Health Care Debate Leads to Deleted Friends?
Updated: Friday, 19 Mar 2010, 10:03 PM CDT
Published : Friday, 19 Mar 2010, 9:20 PM CDT
HOUSTON - The health care debate has spilled onto Facebook.com, creating intense online conversation like never before. Some argue it is great to see Americans getting involved in a critical national debate, but the social networking website did not start off as a pulpit for politics, and now that, in some cases, has progressed to digital egos getting bruised.
People that are twenty or thirty years removed from high school are meeting again on social networking sites.
"I thought it would be nice to catch up with old friends," said Elizabeth Howard.
Howard is a conservative. She says reconnecting has not been all roses ever since the heated health care reform debate took center stage on her Facebook profile page. Her posts about health care get both the thumbs up and at times four letter words.
"They reply with, 'Y'all are just a bunch of f------ morons," said Howard.
The name calling can be found elsewhere, too. On one page that FOX 26 News will not identify, a woman without health insurance tells friends who do not agree with reform to "f--- off."
"Of course it's the Internet, so respect doesn't frequently enter into the equation," said Geoff Berg, a Houston attorney who hosts a progressive radio talk show on KPFT.
Berg says he has plenty of friends who are not carbon copies.
"I have one friend in particular who is absolutely out of his mind with these Republican talking points. If I had a pool going on Facebook, he would be the first to defriend me for that very reason," said Berg.
And it goes both ways. Howard says she has deleted ten Facebook friends after angry attacks.
"If you're not going to discuss it in a diplomatic manner, then I'm sorry," said Howard.
That could be the real shame of the whole debate. The woman without health insurance lost friends she had just reconnected with. As one of her remaining friends writes, "So sad, ending friendships because of a facebook post."
"We are all, after all, friends who want the best for our country," said Berg.