The CBCâe(TM)s latest attempt to wrangle a youthful audience has left a number of pro-choice voices silenced at the hands of the social networking Web site Facebook.com.

Confusing, we know. Hereâe(TM)s how it came to be. The CBC teamed up Student Vote, an organization geared towards educating youth on electoral processes, to create something called the Great Canadian Wish List hosted on Facebook. You know, cuz the youth like the Facebook. Culminating on Canada Day, the unmoderated Wish List is a call to submit and vote for ideas on how to improve Canada.

Though Facebook has garnered much attention since its 2005 launch, to date its popularity has been based more on its gimmicky features that allow users to engage in online food fights or throw âeoevirtual sheepâe at one another than for its political potential.

Turns out, thereâe(TM)s pretty good reason for that. Almost as soon as the Wish List voting started just under a month ago, a vocal and persistent group of pro-lifers have overwhelmed the site. When pro-choice users fought back, they found their Facebook privileges dramatically limited by Facebook administration without adequate explanation.

Just ask former CBCer and founding rabble editor Judy MacDonald who is one of the pro-choice voices on Facebook. (Not only has the pro-choice wish list been bombarded with text aimed at criminalizing abortion, it has also been plastered with âeoevery graphic, bloody, anti-choice propaganda pictures,âe she says.) Recent grad Casey Yau also joined the maelstrom after creating a pro-choice Facebook group âe” she found her posting abilities were locked, eventually resulting in a disabled account. In this edited e-mail conversation, rabble gets to the bottom of things.âe”Jessica Rose

Describe the situation that has been unfolding on CBCâe(TM)s Great Canadian Wish List on Facebook.

Casey Yau: Originally, I thought The Great Canadian Wish List was an interesting idea, and it might be a good way for Canadians to have discussions. However, I quickly realized the wish list has been hijacked by a special-interest group that is more interested in abolishing abortion, gay marriages, reviving Christianity in Canada and the privatization of the CBC. While the CBC and Student Vote might think this is a great social experiment, it is actually a great social failure, because fringe groups [have been able to] take over the discussion board.

Judy MacDonald: At first, I didn’t pay much attention to it. Just another silly CBC contest. Well intentioned, but ham-fisted.I have been informed that CBC staff and management are aware that this contest is seriously flawed. They had to trust Facebook’s standards for use, which turned out to be punishingly restrictive. And they had to be willing to hand over control of the programming, which is to say their editorial approach, and so on. They didn’t seem to consider that a Web siteâe(TM)s functions affect participation, and act as a form of control.

It turns out that you can âeoethrow sheepâe at as many people as you want, but sending a message to twenty or so of your friends about an organized effort by fundamentalists to promote controls on the majority of people in this country is not acceptable.

Whatâe(TM)s your relationship with Facebook like now?

MacDonald: Facebook and I are not on great terms. It’s been a troubled relationship from the start. I don’t like poking. The food fights are puzzling. Most of the applications leave me cold. But there are elements I’ve found enchanting, I’ll admit.

I became involved in the contest in earnest when I learned that someone had created a group called “I am Canadian and I am Pro-Choice.” It was created to support Kirsten Van Houten’s “I wish that Canada would remain pro-choice” during the CBC contest. (How sad is that âe” a wish for things to stay the same is created because others want to ratchet rights back?)

The person who created the group was then kicked off Facebook for âeoeabusingâe her account. So, I sent a message to some of my friends about the situation. And I went to the two wish-forums about choice âe” pro and con âe” and posted a few times. Sometimes, I included text from the United Nations or other sources. Often, I included links to back up my statements.

Very quickly, I received my first warning to stop posting, or lose my account. I got into a correspondence with a Facebook employee named Rachel, who seems very nice.

Here is some of that exchange:

Judy: Rachel, I’m not sure you know what’s going on here in Canada. The Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) has set up a contest on Facebook. It is encouraging Canadians to participate. I am participating. The CBC is one of our major media outlets. It’s contest has a #1 item to take away a right for women. This contest closes by July 1. And you are now telling me I can’t post for a few days, while others are apparently very busy organizing on Facebook to take away my right to control my body. I find this strange and unsettling.

Rachel: You are welcome to participate in this group/contest. However, because you have already been warned several times for sending/posting form messages, your account has been flagged for spamming and is very close to being disabled. In order to avoid getting disabled, I recommend that you use other features on the site (such Posted Items and Share) in order to communicate with other users on the site for the purpose of this contest going forward. We apologize for any inconvenience.

