Debatable debates -- Social Media

(from http://edudemic.com/category/social-media/)

For those of you who use Twitter, there is a site out there called Twitterfall.com.  It is a place where you can sign in to your Twitter account and put in hash tags or trending and you well see all those items just continuously "fall."  You can also follow several trends at once and they will be different colors.  I started watching Twitterfall  during the conventions but it became really handy during the debates.  On Twitter I would sit on Politifacts account as they put out what was being discussed and then on Twitterfall, I would watch #debates2012 it was fascinating what was going on and sometimes extremely funny.  You find out instantly what lines caught on.  They were Big Bird, Binders Full of Women, and Bayonets.

The Twitter chatter can be truly funny and were a source of much laughter during the conventions, but they can also be crude, fact filled, and oddly revealing.  While Facebook is interesting if you follow political satirists like Maher or Miller or Black, but it doesn't have quite the "real time" feel that Twitterfall has.

What is so very revealing is that far too often when someone has nothing to respond to the argument being made, they attack the person with I hate Obama or Mittens is a fool or...you get the idea.  Some are to profane for my little blog.  The other thing is you can tell who has made up their mind in such a way that they have ceased to listen.  For example one person tweeted following the debate on foreign policy that Obama will leave us defenseless because he only wants to cut the military.  Did he miss the part when it was pointed out that military spending has gone up every year since Obama took office?  No.  He has chosen the line that was spun out by the right's political machine and will believe only it.  Or perhaps the person who tweets about Obama's supporter of Israel missed that Obama did indeed say that there needed to be some daylight between the US and Israel. Obama does support Israel; it's Israel's Prime Minister that he doesn't seem to get along with.

It is fascinating to watch.  Lastly there are those who cannot count.  It was: "Three debates in three words: Big Bird, Binders, and Bayonets! #debates2012 " Ummm four words people, unless you count the "and." Then that would be five words.  Some people on Twitter would probably have been better off never being taught how to do so.