Foxy explains his foray onto Facebook

Thursday 21 September 2023

Deputy Peter Ferbrache has decided to start using Facebook to enable him to answer as many questions as possible before the States next debate our public finances, in just a few weeks time.

Yesterday, almost exactly three years since he opened his Facebook account (a month before the 2020 island wide election), Deputy Ferbrache posted a comment in the Guernsey People Have Your Say forum.

Within an hour he had received more than 100 replies, and by tea-time it was getting close to 400 comments.

Pictured: Deputy Ferbrache posted on Guernsey People Have Your Say yesterday morning and then spent time answering some of the first comments and questions directed at him.

Deputy Ferbrache asked the 21,600 members of the GPHYS forum to "be polite" and said he would ignore anyone who is rude to him.

He said he was "keen to answer as many questions as possible" about the States tax proposals, island infrastructure and other matters.

He started off doing just that by replying to some of the messages that people had posted, but then he had to log out of Facebook as he had meetings to go to.

Pictured: Deputy Ferbrache spent some time on Wednesday morning replying to messages on Facebook.

"I am amazed about the media interest, it must be quite a quiet day if the media are asking about a deputy going on Facebook?" he laughed when he spoke to Express later in the day.

He was satisfied with how his first foray into Facebook had gone - but wanted to make it clear that he won't be able to reply to everyone.

He also addressed his own previously expressed misgivings about social media.

"I think there's a big pressure for some time and comment. I would still say, in an ideal world, I think the best way to communicate is face to face, speaking to somebody, but you can't do that with 63,000 people.

"We've got a very important debate in three or four weeks time and I want people to be able to ask as many questions as they can and make as many comments as they can. There's no alternative to social media for that.

"There will be press articles, there'll be an open evening, there will be all kinds of stuff going on but this is another way of addressing an important issue."

“Social media is more often than not an ill; it is written by cowards; it is written by people who don’t have the courage to stand up and come speak to your face” - Deputy Peter Ferbrache speaking in 2021.

With an audience size of around a third of the population of Guernsey, the Chief Minister said the GPHYS page was the ideal place for him to engage with other people, and he dismissed any notion of using the 'good or bad Guernsey businesses' or 'shameful parking or driving' pages.

Having previously been dismissive of some of the comments shared by members of the public on social media, Deputy Ferbrache said this is him trying to reach out to everyone who wants to engage with him.

"...I've never minded people doing it constructively, but some people are real keyboard worriers and all they can be is negative and everything is wrong and everything is terrible, (Guernsey) is an awful place and it's dreadful, dreadful, dreadful, everything is negative and there's nothing constructive.

"They're never acknowledging that people are trying to do their best. You and I could debate XYZ issue and have completely different views, but we could do it constructively in a civilised way. I don't mind people disagreeing with me because I'm wrong as often as the next person, but it's when they're just negative and rude and abrasive..." 

Pictured: Some of the comments reflected the often negative reputation that the Guernsey People Have Your Say forum holds with some people.

So far, Deputy Ferbrache has had some pleasant exchanges with individuals but he wanted to reiterate that he may not always have the time to answer every question and comment.

"I made it very clear in my introductory statement that I'm not going to be able to respond to everybody and that's no disrespect to anybody, and that doesn't mean that I'm dismissive of their views or their comments. It's just I've got other things to do.

"I've got a life to lead like everybody else and I can only devote so much time to it. But as I say, I just emphasise again and I want people to understand if I don't reply it's not because I'm ignoring what they say or dismissive of what they say. It is that I have only got a certain amount of time.

"I can only reply to a certain number of these and I'll do my best to reply to as many as I can.

"If I had all the time in the world, then I would spend it answering questions but I haven't. And also before you can answer a question, you've got to have the information, you've got to read stuff and talk to people and get that information."

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Foxy takes on Facebook