[liberationtech] Avaaz, is this for real?

[Fran Parker]

Totally agree, Zack!

It's a tough world out there -- for Advocacy as it is for any other venture.

Keeping the keel and rudder pointed correctly so the advocacy ship 
doesn't run aground is not an easy gig. Especially in such a fickle 
world where you can't afford to have anyone misjudge your intentions and 
hurt the venture.

Fran

On 5/5/12 12:53 PM, Zack Brisson wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I just want to say thanks to everyone for this conversation. Whatever the
> facts of the situation are (and they seem spotty and hard to grab at the
> moment), I'm perceiving a credible, relatively civil, discussion about the
> form and function of modern social advocacy.
>
> Trumped up claims, dramatic language, small incidents blown into massive
> events, are all hallmarks of modern social campaigns. Often times, they're
> helpful, and aid in bringing attention to critical issues that aren't
> generally 'sexy' enough for the mainstream public. Yet such tactics can
> also raise critical concerns around credibility, honesty, and
> accountability.
>
> I don't pretend that this situation solves any of those issues, but your
> discussion has been illuminating, and helped illustrate the range of nuance
> and complexity that underlies advocacy 'marketing' in our modern
> information landscape.
>
> Thanks to Lib/Tech for casting light on the issues.
> Zack
>
> On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 6:52 PM, Dave Karpf<davekarpf at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
>> Agreed that that's what makes it importantly different. This wasn't the
>> Comm department responding to reporters, it was an active fundraising ask.
>>
>> I'm withholding judgment for the moment, but sincerely hope the Avaaz
>> folks will be more open with the tech experts on this list. At the moment,
>> this looks a LOT like a crass fundraising ploy. If so, I personally would
>> lose a lot of respect for the org.
>>
>> DK
>>
>> Sent from my iPad
>>
>> On May 4, 2012, at 6:36 PM, Okhin<okhin at okhin.fr>  wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, 4 May 2012 15:48:35 -0400
>>> Sahar Massachi<Sahar at brandeis.edu>  wrote:
>>>
>>>> I'm a bit concerned about all the muttering about Avaaz's
>> sensationalism.
>>>>
>>>> Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding something, but the following
>>>> scenario seems pretty plausible to me:
>>>>
>>>> The Avaaz site comes under some sort of attack. The tech team at Avaaz
>>>> gives a quick "idiots guide" to what's going on to their communications
>>>> team, and then goes back to trying to deal with the problem. The
>>>> communications team has a partially confused understanding of exactly
>>>> what's going on, but tries to deal with the situation as best they can.
>>>> When technically minded journalists want to talk to Avaaz, the
>>>> communications staff doesn't want to bother their still-hard-at-work
>> tech
>>>> team, so they give unsatisfying, vague, and unhelpful replies to these
>>>> journalists".
>>>>
>>>> Am I missing something?
>>>>
>>>
>>> Yeah, they started a funding campaign to fight the attack and, while
>>> the attack has stopped (according to their claim), it's still open and
>>> their goal is 35k$ (and they're at 33k$)for what?
>>> https://secure.avaaz.org/en/massive_attack_on_avaaz_a/?fp
>>>
>>> Next time I've got a spam bot raiding my corporate network, I'll ask
>> this amount of money to my boss. Just to see he's face.
>>>
>>> Okhin
>>>
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