i’m damn mad and i want you to GET ANGRY AT FACEBOOK WITH ME.
it’s a somewhat convoluted story and i’ll do my best to get it straight, but what it boils down to is this: when some millionaire doesn’t care for a facebook group that has more than TWELVE THOUSAND MEMBERS, his money and a couple of slick attorneys can shut it down overnight – without inquiry, explanation or warning. 12,000 facebookers logged in, saw a black hole where their BOYCOTT ROCKSTARS group had formerly been, and said wtf? facebook said nothing.
then, to complete the bootlicking, facebook also disabled the account of charles tsai, the young man who initially created the group. again, without explanation, warning or recourse.
now *i* am saying
FUCK?
the millionaire in question is michael (weiner) savage, an ultraconservative hater of many, a “right-wing crusader against gays, immigrants, Muslims, Barack Obama, Britain, [and] women” who uses the bully pulpit of his radio show to promote prejudice and hatred. just like bill o’reilly. his son is the CEO of rockstar energy drinks, which savage vehemently denies co-founding.
frankly, i don’t give a flying fuck whether savage co-founded rockstar or not (though i’m happy enough to boycott that disgusting concoction — something i wouldn’t drink even before learning that its proceeds are poured into fascist organizations like the paul revere society).
but i DO give a flying fuck about facebook caving in so easily, with so little pressure.
facebook is as much a center of social action as it is of casual networking; free and unrestricted speech is the cornerstone of all social action. facebook’s actions (rather, its complete over-reactions) in this case suggest that they could care less about free speech, social action OR its members.
consider this: the weiner clan also sicced their dogs on Alternet, but that site didn’t just bend over and take it — they did more research, and published a “correction” that’s more of an indictment than an apology.
another legal warning letter went to gaywired, which had also carried a story about the boycott. the gaywired editors really did their homework, including this paragraph in their public “retraction”:
facebook could have done something similar. or they could simply have done nothing. but they just caved.
must every facebook user who creates a group now fear loss of their profile, their friends, connections, groups, photos, and calendar, without warning — without any good reason other than that somebody with deep pockets didn’t like it?
will i lose my facebook account over this blog post?
will you lose your facebook account over YOURS?
facebook users are not taking this lying down. other members immediately recreated the BOYCOTT ROCKSTARS group. i joined it around 3:30 this afternoon, when it had about 600 members. a few hours later it was up aroun 900. go check out that group right now and see how large it’s grown — and JOIN it. create a new FB account if you don’t already have one, just to become a member of this group.
yes, it’s that important.
why? facebook is without doubt the most significant social networking site around and, unlike myspace (which is practically on life support at this point) it’s still growing like a weed. where facebook leads, others will follow, and they lead by their examples.
this is not a precedent that any of us should be willing to tolerate, and it’s OUR responsibility to speak up about it — to speak up LOUDLY and to speak up RIGHT NOW — and say NO. we are NOT going to allow any corporate hate-mongerers to dictate conversations on a public platform.
if there was some inaccuracy in the BOYCOTT ROCKSTARS group, it seems to be only that michael savage was referred to as a “co-founder” of the company that his son owns and at which his wife is a senior executive. he says that’s not true. fine, then ask the group to do some fact-checking.
but to simply shut it down? wipe out the admin’s entire profile? flip the bird to more than 12,000 facebook users?
that’s nothing less than fascism in action. and we know what happens when you don’t nip that kind of cocksucker in the bud.
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excellent piece. the actions of facebook and rockstar are simply reprehensible — and it seems to me their solution only exacerbated the initial ‘problem’. let’s get this group well over its original size. DOWN WITH ROCKSTAR!
Jackie, thanks for posting this. I wasn’t aware of this story, although I’m not surprised by it. Technology, as it stands is a gift and a curse. It can unite activists from all over the world, but when the flow of info is filtered through facebook with it’s big brother-ish nature, corporate interests are held in higher esteem than us “little people.” I’m definitely angry at facebook with you!
Marcus Kwames last blog post..Hungry
btw, check out my “blog love” post from earlier this week. i gave tour blog a shout.
Once again you enlighten the people to situations that could so easily have slipped by.
Personally, I don’t trust any of these sights are sure bets but myspace has worked better for me as an artist than facebook. I am always in fear to see ANY page disappear when we put so much time, effort and soul into them. But for me, the internet is one big brother medium.
Glad to see you blow the whistle loud on facebook’s caving in to the savage.
And how about Dell and HP jiggering the computers they sell in China in order to help the gov’t there to censor the ‘Net?
Keeping the ‘Net free of controls will require eternal vigilance, but even then it’s not assured these days.
@ michael — i think it’s working. as of this morning the group is well over 1100 strong and the day is young!
@ marcus — many thanks for the blog love! and for helping keep the internet free for us all.
@cyndi — thank you as always for reading with the heart and commenting from the gut. your faithful readership here at GAWM is greatly appreciated!
@ george — i didn’t know about the Dell/HP co-censorship, thanks for letting me know. maybe that’ll be the next BOYCOTT group on FB…if they let it stand.
