The last big news from Facebook was that, were it considered a country, its population would be larger than that of all the countries in the world, save China, India, the United States, and Indonesia. (It stands at 200 million.)
Diving into those demographics a bit, we recently learned that what was once, by design, the exclusive domain of college students, now counts its largest age group as those 35 to 54. Remarkably, the second largest age group are those 24 to 34-year olds (25.2%).
Those of approximately college age, 18-24, come in today at 25.1%—remarkably down from 40.8% from just this past January.
This just underscores important role Facebook can play in advocacy. It reaches an astounding number of people, but looking specifically at fundraising, it's reaching those people most likely to have the means to give and not simply those in college already struggling to stretch their limited income.
As further evidence of this, the popular Facebook fundraising application, Causes, recently announced that they've raised $10 million in a little over two years. Interestingly, they've raised half of that, a full $5 million, in the past six months alone. Though it'd be very hard to report causality, this certainly corresponds to older users overtaking young college and grad school aged users as the primary users of Facebook.
Although we need to remember that Facebook doesn't reach everyone, it's increasingly becoming a more and more useful tool.
Last last week, the one millionth site was created on the social network Ning. For individuals and organizations (including nonprofits) for whom Facebook is not giving them exactly what they need, there's Ning, which allows users to build their own social network.
For an example of how nonprofits are using Ning, take a look at the site of our friends at National CAPACD, the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development.
Ning is free, with ads. The premium version gets rid of that.
To read more from The Opportunity Agenda, visit our blog.
Stephen Colbert nailed the connection between special-interest campaign contributions and results in Congress (in a way only he could).
In the process, he also nailed Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), who Colbert accuses of selling out to the Payday Loan industry for a mere $10,000. Gutierrez dramatically watered down his "Payday Loan Reform Act" in a way that will make the Payday industry billions -- at the expense of the little guy.
It was a smart investment for the Payday industry. But it's horrible for our democracy.
Colbert's segment basically made the case for why Congress needs to pass the bipartisan Fair Elections Now Act, which would put in place public funding of congressional elections (while still allowing Obama-style small donations, matching them four to one).
Check out the Colbert video for yourself on the Change Congress website by clicking here. On that page, you can also take action to get Congress to pass this crucial reform bill.
(If you want to help spread the reform message to others, share this post over email, Facebook, or Twitter. #gutierrez #politics #money. Disclosure: I work for Big Reform group Change Congress.)
The Chamber took to their blog and ambiguously wrote, "No. No we are not."
It's well documented by Sam Stein at The Huffington Post that bailout recipients have been asked to funnel money to groups that are running anti-worker ads like the ones announced yesterday by the Chamber.
So I wrote, "Let me pose a more specific question: Is the Chamber actively rejecting money from bailout recipients?"
Another one quickly answered, the U.S. Chamber continues to accept as members companies which receive both public and private funds. In addition we do not believe that the receipt of taxpayer money abrogates an individual or groups’ rights under the First Amendment.
My original answer to the original question still stands, beyond question.
Actually, it's not beyond question -- and Jonathan Martin at Politico agrees:
Adam Green over at OpenLeft pushes the Chamber of Commerce to say that they're still accepting dues from bailed-out companies.
The goal is to make the case that the Chamber is using taxpayer dollars to help fund their anti-EFCA campaign (of which they have launched new ads targeting moderate Democratic senators).
The Chamber's Brad Peck says they're not using bail-out money for the campaign.
I've asked how exactly they know that to be the case.
A bunch of folks have joined the Facebook group asking the same question, and have used the contact info posted in that group to email Chamber execs directly.
The Chamber of Commerce’s solution for fixing our economic crisis is to use funds from taxpayer bailed-out companies to fight smart economic policies that will restore balance to our economy and help rebuild the American Middle Class.
...American taxpayers have had enough. The Chamber of Commerce must stop accepting taxpayer funds to lobby against taxpayer interests.
It's a pretty cut-and-dry case.
Taxpayer money went to companies so they could rebuild their fundamentals. By the Chamber's now-admission, bailout recipients are giving some of that money to the Chamber (aka, not using it to rebuild their fundamentals). Then, the Chamber uses that taxpayer money to fund ads against workers in political swing states.
