[Lnc-business] cosponsors requested to have staff manage social media

Thu May 25 20:35:52 EDT 2017

Alicia,

What are the examples of issues with candidates for internal Party office?
Both Whitney and I asked for some specifics.

-Caryn Ann

On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 6:34 PM, Alicia Mattson <agmattson at gmail.com> wrote:

> Sam, do you think that's a good idea in light of the policy requiring
> fairness for candidates for internal party office?  Our most recent uproar
> came from a post by an LNC member.
>
> -Alicia
>
>
>
> On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 6:00 AM, Sam Goldstein <goldsteinatlarge at gmail.com
> > wrote:
>
>> Alicia,
>>
>> Would you consider adding "members and alternates"  to your motion
>> following "LNC"?  If so I will
>> co-sponsor.
>>
>>
>>
>> Sam Goldstein
>> Libertarian National Committee
>> Member at Large
>> 8925 N Meridian St, Ste 101
>> Indianapolis IN 46260
>> 317-850-0726 <(317)%20850-0726> Phone
>> 317-582-1773 <(317)%20582-1773> Fax
>>
>> On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 8:38 AM, Alicia Mattson <agmattson at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I'm asking for co-sponsors for a motion to insert a new Policy Manual
>>> Section 2.06.5 Social Media to read as follows:
>>>
>>> Only LNC employees and contractors shall serve as administrators of,
>>> serve as moderators of, or post content to, the Party’s social media
>>> accounts. Volunteer content creators may submit content for approval.
>>>
>>> At the LNC meeting there was majority support for the motion to both do
>>> the above and also to create a committee to review our social media
>>> processes.  I could have supported it, but if we know what we need to do to
>>> fix the problem, why spend the time to have a committee study it first?
>>> Just fix it.  I thought there was majority support for the other motion to
>>> simply turn control of our social media back over to staff.  Turns out that
>>> I was mistaken, and one person was not willing to turn control back over to
>>> staff without the creation of the committee, so then the other motion
>>> failed.  Because I misread the room, an option that actually had majority
>>> support didn't pass.
>>>
>>> Now that we have separately created the committee, I want to go back and
>>> re-visit turning control back over to our staff.
>>>
>>> Please note that the motion welcomes volunteers to submit material.  It
>>> does not eliminate their opportunity to contribute.
>>>
>>> I want to add some details to the discussion we had in Pittsburgh, with
>>> two Facebook PR blow-ups on our minds at the time.
>>>
>>> Since Pittsburgh, we have had yet another PR disaster.  Granted it was
>>> not on our official FB page, but on the personal page it was posted to, the
>>> person's party position was touted right there in the sidebar, and we took
>>> a lot of damage from it.  The Convention Oversight Committee lost two very
>>> valuable volunteers over this latest disaster -- volunteers who did a lot
>>> of work for us in Orlando and were again helping for New Orleans.  Gone.
>>>
>>> There are no group votes before volunteers post on the party's FB.  One
>>> person puts it into the schedule, and unless someone else sees it and
>>> objects, it goes public.  We publish so much material that the APRC doesn't
>>> always have time to review everything in advance.  Though the group has an
>>> informal rule against people posting their own material, people sometimes
>>> do it anyway.  The comments about the military could easily have been
>>> posted on our page.
>>>
>>> There was a very recent incident in which a new volunteer was driven to
>>> quit on the same day she joined for the crime of suggesting that we post
>>> more positive material and less negative material.  I don't want to hear
>>> that the LNC giving final control to staff is somehow disrespecting the
>>> work of the volunteers, when that new volunteer's desire to contribute was
>>> so summarily disrespected.
>>>
>>> We have some important policies that I don't believe the volunteers have
>>> even been informed about, and volunteers are not really accountable for
>>> following policies in the same way that our staff is.
>>>
>>> Policy Manual Section 2.09.6:
>>>
>>> Party resources shall not be used to provide information or services for
>>> any candidate for party office unless:
>>>
>>>    - such information or services are available and announced on an
>>>       equal basis to all Libertarians who have declared they are seeking that
>>>       office, or
>>>       - such information or services are generally available and
>>>       announced to all party member
>>>
>>> Not all party members have access to post on our Facebook page.  Not all
>>> candidates for internal party office are offered the chance to post on our
>>> Facebook page.
>>>
>>> I think some of our Facebook posts cross the line into personal
>>> promotion of people who intend to run for internal party office at the next
>>> convention.
>>>
>>> There was a time in the past when staff established criteria to try to
>>> manage application of this policy, with criteria for what constituted
>>> "news" or "earned media" that involved a candidate, etc.  I don't believe
>>> there is any such attention to his policy right now for our social media.
>>> Some candidates have already declared.  The closer we get to a national
>>> convention, the more these posts will be perceived as self-promotion that
>>> unfairly isn't available to their opponents.
>>>
>>> So I'm asking for co-sponsors for this motion, to return final decision
>>> power to our staff, who are expected to know and follow our policies, and
>>> who are accountable to the LNC.  The volunteer groups can continue to
>>> generate material just like they do now, but staff would schedule the
>>> actual posts.
>>>
>>> If the Social Media Process Review Committee comes back to us with
>>> suggestions for reasonable ways to manage this later, we can amend this
>>> policy.
>>>
>>> -Alicia
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Lnc-business mailing list
>>> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>>> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>>>
>>>
>>
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>>
>
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>

-- 
*In Liberty,*
*Caryn Ann Harlos*
Region 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska, Arizona,
Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann.
Harlos at LP.org <Caryn.Ann.Harlos at LP.org>
Communications Director, Libertarian Party of Colorado
<http://www.lpcolorado.org>
Colorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus
<http://www.lpradicalcaucus.org>
Chair, LP Historical Preservation Committee

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