techPresident - Facebook - Comments

Spare me the Pitbull

JuliaBellafloresBlake — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 23:46:02 -0400

Spare me the Pitbull

Palin's acceptance speech was not only a let down, but an outright insult to American women and men. How stupid do they think we are; how gullible and naive? Haven't they heard of the Internet and the advances in technology and communications that dominate our present and shape our future? Do they really think that their lies will go unnoticed?

I, for one, have no time for soap operas, reality shows, and sarcastic political speeches lacking the one thing that America needs today more than ever: truth. I am too busy trying to keep a smile on my face while I balance my job as a public high school teacher, two 18 year old sons in college, a husband who served 20 years in the USAF, now recovering from a stroke and brain surgery, banks that could care less, insurance companies and hospitals that want their money NOW, and a lifestyle change that requires fruits and vegetables that I can't afford.

When I take away from the precious little time I have to enjoy with my sons and my dear husband to listen to a presidential candidate talk about our future, I expect, no, I demand that their message be with my future in mind, not theirs. Do I sound selfish? I am not. I am a United States citizen of the present, of the future, and as such I repudiate the dirty, mafia style political tactics of the past. I want the truth; I demand the truth in detail. Tell me straightforward, without lies or fantasy trips of denial, what your plans are for my future, for the future of the United States of America.

As many Americans, I was curious. Who was this Palin woman that was able to create all this media mayhem in such a short while? Oh, yes, because after listening to her speech, I have no doubt that all this family drama was staged to divert our attention from the fact that she had to be holed up for three days in order to "get prepared" for her speech. Was it worth it? Was it worth dragging that teenager through all the mud "hoping to quell Internet rumors about Palin's youngest son"? In their delusional minds it was. They needed the time to prepare the pitbull because they are counting on the brainwashed herd that will follow the maverick to win the election. They are counting on that pitbull to bark and snarl and bite any strays that think of leaving the herd.

What they are not counting on is that the new America, the America of the future is characterized by many mavericks with minds of their own, with the guts to stray away from the herd and choose the path that is best for themselves and their families. A path paved in nothing less than the truth and respect that they deserve. In the new America, there isn't one maverick, there are many, many brave, intelligent, fearless mavericks that see the pitbull for what it is, a "breed of dog that was historically used for dog fights", is legally banned in many places or must be "registered as a vicious animal", a breed that "must be muzzled and leashed in public". (I love Google and Wikipedia!)

The millions and millions of mavericks that will vote for Obama in November are not afraid of the pitbull. They see the dog for what it is, a vicious fighter that belongs in our past and should be muzzled and banned from public speech.

Please forgive me; I know my message does not directly address the economic and social issues that are so important to us all, but I've been watching the Republican convention on and off for the last 3 days, and, well, you know, bad habits stick easy.

September 4, 2008
Julia Bellaflores Blake

RightWingFacebook meet eGray

Michael Turk — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 09:01:45 -0400

I have to disagree with just about everyone but FreedomFighter. First, RightWingFacebook was no more original since the idea of parodying a big Internet site for the purpose of delivering political information originated (as near as I can tell) with a Republican effort called eGray. So for those who claim this is a ripoff of some Democratic brilliance, give credit where it's due.

Second, not all humor has to follow the "he wants to be like Reagan" lameness of the PFAW site. The humor behind BarackBook is in the conceptual framework. Facebook is meant to showcase your friends and the connection between people. In this case, that's a terribly bad thing because the connections are rather sketchy. There's a level of irony in the parody that you all seem to be missing - especially given the Obama/FB connection.

Finally, I guarantee you that had Barack's people, or some other left-leaning group used this exact approach to connect McCain and his lobbyist connections, you'd all be hailing it as the greatest thing since sliced bread.

It does what it needs to do

Freedomfighter — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 00:29:54 -0400

Michael, I can understand your frustration, but the comments from others here, while making legitimate points, need to face the fact, the barackbook does what it needs to do, at least for now.

Those who are objecting are computer-geeks who want something more. Barackbook appeals rightly to undecided voters.

Where's the humor?

Luigi Montanez — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 23:37:50 -0400

While I think it's effective at driving the message across (Obama is linked to shady people), what I found odd about it is that for a parody site, it's completely lacking in the humor department.

The Right-Wing Facebook site truly was funny (to me), or at the very least, tried to be funny. But BarackBook is serious as a heart attack. It comes across as stilted and awkward.

Also from last fall was the Hatebook:

http://www.hatebook.org/

PFAW

alicescheshirecat — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 22:38:25 -0400

It was so original when PFAW did it earlier this year... now its just copying

http://www.rightwingfacebook.org/

Dumb Waste of time

jnail — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 22:14:26 -0400

Why is this interesting other than the fact that McCain's tech work and knowledge suck? You guys are better than giving nonsense like this 10 secs of your time.

Supporting on Facebook takes just a click

ari — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 19:16:07 -0400

while becoming part of my.barackobama requires registering for a new
site.

