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together for yes

Broke or time poor? You can help Together for Yes by doing this one tiny thing

Seriously, this will make a massive difference

WITH THE REFERENDUM mere weeks away, we’re entering the tense, final stages of the campaign trail.

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If you’re pro-choice, perhaps you’re out canvassing, or maybe you’ve donated or bought repeal merchandise. Perhaps you’ve simply broached the topic with your family and friends. Or you might have done none of that, but are planning to vote yes.

Whatever you’ve done, every little helps.

But there is one *tiny* thing you can do to help the Together For Yes side, and it literally takes no effort. You ready to hear?

*drum roll*

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Ignore any and all anti-choice/pro-life Facebook adverts.

Yes, that simple.

Don’t engage, don’t like, don’t angry react, don’t comment, don’t tag, and definitely do not share.

In fact, better than ignoring the adverts, is to block the advert or post: click on the three dots (see red arrow below) on the top left corner of the post or advert

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(Sorry for using you Aer Lingus, nothing against ya)

Once you click on the three dots, a box will appear giving you options, as you can see in the pic below. Click on ‘Hide ad’ or ‘Report ad’, and follow the steps.

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How does this help the campaign, you might be wondering?

One repealer Molly O’Connor used to run a facebook page and understands how algorithms works. As she hilariously explains:

Facebook doesn’t care that you just totally delivered a sick burn on Hillbilly Mary-Lynn from Nowhere Alabama and angry reacted.
All Facebook sees is that ‘a woman between 25 and 30 with interests in politics and bath bombs reacted to this and commented’ and will show that post to more people who meet those demographic markers, thereby spreading the anti’s message further [and increasing their facebook reach].

So, pull up a chair here now to hear about facebook reach.

There’s two types of facebook ‘reach’ (reach is who and which organisations can ‘reach’ you on your homepage): organic reach and paid reach.

Paid reach is sponsored advertisements.

The ‘No’ side have hired the same data specialists as Trump and Brexit  and they have a lot of cash on their side for paid reach. The Irish Times is reporting that 60-70% of paid adverts are anti-choice adverts, with a lot of murky money and reports of campaign finance laws being broken.

Really, they’re ridiculously unscrupulous, so be angry…

angry angry

…but don’t react to their adverts on Facebook or block them.

Actually, just block.

Why?

Well, this is how paid reach works: the anti-choice side pay a set fee for a facebook advert – say it’s €100 and they reach 2000 people with it. We can’t do anything about that paid reach.

But if you don’t react to the advert, or block it, Facebook can decrease the amount of people it reaches from 2000 to 1000.

AND if enough people ‘hide’ the advert, it will increase the cost of future adverts.

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Also, you blocking or ignoring can *stop* the organic reach.

Organic reach is when your friends on Facebook ‘react’ to a post/advert and then it comes up on your newsfeed.

As Molly explained up there, Facebook’s algorithm works by showing us things that we and our Facebook friends with similar demographics react to. So if you see a post that lies about abortion, and you react ‘angry’, Facebook will log you engaging with the advert in their system, despite you responding negatively. Then Facebook spreads the message to others like you.

That’s why  the anti-choice adverts are provocative. They want you to respond.

Niall Carson Niall Carson

On the other hand, react to and engage with any and every pro-choice advert you see.  The more you do this, the more people will see the advert.

The pro-choice groups like Together For Yes have paid for the paid reach, but the organic reach is in your hands.

If you do engage with the no side, save your sick burns for the pro-choice adverts. As Molly, our ‘data expert’ (she explicitly said she’s not, but we think she’s being humble) said:

…engage with [the no side] ONLY on pro choice content that an anti has been foolish enough to comment on. This will mean the antis are doing our job for us, spreading the message of choice to other men over 50 who are interested in trolling and not brushing their teeth.

But also, thank you to the men over 50 who are pro-choice and have good oral hygiene. That comment is for the John D Walsh’s of the world.

Only three more weeks of activism, and then hopefully this sign will be obsolete.

SIPA USA / PA Images SIPA USA / PA Images / PA Images

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