Opengender

Someone just asked me why I belong to a load of Facebook groups and what social activists can use them for. Good question — which I'm going to try to answer.

Why do I belong to the groups I belong to?

The Facebook groups I belong to fall into 4 main food groups:

• The London/UK incestuous social-networking/hacker thing where I already know people IRL ('in real life') because I've been involved with IRL groups with them, or met them at conferences and liked them/might need them for something in the future, or know people they know, or someone invited me who knows me from somewhere else and likes me/might need me for something in the future, or some scenario like that
• Queer/cyber/theory groups where I also know people IRL or friends of friends of connections of people from my academic days. Groups 1 & 2 cross over here and there
• Fatuous groups reflecting the twisted nature of Anglo-Saxon humour and my reprehensible participation in it
• Groups that really have nothing to do with me but workmates/relatives/friends-of-connections-6x-removed etc sent me an invite and it seemed churlish to turn it down

The first 2 types are very useful for many reasons including:

• people publish invites to events you might otherwise not know about
• people advertise jobs etc
• people discuss issues which might be of interest to me
• I can get an idea of who's where doing what and how they're connected
• I can maintain contact with people I met somewhere and liked but didn't have any acceptable reason to invite for a coffee or something — and maybe get invited to stuff where I might meet them again
• I can get a general feel for 'what's going on'in the sectors I'm involved in
• I can keep tabs on people I might need for something and people who might need me for something know where to find me
• I can cruise members of the group I don't know already and see who they know and what they're doing

The third food-group is pretty self-explanatory. These groups exist so that Brits, Yanks and Ozzies can swap the kind of inane banter which passes for a bond of humour among us.

The final food-group frequently crosses over with the third — except that the banter may be off-kilter with my own personal quirks. Or the group might represent some political goal that I don't really much sympathise with but won't do anyone any harm . . .

What could social activists use Facebook groups for?

Pretty much the gamut of activities described above plus stuff other people are into but I don't really do like dating etc.

Groups with social-change goals could usefully do this sort of thing:

• Announce events (Facebook can distribute these to the group with an electronic RSVP and you can set it 'open' (anyone can invite themselves) or 'closed' (group members only) so for something like ETC's online training it'd be easy to pass this along to other contacts on Facebook who might not already know about ETC or GenderChangers
• Threaded discussions — though security/privacy is an issue here
• Spreading knowledge of your group more widely
• Connecting your group to other groups doing similar or related work
• Connecting group members to each other's contacts and thus disseminating awareness of your group globally whilst expanding everyone's personal networks

You really do need to be aware that Facebook is essentially a corporate marketing tool, you don't control what they do with the data, and sensitive information should not be put on it. It's still a great networking tool though.

Better still, check out Crabgrass — it's still in beta so don't expect too much but it will provide a much more appropriate networking and collaborative facility especially designed for activists, secure and community-hosted. The more people sign up, the more useful it becomes.