Social network workshop: Facebook

Resource page for the social network workshop.

= Tips =


 * A guide to Facebook's security settings aka Facebook Security for the Unitiated!, from the Daily Vend. (This is from August 2007; there's some additional functionality since then -- does anybody have a newer link?)
 * 13 Reasons your Facebook account will be disabled is good to read before you start being active on Facebook. It discusses the kinds of activity -- duplicate postings/messages, too many links, making too many friends too quickly and so on -- that leads to people getting warnings and account suspensions from Facebook's automated filters
 * How to Respond when Facebook censors your political speech, on the Wired How-to Wiki, has some of this information as well, and gooes into more detail on what to do when this happens to you
 * Facebook best practices for non-profits from DIOSA | Communications
 * Ten priorities for promoting your book on Facebook ... well, okay, currently there are only two, but it's a start

Challenges -- and workarounds

 * Once you've got over 1200 members, Facebook groups don't allow you to "send message to all members". Workarounds:
 * use email or blogs (with RSS) for notification; use Causes and Pages, which don't have this limitation
 * Including too many links in messages or posts on walls discussion boards will get you flagged as a spammer. Workarounds:
 * post links instead of including them as text
 * give search instructions: "google for 'cfp social network workshop'"
 * ask others to post on your behalf

= Success stories =


 * UN MILLON DE VOCES CONTRA LAS FARC the initial hub for the 100-site, multi-million person worldwide rallies against FARC in February. Jennifer Woodard Maderazo's Facebook Becomes Catalyst for Causes, Colombian FARC Protest discusses the role of the group and the application in more detail.
 * Students revolutionize access to voting: voter registration from Facebook (for Washington and Arizona, the only two of the 50 US states that allow online registration)
 * Matt Adler's selection as delegate to the Democratic National Convention, with the aid of people in the Facebook group he set up
 * Official Facebook Petition: To ban the inviting of friends on Applications -- grew to over a million people, and led to a change in Facebook's policies for application developers
 * Petition: Facebook, stop invading my privacy! -- protest against Facebook's Beacon, led to an apology from Facebook and some policy changes
 * Free the Blackadder One! -- protest against Derek Blackadder's suspension from Facebook; led to his reinstatement. Bring Will Bower back to Facebook is a smaller more recent example.

= Articles and discussions =


 * Pros and cons of Facebook activism, a post by Ethan Zuckerman discussing the Burma Global Action Network's experiences there
 * Bandwagons and Buzzwords: Facebook and the Unions by Eric Lee
 * Will the 2008 USA election be won on Facebook? by Linnie Rawlinson
 * Obama defriends Wright on Facebook by Andy Borowitz
 * Learning what makes Facebook tick, by Maggie Shiels, discusses a Stanford class on the Psychology of Facebook

= Groups =


 * CFP: Technology Policy 08, the Facebook presence for this workshop
 * Teaching and learning on Facebook, run by Stanford professor BJ Fogg.

= Other resources =


 * Stanford class on Creating engaging Facebook apps