2014/06/01/Facebook Could Decide an Election Without Anyone Ever Finding Out

• when: 2014/06/01
• author: Jonathan Zittrain
• source: New Republic
• topics: Facebook electoral influence democracy social media
• link: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117878/information-fiduciary-solution-facebook-digital-gerrymandering
• title: Facebook Could Decide an Election Without Anyone Ever Finding Out
• summary: «Overall, users notified of their friends' voting were 0.39 percent more likely to vote than those in the control group, and any resulting decisions to cast a ballot also appeared to ripple to the behavior of close Facebook friends, even if those people hadn't received the original message."»

Notes

from: Richard Stallman, who adds: «The article repeats a common historical myth, the idea that Dubya won the 2000 election in Florida. In fact, his campaign stole the election. Katherine Harris falsely disenfranchised around 50,000 black voters based on the similarity of their names to names on a list of felons. The voters disenfranchised were not felons, but Harris vetoed checking who was really a felon.» via Will Hill