johninnit

Found this old link “13 reasons your Facebook account will be deleted” by accident, after stumbling across a post by social marketing trainer Mari Smith, who is finding Facebook is rather unsurprisingly mistaking (?) marketers for spammers and kicking them out even faster than they do with activists.

Anyway, Thor Mullen has identified the 13 top reasons why Facebook’s customer service robots would be alerted to your (entirely genuine) networking activities on the service, and either serve you a warning or a faceban. Pretty much what you’d expect in terms of ToS violations and power user traffic peaks, but worth reading before you set foot in a third party social network to spread an activist message. (more…)

Bang on time to demonstrate why we need a service like UnionBook, comes a scary story on how video network YouTube has joined Facebook in the union-banning hall of shame. Canadian union PSAC were in dispute with Canada Post at the end of last year over sickness benefits, when some grassw00ts activists made a parody Christmas video, portraying Canada Post CEO Moya Green as Dr Seuss’ grizzly skinflint character the Grinch.

Unfortunately I can’t tell you how funny it was, as it’s been deleted. Canada Post were not entirely filled with the seasonal spirit, and quickly complained to YouTube that the video infringed copyright and should be removed. Like any web business with as many potential devastating legal liabilities as it has users, YouTube folded toot sweet and pulled the vid. This, even though Canada Post admitted the copyright they were strangely seeking to uphold was Dr Seuss’ rather than their own. (more…)

Another Facebook exile, but a whole different problem.

Pippa Wagstaff runs a critical 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 unionist Derek Blackadder. The charge though was that Pippa wasn’t really Pippa at all, and as such was in violation of the terms of service, which require you to give your real name. (more…)

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. (more…)

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. (more…)

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. (more…)