7 ms·

Watch Mitt Romney's Facebook Likes Decrease in Real Time

191 points by ptrwtts 14y ago

dexter313 14y ago
Romney is losing ~566 likes per hour. It will take him 886 days to lose them all. Also here: http://private.woutervdb.com/romney/ http://private.woutervdb.com/romney/ and obama: http://private.woutervdb.com/obama/ http://private.woutervdb.com/obama/
- chimeracoder 14y ago
  > It will take him 886 days to lose them all Careful, there: http://xkcd.com/605/ http://xkcd.com/605/
- Samuel_Michon 14y ago
  Well, I'm sure his mom still wants to be friends. Also, Obama's second term doesn't start until January 20, Romney will have been long forgotten by then.
  - LarrySDonald 14y ago
    Forgotten doesn't exactly mean "unliked" though. Unless whatever pages I hit "like" on in some situation make lots of noise, my "like"s are near-permanent - I probably won't even remember it's there. If they do make noise, it really needs to be enough to be seriously annoying before I bother unliking. Of course, I didn't like his page, but I'm probably not that atypical. A lot of people use facebook once in a great while and make almost no effort to keep their page up to date, reflective of current friends, etc.
- pygy_ 14y ago
  http://xkcd.com/605/ http://xkcd.com/605/ The decay looks linear at a glance, but I'd expect it to be exponential on a larger time scale. Time will tell :) Edit: wanna bet?
  - moinnadeem 14y ago
    It is exponential, I've been getting data for a day or so. Graph on http://moinnadeem.com/romneylikes http://moinnadeem.com/romneylikes
- woutervdb 14y ago
  I just want to say thanks for linking my website, awesome!
garyrichardson 14y ago
Hmm. Saw a couple of likes in there.
chops 14y ago
Is this code available on github? Alternatively, you have the attention and the publicity, you could turn this into an a revenue producing product, sticking an ad somewhere on the page, and then providing it like a YTMND kind of "fill in the blank" system. At the very least, you could use the Romney thing as a springboard for a viral entry. At the bottom, stick a "Make a graph for any project" link and commence. At the very least, this could net you a decent handful of cash for minimal work, and, presumably, you already have the attention. Now take advantage of it before the spotlight moves off you. Disclaimer: I say all this, not as a marketing type, but just as a geek who's run his own stuff for years, and I see a possibility to make a couple extra bucks with this well done implementation. Maybe it'd turn out to be a waste of time, maybe it'd score you some pizza and beer money every week, or maybe it'd serve as your entry as a "Social analytics" company or whatever. Either way, I think it's worth exploring.
- ptrwtts 14y ago
  it's just a bit of fun. seeing the tweets roll in is payment enough
- baby 14y ago
  > Is this code available on github? It's in the source code using the google Chart api [https://developers.google.com/chart/interactive/docs/index https://developers.google.com/chart/interactive/docs/index] <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.6.4/jquery.min.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://www.google.com/jsapi"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> // Load the Visualization API and the piechart package. google.load('visualization', '1.0', {'packages':['corechart']}); // Set a callback to run when the Google Visualization API is loaded. google.setOnLoadCallback(init); // Callback that creates and populates a data table, // instantiates the pie chart, passes in the data and // draws it. function drawRealtime() { var data = google.visualization.arrayToDataTable(headings.concat(likes)); var options = { title: 'Realtime Like Count For Mitt Romney', hAxis : {textColor: '#ffffff'}, colors: ['red','#004411'], legend: {position: 'none'} }; var chart = new google.visualization.LineChart(document.getElementById('realtime')); chart.draw(data, options); } function drawHistoric() { var data = google.visualization.arrayToDataTable(headings.concat([['1:59pm',12049076],['2:16pm',12048948],['2:30pm',12048820],['2:45pm',12048681],['3:00pm',12048559],['3:15pm',12048421],['3:30pm',12048297],['3:45pm',12048182],['4:00pm',12048077],['4:15pm',12047946],['4:30pm',12047807],['4:45pm',12047660],['5:00pm',12047509],['5:15pm',12047380],['5:30pm',12047247],['5:45pm',12047105],['6:00pm',12046942]])); var options = { title: 'Recent Like Count For Mitt Romney', legend: {position: 'none'} }; var chart = new google.visualization.LineChart(document.getElementById('historic')); chart.draw(data, options); } var headings = [['Time','Likes']]; var likes = []; console.log(headings.concat(likes)); window.setInterval(fadeAway,1000); function init() { drawHistoric(); window.setInterval(fetchLikes,1000); } var start = 0; function fetchLikes() { $.getJSON('https://graph.facebook.com/mittromney?fields=likes',function(data){ console.log(data.likes); if(likes.length==0) { data.likes+=10; start=data.likes; } else { $("#count").text("-"+(start-data.likes)); } likes.push([new Date().getTime(),data.likes]); drawRealtime(); }); } function fadeAway() { var opa = $("#romney").css('opacity'); $("#romney").css('opacity',(opa==0 ? 0 : opa-0.02)); } </script> It's all in the fetchLikes() that use the JSON api of the facebook graph. It's launched through this : window.setInterval(fetchLikes,1000); After the graph API has been loaded.
jaxn 14y ago
This would have been really neat during the debates if it included both candidates.
Lagged2Death 14y ago
