Why Zuckerberg's Lobby Is Collapsing Like A House Of Cards Outside Of DC

“Power is a lot like real estate. It’s all about location, location, location.” — Frank Underwood, House of Cards At this very moment, Mark Zuckerberg’s political lobby, FWD.us, is probably taken aback at how reviled it has become, both from the public and its own members. After all, there are countless political technology lobbies, including Facebook’s own Political Action Committee, which routinely offer Republican candidates campaign cash for quid pro quo political favor. So, why, after discovering FWD.us indirectly supporting the controversial Keystone Pipeline initiative, have would-be supporters flooded their Facebook page with scathing comments, and its A-list supporters, such as Tesla’s Elon Musk, ditched the group? Unlike other lobbies, FWD.us burst on to the scene with a very public op-ed from its celebrity founder, promising to?galvanize?the latent civic passions of Silicon Vally’s netizens in a noble crusade to advance the knowledge society. While one hand extended towards grassroots supporters, the other reached into its wallet pocket and discretely doled out funds to controversial candidates. There’s a reason most lobbies don’t bother with grassroots activism: communities don’t get excited about?the kinds of soul-crushing moral compromise necessary in DC politics. So, when FWD.us rolled up with millions in hand claiming to be the voice of the technologists, those who felt?misrepresented?freaked out. Even more confusing, when confronted, FWD.us chose to do something no other major organization in technology has done: it?remained?silent. Even the notoriously tight-lipped Apple holds a press conference after public uproar. Californians haven’t been become jaded to the kinds of secrecy common for Wall Street banks and campaign SuperPACs. The unfazed backdoor dealings caricatured in Netflix’s (addicting) House of Cards series may work for lobbies based in our nation’s capitol, but Californians evidently won’t tolerate it in their backyard. “I revised the parameters of my promise.” – Frank Underwood Twitter co-founder Evan Williams tweeted a link to a scathing blog post from former Twitter employee Josh Miller, explaining, “In service of noble causes, FWD.us is employing questionable lobbying techniques, misleading supporters, and not being transparent about the underlying values and long-term intentions of the organization. More discouragingly, the leaders of the technology industry (and of FWD.us) have built their careers on bringing meaningful change to the world. They should be doing the same in Washington.” FWD.us would-be grassroots supporters agree, “Will Fwd.us prostitute climate destruction & other values to get a few engineers hired & get immigration reform??, wrote one

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/mwECLCgv_kg/

madden cover obama slow jams the news metta world peace ron artest gladys knight private practice deion sanders