"But that said, assuming the manipulations used by Facebook in 2012 had a positive effect on its users voting behavior, then it is quite likely that Facebook actually tilted the 2012 election towards Obama. This is because membership and usage of Facebook is not uniform across different demographic groups in the United States. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, women are ten points more likely to use it than men; young people are almost twice as likely to be on Facebook than people over 65; and urban dwellers are slightly more likely to use it than rural folks. (it's no coincidence, I think, that socially progressive campaigns like the movement for marriage equality are benefitting enormously from Facebook's reach and companies like Upworthy are driving huge levels of engagement through Facebook.)
Assuming that the contagion effect is uniform, a nudge that increased voter participation by adult American Facebook users probably pushed more Obama voters than Romney voters to go vote, because Obama did better with women, young people and urban dwellers. Women were 53% of the overall vote, and they went for Obama over Romney by 55 to 44 percent. The youngest voters, 18- to 29-year-old, went for Obama by 60 to 37 percent. Big city dwellers gave Obama a whopping 69 percent of their votes; mid-sized city dwellers gave him 58 percent.
When I asked Professor Bond directly if it were possible that the Facebook contagion effect helped increase Obamas vote more than Romneys, he answered, I would say that it is possible, but that we didn't test for this at all and it would be quite difficult to tell for sure." He noted that "Democrats and Republicans seem to have been equally responsive to the [2010] treatment" but also that they observed variations in the contagion effect by demographic group."
ALL of Facebook is pushing group think.
Trust none of it.
It pushes one hell of an agenda at the polls and elsewhere.