I think it's astonishingly cowardly, sheeplike, and maybe even un-American to curate your "likes" this way, just to disassociate yourself with a loser. If your convictions mean anything -- that is to say, if you have any -- then why would you change the public picture of them like this?
- humbyvaldes 14y ago
  Victory has a thousand fathers but failure is an orphan
- ptrwtts 14y ago
  or maybe they only paid the bots to stick around until the election...
- celoyd 14y ago
  A Facebook “like” doesn’t just mean you like something; it means at least one of at least these options: 1. You like it. 2. You understand that “likes” are used by advertisers, distributors, etc., to track brand popularity, so you clicked like to support something that you might not personally like. (I’ve done this with, for example, friends’ projects that are of no actual interest to me.) 3. You want to see its updates. (I have a leftist friend who likes to keep an eye on the right wing and “liked” Romney on Facebook for exactly this reason, even though it’s essentially a “dislike”.) There are probably a couple others. Peer pressure, for example? Besides which, I think it’s fair to withdraw a like from something if you believe it’s outlived its usefulness. If I’d “liked” a ballot measure that failed to pass, for example, I don’t think it would be in any way dishonorable to stop following it now, even if I still completely supported its aims.
- hemancuso 14y ago
  This is a ridiculous arguement. You must have a lot of old bumperstickers on you car.
  - beedogs 14y ago
    Or, like most people with any taste, none at all.
kevinalexbrown 14y ago
While this is not intrinsically fascinating to me (or, I imagine, most people, regardless of their feelings toward Mr Romney), I find it an extremely good example of the new types of data historians will get to use in the future. I keep imagining Ken Burns ominously reciting Facebook Like figures, or trending Twitter hashtags, in addition to statistics on how many bombs were dropped in Iraq: "As Romney exited the political arena, public awareness of how close he came to the presidency seemed to erode, at a rate of over 550 likes-per-hour, he soon faded into the sunset of the American political landscape ...". Obviously this is an exceedingly simple example, akin to the first steps in distributed computing like a Wikipedia wordcount, but I would love to see more sophisticated historical analyses in the near future.
- bdcravens 14y ago
  Romney already declared he was done running for public office if he lost, even before the election's end. I'm sure that has more to do with his fading into the sunset.
  - notatoad 14y ago
    Im not sure 'fading into the sunset' is the right term. this is people logging in to Facebook and actively seeking out his facebook page to rescind their like. Just because he lost. People aren't forgetting Romney, they are trying to erase their history of supporting him.
    - pbreit 14y ago
      Not necessarily. You can unlike from newsfeed and Romney has posted a few post-election items.
    - SkyMarshal 14y ago
      >they are trying to erase their history of supporting him. That's not necessarily the case. More likely they just don't want updates anymore. I don't think any of his supporters are particularly ashamed of supporting him.
don_draper 14y ago
This stuff doesn't matter. I'll bet a lot of these are fake users that spammers want to keep under the radar and since they are no longer useful for this particular campaign, they are removing them. It's amazing the amount of developers out there that are not aware of how prevalent spam or fake likes are.
nostromo 14y ago
Maybe Nate Silver can incorporate this into his model in four years.
- alex_c 14y ago
  Given how easy "Likes", "Follows" etc. are to manipulate, I very much doubt it.
  - Cogito 14y ago
    Bad data is not the same as no data. For example, the fact that somebody is willing to manipulate a statistic is information in itself, and could be correlated (positively or negatively) to an outcome. Part of working with big data is analysing all your signals coming in, and being able to determine which are useful and which aren't. Social media may be a noisy, biased signal, but I doubt it is so noisy, or so biased, that no useful information can be obtained from it.
    - anonymfus 14y ago
      But if there are other sources which are known to be less noisy and biased then result can not worth creating model which can successfully incorporate this biased and noisy signal.
krishnakv 14y ago
I am not convinced this is important. Look at the scale, against a base number of 12M+ facebook likes, losing hundreds is a rounding error. The OP seems to be getting the slant on his graph by manipulating it in rather grotesque ways. P.S. Yes, people seem to be dissociating themselves from the Romney loss (and the man himself) in alarming numbers, none more so than within his party. But this does not seem to be a valid measure.
LeafStorm 14y ago
A friend of mind posted this article on Facebook earlier: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/11/liberal_schadenfreude_obama_s_win_brings_out_too_mean_gloating_on_social.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/201... The summary is that in the aftermath of this election, Democrats and their allies are not just celebrating the fact that their preferred Presidential candidate won, but taking mean-spirited glee in the disappointment of Republicans - largely enabled by the preeminence of social media (for example, the "White People Mourning Romney" Tumblr). The linked site is a pretty serious example of this phenomenon. The message behind it is essentially, "Ha ha, look how all the Republicans are dissociating themselves from Romney since he didn't win! What losers!"
