The dark side of Facebook

The social networking website has become popular with political activists - including the British National Party.

Over the last three months, it seems like the bulk of the British political and media establishment has moved on to the social networking site, Facebook. And I'm not just talking about politicians jumping on a new way to meet voters - journalists and commentators from Hugo Rifkind to Andrew Neil and Jonathan Dimbleby are Facebook members.

"Site" seems like an off-hand description. With more than 20 million registered users, "phenomenon" is perhaps more appropriate. Facebook is a small but active battlefield in May's elections, and perhaps more so for the Labour party leadership and deputy leadership elections. It provides the facility to organise your contacts and events and to network and discuss issues with people who share similar interests, whether they be serious or trivial.

Facebook is by no means the only online social networking facility, yet it has become "the one" for politics, far beyond any use of MySpace or LinkedIn. It's hard to pin down why Facebook has achieved this pre-eminence, though I'd put my money on the layout. The pages are laid out neatly and with a clean and neutral colour-scheme and there is limited scope for personal customisation. So while Facebook was originally designed for university students, it is entirely accessible to adults of all ages. And together with the ability to organise canvassing sessions, fundraising events, and policy debates, it's no surprise really that political activists would see the benefits.

Yet mainstream political parties are not the only campaigners to mobilise using this effective resource. The British National Party has recently developed a number of presences on the system. A search for BNP returns 98 groups, though a number of these are unrelated or anti-BNP. But still, those that are supportive of the BNP are disturbing to read.

Danny Lake and Mark Wain, the Young BNP National Organiser and National Secretary, have set up the most official-looking BNP group, which boasts 75 members and publicises a detailed BNP manifesto. Another group has 76 members and the Newcastle University BNP group, managed by John Lilburne and Preston Wiginton, has 49 members. There also are numerous smaller groups.

These may not seem like significant numbers, yet these are people who are willing to have their names and photographs - and often email addresses and mobile numbers - publicly associated with their endorsement. If this is not disturbing enough, Facebook has the facility to form "secret" groups that don't show up on listings, and there is no doubt that the BNP is capable of taking advantage of this.

Providers of internet services, whether they are email systems or social networking sites, try to varying degrees to maintain a hands-off approach to content, regarding themselves as the canvas rather than the painting, which is provided by the user. Facebook certainly has an acceptable use policy, though a little careful manoeuvring from the BNP would enable them to circumvent this without difficulty.

The question remains: should Facebook and other networking sites be responsible in any way for the activities and ideas promoted and facilitated by their services? If a hate crime is committed and is found to have been incited on Facebook, will the company be open to prosecution?

There is, however, some hope. The number of groups and individuals opposing the BNP and its ideology of hate massively outweighs those in favour. One comment amid the bile on a BNP Facebook page raises a smile instantly. In a reference to the founder and owner of the site, a young woman says: "Let me add this up. You guys hate Jews yet you're on a Jew's networking site? Irony!".

Would it be prejudiced of me to assert that no BNP supporter could ever have the mental capacity to come up with a concept or a system that will ever have the potential for political change enjoyed by Facebook? With a head full of poison and hate, what room is there for anything else?

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