http://www.insidethecbc.com/facebookprolife

A funny thing happened on the way to experimenting with citizen participation via the Internet…

The CBC recently set up a Facebook group called The Great Canadian Wish List. The idea was that you could create a wish (like “solve world hunger” etc.) or add your name to existing wishes. The top wishes would be broadcast on CBC on Canada Day.

It’s not that it’s not working, just that instead of generic feel-good wishes, the Facebook group’s top wishes are dominated by political causes usually associated with Christian conservative or right-wing groups.

Among the top wishes (as “voted” by people joining the groups) are:

Abolish abortion in Canada
For a spiritual revival in our nation
Restore the traditional definition of marriage
Clearly, some groups actively campaignied for votes, rather than letting the site grow organically. (I’m not saying this is bad, just interesting.) This page even walks people step-by-step through how to add themselves to the pro-life/anti-abortion (pick your wording) group. Some interesting comments at this blog.

CBC reporter Mike Wise was one of the architects of the Facebook idea. In an interview with InsideCBC.com, Wise said he thought the experiment was a success specifically because of the way people used the site. He said he plans to interview the people behind the top wishes, no matter what the topics end up being. “This was an experiment to see how social networks could work to bring out story ideas, and it’s done that.”

“Would people be saying there was a ‘takeover’ if David Suzuki had gone out and asked people to do this? We purposely set out to see what would happen with an unmoderated group,” he said. “Personally, I think this has been a huge success.”

In a related note, this blog’s Seven Wonders of the CBC contest appears to be the target of a takeover attempt as well by fans of CBC Radio 3.