As Charles’ sister i know how much sleep he’s been losing over all this . From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for writing this and getting the word out
“The Dark Side of Facebook AKA “Disgracebook,” or “Facebooks Complete Lack of Customer Service”
Facebook ruthlessly, relentlessly, and remorselessly walks all over its members with hob nailed polices of culling members from membership for unspecified unknown reasons and then accuses the permanently disabled members as “possibly” being guilty of spamming or “possibly” being guilty of harassing other members because of asking to many members to be friends at an unspecified rate. Facebook goes on to permanently disable accounts that have to many friends, belongs to many groups, pokes to many unknown times, sends to many email messages and on and on and on. Mark Zuckerber says that Facebook members seem to take a “personal ownership” of their Facebook accounts. Well golly gee Mark, Facebook is a SOCIAL internet program that people join to meet and make new friends. Making new friends, at least to me, is personal and publishing real photographs and genuine personal information on Facebook seems personal to me. Maybe you should say in your rules and regulations that we want members to be real and genuine but do not join Facebook for personal reasons and do not expect to be treated in a true genuine caring manner because Facebook does not care in the least about what you think or how you feel. When Facebook says you are guilty of breaking polices you will be treated with complete lack of respect in a impersonal sterile manner and banned from Facbook with out recourse.
The unaired dark side of Facebook, or should I call it “Disgracebook” because of the extremely poor disgraceful way Facebook treats its members. The reason I say the unaired dark side of Facebook is I have yet to see anything announced on the prime time major news outlets about the disgraceful practices Facebook uses on its members. The Internet is bursting at its seems with unhappy disabled Facebook members who have posted thousands of complaints everywhere it is possible to post complaints about Facebooks complete lack of customer service and mean spirited disregard for concerns, questions and feedback from members and former members.
On Mark Zuckerber’s, the founder of Facebook, Facebook Fan Page Mark states “I’m trying to make the world a more open place by helping people connect and share.” I am glad Mark says he is “trying etc.” because, in my opinion, he certainly has NOT accomplished his mission. Facebook is one of the most closed undemocratic uncaring unsocial business operations since the formation of the Gestapo. Facebook operates carte blanche without regard of a due process of rights for members Facebook deems unworthy to be members of its social network service and therefore, disables their account. Facebook justifies its policy and actions under the euphemism of “protecting members” from “repeated actions that could be construed as spam,” and from anything Facebook makes up as a threat to its security. Facebook is an omnipotent uncaring broadly defined automated bureaucratic security service mechanism with unpublished specific rules that are violated without knowing it. If this is not Gestapo like policy, I guess I do not know what it is because it certainly is un-American to say the least!
Furthermore, in my opinion Facebook is not a social network service. When joining Facebook you are, in reality, joining a money making “computer program” complete with automated responders but is set up to look like a social network service operated by real people. Is it any wonder Facebook members are treated with total disregard for being feeling thinking real people? I have yet to know of a computer program that is able to feel and or to reason. When someone calls Facebook you are treated rudely and crassly informed to use their computerized automated services which do not reply when used or quickly transferred to an automated answering service to which there is no reply.
I strongly urge anyone interested to please research what I am informing you of because I assure you the situation I have explained is the truth and nothing but the truth so help me God. Until the media and or business community and elected officials takes notice of and makes public “Disgracebooks” inhuman treatment of people Mark Zuckerberg and his staff and money making computer program will continue to fill up trenches behind Disgracebooks California headquarters with unworthy disabled members.
One final comment. If Disgracebook is treating its foreign members as poorly as it treats its domestic members Disgracebook is not only giving itself a black eye it is giving the United States of America a black eye. Is there anyone out there who cares enough to tell the world about Facebooks dark side and will hopefully help Facebook to become a user friendly Internet social service it claims to be.
Hello fellow honorable former Facebook members who have been unjustly disabled from Facebook because of Facebooks insensitive, uncaring, completely ambiguous nonspecific rules, regulations, limits, priorities and exceeding an unknown prohibited rate of making new friends policy as well as their practically nonexistent inaccurate extremely poor customer service!
Fellow justifiably angry former Facebook members will you please email your complaints regarding “DISGRAGEBOOK” to the Better Business Bureau of California by cutting and pasting http://WWW.BBB.ORG into your web browser and follow the simple instruction to access the California BBB complaint site. To access the correct California complaint site you need to have Facebooks zip code which is 94301. Once you are into the complaint form you need to have Facebooks corporate address, phone and fax number which is: Facebook, Inc., 156 University Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94301, phone number, 650-543-4800 or 650-853-1300, and fax number, 650-543-4801
Once you have filed your electronic complaint with the California BBB please fax your complaint to Facebook at their fax number, 650-543-4801. After faxing your complaint to Facebook please call Facebook 650-543-4800 &/or 650-853-1300 and leave a verbal complaint on their answering service. Now, upon completion of this, please snail mail your complaint to, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, inc., 156 University Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94301. Upon completion of this, please snail mail your complaint to, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, State Capital Building, Sacramento, CA 95814
Dear friends, please ask all those you know who have been unjustly disabled from Facebook to send their complaints to the aforementioned in the proceeding paragraph. We need to get organized and inform the world that Facebook is not a cute little billion dollar social network it portrays itself to be to the public and to those who are silly enough to advertise on this wretched social network now rechristened “DISGRACEBOOK.”
Thank you in advance for your participation in getting your complaints to those who will eventually correct “DISGRACEBOOK’S” insensitive inhumane non-benevolent disgraceful business practices.
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