We'll now see if the Chamber is as oblivious to the PR disaster that is about to hit them as the Wall Street execs who used bailout money to redecorate their offices and pay bonuses were.
Maybe smarter heads at the Chamber will prevail, and they'll take this issue off the table by publicly rejecting money from bailout recipients. We'll see...
This question was based on the fact that the Chamber just announced $1 million in new ads against the Employee Free Choice Act -- while bailout recipients like AIG and Bank of America are apparently being asked to funnel money to groups doing precisely this type of ad.
Is the Chamber of Commerce using bailout money to attack workers?
No. No we are not.
Let me pose a more specific question: Is the Chamber actively rejecting money from bailout recipients?
If yes, than Mr. Peck's answer holds true. If no, than Mr. Peck's answer seems quite questionable.
Oddly, the very month that Bank of America was asking Congress for a bailout, the Chamber of Congress put out this press release:
U.S. Chamber Announces 2008 Corporate Citizenship Awards Finalists...
Corporate Stewardship, Large Business Award, honoring overall values, strategies, and practices in companies with annual revenue greater than $5 billion—Bank of America, KPMG LLP, Pilot Travel Centers LLC, Siemens USA, and Verizon Communications
Really? Bank of America is the Chamber's model of corporate stewardship?
This puts the burden of proof squarely on the Chamber. Taxpayers deserve to know: As the Chamber runs millions in ads, it is activley rejecting money from bailout recipients?
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is launching a $1 million television advertising campaign that takes a new line of attack against the Employee Free Choice Act...The new Chamber ads will hit the airwaves in Nebraska, Virginia, Louisiana, North Dakota and Colorado -- states whose senators could be swing votes on the issue.
In January, The Huffington Post's Sam Stein broke this news:
Three days after receiving $25 billion in federal bailout funds, Bank of America Corp. hosted a conference call with conservative activists and business officials to organize opposition to the U.S. labor community's top legislative priority.
Participants on the October 17 call -- including at least one representative from another bailout recipient, AIG -- were urged to persuade their clients to send "large contributions" to groups working against the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), as well as to vulnerable Senate Republicans, who could help block passage of the bill.
There's a natural question for taxpayers to ask: Is the Chamber of Commerce using bailout money to attack workers?
There are two things you can do right now to take action:
If you take a look at this article in the Daily Mail it will raise some questions which ought to be considered, especially by those of us currently working in education:
Social networking websites are causing alarming changes in the brains of young users, an eminent scientist has warned.
Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Bebo are said to shorten attention spans, encourage instant gratification and make young people more self-centred.
The claims from neuroscientist Susan Greenfield will make disturbing reading for the millions whose social lives depend on logging on to their favourite websites each day.
I've been thinking about the comments I received to my Google and Facebook posts, as well as some related posts and articles (the article's worth reading, btw) by other people from the last few days. I want to make one more point about this privacy stuff, and then move on for a while
You may have already heard the story of Vanessa Sievers, a 20 year old student at Darmouth College who ran for treasurer of her county in New Hampshire and won, using social networking tools like Facebook as a means to organize and mobilize.
Executive Summary: please check out the No blank check for Wall Street Facebook page, add yourself as a fan, let your friends know, and blog about it.
How to help:
If you're on Facebook, it takes next to no time to sign up as a fan. While you're at it, please post a link to wherever you're reading this to your profile, and share it with your friends; and maybe even write a note about it.
If you're on other social network sites, please check the current list. If you don't see your site, please help out by starting up a No blank check for Wall Street! page there as well.
If you're a blogger or journalist, why not cover this as an emerging story? It might well turn into the fastest-growing social network activism campaign yet, and you've got a chance to get a scoop.
And if you use email, please send mail to your friends and ask them to join!
Here's a list of people involved in politics, most of them prominent bloggers, some with other political accomplishments as writers and activists spanning decades, one (Jennifer Nix) a publisher responsible for helping bring two important voices to printed prominence--George Lakoff and Glenn Greenwald. So what do the following people have in common?
Chris Bowers Mike Lux Matt Stoller Jennifer Nix Pam Spaulding
Frederick Clarkson Howie Klein George Lakoff Brian Leubitz
Vincent Bugliosi Duncan Black Amanda Marcotte Rick Perlstein
Funny how it is such a waste of time to join a Facebook group, which took me roughly 30 seconds this morning, but apparently well worth the time to write paragraph after paragraph criticizing people for joining the group.
