What political issue is the most talked about on Facebook, pray tell? Religion, which must make for some fun times.
Twice as many users discussed religion in the past month than they did the next most-talked about issue, guns. The rest of the top five, according to Facebook: the economy, homeland security and terrorism, and racial issues.
Facebook released the information ahead of the first Democratic presidential candidates debate tonight, which will air on CNN at 5:30 p.m. Pacific time and is co-sponsored by Facebook.
Not coincidentally, Democratic and Republican presidential candidates have also been talking about religion and guns lately. Democratic frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders made statements about gun control after a recent school shooting in the U.S., at Umpqua Community College in Oregon. Republican candidates Ben Carson and Donald Trump have made headlines because of their statements about Muslims.
Of the Democratic candidates, Facebook users talked most about Hillary Clinton. The former Secretary of State and first lady generated the most interactions — likes, posts, comments and shares throughout Facebook in the U.S., including on the candidates pages — with more than 36 million from Sept. 10 to Oct. 10. More than 8.6 million unique people talked about Clinton on the social network during that time, Facebook said. Sanders generated nearly 30 million interactions, with nearly 6 million people responsible for those interactions.
For Martin O Malley, Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee, who lag far behind Clinton and Sanders in polling but who will be debating tonight, the figures were in the five or six digits.
And lest anyone forget about the Republican presidential candidates, at least a couple of them will be using social media to weigh in on how they think the Dems are doing. Rand Paul will reportedly be providing live updates. And so will Donald Trump (whose Facebook interactions of 76 million in the past month top all the candidates ).
At the request of many, and even though I expect it to be a very boring two hours, I will be covering the Democrat Debate live on twitter!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
Illustration from Thinkstock
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