Facebook Inc (FB): A Boycott to Celebrate Independence?

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) has been a powerful social network for several years, directing a lot of influence in the world – both in good ways, like promoting breast cancer awareness, blood drives in disaster areas and providing  avenues to search for missing persons – and the bad, such as bomb threats, sex offenders luring children and allowing for hateful or offensive speech (or even politically disagreeable?) to go viral.

Many of these things have caused Facebook to adjust and modify its user policies to establish guidelines for fee sharing of thoughts and ideas, but providing for some code of decency.

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)But when you are on Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) checking out what your friends have to say or even looking at some of your own posts, do you think Facebook censors content on its site? If so, do you see if the censorship may be politically motivated? Could a social networking site, which connects more than a billion people in the world, actually have an underlying political agenda that may not be in support of free and open idea-sharing?

That seems to be the claim of a number of conservative activists and bloggers, some of which have claimed to have had their profiles removed from Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) due to their political leanings and what they have posted along those lines. In response – to show some independence, or something – these bloggers and activists have been launching a (you guessed it) Facebook campaign asking users to join them with a “Freedom from Facebook Day” boycott on Independence Day – 24 hours without logging into Facebook.

Not to digress, but does not a boycott imply a lack of freedom, by taking away a choice to visit Facebook? And does it also imply a lack of freedom to say there is no other day that users can choose to boycott, we are going to to it on this day and you have choice if you want to participate? Just a thought …

Anyway, we’re not exactly sure if this boycott is meant as a feel-good event for these conservatives or as just a temper-tantrum because they feel unfairly picked on. But is there something more to this?

One conservative blogger noted that Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) CEO Mark Zuckerberg is one of the driving forces behind the lobbying group called FWD.us, which  apparently was created to promote President Obama’s agenda. And the blogger essentially identifies Facebook as a member of the media, and that if the media is being controlled by the government, then “(i)t is a Marxist mentality pushing towards totalitarianism.”

What do you think about a boycott, of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) or of any other entity? Do they generally work, and do you think they send the right message, or the intended message? Do you think this particular boycott will have any impact at all, either on the company or on investors like fund manager Steven Cohen (see his full 13F portfolio)? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

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