Saturday, November 3, 2012

E tu, Facebook?


Alas, poor Facebook!

The giant social media company, whose stated mission is “to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected” is the reigning king of social media.  Hailed as one of the “best of the decade” by Entertainment Weekly in their December 11, 2009 issue, it passed MySpace as the most used social network in April 2008.  Now with over one billion users, the Facebook IPO was hailed as “the most hotly anticipated stock debut at least since Google, and maybe ever”…and then, it flopped.

Facebook (known as ‘FB’ by the cognoscenti) has become such a regular part of life that its lingo has entered the vernacular.  Since it’s founding in 2004, to “unlike” someone (the name given to removing someone you’ve “friended” on Facebook) has become the modern equivalent of the cut direct. With more than 40% of Americans now having FB accounts, the extensive reach of the site cannot be denied.  Lauded for its ability to bring people together, FB has allowed millions to find old friends, keep in contact with their loved ones, and establish groups of people with similar interests.  At the same time, it has facilitated stalkers, enabled infidelity and destroyed relationships on such a grand scale that one in five American divorces now (allegedly) involve FB.

As a political tool, FB first ‘hit the big time’ with the 2008 Republican and Democratic Presidential debates. The influence of FB is so pervasive that to NOT have a FB page for your campaign is not only practically unheard of, but also widely regarded as prima facie evidence of gross ineptitude approaching the level of frank incompetence. FB’s ability to coordinate a campaign’s communications with supporters, especially young voters, is undisputed. This is true not only in America, but anywhere the Internet reaches:  FB has been used to organize against unpopular groups such as FARC (the Columbian rebel group), and was the driving force behind “One Million Voices Against FARC”. FB has been banned by Syria, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Iran and China.  Obviously, repressive regimes don’t like FB’s ability to allow people to freely communicate, fearing that such freedom to communicate bodes ill for those repressive regimes.  Of course, this freedom to communicate can be used in other ways.  There have been reports that FB and other social media platforms, like Twitter have been and are being used as terrorist recruitment and coordination tools.

To illustrate how pervasive FB has become in politics:  as of October 31, 2012, Mitt Romney’s page had over 11,500,000 members (one becomes a member by ‘Liking’ a site), while Barack Obama’s page had more than 31,600,000.  Of course, FB ‘Likes’ are not votes…but collectively these two pages reflect over 40 million Americans (presumably, very few people ‘Like’ both candidates), which is roughly 1/3 of the number of people that voted in 2008. For completeness sake, Gary Johnson (Libertarian) had 331,000 ‘Likes’, while Jill Stein (Green) had 75,900.  Virgil Goode (Constitution) had 3800 ‘Likes’.  Rocky Anderson (Justice) does not have a formal page, but the Justice Party page has 2886 likes.

To put these numbers in perspective, the Tim Tebow Fan Club page has 255,000 Likes, and is only one of several pages devoted to the quarterback.  The Canada Free Press page has 7600 Likes.

The strength of FB, like all social media sites, lies in the site’s ability to facilitate communication between users.  When repressive regimes have censored FB, they have suffered the approbation of the FB and international communities.  Now, it appears that FB has taken a step that threatens itself on a fundamental level, by censoring an anti-Obama post by Navy SEALs. This post—a ‘meme’ in Internet parlance—was fairly typical:  a collage of pictures of Osama bin Laden and President Obama, with the caption “Obama called the SEALs and THEY got bin Laden.  When the SEALs called Obama, THEY GOT DENIED.”  This “message by the Special Operations Speaks PAC (SOS PAC)…highlighted the fact that Obama denied backup to the forces being overrun in Benghazi.”  Initially the poster (Larry Ward, President of Political Media, Inc., which is responsible for posting on the SOS PAC page) received a warning about the meme violating Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.   At that time he reposted the meme, with the warning as a caption.  He also posted a link to the FB 'feedback comment' page so that people could express their opinion of FB’s behavior.  The result?  The meme was pulled, and the poster was suspended for 24 hours from FB.

Obviously, this meme struck a nerve:  within 24 hours of being posted, it had been shared (posted on other pages) more than 30,000 times, ‘Liked’ about 24,000 times and read by hundreds of thousands of people. (Typically, many more people read posts than respond to them with an action such as Likes or shares.)

As someone with a modicum of experience with FB (disclaimer:  my own page, Hype and Fail, has been up since early September of this year), this meme doesn’t strike me as anything particularly beyond the pale of the usual, run-of-the-mill posts I see and share every day.  I suspect Mr. Ward felt the same about his post, which is why he ignored the warning.  Certainly the meme can’t be nearly as inflammatory as the cartoons of Muhammad posted on FB that caused the Pakistani banning of FB and the creation of an Islamic counter to the site. Given recent revelations about Benghazi-gate, it’s not nearly as far-fetched in its assertions as others have been.  So, the question becomes just why did FB censor this particular post, by this particular group?

