"The Great Canadian Wish List"

[krisf...@gmail.com]

Mike Wise's final Newsworld piece:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhZJgZfsGW8

All the CBC television news coverage of the 'Wish' is posted here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/mwcbc

[krisf...@gmail.com]

Newsy coverage of the Wish
=====================

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070601.wweb01/BNStory/Technology/home

http://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2007/06/21/CBC

http://www.rabble.ca/rabble_interview.shtml?x=60389

Anyone who ended up on the Facebook site had to weigh in on abortion
since the topic was always active either as the most recent post on
the group page, or as the top Wish on the Wish browse.
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/3973
http://www.blogscanada.ca/egroup/CommentView.aspx?guid=5ff09611-28a8-49bc-8ec0-064e5099eb92

[krisf...@gmail.com]

SO-CON OR BUST
==============

Here is an assortment of So-Con Blogs for your reading pleasure:

http://socon-or-bust.blogspot.com/2007/07/abortion-is-dying-in-canada...
http://forlifeandfamily.blogspot.com/search/label/Right%20to%20life
http://bluewavecanada.blogspot.com/search/label/abortionists

These people all participated in the The Great Canadian Wish List.

[krisf...@gmail.com]

A few new Facebook groups were created during the month long Wish:

"I am Canadian and I am Pro-Choice"
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2421536323
Judy MacDonald (former editor of rabble.ca ) is administering this
group which currently has a membership of over 5,000 Facebook members.

"Pro-Life Canada"
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2325301018
This one only has around 150 members.

"Pro Choice Tag Team Canada"
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2799530019
Created by Alexandra Mendelis (UofT Students for Choice)

"I survived the Great Canadian Wish List"
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2489535754

[krisf...@gmail.com]

Maribeth Deen, the journalist responsible for a Wish blog on www.cbc.ca/wish,
commissioned two editorials to stimulate debate:

Canadian Physicians for Life
http://www.cbc.ca/wish/2007/06/editorial_1.html

Joyce Arthur of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada
http://www.cbc.ca/wish/2007/06/editorial_2.html

[Karen]

Now Magazine article by Jenny Yuen

CBC falls flat on its Facebook
http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2007-07-05/news_cityinbrief.php

Facebook may be the in place to blog nowadays, unless, maybe, you're
pro-abortion.

About a month ago, the CBC encouraged Canadians to participate in the
Great Canadian Wish List , an unmoderated public forum on Facebook on
how to improve the country.

Anti-abortionists overwhelmed the site with calls to revoke abortion
rights. But when pro-choice bloggers blogged back, some found their
access to the site denied.

Chris Kelly, chief privacy officer of Facebook, Inc. , says some pro-
choicers were denied access because they were spamming the site,
violating its user terms and conditions.

"We have a variety of rules around how often you can message and how
many posts you can make," he says.

Judy MacDonald , one pro-choice voice, says she only posted "a few
times" before receiving a warning message from Facebook site
administrators to stop or lose her account.

"The CBC had to trust Facebook's standards for use, which turned out
to be punishingly restrictive," she says. (see transcript of audio
clip for Judy below)

CBC spokesperson Jeff Keay says the network knew that the contest "had
the potential to head off in all directions" but defends it as a
"cutting-edge experiment" in social networking. (see transcript of
audio clip for Jeff below)

A wish to return to the traditional definition or marriage finished
fourth on the list. The CBC aired a few short clips about the top
wishes on Canada Day.

Says Joyce Arthur, spokesperson for the national Pro-Choice Action
Network , "It's an experiment that went badly. A slugfest between pro-
choice and anti-abortion groups is not something that Canadians want
to see on Canada Day."

NOW | JULY 5 - 11, 2007 | VOL. 26 NO. 44

Judy MacDonald - transcript of audio clip
i think unmoderated discussion is a misnomer. [ok] ih, to begin with.
um and for them to have presented uh the platform of facebook as you
know they did not moderate but facebook clearly has mechanisms.
they're automated i think. but you know people were also complaining.
and i found that kind of interesting. that the whole complaints
process. so , for example, you had Nnnightly Raids of Anti-Choice Men
coming into the Pro-choice wishlist and posting very graphic ah anti-
choice propoganda aaand complaints were made over Many days and and
every night they were back and sometimes several times a day they were
back posting up to 15 very graphic images. Images weren't pulled,
they didn't seem to get any warnings, their accounts certainly weren't
frozen cause they kept coming back. so you know I found it very
interesting. so that was clearly not moderated at any level. but you
you you quote a UN source and spammers come down [laughter].
[laughter] i didn't know that the UN was so out A there.

Jeff Keay -transcript of audio clip
i think if you look through there you'll probably see that it it kind
of works out about 50/50 right? i mean for every post that's saying
yeah Abolish Abortion there's another post that says yeah Keep it
legal so ah it yeah. it was a bit of an experiment. um and it it
kindof devolved into you know discussions about the same old, same
old. right so. [ok] you know your anti-abortion types vs your pro-
choice types. you know your anti-CBC types. um i think another one was
ahh what? some sort of return to spirituality or something? [right,
yep] and then another one was Keep canada athiest? [right] so i mean
there was a little bit of everything. i think one of the, a columnist
early on in this project had a great line. you know, an experiment
like this runs the risk of (in his words) getting the internet all
over yourself. [hah] so I think that's probably fair to say that's
kindof what happened. but you know i mean thats kindof you know we we
knew that we wanted to approach it as very much an experiment in
social networking. i think you know thats thats kindof the way it
turned out