Stefan Mileschin

The ultraconservative Tea Party movement now has a social network of its own, free from liberal censorship and designed for people who prefer regurgitating Bronze Age mythology over unimportant matters such as science and facts.

The Tea Party Community is the brainchild of Time Selaty Sr. and Ken Crow, who say they created the conservative social network in response to "liberal censorship". The site launched over the weekend and its motto is "Connecting and Empowering We The People" - but we were unable to create an account because it's invite only. Now, how democratic is that?

In spite of the invite-only approach, guaranteed to keep those pesky progressives out, the site already has roughly 50,000 members. At least that's what Fox News Radio claims, so we are not entirely convinced.

"It's a new home for conservatives and the Tea Party movement in America. It's a social community just for them," Crow told Fox News. "Most of us are subjected to censorship on Facebook (...) I've been suspended there as have many of my friends. You also absorb a lot of abuse from liberals."

So it turns out the site caters to rugged individualists and tough right-wingers who are so offended by a little Facebook abuse that they chose to run away and start their own social network.

Fox claims as many as 100 Facebook users contacted it with complains of Facebook censorship. Bloggers Amy Jo Clark and Miriam Weaver are among those threatened by Facebook, over content published on their conservative site "Chicks on the Right". They told Fox that they were targeted by a very active trolling community, the sole purpose of which was to report conservative pages and cause trouble. Prominent Tea Party activist Jan Morgan says she was sanctioned numerous times for her pro-Second Amendment postings.

The Tea Party Community adopted a different approach. It simply does not welcome anyone who does not share Tea Party ideals. The site encourages all factions of the Tea Party to sign up and escape Facebook's censorship. However, the site's privacy policy says it can review and delete content which it doesn't find appropriate, much like all other social networks. Apparently, the Tea Party believes Second Amendment protection extends only to those who don't disagree with it.

The site, here, has more than a passing resemblance to Facebook, even telling users on the landing page that if they 'like FB', they'll 'love the Tea Party Community'. Zuckerberg has sued for less...

http://news.techeye.net/internet/tea...s-own-facebook