Jonathan Dimbleby, and probably a lot of other people, learnt something about social networking on Saturday: if you want to make a comment you have to join a particular group on Facebook to do it.
It's relevant because it can make it look as if a group - and by extension a particular issue or point of view - has a lot of supporters when this is not necessarily true.
That was what happened with the 'RIP Raoul Moat You Legend' group, according to a number of listeners who contacted Any Answers? on BBC Radio 4 (Saturday 17 July 2010).
The Any Questions? panel had earlier discussed the news that Facebook had rebuffed a call by David Cameron for the removal of tributes to Moat which had been left on the social networking site.
One of the Any Answers? contributors, Maxwell Fenton from Bridlington, put it like this: "You have to join it to make a comment, so the statistics look as if we were all for it, but in actual fact the vast majority of us were against it."
"It is very illuminating what you've just said," replied Dimbleby. "I read it as though, overwhelmingly, the numbers who were writing on that page were in praise, describing him as a legend, and so on. It's very interesting that you're absolutely confident it's the other way around."
It's hard to come up with exact data since the page was taken down (not by Facebook incidentally; by the originator), but it certainly seemed that when I saw it last Friday there were more people railing against Moat being a hero than those supporting the controversial point of view.
All a bit arbitrary, I know. But it's definitely made me wary about claims that membership of a Facebook group indicates support for an issue, cause or individual.
