The following represents my recollections of a month of Facebook conflict (and this weekend's hostilities) and my interpretation of what has occurred behind the scenes. I know more of the actions of the Live Feeders because I am one. I also know more of the Live Feeder's discussions than are mentioned below.
The area for fighting against Channel 5 appears to be Facebook at the moment.
Rightfully it should be on the desks of newspapers and magazines, and on the desks of the advertisers. I am sure that the written media (both paper based and on the Web - excluding the Northern & Shell titles of course) would be anxious to have a good story that showed Channel 5, Big Brother and/or Northern & Shell publications in a poor light.
The advertisers need to have a real understanding that their potential market place is far smaller than it would be if the programme we were watching was similar to the one which has traditionally been provided by Endemol and Channel 4 (especially if it was in the style provided before Channel 4 lost their nerve). The beginning of Channel 5's involvement with Facebook coincided with a cull of many accounts by Facebook. Some of them were previously involved in Big Brother on Facebook. For many accounts the choice presented by Facebook was simple: trust us with your photo ID or cell phone number or your account remains blocked. For many people this was something they never wished to do.
The Sides
On the one side you have Channel 5 and Facebook who have formed a group with linked interests, common purpose and financial agreements. On the other those people who think that Channel 4 did a better job of Big Brother than Channel 5 (the so-called Live Feeders). The place chosen for conflict is the Official Big Brother Wall on Facebook (OBB).
The Beginning
It started off fairly evenly balanced. There were far more Live Feeders than Admin on OBB. The only assistance that Channel 5 could count on was a group of posters on OBB, often similarly poor spellers and given to text speak, who could be guaranteed to applaud each item delivered by Channel 5 to the OBB. In response to the vigorous posting by Live Feeders Channel 5 started to delete anything which did not carry the message that Channel 5 wished to publish. This led to a major escalation in posting by Live Feeders. This in turn led to Channel 5 blocking people from posting on OBB. Many posters responded by rejoining Facebook to get back onto OBB and openly discussed when they should concentrate their efforts. Friday was chosen as a good day to focus their efforts.
The Middle
In response OBB raised their game and staffing levels.
They identified the group of people that are real thorns in their side and they seem to be trying to get that group isolated from anyone else who comes in to harangue them by asking for Live Feed. A classic divide and rule.
In response to the improved organisation of the Live Feeders Channel 5 seemed to adopt a new strategy on that Friday evening. They began reporting any new posters on OBB to Facebook as spammers. FB responded by putting those accounts through the Verify hurdle where you need to provide a phone number, or identify 5 of your friends from random photographs from their albums that they have been tagged in (not their profile pictures). I was shown pictures of a car bumper and a mobile phone in my set.
It is my belief that once they have just the 'thorns' isolated they will add them to a group and switch them off as a single entity if they wish knowing that nobody else will come into OBB to replace them. Anyone who arrives on OBB and then is put through and passes the Verify step will either be blocked or added to the 'thorns' group. Since Friday many Live Feeders have lost their accounts. As I write this on Monday OBB appear to have resorted to blocking again as I suspected they would, and are still selecting accounts to go through the Verify process to regain their profiles. They believe that they now know who the core members of the Live Feeders are. They also must know that arranged against them are a tenacious group of resourceful and articulate people. The writing abilities of some of the sycophantic OBB supporters group are not obvious and many of them seem to be angry and habitual flamers who readily abuse anyone who does not agree with whatever they are trying to say.
The battle continues. Channel 5 are not prepared to listen to reason and to engage in any dialogue. They are behaving like petulant children who insist that it is their game and their rules. Channel 5 are oppressing the free speech of the OBB posters and Facebook are acting as the removers of those who Channel 5 do not like. If it looks like censorship and acts like censorship it is censorship.
Channel 5 have also put in place (with Facebook's assistance) a non-UK IP block to prevent anyone from outside the area from having any sort of say in how the programme is presented to us. Americans, for example, are not only prevented from seeing any highlight shows, or web/YouTube based clips but they cannot even say anything about it on the OBB. Northern & Shell say on their website: "Northern & Shell was founded in December 1974 with the vision of becoming a significant force in British and worldwide media." and they are "determined to maintain all its products and activities as benchmarks of excellence to its readers, customers, advertisers and business partners." These seem laudable and lofty ideals which are not very obvious to me in the way Channel 5 is conducting its Big Brother business.
I had a glance at a thread on OBB early this morning before the Live Feeders had stirred themselves for another day of posting. I saw what happens when they are not there to post. It was not interesting, not thoughtful, not stimulating or witty. It was bland, insipid and banal. That is what OBB will be without the Live Feeders who represent the philosophical, educated and articulate wing of the Big Brother audience. If the Live Feeders leave Facebook the OBB page will be nothing. The audience for the show is evaporating week on week. Channel 5 have pinned their hopes on Social Media interactions as the stimulus for the show but it looks doomed to failure.
The End
One of my colleagues spent an interesting hour or two going back through past threads the other day. I say interesting only because all the older threads had been carefully examined and any post that was not to Channel 5's liking had been removed. History had been rewritten. No doubt future historians, combing through the Facebook archives will realise what a great success this series has been, universally acclaimed and enjoyed throughout the land. The more astute amongst them may ask why it was taken off the air if it was such a great success, but the past is written by the Victors. And nobody liked him very much at the time did they? Channel 5 are going out of their way to portray the Live Feeders as anti Big Brother but nothing could be further from the truth. They are just decent people who enjoyed the show in the past and would like to enjoy it again. They want it to be the show they loved before Channel 5 provided their scripted reality BB version of TOWIE.
As I said at the top, this is my view. If you have anything to add or subtract please leave a comment. I will read it and if I think that you are more correct than me unlike Channel 5 I will do something about it. Thank you for reading.
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