So long petitions. RIP protest marches. Now if you want to get heard, just start a Facebook group.
What’s going on? Faceboook used to be a hangout for friends and their “friends”. Organising birthday parties, school reunions and insignificant fan club groups was all part of the set up. Now it seems Facebook’s nature is becoming increasingly political. Facebook users have always used the social network to air their rants and raves in an online Speaker’s Corner. No one ever really took notice. The media seems to be taking notice now though. And with that, the site’s power and importance is growing.
When Twitter announced it had cancelled its UK SMS delivery service yesterday in a cost cutting exercise, within hours a group popped up on Facebook targeting the mobile networks: UK mobile operators: cut Twitter a decent deal on SMS charges. The group was mentioned in a number of online blogs and new sites including the Online Journalism Blog which goes so far as to dub its call to action the “Facebook campaign to sort it out”. Facebook campaign? Is Facebook launching a campaign? No, but the group (who is ‘related’ to “Chavs who play their music off their mobiles in public should be shot”) is certainly benefitting from its association to Facebook. Of course Facebook isn’t really associated with the group - just hosting it. But why is it getting so much media converage?
When wedding list service Wrapit teetered on the brink of administration a few weeks ago more than a thousand disgruntled customers joined one of 3 groups set up for them to “share their grievances and discuss ways to get their money/gifts” back from the (now insolvent) company. One group with almost 800 users used the site to organise a protest march. Under 30 people marched. Unsurprisingly, people are much happier to put their name to a cause than to march for it. This is not new to online petitions where often staggering numbers of signatures are achieved. What is interesting though is that whereas online petitions previously didn’t get too much media converage, it seems that any story about a group of upset powerless individuals is now accompanied by a note about an associated Facebook group. Moreover, Facebook is the campaign headquarters for many of these - the place where campaigns are born. Does Facebook hold any liability for these campaigns? Doubtful. What interests me is that whereas the site used to be a place for friends to come together and surreptitiously keep an eye on ex-partners, now it also seems to be a media tool used to leverage opinions and get yourself heard. It’s just another advantage of having over 90 million people in one place. Whatever next?
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