Facebook’s top political stories: from Occupy to the ‘dougie’
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Occupy Wall Street, Osama bin Laden’s death and the birther movement all ranked high on Facebook’s top political stories this year.
The social networking site said Wednesday that its ‘Facebook Political Team’ looked at some of the top sources for political news and what stories received the most traffic from Facebook through friend shares, pages and social plug-ins such as the ‘like’ button.
The top 40 stories came from newspapers, television news shows and blogs and ‘represent the type of political news people have been sharing and discussing with their Facebook friends this year,’ the tech company said.
Coming in at No. 1: ‘Open letter to that 53% guy,’ in which an Occupy supporter responds to a former Marine who posted a photo of himself telling Occupy supporters to, among other things, ‘Suck it up you whiners.’ The story has been shared 585,000 times, ‘liked’ on Facebook 150,000 times and has nearly 600 comments on the Daily Kos, a political blog.
Facebook’s list wasn’t all economy and wars, though. It also contained some light-hearted stories, including First Lady Michelle Obama’s visit to a middle school in which she danced the dougie and running man (No. 6), the Obamas shopping at a Target (No. 29) and lobbyists succeeding at getting pizza classified as a vegetable in schools (No. 38).
Here’s the full list:
1. Daily Kos: Open Letter to that 53% Guy
2. Washington Post: Obama’s and Bush’s effects on the deficit in one graph
3. FOX News: Should U.S. Get Involved in Syria?
4. CNN: Osama bin Laden, the face of terror, killed in Pakistan
5. Salon: ‘USA! USA!’ is the wrong response
6. Huffington Post: Michelle Obama Dances ‘The Dougie’ & ‘The Running Man’
7. Huffington Post: Obama’s Birth Certificate Through The Eyes Of A Birther
8. CNN: Think Occupy Wall St. is a phase? You don’t get it
9. Huffington Post: Sarah Palin’s PAC Puts Gun Sights On Democrats She’s Targeting In 2010
10: MSNBC: Anti-gay marriage group fakes support with doctored photos
11. Huffington Post: Conservative Pie: Republicans Introduce Legislation Redefining Pi
12.Huffington Post: Westboro To Picket Funerals Of Arizona Shooting Victims
13. MSNBC: Web’s bin Laden ‘death photo’ (just the photo) is fake
14. LA Times: Michele Bachmann is worried about the Renaissance
15. Huffington Post: Senate Votes To Let Military Detain Americans Indefinitely
16. FOX News: White House Condemns Possible Execution of Iranian Pastor
17. Huffington Post: Everything The Media Told You About Occupy Wall Street Is Wrong
18. FOX News: Usama Bin Laden Killed in Firefight With U.S. Special Ops Team in Pakistan
19. CNN: Arizona enacts funeral protest legislation
20. FOX: ‘Occupy Wall Street’ -- It’s Not What They’re for, But What They’re Against
21. LA Times: Lara Logan breaks her silence on ’60 Minutes’
22. The Blaze: Adam Carolla on Occupy Movement: ‘[Expletive] Self-Entitled Monsters’
23. MSNBC: In the ruins of Gadhafi’s lair, rebels find album with photos of Condoleezza Rice
24. CNN: Soldier leaves a legacy much larger than ‘he was gay.’
25. Slate: Pentagon’s top secret cat warfare exposed
26. CNN: Middle class backlash at Occupy Wall Street protesters
27. Weekly Standard: Obama bans asthma inhalers over environmental concerns
28. Slate: Clarence Thomas writes one of the meanest Supreme Court decisions ever
29. Good Morning America: Obamas go shopping at Target
30. CNN: Who owns America? Hint: It’s not China.
31. Huffington Post: UC Davis protesters arrested, pepper sprayed
32. FOX News: Should the American flag be banned in America?
33. Huffington Post: UC Davis police officer pepper sprays nonviolent protesters
34. LA Times: Arnold Schwarzenegger acknowledges paternity of child out of wedlock
35. MSNBC: U.S. Forces kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan
36. MSNBC Video: Obama announces the death of Osama bin Laden from White House
37. CNN: Obama announces the death of Osama bin Laden
38. Huffington Post: Lobbyists succeed in categorizing pizza as a vegetable in schools
39. MSNBC: Lobbying firm memo spells out plan to undermine Occupy Wall Street
40. Wall Street Journal: How to Tax the Rich
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-- Andrea Chang