Stop Promoting Facebook on BRP Central

[Ian Absentia]

I didn't want to clutter up an on-going thread in the Glorantha forum with an administrative and, frankly, political concern, so I'm continuing this discussion here in the inconvenient backwaters of BRP Central at the bottom of the page. 

51 minutes ago, David Scott said:

Take it up with @Jeff he posts there, his choice along with the 3100 members of the FB RQ group. 

I can hear my mother's voice now: "So, as long as 3,101 of your friends are jumping off a bridge...?"  And as she'd go on to chide me, that's rather beside the point.

53 minutes ago, David Scott said:

I see no reason not to post links to things people might be interested in that don't appear here.

Because access to the FB group requires membership, and therefore linking to it constitutes advertisement for FB.  Because, as I pointed out earlier, FB's membership agreement allows them to mine one's browser histories and contact lists.  Because, as I've addressed the issue directly to Chaosium, through FB's inaction to adequately moderate the content generated by its broader membership, they tacitly promote and profit thereby from bigotry, racial injustice, hatred, and disinformation.  Because, by utilising FB for social media accounts and advertising, Chaosium is contributing to that promotion and profit.

It's up to the individual if they want to follow the link?  Really?  Can we have an official statement to that effect?

As I've addressed to Chaosium privately, other social media platforms are similarly problematic, and relationships with them should be similarly scrutinised.  But FB currently stands out as a particularly egregious actor.  By posting links to FB, BRP Central and Chaosium are directing traffic to their site, which not only condones FB's behavior, but actively promotes it.

 

!i!

[g33k]

3 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

I didn't want to clutter up an on-going thread in the Glorantha forum with an administrative and, frankly, political concern, so I'm continuing this discussion here in the inconvenient backwaters of BRP Central at the bottom of the page. 

...  By posting links to FB, BRP Central and Chaosium are directing traffic to their site, which not only condones FB's behavior, but actively promotes it.

 

!i!

While I don't disagree with you that FB is problematic -- in fact, more than problematic; and companies & users using it are at least somewhat complicit -- I don't see small-scale individual actions like these as effective tools of change on a behemoth of FB's size.

Even if Chaosium has a FB-Group north of 3K.

Not even TSR would make a blip for them; not even if the entire RPG industry & fandom abandoned them en masse.

I expect it will take federal regulation -- or serious threat thereof -- to see meaningful change.

In the meantime... FB users are there.  And a bunch of Chaosium customers are FB users, who don't see any good reason for Chaosium NOT to pursue "normal" social-media engagement practices.

[Zac]

11 minutes ago, g33k said:

In the meantime... FB users are there.  And a bunch of Chaosium customers are FB users, who don't see any good reason for Chaosium NOT to pursue "normal" social-media engagement practices.

You can still engage with people on Facebook without being active on the site. Chaosium has a blog, several different sites as well as this forum. Post links to articles etc on your Facebook group and then engage with users in other spaces like this. To be honest, Facebook is a shitty place to have any sort of discussion at all in any case. The commenting tools are abysmal and not even to the same level as a forum from the 90s.

The other side to your point is that there are many people not on Facebook (myself for one) and if you don't engage with users outside FB then you are cutting them off.

Facebook would like people to think that they need to post content and deal with people on their site but it is just as effective if you use it to post content links and redirect people to other places.

11 minutes ago, g33k said:

While I don't disagree with you that FB is problematic -- in fact, more than problematic; and companies & users using it are at least somewhat complicit -- I don't see small-scale individual actions like these as effective tools of change on a behemoth of FB's size.

That isn't a reason not to do anything though. 

And while I don't necessarily agree with the tone of @Ian Absentia's post I do agree that if you are on the site and you use it that you are making a tacit admission that you are okay with their practices. 

And if Facebook won't notice that a small company like Chaosium is gone then it will also not listen to them if they want changes as well. 

[GAZZA]

I would have thought from a purely practical perspective it would be in Chaosium's best interests to direct followers here rather than Facebook - and that's without even needing to consider more moral positions on the topic. (I'm amongst those who do not have and will not have Facebook accounts).

[MOB]

For everyone's information, on Facebook Chaosium Inc has over 36K followers (up from about 1,200 in 2015), plus there are many thousands of followers in various groups associated with our products, e.g. Call of Cthulhu RPG & Players, RuneQuest, etc. Chaosium is a business and we need customers to stay in business. Facebook is one of the most effective platforms we use to reach and connect with our fans around the world. We have no intention of changing that.

If you personally don't want to use Facebook, there are plenty of other ways to engage with Chaosium-related content, including here on BRP Central. And:

Our website news blog: https://www.chaosium.com/blog
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Chaosium_Inc
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com.au/chaosium
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chaosium
Tapatalk: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/chaosium
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ChaosiumInc
Twitch TV: https://www.twitch.tv/chaosiuminc

 

Edited July 21, 2020 by MOB