Facebook – self appointed arbiter of “free speech” – tells Tea Party no more organizing

Loading

In what is an astonishing development, Mark Zuckerberg’s social media sensation, Facebook, has been slowly and quietly clamping down on the use of the site for political purposes. Kellen Giuda, an architect who started the NY Tea Party, has a column today in The Daily Caller to expose the Facebook hypocrisy, and to announce an alternative social medium to replace the FB void after a series of policy and site changes that are designed to limit the scope of use of Facebook related to political purposes.

What makes an American entrepreneur’s blood run cold is the quote from Facebook’s Adam Conner to the Wall Street Journal last month:

Meanwhile, Facebook is talking with potential Chinese partners about entering the huge China market, where the government has been cracking down on dissidents. That crackdown has come in response to the uprisings shaking authoritarian Middle Eastern regimes, movements that have used U.S.-based social-media sites like Facebook and Twitter as organizing tools.

“Maybe we will block content in some countries, but not others,” Adam Conner, a Facebook lobbyist, told the Journal. “We are occasionally held in uncomfortable positions because now we’re allowing too much, maybe, free speech in countries that haven’t experienced it before,” he said.

“Right now we’re studying and learning about China but have made no decisions about if, or how, we will approach it,” said Debbie Frost, Facebook’s director of international communications.

It’s chilling enough that a social medium that has played such a high profile role in political interaction decides that one country is “experienced” enough to be allowed free speech, and another isn’t. But considering Facebook’s attitude towards the Tea Party and other groups that are not being offered the privileged “upgrade” that allows them to keep their contacts intact, this begs the question of Mr. Conner… just what part of America, and our founding based on free speech, requires nanny censorship by a self appointed arbiter? Is this country not “experienced” enough in the eyes of the Facebook authorities.

Facebook isn’t foolish enough to outright lay on political censorship. As Guida points out, it’s been a series of steps that unmistakenly is aimed at political use of the medium. And he further suggests that the overt ties to liberal political beliefs may play a large part in thwarting Tea Party organization.

The company has changed the way Facebook’s group, newsfeed and event features work, and it has restricted the ability of users to communicate with people (via messages and wall posts) who are outside of their real-life social networks.

What’s more, it’s become clear that Facebook itself is dominated by liberals:

•98% of political donations from Facebook employees went to Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election.

•Chris Hughes, one of Facebook’s co-founders, headed up Barack Obama’s successful website during the 2008 campaign. In 2009, he was featured on the cover of Fast Company magazine as “The kid who made Obama president: how Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes unleashed Barack’s base — and changed politics and marketing forever.”

•Facebook’s former attorney for privacy issues, Chris Kelly, ran for attorney general of California in 2010 on a far-left platform.

Many Americans and Tea Party organizers are waking up to this liberal culture at Facebook, which was on display at the recent Facebook townhall where Barack Obama and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg fawned over each other.

And speaking of this new a’political philosphy, if Facebook is so all fired dedicated to free speech and staying away from politics, why the heck are they interviewing the POTUS on political issues, and livestreaming it on Facebook anyway?

And what happens to all those Congressional owned Facebook accounts? Aren’t they entirely political in nature? Or is it only “organizing” they seem to oppose?

UPDATE: To hedge off any additional misreadings and misconceptions that have been repeatedly addressed in the vast comments below, yes… I know that FB doesn’t “guarantee” anyone “free speech” as a private company. Nor is political ideology a protected class under federal or state civil rights. I suggest none of this. This post is about Facebook’s hypocrisy – their supposed “pro freedom” beliefs that runs counter to their idea that some are capable of handling “free speech” and others are not in the US. If Facebook wishes to advertise itself as a liberal political organizing platform, that’s fine. But the overt disconnect of saying they are “pro freedom” (but may be giving some “too much free speech”), while picking and choosing who may or may not keep their organizing contacts with the privileged upgrades, is not representative of who they claim to be. Now… returning you to the program, already in progress….END UPDATE

What becomes more ironic about FB’s attempted control and tiptoe away from politics is the very political nature of both the company, and of Conner himself… who is one of Facebook’s lobbyists on staff. It was only last week that Facebook hired on two more lobbyists, both Republicans, to complement their two Democrat lobbyists, for more influence in Washington. Perhaps they see the writing on the wall for 2012, and an era that is likely to usher in even more conservatives to what has been an unhealthy Democrat balance for too many years.

