Liberals tolerant????????? LOL that's an oxymoron.
If there was no Double Standard, the left would have no Standard at all.
Article states what we already knew. Liberals are intolerant on line.
Don
2012/03/13 17:12:48
Pew: Liberals most intolerant online
posted at 11:00 am on March 13, 2012 by Ed Morrissey
It’s a well-known fact that liberals are more tolerant than conservatives or moderates. Superior liberal tolerance is such a fact that they will scream at you if you dare to disagree or debate them, demand that your advertisers bail on you, and pressure the FCC to get you banned from the airwaves. Does that sound like tolerance to you? A new survey from Pew confirms that liberals are the least tolerant of differing opinions, at least on line (emphasis mine):
Politics can be a sensitive subject and a number of SNS [social networking sites] users have decided to block, unfriend, or hide someone because of their politics or posting activities. In all, 18% of social networking site users have taken one of those steps by doing at least one of the following:
- 10% of SNS users have blocked, unfriended, or hidden someone on the site because that person posted too frequently about political subjects
- 9% of SNS users have blocked, unfriended, or hidden someone on the site because they posted something about politics or issues that they disagreed with or found offensive
- 8% of SNS users have blocked, unfriended, or hidden someone on the site because they argued about political issues on the site with the user or someone the user knows
- 5% of SNS users have blocked, unfriended, or hidden someone on the site because they posted something about politics that the user worried would offend other friends
- 4% of SNS users have blocked, unfriended, or hidden someone on the site because they disagreed with something the user posted about politics
Of course, that means that 82% of SNS users have not taken any steps to ignore or disconnect from someone whose views are different – or have not encountered any views that would prompt such a move.
Liberals are the most likely to have taken each of these steps to block, unfriend, or hide. In all, 28% of liberals have blocked, unfriended, or hidden someone on SNS because of one of these reasons, compared with 16% of conservatives and 14% of moderates.
It’s not even all that close, as their chart shows:
Andrew Malcolm has some fun with the implications:
Not exactly shocking news for those exposed to them for years, but the respected Pew Research Center has determined that political liberals are far less tolerant of opposing views than regular Americans.
In a new study, the Pew Center for the Internet and American Life Project confirmed what most intelligent Americans had long sensed. That is, whenever they are challenged or confronted on the hollow falsity of their orthodoxy — such as, say, uniting diverse Americans — liberals tend to respond defensively with anger, even trying to shut off or silence critics. (i.e. photo above of President Obama reacting to Boston hecklers.)
The new research found that instead of engaging in civil discourse or debate, fully 16% of liberals admitted to blocking, unfriending or overtly hiding someone on a social networking site because that person expressed views they disagreed with. That’s double the percentage of conservatives and more than twice the percentage of political moderates who behaved like that.
For some full disclosure, I’ve blocked more than a few people on Twitter. I didn’t do it for disagreements, but for being unpleasant about disagreements. I consider Twitter to be a true social network; I don’t hang out with unpleasant people in real life, and so I see no need to do so in virtual life. Twitter is my water cooler, my hangout in slack time between bursts of writing. I’m happy to have a debate, but when it gets insulting, unpleasant, and intellectually dishonest, I take a pass.
Even if that counts in the Pew poll (and I’d argue that it doesn’t), I’d be in a small minority among conservatives — and to be fair, it’s a small minority among liberals too. It’s just that it’s a statistically significant larger minority among liberals. While Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda demand that the government act to silence Rush Limbaugh for challenging their orthodoxy, Forbes’ Dave Serchuk points out the irony, the hypocrisy — and the unintended consequences:
Imagine this scenario: you are a lifelong liberal. You pretty much hate everything Rush Limbaugh stands for, and says. You are really glad that the times have finally seemed to have caught up to him, and that people are outraged by his callous, gross comments. So what do you do next? You do theone thing that will make him a sympathetic figure. You call on the FCC to remove him.
Think this is just not-very-good satire? If only. Nope, I draw from this example because in an opinion piece just published on CNN.com Jane Fonda, Gloria Steinem, and Robin Morgan did exactly this. In the process they seem to have played into the exact stereotype of the thin-skinned, hypocritical liberal. One who supports the First Amendment and freedom of speech … except for when they don’t.
