These are the kind of questions I had when I read that:
How did Wonkette know what Palin’s own personal Gmail address was?
What’s to stop me (or anyone) from registering GovSPalin@gmail.com, as long as it’s not taken, and then setting up a Facebook page using that address?
Right. And a more reasonable response than mocking people and sneering at them (“Palin sucks!”) would have been to ask “Could someone explain how Facebook works? I would have assumed that…” Choosing the former course of action here, I’m afraid, goes down under “Bricker= nasty ideologue” rather than “Bricker=open to learning.” Which just means that your future spirited defenses of Palin, Rumsfeld, Clarence Thomas, You-Pick-Em (and man can you pick 'em!) will be read less attentively by yours truly, that’s all. I enjoyed your posts more before I understood how reflexive and deep-seated your biases were, but maybe that just means that I’ve learned something useful about you over the years.
That attitude got us Reagan and W. Romney is the most qualified and if we have a serious chance of having a Republican elected President, and we do, then it should be one chosen from among well qualified candidates.
True.
But this was a case of, “I didn’t know what I didn’t know.” That is, I didn’t doubt my assumption about ‘friending,’ so I had no particular reason to approach that issue tentatively.
And other issues regarding Palin on this board have turned out diffferently. Palin was mocked here for asserting that the VP is in charge of the Senate, despite that being a perfectly legitimate answer to an elementary schooler’s question.
Finally, I have repeatedly and vociferously criticized Palin myself here for her general lack of knowledge and simple appraich to issues. It’s hard to imagine how that translates in your mind to reflexive defense.
There is a general attitude here that once you’re on the liberal shit list, any and all criticism should be accepted, and not questioned; questioning any attack leveled against the hated target means you are defending the target and all s/he stands for. Palin’s been the target of this kind of …approach.. here more than once.
I’ve defended liberals as well here. Admittedly, the need for that is much rarer, but in eleven years it’s happened a fair bit.
I have no opinion on this Palin thing, but to expand a bit on what others have said, there are 3 types of Facebook sites:
Facebook Groups - Anyone can start a Group about any subject, and a Group can have an unlimited number of members. A Group’s creator or administrator doesn’t have to approve the members.
Facebook Pages - Anyone can make a Page about any subject and anyone can “Like” the Page, thereby becoming something like a member. An unlimited number of people can “Like” the Page and the Page’s creator doesn’t have to approve Likes.
Private (Personal) Facebook pages - These are Private because to be a “friend” you have to send a “Friend Request” and the owner of the page has to specifically Approve the request. Anyone can send a request, a million peole could sent requests, but if you’re not approved, you don’t get into the inner circle. Someone could have 100 Friends, with 2000 Requests sitting in their Notifications folder. Those 2000 could sit there for years, waiting in vain to be approved.
Some people, famous or not, approve any and everyone who sends a request. Others only approve if they know the person requesting personally. Some have rules in place. For instance, I’ll approve people I don’t know but only if they send a message along with the Request telling me why they’re sending the Request. Something I don’t think anyone has mentioned yet is that there’s a cap of 5000 Friends on Private pages. Roger Ebart ran into that because he approved everybody who sent a request and couldn’t add any more when he got to 5000. So he started a Page for himself where anyone can “Like” and read.
Are you sure you don’t have OCD? You’re getting fucking annoying with this bullshit. Not everything everyone says on this board has to be 100% correct.
Everyone with half a brain knows that, if someone makes a claim, and you care about whether its true, you read the fucking citation. While a clarification is a nice courtesy, it’s not a necessity.
Stop being such an asshole. It’s quite clear that the only reason you posted was to take potshots, or you would have done your due diligence on making sure your facts were correct. I’ve seen the way you post when you aren’t sniping at people.
As for the actual topic? The only thing that makes it a sock puppet is that she used it to agree with herself. There’s nothing wrong with having two accounts on Facebook, one public and one private. But there is something wrong with making it appear you have support when you don’t.
People often forget the original meaning of sock puppet now that all second accounts are colloquially referred to as socks. An account that does not interact with another account is not technically a sock puppet. The whole point of the term is that it makes it appear like you have another actual person on your side.
That’s why the term “meat puppet” makes sense. It means someone who signed up an account just to agree with a friend. It’s a sock puppet that happens to actually be a real person.
And Bricker fails again. :rolleyes:
In the grand scheme of things it’s no bigger a deal that someone has a Facebook sock than it would be to have a sock here - it’s a small deception designed to make it appear as though you have more support than you actually do.
But (assuming it’s true) for someone who recently hoped to have a major role in international politics to do so is incredibly sophomoric and petty, and worthy of light mockery.
Since we’re talking about how stupid Palin is (again), here’s something I read yesterday.
She’s an idiot not just because of the views she holds, but because she still hasn’t figured out how being a successful public figure works.
I take exception to the notion that Palin gave a correct answer to that third grader. Here’s what she said:
No, that isn’t true. They can’t “really get in there with the senators” and they can’t “make a lot of good policy changes”. They preside in ceremonial sessions and they on rare occasions cast a tie breaking vote. Other than that, they do as much or as little within the executive branch as the president deems appropriate.
She is the Tila Tequila of politics. She has a certain prurient appeal, but mostly everybody is just waiting for the trainwrecks, which she reliably delivers on a regular basis.
With the comments from Palin and Bachmann in that article, it would appear that the right is trying to establish themselves in opposition to breastfeeding. They certainly appear callous to it, and that seems at odds with the typical position they try to take on motherly and family issues (whether they actually support mothers and families is an issue for another debate). From an optics perspective, it’s just weird, and in my opinion, poor political posturing.
Optics? There’s Optics in this?
Optics and Breastfeeding – two things that go great together.
Now I have some insight as to why that word in particular popped into my head as I was writing that post. Thanks!
If you’re still curious about this, let me answer (again).
Nothing is stopping you from registering that e-mail address and starting up a facebook page with it. But you will not manage to “friend” Sarah Palin’s father, political appointees, cousin, church members and other assorted second-tier relations, because they will need to “friend” you back.
Can someone explain the sock-puppet issue to someone who is also not a Facebook expert?
Where do the Palin-supporting comments show up? On the “official” Sarah Palin page or on the secondary “Lou Sarah” page?
It is very weird, but I think she’s doing it because breast-feeding is a class marker: higher-income women and those with higher levels of education are significantly more likely to breast-feed. And Palin seems to have decided that pitting her base against upper-middle-class professionals is a winning strategy. (She may not be far wrong, actually, even though attacking breastfeeding and healthy snack food looks fairly stupid on the surface. The upper-middle-class professionals weren’t voting for her anyway, and I’d imagine many of the people who find her message appealing are understandably sick of being lectured about their eating habits by people who have higher incomes, greater access to organic produce, and jobs that offer greater flexibility for breast-feeding mothers.)
First off, it looks like the page was deleted today.
But the comments appeared on the official Sarah Palin fan page. Fan page, not personal page - as explained several times, celebrities/public figures have a “fan page” that are allowed bazillions of fans who “like” them (personal pages are limited to 5,000 friends (not fans)). The secondary sockpuppet account is (was) a personal page that was friends with Palin family members, church members, and political appointees - 12 in total.