Facebook now has four registered lobbyists. The new Republican hires join Democrats Tim Sparapani and Adam Conner. Facebook has 12 staffers in its Washington office, including administrative support.

“At Facebook, we’re committed to explaining how our service works; the important actions we take to protect the more than 500 million people who use our service; and the value of innovation to our economy,” spokesman Andrew Noyes said in a statement. “This work occurs daily in Washington, at the state level, and with policymakers around the world.”

The company spent $230,000 lobbying in the first quarter, according to a recent filing with the House clerk’s office.

Apparently the company is allowed to be political for their benefit, but they do not wish to offer that same freedom of content use to their subscribers…

 Conner himself has anything but an a’political career.

Prior to Facebook, Adam was the Director of Online Communications for Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, Chairwoman of the Rules Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. He previously served as the Deputy Director of Online Communications for Forward Together, the presidential exploratory committee for former Virginia Governor Mark Warner. Adam holds a bachelor’s degree in political communication from the George Washington University.

Additionally, it was Egypt’s Wael Ghonim, Google’s ME marketing guru and anonymous Facebook administrator, who is credited with driving the Egyptian “Arab Spring”.

Ghonim thought Facebook could be the ideal revolutionary tool in Egypt’s suffocating police state. “Once you are a fan, whatever we publish gets on your wall,” he wrote. “So the government has NO way to block it later. Unless they block Facebook completely.”

I wonder if Ghonim ever envisioned that it would not be a government that blocks content, but the Facebook execs themselves.

The hypocrisy of such back door censorship flies in the face of the Facebook executives actions themselves during that event, where it was reported they “..took unusual steps to protect the identity of protest leaders during the Egypt uprising.” Apparently, it is their policy to monitor, meddle and control with the content sniffs of politics. Or is this their idea of a self-imposed “fairness doctrine”?

Granted, Giuda’s own Daily Caller column is a blatant advertisement for his attempt at a political “Facebook” alternative, Freedom Torch. But considering how firmly entrenched FB is in today culture, and it’s now famous association with what many consider a political success for organizing both the US Tea Party movement and rebellions overseas, it’s going to have a serious uphill climb in replacing the vast audience Facebook has already captured.

Paraphrasing Dr. Johnny Fever’s infamous line in the old WKRP sitcom, “when you move the mission, you need to remember to tell the drunks”. There’s the potential that a lot of communication with political activists could be lost. It’s difficult to drive traffic for a political organizing cause to another social medium when the originating medium is making it difficult to convey that message to begin with by stripping them with the majority of their contact database.

Or is that Facebook’s intention?

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
225 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Facebook, Google…..sigh. We need some good Conservative techie geeks to create an internet leviathan that would be for free speech, fair market principles, limited government, etc…

Maybe that would be too “radical.”

It’s so sad that “conservatives” are always so far behind the technological/internet curve. Conservatives whine day-in and day-out and how liberal Wikipedia is or how Facebook is going to crackdown on the Tea Party, etc.

Blah, blah, blah. Instead of bitching and whining 24/7 the Right should man-up and just start their own “social media” sites or encyclopedias. Now I realize a website such as FA is a step in the right direction and does **something** about this problem, but the BIG MONEY boys need to step up to the plate- like Soros has done- and start to counter the propaganda mill of the left.

Ditto with conservatives complaining about Journalism or education. Get off your lazy butt and infiltrate these professions. It’s not that hard.

Good post, Mata.

I can agree with the fact that Facebook needs to allow free speech for all and not just censor information that they do not agree with–in the end that is not free speech at all.

@John Evan Miller:

I can agree with the fact that Facebook needs to allow free speech for all and not just censor information that they do not agree with-in the end that is not free speech at all.

What? And why should they do that? It’s legal what they are doing and it helps the libs.

Don’t complain, do something to change it. Infiltrate.

