Political Facebook Posts Don't Change Minds, Study Says

Been posting political rants all over Facebook this election season? They may not be doing much good, according to a recent study. WIRED reports that the social media marketing firm Rantic decided to research the way Facebook users react to the political messages their friends post, and the results were less than encouraging.

Rantic polled 10,000 Facebook users and found that, by and large, political posts were extremely unlikely to change anyone's views. However, they were likely to annoy people and even inspire them to unfriend posters.

Rantic found that 94 percent of Republicans, 92 percent of Democrats, and 85 percent of Independents said they'd never changed their view of an issue based on a Facebook post. About two-thirds of the study's participants also said that social media was not an appropriate place to discuss politics, while around half said they judged others based on their political opinions. A smaller, though not insignificant, number (12 percent of Republicans, 18 percent of Democrats, and 9 percent of Independents) said they’d unfriended someone because of a political post.

But that doesn't stop Facebook users from posting political messages of their own: Rantic also found that while the vast majority of Facebook users said they’ve remained steadfast in their political views after reading conflicting opinions on Facebook, 39 percent of Republicans, 34 percent of Democrats, and 26 percent of Independents had still posted political messages on their own Facebook pages.