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

Sat May 27 23:11:33 EDT 2017

What on earth? Are we suggesting that only staff should be able to
comment?? Or that now internal criticism is no longer allowed?

I

On May 27, 2017 9:02 PM, "Sam Goldstein" <goldsteinatlarge at gmail.com> wrote:

> This is outrageous and would join Mr. Starr in requesting that Mr. Barton
> immediately be
> dismissed from any role in our social media platform.  Mr. Starr has a
> long history of
> service to the party, and while some members many not agree with his
> stances or methods,
> I don't think anyone on the current or past LNCs would refer to him as a
> Republican.
>
>
>
> 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 Sat, May 27, 2017 at 7:40 PM, Aaron Starr <starrcpa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Colleagues,
>>
>>
>>
>> While we are on the subject, earlier this week our staff posted this
>> television news video clip on Facebook as an example of earned media by a
>> candidate opposing a sewer tax increase and spearheading a recall effort
>> against those elected officials who voted for that increase (
>> https://www.lp.org/california-libertarian-interviewed-
>> local-television-water-rate-increases/).
>>
>>
>>
>> Please examine these screen shots (cropped to show only relevant
>> portions). Note this comment:
>>
>>
>>
>> “Starr is a Republican pretending to be a Libertarian. Why he hangs out
>> in the LP instead of just being a Republican (or joining the Constitution
>> Party) is beyond me. This is a dude who regularly tries to use soft bribes
>> to get his way in the party. Please, LP members of his region, vote this
>> guy out. We don’t need him and folks like him. Not at all.”
>>
>> -Josh Barton, Social Media Volunteer at Libertarian Party
>>
>>
>>
>> I don’t believe I have ever met Josh Barton. When I hover over his name
>> with my mouse I see that his Facebook profile states he is one of our
>> party’s social media volunteers.
>>
>>
>>
>> It’s one thing to disagree with someone over public policy (perhaps Mr.
>> Barton favors the Oxnard City Council’s sewer tax increase); it’s quite
>> another to lash out with this personal attack.
>>
>>
>>
>> I understand we get some negative feedback from the public, but should we
>> tolerate that from those who are part of the organizational structure? Who
>> here believes that it is appropriate for someone touting himself as a
>> social media volunteer for the party to be posting something like this on
>> our Facebook page as a representative of the Party?
>>
>>
>>
>> Our staff would never post a comment such as this. They are accountable
>> to the LNC and have a stake in our organization’s overall success, which
>> makes them largely above the factionalism and personality conflicts we
>> witness with some volunteers.
>>
>>
>>
>> When you agree to wear the party hat, you’ve agreed to a certain
>> fiduciary duty to the organization.
>>
>> If I were the National Chair, I would without hesitation order the
>> deletion of such an offensive comment and (absent a sincere public apology)
>> would likely fire any volunteer (or member of staff) who wrote anything on
>> our Facebook page like this about any of our candidates or board members.
>>
>>
>>
>> Aaron Starr
>>
>> (805) 583-3308 Home
>>
>> (805) 404-8693 Mobile
>>
>> starrcpa at gmail.com
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Lnc-business [mailto:lnc-business-bounces at hq.lp.org] *On Behalf
>> Of *Sam Goldstein
>> *Sent:* Friday, May 26, 2017 7:03 PM
>> *To:* lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>> *Subject:* Re: [Lnc-business] cosponsors requested to have staff manage
>> social media
>>
>>
>>
>> Alicia,
>>
>>
>>
>> Yes, my concern is that the LNC needs a supervisory presence on social
>> media beyond the limited ability of
>>
>> the APRC.  Ultimately, it is the LNC, not staff, that is responsible to
>> the members and delegates in convention
>>
>> for the public image of the party.
>>
>>
>>
>> Sam
>>
>>
>> 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 Fri, May 26, 2017 at 9:48 PM, Alicia Mattson <agmattson at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Sam,
>>
>> So is your desire to just have LNC members/alternates in a supervisory
>> role, or in the role of posting public comment?  If it's just a supervisory
>> role, I don't think it should be our job to do that, but I'm okay with
>> allowing such access to the page.  But I'm not sure I want LNC
>> members/alternates making the postings instead of staff.  If a 4th
>> co-sponsor was interested with some tweaks, we could hash out some
>> alternate language.
>>
>> -Alicia
>>
>>
>>
>> -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
>>
>>
>>
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>>
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