This week’s DRM online participation subject came in a good moment for me. Brazil is in the middle of what the local press is calling “the most disputed presidential election of the history”. In an age of social media you must suspect what does it mean. People are getting craaaaazy especially on Facebook. Me too. Both candidates are tied in the polls and Facebook users are desperately trying to show their candidate is much better than the other. That led me to analyse almost 100 friend’s Facebook political posts on my News Feed in only two days - in fact, they were precisely 83 comments. I didn’t count the ones from Brazilian news outlets I follow because then it would be almost impossible to close the account. Anyway, the ones from my friends already gave me a nice snapshot of what is going on.

From the 83 posts analysed, 77 had similar political positions to mine. Of course, I am the kind of guy who unfollows a lot of people on Facebook after becoming friends. If the person posts something stupid, I don’t want to see anything else from him/her anymore. But occasionally, during this election, I didn’t unfollow anyone. Anyway, 92,77% of the political posts on my news feed were from a similar political view to mine. Hmmm, Facebook really knows me.

Some of my friends are really engaged in the political battle and they are posting a lot of stuff. It seems Facebook is showing all of their comments (politically similar to mine) on my news feed. One of these friends had 10 posts on my News Feed in these two days of analysis. Facebook seemed to really know we have strong (political) ties. The comments from a similar political view to mine that appeared on my News Feed were made by friends with a strong and a weak tie to me. The strong ties have the number 1 under their names in the chart below. This week I didn’t make any comment or liked anything they posted. Facebook’s know how on my views comes from the previous days.

But there were also some posts with an opposite political view to mine. They were just six or 7,23% of the whole sample. No post came from a friend with strong tie to me, as you can see in the chart below. I also didn’t make any comment or like their comments, although I really wanted to tell them some nasty things.

I also read some of the comments on these posts. It’s really rare to see some kind of political discussion going on. People seem not open to that since the comments which tried to open a discussion weren’t really answered. In general, they seem to post their political comments to be liked and respond only to the ones who agree with them. Opposite views are often simply ignored. I totally understand that. Personally, I don’t like to get pissed on SNS. To write comments on a warm discussion always takes too much time and has no effect. I read some news that people are breaking up their friendships during the elections. No wonder. I rather go have a drink and a chat at a bar than discussing politics on Facebook. Only with my straight ties, of course. Thank you for noticing that, Facebook.