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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI CANCELED Facebook!!! I SAVED the World!!!
PLOS-ONE: A Note on Internet Use and the 2016 U.s. Presidential Election Outcome
...for each of our three measures of internet use, the proportion of voting respondents who voted for the Republican candidate in each presidential election.... show that, if anything, Trump outperformed relative to trend among those groups that are least active online. For two of the three measures, the 2016 election marked the first time since 1996 that the Republican candidate performed equally well or better among the group that is less active online.
Plus, I'm lazy and selfish.
Hermit-The-Prog
(33,345 posts)Response to proActivist (Original post)
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IADEMO2004
(5,554 posts)reACTIONary
(5,770 posts)Amishman
(5,557 posts)I am better off without it.
Johnny2X2X
(19,066 posts)For a while I thought that it was better to remain on Facebook to try to combat the misinformation campaigns there, but that is folly. My mistake was thinking I am immune to the lies myself. I have no doubt there are a number of facts I believe that are not true because of Facebook. It's an incredibly powerful tool for subtle persuasion, it's a big mistake to think that you can be immune from it.
Often I hear from FB users, "Oh, but I only use it to keep track of family, I never do surveys, and I never read news there." That's missing the forest for the trees, Facebook influences you in subtle ways, and Facebook follows you wherever you go in real life or on the web. This isn't something people can be immune to. They're using proven propaganda techniques that are actually illegal to use under the Geneva Convention and they're taking them much further. People have no idea that Facebook is controlling ads and in many cases content on hundreds of thousands of websites that you might not know have anything to do with Facebook. For example, the articles or advertisements you might see on you local newspaper can be tailored to you based on the detailed psychological profile Facebook has built and sold of you. They're micro targeting you across the internet and I'm not even sure that stops when you cancel your Facebook account.
Hermit-The-Prog
(33,345 posts)Facebook does not exist for me.
Johnny2X2X
(19,066 posts)If you never logged into Facebook or created a profile there, you're about 95% immune to its sphere of influence and suggestion. Once they have that detailed profile of you though, I don't think they stop selling it once you delete your Facebook account and block their IP Address, nor do I think they stop tracking you on the internet and continuing to gather your data from their millions of affiliate sites.
There are questions Facebook needs to answer. The power they wield is unlike anything that's ever existed before.