There is no doubt, none what-so-ever, that those associated with FaceBook are far left liberals, progressives really. There is also no doubt that liberals do not intend to allow the re-election of Obama to chance. As the Stimulus plan continues to fail to stimulate, as housing is now entering a second dip of recession, as the unemployment rate continues at 9% (with the media ignoring that the true unemployment rate is at Great Depression numbers), the job creation in the public sector remains anemic and the GDP growth is at a painful 1.8%, you can only convince people for so long that things are getting better when everything they see arounds them says the opposite.

Those who surround Obama understand this, and they understand that his bounce from the killing of UBL will not last another 18 months. So the tactic must be to silence those who are speaking loudly about Obama’s failure to make good on campaign promises by any and all methods. FaceBook also holds responsibility for the Egyptian uprisings, touted by this administration as a good thing, now saying little about it as we watch the Muslim Brotherhood, who both the administration and the American press said were not involved, poise itself to take over.

You see, liberals only believe in free speech when it benefits them, not when it benefits their opposition. Then they declare the opposition quilty of “hate” speech. And they will never accept that the best places to encourage free speech is the nation that set the standard for that right as well as the nations who have never had it. My guess is that the gurus at FaceBook understand that the Arab Spring is about to turn into the Arab Slaughter. Look no further than the burnings of Coptic churches and the killing of Coptic Christians in Egypt. Not exactly a success story.

FaceBook execs may think they can help silence some of the dissention about Obama. They can’t. There is still Twitter, cell phone texting and that age old proven standby, the telephone.

The screws are being tightened; Facebook realizes the damage the Tea Party can do to Obama’s reelection bid and like a spoiled kid he wants to take his ball and go home. It’s time for Conservatives to close out their Face Book accounts. It is the perfect time for competition and the fall of Face Book. Let the little Obama pimp feel what it is like to lose over half his business when he wants to play authoritarian tyrant. A new offering can now offer a better more secure alternative to cut down on the cyber crimes that are connected with Face Book.

I’ve seen this happen with Reddit, Digg and so many other little networking sites.
Even the ”tech-y” ones eventually get taken over by the Left.
I’ll stick to my old fashioned telephone tree and email.
Remember the old Prell commercial?
She told two friends, and she told two friends and so on and so on and so on?
We had friends who escaped the former Soviet Union.
Of course it was MUCH worse there than here, even now.
But, hey, why not be ready?
Every keystroke you make is retrievable.
In the old USSR people met and shared information quietly, privately.
I don’t need to get validated by knowing what TEA parties are doing all over the country.
Just make sure I know what my local one is doing this month, next month and so on.

@Skookum: and Ivan #2. Building upon your suggestions cons need to take it even farther than Facebook. The MSM also needs to be sent a message. Cons need to not only quit watching the three major networks news programs, but they also need to quit watching any and all of their shows. Hit them in the pocketbook. A perpetual loss of several million viewers will result in a big loss of sponsors and thus revenue. Ditto for Hollywood and the movie theaters. They want to have all of these liberal themed movies, fine. Quit patronizing them and hit them in the pocketbook where it counts as well. Don’t stop there either. If a company supports the left’s agenda, cease patronizing them.

Nan G wrote: “I don’t need to get validated by knowing what TEA parties are doing all over the country. Just make sure I know what my local one is doing this month, next month and so on. ”

Bravo. Facebook is the biggest spy network in the world.

I guess it’s a first in restrickting the right to organise for 2012, and yes all better have an alternative and become independant and stay free of that FACECROOKED BOOK THAT ALLOWED YOUNG PEOPLE TO USE THEIR PLACE FOR SENDING DEATH THREAT TO SOME PEOPLE,
SO WHAT ELSE CAN BE MORE CRIMINAL THAN THAT.
START A PLACE IN THE INTERNET NOW AND SPREAD THE WORD, THEY WILL COME
and those who choose to stay with FACEBOOK will be single out as follower of the left.

@anticsrocks:
thumbtack.com was founded by Conservatives/Libertarians.

I deactivated my FB account on January 1, 2011.

