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
I saw this brief news article the other day: “Greenpeace Closes Down BP Petrol Stations in Central London Energy Protest.” Posted on Bloomberg News, this article described how Greenpeace closed between 35 and 46 London BP stations, depending upon which source you believe – Greenpeace or BP, during the morning rush hour on Tuesday, July 27, 2010.
Not only is this action just plain dangerous, but in terms of a Greenpeace strategy for winning the hearts and minds of the population, it’s just short-sighted and downright foolish. What I’m thinking about here is probably several hundred harried commuters who were unjustly inconvenienced by Greenpeace’s antics. Several hundred people who probably won’t come away with a good brand image of Greenpeace.
Now, I wonder how many of those extra-harried commuters were Greenpeace donors?
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.
Last Thursday I wrote about the case of Tata Industries suing Greenpeace for defamation. As I said toward the end of that article, it will be interesting to see how this case, brought by the Tatas, plays out because it is being adjudicated in a developing country. In this respect, this case differs from previous cases of its type, the 1990s Mc Libel trial in Britain, in particular. Since writing that post, I’ve had further thoughts about how this suit may differ from others of its genre. Foremost among these thoughts is that the key difference between this suit and other corporation vs. activist suits is that with this suit the claims of the defendant (Greenpeace) are limited and specific whereas in other cases the defendants’ claims were more general and widely arrayed. And that difference may spell defeat for Greenpeace. Let me explain.
As you know from reading my previous article, “Tatas Push Back,” the Tatas have filed a suit against Greenpeace in Delhi High Court. Per DNA India, the suit was filed in response to an online video game promoted by Greenpeace. The online video game is called “Turtle vs. Tata” and was designed as part of the NGO’s protest against Tata’s participation in the construction of a deep water port in India; a port which is reported to be located about 15 kilometers from the nesting area of an endangered sea turtle species. Thus comes the involvement from Greenpeace. The suit claims that the video game infringes on the company’s trademark. The suit also claims that the game maligns the reputation of the company through its alleged representation of the Tata company chairman as a villain. And the suit states that, regarding the sea turtle and the construction in the vicinity of the turtles’ nesting area, the company has obtained the proper construction clearances from the government. This case is very focused, unlike the Mc Libel trial which many corporations may be keeping in mind as they contemplate suits against activists.
Two weeks ago Greenpeace launched their “Caught Red-Handed” campaign with a report of the same name. The issuance of the report was supported by a simultaneous social media campaign against Nestlé. These events were well-documented in the blogosphere and in the mainstream media. I summarized the situation in my blog post titled “The Kit Kat Incident and an Abuse of Power,” and you may go to that article for a synopsis if you are unfamiliar with this incident.
The subject of today’s post is the report itself, “Caught Red-Handed,” or rather the research integrity thereof. If you go to the report, which you may do by clicking here, and turn to page 13 (page 8 on the PDF version) you will see Greenpeace’s “Sources of Evidence” page. Or, as it would be more commonly called, the Bibliography. On this page of listed sources, Greenpeace shows a total of 73 sources. If you read through those sources, you will find that fully 22 of those sources are from Greenpeace documents or files. This means that 30% of the total sources used in this report were internal, and not of a diversified and external nature.
When I attended graduate school, I was instructed that, in performing research, a researcher should not use their own work as references in a research paper. And if doing so was absolutely, positively necessary, then reference to that researcher’s own work should be employed very, very sparingly. The reason against a researcher not using their own research in subsequent papers is obvious. The more diversified research sourcing is, the stronger is the research argument. “In-bred” references only weaken a case.
Is 30% a “sparing” employment of internal sourcing? Does 30% internal sourcing in “Caught Red-Handed” weaken the study’s argument? I suppose that depends on your point of view. My view is that 30% internal sourcing is highly excessive, and seeing that high of a percentage in this Greenpeace report makes me call into question the integrity of their research and, consequently, the validity of the Greenpeace argument presented in “Caught Red-Handed.”
Is this a case of being “caught red-handed” in an issue of reliable and fair research?
You know my opinion; you’re certainly entitled to yours.
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About  Here at " Richard Telofski on The War on Capitalism," I discuss and analyze the individuals and groups conducting campaigns against capitalism. In the articles on this site, I provide analysis on lesser known facts about this movement. More . . .
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