Mass Facebook purge of activist groups
Facebook seems to have taken the chance of the distraction during the royal wedding to delete around 50 activist groups. The list of groups removed has been compiled by the anti-cuts space website, as below. It is not yet clear if Facebook have given a reason for this, but obviously this will cause real problems for many of those groups. There is already a new Facebook group calling for them to be re-instated. It seems it’s not just the police who have taken the chance of the wedding to crack down on activism.
**update – complaints have gone into Facebook. If you have lost a group, then see if you can find the URL for it, and paste it into the comments below this post on the UCL occupation site. This will help speed up the process of complaining.**
Here it is:
Open Birkbeck
UWE Occupation
Chesterfield Stopthecuts
Camberwell AntiCuts
IVA Womensrevolution
Tower Hamlets Greens
No Cuts
ArtsAgainst Cuts
London Student Assembly
Beat’n Streets
Roscoe ‘Manchester’ Occupation
Bristol Bookfair
Newcastle Occupation
Socialist Unity
Whospeaks Forus
Ourland FreeLand
Bristol Ukuncut
Teampalestina Shaf
Notts-Uncut Part-of UKUncut
No Quarter Cutthewar
Bootle Labour
Claimants Fightback
Ecosocialists Unite
Comrade George Orwell
Jason Derrick
Anarchista Rebellionist
BigSociety Leeds
Slade Occupation
Anti-Cuts Across Wigan
Firstof Mayband
Don’t Break Britain United
Cockneyreject
SWP Cork
Westiminster Trades Council
York Anarchists
Rock War
Sheffield Occupation
Central London SWP
North London Solidarity
Southwark Sos
Save NHS
Rochdale Law Centre
Goldsmiths Fights Back
You’re so awesome! I do not think I have read anything like this before.
So wonderful to discover somebody with a few original thoughts
on this issue. Really.. many thanks for starting this up.
This website is something that is needed on the web, someone with some originality!
My facebook profile, (ecosocialistsunite) has been restored………as a facebook profile! Rubbishing the explanation for being taken down in the first place. Is there any one place all 50 (49) have converged to discuss this? Interested to know what has happened to others, without spending an evening investigating on FB.
Thanks.
If you’re stupid enough to use failbook for such things, you ask for all you get. Failbook is fail.
It is not just activist facebook group.. all old style groups are being archived by facebook… everything from game trading boards to school alumni groups…
you now have the choice of creating a new group or a page
unfortunately, many have been unable to access their old groups to transfer members over and facebook has provided no warning…
this potentially affects all facebook users…
Hi, there’s a petition here to ask for an inquiry into this, signatures v welcome:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/deletion-of-activist-facebook-profiles/signatures
thanks!
Is it English groups censored from FaceBoot? Because of the ridiculous wedding they cannot afford? Celebrating being ruled like peasants in a Queendom?
Is it because they already have no guns, knives, bats and cannot fight back? But the coppers have no guns either, only the criminals and terrorists, right? So as the E.U. collapses, everyone can watch a nostalgic, romantic, cartoon fantasy and remain in denial, but not communicate on FaceBoot. Thus they cannot even write about fighting back, perhaps another fantasy in itself.
Why not use real email, and stop having your stuff sold publicly? I suppose because you can’t browse new folks by email.
The difference is that the EDL are a hate filled mob that is generally easily identifiable. They have a purpose. To go somewhere and make as much noise as possible. It is easier for the police just to wait for them to arrive and then police the march as required.
However, the violence seen at the same time as the anti-cuts marches suggests, even at a superficial level, there is a level of cross-over. This is greatly facilitated by social media networks.
So the question then is how do you minimise violence and disruption to those who dont wish to protest? Well, for some the answer is that the police shouldn’t. They should just left whoever do whatever they want. Those of us who feel that setting fire to things and throwing fire extinguishers of roofs feel that the police should indeed seek to minimise violence and stopping those who want to do violence from organising it using social media.
This doesn’t stop legitimate protest and legitimate protest used to happen prior to social media and the internet actually coming into existence.
Douglas,
the underlying concern is that the police are not just pre-empting violence but peaceful protest. We have seen a growing number of instances of this; http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/apr/28/royal-wedding-protest-three-arrested in effect arrests for planning to protests annoyingly, but peacefully. Moreover in the way that police have targetted protesters of a particular stripe – typically anti-capitalist/greens – while taking a far more hands off approach to groups like the EDL – they’re starting to look increasingly political.
If the police do start pursuing a political agenda of their own they risk making their task vastly more difficult because they’ll surrender the trust of a large section of the population.
For it to maintain respect the law has to be applied fairly and evenly. A growing number of people seem to feel that impartiality is under threat.
I am the one laughing Bob. After all I am a lot happier that methods of organisation amongst violent people have been disrupted. Not all methods obviously but every little helps.
That is a fair point Jonathan. I am sure there are causes I would man the barricades and fight for if they ever arose. Say, removal of the right to vote for example. In the meantime if I have a cause I use my democratic rights to try and resolve the issues within the cause. And by using those rights I have not found my methods of communicating and working with fellow cause devotees disrupted.
The police have an impossible job. On one had parts of society think they are useless for not arresting trouble makes prior to protests and other parts of society deem them fascist for daring to stop violent behaviour or occupations.
