subject: WikiLeaks Status Updates Go Up Every Second On Facebook [print this page] WikiLeaks Status Updates Go Up Every Second On Facebook
Facebook status updates referring to WikiLeaks, the confidential record giving site post at a rate of about one per second.
Dispute appears to be fueling more benefit in the classified document sharing site. WikiLeaks has become the fourth-fastest growing page on Facebook, gaining 708,232 fans this week.
Facebook refuses to follow the example set by other company that have pulled the plug on WikiLeaks, including Amazon and Paypal.
The document-sharing site has sprung up on hundreds of mirror locations after its main DNS servers pulled the plug. WikiLeaks community fan pages have also sprouted all over Facebook, accumulating significant thousands of "likes."
The original WikiLeaks page has 966,362 fans as at this time. A page called "Don't Touch Mr. Julian 'WikiLeaks' Assange" has 18,381 "likes," referring to the warrant for the site founder's arrest in multiple countries. Another page called "Boycott Amazon for Dumping WikiLeaks" has 9,017 "likes."
By compare, the only anti-WikiLeaks page we've saw on Facebook so far has only 851 "likes."
Stop you think that WikiLeaks is financing any of this fandom, know that the government have frozen assets in the Swiss bank account that the site's owner has used to finance the document sharing site.
Update: After noticing that CNET ran a story including comment from Facebook, I asked the company's newspaper office whether the WikiLeaks page would get yanked due to traffic overload or other problems. Andrew Noyes responded via email:
"We haven't received any official requests to disable the WikiLeaks page, or any notification that the articles posted on the page contain unlawful content. If we did, of course, we would review the material according to our rules and standards, and take it down if appropriate. The mere existence of a WikiLeaks fan page on Facebook doesn't violate any law and we don't take down other pages about controversial topics. We're continuing to monitor the situation."
What are you and your friends posting on Facebook regarding WikiLeaks? Can you share with us your favorite quotes or posts on the subject? And how has your awareness of the controversy surrounding this site grown through your use of the social network?
