Anti-Facebook Petition Gains Momentum -- on Facebook!

Fellow reporter Zach Rodgers posted last week on the Facebook privacy petition from MoveOn.org.

In August I kept a close eye on the U.K. National Union of Students’ Facebook campaign against overdraft charges titled “Stop the Great HSBC Graduate Rip-off”. I was astonished by the rate at which new members were joining, but that proved nothing in comparison to the way users are signing up to the “Facebook: stop invading my privacy!” group.

When Zach blogged on the group on November 21st, it had approximately 6,200 members. When I took a look at the group on November 23rd the group had almost doubled in size to around 11,000 members. Three days later the group has amassed in excess of 23,000 members! Even since I began writing this post, over 100 new members have joined the group.

Online campaigns such as these clearly demonstrate the potential influence of networks such as Facebook in a wider social context. I bet Facebook weren’t counting on being on the receiving end of that influence though!