A Facebook Group Called the USA, by René St. Wolf
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A Facebook Group Called the USA
By René St. Wolf
There was once a Facebook group called the USA. Like most others of new FB groups with big dreams, its administrator visited other, much larger FB groups, posting links to his own group. He also sent invites to all of his friends.
Within a few hours, its membership had gotten up to about twenty. So he decided to add to its group description some things for which it stood. He urged its members to send out invites to all of their friends.
Over the next two days, the group was visited by hundreds of Facebookers, to some of whom appealed the group description. By the third day, membership was at over one hundred.
At about that time, a malevolent troll appeared amongst its members. He posted derogatory statements on its wall that insulted the group and its members, and promoted things against which the group stood. The administrator promptly banned him from the group and edited the group description to more bluntly discourage other such people from joining.
Membership continued to climb for several more weeks, reaching over one thousand. It had become a moderately successful group. From time to time, an annoying troll or two would appear, only to be banned by the administrator.
Several months went by. The group topped over two thousand members. The administrator had some spare time on his hands, so he began reading over all of the posts on the wall and the discussion boards. He began banning those members who had posted things not completely in keeping with the official stances of the group. He sent out a group message alerting all members that he would now be more closely monitoring the boards to ensure complete group unity.
Some of the members approved of his new strictness, others disapproved, voiced their disapproval in posts, and then either left the group or were banned from it; and others paid no heed at all. The administrator was not worried, because the group membership remained relatively large. More importantly, it remained united in commitment to his group statements. This went on for a couple of years. The group climbed to over ten thousand loyal and united members.
And then, one day, the administrator deactivated his FB account. This opened up the position of group administrator. The new administrator was much more lenient in whom he permitted to remain as members. Most of the members disliked this, citing diminishing group solidarity. The rest applauded the welcoming of differing views. This eventually led to a nasty schism between members over group purity.
Well, the new administrator's email account was hacked by someone unrelated to the events thus far. The hacker reset the email account's password and all of its security question answers. Then, he or she hacked into his FB account, and changed the password. Suddenly, the new administrator was locked out of the FB group. A consequence of this was that he was no longer able to ban members -- nobody was. Anybody from spammers to trolls were suddenly able to monopolize the group's wall and discussion boards, and they did. Soon, the group became a haven of advertisements for FB applications and dating sights.
Some of those members who were most loyal to the group's ideals began to leave. "It's not the same group anymore," some of them posted. Others, refusing to abandon their favorite group to the chaos of spam, appealed directly to the FB authorities themselves, who claimed to be the only ones with the authority to reinstate order to the group by appointing a new administrator from among them. However, the FB authorities said that they were too busy with other matters to address what they felt to be the insignificant matters of a single group.
At this, two of the group members, who happened to be excellent hackers, succeeded in hacking into the original administrator's account, and from there appointed themselves joint administrators. They immediately restored order by banning the spammers, trolls, and, in the spirit of the original administrator, banning those who disagreed with the ideals expressed in the group description. Peace was restored, but not for long.
Some of those members who were neither trolls nor spammers but who welcomed differing viewpoints in the discussion forums appealed to the FB authorities. They complained that the two new administrators had disobeyed the Terms of Service by hacking into someone else's account, something that the FB authorities alone claimed the authority to do.
Suddenly, the FB authorities were not too busy to address the petty squabbles of a single FB group. After several days of intense deliberation over FB protocol, the FB administrators deactivated the two new administrators' accounts, citing T.O.S. violation.
The FB group was suddenly open to spammers and trolls once again. And that's the way the matter currently stands. The USA is open to anyone, from spammers to trolls to other people whom the original administrator would have definitely banned.
