[DEBATE] : (Fwd) Facebook needs a pro-union swarm

[Patrick Bond]

(From Eric Lee of LabourStart, a terrific e-service.)

-------- Original Message --------

In a moment I'm going to ask you to support the most unusual campaign we 
have ever launched -- but first, some background.


Blackadder: Banned from Facebook

Facebook, the social networking website, is getting a lot of attention 
these days. In the trade union movement, there are differences of 
opinion about how useful Facebook actually is. Some of us are making a 
real effort to find out by using Facebook as an organizing tool.

One of them is senior LabourStart correspondent Derek Blackadder, from 
Canada. Derek's day job is as a staffer for the country's largest union, 
the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). He's one of the people 
who thinks Facebook is potentially quite useful for trade unionists.

Well, maybe not so much anymore.

You see, a few days ago, Derek was banned from Facebook.

I'll let John Wood from the U.K. tell the story in his own words:

Derek got a note from the good book, telling him he was trying to add 
too many friends, and should calm down a bit, or else. Now as a union 
organiser, he’s quite likely to want to add lots of friends - it’s kind 
of what he does. So he waits a bit and tries again, and is told he can’t 
add any more at the moment and to wait and try later. Fair enough. He 
waits a bit more and tries again, same message. By now, he’s probably 
frothing at the mouth and muttering "must organise, must organise", so 
he has another go to see if the coast is clear, and promptly gets 
himself a ban. That being a ban from Facebook itself - no more profile, 
no access to the stuff he’s built up, no appeal.

John has launched a Facebook group to sign people up to protest the ban 
on Derek. I am writing to ask each and every one of you to take a moment 
and sign up to join the group. If you are not yet signed up on Facebook, 
join the 60,000,000 others who have done so and sign up.

We know that this isn't nearly as important as most of the other 
campaigns we do on LabourStart -- and if you read all of John's article 
you'll detect a somewhat light-hearted tone.

Still, as social networks become more and more important, our access to 
them as trade unionists must be protected. These are early days yet -- I 
know that most of you are not yet signed up to Facebook. This is good 
time to see whether we can mobilize the kind of support -- the thousands 
of names -- that will force the owners of Facebook to reverse course and 
allow Derek to do what he does so well: organize.

Thanks for your help on this. And spread the word!

Eric Lee





This message was sent from Eric Lee to patrick at cosatu.org.za. It was 
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