The Internet Savvy Appear To Agree On A Lot Of Policy Ideas
from the the-internet-bloc dept
We were just talking about how the “internet bloc” of voters may be an important new constituent for politicians to be aware of — and I’ve been wondering if there’s evidence that the bloc does not, in fact, fall into typical partisan classifications. Alex Howard conveniently points us to the news that Popvox, one of a number of excellent sites for discussing proposed Congressional legislation, has put out a blog post and infographic about the top 50 bills, by interest on Popvox, for the 112th Congress.
I imagine that it will surprise approximately none of you that SOPA was the most popular bill on the site (PIPA came in fifth). And while there may be something interesting to talk about in terms of which bills were most popular, something else struck me that seems a lot more remarkable: look at how many of the top bills had overwhelming support for or against the bill. Nearly all of the bills had a viewpoint that was very strongly in favor of the bill or opposed to the bills. Looking down the list, you have to get to the 7th bill, before you even have one where the majority viewpoint wasn’t over 90% (and even on that bill, it’s 88%). You don’t get any real “split” opinion until bill number 9, HR 3, or the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion” bill that hits on a high profile issue that is usually split down partisan lines — and you can see the for/against are much closer: 56% for, 44% opposed. But that’s a rare case.
Either way, it does seem clear that these folks — who are quite likely more internet savvy and engaged on political issues — have pretty strong feelings on these topics, and the views aren’t in dispute, but strongly agreed upon by a large segment of those internet savvy folks. It seems like an opportunity for a politician to recognize this and really start focusing on supporting what the “internet bloc” has to say…
Comments on “The Internet Savvy Appear To Agree On A Lot Of Policy Ideas”
pirate mike
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… And?
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Short, clean, straight to the point. Very well done.
You get extra points for not wasting valuable space with capitals or punctuation marks. Some might ding you for this, but I believe that many trolls these days put too much emphasis on clarity and presentation, at the expense of efficiency. But you know better.
Truly, this is a work of art, worthy of a golden troll award.
/end really dumb joke
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is that you pirate mike
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The stupid is strong in this one…
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Where is the Picard facepalm button when you need it?
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Durty Nelly’s.
See? I can list karaoke bars too.
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no thats unrelated
This all still begs the question of what weight “internet issues” carry relative to all others. Will a life-long Democrat support a Republican who shares his view on the internet but is a rabid anti-abortion, pro-gun, drill-baby-drill Teabagger?
And it’s hard to see how politicians exploit this emerging voting bloc. The MPAA lauded the two major parties planks on IP; and both the supporters and the opponents of SOPA have been bipartisan. It will be interesting to watch but difficult to see legislative movement on IP in either direction.
For all of the overheated rhetoric surrounding IP issues, I’m not familiar with a single race where it is a major point of contention.
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Kind of funny on of the things you toss in is “pro-gun” and if you look 78% are in favor of the national right to carry.
I do see your point though that this nation has gotten far to stuck on the idea of this two party system. It is kind of sickening really. I’m willing to bet if you took a poll of people you would find most voting for the “lesser of the two evils” or something along those lines.
Most people are not as bat shit crazy as these politicians are.
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I do see your point though that this nation has gotten far to stuck on the idea of this two party system. It is kind of sickening really. I’m willing to bet if you took a poll of people you would find most voting for the “lesser of the two evils” or something along those lines.
I think that’s right. But my larger point is I don’t see party ownership of the “internet freedom” issue. So ultimately, I think it gets drowned out more pedestrian concerns like Social security and Medicare. Or bigger polarizing issues like abortion.
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According to the popvox poll:
70% support HR 153 Affordable Energy Act (i.e. drill baby drill).
3 of the listed issues support gun rights. Approval ranges from 78% to 89%.
The anti-abortion bill on the list has a 12 point lead.
88% support the Repeal of Obamacare Act.
79% support the Fair tax.
72% support repealing the 16th Amendment (income tax)
If this polling site is to be believed, it appears the internet is mostly these “Teabaggers” you hate so much.
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Yes, the substance of this particular poll is an utter fraud.
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If this polling site is to be believed, it appears the internet is mostly these “Teabaggers” you hate so much.
Interesting observation.
The 92% support for “Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition” might throw a bit of a curve ball into your mix though. I believe the Tea Party is about on par with the general population at around the 50/50 area.