- Xcelerate 14y ago
  I agree. There's a lot of mean trends I've noticed online, particularly considering almost half of the country did NOT vote for the president.
  - kbutler 14y ago
    Much more than half of the country did not vote for Obama: Barack Obama 62,088,847 US Population: 311,591,917 (source google/AP/US Census Bureau)
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - charonn0 14y ago
      Why are you counting the ~100,000,000 people who are ineligible to vote?
      - MiguelHudnandez 14y ago
        Not to mention the other share that are eligible, but couldn't be bothered.
  - 14y ago
moinnadeem 14y ago
Created a page to track this about a day ago: moinnadeem.com/romneylikes
- moinnadeem 14y ago
  linked version: http://www.moinnadeem.com/romneylikes http://www.moinnadeem.com/romneylikes
bdcravens 14y ago
Romney never stood on his own. He was the anti-Obama for Republicans. Like a girl's looking for a guy to cheat with to get back at her boyfriend, the Republican party said, "Meh. You'll do." He never had any strong qualities, such as extreme faith views, or TEA Party ideologies. He's said he's done seeking public office. As a result, there's no reason for anyone to continue to "Like" him, as he serves no purpose for them.
nhangen 14y ago
Why do articles that paint Romney in a bad light keep making it to the front page of HN? Is it hacker bias? The election is over, enough with the gloating.
- jacoblyles 14y ago
  > Is it hacker bias? Yes.
- MiguelHudnandez 14y ago
  I don't think it's necessarily bias, but of course there could be a leaning in the community. Losing a presidential campaign is going to prime the media and individuals to report about the team's failings and those of the candidate. Many criticisms are going to be valid. Likewise, Obama's campaigners will have successes that will be reported on. So I think we'd be seeing the opposite articles if the outcome of the election was different.
- krishnakv 14y ago
  I think the reason may be less nefarious. This election is a case study of how much reality can diverge from expectations. And how people can hold on to these expectations till the very last moment, even though data says otherwise. For this reason, its a very interesting election to study and analyze from a technology perspective. E.g. has the internet really succeeded in disseminating data and viewpoints effectively, or has it made our "bubble walls" more rigid. What is the role of fact checking and factual reporting when it comes to the media, has technology made getting to the truth easier or harder? Very interesting for the hackers on this site... Also, in discussing this election, its unavoidable that Romney is painted in a bad light. He lost after a spirited campaign that was alas never as close as he and his team portrayed it to be.
- MartinCron 14y ago
  I hate gloating as much as the next guy, but I see this as a legitimately interesting phenomenon. New media is a big deal for a lot of people here. Getting a deeper understanding of how things really happen? Bring it.
lazugod 14y ago
And this wouldn't need a complicated graph if Facebook offered native "dislikes".
bashzor 14y ago
That's interesting. I believe I submitted the same thing just yesterday (made by a friend). Tss. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4768214 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4768214
EREFUNDO 14y ago
I heard the secret service ditched him almost immediately after he lost.....
Zenst 14y ago
I don't do facebook but I did add him on google+ as well as Obama to keep abreat on things. I say this as I was going to remove him the other day and thought I'd leave it a month or two and see if this social media embrasment was mearly a way to get into peoples pants, no I mean votes. So I left him, he gave a good acceptance of the results speech and with that be intersting on what he does now out of curiosity and my weird humour angle if nothing else.
smartspock 14y ago
omg, there are so much better things to spend time on, this is ridiculous. Think about what all the well paid programmers are going to have to pay in additional taxes - if you can't image this you aren't a well paid programmer.
- charonn0 14y ago
  Vague warnings about higher taxes do not constitute a complete thought or a compelling argument.
malkia 14y ago
A lot of Obama supporters would join Romney, by giving likes to be able to comment on the page (the opposite is true too). It's possible that a lot of these folks left, but who knows for sure...
platz 14y ago
Why does this have over 150 points?
fruchtose 14y ago
This is an awesome idea. I thought the fading Romney in the bottom right hand corner made the site, until I realized he wasn't fading with the number of likes. Here's how I would improve the site: Take the number of likes Romney started with as the election was called. [Number may not be available, estimate if not possible to recall exact.] Then, fade the Romney image out by setting image opacity as a percentage, currentLikes/peakLikes to give the image a "Back to the Future"-esque fade effect.
nestlequ1k 14y ago
Ever hear the term "gracious winner"? This is being the opposite of that. It's a political contest, someone has to lose. Let's move on.
davidkatz 14y ago
Careful, there's 'lying with statistics' here. A graph which looks like Romney's likes are in fast decline is actually showing a - shocker - 0.1% decrease in likes.