Here is the lame excuse they offered for why the heavy hand of government sponsored censorship should come down on Limbaugh, a guy who seemed to be doing a pretty good imitation of a man hoist on his own petard anyway.
“Radio broadcasters are obligated to act in the public interest and serve their respective communities of license. In keeping with this obligation, individual radio listeners may complain to the FCC that Limbaugh’s radio station (and those syndicating his show) are not acting in the public interest or serving their respective communities of license by permitting such dehumanizing speech.”
Umm, okay. But isn’t there something called ratings that are a truer indication of what these respective communities already want? And shouldn’t that count the most? Don’t ratings (i.e. “popularity”) in fact tell the FCC just whom the public thinks serves their interest? Whether we like it or not?
Why do they go for the block rather than provide an alternative? Michael Medved says they can’t compete — and need government to intervene:
Limbaugh’s critics seem unable to accept the fact that many of their fellow citizens actually appreciate the opportunity to listen to his opinions on a regular basis, so rather than persuade those poor benighted souls to listen to something else, they mean to take away the broadcast that they enjoy.
Why not try to build an eager new audience for liberal opinion leaders and steal listeners from Rush and the rest of us who host right-leaning shows? How about recruiting the most outrageous and opinionated voices on the left, syndicating their shows in major markets, and promoting these fresh, progressive voices with a catchy moniker like “Air America”?
Oh wait, that’s been tried, starting in 2004 and proceeding (intermittently) till 2010 when chronically low ratings and bankruptcy court performed a belated mercy killing on the ill-fated experiment. It’s true that some of the Air America “stars” ultimately found their way to other opportunities—with Rachel Maddow hosting a successful TV program on MSNBC, and the insufferable Al Franken enjoying an unlikely career in the U.S. Senate.
But attempts to create viable radio alternatives to Rush and other right wingers have never gained traction, so rather than continuing to compete in the open market place, lefties merely yearn to shut down the other side with sponsor boycotts, public pressure or, most obnoxiously, the so-called Fairness Doctrine. Fortunately, Barack Obama has consistently opposed the Fairness Doctrine, but many of the Democratic colleagues have promoted it for years, with Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, and—most adamantly—that heroic public servant John Edwards providing support.
Well, it’s not exactly news that the Intolerant Tolerance Hysterics are all about choices that they want to dictate to people, too, even if (or especially if) it involved the use of “an oppressive, invidious authoritarian relic” like the Fairness doctrine. Don’t expect them to understand that irony, Mssrs. Serchuk and Medved, but thank you for pointing it out. They can unfriend and block all they want on social networking, because those are personal choices not to listen to differing opinions, and every American has that choice. The problem is when they want government to unfriend and block so that no one has that choice — and that’s the kind of intolerance that’s much more dangerous than humorous.
Read More: http://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/13/pew-liberals...
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zbacku 2012/03/13 17:15:15
That is why they block so often.
Reading from the Liberal defense league below is also an added "LOL" bonus.
now how do we retrain them ...?
girls get rapped. i ley everyone have their say. libs have blocked me though. i think some not lib women are out of their minds and some lib men on abortion but i let them have their opinions. please let me have mine and don't block me.
Social networking sites have become places where political conversation, debate, and proselytizing occur, especially during campaign seasons. These new arenas of political discussion have drawn attention among political activists and have been a major focus of activity particularly since the campaign of Barack Obama aggressively embraced them in the 2008 presidential campaign. At the same time, some analysts have expressed concerns about the impact of social networking sites on the broad political culture. They have worried that on SNS users might customize their friendship networks by hanging out only with people who share and reinforce their political views.
A new survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project posed a series of questions about people’s general use of SNS for politics and about the ways in which they interact with friends on the sites over political material. One goal of the survey was to see if people are using ...
girls get rapped. i ley everyone have their say. libs have blocked me though. i think some not lib women are out of their minds and some lib men on abortion but i let them have their opinions. please let me have mine and don't block me.
