The ACA Ruling: Social Media Responds

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Published: 03 Jul, 2012
1 min read

Last Thursday, social media networks exploded with posts, tweets, and status updates surrounding the Supreme Court's ruling on the Affordable Care Act and the controversial individual mandate. As the story continues to remain in the news cycles, it's interesting to see how people used social media to voice their support, opposition, or confusion over the Supreme Court's decisions.

With more than 2.1 million statements, the conversation on the ruling was the heaviest on Twitter. Within the platform, users were evenly split between those favoring and those opposing. Facebook showed slightly more negative responses, with around 29% of users opposing the Supreme Court's decision. Blogs, however, hosted much more hostility towards the the ruling, with opposition outweighing support two-to-one (29% opposition to 15% support).

Pew Research also found that just 55% of the public knows that the Supreme Court upheld most of the Affordable Care Act.

Just 55% of the public knows that the Supreme Court upheld most of the health care law’s provisions; 45% say either that the court rejected most provisions (15%) or do not know what the court did (30%). Among those aware that the court upheld most of the law, 50% approve of the decision while 42% disapprove.

Also noteworthy is the response this yielded on Google Plus. The Health Care Communication News shares the mostly positive responses here.

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