Now that the storm has broken, FB has been quick to backpedal, with the following being posted as an update on the original Breitbart.com report:

“UPDATE: Facebook Manager Andrew Noyes emailed the following to Breitbart News this morning: We wanted to follow up on the Special Operations Speaks PAC (SOS) article published on Breitbart.com last night. I assure you that removing the image was not an act of censorship on our part. This was an error and we apologize for any inconvenience it may have caused.”

Too late, FB, the damage has already been done!  I, and others, have already shared this story on our own FB pages, and encouraged our friends to do the same. Between the story on BreitBart.com and the rapid spread of this story on FB itself, the fox is now well and truly into the Internet hen house.  Whether by error or not, FBs actions have the appearance of censorship of an anti-Obama message put up by a group of SEALs.  What makes this truly awful is not just the two SEALs (and others) who died in Benghazi, but how it affects the ‘free and open’ image FB has worked so hard to promulgate.

Were this an isolated incident, it could be much more easily attributed to an error by a FB staffer.  Sadly, it is not.  This is not the first meme critical of the American government (or some unit thereof) to be warned, then deleted. There are complaints on pages about FB’s ‘pay to share’ policy, as well as their censorship practices when a page's Likes exceed a certain limit.  There is a Change.org petition on the web, where you can sign to support the “Facebook Declaration of Independence”.  This Declaration calls for (among other things) FB to eliminate the pay-to-share policy between connected people, a fair and public appeal process prior to removal of posts, and a removal of the friendship cap limit.  These are not the only warning signs of discontent with FB: Facebook Detox is a site dedicated to helping people kick the FB habit.  FB has started shedding users, and other competing sites are now available. Problems with FB have become a common theme on the Internet, especially the dismal customer service and less than optimal business utility of the site.  Even before FB’s IPO, General Motors stopped buying FB ads, which are a primary source of FB revenue.

Most telling of all, since October 29th—the first day they legally could do so—FB employees have been selling stock in such quantities that the stock price dropped 3.8% in three days. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has publically stated that he won’t be selling any stock until at least next September, but another large block of stock shares and options unlocks on November 14th.  Since this November 14th block of 777 million shares and options is quite a bit more than the 234 million shares and options just unlocked…the math is left as an exercise for the student.

However, the stock price drop doesn’t address the real issue:  namely, that censoring a post by Navy SEALs makes FB appear to be taking a political stance in favor of President Obama against his challengers.  Since it’s commonly accepted in some quarters that the mainstream media has been covering up Benghazi-gate as part of their efforts to support Obama’s reelection efforts, this action makes FB appear just as corrupt and biased as the MSM.  If FB becomes known as a ‘liberal mouthpiece’ like the three major networks, how long will it be before moderates, conservatives, libertarians and others abandon it for more welcoming social networks?

Certainly the behavior of FB with regard to this particular anti-Obama post smacks of political bias and favoritism.  In censoring the SEALs, FB has made many people, myself included; seriously reevaluate their presence on the site.  Without a doubt, FB is THE social network site...for now.  I, and others, have FB pages so we can directly tap that billion-plus pool of users FB has accumulated.  This pool of users is FB’s main selling point, the very thing that made its stock so hyped (and initially overvalued).  Without that huge pool of users, FB is just another social network site…but less customizable than MySpace, less business friendly than LinkedIn, and not tied to another megalithic company (besides itself) like Google Plus.  Throw in Twitter, Pinterest, Tumbler, Diaspora, and all the rest…there’s no shortage of alternatives today, and MySpace’s experience (previously #1; now, not so much) shows us that what is biggest today isn’t necessarily biggest forever.

All that being said, I’m not closing down my FB page just yet.  FB is not ideal, but I’ve invested a fair bit of energy, time and effort into cultivating my page these last few weeks.  In doing so, I’ve learned a great deal about the whole social networking ‘thing’, and picked up quite a bit of useful information about how NOT to start an Internet site/business (mainly by doing things the wrong way the first time).  FB is still too big not to use, and functional enough for most purposes.  I expect it to remain so, at least for the near future.  However, I’m rapidly approaching the pay-to-share point and have had difficulty sharing items on some pages.  Thus far, I’m not aware that I’ve had any posts pulled, and I haven’t seen any warnings, despite flogging anti-Obama gear and memes shamelessly.  But, if my page is destroyed tomorrow…well, I’ve still got my other web site, and a blog, and have no plans to abandon the web at this time.

Still, I’m more aware of FB’s proclivities now, and irritated on behalf of the SEALs.  I don’t expect that awareness and irritation to change any time in the near future, and I suspect I’m not alone in feeling that way.  Be warned, FB!  Your users are watching you very carefully.  Now would be a good time to not screw up again.


NOTE:  if you don’t have a Facebook account but want to see Pages, go to facebook.com and look down the page.  There will be a line for you to select the appropriate language, and under that will be a line that includes links for ‘Badges’, ‘People’ and ‘Pages’.  Click on ‘Pages’ and search for the page you want to see.  The same procedure works for People, as well.


No comments:

Post a Comment