I followed her advice, and still received warnings. Then the warnings stopped, and I simply found myself unable to write on any response forums, meaning I could not contribute anywhere. Saturday, I tried a new tactic. Whenever I wanted to quote something, I simply retyped it. And so far that has worked beautifully.

So the problem was cutting and pasting source material, not any lurking agenda. For the last few days, I’ve been referring to this mechanism as Facebot.

The message from the CBC was that this [contest] was not going to be controlled. But Facebook is one of the most controlled web environments I’ve ever experienced. It’s not as controlled as an online tax form, true. I’ll give it that.

Elaine Corden wrote an opinion piece for The Tyee, saying that the fact that âeoethere is no system of checks and balances makes the whole contest laughable at best, contemptible at worst. It seems this contest serves populism, and not the population, and fails to make a distinction between the two.âe

Yau: After realizing that the abolish abortion wish is the number one wish, I quickly posted messages on various Facebook groups, informing people. It was then that my account received [its first] warning. Not knowing what it meant, I kept on posting messages. Not long afterward, my Facebook account was disabled, and I couldnâe(TM)t post altogether. I [was warned that] I should be careful and slow down on my postings.

When I got my account back, I decided to continue my efforts to tell people about what has happened on Facebook, but I was determined to not âeoespam,âe and indeed, I never did. I created a pro-choice group to help promote the pro-choice wish on the wish list. Again, I received another warning on my account, so I stopped posting messages altogether. I waited until the warning is gone before I reposted messages, but to my surprise, my account was disabled altogether without warning this time around.

[Facebook] refused to reactivate my account and told me that I was given enough chances. The final result is that I will not be able to access my account and now, nobody will be able to administrate the group that I have created.

I wish the CBC would have made it clear to us how we should conduct ourselves on Facebook with regard to the wish list. What is the point of doing a Facebook contest if we cannot promote our wishes?

How would you describe the CBCâe(TM)s role in this case?

MacDonald: While the CBC was writing about this âeoeexperiment âe as though it was some kind of freeform utopia âe” where they were putting no limits on how people get involved âe” Facebook members were actually having their accounts shut down and getting very scary notices about spamming.

The country’s national broadcaster and its fun contest to engage youth has become a platform to wish for revoking the rights of women and homosexuals, and to impose one religion on the country. And its employees are referring to this situation as a glitch. A blip. And, in public, the company griped about people griping about it, asking how it was supposed to learn about new technologies if it didn’t try them out?

What do you think people need to consider when signing up for sites such as Facebook?

MacDonald: It can be like a fantasy high school, where you pick your classmates, choose what classes you are attending, and who you see in the halls. But it’s a dream high school with a nasty, authoritarian principal. A principal with odd priorities, though. You can b!*$%-slap, bite, grope, sucker punch and get into food fights to your heart’s content. Even more, these things are encouraged. But, [if you] contribute challenging content in a meaningful debate, being sure to back your statements with sources âe” not so much. It was a hard lesson for me as a journalist. I’m a bit surprised I’m getting it as a result of the willful ignorance and stunning naiveté of my former employer, the CBC.

So do social networking sites have any political potential?

MacDonald: Well, the funny thing is that this effort to make the CBC contest a platform for social conservatism has resulted in bringing together pro-choice activists and other progressives. And they are organizing. So there is potential.

But it’s also important to remember that a lot of people can’t or won’t participate in these kinds of social networks. We don’t all have computers that make it easy to join, or have the time. And enough has been written about the scary side of Facebook that I don’t think I need to go into it here.

And this means that those who aren’t bothered about handing over personal data âe” or who create fake accounts âe” will have less hesitation in joining Facebook than those who want to be themselves, and have privacy concerns. I’ve often thought about women who have to think about their safety, who have reason to be worried about a violent man from their past tracking them down.

Good chance they’re not going to sign up to click a support button, even if they have strong feelings about their right to choice.

Yau: Facebook is good for informing and inviting people for real life events. Itâe(TM)s also good for discussion. I think these functions allow more people to learn about issues and get involved, but I am not sure if Facebook is the best site for being political. It may not be the best place for organizing a movement. It is, after all, a site about social networking, not changing the world âe” not for the better, anyway.

Jessica Rose

Jessica Rose

Jessica is a graduate from Carleton University’s School of Journalism, where she fell in love with feature writing and independent media. She joined rabble as an intern in 2006 and she has also...