It reminds me of someone watching someone else playing a video game and then, after an hour or so, criticizing the video game player of wasting his time. Perhaps, sure, but not compared to the guy who didn't even play.
This could just be just another trivial example of the endless foibles of humanity. But I think there's something a bit more significant in the mix as well.
At one point during the Get FISA Right campaign, somebody asked me whether I had just put my day job on hold. Fortunately for me, 75% of my day job at this point is working on Tales from the Net, a book about social networks, with my significant other Deborah Pierce and brother Greg (also known as GregoryK of gottabook). So the answer is no, as long as this turns into a chapter in the book. Which I suspect it probably will, so it's cool.
Also fortunately, people like danah boyd, Ari Melber, Nancy Scola, Micah Sifry have done a great job of discussing the Get FISA Right campaign from a social computing and network perspective. So, tempting as it is to focus on the future possibilties of social network activism (a 50-network strategy to build on the 50-state strategy; ways to evolve the Night of Facebook Action idea), in this post I'll instead concentrate on a more pressing topic:
It's been a wild few days with the Get FISA Right activism campaign. Our bare-bones media room is the best place to get a quick summary of all the stuff going on; here are a few hightlights: over 22,000 members in the myBO group, and 1700+ on Facebook; we delivered our response and our asks to Obama's Senate office today (and of course have emailed them as well); and much much more.
With the vote tomorrow, it's time for a final push. Announcing: a night of Facebook action
In our final push to influence the vote, we're creating a Facebook event for us to watch the vote together. People in the DC area who can get passes will try to fill the gallery during the vote tomorrow -- and we're going to have an online component as well, centered around liveblogging, details TBD.
WHETHER OR NOT YOU CAN MAKE IT IN PERSON OR VIRTUALLY, PLEASE ACCEPT THE EVENT, INVITE YOUR FRIENDS, FORWARD THE LINK IN EMAIL, AND MENTION IT IN RELEVANT GROUPS!
It's a long shot but if we can get enough people on Facebook to respond, that could get some more press and show the breadth of the opposition to telecom immunity and warrantless wiretapping. Events are the most rapidly spreading mechanism on Facebook; it's worth a try. With any luck, we might set a record for the fastest-propagating event
More information on the wiki, including troubleshooting and links to groups to spread the word in. If you're on Facebook, or are willing to join, please help out; if you're not, please consider joining -- it's creepy, Orwellian, and privacy-invasive, but there are 30,000,000 people there and it's a great place to do activism. And in any case, please help spread the word about this: blog it, digg it, mail your friends, and call your mom.
Mike Stark's blog post that kicked the event into high gear was titled Will Obama feel the sting of social networking? Since then, we've expanded to a 50-state strategy and are targetting multiple Senators. It's still a good question, though. Facebook's got a lot more people on it than myBO, and far richer functionality for stuff like this. Let's give it a try ...
Drinking Liberally Shot of Truth
By Amanda Milstein
Last year my New York City voter registration was not processed, and I was concerned that I would be cast out of my social circle for my failure to vote. From blog posts listing their favorite candidates, excursions to canvass in swing states, and to lively in-person discussions about their political opinions, it was clear that my friends felt strongly about politics. My failure to vote in my first year out of college, accidental or not, made me an oddity, and it was clear that I would feel ridiculous if I let it happen again.
Other young people are influenced by the same social pressure that I felt: the blogs are buzzing with talk of the increased youth vote in New Hampshire and Iowa, and CIRCLE reports that "Young adults voted for the Democratic candidate over the Republican candidate in races for the House of Representatives (58% vs. 38%), the Senate (60% vs. 33%) and governor (55% vs. 34%)."
Why are young people voting for such large numbers for Democrats, and why has the number of youth voters increased so dramatically?
On Saturday night I used Fandango to purchase the tickets for the movie Michael Clayton.
Then on Sunday, I looked at my Facebook feed and saw this:
"Ari bought Michael Clayton on Fandango. 5:25PM"
Having your privacy violated is a strange feeling. I don't really care that people know I went to the movies on Saturday night. I would freely share this information with anyone. But that's exactly the point. It should be up to me to share this information with others, not up to Facebook or Fandango to make that choice for me.
