This father of a transgender daughter is committed to overcoming ignorance, online and off. This is part of a story series about the lives of transgender people. Read the introduction here. At some point, a Facebook meme that demeans transgender people — usually with vicious lies — has come across your feed. If you’re a person with any empathy, it’s […]

When Irving, Texas police arrested 14-year old Muslim science nerd Ahmed Mohamed on Monday, it appeared that bigotry had won and that all it takes to be branded a terrorist is to have brown skin and an Arabic-sounding name. Police were called in after his teacher and principal assumed he was going to bomb the school with his oh-so-cool digital […]

This past weekend, former Dean of the House John Dingell and his wife Congresswoman Debbie Dingell were gracious enough to participate in our Eclectafundraiser party. It’s hard to repay such generosity to a power couple like them but I’m going to try anyway. Congresswoman Dingell is in a competition with her colleagues in Congress to see who can get the […]

On the heels of Microsoft, and then Google, leaving the American Legislative Exchange Council, a Facebook spokesperson now says that they will leave the corporatist front group in 2015, as well: Google’s departure, “really puts Facebook and Yahoo in an uncomfortable position,” said Jay Riestenberg, a research analyst with Common Cause who follows ALEC. Facebook may be next out the […]

The election will be tweeted (and Facebooked…)

I was sent this graphic by the folks at Open-Site.org. It delves into the rising impact of social media — mainly Twitter and Facebook — on our elections. The changes since 2008 are astonishing. Here’s what they write about it:

“Anyone with a Facebook or Twitter account has probably noticed an increase in the number of political postings over the past few years. This is due, in part, to the explosive rise in social media outlets and users. But voters are not the only people who use social media; among politicians, 9 out of 10 Senators and Representatives have Twitter accounts. However, many are starting to wonder if social media is becoming less a reporter of political races and more of a predictor of the results. In Senate races, the candidate with more Facebook friends than his or her opponent has won 81% of the time. And one email sent to 60 million Facebook users prompted an additional 340,000 people to vote in the 2010 election. This infographic illustrates just how politics and social media are affecting each other.”

After the jump is the graphic they put together that shows just how much things have changed and the incredible impact of social media on elections in the USA.

Meta me this First, a big welcome to our many new Eclectablog fans. We’ve seen explosive growth of Eclectablog in the past couple of months. Last month we had nearly 65,000 unique visits and we are on track to break the 100,000/month milestone in March. We appreciate your visits and, more importantly, your comments and insights. Tomorrow, starting at 5 […]

Somebody (*cough* firebaggers *cough*), somewhere for some reason (*cough* angry *cough*) has marked my blog entries as spam on Facebook. Now when you try to share an Eclectablog, you get this unwanted pop-up: This message contains blocked content that has been previously flagged as abusive or spammy. Let us know if you think this an error. So, kids, here’s where […]

Vegetarians save money on their car insurance? What the…? Seriously. This was one of the ads I saw on my Facebook page: I clicked through and it was even more ridiculous: Entering my zip code and clicking through took me to an insurance company’s webpage which, of course, had nothing to do with me being a vegetarian. So it’s a […]