On Radio Wales Later talking about Welsh Blogging and Facebook
I am going to be on Good Evening Wales a little later today (just after 5:30) talking about Welsh Political Blogging by Civil Servants from the point of view of an “outsider”, as a result of the coverage I have been giving to the Christopher Glamorganshire case in Wales, and also the Civil Serf case before that.
I expect to be talking about the difference in attitudes to political blogging by Civil Servants in England and Wales.
I am told that Peter Black AM will be joining us.
I think this is the first time in my life that I will have been on the Radio with a real politician. Is that good or bad?
I wonder if I can get a statement from Tom Watson by 5:00pm that the Principles for Online Participation apply in Wales as well as England?
Farcebook
Good Evening Wales are doing this piece because a Welsh Political Blogger - Miss Wagstaff - has been thrown off Facebook because allegations had been made that she was running a “Fake Account”.
You can read the account here. The serious point was that they just swallowed the allegations hook, line and sinker and took action with even checking. That looks far too reminiscent of what many webhosts do in respond to letters alleging defamation for me to be comfortable with it. As Miss W says:
Why not raise the question with me of the possibility of ‘real and fake names’ in the first instance - before deactivation.
Research Question
Anyway - do you know anyone else that this has happened to, since Facebook seem to be making more than a little of an arse of themselves on this one. The problem seems to be one of action taken on the basis of allegations with no fact checking. I’ve been digging for a few minutes and I have found:
- Last December Facebook told Steve Webb MP that he was an imposter and deleted his account. That may be true of the new Lib Dem satellite tracking policy pretending not to be Big Brother, but I think I believe that Steve Webb MP is himself.
- ValleysMam has also had problems.
Does anybody know of any others that are interesting or amusing?
- I note that Genghis Kahn has an account. Pesumably he is impersonating Alistair Campbell.
Any more for any more?
Categories: All WW, Knockabout, Media, News - Current Affairs, Politics, Wales
This is interesting - if very annoying for Pippa and the other people concerned. Facebook have a problem. They have 65 million active users, and only 100 customer service staff, which is a ratio like Leeds council having only one employee. Margins are so low that they automate everything, reckoning it cheaper to lose 100 users than spend 10 minutes staff-time investigating what could be an obvious dispute. It’s not malice on their part - just short term business sense - but it means anything built on Facebook is built on very shifting sands.
Similar thing happened to a union organiser friend in Canada (the full saga here and here), though that was just him getting kicked for being too active, not through complaint. Bodes badly if a campaign group/union/politician could start doing well on an issue using a third party network like Facebook, and then find themselves derailed by an opponent making a purely cynical accusation.
Johns last blog post..It’s MySpace or the highway!
Will the real Pippa Wagstaff please stand up?…
Another Facebook exile, but a whole different problem.
Pippa Wagstaff runs a watchdog blog on Welsh politics - Miss Wagstaff Presents. She recently found herself on the receiving end of an email from Facebook customer services, just like booted-out uni…
[...] Hat tip to The Wardman Wire. [...]
This is interesting - if very annoying for Pippa and the other people concerned. Facebook have a problem. They have 65 million active users, and only 100 customer service staff, which is a ratio like Leeds council having only one employee. Margins are so low that they automate everything, reckoning it cheaper to lose 100 users than spend 10 minutes staff-time investigating what could be an obvious dispute. It’s not malice on their part - just short term business sense - but it means anything built on Facebook is built on very shifting sands.
Similar thing happened to a union organiser friend in Canada (the full saga here and here), though that was just him getting kicked for being too active, not through complaint. Bodes badly if a campaign group/union/politician could start doing well on an issue using a third party network like Facebook, and then find themselves derailed by an opponent making a purely cynical accusation.
Johns last blog post..Will the real Pippa Wagstaff please stand up?
My reflection is probably that Facebook should never be used as the primary focus for a campaign, rather only as a distribution network and PR (”6000 people in our group”) device.