A Facebook Divided: 1 Out of 5 Americans Unfriend Over Politics

By Dennis Romero Mon., Mar. 12 2012 at 4:34 PM

Scott Beale

A new survey says nearly 1 out of 5 of you have "blocked, unfriended, or hidden" a social networking pal because you found their politically oriented posts offensive, arguable or disagreeable.

In other words, many Facebook users are thin-skinned.

According to a just-released Pew Internet & American Life Project survey:

When [social network users] shun others based on political content, it is most often a distant friend or acquaintance, rather than a close friend or family member. But roughly a third of those who have ended contact on SNS [social networking sites] say a family member or close friend was involved.

The biggest turn off was posting too often on political subjects. About 1 in 10 of you gave friends the boot for this.

You ignorant mutts.

You know why we unfriend someone? Because they're an idiot. Not because we disagree about who's going to take the Republican nomination or about how much they love posting Fox News stories.

At least those people are more engaging than the geniuses who post cat memes.

And that's what social media is all about -- having a virtual Town Hall.

Well, at least most of you get that. According to the survey:

When they disagree with others' posts, 66% of these SNS users say they usually ignore the posts; 28% said they usually respond with comments or posts of their own; and 5% said it depends on the circumstances.

Nearly half of you (47 percent) have posted the "like" button in response to a friend's political post.

Yeah. We like that too.

Tags:

Facebook, Pew, politics, social media, social network, unfriend

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Paul Douglas Wilson

Did we all just get called ignorant mutts? lol

The Greatest

I actually enjoy a good political debate, and have nothing but respect for dissenting views so long as they are expressed with even a modest degree of coherence; however, many "political" posts are really just hate-based ad hominem attacks ("Obama is a muslim! Obama was born in Kenya!") or regurgitated talking points expressly designed as mass-market propaganda.

I don't blame ANYBODY for not wanting to look at that on their Facebook feed ...

Enrigue Ruiz

I unfriended my own niece because she posts every move she makes. I was waiting for the time that she would post when she takes a dump.

Auldinnc

Nothing thin-skinned about it, in my opinion. I would not read idiot posts day after day. If the town hall was like this, I would be doing something else.

Jeremy

I can attest to this, I have had several friends over at my house that were checking their Facebook on their smart phones, I look over and notice that my posts don't show up on their pages, I asked why not, and the reply is usually "You only post boring stuff about politics, and I'm not even into politics, so I shut your stream off, you can still message me and stuff tho...." And those are the people that I remove from my friends list, don't call me your friend if you aren't even going to give me the freedom to speak my mind... It's not like you are forced to click on my posts. But w/e, 95% of Americans don't know ANYTHING about politics except for what political party they support and if you ask them why, they don't even know WHY they support them, so it's not like I'm losing game changing people, these are simpletons, if you have friends that hide or remove you for your political views, they are close minded idiots, and you can probably do without them.