Social networking sites have become places where political conversation, debate, and proselytizing occur, especially during campaign seasons. These new arenas of political discussion have drawn attention among political activists and have been a major focus of activity particularly since the campaign of Barack Obama aggressively embraced them in the 2008 presidential campaign. At the same time, some analysts have expressed concerns about the impact of social networking sites on the broad political culture. They have worried that on SNS users might customize their friendship networks by hanging out only with people who share and reinforce their political views.
A new survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project posed a series of questions about people’s general use of SNS for politics and about the ways in which they interact with friends on the sites over political material. One goal of the survey was to see if people are using the sites in a way that suggests they live in social network “echo chambers” of like-minded friends.
Overall, the new survey found that 80% of American adults use the internet and 66% of those online adults participate in social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google+. That amounts to more than half of the entire U.S. population who are SNS users. When it comes to SNS users, the internet users who describe their political ideology as moderate or liberal are more likely than conservatives to use social networking sites: 74% of internet users who describe themselves as liberal use SNS and 70% of internet users who are moderate are SNS users – that compares with 60% of conservative internet users who are SNS users. The chart below shows what proportion of the entire population – not just internet users – fall into these categories.
We focused our questioning about politics with those SNS users and a subset of them who said they received political material from their friends on the sites.
38% of social networking site users have discovered through their friends’ postings that their political beliefs were different than they thought
It turns out that SNS postings reveal surprises for many users when it comes to discovering the political views of their friends. We asked all the SNS users in our survey whether they have ever learned that someone’s beliefs were different than they thought based on something they posted on the sites. Some 38% of SNS users said they had made that discovery and 60% said they had not.
Democrats, liberals, and people with very conservative views were more likely than others to say that they had been surprised about someone’s views as they were expressed on SNS.
How social networking site users have responded to political content they do not like
Politics can be a sensitive subject and a number of SNS users have decided to block, unfriend, or hide someone because of their politics or posting activities. In all, 18% of social networking site users have taken one of those steps by doing at least one of the following:
10% of SNS users have blocked, unfriended, or hidden someone on the site because that person posted too frequently about political subjects
9% of SNS users have blocked, unfriended, or hidden someone on the site because they posted something about politics or issues that they disagreed with or found offensive
8% of SNS users have blocked, unfriended, or hidden someone on the site because they argued about political issues on the site with the user or someone the user knows
5% of SNS users have blocked, unfriended, or hidden someone on the site because they posted something about politics that the user worried would offend other friends
4% of SNS users have blocked, unfriended, or hidden someone on the site because they disagreed with something the user posted about politics
Of course, that means that 82% of SNS users have not taken any steps to ignore or disconnect from someone whose views are different – or have not encountered any views that would prompt such a move.
Liberals are the most likely to have taken each of these steps to block, unfriend, or hide. In all, 28% of liberals have blocked, unfriended, or hidden someone on SNS because of one of these reasons, compared with 16% of conservatives and 14% of moderates.
Who gets dropped?
The 18% of SNS users who had dumped or shunned someone because of their political disagreements were asked a follow-up question about the people who were dropped. The majority were people who did not have deep connections to the user who dropped them:
67% of those who blocked, unfriended, or hid someone on a social networking site did it to a distant friend or acquaintance
31% of those who blocked, unfriended, or hid someone on a social networking site did it to someone they had never met in person
31% of those who blocked, unfriended, or hid someone on a social networking site did it to a close personal friend
21% of those who blocked, unfriended, or hid someone on a social networking site did it to a coworker
18% of those who blocked, unfriended, or hid someone on a social networking site did it to a member of their family
The cohort is so small that it is not possible to do a statistically reliable analysis of trends. But as a rule, there were no ideological differences among those who had dropped someone from their SNS world because of politics.
How social networking site users have responded to political content they like
Are social networking sites hotbeds of political affirmation and reinforcement for users? There are a variety of ways that people can express their support on social networking sites like Facebook and a portion of users have used various means to add their support to political activity on SNS. The most fervid ideological believers are the most likely to have done all of the activities on SNS that we queried (see charts below). At the same time, most users do not engage in supporting political content on the sites.
47% of SNS users have hit the “like” button in response to political comments or material posted by someone else.
