If you follow any of the other left-leaning or Internet-savvy news sites you know that Faith2Action, which bills themselves as "pro-life, pro-family" has just launched reaganbook.com as an alternative to Facebook for pro-family conservatives.
It's kinda not working out very well for them. The site's been besieged by trollers using anonymous handles posting all manner of anti-conservative, anti-family political opinions, jokes, and pornography. When I signed up, the first thing I was greeted with was a naked photo of an erect man posted by one "Barack Hussein Antichrist Obummer", and it's downhill from there.
I'm sure they'll blame everyone but themselves for this, but the cold fact is if you allow anonymity and don't have screeners at the ready to delete NSFW content, you're kinda getting what you've asked for. For all its faults, Facebook has good reasons to verify, and sites like Huffingtonpost.com that have switched over to using Facebook's comments features have good reasons for doing so. Like trolls.
As well, they haven't ramped up their bandwidth to handle all the trolling traffic they're getting.
We really should wish Faith2Action the best with their alternative to Facebook, because the Internet can use good alternatives to Facebook. If they're successful, maybe some progressives will launch their own alternative to FB as well.
As it currently stands, we can engage in a bit of schadenfreude. Create an account, log in, and enjoy the hilarity. Just don't do it with small children in the room.
Thu Jul 31, 2014 at 10:09 PM PT: Reaganbook.com has been taken down. Here's their message:
"Thank you to all those who participated in the pre-release of ReaganBook.com Your participation is helping us build a more secure site. Thank you! Please be patient while we make the necessary changes to keep the site free from obscenity, pornography, and those intent on the destruction of life, liberty, and the family. We will be opening the doors again soon with additional protections in place. As Reagan taught us, trust, but verify.
--Management"
Translation: We got trolled hard.
Trolling isn't Faith2Action's only problem with Reaganbook. The site looks and feels a LOT like Facebook, right down to the "Poke" feature. If they decide to bring the site back up, and if they don't address this possible plagiarism, they shouldn't be surprised to receive cease and desist missives from Mark Zuckerberg's legal team.