The Daily Caller is reporting about fears that Facebook is showing favoritism to liberal & anti-gun organizations by upgrading their Facebook Groups first while rolling out upgrades. But, you know, research is handy here.
Facebook’s managers are deploying a new software upgrade that will dismantle myriad groups of like-minded political activists unless they get a special software-key from the company.
But Facebook manager are providing very limited information about which groups are being favored with the new key, prompting some activists to complain about possible political favoritism among Facebook managers, and many other activists to experiment with techniques and tricks to get the needed upgrade-key. …
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence got the upgrade for its 1,000-member group. “We changed over very smoothly,†said David Churchill, the network-manager at the D.C.-based gun-control group. “We just basically clicked the upgrade button, checked it over, and we have a tremendous increase in participation,†he said.
You mean they are choosing to upgrade anti-gun groups over gun groups? OMG! Bias!
Except NRA uses Facebook Pages for their public outreach.* Oh, and the first upgrade notice I got as a group member? From the Virginia Shooting Sports Association – the state’s NRA-affiliated association. The second? When I, as a member, put in a request to the NRA EVC group to upgrade. They did the very next day and participation has exploded!
So, yeah, bias, not so much. But that doesn’t make nearly as exciting a headline – Facebook does rolling upgrades for groups & doesn’t clearly communicate the upgrade timeline!
*Groups & Pages are different systems on Facebook that help you reach different goals in communicating with people. Groups are best when you want to restrict membership, but they also let you interact with followers differently so they aren’t limited to people who want to restrict access.
But responding as the aggrieved party without thought is so much more fulfilling. =/
To paraphrase Homer Simpson, “Waiting period? But I’m mad now!”
The Gun Rights Examiner & Pink Pistols groups, as well as other pro Second Amendment and pro-liberty Facebook groups I am in, have been upgraded. Much ado about nothing.
Facebook’s management has every right to do as they please with their site. It’s their property, period.