05.09.2007

Facebook censorship

David Isaacson of Communist Students shows that the SWP stands opposed to debate and the free exchange of ideas

Readers of the Weekly Worker may or may not be up to speed with the phenomenon that is 'Facebook'. Most will have heard of it, and some of us are registered users. Comrades wanting a detailed description of what the thing is should look elsewhere - there has been plenty written on it, and here is not the place to replicate that.

Suffice to say that it is an internet-based network allowing people from around the world to meet and create/join smaller networks of friends, contacts and like-minded people via their own 'profile' and issue-based 'groups'. In its own words Facebook is a "social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them".

Though Facebook is primarily used by people to 'enhance' their social lives, there is considerable scope for political activists to use it as a tool to educate, agitate and organise. This potential has not gone unnoticed and political organisations from the BNP, through Labour Students, to the Socialist Workers Party and Communist Students have created groups, events pages and developed networks of contacts. Any politician wanting to be down with the kids has set up (or had one of their office staff set up for them) a 'profile' which can get their face around Facebook. George Galloway, John Rees and John McDonnell are all registered - the latter being listed as one of my 'friends'! However, not all of the potential being offered by this tool is being embraced by every comrade on the left ...

Any Facebook-using comrades who choose to look at the new Stop the War Students group - officially set up by the Stop the War Coalition students grouping - might wonder why, unlike most other political groups on Facebook, it has the facilities for a discussion board and a public message 'wall' switched off. What is it that has caused all the facilities for open debate and grassroots involvement in this group to have been shut down?

Well, soon after this group was founded, I joined and decided to post a link to an article by Yassamine Mather of the Hands Off the People of Iran campaign on the public message 'wall'. Checking to see if there had been any responses the following day, I noticed that the message had been erased. One of the three other postings was a message from the group administrator letting members know that the wall would be "moderated" and asking comrades to keep it "clean and political". I sent the administrator a message acknowledging this but reminding him that my message did not fall foul of these requirements in any way.

The comrade responded with the following - revealing - message: "Hi David, your posts on other pages include slanderous attacks on other members of the left. Your obsession with Iran is an attempt to weaken the campaign to prevent any attack on Iran. If you are so concerned about state executions, take your laptop to Saudi Arabia and try posting from there.

"I will continue deleting your posts so long as they are designed to give credence to US and Britain's planned attack on Iran. A balanced post might include reference to the workers of Saudi Arabia, of Uzbekistan and anywhere else where workers are attacked."

It is rather rich for Stewart Halforty, the administrator, to refer to my posting as "slanderous" when in the same message he claims I was attempting to "give credence to US and Britain's planned attack on Iran" by posting an article which expresses ... an unwavering opposition to such an attack! A student comrade from Solidarity Federation who posted a message asking, "What do comrades think of the Grand Old Duke of York strategy?" also reported receiving a similar response.

I posted the link twice again in protest, only for it to be deleted both times. Presumably because he realised how time-consuming such censorship would be if the group really took off, Stewart then decided to close down the wall and discussion board facilities altogether!

While a whole range of other groups not only tolerate but welcome opposing views, the STWC under its Socialist Workers Party leadership would rather have no discussion at all than allow points to be made to which they have no answer - such as comrade Mather's correct criticism that acting as an apologist for the Tehran regime actually undermines support for the anti-war movement.

It transpires that comrade Halforty is the newly appointed (not elected) full-time student organiser for the STWC. This perhaps gives us some insight into the lies and slander that the STWC leadership have in store for other Hopi supporters should they be too bold. It also shows what depths some of these control-freaks will sink to. Our comrades certainly intend to raise the issue of this censorship at this weekend's Stop the War Students national meeting. Communist Students is adamant that if we are to build a truly radical and mass anti-war movement amongst students and in society more generally then we must champion democracy - both in society and in our movement.

In this regard it is also a matter of grave concern that Stop the War Students appears to have no plans to establish a democratic structure, its full-timer having been appointed by the 'adult' STWC, and the planned national meeting looks like it will be the usual rally dominated by top-table speakers. Last year Communist Students had to protest similarly at the refusal of the Student Respect 'conference' to accept motions (see Weekly Worker November 30 2006). We will continue to insist on the importance of independence and democracy for our movement.