Yesterday I had the displeasure of reading Gregory Ferenstein’s column, “Why the web benefits liberals more than conservatives.” Ferenstein’s thesis is that liberal ideological characteristics facilitate Internet success, while the opposite is true for conservatism. Frankly, his entire piece is based on assumptions without evidence. Ferenstein states:

From…the million-strong Barack Obama Facebook page to the huge audience of the Huffington Post, liberals have been the dominant political force on the internet since the digital revolution began.”

Ferenstein avoids the most important reason for this phenomenon: Age. Younger people dominate the Internet, and younger people are more liberal by significant margins. So, Ferenstein could replace the phrase, “Liberals have been the dominant political force on the Internet since the digital revolution began,” with “Young people have been the dominant demographic on the Internet since the digital revolution began.” They have the same meaning.

Girl-using-laptop-outside-001

He continues:

Research…suggests that the reason behind this imbalance may be the liberal belief system itself.

Liberals, the research finds, are oriented toward community activism…and feature user-generated content. Conservatives…are more comfortable with a commanding leadership and use restrictive policies to combat disorderly speech in online forums.

(more…)