Is it any wander that they are doing the simple tasks of disrupting the communication methods of the thugs and if the collateral damage is the groups that march with the thugs then the wider public will tend to support them.
“Totally denounce all violence, totally excluded violent agressors from your networks and totally respect the rule of law and you may find that you achieve your aims without attracting the attention of the police.”
It’s worth bearing in mind Douglas that many of the freedoms we enjoy in this country were won by people breaking the law because they thought that the wrongs against which they protested warranted it. The same is true of the United States.
However if you think that a cause is important enough to break the law in opposing it people have to be prepared to accept the consequences, and if those consequences are unjust that can often have a huge effect on public opinion. The transportation of the Tolpuddle Martyrs galvanised support for the right of working people to organise. So it’s important that protesters measure their actions accordingly. The wider public tends to take a dim view of violence unless the circumstances are seen as extreme. The same, it should be said, applies to the police.
Meanwhile there was a busy thread on the end of Shiv Malik’s piece in the Guardian – he refiled, I can’t find the original and there is no thread on the update. Any ideas?
lol thanks for the laugh Douglas.
The problem is that your protests using civil aggression are accompanied at the same time by violent actions of others even if you are not directly associated with them.
Totally denounce all violence, totally excluded violent agressors from your networks and totally respect the rule of law and you may find that you achieve your aims without attracting the attention of the police.
thanks Jim, I’ve tweeted it, and will from the BG account too.
Editable list here:
http://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/FB_takedowns
Still, it isn’t acceptable to remove profile accounts of political accounts with no warning. It’s not beyond their programming skills to help people to migrate.
Open Birkbeck – http://en-gb.facebook.com/people/Open-Birkbeck/100001711586068
Ourland Freeland – http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001740355418
UWE Occupation – http://en-gb.facebook.com/people/Uwe-Occupation/100001780163016
Chesterfield Stopthecuts – http://en-gb.facebook.com/people/Chesterfield-Stopthecuts/100001679681356
Camberwell Anticuts – http://www.facebook.com/people/Camberwell-AntiCuts/100001715002870
IVA Womensrevolution http://en-gb.facebook.com/people/Iva-Womensrevolution/100002261826891
Tower Hamlets Greens http://en-gb.facebook.com/people/Tower-Hamlets-Greens/100001878249876
No Cuts
ArtsAgainst Cuts
London Student Assembly http://en-gb.facebook.com/people/LondonStudent-Assembly/100001671160215
Beat’n Streets http://en-gb.facebook.com/BeatnStreets
Roscoe ‘Manchester’ Occupation http://en-gb.facebook.com/roscoe.occupation
Bristol Bookfair
Newcastle Occupation http://en-gb.facebook.com/ncluniocc
Socialist Unity
Whospeaks Forus http://en-gb.facebook.com/whospeaksforus
Ourland FreeLand
Bristol Ukuncut
Teampalestina Shaf
Notts-Uncut Part-of UKUncut
No Quarter Cutthewar http://en-gb.facebook.com/people/No-Quarter-Cutthewar-Notthepoor/100002096993891
Bootle Labour http://www.facebook.com/people/Bootle-Labour/100002007748289
Claimants Fightback http://www.facebook.com/people/Claimants-Fightback/100001588945897
Ecosocialists Unite http://en-gb.facebook.com/people/Ecosocialists-Unite/100001897224664
Comrade George Orwell
Jason Derrick
Anarchista Rebellionist
BigSociety Leeds http://www.facebook.com/people/BigSociety-Leeds/100001987058289
Slade Occupation
Anti-Cuts Across Wigan http://www.facebook.com/people/Anti-Cuts-Across-Wigan/100001924039580
Firstof Mayband
Don’t Break Britain United
Cockneyreject http://en-gb.facebook.com/people/Cockneyreject-Hackney/100002368082994
SWP Cork
Westiminster Trades Council http://www.facebook.com/people/Westminster-Trades-Council/100001917029229
York Anarchists http://www.facebook.com/york.anarchists
Rock War
Sheffield Occupation
Central London SWP http://www.facebook.com/people/Central-London-Swp/100001483912672
North London Solidarity http://en-gb.facebook.com/people/North-London-Solidarity-Federation/100001752023483
Southwark Sos http://www.facebook.com/people/Southwark-Sos/100001688437940
Save NHS
Rochdale Law Centre http://www.facebook.com/RochdaleLawCentre
Goldsmiths Fights Back http://en-gb.facebook.com/people/Goldsmiths-Fights-Back/100001743322587
Occupy Monaco http://en-gb.facebook.com/people/Occupy-Monaco/100001922503468
Frfi Students – http://www.facebook.com/frfi.students
North East Walkout – http://en-gb.facebook.com/people/North-East-Walkout/100001901283084
I know at least the Tower Hamlets Greens account that’s gone was an individual profile rather than a group; and I’d guess from the irregular spaces in a lot of these names that at least some others were too.
Were these pages, groups, or user profiles?
Could we have URLs of what was deleted, so we can identify them to Facebook?
Hi Adam,
This is important stuff. Does anyone have any indication why, and have the groups requested information why?
ORG I am sure would be willing to help