Facebook reported that users engaged in a record amount of political conversation on the social network on U.S. Election Day 2012, and other research suggests that Facebook may have been boosted youth turnout.
But in the aftermath of the election, a few especially prominent users were among the millions who took to the website to sound-off about the results: Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and engineering chief Andrew Bosworth also couldn’t resist posting their opinions about Tuesday’s outcomes.
In Sandberg’s case, the former Googler and current mother of two highlighted the election of fellow working mothers, New Hampshire Democratic Congresswomen Ann McLane Kuster and Carol Shea-Porter, whose election made national history, propelling the state to become the first in the nation’s history to send an all-female delegation to Congress.
“Go New Hampshire! Congratulations to Ann McLane Kuster, Carol Shea-Porter, Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Senator Kelly Ayotte and Maggie Hassan!” Sanberg wrote in a Wall Post published on her Facebook profile on Thursday. “Great examples of career- and kid-loving mothers!”
Meanwhile, Facebook’s director of engineering Andrew “Boz” Bosworth offered a more conflicted take on the results of the election, blasting the Republican party and the passage of California’s controversial Proposition 30 tax on annual incomes over $250,000 for the next seven years to avoid planned public education budget cuts.
As Bosworth, whose net worth is unknown but who undoubtedly made a fortune in the social network’s May IPO, wrote in his Facebook post:
My socially liberal side is overjoyed at the results of the election yesterday. My fiscally conservative side is, of course, devastated. I despise our two party system for pitting me against myself every few years, though a little proud that I continue to vote my conscience and not my pocketbook. I will never vote for a party so openly bigoted and ignorant as todays Republican party. Embrace science, gay people, and minorities — then we can talk. It would also help if you were *actually* fiscally conservative when you got into power instead of, you know, the opposite of that.
I continue to despise California’s idiotic proposition system which puts too much power in the hands of people who simply don’t know better like some great Utilitarian experiment. Need proof? 28% voted NO on prop 40 despite the opposition notes saying ” we no longer seek a NO vote.” Prop 30 particularly bothers me; higher taxes are totally fair and probably called for in our bankrupt state but retroactive taxes change the contract after the fact and feel very slimy, not to mention how misleading it is about where the funds will go after the first year. While we were passing that, we decided to go ahead and keep the death penalty despite it being much more expensive to maintain than life in prison (even setting aside the morality). At least we got Prop 36 right (partly correcting earlier error by citizens) and 37 (unnecessary government meddling laced with anti-scientific propaganda).
Also, for what it’s worth, Fortune magazine recently described Bosworth as “one of [Facebook CEO] Zuckerberg’s longtime confidants.”
Facebook declined to comment on the political expression of its key employees when asked by TPM. That said, Facebook’s over 3,976 employees cross the political spectrum when it comes to their political donations as individuals and through Facebook’s PAC, as Federal Election Commission reports analyzed by Open Secrets indicate.
