Glitch-Plagued Clinton Facebook Group Cries Foul; Obama Page Glitch Free

Below an open letter from Candy Elizabeth, administrator for FaceBook's "Hillary Clinton for President - One Million Strong," to "Dori," a FaceBook administrator:

Dear Dori,

I am deeply disappointed that Facebook has made no progess and has not even provided a timeline for action regarding the glitch in the "Hillary Clinton For President - One Million Strong" Facebook Group. You have been aware of this problem since February and have done nothing.

As you recall, Mitchell Meyle explained to you that the search feature was not working for our group leaving us unable to add moderators, to ban members, or remove bans on members. Your explanation, so far, has been that there is a glitch 'due to the size of the group."

You will also recall that we explained to you that we contacted Ken Stokes, administrator from the "One Million Strong for Barack Obama" Facebook Group. Mr. Stokes has informed us that he is not experiencing this "glitch." For reference, the Barack Obama group has twenty times as many members as ours.

In the time since we first informed you of this problem, Facebook programmers have added the Facebook Chat feature, the Online Friends Feature, and a lovely feature that provides Facebook Users with advertisements for pornography websites and dating services. We are dumbfounded that you cannot find the time to solve what seems to us to be a minor problem. We are dumbfounded still that you cannot even provide us with a timeline despite numerous requests.

The group's primary purpose is to encourage political activism and the exchange of political ideas. Since Facebook admins have taken no action on the numerous reports of abuses of Facebooks' terms of use made by unwanted members in our group; we must be able to put more moderators in place in order to maintain the group's integrity and civility. Spam and offensive messages on our boards and discussion threads run rampant. The Obama group is able to swiftly and efficiently remove them since they have numerous moderators and are able to ban members. We expect equal treatment.

Since we believe that an unacceptable amount of time has passed since we first brought this issue to your attention, we have now CC'd numerous members of the national press as well as both presidential campaigns.

Very Unhappily,

Candy Elizabeth

Comments

[bentenrai]

12:48 PM on 05/15/2008

As a tech, I know for one that most glitches, when they are not repeatable in similar cases, are the result of I/O (Idiot Operator) error, rather than malicious manipulation on the Administrative party. Creating that kind of glitch just for the heck of pissing off Clinton supporters would be a pain in the butt for any administrator.

[WillJRA]

01:18 AM on 05/14/2008

Unless Facebook is the world's most poorly written webapp, all of the groups would run on the same codebase. So the idea that there is a bug that only affects groups of a certain size, not too big or too small, and it cannot be fixed after all this time is absurd. Facebook should be more subtle in their preferred services they donate to the Obama campaign.

[Missmn]

04:56 PM on 05/12/2008

"For reference, the Barack Obama group has twenty times as many members as ours. "

Ain't that about as telling as it gets.

[TahoeEditor]

07:39 PM on 05/13/2008

16.6 million votes to 16.5 million votes is a little more telling. Let's keep counting.

[S1m0n]

03:19 PM on 05/12/2008

Don't worry. The group will shrink back to nothing in no time.

[newsjunkie8]

09:23 PM on 05/12/2008

There is probably a problem with the group/site facbook is facing a lot of problems due to its applications and the ability of people to perform a lot of malicious operations through them. I happen to be a good friend of Candy, though a loyal Obama supporter.

-Even our group runs better Candy!