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While legalization of marijuana isn’t a big Tea Party issue, it does fit in with libertarian views, so the more libertarian Tea Partiers would support it. On the other hand, I can’t see a lot of Tea Party people bothering to go out of their way to support it. I don’t think it’s a litmus test issue for them.
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This all still begs the question of what weight “internet issues” carry relative to all others. Will a life-long Democrat support a Republican who shares his view on the internet but is a rabid anti-abortion, pro-gun, drill-baby-drill Teabagger? …
For all of the overheated rhetoric surrounding IP issues, I’m not familiar with a single race where it is a major point of contention.
That’s where I fall on this. While I would fall within Internet bloc in terms of those issues, I feel far more strongly about other issues and would never vote based primarily on a candidate’s Internet stance. I think the number of people who only pay attention to Internet issues and discount other factors is relatively small. However, it would be interesting to see if a candidate can win an election by making the Internet his/her primary cause.
My representative, Jared Polis, represents Boulder and has been an Internet entrepreneur, so it is a given that he is going to represent the Internet bloc, but voters who elected him also care about sustainability (probably to a greater extent than the Internet), gay rights (and Jared is openly gay), support of science research (we’ve got a lot of government-supported science here), etc. If Jared were a Tea Party conservative who happened to align with the Internet bloc for that one issue, he wouldn’t get elected in his district.
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Brad Feld, a well-known Boulder-based entrepreneur and VC, identifies five startup communities in Boulder: tech (software/Internet), biotech, clean tech, natural foods, and lifestyles of health and sustainability (LOHAS).
Jared Polis is the US Representative for the district that contains Boulder. If Polis only represented the “Internet bloc” without supporting issues that were important to the other four startup communities, he wouldn’t get elected.
Internet corporations at this point can spend enough money on lobbyists to have an impact in DC, but in terms of voter priorities, I think other issues will determine how they vote. I’m pretty sure lobbyists can buy support in DC and that is probably sufficient to get certain laws changed. But I think that is different than organizing voting blocs around Internet issues.
In short, it might not matter in terms of lawmaking who gets elected if those who are elected can be “bought” by Internet companies. Pay both liberals and conservatives enough money to “see” it your way, and voila, Congress changes the laws.
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I’ve been a Republican for most of my adult life but I’d vote for Boucher, Lofgren, Wyden, or Polis in a heartbeat, if they were running in my area.
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Out of curiosity, are you voting for Romney and why?
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I’ll probably vote 3rd party.
If I was forced to choose between romney or obama, i’d probably pick romney. The reason being that I don’t think he’d get away with as much civil liberty erosion as Obama has.
The republican legislators rarely go partisan against the police state. The democrats, however, will make a fuss if a republican president erodes civil liberties, but, as a party, they remain silent (or even supportive) when Obama exceeds even Bush’s power grabs. So I figure the only way to slow our descent into gestapo-land is to put in a president outside the dem party and to give the dems a slight advantage in the legislature.
–the same AC as above.
I read “Doubling Funding for NASA” as “Doubling funding for NSA” and nearly had a stroke.
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It got a double-take out of me as well. Yes: Space; No: Domestic Spying
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Sadly you could double NASA’s budget by cutting NSA’s pizza reimbursement.
At a glance I see three areas of ‘difference’ among all of the similarity:
Jobs:
I’m guessing this is a difference of opinion centered on CREATE MORE GOOD JOBS with different ideas of /how/ to do that. (Doubling NASA funding would likely advance material sciences and produce side-benefits that increased the American brand reputation as well as competitiveness.)
Healthcare:
I think this has a lot to do with jobs and other stuff. Honestly I’m all for private enterprise /attempting to compete with government care/. The government should establish a baseline for care (public option replacement for medicare/medicaid) and let a ‘market’ compete with the minimum code offered by the government. Oh and also force all jobs to pro-rated pay for healthcare based on a 30 hour work week equating to fully funding buying in to said government option. (Work more and you get luxury care items like private rooms in better plans.)
Abortion:
This sounds like healthcare to me; funding for it should be in all healthcare plans. Also, if you’re so against abortion, hand out condoms for free and fund ‘gift child’ (adoption) systems as well as maternity leave?
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the military funding bit is interesting too.
they’re all for funding some bit of military hardware, and several bills specifically about paying soldiers…
but are against the bill to fund the military?
there’s probably some details or something i’m not aware of, not being an american or anything, but take by itself that looks a bit strange 🙂
Now, how many of these were passed/failed?
