Keeping the astroturf nicely mown

When they set up the astroturfing groups on Facebook they do like to claim that they welcome comment from all sides, but clearly some of them don’t really want comment from people who are prepared to counter their propaganda.

I was hugely amused when “Blackpool Fracking For a Better Future”  blocked and banned me as soon as I asked to join their group – I hadn’t even posted anything by that stage!

More recently we have “Friends of Ryedale Gas Exploration”  – a Facebook “community” on which the only comments seem to come from the usual suspects (The Rev Roberts and Ken Wilkinson who appear on most of the astroturfing groups ) and a couple of others who don’t seem to have any obvious relationship to Ryedale .

There is the usual self-referential back-slapping and ridiculing of anyone who doesn’t agree with fracking. Most of it is just just amusing detritus that we can watch flow past under the bridge, but I was surprised to see the ludicrous claim that Cuadrilla were a minnow compared to the forces of Greenpeace – a David to the NGO’s Goliath. This claim was “backed up” with “evidence” from the balance sheet of Cuadrilla resources Ltd, but whoever has done the “research” (a quick Google by the look of it) had not looked at the much bigger Cuadrilla Resources Holdings Ltd,  so I posted a comment questioning this.

It lasted a few minutes before being deleted so this morning I posted it again

FORGE Comment

It took the Community admin just 10 minutes to delete it again and block me from commenting again 🙂

Comment Gone

So the next time they claim to welcome comment and want to have an open and honest dialogue you will know exactly how much truth there is in that statement. 🙂

If they can’t tolerate being asked questions, is is any wonder that people are so distrustful of those who are trying to sell fracking to communities?