News Release
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Facebook “archives” NO BC HST – BC’s largest Facebook protest group, wiping out 125,000 membership despite strong requests not to do so
NO BC HST Facebook page founder Bill Tieleman started group in July 2009, went viral – adding 6,000 members a day – now has just 80 members due to Facebook archiving
VANCOUVER – British Columbia’s largest Facebook protest group – NO BC HST – has seen its membership wiped out by Facebook management, dropping from over 125,000 members to just 80.
Facebook has “archived” the group formed in July 2009 by Fight HST Strategist and political commentator Bill Tieleman to oppose the Harmonized Sales Tax – meaning almost all members have been removed from the group without any notice to them.
NO BC HST was also one of British Columbia’s largest Facebook groups overall, bigger than the BC Lions Facebook fan page [50,7380] or the Vancouver Giants [4,737], but behind the Vancouver Canucks [692,123].
“It’s ironic that the Harmonized Sales Tax will last longer than the NO BC HST Facebook group formed to fight it,” says Tieleman. “Unfortunately this is another example of how Facebook management disrespects the members who made it into a multi-billion dollar corporation.”
Tieleman noted that Facebook also “archived” the national protest group Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament, which had over 210,000 members who joined to oppose the federal Conservative government move to suspend Parliament in 2010 to avoid a non-confidence vote.
Facebook gave some groups an opportunity to transfer their membership to its new Page format but that option was never given to NO BC HST, Tieleman said, despite contacting Facebook and requesting it.
“While I still believe Facebook is a useful and powerful social media tool, the way Facebook management can arbitrarily and unfairly wipe out groups with hundreds of thousands of members without anyone’s permission is a strong warning to all,” Tieleman said.
“Facebook says it’s mission is about connecting people but the archiving of many other groups like these shows it is also about disconnecting people,” Tieleman said.
NO BC HST still exists on Facebook and Tieleman said he is encouraging people to re-join to send Facebook a message about its bad behaviour, as well as to push the BC Liberal government to extinguish the HST as required by the binding referendum passed in August 2011.
Tieleman wrote a column about Facebook threatening to “archive” NO BC HST last year – it can be found here: http://billtieleman.blogspot.com/2011/09/why-would-facebook-want-to-kill-no-bc.html
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Well democracy seemed good enough for the Premier to actually get elected but now democracy is discarded because the Liberals don't like it.. The HST was VOTED out yet the liberals keep it to gouge more money from consumers.... is this Democracy? The biggest sham government BC has ever had... lying,concealing criminals, making secret deals with "friends" and out of Province corporations and leaving even debate out of the process...
ReplyDeleteunfortunately there is little to choose from with Libs,conservs, and NDP...unless you look to new political organizations offering a real change
As long as Facebook maintains the stance of a private property, it is not without warrant or unexpected to be what some say is draconian , but can and do regularly stop users from doing certain things , say post pics it deems not worthy or perhaps too anatomically correct. Why it is their secret, unless a law is broken on transmission into jurisdictions that circumscribe speech and as a result images. That said Fbook should exercise restraint if not defend free speech ,alas they won't listen and become arrogant as do all these social businesses,power amasses power, and more importantly eyeballs on ads.
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