Starting in just a few hours Facebook will become a lot smarter and the reason is simple. On Sunday the 25th, conservatives have vowed to leave Facebook for 24 hours. All of this is thanks to a Facebook group called “Facebook Blackout“. Here’s what they have to say about it:
We are organizing a nationwide “blackout” of Facebook to protest their arbitrary and capricious policies targeting conservatives with censoring and suspensions. We are asking for all conservatives to suspend (deactivate) their accounts for at least 24 hours on August 25th. If you are a business or promoting a page and have a FB advertising account, we are asking that you also suspend that for 24 hours.
As of right now some 31,000 free market loving conservatives have vowed to join in the cause. Now I’m not really sure what this boycott of the world’s largest social networking site will achieve. Facebook has over 1.11 billion users. 31,000 of 1.11 billion translates to 0.00003%. I can see Monday now, when Facebook has to announce massive layoffs because of this. All joking aside, what we have here is a very common meme from the right. Anytime they push the boundaries of a websites usage policies and that site takes action, it turns into a massive conspiracy. In the past this has happened with YouTube/Google, PayPal and Twitter. But I thought the conservatives were all about free markets. Since we do live in a free market society, they are able to go out and start up their own services to compete with these other services. That’s what free market is about, competition, right? So why don’t they. I’m sure people like Sheldon Adelson or the Koch Brothers, strong conservatives with very deep pockets, would even help finance such an endeavor. And since conservatives constantly tell us that a vast majority of this country shares their views, these new sites should be a huge success as well. Of course the very basis for such action is comprised of false notion. It’s not that these companies are targeting conservatives. I have seen numerous liberal groups on Facebook suspended or deleted over the years for going over the line. Same thing happens on other sites like Twitter and YouTube as well. The difference is that the left doesn’t view everything as a conspiracy. They realize these are private companies enforcing their policies, so they instead just move on. Now let’s get ready to enjoy our Sunday without conservatives on Facebook. That is only if Facebook can handle the financial shock this is certain to bring.