Manchester skeptics annexed in hostile digital power grab

Meetup.com takeover by mysterious 'Sophie' reveals flaws in site organisation rules

Nature-lovers abhor a vacuum

Although a previous organiser's account itself is not handed over when management of a group changes (limiting privacy exposure), Sophie was still able to delete all photos that had been uploaded to the original profile.

It might be said that Greater Manchester Skeptics Society contributed somewhat to its own problems by missing a payment and letting their Meetup.com registration lapse, but Geoff Whelan, chairman of GMSS, disputed this point.

"The original organiser of GMSS stepped down some time ago and I've been chair for around three years now," Whelan explained. "However, he was still down as the organiser as far as Meetup was concerned, and although he wasn't coming to our talks as frequently as before, he still supported the society and continued making the payments."

When a payment wasn't made because of an out-of-date credit card, Meetup.com emailed the entire 700-strong membership of GMSS, rather than just the group's organisers. And partly because this happened during the summer holiday season, when many people were out of contact, a fringe person was the first to pay a fee that left her in sole charge of running the group on Meetup.com.

"Our fault was being naive enough to believe that no-one in our membership would behave in such a way," according to Whelan. "Meetup's policies are completely unacceptable for both organisers and members, and buried so deep in the documentation that there is no realistic prospect of anyone finding out about them other than the hard way."

Under pressure from a backlash, "Sophie" self-destructed the original Meetup group. Simply moving on to a new platform to organise meetings, perhaps via its website or Twitter account, wasn't a good option for GMSS.

"We had to start a new Meetup page, if only to correct the attacks from 'Sophie' and regain our old membership," Whelan explained.

Meetup has a feature for organisers to collect membership dues. So there's the potential for someone to take over the running of other groups on the social networking site before collecting fees from unsuspecting group members. "This would seem like a ripe vector for fraud," Whelan warned.

Whelan remains profoundly unimpressed by Meetup's handling of the episode.

"We are not just a Meetup group," he explained. "We're a real society that exists independently of Meetup. We have held a great many successful events. We're properly constituted, we have an elected committee, we co-organise the largest skeptical conference in Europe (QEDCON), and we use other platforms such as our own website, Facebook (page and group) as well as Twitter."

He concluded: "For Meetup to give the appearance of handing all of that that over to an entryist crank with £15 is not a good policy. Sophie wasn't a skeptic and shouldn't have been anywhere near our Meetup page."

Whelan added that members of GMSS have pointed out that the same process might potentially allow other damaging hijacks, such as allowing a pro-lifer to take over a pro-choice group on Meetup.com, for example.

"I think anybody who has a Meetup group should have a long hard look at the takeover policy and decide if it's worth the risk," Whelan advised.

Bootnote

* We wanted to hear Sophie's side of the story, so we sent an email to an address used to send a "goodbye email" to the Meetup.com group. In the words of Greco-Aussie coffee shop owner and ITV2 stalwart Peter Andre, “mysterious girl, we wanna get close to you”. We are yet to receive a reply.