38% of SNS users have posted positive comments in response to a political post or status update from someone else. Democratic users of SNS (48%) are much more likely to have done this than Republicans (33%) and Independents (37%).
16% have friended or followed someone because that person shared the user’s political views.
Overall, these figures suggest that the majority are not actively seeking out friends based on political affiliation or views.
A fifth of social networking site users have avoided making political comments on the sites for fear of offending others
For some users politics is an off-limits subject. Some 22% of SNS users say they have decided not to post political comments or links to political material because they were worried it might upset or offend someone. Some 77% of SNS users said they never acted this way.
Liberals and conservatives are more likely than political moderates to have self-censored their posts.
Inside social networking sites, friends sometimes agree and sometimes disagree
Three-quarters of those SNS users – 75% – say their friends post at least some content related to politics on the sites from time to time. They amount to 40% of the entire adult population.
Describing their friends on social networking sites, liberal SNS users are more likely to have friends who regularly discuss politics on SNS than either conservatives or moderates. Some 38% of liberal SNS users say their friends share and post material related to politics on the sites at least some of the time. That is a higher figure than the one for conservatives: 26% of conservative SNS users say their friends post material on politics at least some of the time on SNS. And 31% of moderate SNS users say their friends post material on politics at least some of the time.
Asked how often they agree and disagree with their friends’ postings and shared material on SNS, those who receive political material tend to agree with their friends’ posts “only sometimes.” A quarter of those who receive political information on SNS – 25% – say they always agree or mostly agree and 64% say they only agree sometimes. On the other end of the spectrum, 9% of this group of SNS users say they never disagree and the rest have disagreements at least some of the time.
Those at either end of the political spectrum – those who are very conservative or very liberal – are more likely than others to say they agree with their friends’ comments most of the time or always. Some 51% of very liberal SNS users whose friends post political content say they agree most of the time or always with their friends’ SNS offerings and 45% of very conservative users say that. But it is still noteworthy that the majority say they only sometimes agree with their friends’ postings on the sites.
When the issue is the frequency of disagreement, a kind of mirror story emerges. Most SNS users whose friends post political content “only sometimes” disagree with material posted by their friends. Very conservative and very liberal SNS users are more likely than others to say they never disagree with their friends’ political contributions on social networking sites. Only 15% of very conservative and 12% of very liberal SNS users say they never disagree with what their friends post about politics on the sites.
How SNS users respond when their friends post political material with which they disagree
We asked those whose friends post political material what they do when they disagree. Some 66% of these SNS users said they usually ignore the material they objected to and 28% said they usually respond with a comment or post of their own. And 5% said it depends on the circumstances.
Interestingly enough, there were no differences in these responses among party partisans or different ideological groups. All were equally likely to say they usually ignore the posts or respond to them.
Negative reactions to users’ posts
Some 37% of SNS users who exchange material about politics on the sites have gotten strong negative reactions when they posted political material and 63% said they have never experienced such reactions. Interestingly enough, there is no notable variance across the political spectrum on this question: Republicans, Democrats, liberals, and conservatives among SNS users have experienced the same level of challenge from their SNS friends.
Just look at the hate-filled intolerance of militant gays towards Christians, especially those who dare oppose their libertine agenda.
Look at the intolerance liberals show toward "fundamentalists" (as they are mockingly caricatured), people that refuse to reject religious faith and embrace macro-evolution.
Look how they ridicule independent thinkers who express the slightest skepticism toward global warming.
Look how they destroy any black man (Clarence Thomas, Herman Cain, etc.) who dares reject liberal group-thought and seek out his own views.
Look how they mercilessly attack, in the vilest terms, any conservative woman - such as Sarah Palin, Michelle Malkin, and Michele Bachmann.
The examples are endless.
Apparently you can't read very well.
There are more of your ilk like Proud Progressive, just Che no, Mopeder and other libs that fit this to a T.
There are intolerant people everywhere and for varied reasons. It doesn't take much to set some people off. This is an opinion forum and some days the whackos of both political stripes try to out do each other. No reason to get your Fruit of the Looms in a big twist.
Lots of liberals block and many like to swarm or troll
I will never block anyone for any reason.
Peace to all from a liberal
If there was no Double Standard, the left would have no Standard at all.