{"id":5710,"date":"2011-05-24T20:42:30","date_gmt":"2011-05-25T03:42:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=5710"},"modified":"2011-05-24T20:42:30","modified_gmt":"2011-05-25T03:42:30","slug":"facebook-shutting-out-conservatives-and-libertarians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/24\/facebook-shutting-out-conservatives-and-libertarians\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook shutting out conservatives and libertarians?"},"content":{"rendered":"

O. sent this to me<\/a> with the comment, “If this is true, it does not portend good things for freedom, in general, or firearms, given Facebook’s reach on the net.”<\/p>\n

Facebook\u2019s managers are deploying a new software upgrade that will dismantle myriad groups of like-minded political activists unless they get a special software-key from the company.<\/p>\n

But Facebook managers are providing very limited information about which groups are being favored with the new key, prompting some activists to complain about possible political favoritism among Facebook managers, and many other activists to experiment with techniques and tricks to get the needed upgrade-key. …<\/p>\n

Facebook\u2019s software changes do not impact the individual pages that Facebook subscribers use to stay in contact with friends and to tout their relationships, statuses and accomplishments. The upgrade only effects the software that links Facebook\u2019s \u201cgroups\u201d of like-minded people, each of which is managed by one or more group administrators. …<\/p>\n

The new software-upgrade will automatically archive all groups. Once archived, each group\u2019s past activity will be still be visible on Facebook, but the groups\u2019 administrators will lose access to their lists of group members. That means the administrators lose contact with everyone in their groups, and will be forced to recruit all those members again \u2013 unless Facebook provides them with the special upgrade software.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The entire process\/policy change seems clunky, arbitrary, and unfair (as is Facebook’s famous wont). Wiping out entire groups? Why? Restoring some groups while leaving others not knowing whether they’ll live or die? What for? I go on wondering: How did Facebook become so rich and powerful when it treats its members like sh*t time and again? And when its management style resembles a chimp with ADHD?<\/p>\n

But I find it hard to believe FB would be as blatantly, stupidly biased as the article implies — giving the privilege of the “special key” to The Brady Campaign with its mere 1,000 members, for instance, while withholding it from a libertarian group that has 60,000 members, and so on. Would FB managers deliberately, publicly promote “left wing” groups while at the same time utterly destroying conservative, libertarian, and (presumably) anarcho-capitalist ones?<\/p>\n

I suspect another shoe will drop and this won’t turn out to be quite what it seems. Still … O’s right. The very fact that FB can — and will? — arbitrarily wipe out groups it doesn’t favor could be dangerous stuff. So heads up to freedomistas in general and gunfolk in particular.<\/p>\n

And be glad when social media becomes decentralized<\/a> — as it will and should. (More on that.<\/a>) (And more,<\/a> with emphasis on freedom.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

O. sent this to me with the comment, “If this is true, it does not portend good things for freedom, in general, or firearms, given Facebook’s reach on the net.” Facebook\u2019s managers are deploying a new software upgrade that will dismantle myriad groups of like-minded political activists unless they get a special software-key from the company. But Facebook managers are providing very limited information about which groups are being favored with the new key, prompting some activists to complain about possible political favoritism among Facebook managers, and many other activists to experiment with techniques and tricks to get the needed…<\/p>\n

Continue readingFacebook shutting out conservatives and libertarians?<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computers-and-technology","category-guns-and-gun-rights","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5710\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}