How many of these were passed or failed against the will of the overwhelming majority of American voters?
The question is, if there’s such a large base and a strong correlation on issues, why doesn’t the internet manage to influence politics more?
Then it hits me – that on most of these contentious issues both sides (in the US at least) of the political spectrum generally support things the internet hates – and if you’re only a 2 party system, both parties can effectively ignore that demographic as long as they both stand on the same side of these issues.
So much of this seems like just a waiting game. Waiting for old, rich guys to die, so that the sentiment of the youth of today can become policy of tomorrow.
Perhaps what’s needed is an Internet Party – a serious political party, with policies ready on all issues (not just one-issue). The major hurdle is convincing a politically bipolar electorate to support a more democratic form of government.
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Just a question: if we were to be an Internet Party, this is going to be a global party similar to the Pirate Party, correct?
Really I do find this interesting and will be willing to try it out if something like this takes effect.
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The Pirate Party are a single-issue party. Single issue parties dont get very far in voting, even if they do earn majority respect e.g. ‘Green’ parties.
Plus, sadly, many people (at least in the UK) dont even know what the pirate party is about. They think its some kind of joke party, like the MRLP.
A party with fully formed policies, with an understandable name and message, possibly headed by some respected internet personalities, may stand a chance of garnering more votes.
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They actually have two issues in their platform. IP and privacy.
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I stand corrected.
Sorry previous AC (replying) was me, for some reason the cookies didn’t take.
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An “internet party” would be useless in the US, with the current amount of “winner takes it all”-elections (there are some variants like the precidential election, with geoographic variation on valuation).
What is needed is for people to ask their congressmen and senators for opinions on these things, inform them on where to find inspiration on the internet for arguments and explain your own standpoint. If enough people do that, it will force the politicians and ultimately the parties to take them into consideration. The SOPA and PIPA protests were a big surprise to a lot of politicians since they are living in a world with a limited amount of opinions represented (some of them litterally only get informed through lobbyists!) and very unrepresentative opinions for the general population at that.
The backlash against SOPA can only be matched by the backlash against a controversial immigration Senate reform bill, back in 2007, where enough Senators changed their minds right quick, after the Congressional switchboard was jammed with people calling to oppose that bill.
Anger the American people enough and Congress will take notice. Is it any wonder they want to keep TPP as secret as possible. The government has learned from the backlash against the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act in 2007 and against the Stop Online Piracy Act in 2011 that you need to keep the facts from the people as long as possible, if you want to get something past the American people they will not like
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I see it somewhat differently. The facts are generally out there. It takes a concerted effort to inflame people into action. Most voters don’t look beyond the headline and only vote their pocketbook. For issues where you can’t distill your message to a bumper sticker, you have trouble engaging folks on the substance.
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That’s obsolete. Voters don’t vote their pocketbook anymore (as often as not, they vote against their pocketbook), but instead have devolved to pure tribalism.
I doubt the ‘internet bloc’ has a good understanding of farm issues. Still, it would be interesting to find out how many of these are likely voters.
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On the other hand, we understand pharming issues quite well.
Who?
It should also surprise no one that the vast majority of people don’t give a flying fuck about what the readership of “popvox” think.
If we could just vote on an issue-by-issue basis
I wish at this point we were free to vote on issues rather than candidates. That way I could pick and choose what I support and what I don’t support per issue rather than trying to find candidates who most closely reflect my package of concerns.
And if we can’t eliminate having people in office, then perhaps we can at least eliminate political parties. Republicans have moved farther to the right, so anyone who wants to run as a Republican has had to advocate for more far right policies to get his party’s support. That has pretty much wiped out the moderate Republican candidate. If, on the other hand, people weren’t associated with a political party, then perhaps we would get a wider array of political viewpoints, ranging from far right, far left, and everything in between.
Of course, if we got rid of representative government, we’d have a different set of problems, with big money campaigns to sway voters on those issues. We see it all the time with ballot issues. Every group with a strong stance on an issue and access to money would try to influence voters.
I wonder what would happen if we got rid of all political financing, and also required every voter to become thoroughly familiar with the issues before voting.
Re: If we could just vote on an issue-by-issue basis
I wonder what would happen if we got rid of all political financing, and also required every voter to become thoroughly familiar with the issues before voting.
I don’t think much would change. Who ever comes up with the best bumper sticker, slogan or soundbite will still win. The American electorate is very broad, but about an inch deep.
