Greenpeace Vs. Facebook | Richard Telofski on "The War on Capitalism"

Hang In There, Facebook.

In its recent protest against Facebook, ironically using Facebook itself, Greenpeace hasn’t gotten quite the response it often gets from the corporate giants it targets in its protest campaigns. That response? Immediate capitulation.

Usually, in an anti-corporate campaign, Greenpeace is accustomed to receiving acquiescence from the hapless companies that go into that NGO’s sights. So far at least, that hasn’t been the case in the Greenpeace vs. Facebook campaign under way. Per my previous posts on this campaign, Greenpeace is upset about Facebook’s selected location for a new server facility. Greenpeace maintains that the location is not energy efficient. Facebook maintains that the location is efficient from the perspective of their overall corporate energy profile and has, essentially, rebuffed any further initiatives from Greenpeace.

In response, Greenpeace has now come out with an annoying two-minute animation about how Mark Zuckerberg (the Facebook founder) built Facebook and how the company is supposedly powered by coal-fueled power plants.

I’ve watched the video. It is especially ridiculous and way below the usual cleverness of Greenpeace. To me, this sort of tactic appears childish, weak, and desperate. One would think that if Greenpeace had such a strong case against Facebook that the strength of their argument would shine through. “Silly little” videos such as this one just make their whole case seem ridiculous.

Hang in there, Facebook. If you believe your energy plan is the most efficient available, stick to your position and don’t acquiesce, like so many other corporations, to the “semantical terrorism” employed by Greenpeace. Doing so may actually make your energy plan less efficient. And that wouldn’t be good for anyone, except perhaps for Greenpeace.

Greenpeace and Its Own Self-Embarrassment

Right out of one of the most popular activist playbooks there is came Greenpeace’s latest play against Facebook in their seven-month campaign against the social networking giant. What is that play? Embarrassment. What’s the playbook? The playbook is Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky, who is considered one of the fathers of modern activism. Before I discuss this play, and how I think it’s been misapplied, let’s first have a little background on this campaign.

I first wrote about this Greenpeace vs. Facebook campaign in last month’s post, “Greenpeace Hypocrisy Continues.” The issue in that campaign is, briefly, that Greenpeace is upset because Facebook chose to locate a new server facility in Prineville, OR which is in an area that Greenpeace claims is served by an electric utility powered primarily by coal. Yet, Facebook contends that its selection of Prineville, due to a unique location in the high desert, will actually reduce Facebook’s overall electricity, and therefore coal, consumption below industry averages. (Facebook claims that due to natural cooling processes, Facebook may vent the server facility to the sky at night, exploiting the cool and dry high desert location to cool its servers.) From a CNET article titled “Facebook Reacts to Greenpeace Anticoal Campaign,” comes Facebook’s response to the Greenpeace accusations:

. . . Facebook’s director of policy communications, Barry Schnitt, responded, saying that Facebook’s planned Oregon facility was chosen with energy efficiency in mind. Also, he noted that Facebook, like any other company, doesn’t have control over the fuel source for its electricity.

It’s true that the local utility gets 58 percent of its power from coal, compared to a national average of about 50 percent, Schnitt said. But the location was chosen because of its temperate climate, which allows Facebook to use more efficient evaporative coolers rather than the traditional power-hungry mechanical chillers.

Also, by consolidating into a single location, rather than leasing space at various locations, Facebook can design for efficiency. He said that the Oregon facility will have a Power Usage Effectiveness rating of 1.15, far below the industry averages for efficiency. Google, considered an industry leader, was about 1.17 in the past quarter.

This is the cruxt of their argument, which I would bet will go on for quite a while. And because it will go on, it’s important for people to know what is going on in that argument. This bring me back to the embarrassment play, and the misapplication thereof.

In Rules for Radicals, Alinsky recommended that anti-corporate campaigns be directed at embarrassing a targeted company. His reasoning was sound from the perspective of human nature. He recommended to embarrass a targeted company because, he said, it is impossible for any company to adhere 100% of the time to 100% of its own rules about corporate social responsibility. No matter how hard a company, or an individual for that matter, tries to be “good,” it’s just not going to happen. Humans make mistakes and corporations are run by humans. There will be mistakes

Continue reading Greenpeace and Its Own Self-Embarrassment

Greenpeace Hypocrisy Continues

Recently Greenpeace announced it’s corporate campaign against Facebook. The reason for the protest? Back in February of this year, Facebook announced that it will build a new server facility in Oregon, which will be powered by an electric utility that burns coal for power generation. This presents an interesting conundrum for Greenpeace, one that I haven’t seen raised elsewhere. How?

Well, Greenpeace has no compunction about using Facebook, when it suits them, as a social media battle space in their anti-corporate campaigns. A free social media battle space, mind you. For example, they used Facebook in this fashion extensively and especially well in The Kit Kat Incident (a protest action and boycott against Nestlé) about which I wrote on this blog. And, in a recent Forbes interview with Greenpeace online specialist Laura Kenyon, Jeremiah Owyang wrote that Greenpeace claims over 1 million Facebook supporters which Laura indicated that Greenpeace would call upon in future campaigns.

So, if Facebook doesn’t accede to Greenpeace’s energy usage demands, and bow to the Greenpeace corporate campaign launched against Facebook – ironically enough on Facebook itself, will Greenpeace call upon its Facebook supporters to boycott Facebook in the same way Greenpeace called upon Nestlé customers to boycott the Kit Kat bar?

Will 1 million Greenpeace supporters suddenly disappear from Facebook, leaving Greenpeace scurrying to find a new, and free, social media battle space for future anti-corporate campaigns?

As the Brits say . . . not bloody likely.

Hypocrisy lives.

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