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Recent articles by V
China, capitalism and class struggle May 18 13 Bristol Anarchist Bookfair deleted from Facebook along with many others bristol |
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 Friday April 29, 2011 15:28 by V bristolanarchistbookfair at riseup dot net
 The Bristol Bookfair facebook page has been deleted without notice by facebook. It is one of many pages deleted in the last 24 hours. Other dangerous groups include Westminster Trades Council, Rochdale Law Centre, Save NHS, Tower Hamlets Greens and York Anarchists - so at least they are being even-handed! An article on AntiCuts Space has the details and states: "The Anti-Cuts Space London facebook group has been taken down without warning or permission. In the last 12 hours, facebook has deleted around 50 sites. Message people in extant groups to warn them, and tell them to get on your email list or twitter account instead. Screw you Zuckerberg." See full list. A quick check by us reveals that according to facebook: "Disabled - Inauthentic account. Why was I disabled? Fake accounts are a violation of our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.Facebook requires users to provide their real first and last names." Bristol Anarchist Bookfair is of course our full name, and has not been questionned since we set up the account to network info about the Bookfair several months ago. Are we surprised? Ha Ha Ha of course not. Of course not, we live in the real world, facebook is just one tool of communication, and its also a tool of capital to make money. We, as anarchists, challenge capital and the state, and aren't in the least surprised to have our account closed down. It may be the website next? Lets face it, at the end of the day we are organising a highly dangerous event where people read, buy and sell books full of ideas, theories and histories of struggle. Even worse, they actually sit down and discuss those ideas. An then afterwards they have a party. Such events have been repressed for centuries by capital and the state. Nothing has changed. The freedom of social networking remains just an illusion of freedom. Welcome to Stokes Croft, Bristol, Britain 2011. Welcome to the myth of national untiy whilst the royal parasites inbreed. Welcome to the ConDems Big Society. Comrades and friends who would like to help us continue to spread news of the Bookfair are asked to link to our website, cut n paste or download and upload the info about the bookfair. Cheers. |
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yeah but... bimvols are also very capable of hiding / deleting stuff... and if whatever gets posted here dont have a local link its hidden also.
as we grow more & more globally aware & connected, bindymedias inbuilt limitations cripple our ability and potential to do what needs to be done the way it needs doing... which is why a lot of people working for change globally use facebook.
How fascinating that Facebook's faceless factotums should be deleting such web-sites here, when Facebook is being feted as a fine forum for fomenting freedom in the Middle East and North Africa.
I hate Facebook. I don't trust it. I don't use it. However, by not using it I miss out on a lot of good things - personal news, events (political and non-political), etc - because that is the current way that people network. I would love to see a non-profit alternative to Facebook that the world could use freely without censorship and surveillance, however at the moment Facebook rules.
So do we as activists continue to use it? If we do then we remain at the mercy of surveillance and censorship, and risk having months of organising pulled from underneath us when we become too successful. However, if we refuse to use it then we risk staying within a moarlly upright but small political ghetto, and not being able to reach those people who might join the struggle if they were exposed to it more easily. How many people have first become aware of the anti-cuts movement, or the mass rally in London, or the Stokes Croft situation, becase of Facebook and Twitter? I imagine a fair few, and to lose this opportunity is not something to be done lightly.
Personally I can't decide, but I think this is a massive issue that should be at the top of our agenda.
"I would love to see a non-profit alternative to Facebook that the world could use freely without censorship and surveillance"
It's coming https://joindiaspora.com/
Not quite ready yet, but getting there.
Thanks a lot for the link 'Diaspora' - something secure, positive and sustainable to look forward to!
I've created a social media platform which will be 'for profit', but run as a cooperative so the profits are shared amongst those who contribute to its development.
The platform is Favabank - www.favabank.co.uk - which is primarily an alternative currency platform for the neighbourly exchange of goods and services (e.g. small offers of help, sharing skills, passing on unwanted items etc.).
The social side of the website is currently focused around local geographical areas, to help develop trust locally as part of making favour exchanges with one another, and it also includes a 'groups' feature so people would be able to set up their own groups around special interests.
We will soon be doing a nationwide launch but in the meantime are slowly building up local pockets of interest so anyone in the Bristol area who wants to encourage neighbourly good-will would be welcome to join...