191 points by ptrwtts 14y ago

Romney is losing ~566 likes per hour. It will take him 886 days to lose them all. Also here: http://private.woutervdb.com/romney/ http://private.woutervdb.com/romney/ and obama: http://private.woutervdb.com/obama/ http://private.woutervdb.com/obama/

chimeracoder 14y ago
> It will take him 886 days to lose them all Careful, there: http://xkcd.com/605/ http://xkcd.com/605/
Samuel_Michon 14y ago
Well, I'm sure his mom still wants to be friends. Also, Obama's second term doesn't start until January 20, Romney will have been long forgotten by then.
- LarrySDonald 14y ago
  Forgotten doesn't exactly mean "unliked" though. Unless whatever pages I hit "like" on in some situation make lots of noise, my "like"s are near-permanent - I probably won't even remember it's there. If they do make noise, it really needs to be enough to be seriously annoying before I bother unliking. Of course, I didn't like his page, but I'm probably not that atypical. A lot of people use facebook once in a great while and make almost no effort to keep their page up to date, reflective of current friends, etc.
pygy_ 14y ago
http://xkcd.com/605/ http://xkcd.com/605/ The decay looks linear at a glance, but I'd expect it to be exponential on a larger time scale. Time will tell :) Edit: wanna bet?
- moinnadeem 14y ago
  It is exponential, I've been getting data for a day or so. Graph on http://moinnadeem.com/romneylikes http://moinnadeem.com/romneylikes
woutervdb 14y ago
I just want to say thanks for linking my website, awesome!

garyrichardson 14y ago

Hmm. Saw a couple of likes in there.

