Fasc-Book

It was interesting to read about brands such as Vodafone withdrawing their investments in Facebook because they happened to be placed on the group pages of the British National Party. Apart from banners being a pretty pedestrian way for brands to try and mobilise social networking (shame on you lazy media planners taking advantage of your clients knee jerk stupidity but that is a subject for a later post ...) this revelation for me was like the sobering adrenalised moment when you are enjoying your drunken stupor but then suddenly are confronted by an outside of the kebab shop, fight or flight situation. The awful ASBO family have moved into my leafy suburb and is it only a moment of time before they start shoving dog shit through my letterbox and shatter my rosy tinted idyll that is Facebook.



Just as there is no such thing as bad PR, my first facebook driven voyeuristic response was to seek out the group pages of the BNP and see how popular it was and who was in their membership. The first thing to note was that the membership was not that high [in the 30's at the time of writing the post] putting on a par with the "i'm so zany, I wear odd socks" minor interest groups. the second thing to notice was that the membership was 2 types of people - those that for all intents and purposes could be described as normal, and those that were your classic American History X type thickbrowed neanderthal, still to be found on the terraces of Millwall or minor towns of Ing-ger-land. I guess it was only a matter of time before the democratisation of media allowed them to emerge and express their distinctly monosyllabic thoughts on this medium - they were individuals functioning on a fairly rudimentary level - with life conducted on a day to basis revolving around birds, football, beer and their higher aspirations directed by the concept of the mythical purity of England. you know the type.



Dont get me wrong - as long as the internet has been around there have always been sites where hate of all persuasion has been allowed to be peddled. it was inevitable that it would only be a matter of time that they would find their way on to facebook. They wear their membership to the facebook BNP group with pride on their profile along with the cross of St George in the "Flag" application. Their friend lists were as white as a Combat 18 christmas card list.



The more curious segment for me were the former group I referred those that look like "ordinairy" people. it seemed from their profiles that they had diverse interests and hopes, and their membership of the BNP was casually adorning the groups section, alongside their love of Father Ted and their affiliations to universities and schools. What was more curious still, was when you peruse their friend lists - there were blacks and asians listed.



For me, this was the most eye opening issue and raised 2 issues for me: firstly how can membership to the BNP co-exist against this polychromatic friend list. the second issue was what do we do about this? like someone who has been brought with an understanding of right and worng and is seeing an act of violence being pepetrated in front of their eyes - do we intervene and say "steady on old chap" ? while the arena of engagement with the neanderthals is not the most rewarding option, should we post on this latter groups walls and ask them about their beliefs on the hope that we can convince them with reason?



Well i am not sure i a have the time or the inclination - apart from trying to understand the roots of where their beliefs come from. The more alarming inference for me is that in this climate where our main political parties are fighting to occupy the centre ground - the vacuums are being formed on the fringes which when is combined by the use of trojan horse policies by Nick Griffin and the like talking about stopping future immigration - not the current communities - this new facebook generation are finding a acceptable cause that they can buy into which has an acceptable veneer - disguising the hateful beliefs which brought them into existence in the first place. I had a friend like this when i was growing up - I used to drink with him in my local in washington, tyne and wear. I knew that he was in the BNP, but we had a laugh down the pub. Not exactlty as exreme as "my beautiful laundrette". A few months later he decided he was into Metallica instead.



The key issue surely is to be aware of the way the BNP are presenting their policies in a more consumer friendly way very similar to how the late Pim Fortuyn in Rotterdam did, before being assassinated. Just as I condemn the assassination of Pim Fortuyn - In the interests of democracy i would also oppose the closing down or reporting of the BNP site on facebook. It is however, our job if we believe strongly to make sure that we expose the flaws in the logic of the BNP and the unveil to a young directionless facebook audience, by harnessing the community of facebook to present a counter argument and have our faith in human nature re-affirmed by the concensus of those who do not believe in what they stand for. I notice that Searchlight do not have a group on facebook.



Oh yes - I guess our politicians should do more as well.



But as a social networker - my life goes on unchanged - but maybe without the disney cartoon bluebirds and butterflies flying around as i make my keystrokes. Social networks are migrations of real worlds online - and the real world is not full of nice people - but we can try and avoid them.