Facebook, Reinstate Tom Brake!
Posted by jonathanfryer on Friday, 10th July, 2009
Tom Brake, Liberal Democrat MP for Carshalton and Wallington, was dismayed this morning to discover that his Facebook account has been disabled and that he has been removed as administrator of a number of Facebook campaign groups, without any explanation or warning. This move is perverse and should be reversed. Tom has been a model among London MPs in employing Facebook to engage with his constituents through electronic media and to reach out successfully to younger voters who tend to by-pass more traditional ways of campaigning. An excellent example of the effective use Tom and his team have made of the site was last night’s rally in Wallington to save the N213 night bus. As Tom rightly commented this morning, ‘Much of my casework comes through Facebook. The bizarre and heavy-handed decision to disable my account only hours after a protest organised through the socil networking site severrely disadvantages my constituents, who rely on the net to contact me.’
Tom had over 3,000 Friends on Facebook. I hope many of them will complain to the site managers at Facebook about this totally arbitrary decision, but so should other people who value Tom’s work and who also appreciate Facebook’s genuine contribution to social networking in its widest sense. A full explanation is needed. Did the exclusion come about after some sort of dirty tricks complaint from political opposition? Or because Tom acquired too many Friends too quickly (which is reportedly why the publisher Gary Pulsifer was kicked out of Facebook some time ago)? Whatever the reason, Tom should be informed and Facebook should acknowledge that they have made a mistake and immediately reinistate him.
[Postscript on Saturday: Facebook has now reinstated Tom, thanks. Apparently they were concerned that as he was sending regular messages to so many people in his network he must be a spammer. There's a differece between political campaigning and spamming, guys, just as there is a difference between a Focus newsletter and a pizza flyer! Anyway, it's good that the problem has been resolved.]
Link: http://tombrake.co.uk
