In case you missed it, there was a page on Facebook calling for a boycott on BP gas stations that had amassed somewhere in the neighborhood of 800k fans. Although the idea of a boycott sounds good on the surface, that surface is very thin. BP simply does not own BP branded stations – nor are they the sole supplier of gasoline to those stations. Don’t want to buy “BP Gas” from a BP station? Fine, you’ll simply have to drive down the street to get it from a Shell or Exxon station.
The merits or lack thereof of a boycott is a different discussion though. Within the past 24 hours Facebook deleted the Boycott BP page and the profiles of accounts tied to it, as reported by “Bayou Lee” – the guy who started the page. From his website:
FaceBook executes a “top kill” on Boycott-BP group. FaceBook apparently is in the barrel for BIG OIL!!! They are a slippery bunch. No notice. No warnings of supposed violation of usage policy. Total disregard for procedure. Sound like BP???
Not only has FaceBook and BP targeted me, they have also targeted anyone close to me. My daughter’s and two close friends’ FaceBook accounts have been removed. ERASED!!!
I am working with my Webmaster to add blog capabilities. Our teams are collaborating day and night to bring you the ability to make your voice heard. I am continuing my efforts to contact FaceBook for an explanation for why we were pulled off. I don’t expect that we will be allowed a forum again on FaceBook. So, we are using all available resources to bring an outlet for your voices. Keep the faith!
Silenced FaceBook link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boycott-BP
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So, why did Facebook decide to delete the page without warning or reason? If they are going to delete pages for being stupid… They have a ton of work ahead of them. It’s stuff like this that has people asking not even bothering to ask “what ever happened to MySpace”.
Update (Only minutes after the original post):
The page is back up. I’ll update this post with the details once the dust settles.
Update:
According to Lee’s site, Facebook reactivated the page (and I’m assuming the accounts that got deleted) without explanation. If no explanation is ever given, my comment about this smelling very MySpace-ish will ring very true.
Update (handful of hours after the original post):
This story made the rounds all over the web this morning and TechCrunch was able to get an official statement from Facebook a few minutes ago:
“The admin profile of the Boycott BP Page was disabled by our automated systems therefore removing all the content that had been created by the profile. After a manual review we determined the profile was removed in error and it has now been restored along with the Page.”
Yup… Still smells like good ol’ MySpace. Many legitimate profiles use to get caught in the spam net over there – only to be restored if a “ruckus on the web” erupted over a particular profile going MIA. This might be a sign that Facebook is inching in that same direction. It all depends on what triggered that manual review. If such a review gets cued up every time their automated system flags a profile than it’s all good. If it requires a bunch of blog posts all over the web… Welcome to MyFacePalm.