"The page 'Can this poodle wearing a tinfoil hat get more fans than Glenn Beck?' has had its publishing rights blocked because it violates our Pages Terms of Use. Amongst other things, Facebook restricts the publishing rights of Pages that impersonate other entities, represent generic concepts, spam users, or otherwise violate our Terms of Use."A follow-up explanation came this week.
'"A Facebook administrator looks into each report thoroughly in order to decide the appropriate course of action. If no violation of our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities has occurred, then no warning will be sent,' wrote a woman identifying herself as Marissa from Facebook's User Operations department, according to an e-mail provided by Blank. 'If a violation has occurred, then a warning or more severe actions are taken. Unfortunately, for technical and security reasons, we are unable to provide details regarding the removed content. We apologize for any inconvenience.'""Blank spent a lot of time reading the Facebook policy for fan pages. They require that a fan page be devoted to some kind of sincere commercial enterprise....Blank feels he's satisfied the requirement by purchasing the domain BobTheWonderPoodle.com, and linking to that site."
"That put the tin-hatted poodle at the center of a dispute over First Amendment free speech rights and censorship. There were virtual howls that Facebook was actively siding with Glen Beck over the Poodle, that perhaps someone at Facebook was siding with the conservatives, or at least had developed a hatred for left-wing sarcasm.posted by ericb at 3:59 PM on March 11, 2010 [1 favorite]
In the grand tradition of the Internet, that's overstating things a bit. Facebook, as a private company, has wide latitude in its ability to take down posts and pages that it decides run afoul of its terms of service. Even Blank said he doesn't want to raise the possibility of a conservative, subversive anti-poodle attack -- that's just the kind of knee-jerk reaction he's trying to mock.
'I'm not coming from a place where I think everything is a conspiracy,' said Blank, who lives near Milwaukee. In fact, he didn’t really have his heart set on poking fun of Beck. He simply picked the most popular target, in part to demonstrate how cheap popularity is on the Internet and on Facebook. 'I’m not so much anti-Glenn Beck as I am pro rational thought.'
Still, the conspiracy theories appeared. It didn't help that Facebook initially failed to give Blank an explanation for taking away his ability to publish. Then, when an explanation finally arrived this week, its vagueness only added fuel to the fire."
msali: What about the pickle that got more friends/fans than Nickleback?I created a status update on FB a while back making fun of this, asking in jpeg form "Can this nickel get more fans than Kellie Pickler?".
« Older Conan O'Brien announced a tour via his new Twitter... | When Jane Sellers moved to Cal... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
New York Post: Put on a Funny Face -- "Fans of crunchy leaves and dogs in tin hats join groups on Facebook."
posted by ericb at 2:05 PM on March 11, 2010 [1 favorite]