It is simply a mine of free data that the users provide, for sale to businesses that then target them for advertising.

It is also an ideologically slanted and overly powerful entity.

Don’t suppport, don’t help it, don’t use.

Say no to FB.

Just walk away.

FACEBOOK is screwing itself.
In many circles FB is (now) just considered, “the new email” (as email is a pain- much easier to post to your FB NewsFeed, group, add pics, links, etc. on FB and forget traditional email).

FB is like a more active LinkedIN.

NOW– a HUGE group of Conservatives gather on TWITTER.
With the use of Hashtags (#) it is easy to find #conservatives or whomever you want.
Most of congress is available to make comments to– it all adds up you can be sure.

YOU GET INFORMATION NEVER REPORTED on traditional media!

If you use your airport three letter code in your name- area people, businesses, can quickly FOLLOW you (if that is what you want. ) You can fly under the radar- or jump right in.
For crying out loud I got @KarlRove following ME! LOL

I use FB for business, family and keep my mouth shut (usually).
TWITTER is where it is at, can let your hair down, block people (if wanted), follow, listen, speak up, and LEARN (join up w/techies, photo groups, fun groups, political, writers, WHATEVER).
Every TEA PARTY group is FREE to post/talk/link…..

We in TWITTERLAND knew about #OBL being dead one full hour before it hit the internet feeds, TV, and the long grueling 40 min wait on FOX and CNN (to break the story after announcing the POTUS was coming on TV at 11pm at night). Reporters at CBS (& others) confirmed. The Twitter feed was so exciting that night!

Also so helpful on Twitter is instant WEATHER alerts literally for your backyard (from regular people who follow the radar readings). Since our power was out– (during tornado activity) knew to take cover or not.
Also nice to have some ppl (“people”) to talk to when house too quiet.
Takes a while to learn the shortcuts– but worth it.

Hope that helps.

FACEBOOK=Complete and total waste of time.

I would wholeheartedly welcome and support a conservative alternative to Facebook. But, te key is simply not clicking on Facebook advertisements or pumping money into Facebook apps like FarmVille.

Do not fear little people, Big Brother Zuckerberg is here to make sure you know what you can say and what you should hear. Remember 2 + 2 = 5.

I just shared this article on Facebook. I like getting in people’s faces. If they want to close my account down, that’s fine with me. I lived a long time before FB ever came along, and I’ll live a long time after they’re gone.

I thought the whole basic premise of the internet was freedom of expression, and now we have these leftie dictators at facebook shutting it down. Any person in this country who beleives in internet freedom should do whatever they can to destroy these proto dictators immediately.

Ever notice that it is always the left that constantly talks about the importance of free speech, and then is the first to shut it down when it comes from somebody that disagrees with them. Of course Facebook is a private company and has the right to ban free speech on its site. We have the right to no longer patronize that sight, and tell them why. Let us see which is more important to them, their leftie dictatorial impulses, or their desire for profit. If their leftie dictatorial impulses turn out to dominate, I hope they choke on this, and fade away, just like MySpace did.

I’ ve read all these comments and agree.
Actually, such a site HAS been started. A conservative social networking site – FreedomTorch
http://www.freedomtorch.com/members/home

I like it almost as much as I like twitter 🙂
http://twitter.com/#!/DebForFreedom

@J: Thank you J!

@Connie: Thank you, too Connie!

I hereby nominate Curt to create flopbook.com as an alternative to facebook.com

Go Curt!!

@Skookum: Skook you hit the pinned the tail on the donkey! I agree with you and others for some time now that we the people need something like Facebook. But unfortunately that may take sometime. Most geeks subscribe to the liberal ideology. It will no doubt take some ultra rich and conservative individual who can hire enough geeks to build a new and improved Facebook. In the meantime the young liberal geeks will blindly follow their liberal leaders and back their decision to limit “too much freedom”. I bet you that the powers to be in China told Facebook that part of the deal would be “limited access, and speech”. Which is the opposite of liberal beliefs. Thats what just blows me away with how people can follow such blatant hypocrisy that the liberal belief system is riddled with. Great post Mata!