chops 14y ago

Is this code available on github? Alternatively, you have the attention and the publicity, you could turn this into an a revenue producing product, sticking an ad somewhere on the page, and then providing it like a YTMND kind of "fill in the blank" system. At the very least, you could use the Romney thing as a springboard for a viral entry. At the bottom, stick a "Make a graph for any project" link and commence. At the very least, this could net you a decent handful of cash for minimal work, and, presumably, you already have the attention. Now take advantage of it before the spotlight moves off you. Disclaimer: I say all this, not as a marketing type, but just as a geek who's run his own stuff for years, and I see a possibility to make a couple extra bucks with this well done implementation. Maybe it'd turn out to be a waste of time, maybe it'd score you some pizza and beer money every week, or maybe it'd serve as your entry as a "Social analytics" company or whatever. Either way, I think it's worth exploring.

ptrwtts 14y ago
it's just a bit of fun. seeing the tweets roll in is payment enough
baby 14y ago
> Is this code available on github? It's in the source code using the google Chart api [https://developers.google.com/chart/interactive/docs/index https://developers.google.com/chart/interactive/docs/index] <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.6.4/jquery.min.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://www.google.com/jsapi"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> // Load the Visualization API and the piechart package. google.load('visualization', '1.0', {'packages':['corechart']}); // Set a callback to run when the Google Visualization API is loaded. google.setOnLoadCallback(init); // Callback that creates and populates a data table, // instantiates the pie chart, passes in the data and // draws it. function drawRealtime() { var data = google.visualization.arrayToDataTable(headings.concat(likes)); var options = { title: 'Realtime Like Count For Mitt Romney', hAxis : {textColor: '#ffffff'}, colors: ['red','#004411'], legend: {position: 'none'} }; var chart = new google.visualization.LineChart(document.getElementById('realtime')); chart.draw(data, options); } function drawHistoric() { var data = google.visualization.arrayToDataTable(headings.concat([['1:59pm',12049076],['2:16pm',12048948],['2:30pm',12048820],['2:45pm',12048681],['3:00pm',12048559],['3:15pm',12048421],['3:30pm',12048297],['3:45pm',12048182],['4:00pm',12048077],['4:15pm',12047946],['4:30pm',12047807],['4:45pm',12047660],['5:00pm',12047509],['5:15pm',12047380],['5:30pm',12047247],['5:45pm',12047105],['6:00pm',12046942]])); var options = { title: 'Recent Like Count For Mitt Romney', legend: {position: 'none'} }; var chart = new google.visualization.LineChart(document.getElementById('historic')); chart.draw(data, options); } var headings = [['Time','Likes']]; var likes = []; console.log(headings.concat(likes)); window.setInterval(fadeAway,1000); function init() { drawHistoric(); window.setInterval(fetchLikes,1000); } var start = 0; function fetchLikes() { $.getJSON('https://graph.facebook.com/mittromney?fields=likes',function(data){ console.log(data.likes); if(likes.length==0) { data.likes+=10; start=data.likes; } else { $("#count").text("-"+(start-data.likes)); } likes.push([new Date().getTime(),data.likes]); drawRealtime(); }); } function fadeAway() { var opa = $("#romney").css('opacity'); $("#romney").css('opacity',(opa==0 ? 0 : opa-0.02)); } </script> It's all in the fetchLikes() that use the JSON api of the facebook graph. It's launched through this : window.setInterval(fetchLikes,1000); After the graph API has been loaded.

jaxn 14y ago

This would have been really neat during the debates if it included both candidates.

Lagged2Death 14y ago

I think it's astonishingly cowardly, sheeplike, and maybe even un-American to curate your "likes" this way, just to disassociate yourself with a loser. If your convictions mean anything -- that is to say, if you have any -- then why would you change the public picture of them like this?

humbyvaldes 14y ago
Victory has a thousand fathers but failure is an orphan
ptrwtts 14y ago
or maybe they only paid the bots to stick around until the election...
celoyd 14y ago
A Facebook “like” doesn’t just mean you like something; it means at least one of at least these options: 1. You like it. 2. You understand that “likes” are used by advertisers, distributors, etc., to track brand popularity, so you clicked like to support something that you might not personally like. (I’ve done this with, for example, friends’ projects that are of no actual interest to me.) 3. You want to see its updates. (I have a leftist friend who likes to keep an eye on the right wing and “liked” Romney on Facebook for exactly this reason, even though it’s essentially a “dislike”.) There are probably a couple others. Peer pressure, for example? Besides which, I think it’s fair to withdraw a like from something if you believe it’s outlived its usefulness. If I’d “liked” a ballot measure that failed to pass, for example, I don’t think it would be in any way dishonorable to stop following it now, even if I still completely supported its aims.
hemancuso 14y ago
This is a ridiculous arguement. You must have a lot of old bumperstickers on you car.
- beedogs 14y ago
  Or, like most people with any taste, none at all.

