We’ve recently gotten some feedback about the AHCA Facebook group, asking why we don’t allow followers of the group to share our posts.
We have disabled the sharing of posts, for three important reasons:
- It’s very easy for gossip and misinformation to spread that way. We’d prefer that folks make the comments where we can see and quickly address them, in order to avoid spreading false information, confusion and mistrust.
- With our limited resources, it’s quite easy for a post about, for example, an Easter Egg hunt to go viral and quickly overwhelm us with families from nearby neighborhoods as well as our own, forcing us to end the fun early because we’re all out of eggs. Talk about a bummer. 🙁
- Finally, sharing posts and “digitizing everything” discourages neighbors from speaking to each other in person, which is one of the main goals of organizing residents in the first place. It’s a fine line on social media between communicating effectively and accidentally replacing real human interaction among beat cops, political reps and others who need to see a big, angry group every so often to remind them who they really work for.
Remember, the biggest benefit of being a member of the AHCA is the power of our collective voices. When we go to bat for something, we knock it out of the park – because we organize, communicate and show up.
Our Facebook group exists to assist us in that endeavor. We work hard with each post to ensure that our membership is motivated to help us drive action, and not just passively like, comment and share.