Does FriendFeed Politics = Leftist Politics?
I might have been a bit slow to warm up to FriendFeed (wouldn’t be the first time), but today I am a pretty avid user. Yesterday, I actually spent quite more time on the site than I usually do, participating in discussions and monitoring the little squabble I got into with Scoble. But, one thing is very clear to me: FriendFeed has become extremely political.
Now, I guess it is to be expected. We are, after all, in a political season. The Internet is mostly dominated by the U.S., but people in other countries also monitor the U.S. election pretty closely. As an aside, I have always been impressed that people in other countries are almost consistently more aware of what is going on in the U.S. than even much of our own population. Sad, really.
Many have complained about the politics on FriendFeed and Twitter, as have I. But, as I said a couple days ago, this is SOCIAL media and that means the conversation is going to reflect society. Deal with it.
But, there is another issue and that is this: Is FriendFeed biased to the left due to the nature of it’s audience?
I don’t think it is any surprise that the west cost of the U.S. is primarily left-leaning. It’s just true. I was in Seattle recently and felt I was in the home of Obama supporters. Likewise, technology and web start-ups do primarily seem to come out of the west cost. So, is it possible that the nature of the population has led to a skewed political bias in the social media outlets? And I tend to think FriendFeed is probably more affected by this because Twitter has reached a much more mainstream audience than FriendFeed. FriendFeed is still in the early adopter phase.
When I am on Friendfeed, I see very little commentary which is positive for the Republicans. On the contrary, most everybody is an Obama supporter. And some get downright nasty with the comments against the Republicans. The attacks on Palin have been brutal. And being that such comments generally are to a sympathetic audience, it is more of a cheerleader mentality rather than an actual debate.
I’m a pretty fair guy and I quite honestly do not get into the team politics game. I have my opinions and, from time to time, you may see them poke through my writing or make their way onto FriendFeed. Being that I am not an avid Obama guy, perhaps the political leanings of FriendFeed are more obvious to me. If I were an avid Obama guy, I’d probably feel right at home. Perhaps not viewing everything through a party-centric lens makes it stand out that much more. And I’m quite aware than any Obama guy would read this and knee-jerk react that I am in love with McCain. And you would be wrong. Again, I have my opinions, but I despise party politics in all its forms and would classify myself as an Independent.
It’d be nice to see a little more balance, but alas I think FriendFeed just has to become more mainstream for that to happen. It could very well be that the kind of people who are most likely to use social media are also more likely to be Democrats. It could also be that social media users warm up to Obama because of his campaign’s extremely adept use of the Internet and social media.
But, I’m not here to give an answer. I’m just making an observation. 
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Comments
You aren’t alone in this “observation.” I’m a fan of debate, even when it gets a little heated.
I agree with Rick Warren when he said at the end of the Saddleback Civil Forum: ” I just want to remind you that one of the greatest freedoms we have here in America is the freedom of speech, even the freedom to protest this… that’s a good thing, but we have to learn how to have civility in our civilization. How to stop being rude, how to stop demonizing each other, how to have a discussion and a debate because we all want America to be greater place.”
Here’s part of a comment I just posted in a Jeremiah Owyang thread: “[W]e probably need to take a step back and wonder if our data is skewed. I spend very little time on the “Everyone” tab of FriendFeed, or the everyone stream in Twitter; for much of the social media community, U.S.-centric political definitions are irrelevant.”
I completely agree with the left tilt of the FF community as well as the larger geek community as a whole. I will say that the FF community is not quite as vehement against Right Wingers as I’ve experienced elsewhere.
I would like to say that for anyone that would like to meet more Conservatives, Right-Leaning Thinkers, or anyone that is generally opposed to Socialism we’d be glad to have you join the Conservative Oasis Room on FF. http://twurl.cc/4ew
I have not spent much time in the social media arena. I spend a bit of time reading articles and commenting but I stay away from the political blogs.
Maybe the social media is drawing more of the unemployed or the employed that are playing on the bosses time… Democrats.
Rick
I agree with your observation.