kevinalexbrown 14y ago

While this is not intrinsically fascinating to me (or, I imagine, most people, regardless of their feelings toward Mr Romney), I find it an extremely good example of the new types of data historians will get to use in the future. I keep imagining Ken Burns ominously reciting Facebook Like figures, or trending Twitter hashtags, in addition to statistics on how many bombs were dropped in Iraq: "As Romney exited the political arena, public awareness of how close he came to the presidency seemed to erode, at a rate of over 550 likes-per-hour, he soon faded into the sunset of the American political landscape ...". Obviously this is an exceedingly simple example, akin to the first steps in distributed computing like a Wikipedia wordcount, but I would love to see more sophisticated historical analyses in the near future.

bdcravens 14y ago
Romney already declared he was done running for public office if he lost, even before the election's end. I'm sure that has more to do with his fading into the sunset.
- notatoad 14y ago
  Im not sure 'fading into the sunset' is the right term. this is people logging in to Facebook and actively seeking out his facebook page to rescind their like. Just because he lost. People aren't forgetting Romney, they are trying to erase their history of supporting him.
  - pbreit 14y ago
    Not necessarily. You can unlike from newsfeed and Romney has posted a few post-election items.
  - SkyMarshal 14y ago
    >they are trying to erase their history of supporting him. That's not necessarily the case. More likely they just don't want updates anymore. I don't think any of his supporters are particularly ashamed of supporting him.

don_draper 14y ago

This stuff doesn't matter. I'll bet a lot of these are fake users that spammers want to keep under the radar and since they are no longer useful for this particular campaign, they are removing them. It's amazing the amount of developers out there that are not aware of how prevalent spam or fake likes are.

nostromo 14y ago

Maybe Nate Silver can incorporate this into his model in four years.

alex_c 14y ago
Given how easy "Likes", "Follows" etc. are to manipulate, I very much doubt it.
- Cogito 14y ago
  Bad data is not the same as no data. For example, the fact that somebody is willing to manipulate a statistic is information in itself, and could be correlated (positively or negatively) to an outcome. Part of working with big data is analysing all your signals coming in, and being able to determine which are useful and which aren't. Social media may be a noisy, biased signal, but I doubt it is so noisy, or so biased, that no useful information can be obtained from it.
  - anonymfus 14y ago
    But if there are other sources which are known to be less noisy and biased then result can not worth creating model which can successfully incorporate this biased and noisy signal.

krishnakv 14y ago

I am not convinced this is important. Look at the scale, against a base number of 12M+ facebook likes, losing hundreds is a rounding error. The OP seems to be getting the slant on his graph by manipulating it in rather grotesque ways. P.S. Yes, people seem to be dissociating themselves from the Romney loss (and the man himself) in alarming numbers, none more so than within his party. But this does not seem to be a valid measure.

LeafStorm 14y ago

A friend of mind posted this article on Facebook earlier: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/11/liberal_schadenfreude_obama_s_win_brings_out_too_mean_gloating_on_social.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/201... The summary is that in the aftermath of this election, Democrats and their allies are not just celebrating the fact that their preferred Presidential candidate won, but taking mean-spirited glee in the disappointment of Republicans - largely enabled by the preeminence of social media (for example, the "White People Mourning Romney" Tumblr). The linked site is a pretty serious example of this phenomenon. The message behind it is essentially, "Ha ha, look how all the Republicans are dissociating themselves from Romney since he didn't win! What losers!"