Since my family and I live overseas with limited access to snail mail, Facebook has been a lifesaver to us, and we can do nothing but thank the FB team. Having said that, they appear to be politically naive and obsessively ambitious. Throwing Mr Anti out on some silly pretext was uncalled for and stupid–it won’t help them enter the China market (http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_642808.html). At the same time, the marketplace–and not Mr. Zuckerberg–rules. If they continue to play the game this way, alternatives will arise and they will lose their market share.

@anticsrocks: flopbook! too funny.

Can some one say “Class Action?”

If you are talking about the need for conservatives to come up with a competitor to facebook, you are barking up the wrong tree.

Facebook isn’t successful because it is a great product. People bitch about how crappy the service is all the time.

Facebook is successful because of the nature of social networks: the more people on it, the better it is. Are you on Facebook? Why? Probably because everyone else you know is on it. And people you don’t know. And people you haven’t talked to in a long time, etc.

When the idea of social networks became a “thing”, there were 2 alternatives: Facebook and MySpace. Facebook won simply because MySpace is absolutely horrendous and aimed too much at teens.

The problem of Facebook’s monopoly is an odd one: they have a death grip on social networks because it is the biggest social networking site out there, and since it is the biggest social networking site out there, they have a death grip on social networks.

@Jack: They are a private company so can do whatever they want with regards to organizing. It is unethical of them, but they can do whatever they want.

How dare Facebook act like it’s their application to do with as they please! You should stop giving them money.

Thus begins the decline of Facebook. Too bad the kid that started it will still be rich!
Never used/needed/wanted FB….. Do not have it, & never will.

May I recommend “Text Clouds” as a substitute, this requires giving up cell phone numbers to the interested source for rapid distribution. If there be a Tea Party event I get an automatic text message to my cell phone, Blackbury, or IPhone scheduling and reminding me of the where & when. FaceBook is like thumbing through old yearbooks, very boring unless it is family or friend sans anything political. Sarah Palin needs to open a Text Cloud” communicating with her millions of friends.

Facebook is a private business and they can do whatever they want to.

If we don’t like it, we’re welcome to take our business elsewhere. Don’t use it if you don’t want all your personal information vacuumed up and handed over to whomever they feel compelled to at that moment.

Take my word for it, there will be a huge market for private messaging and groups in the very near future. You’ll be able to “sneaker net” 64GB chips full of data and sync up, completely off the grid, totally privately.

People will pay for privacy.

@anticsrocks: Get on over to Freedom Torch!

@Connie: So you know that twitter management and many of the major investors are pretty much every bit as left wing as the folks at Facebook and Google, right? Same crowd…

Freedom Works offers a site for Conservative networking:
http://connect.freedomworks.org/

Curt, flopbook aint all that funny. Count my keyboard in for the ride, if you decide to do something, like get some start up capital and go for it!

@shellymic: I am there. In fact, I have already posted a few things.

@Skookum: Yes Skookum, I agree. I think flopbook.com would work. Count me in on any help I can give.

It’s not clear to me that the policy changes have much to do with politics, at least in the US. Much of it seems to be a response to the privacy and marketing issues that people have been raking FB over the coals about for the last year or two. I have a completely apolitical group on FB that is being archived, and FB recommends creating a Facebook Page to take its place. Pages have advantages and disadvantages compared to Groups, so it’s a bit of a wash for me. Start a page, and ask people to sign up for a mailing list, or set up a forum using any number of free tools, etc., etc. Honestly, it sounds like Giuda et al are just trying to stir up controversy to publicize their FreedomTorch social network (not necessarily a bad thing).

As for social network free speech policies in China, it is a bit more complicated than it seems. Which approach will be better for free speech in the long run — getting a foot in the door, albeit with some speech limitations, but with the hope of building a brand and a gradually increasing free speech culture, or drawing a hard line, saying “100% free speech or nothing!” and getting shut out of China, not having any influence internally, and perhaps losing a generation of Chinese to a Chinese company that cares little or nothing about free speech? It reminds me a bit of the South African divestment debate in the 80s. Was it better to boycott South Africa, potentially limiting middle class growth and blocking cultural influence, or would it be better to engage (and employ) South Africans? It may feel good to draw hard lines, but it may actually hurt as much as it helps.