Also, you have to be mindful of simply tilting the odds in favor of vastly wealthy candidates like Bloomberg, Romney, McMahon etc. who can comfortably self-finance their run for office.
Re: If we could just vote on an issue-by-issue basis
Given that the vast majority of political money is needed to buy TV ads, I suggest a slightly different take on this:
Ban paid political advertising on television. Period. Set aside a certain allotment of time for TV ads that is doled out equally amongst the various factions, at no charge to the candidates.
I might be pro-Internet, but am wary of corporations
I’ll toss this out. While I might be included in that Internet bloc, I think the big companies supporting it are or will be just as power-hungry as most (or more likely all) big corporations tend to be. So I am equally wary of the new big companies who are fighting the old big companies.
I see Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Google, etc. as today’s equivalent of GM, Ford, Conoco, Exxon, Monsanto, etc.
What I support in terms of Internet issues will be moderated by who I see benefiting from the legislation.
Re: I might be pro-Internet, but am wary of corporations
It looks like I’m not the only one who thinks big companies that lobby on behalf of the Internet are probably really just lobbying on behalf of themselves.
The Tech World Gets a New Trade Association, Or ?How to Read a DC Press Release? | Bytegeist: “In short: the Internet Association is a group formed by Google and other like-minded companies to soothe the hurt feelings of key House Republicans who had their feathers singed on SOPA.”
For now
I question the extent to which the views on Popvox represent the views of “the Internet”.
Even if they do, speaking as someone who has been online since well before there was a world wide web, I can’t see it as anything other than a passing phase. Over time it becomes more and more the case that everyone is online. There ceases to be a perceptibly distinct internet identity.
It’s like asking “what kind of music does the internet like to listen to?” “What kind of porn do they watch?”
As a friend of mine is fond of saying, “It doesn’t take all kinds; we just have all kinds.”
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Yes, this. “The internet” is no longer a strongly differentiated subgroup.
It’s important to note that people are self-selected based on how much they are interested in learning more about a given bill.
For example, the people who cared about PIPA/SOPA were for the most part people who were against them and worried that they would pass, whereas the people who cared about the various Obamacare repeal laws were mostly people against them (because everyone knew they would never pass with Obama still President).
The abortion bill is a rare case where both sides would likely take it somewhat seriously and want to know more about what it actually proposed.
Okay everyone, let’s stand up and pay salute to Mike’s new tune of the month:
The Internet Voting Block
In order to fully appreciate the bullshit that Mike will be shoveling down your throat for the next couple weeks, I suggest you drink water and relax. You can get it down faster if you learn not to taste it.
Seriously though, come on Mike. Don’t confuse internet noise driven mostly by groups like anonymous and 4chan as being particularly meaningful.
Did you look at the demographics of you own site? Mostly Male, mostly under 25, mostly connecting from school, mostly single, and remarkably mostly white.
That’s the same group that generally doesn’t vote at all. Voting rates are 10 points behind the overall (including them) vote, and nearly 20 points behind the over 50 crowd.
Yabbering on about the internet vote is just not going to work out much. But I know you are going to try to jam this down everyones throat. Nice graphic by the way, certainly contributes to the tone of yellow journalism nicely! Did microsoft sponsors that too?
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I have to add this simple question:
Mike, is this part of your work for the White House?
Do tell… it might be nice to disclose what posts you get paid for.
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I just like how Masnick talks about an “internet voting bloc”- y’know, as if the internet isn’t actually about everyone on the planet, but is about a certain ‘bloc’.
There quite simply is no larger douche-rag on this planet than you, Masnick.
This looks incredibly slanted. The option choices too look biased, for example using the term “Obamacare” instead of the actual name of the bill.
see the popvox site
Take a few minutes and look at the POPVOX.com site. It’s much more than a blog. There is status, co-sponsor, support and opposition for EVERY bill that was submitted in the current Congress, House and Senate. Some bills got more attention than others, but there is a vast cross-section of our Country.
And there is also the "cannabis vote."
Candidates Push For Colo. To Swing In Their Favor : NPR: “When Coloradans go to the polls this November, they will also vote on a ballot measure that’s looking to legalize and regulate marijuana just like alcohol.”
“… it seems to be something that the candidates are aware of, especially the libertarian, Gary Johnson, whose campaign is – make no bones about it – they’re after what they call the cannabis vote. And they feel confident that they can make a dent in Romney’s numbers.”