Xcelerate 14y ago
I agree. There's a lot of mean trends I've noticed online, particularly considering almost half of the country did NOT vote for the president.
- kbutler 14y ago
  Much more than half of the country did not vote for Obama: Barack Obama 62,088,847 US Population: 311,591,917 (source google/AP/US Census Bureau)
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - charonn0 14y ago
    Why are you counting the ~100,000,000 people who are ineligible to vote?
    - MiguelHudnandez 14y ago
      Not to mention the other share that are eligible, but couldn't be bothered.
- 14y ago

moinnadeem 14y ago

Created a page to track this about a day ago: moinnadeem.com/romneylikes

moinnadeem 14y ago
linked version: http://www.moinnadeem.com/romneylikes http://www.moinnadeem.com/romneylikes

bdcravens 14y ago

Romney never stood on his own. He was the anti-Obama for Republicans. Like a girl's looking for a guy to cheat with to get back at her boyfriend, the Republican party said, "Meh. You'll do." He never had any strong qualities, such as extreme faith views, or TEA Party ideologies. He's said he's done seeking public office. As a result, there's no reason for anyone to continue to "Like" him, as he serves no purpose for them.

nhangen 14y ago

Why do articles that paint Romney in a bad light keep making it to the front page of HN? Is it hacker bias? The election is over, enough with the gloating.

jacoblyles 14y ago
> Is it hacker bias? Yes.
MiguelHudnandez 14y ago
I don't think it's necessarily bias, but of course there could be a leaning in the community. Losing a presidential campaign is going to prime the media and individuals to report about the team's failings and those of the candidate. Many criticisms are going to be valid. Likewise, Obama's campaigners will have successes that will be reported on. So I think we'd be seeing the opposite articles if the outcome of the election was different.
krishnakv 14y ago
I think the reason may be less nefarious. This election is a case study of how much reality can diverge from expectations. And how people can hold on to these expectations till the very last moment, even though data says otherwise. For this reason, its a very interesting election to study and analyze from a technology perspective. E.g. has the internet really succeeded in disseminating data and viewpoints effectively, or has it made our "bubble walls" more rigid. What is the role of fact checking and factual reporting when it comes to the media, has technology made getting to the truth easier or harder? Very interesting for the hackers on this site... Also, in discussing this election, its unavoidable that Romney is painted in a bad light. He lost after a spirited campaign that was alas never as close as he and his team portrayed it to be.
MartinCron 14y ago
I hate gloating as much as the next guy, but I see this as a legitimately interesting phenomenon. New media is a big deal for a lot of people here. Getting a deeper understanding of how things really happen? Bring it.

lazugod 14y ago

And this wouldn't need a complicated graph if Facebook offered native "dislikes".

bashzor 14y ago

That's interesting. I believe I submitted the same thing just yesterday (made by a friend). Tss. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4768214 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4768214

EREFUNDO 14y ago

I heard the secret service ditched him almost immediately after he lost.....

Zenst 14y ago

I don't do facebook but I did add him on google+ as well as Obama to keep abreat on things. I say this as I was going to remove him the other day and thought I'd leave it a month or two and see if this social media embrasment was mearly a way to get into peoples pants, no I mean votes. So I left him, he gave a good acceptance of the results speech and with that be intersting on what he does now out of curiosity and my weird humour angle if nothing else.

smartspock 14y ago

omg, there are so much better things to spend time on, this is ridiculous. Think about what all the well paid programmers are going to have to pay in additional taxes - if you can't image this you aren't a well paid programmer.

charonn0 14y ago
Vague warnings about higher taxes do not constitute a complete thought or a compelling argument.

malkia 14y ago

A lot of Obama supporters would join Romney, by giving likes to be able to comment on the page (the opposite is true too). It's possible that a lot of these folks left, but who knows for sure...

platz 14y ago

Why does this have over 150 points?

fruchtose 14y ago

This is an awesome idea. I thought the fading Romney in the bottom right hand corner made the site, until I realized he wasn't fading with the number of likes. Here's how I would improve the site: Take the number of likes Romney started with as the election was called. [Number may not be available, estimate if not possible to recall exact.] Then, fade the Romney image out by setting image opacity as a percentage, currentLikes/peakLikes to give the image a "Back to the Future"-esque fade effect.

nestlequ1k 14y ago

Ever hear the term "gracious winner"? This is being the opposite of that. It's a political contest, someone has to lose. Let's move on.

davidkatz 14y ago

Careful, there's 'lying with statistics' here. A graph which looks like Romney's likes are in fast decline is actually showing a - shocker - 0.1% decrease in likes.