I have no doubt that with all of the connections and conservative blogs that there would be any issues with driving traffic to a conservative platform like the others. Perhaps that is what Glenn Beck is developing after he leaves Fox? He’s been hinting to something along those lines since he started talking about that Ferdinand moment.

John Evan Miller , yes I can agree also, and once they start that business in order to change the rules,
to favor CHINA as oppose to AMERICANS IS A BREACH OF ETHIC and they lost their credibility,
and just beginning to a loosing trend, and CHINA is not to be trusted busyness wise with the proof we’re having of bigger COMPANYS BEEING COMPELLED TO CLOSE ON THEM ONCE THEY GET THE COMPANY’S KNOWLEDGE, LOOSING THEIR INVESTMENTS , BECAUSE A BREACH OF ETHIC
SOUND’S THE SAME AS FACEBOOK

GOOD TO NOTICE how the division is made again by liberals, and by liberal influence
that is their ways ,

@21: I don’t use Facebook or Twitter, but I think “FreedomTorch” is a really bad choice for a conservative alternative. It’s so earnest, and dorky and GlennBeckian.

Can anyone imagine millions of conservative Americans telling their liberal friends to sign up for “Freedomtorch” so they can “friend” them? After all, 99% of Facebook is NOT about politics.

Why not take a free clue from Facebook and Twitter, and use a more neutral name.

@Cached Czech: What’s wrong with FreedomTorch for a name?

I mean I’ll admit that it isn’t as catchy as Flopbook!!
.
.

“tisn’t that simple, biff. Tho I agree that the “politics” may not have as much to do with left or right politics in the US, it most certainly has to do with their desires to avoid political organizing in general. This would become more clear to you if you read the link about their reluctance in becoming involved in the Egyptian uprising. In order to limit that type of activity, they will clamp down on all features that enable reaching the larger masses. If you have no need to do so for your own purposes, you’re not affected in the least.”

, as you said, ’tisn’t that simple. They’re only reluctant in favor of certain groups, as documented here and here:

“There is a deeply disturbing development going on now at Facebook: Its management is dismantling groups, eliminating their memberships with an “upgrade” that is only available to some groups. And there is every indication Facebook is using political criteria to determine which groups get the upgrade and targeting conservative groups for elimination.”

@MataHarley: Again, tisn’t that simple. I wonder if people arguing that “Facebook is a private company” are aware that private companies have been forced to do business with groups / persons they dislike since 1965. The Civil Rights Act basically said that you can’t offer goods or services to “the public” without offering them to Official Government Victim Groups. So I’d say a lawsuit is definitely in order.

Facebook isn’t foolish enough to outright lay on political censorship. As Guida points out, it’s been a series of steps that unmistakenly is aimed at political use of the medium. And he further suggests that the overt ties to liberal political beliefs may play a large part in thwarting Tea Party organization.

The company has changed the way Facebook’s group, newsfeed and event features work, and it has restricted the ability of users to communicate with people (via messages and wall posts) who are outside of their real-life social networks.

Er…so doesn’t this restriction equally effect all political parties left and right? Why single out the Tea party? Or does that kinda blow a hole in the silly argument that somehow the Tea Party is being targeted.

Good old fashioned Samizdat can work as well

The sticker campaign of putting “These prices brought to you by the Obama Administration” stickers on gas pumps and beside price tags and displays at supermarkets drives home the message in a way that can’t be countered by social media, the MSM or other enablers.

The same principles can be applied in organizing boycotts against advertisers on Facebook, Google or the legacy media.

Lastly, there are enough people with conservative principles to use their purchasing power to buy elements of these companies. How will networks sell their crap if you own the “affiliate” stations and start buying shows which don’t have overt “progressive” bias. Canadians are eating up “SUN TV” because it is not overtly left wing. State owned and rabidly leftist CBC consumes over a billion tax dollars a year and has an audience share of 7%, so despite the resources the liberal and progressives can throw, people are not naturally inclined to watch/listen to “progressive” tropes.

1 2 3 5