Facebook Hijacking

Via Bristol Indymedia, an actual story for once:

English national candidate changes social group to nationalist group.

[A] face book Bristol group ' had ' nearly three thousand members, now the English nationalists appear to have the support of three thousand fun seeking face bookers.

This morning i recieved [sic] a notification to tell me of the change. As outraged of Eastville I made my feelings known by starting a discussion thread oj [sic] the group's forum where other people voiced thier [sic] concern with this lurch to the er silly right. My thread was removed and I was banned from the group.

If a Facebook group loses all of its administrators, then any member of the group can promote themselves and take over the role. Should the new administrator radically change the published purpose of the group – i.e. Hijack it - then there is not much group members can do about it. Other than leave, of course.

This is an interesting example of what political campaigning might look like in the future – “viral campaigning” I suppose one could call it. Why build an audience when you can pinch someone else’s?

The English Democrats – who are standing in four seats in Bristol – claim to be neither left, nor right, just English. If one looks at their manifesto then other than a few bits of flair like flying the flag of St George over public buildings (which is a nice idea) and annexing Monmouthshire, they would appear to be advocating a fairly standard centre[-left?] position. [Update: I'm not certain where to draw the line between centre-left and centre-right. Is anyone?]

The new group administrator on Facebook, Toby Hector, is the Southmead candidate for his party. He has managed the impressive feat of getting five people from the same family to sign his nomination papers, specifically O. Shahin, S. Shahin, A. Shahin, Carole Shahin, and O A Shahin. Very efficient.

P.S. No doubt local blogger, Green part candidate (and frequent commenter) Glenn Vowles will be reviewing his membership of this group.