance guy who is running as a Ted Cruz type of nutty Republican.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      And it's better if you only vote because you got a mailer from a policitcal party?

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

      People who think they know (based upon personal preferences) who should or should not be voting, should not be voting.

      .
      :)

    • by ebvwfbw ( 864834 )

      Should only be property owners voting. That's how it was supposed to be in the first place. People with skin in the game.

  • by sandytaru ( 1158959 ) on Saturday November 01, 2014 @10:05AM (#48287353) Journal
    My circle of FB friends have been circulating dozens of GOTV images for the last month. My favorite has been a picture of a silly looking Tea Party guy in full regalia holding up an anti-government sign, with the caption: "This guy is voting. Are you?" (There are other more mean spirited ones that are kind of classist, showing rednecks, which I declined to share.)
  • Facebook wants to import an army of people from other countries to bid down tech salaries. That's why they want your vote.

    • by prefec2 ( 875483 )

      For software development they can outsource it to another country which would make no big difference to having all those foreigners move to the USA. For administration the labor cost is already low.

  • Or Wednesday will win?
    Why is this on article on /.?

  • by theodp ( 442580 ) on Saturday November 01, 2014 @10:21AM (#48287439)

    Interview with Rayid Ghani, Chief Scientist Obama 2012 Campaign [kdnuggets.com]: 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.

  • by Mr_Silver ( 213637 ) on Saturday November 01, 2014 @10:42AM (#48287527)

    Back in 2011 we had a vote in the UK as to whether we would switch our voting system from "first past the post" to "alternative vote".

    Although my Facebook feed was absolutely riddled with people proclaiming their support for AV and no-one for FPTP (and a quick straw poll of my work colleagues suggested the same for them) that wasn't reflected in the results which were that 68 per cent voted No (to AV) and 32 per cent voted Yes.

    Facebook may have influenced some people to go out and vote, but it certainly didn't seem to reflect how the country voted as a whole.

  • I've already voted with my eyeballs against Facebook.

    # this is not APK's list
    # this is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3039099
    0.0.0.0 connect.facebook.net
    0.0.0.0 www.facebook.com
    0.0.0.0 facebook.com
    0.0.0.0 static.ak.fbcdn.net
    0.0.0.0 www.static.ak.fbcdn.net
    0.0.0.0 login.facebook.com
    0.0.0.0 www.login.facebook.com
    0.0.0.0 fbcdn.net
    0.0.0.0 www.fbcdn.net
    0.0.0.0 fbcdn.com
    0.0.0.0 www.fbcdn.com
    0.0.0.0 static.ak.connect.facebook.com
    0.0.0.0 www.static.ak.connect.facebook.com

  • Click on that button and you'll make yourself a target for a deluge of political advertisements in the future.

    .
    Facebook is in the business of cataloging people so that those people can be sold to whoever wants to pay Facebook for the goods.

    If you click on that button, you'll be added to the collection of people that Facebook can sell to politicians and their PACs.

  • Ignore the democrats AND republicans, and try to actually clean the house. Otherwise... more NSA, CIA, DEA, IRS, FCC, more Comcast, more Time Warner, more Koch/Soros, and more Americans dying in war for profit.... Is that what all of you want?

    • false dichotomy

      Republican policies are VERY different from Democrat policies

      Look at *any issue*...Net Neutrality, civil liberties, jobs, economic policy, foreign policy...Democratic policy positions are demonstrably different and *better*

      another example?

      Global Warming...

      GOP'ers still deny pollution harms the environmnet

      • Democratic policy positions are demonstrably different and *better*

        Their positions, perhaps. But how about their legislative accomplishments?

        • They gave 4 trillion to Wall Street. I'm sure they're happy..

          What we are seeing here is people who listen to and believe press releases, when they should be looking up the voting records and who the "contributors" are. They should also look up a little thing called, "rotating villain". There you will see republicans and democrats, not in opposition, but working together as a tag team in a fashion that constantly shifts blame for any "failures".

          What these people call "differences" is merely bickering, not ov

      • Republican policies are VERY different from Democrat policies

        There is actually only ONE issue that matters: does your party believe in a level playing field to allow candidates from outside the two major parties to get on the ballot and campaign as the two major parties do? The Dems and Reps wholeheartedly agree on the answer to that question: NO. They have consistently worked to make it harder and harder for anyone else to get on the ballot, to be included in debates, etc.

        A monopoly doesn't just have to be one entity. Two entities can collude to create an effec

        • lol.. Get your third parties elected locally and more local people will vote for them nationally. The only reason the two parties have their stronghold is because they control the local offices. If you want to take that control away, you need to do it there or infiltrate their party in primaries like the TEA party republicans do.

          You are likely to discover that if you attempted to get them elected locally, that they are fringe parties with little support and people say they agree with you in order to shut yo

      • Civil liberties for whom? The Mayor of Houston is a Democrat and she does not seem to believe in the civil rights of other. She only believes in the civil right of those who agree with her.
  • I'm not voting because the system is rigged and the choice between OldWhiteguy#1 and OldWhiteguy#2 that pretty much agree on everything isn't really a choice at all so I refuse to participate. So where's my button?

    • Not voting is not the same as a protest vote. Pick a third party candidate, or write in someone you think is worthy of the position. If you don't vote, nobody knows you even care.
      • basically, if you vote for any non-Democrat, you are helping Republicans

        this false dichotomy talk is foolish and inaccurate

        just look at Net Neutrality, among many, many examples...