Chris Hughes wrote a post which includes the over one million
s supporters graphic they now have on the facebook page

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/chrishughesatthecampaign/g...

http://flickr.com/photos/ari/ photos

http://del.icio.us/tigerbeat interesting articles & sites

http://twitter.com/tigerbeat

The difference

DirtyData — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 09:03:26 -0400

With Facebook and it's users who have been around for a while, it is not surprising to see it reach 1 Million before my.BO.

What is also interesting is to see that two days ago 926.000 had taken the time to sign up for an account with my.BO instead of just staying with their facebook.

I do wonder if when the general becomes closer and closer to November if we are going to see group messages starting to come out and mass emails across the board from all of BO accounts (On a side note I wonder if this would qualify as the largest series of mass messages from a political candidate).

-DirtyData

More than my.BarackObama.com

Ruby Sinreich — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:38:30 -0400

I think it's interesting that he has more supporters on Facebook than on his internal social network - which is considered very successful for a non-public network. This article from 2 days ago puts my.BO at 926,000 while the Facebook page had 946,568.

Good Prediction!

Luigi Montanez — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:18:50 -0400

At 10:16pm, it happened.

Glad to spark such a lively discussion!

Colin Delany — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:41:56 -0400

There have been some excellent comments over at e.politics as well -- I gathered 'em into a new piece yesterday.

Colin Delany
e.politics
http://www.epolitics.com

online leads to offline

Joshua Levy — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:28:00 -0400

Colin and Nancy aren't talking about opposite ideas. If organizers are only looking to create action in the context of Facebook then, as Colin suggests, there isn't much data pointing to success. But in her article Nancy describes examples of activism originating on Facebook but quickly moving beyond it, towards other online sources and, more importantly, offline.

Seen this way, Facebook can be seen as successful or not depending on your goals. If the goal is list-building and fundraising, it hasn't proven itself much. But if the goal is group-building, that can happen amazingly quickly. The lists and money come later, after a movement is built and it transitions from a Facebook phenomenon to something independent of the platform.

That's a Very Large Brush

Nancy Scola — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:41:40 -0400

Thought-provoking post, Colin. But as the author of a recent article called "Despite Negative Press, Facebook Is a Powerful Agent for Social Change," I will suggest some caveats -- namely that not every political action is, thankfully, a candidate looking for money or an established non-profit building its email list. The three cases I mention in that article are how the relatively tiny group Students for a Free Tibet have used Facebook to organize around the Beijing Olympics, how one Canadian university student used Facebook to draw widespread attention to Burmese monks' Saffron Revolution, and how within the span of just one month a few Colombian professionals used Facebook to pull together global anti-guerilla rallies on the very same day.

As a political tool, Facebook is flawed. In fact, you can fairly easily make a convincing argument that it's fatally flawed. But it's tough to argue with the millions of boots it has put on the ground in circumstances where the political actors have no expectation of every otherwise achieving those goals so cheaply or easily. For me, it's about teasing agency and action out of networks were before it might have just withered away. And should Facebook fade away or get locked up so tightly as to be useless, then that's just incentive for some clever folks to figure out how to draw those connection and tap that energy even more effectively.

I'd offer you the idea that when we talk about the potential of any technology as a political tool -- whether its Facebook or SMS or what have you -- it's important to keep in mind just what kind of political action we're covering with our critique.

Whoa?

gibson_stevens — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:37:16 -0400

Interesting post, but wrong. No one has yet really invested in a well-thought-out strategy yet. The features of Facebook are limited, but the application platform is much less inhibited. And yet, Obama and Clinton have made minimal investments of time and energy in their applications, and McCain's is nowhere to be found. Non-presidential apps by major political groups, organizations, etc., have been few and far between.

To consider the value of 20+ million US users connected via Facebook a dead end at this point is premature.

Full disclosure: I helped produce Clinton's Hillary Gifts - what I expect(ed?) to be the beginning of a longer-term investment...

More of my musings...

Amen

Patrick Ruffini — Tue, 06 May 2008 00:43:10 -0400

Facebook works when you use it for what it was intended for: spreading messages organically through first-hand connections.

The 1,200 limit on group messaging is alone enough to kill off its potential for mass communication. My own experience suggests that clickthroughs from a Facebook message can match or exceed email response rates. But since it can't scale, you'll only see its potential reached at the state level or lower. A Congressional candidate who can get 500 core supporters in his or her Facebook group (not Page) can hit the activism sweet spot, with the ability to use the group to simultaneously engage users, message to them as though it were email, and use the popular Events feature to get them out doing stuff in the real world.

And Pages are just a joke since messages don't reach the inbox and you have to jump through 3-4 hoops just to read them.

I can't say I blame Facebook for these limits either, given pervasive application spam. Lots of people would be empowered to build their own mini-MoveOns with the ability to message everyone in their group -- that's how powerful Facebook *could* be (the Million Against Hillary group alone would be bigger than most advocacy groups could ever hope to be). But since it cuts against the grain of building trust through individual user networks, we won't see it happen.