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Jon Silk on ‘Greenpeace unfriends Facebook over dirty data’

Posted by Jon Silk
on 5th March 2010

Greenpeace’s latest campaign is a Facebook group that (ironically) calls for Facebook to switch to renewable energy, following news of a ‘dirty’ new datacentre.

The environmental activist group – known for aggressively targeting Japanese whalers and government figures – seems to be using Facebook as a catch-all IT supplier. In it’s own words: “How the internet is powered is an issue not just for Facebook but for the entire IT industry”.

True enough. But is this campaign fair? Nowhere on the flyer or group could I find details of Facebook’s carbon emissions, footprint, or strategy. The group itself purely calls for people to join (and 60k have) but doesn’t provide any more information or insight into how else to help. It certainly doesn’t feature a reply from Facebook.

The first question that came to mind when I saw the campaign was: “How bad is Facebook in the grand scheme of things?” I’m sure there are worse offenders in the IT space. And many of them don’t allow groups of people to meet and discuss climate change.

Has Greenpeace just attacked its biggest source of support?

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Jon Silk

Well the group has just gone through 100,000 members, so the message is getting out there. And it agree it is a valuable one.

I still think Greenpeace should serve up more information on Facebook's actual impact, however. Just targeting a big social network *because* it's a big social network doesn't forward the debate.

This article goes a little further (http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/facebook-upd...) by providing some explanation of the story.

barneyc

"Has Greenpeace just attacked its biggest source of support?" Yes, no, maybe, no. Probably.

I'm starting to think it's a very savvy move. Yes FB prob offers up a massive base for attention, but will they feel alienated from Greenpeace's campaign or motivated into pressuring their SNS of choice into making a change?