        Democrats are the only people in government promoting Net Neutrality

        look at *any* policy issue and the Democrats are orders of magnitude more rational than Republicans

        • That's funny, because the Republicans tell me the exact same thing - a vote for a third party is a vote for a Democrat. Tell me more about how the Democrats are better than the Republicans on government spying, warrantless wiretapping, stop-and-frisk programs, interstate border checkpoints and cash seizures. Hint: they're not. They both want to datamine everything you do online. They both want to fill prisons with non-violent criminals while letting the violently insane mix into society as if there's nothin

      • Not voting is not the same as a protest vote. Pick a third party candidate, or write in someone you think is worthy of the position. If you don't vote, nobody knows you even care.

        This is what I did, a write-in for someone worthy who wasn't even running. Of course, it helps when you already know who your district will vote for regardless of your own vote. Of course, it would be trivial to change to a voting system where you don't get punished for voting for the person you would like to win.

    • wrong (Score:2, Informative)

      the policies of Democrats and Republicans are very, very different.

      if you so dumb as to think that there is no difference between what Democrats and what Republicans do, by policy, then you're an idiot and should not be allowed to vote

  • This just in: no voting drive EVER in the history of the universe has been neutral and unbiased.
  • "Six years in the making....a high-profile button that proclaims "I'm Voting" or "I'm a Voter".....deliberately experimenting on users' emotions without their consent"

    that's no button...

    f/b is rolling out a perception control system, with it's own "dashboard", basically to manipulate users and sell their data

  • "raising questions about its use and Facebook's ability to influence elections"

    And how is Facebook influencing elections by reminding users to vote? Are they also telling them who to vote FOR?

    The campaign money Zuckerberg and fellow evil 1%ers does more to influence election results....

    • by tomhath ( 637240 )

      Are they also telling them who to vote FOR?

      Given that Zuckerberg funds a left leaning PAC, has experimented with influencing FB users' emotions, and is deeply involved in mining FB users' data, you shouldn't be surprised if that's the long term plan.

      • You forgot about the 2012 experiment where they divined user's political leanings from their posts and likes and stuff. Oh and that wasn't secret, they announced they were having a third party do it.

        So theoretically, they could influence the election by reminding only people who have been identified to vote or lean a certain way and show them favorable- even if misleading, ads for that way in the lead up to the election.

        • If you are that stupid that you get all your political leaning from ONE source, perhaps you are too stupid to be allowed to live any longer...

          No different than television ads, radios ads, all that garbage junk mail, all the annoying political phone calls, etc....

          • Allowed to live any longer....

            That it the dumbest thing anyone has ever said.

            But there are plenty of people who completely ignore politics who end up voting because of things like this. But i do not think i suggested anyone got their pitical leaning from one place. I said one place was trying to determine a person's political leanings and could press only certain groups with certain leaning to vote in order to influence or stuff the ballot box/ election.

  • by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Saturday November 01, 2014 @12:24PM (#48288065) Homepage

    Personally I'd rather they lobby the voters than the politicians, you might say that people being gullible and easy manipulated is a flaw but at least that's democracy as designed. When politicians get paid lots of campaign contributions to buy votes while voting in favor of the corporations funding them rather than the votes electing them that's circumventing the democratic process. Not to mention that I think most voters vote for what they want to believe, facts be damned.

  • I'm voting for the fucking massive wall of text party.

  • The rich have lawyers and accountants to find loopholes to keep them from paying more no matter how many taxes are raised by liberal democrats. They know that ultimately it is the middle class that suffers under more taxes and the poor get poorer as opportunities dry up but rich people like Zuckerberg do not care.
  • Why is it expected that those who don't have the motivation to vote without being prompted would be good contributors to the process? The very same people are likely to be less concerned with the outcome and to have spent no time deliberating over the platforms of the parties and candidates. There is no ethical justification for the sort of "get out the vote" program being discussed, only a strategic one--and that goes against the spirit of democracy.
  • Will be targeted by the appropriate party functionaries in the next election, since FB will be selling their PI to the various parties and campaigns. This is a *huge* money making opportunity for FB.

    Consider how FB makes money. Consider what political affiliation information can be gleaned from someone's FB history. Consider how difficult it is for political parties and campaigns to track down those who might support them, either with votes or money.

    This year (an off year), over USD$4 Billion has been sp

  • The democrats are running scared and they want to do anything they can to keep republican and independents from voting for the Republicans because they know that the useful idiots who always vote for the Democrats will show up for their party no matter what the democrats have done wrong.
  • Vote is important. If you American people manage to get a democrat president elected, then Guantanamo prison could be closed.

    Oh, wait...

  • With reports of Google being able to sway undecided voters by tweaking the search results in favor/against electoral candidates [washingtonpost.com], and now Facebook having the ability to selectively influence people to vote, how long really before we're living in a world run only for profit. That's if we aren't already doing so.
  • So long as Citizen United stands, progressive companies and activist billionaires should take full advantage of it. Currently we allow voters to only hear from fossil fuel companies and military-industrial complex. Imagine their sites and ads suddenly disappearing from search results and news feeds, replaced by other candidates and educational messages about global warming. Let them find out how many people are still watching Comcast TV and highway billboards. Better, put a prominent link to explanation of

  • We had early voting here in Looziana a couple of weeks ago. I went on the first day.

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