Sunday, September 21, 2008

Social Media Doesn't Care for Sarah Palin

Social media sites such as Digg and Reddit have a tremendous tilt to the left when it comes to politics.  It isn't really the sites themselves (even though that is up for debate) but the fact that most users of these sites are liberal.

For the last couple of years, their primary targets have been President Bush and Vice President Cheney.  Then, as the primaries started rolling, more and more stories were popping up about the favorites.  Once John McCain locked up the nomination, the social media bashing continued.

All of these pale to the negative attention that Sarah Palin is receiving.

Just take a look at the most recent submissions to Digg about Palin.  This list is updated in real time, so what you see is different than what I see right now, but I have zero doubt that at any given moment that the link is clicked on, at least 13 of the 15 stories on the page will be negative.  At times, all of the stories will be against Sarah Palin.

Even the front pages of these sites see nothing in the way of positives.  Here is an article that points out that 150 consecutive negative stories about Palin hit the front page of Digg, sending literally millions of viewers to these stories.

Millions.

The only consolation is that most users of social media sites are not voters.  They are good at feeling strongly about topics, just not strongly enough to actually vote.

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Read more about Palin on Social Media on this blog or check out this story about the double standard facing Sarah Palin.

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