Pro-choice/Pro-life groups battle for top position on CBC Facebook project
Earlier today, the number of people supporting the pro-choice position on abortion on CBC’s Facebook experiment edged out those supporting the pro-life.
Having been on the receiving end of emails from both groups asking for my online vote, one thing is clear — this experiment is a success at least from the point of view of capturing people’s attention.
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just try looking at cbc usenet postings… the level of debate is even lower.
So, early afternoon Thursday “Abolish Abortion in Canada” had 5,385 members, and now it has over 10,000? And the pro-choice group has over 8,300? What’s going on here?
Did both these groups, in just a few hours, really add more members than the total number in the #3 group? Is the project really that popular or is this just sock-puppetry gone mad?
usenet.. people still use that?
please don’t tell me there is a cbc gopher site out there
Puppetry for sure. The Anti-choice faction saw an opportunity with this and scrambled for it. It’s atrocious the way they’ve hijacked this . . . and I’m sure many would say that the Pro-choice faction are no better . . . but what else could they possibly do facing this situation?
What’s most disturbing about it to me is that it’s really not even that big a deal in Canada, certainly not even remotely a #1 issue for young Canadians. CBC’s efforts in this have been thoroughly distorted by this issue.
Gotta give one thing to the anti-choice faction though, they know how to spot a publicity opp.
Of course it’s sock-puppetry.
This is really something that should have been expected by the people running it. Online communities are pretty much a free-for-all, unless they survive long enough to develop their own code of behaviour and/or they’re ruthlessly moderated. This is how Usenet managed to be a useful resource for years, until the influx of new people overwhelmed the social structures of the existing groups, and the importance of netiquette couldn’t be communicated fast enough (and people couldn’t be killfiled fast enough). This is why Wikipedia mostly works, mostly. And in fact they’re a more relevant example to the CBC, as they have ruthless group moderation that tends to destroy bias, which isn’t usually the way that turns out.
Facebook, Myspace et al are commercial entities. What matters to them is the size of their subscriber base and their ability to make money off that base. If 10,000 people sign up just to vote on either side of the pro-life/pro-choice vote, that represents a success, as they now have another 10k names and address, some of which will be real and therefore monetizable. Maybe it’s a success for us too, we get to see what topics people are willing to ballot-stuff over, and once you filter those out you get to see the wishes that were the original focus of the idea. But I’m not too keen on it nonetheless. To me it’s just another casualty of the eternal September.
Looks like it was a bug. The vote counts are now:
5845
Abolish Abortion in Canada
5572
I wish that Canada would remain pro-choice
Bug, or should I say exploit that they’ve now fixed.
The cheat instructions were posted.
1- remove support from your favourite group
2- add support
3- click te back button
4- add support
5- rinse and repeta as desired
I’m not convinced that the vote can be “hijacked” by either side. Unless of course, someone has the time to set up a few hundred fake email addresses and then a few hundred fake facebook profiles… I’m not sure that it’s organized enough to make a concerted effort to throw the vote. Isn’t possible that a few thousand facebook users honestly feel this way about abortion? Is it too un-Canadian to be against something? If the pro-choice group had been ahead first would we even have this discussion?
edit: looked around and saw that there was a hijacking… silly me. But still, I’m not sure we can call this a part of the grand conservative agenda. Some people are obviously passionate about a subject that others thought was already resolved. quelle surprise.
The artificially boosted numbers may be distorting CBC’s efforts in some way, but CBC I think is distorting reality themselves by even doing this. Why does CBC need to do have a facebook poll essentially asking whether abortion should be outlawed? I think that’s mighty out of touch with Canadians, since this isn’t a burning issue in the country right now, and no credible politician is even suggesting the abortion laws need to be looked at, let alone banned.
Would the CBC ever start two competing facebook groups on either side of the “should black people have the vote” debate? Of course not, because that would be an offensive, racist attack. How is it much different than giving a voice to people who want to attack the rights of women, is it?
James’ post avoids the subtlety of the abortion issue when he equates it to the right of a black person to be considered a human. At what point will he be ‘okay’ with a woman’s right to choose to have only a male baby and abort a female fetus merely because of her/its gender? How does he simplify this question with the comparison of ‘are black people’ people? Which disabilities are on the wrong side of the line for some people? — Is James okay with people aborting blind fetuses, but ‘choosing’ to bear deaf ones?
I’m really curious if his post advocates that all these decisions are merely a ‘woman’s right to decide’.
I struggle with these issues. To equate the abortion issue with obvious human rights is too simplistic by half!
Yep, people still use Usenet.
What, you mean Google Groups? *ducks*
[...] well. Still doesn’t explain how the CBC’s gotten all wrapped up in the abortion debate on Facebook (er, since abortion is an “issue” that doesn’t register with the vast [...]
What a misguided initiative….
You’ve created a vehicle of continual confrontation, NOT debate, discussion or understanding.
All this site does is OPPOSE people and their views. US v.s. THEM… (modus operandi of Bush and Gov. Harper)
Congratulations on creating an environment that promotes dissention and polarization. Not to mention a freeride for the nut-case special interest groups and their “obsessed” followers.
And this is to foster serious debate in our country?
This is poisoning the possibility of any meaningful public discourse.
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