like Slack for instance
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I did say I understand some engagement in closed systems necessary for a party. But you seem to miss the general point of, if one the party’s key principles is supporting open source and open platforms, it would seem that choosing FB for organisation and origination of content rather than being a secondary or even tertiary platform for dissemination, something important is being undermined / forgotten. I’ve seen this happen with other (even smaller) supposedly “revolutionary” groups… it’s like a virus, as soon as people go from face-to-face “yeah let’s change the world!” the only thing they seem to be capable of doing is “Oh let’s start a Facebook group to organise everything”. And then it goes nowhere. The passion gets lost in the insidious control structure.
Also by your argument, you guys should really be using Slack…
You said in the thread about IRC/Slack that there is a line where we have to deviate from our principles to be effective. Well, this is one of them, IMO a bigger issue than IRC/Slack as to where we draw lines.
We use and advocate for open platforms and software a lot. Most of which we use. But there are always exceptions to the rule, and in a world of marketing, sometimes you have to start where the most/easiest engagement is, and branch out from there. We’ve looked at other systems for content storage and distribution, Facebook doesn’t tick all the boxes but it’s sufficient for what we’re looking at doing, so why not use it as a starting point?
Regardless of how closed their system is, if it’s one that lets us engage with a lot of people easily (and cheaply!), why not go down that path and see where it takes us? It would certainly be better to see some sort of action on a platform that has it’s problems, then nothing at all.
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Thing is that there are solutions like Slack, which have feature parity and are as stable as Slack, being just as easy to setup and not closed source like Slack.
There’s not so much an equivalent for consumer social media. Facebook alternatives are trash because they either just try to replicate Facebook, or try to shoehorn in something like G+ Circles, but make it even more confusing and convoluted than Circles, somehow.
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I think we have different ideas of what “cheaply” means. To me freedom from surveillance and manipulation is kinda priceless - recognising that is impossible to completely avoid these things if you want to be online, but also recognising there are degrees, and FB tops the charts for worst offender by a country mile.
I guess it does depend where you draw the line of what’s acceptable and what isn’t and how much you value those things over “cheap” advertising*. And I’d still disagree with you about choices of platforms if this is actually what you advocate - you’d get a lot more action on Slack, and other newer platforms, than FB - it’s depressing people still buy into the kool-aid sold long ago that FB is actually necessary/the best for that kind of thing (hint: it isn’t anymore, you got played).
A lot of the kids (you know, the ones really necessary as lifeblood of a political movement, especially one that should appeal to youth) reject FB almost completely now except as required by family obligations; they’re on Instagram, Snapchat, Slack, Discord, and they’ll try out anything new to see if it’s got stuff to offer them. Insta you’ll still get a lot of FB brand surveillance, but not as much the others. But yeah, there’s opportunities for far more reach by thinking beyond the FB prison.
A dank meme stash page is quite different than what you want to do. I think people confuse memetics with sharable content (memes). Sign me up to the quokka thingo if it gets off the ground.
To separate it from this thread I started another thread so it can be discussed separately, instead of this thread becoming more of a jumbled mess than it already is.
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Reaching 7,000 people with any interesting post for free is so useful that giving it up would be self-destructive. We aren’t going to reach 7,000 people on Slack or other platforms. All my young work colleagues are on facebook all the time, that, Instagram and snapchat (although only some on each). We could probably do with Instagram and snapchat accounts if they would get used, but people who use the platforms would have to put their hands up to help @twisty with social media.
When it comes to organising we use IRC, this forum, email and pirate pads. There are arguments to switch to a more modern chat service, but the people who run the IT are really opposed for reasons I don’t really fathom (I am a musician and don’t speak IT).
I’m not sure you understand how FB works either then, if you think just because 7000 people are “following” your page that they are going to actually see your posts. That was true eleventybillion years ago (or around 2012). You have to pay exorbitant rates on FB if you want reach now, it’s not “free exposure” you are actually giving them power and only receiving scraps yourself in exchange. You literally disempower any movement that isn’t championing the status quo by choosing it as a key point of dissemination. Yes, ppl “use” it but they don’t see most of what they actually want to see. That’s not the same if other networks to the same degree (even Insta). And a lot of ppl don’t even realise that. That’s the evil. That’s why it has to be resisted. Basically giving energy to any other closed system is better, because otherwise you’re just giving more power to a monopoly which sees you not as a human but as a commodity. It’s like… you may as well just vote Liberal
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I know how it works. We get the stats by being group admins. As of writing, the member number is 14,118. The last post reached 7,995 people, which includes people who saw it directly and people who saw the shares. Why would we give up that reach? It would be insane.
It isn’t going to happen.
Although using Facebook as our primary focus for outreach was proposed in 2015.
We use all means at our disposal, as relevant and as people who are willing to put in effort cross posting put in effort cross posting.
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This thread -
You actually believe their reported view stats? How’s the actual comment/share count stack up to that 7000?
Yeah , didn’t think so.
If data from the source can’t be relied upon, then what can?
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any other company which doesn’t have a) a monopoly and b) long history of blatantly fudging data and abusing their users, sorry, product? 
I think you’ve misunderstood the intent of my reply. It’s Facebook’s data. If you’re suggesting their product reports false data, then where/how are 3rd parties getting “accurate” data from the same source?
If that is actually not the question you asked, then please rephrase, because that’s how I understood it.
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I’m saying that FB as a company has a long history of bait & switch, privacy invasion, inflating likes, page views, video views, everything. There’s kerfuffle each time it happens and it generates a bunch of indignant media, they “apologise” … and despite everyone moaning and wringing hands about their lack of ethics and abuse… ppl keep going back. shrug I get that ppl feel the need to use it because “everyone’s there” but when there’s a political focus on privacy, openness and integrity, I guess I hoped for at least a slightly different approach than the status quo. Especially as it’s being pointed out that your engagement is low, and maybe changing things up might be beneficial.
I chose this hill to die on a while ago. I’m comfy.
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