Activist groups are getting their knickers in a knot because Facebook has pulled their profiles. It seems that such organisations as UK Uncut, Chesterfield Stop the Cuts, Tower Hamlet Greens, London Student Assembly, Southwark SoS and Bristol Uncut have had their pages zapped. Except that it isn’t the pages themselves, but the profiles. This is because according to Facebook, these people registered their accounts as individuals when they were actually groups. This is in breach of Facebook’s terms and conditions.
As a consequence, they are whining like jet engines about having their communications lines cut – stating that it is politically motivated.
Jim Killock, 38 who runs the Open Rights Group, which campaigns for civil liberties on the net, said: “It’s pretty flatfooted of Facebook to pull profiles without notifying users. Clearly, if you just take down sites without any warning, people are going to feel aggrieved, they’re going to have activities disrupted and be unable to organise politically,” he said.
No, what is pretty flatfooted is deliberately ignoring Facebook’s terms and conditions before registering in breach of such – not to mention relying on this as a means of organising. It’s not exactly difficult. If you go to the opening page of Facebook, you have the option to sign up as an individual with a separate link if you want to register a group. This shouldn’t tax someone of average intelligence. And, it being Facebook’s property, they can do as they wish. They don’t have to tell anyone if they don’t want to.
And these cretins expect us to take them seriously?
It’s quite a normal outlook from modern socialists, isn’t it. A pub can’t just decide if it wants to have smoking or not. It’s a “community” thing now, so it’s not just a question of customers and suppliers choosing how they interact, the government has to be involved.
I’ve done a few bits of political sites for people, and I simply won’t use Facebook as the platform. Mostly because you lose flexibility, but also because they can boot you off and your presence on the net gets a bit screwed.
It’s a funny thing – the Conservatives round here use the exact same rhetoric as the ‘progressives’. ‘Community’ this, ‘community’ that. Our politics is infected with it. Dare to be different and dare to voice a different opinion? Then you’re an ‘-ist’.
Typical of ‘progressives’ everywhere. If you don’t agree with them, you’re considered backward.