A Trend I Can Live Without

At gatherings of family and friends most people refrain from talking about religion and politics. People have deeply held and often opposing opinions, and introducing difficult topics is like bringing a skunk to the garden party.

I like social-media sites because they are a way of staying connected to family, friends, and business colleagues. But now these connections are being exploited by politicians:

Dave Boyce is CEO of Fundly, a ready-made platform for nonprofits, including political campaigns, to launch social media fundraising campaigns. He says that at the end of the 2010 election cycle, 120 political customers were using Fundly to raise money. Now the number is 10 times that. The campaigns range from local races to the presidential efforts of Republicans Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney and a Newt Gingrich PAC.

"The big idea is that giving is social. It always has been," says Boyce, sitting in a glass conference room looking out at a team of programmers in an office decorated in startup chic. "Friends ask friends to join them in supporting a cause."

This is a trend I can live without. If I want to read about politics, my e-mail and regular mail inboxes are filled with junk mail from across the political spectrum. There's also an invention known as the Internet that makes it really easy to look up a topic without assistance from a political partisan.

I don't want to see my Facebook wall or news feed plastered with politics. Maybe, once in a blue moon, I'll post an entreaty for a (non-political) charity that I care about.

But no politics or religion, please. If you want to say something about those subjects, get a blog.