Time To Pick A Political Fight At Facebook

Michael Arrington

J. Michael Arrington (born March 13, 1970 in Huntington Beach, California) is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of TechCrunch, a blog covering startups and technology news. Arrington attended Claremont McKenna College (BA Economics, 1992) and Stanford Law School (JD, 1995) and practiced as a corporate and securities lawyer at two law firms: O’Melveny & Myers and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich... → Learn More

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

There is nothing like talking politics or religion as a sure fire way to pick a fight. But just saying you’re liberal or conservative isn’t really enough to get people going. That’s why it’s awesome that Facebook decided to let people add themselves to a named political party today on their profile. You can now choose from any of your country’s political parties via a drop down menu (although right now, all political parties from around the world seem to be an option).

You can now choose a political party as well as a religion, which gives people more ways to fight (I am a Pastafarian). All this structured data is hugely valuable to Facebook. They can target ads even more closely once they know which political party you’re associated with. Particularly this year, with billions going into advertisements for the presidential elections.

I chose to support the “Alliance For Congo’s Renewal” party for now. Just because I really don’t need to see any more political ads.

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