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Hint to the Republican National Committee: You Might Want to Hire Someone To Monitor Your Facebook Page

Oct 26, 2009
By Ken.
Politics & Current Events, WTF?

I’ve mentioned before that efforts to market the “Republican brand” online are generally going poorly — at least for Republicans. That’s not changing. The recent launch of the GOP web site was bungled in an easily-parodied way.

It only gets worse.

Apparently the RNC has a Facebook fan page. Now, there’s nothing wrong with having a Facebook fan page for your political organization — so long as it is maintained and monitored by somebody competent, so that nobody can use it to make you look like a jackass. Did the RNC hire someone attentive and competent? Apparently not, since this image was uploaded onto the fan page and left there for days:

rncobamafacebookphoto

From the tone and literacy of the poster, I’m 99% sure that it was uploaded by someone wanting the RNC to look bad, rather than by an actual RNC fan who is an actual racist. But such propaganda measures are not just possible in the modern environment — they are obvious, predictable, and inevitable. Any political organization that employs online media that permits user submission must use competent moderation, or this sort of thing is going to happen — as the Obama campaign found out.

So does this poster prove a point about racism in the GOP? No. But it does prove a point about institutional competence and seriousness.

Last 5 posts by Ken

8 Comments
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8 Comments

  1. S.A.  •  Oct 26, 2009 @3:42 pm

    While I agree that this kind of thing should be expected, and the RNC’s Facebook flunky should be more diligent about patrolling their profile, I don’t know how much this says about the GOP in general.

    The Obama campaign was celebrated in the media for their online team, but I am not seeing a whole lot of “institutional competence” or “seriousness” about the way they are now governing.

  2. ES  •  Oct 26, 2009 @3:45 pm

    it’s not like this is some fansite or some random conservative’s facebook page- it’s THE OFFICIAL PAGE. I mean, would you buy insurance from an auto insurance company who left something stupid on their site for several days without noticing?

  3. S.A.  •  Oct 26, 2009 @5:46 pm

    I wouldn’t purchase anything based on their Facebook profile. If I was looking to buy auto insurance, I would look at their own website, consider their rates, their history of performance, etc. Now you can say the GOP has failed in those areas, which is another discussion, but I do not think this reflects as much on the GOP in regards to competency or seriousness.

  4. Will  •  Oct 27, 2009 @1:30 pm

    “From the tone and literacy of the poster . . .”

    Man, that line had me giggling for a good minute or two. Literacy (or lack thereof) is now the litmus test for membership in the Republican base?

  5. Doug  •  Oct 28, 2009 @6:42 am

    sadly, as a county GOP member who regularly volunteers, I get phone calls from the state party asking me to join/volunteer my time. Get a clue. But I look at it as a tech incompetency issue, not a substantive issue.

  6. Patrick  •  Oct 28, 2009 @6:52 am

    Of course that’s what it is, Doug. But as someone who was once sympathetic to the Republican Party, I’d say it shows a lack of self-awareness on the darker, lunatic side of the netroots, just as the freaky Elders of Zion / diamond merchant / five percenter blog entry at “My Barack Obama” (linked above) shows something disturbing about Democratic netroots.

    Ideally, the parties would hire a person to manage this sort of thing who is a true believer, but also a person of technical competence, thoroughness, and possessing some level of judgment. If one allows users to put content on one’s site, it isn’t that hard to run a search periodically for images and words that are likely to connect to unsavory material. And it’s imperative to do so.

  7. Doug  •  Oct 28, 2009 @8:02 am

    Fortunately, the lunacy seldom goes on at the county level, where people don’t like Ron Paul (except he was right about the CPSIA, at least did not vote for it), believe that The One was born in the USA and really try to practice political conservatism. They spend their time recruiting people and getting ready for the next election. The look for candidate to support and try to encourage those in office to keep the faith. They are not afraid of calling out those RINO’s, yet are willing to tread lightly around those conservative democrats.

  8. Walker  •  Oct 28, 2009 @1:47 pm

    Oh Will – that wasn’t very nice.

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