Remember Derek? 3,000 Facebook unionists came together to get our Canadian pal reinstated in the good book, after he was banned for making friends too quickly, whilst trying to evaluate Facebook for unions and campaigners.

Well, now he’s out on his cyber-ear again. He was kicked this time, apparently with no hope of reinstatement as his account has been totally deleted, because he’d answered too many messages of support (not sent messages, just answered ones he’d been sent by friends). And it opens up a whole can of worms for unionists and campaigners. Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, okay, I promised you this was the last word on the Blackadder affair. But since then, other last words worth reading are here (Tales from the Net) and here (MyDD). Read the rest of this entry »

Last word on the Blackadder Affair must go to Allison Fine of ‘A. Fine Blog‘, with a great in-depth look at what happened in this and similar cases, and how they highlight an important difference between those Web2.0 sites which are genuine communities and those which are commercial community platforms:

Who’s the Customer on Facebook?  Facebook is no Wikipedia, and not just because their functions are so different, but because their ethnology, the very essence of their being, is so different.  Facebook is a commercial site, meaning it serves advertisers and users in equal measure.  Its users are its customers only to the extent that their eyeballs on ads serve as their commerce.  Wikipedia is a community of users that largely monitors itself for the benefit of all.

Unfortunately, Facebook seems to have taken the opposite tack … Wall Street isn’t interested in customer service per se, only in profits and, more importantly, future profits.  While users on Facebook may have a community, or belong to many mini-communities, they don’t have a clear relationship with the company.

Yay! Victory! Derek is free again to poke and be poked in his natural habitat! Not a moment too soon either, as it looks like was starting to resort to making his own entertainment.

After a few stern emails saying no appeal against his Facebook ban - Derek Blackadder is back. Out of the blue, an email from a customer services manager, saying they’d reviewed his case after all, and nicely apologising for the inconvenience.

Truth be told, I don’t think this was a conspiracy or intentional on their part, just that they’ve saved on hiring too many customer services staff (to service their multi-millions of users), and so have a policy of just not escalating and reckoning they’ll get 100 new users for every one they lose.

Pity they didn’t escalate before 1,750 unionists protested about it, but hey…

****Much**** thanks to everyone who helped so much with this, and I’m sure Derek will now be kicked out again for adding you all as friends!

And to Eric & the other LabourStarties, natch!

Now I know how Carol Sawyers must feel.

A few hours ago, the little group I started to protest at Derek Blackadder’s unceremonious ditching from Facebook had 28 members. Now at 1,650 users, it’s one of the world’s most popular union-related Facebook groups.

What happened? Well, funnily enough I don’t believe it was solely the wonderful viral potential of the social network (as I was banging on about the other day). Possibly more significant in the development was the fact it made the lighthearted news slot (not much competition as skateboarding dogs don’t have a union) for a LabourStart campaign mailing. Game, set, and in all likelihood match to Eric Lee and his Facebook-schmacebook argument. Eric presses the button. Unionists around the world get mail, and weird things start to happen - very quickly.

So today’s lesson is:
“If you’re not already on the LabourStart campaign action mailing list - join up. Now. Take one of these actions and tick the box to subcribe. ‘Save Derek’ is probably the only mail that list has received that hasn’t been an extremely urgent union case, where a couple of thousand voices in solidarity have a real chance of tipping the balance. ”

Anyway, back to the funnies. This is pretty entertaining to watch (join in here), and will be really interesting to see how Facebook respond. Lots of good organisers coming up with good suggestions on how to take this forward, and a lot of emails going in to Facebook customer services.

All together now…

21 days without a poke,
He’s getting lonely, and it’s no joke,
I say freeeeee-ee De-rek Black-a-dder!

Let Derek back in, and make Facebook safe for unions again!

Okay, having just had a go at defending Facebook from Eric Lee, I’m about to make a sharp Uey and have a go at them myself for something of a slight to trade unions and unionists.

Most people with an interest in the internet and the international trade union movement (yes, all five of us…) will have noticed the name Derek Blackadder more than once. Derek is a CUPE (Canada’s public services union) organiser and one of the leading lights of LabourStart (as well as an all-round stand-up guy). He’s used to running campaigns on behalf of workers the world over, so I think it’s high time we started one in support of him. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been very slack on the blogging front in recent months (blame john 2.2, who starts wailing whenever I so much as look at a keyboard), and so I’ve kept a pile of things to write about in a bit more detail, and then gradually discarded them over the months as they sunk further from topicality.

One I shouldn’t really ignore though is Eric’s railings late last year against conducting union campaigns via the good book. He has a thoughtful and provocative post on his blog (go read it now), arguing that for unions, Facebook is pretty much a waste of time. It’s a bandwagon, and one which whilst immediately seductive to unions in being easy and free, locks us into dependency on a privately owned system we might outgrow, and that might at any time arbitrarily eject us. Read the rest of this entry »

Geek amusement of the day comes from Tom Watson and Chris Paul, who are gloating to various degrees over the Facebook humbling of South Manchester MP/Councillor John Leech, after it was exposed that his Labour rival for the seat, Lucy Powell, had 124 times his number of friends. Politeness (and a keen awareness that I don’t have too many facepals myself) keeps me from mentioning the exact size of Mr Leech’s online entourage - you’ll have to click. Read the rest of this entry »