Trouble at Facebook
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Saturday October 04, 2008 06:44
by bace fook
Dismay as Shell to Sea profile page removed
Sometimes coincidences happen in a timely way, while at other times they appear to happen but are actually coordinated events.
On Monday, the Tánaiste Mary Coughlan announced that Facebook, the popular social networking site, was setting up its head office for Europe in Dublin. Since Facebook doesn't actually make anything, it will have a negligible effect on the economy, but it sends the right sort of signal. At the same time (around midday on Monday) the profile page for the Shell to Sea campaign was removed from Facebook.
Some Shell to Sea groups remain, but as anyone who uses Facebook will tell you, having a profile page is where the action is. Shell to Sea had a popular one, with lots of "friends" and activity on the page. It was very useful in spreading information about the campaign, especially outside Ireland.
So Mary Coughlan goes on the radio to talk about Facebook and how its arrival in Ireland sends a strong signal. At the same moment, the Shell to Sea page is removed. Coincidence?
Some Shell to Sea groups remain on the site, but as anyone who uses Facebook will tell you, having a profile page is where the action is. Shell to Sea had a popular one, with lots of "friends" and activity on the page. It was very useful in spreading information about the campaign, especially outside Ireland.
So Mary Coughlan goes on the radio to talk about Facebook and how its arrival in Ireland sends a strong signal. At the same moment, the Shell to Sea page is removed. Coincidence?
Irish Times report here: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/1003/....html
Comments (7 of 7)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7I didn't sign up for the Shell to Sea Facebook page, but thanks to Facebook's action, I now have. Well done, Facebook. Well done, Irish Times.
"Since Facebook doesn't actually make anything, it will have a negligible effect on the economy"
What a load of out dated non sense. Just because a firm is not engaged in the manufacturing sector does not mean that it has a negligble effect on the economy.
Some folks in MIT have started a site called YouTomb at http://youtomb.mit.edu/ to host videos that have been taken from YouTube for various reasons.
What is needed -maybe it exists already? -is a website that hosts page deleted from Facebook. The Shell To Sea one would be a good start.
There is a talk from the Last Hope hacker conference about the site here.
The blurb for the talk said this:
YouTomb (youtomb.mit.edu) scans sections of sites where popular videos pop up (Digg, Technorati, YouTube, etc.) and adds these videos to a database. This growing database is continually re-scanned and all the metadata is logged. When a video from the YouTomb database (about a quarter million right now) goes down, it is featured on the YouTomb website. The future of YouTomb may include: tracking geographic blocking, caching the videos themselves, tools for bloggers and people embedding YouTube clips, a search function(!), and more. YouTomb was born at Free Culture MIT. This session will begin as a presentation, but should quickly become an interactive discussion.
http://www.thelasthope.org/media/audio/64kbps/YouTomb_-...k.mp3
http://www.thelasthope.org/media/audio/64kbps/YouTomb_-_A_Free_Culture_Hack.mp3
Embedded audio: http://www.thelasthope.org/media/audio/64kbps/YouTomb_-_A_Free_Culture_Hack.mp3
These websites are powerful tools but there is a fundamental which is overlooked. It is a simple and a basic point which is too readily overlooked by activists who are otherwise doing sterling work.
This basic point is that the sites HAVE to be advertised on the streets; on lamposts, on the backs of toilet doors of hospitals,schools, colleges, factories, train stations, etc etc etc. This is, I humbly submit , the only Effective way to close the massive information chasm that exists among the bulk of the population ,due to the cones of media silence that are in place re Rossport and the multi billion gas give away deal.
It is galling in the extreme to see the dearth of real information and the lies and misinformation in the MSM ,while knowing what people in Mayo have been put through and what they are still enduring in the name of 'law' and of getting "their heads out of the bog" to quote one P Kenny that we all know from the publicly owned airwaves.
Suggestion for text on the streets and hosp[itals etc : IRELAND'S MULTI BILLION GAS GIVE AWAY
WHY NO MEDIA QUESTIONS ?
READ www.mayogasinfo.com
www.corribbsos.com
There is an awful lot of common sense in the points made by Martin Kelly above, unfortunately common sense is not always very common.
Can anyone tell me if the Shell to Sea website has been 'blocked' from school websites on the Dept's instructions ? I have been told this is the case, but my source does tend to see conspiracies everywhere, so I would appreciate clarity, as such a scenario would certainly seem actionable in the courts plus attendant media coverage.
I'm not sure if the S2S website is blocked from school computers. I have a feeling that I have accessed it from our school. I'll have a check tomorrow.
Mark.
www.shelltosea.com
www.corribsos.com
all seem to be working fine from the computers in my school.
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http://struggle.ws/rsc/
http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com/about_rsc.html
is blocked, but so is struggle.ws - I don't see, though, why it wouldn't get unblocked. Our filter is quite severe, but anything I've submitted to be unblocked has been. I'll send in the application to fortigardcentre.com
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