Facebook – is it me?
Howard Lake | 16 April 2009 | Blogs
Now I’m a great fan of Facebook, I’ve got a reasonable number of friends who invite me to take part in all manner of new groups and ‘good things’. And I’m happy if others want to be my friend too. But Facebook does have a darker side.
This morning, a colleague pointed out a group that he’d come across – The Royal Society for the Persecution of Charity Ar*****es.
I like to think I’m as broadminded as the next guy, but this made me both very angry and sad. If you look it up and it doesn’t make you angry and/or sad then I don’t think I want to know you. Not only is it inciting violence against street fundraisers, its anti-charity in general and full of appalling language (and I can swear a bit). I accept that these groups are mostly populated by illiterate cretins who hide behind ‘web names’ in case their employers (are they employed one wonders?) find out, but at a time when there is focus elsewhere on the freedom and privacy of web and email users, this kind of abuse offers some interesting food for thought, and ammunition for those who want to see the web ‘policed’.
Perhaps I have become a grumpy old man of fundraising but I haven’t come across anything this bad on Twitter yet – no doubt someone will be able to correct me. And besides, isn’t illegally claiming you have a Royal Warrant treason? To Tower with the *******s!
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.