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→Citations: new section
::Here is an interesting article: [http://e-strategyblog.com/2009/01/barack-obamas-online-fundraising-machine/ Obama's online fundraising machine] I think it is reasonable to believe that the social media websites drove some of that money to Obama's coffers. I don't think Obama's Facebook outreach is going to be a cause of his political demise though and I don't think it has hurt him so far and it is rather the economy that has suppressed his favorability numbers. I also don't see Facebook hurting Jim DeMint. More importantly, for the last 30 years most American Presidents kept piling onto the Federal deficit. Obama is continuing that tradition and even more so than G.W. Bush. However, I think the effects of a growing US Federal deficit, the continuing deindustrialization of the US, the failed liberal education system and the rotting inner portions of many US cities is coming to a head and Obama is going to be left holding the bag in 2012 and not be re-elected due to a deteriorating economy. Furthermore, if there is a financial meltdown during Obama's term, I think he will be painted as another Herbert Hoover. [[User:Conservative|conservative]] 02:59, 6 June 2011 (EDT)
::Here is an interesting article: [http://e-strategyblog.com/2009/01/barack-obamas-online-fundraising-machine/ Obama's online fundraising machine] I think it is reasonable to believe that the social media websites drove some of that money to Obama's coffers. I don't think Obama's Facebook outreach is going to be a cause of his political demise though and I don't think it has hurt him so far and it is rather the economy that has suppressed his favorability numbers. I also don't see Facebook hurting Jim DeMint. More importantly, for the last 30 years most American Presidents kept piling onto the Federal deficit. Obama is continuing that tradition and even more so than G.W. Bush. However, I think the effects of a growing US Federal deficit, the continuing deindustrialization of the US, the failed liberal education system and the rotting inner portions of many US cities is coming to a head and Obama is going to be left holding the bag in 2012 and not be re-elected due to a deteriorating economy. Furthermore, if there is a financial meltdown during Obama's term, I think he will be painted as another Herbert Hoover. [[User:Conservative|conservative]] 02:59, 6 June 2011 (EDT)
:::As far as Sarah Palin, I think what hurts her is that she has to be willing to crack open the books and learn foreign policy issues and I agree with George Will that America is ideological conservative and operationally liberal in many cases and they don't want the domestic austerity tough medicine that Palin believes needs to be done. Also, I think financial realists like Rand Paul and Ron Paul supporters don't believe that Palin is going to cut the military budget. I also think many people are turned off because she did not finish her term as Alaska governor. [[User:Conservative|conservative]] 03:18, 6 June 2011 (EDT)
:::As far as Sarah Palin, I think what hurts her is that she has to be willing to crack open the books and learn foreign policy issues and I agree with George Will that America is ideological conservative and operationally liberal in many cases and they don't want the domestic austerity tough medicine that Palin believes needs to be done. Also, I think financial realists like Rand Paul and Ron Paul supporters don't believe that Palin is going to cut the military budget. I also think many people are turned off because she did not finish her term as Alaska governor. [[User:Conservative|conservative]] 03:18, 6 June 2011 (EDT)
== Citations ==
<nowiki>[Facebook is] contributing to a large number of divorces: 80% in one report<ref>http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/report_updates-on-social-networking-sites-cause-divorce-survey_1551319</ref> and 20% in an earlier report.<ref>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/6857918/Facebook-fuelling-divorce-research-claims.html</ref></nowiki>
It may have taken only 8 sec to find these citations, but that's when the real work starts: it's not enough to just skim an article, you have to really read it, weigh its credibility and eventually check its source for yourself as journalists tend to be notoriously sloppy. This wasn't done for the above citations, and so they became a textbook example of what-can-go-wrong-with-citations.
=== the 20% figure ===
''Mark Keenan, Managing Director of Divorce-Online said: "I had heard from my staff that there were a lot of people saying they had found out things about their partners on Facebook and I decided to see how prevalent it was I was really surprised to see 20 per cent of all the petitions containing references to Facebook. ''
That's where the 20% figure pops up. You are not the only to fall for it:
''The confusion crested last week when Perry Drake, senior manager of media relations for Loyola University Health System in Chicago, put together a news release touting a Loyola psychologist's expertise on relationships and social media. Finding the 1-in-5 figure online, Mr. Drake led the news release with the headline: "Don't let your marriage be among the 1 in 5 destroyed by Facebook." ''
This is from an article in the [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703597804576194563288753204.html Wallstreet Journal] which checked the 1-in-5 number:
''The 1-in-5 number originated with an executive at an online divorce-service provider in the U.K. Mark Keenan, managing director of Divorce-Online, which allows Britons to file uncontested divorces at low cost, had just launched the company's Facebook page and wondered what role Facebook has in precipitating divorces. After determining that the word "Facebook" appeared in 989 of the company's 5,000 or so most recent divorce petitions, he had Divorce-Online issue a news release in December 2009 stating "Facebook is bad for your marriage." Mr. Keenan acknowledges that his company's clients aren't necessarily representative of all divorces, and he adds that his firm never claimed that Facebook actually causes 20% of divorces. "It was a very unscientific survey," Mr. Keenan says.''
So, this number is bogus.
=== the 80% figure ===
Source: DNA India. Not a publication you find in the list of [[Essay:Best News Sources]]. The figure is so incredibly high that one should have doube-checked it in the first place, using a more trustworthy source. But you won't find one: Why? Well, reading not only the first sentence of the article, but also the second, we get:
''Did you know the innocuous updates have been fodder for 80% of marriages crumbling across the globe? A survey released by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers last year, pointed out that 81 per cent of divorce lawyers had lifted off information like status messages, posts on a friend’s walls, photos, comments or even tweets from Facebook and Twitter in the previous five years as grounds for divorce. ''
Obviously an example of bad journalism! The alarmistic first sentence is not confirmed by the by the second one: Not 80% of all marriage are destroyed by social media, but 80% of all divorce layers used this media. It isn't said whether they do so in all their cases - or perhaps only occasionally. And, more important, they do so to lift information. If your lawyer bills you for looking up your wife's lover in the yellow pages, you don't state that ''phone-books destroyed our marriage''.
So, reading these sentences should have been enough to discard the source - and to have a look where it got its news. That's not complicated: it took it from a [http://www.aaml.org/about-the-academy/press/press-releases/e-discovery/big-surge-social-networking-evidence-says-survey- press release] of the AAML, the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers:
''An overwhelming 81% of the nation’s top divorce attorneys say they have seen an increase in the number of cases using social networking evidence during the past five years, according to a recent survey of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML). ''
So, networking evidence is used in an increasing number of divorces. That's all. And that is no surprise. But again, it doesn't say that facebook even contributed to the divorces.
[[User:AugustO|AugustO]] 09:03, 6 June 2011 (EDT)