CNN and YouTube hosted a debate for the Democratic presidential candidates in July (the Republicans get their turn tomorrow). Then MySpace and MTV collaborated for presidential dialogues at universities. Now, yesterday, Facebook announced a joining of forces with ABC News to sponsor upcoming presidential debates.
If you watched the CNN-YouTube and were dismayed by the lack of quality questions chosen, you weren’t alone. That’s because the audience that loiters and fools around with YouTube isn’t that quality either. And then the MySpace-MTV forums featured even more watered down questions that barely grasped the surface of politics. We’re talking about MTV — synonymous with style over substance. So the basket is set low for Facebook to slam dunk.
This hasn’t silenced the critics. CNET’s Caroline McCarthy is skeptical about Facebook making this partnership a success. As well as ZDNet’s Richard Koman, who blogged that he sees “no evidence that the mass of Internet users are more thoughtful or insightful than journalists.” We could definitely say that about MySpace users. But let’s understand the history of Facebook first. Facebook started with Harvard, then opened to the rest of the Ivy League, and eventually expanded to other elite American universities. Facebook did not start as the freewheeling MySpace or YouTube, but with a more educated, serious user base. Despite this, a Facebook spokesperson said the joint venture with ABC News will not “be a case where there will be direct questions from users like you’ve seen in other debates.” Well, it would be wise for that to be the case.
Tags: Facebook, presidential debates
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