( – promoted by Sue Prent)

Last time Jack McCullough visited VTblogosphereTV in 2009, he discussed the outcry that resulted in a well-respected nonprofit organization reversing a decision in order to salvage its reputation. It was also a February. Strange now that Jack leads us through another case study of internet activism forcing an organization to rethink its policies, this time concerning the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s decision to defund Planned Parenthood.  

Who knew that the month with “love” celebrated smack dab in the middle of it would become National “assault on women’s reproductive freedom” Month? The Komen story, the Santorum surge, the question of whether health care reform would fully cover contraception, it seems the headlines of the past month have reflected the cultural mentality circa 1958, not 2012.

So early on in this clip Jack graciously corrects my misnaming of the Susan G Komen Foundation. I must have confused the organization with the Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act of 2011, another recent dishonest attempt to roll back the clock on women’s reproductive freedom.

We then got to discuss whether the Komen Foundation was bowing to external political pressure or reflecting its own internal ideology.

Then Jack explained just how the issue exploded, particularly, and perhaps centrally, on Facebook. He described the growth of the Boycott Susan B Komen Foundation Facebook page, the battleground for message control that the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Facebook page became, and the Komen’s Foundation’s subsequent failed efforts to limit the damage.

Jack closed by sharing some success he experienced locally starting a Facebook page, this one getting South Burlington Little League to allow a boy to play who had missed a registration deadline.  So whether you love it, hate it, love to hate it, or hate to love it, Facebook can be a powerful tool for activism on any scale, and organizations like Komen are learning just how quickly and forcefully their top-down decisions can be met with bottom-up pressure.