Charities Upset Over Chase Facebook Contest

ssv03 writes "The New York Times is reporting that Chase Community Giving of Chase Bank recently held a contest on Facebook in which users were encouraged to vote for their favorite charities. At the end of the contest, the 100 charities with the most votes would win $25,000 and advance to the next round to have a chance to win $1 million. Initially, the vote counts for each organization were made public, but two days before voting ended they were hidden, and the final totals have still not been released. While Chase had no official leader board during the voting, several organizations were keeping track of projected winners. Those projections were almost identical to the final results, yet several organizations including Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), Marijuana Policy Project and several anti-abortion groups were not finalists. They had been performing very well (some within the top 20) until the vote counters were removed. Chase Bank has so far refused to discuss the issue with the organizations. SSDP has spoken out in a press release (PDF) and is calling for a boycott."

Comments

Charities?

[Jojoba86]

Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), Marijuana Policy Project and several anti-abortion groups were not finalists

In what ways are these charities? I thought charity is about giving to people in need, not supporting political organisations.

Re:Charities?

[Whatshisface]

But coming back to the original point, is that a charity? Just from reading the summary, it seems like all the groups that were removed were activist groups endorsing a specific change in laws. Its one thing to ask Chase to endorse the charity of your choice, its another to ask them to make a political donation to support your pet cause.

Re:Charities?

[EsbenMoseHansen]

Really? Slavery, abortion and infanticide is all centuries old. Unfortunately only two of these barbaric practices were stopped.

That has got to be the stupidest argument against abortion I have heard yet. Let me try another triplet. Stoning, religion and castration are all centuries old. Unfortunately, only two of these barbaric practices were stopped.

So disqualify them...

[tomhath]

I wouldn't have a problem if Chase had declared an organization ineligible, but that's not what they did. Instead they wimped out and hid the vote tallies, probably blocking votes to organizations that those running the contest don't support, without even saying who or why they were disqualified.

Like Darth Vader said:

[kurt555gs]

" I am altering the deal, pray that I do not alter it any further ".

Banks, Ugh!

Re:Good for Chase.

[quarrelinastraw]

there are other human being starving and dying and suffering

Yeah, like the many people dead or wounded due to gang violence fueled by the street drug trade, or the many people addicted to drugs who can't get medical or treatment help because they will get arrested or simply ignored, the people dying in Afghanistan and Iraq due to terrorist groups funded largely by the heroin trade.

I could go on, but you're an idiot if you think the current US policy toward narcotics doesn't cause starving, dying and suffering.

People who think caring about drug policy is for bong-toting fratboys sicken me.

Re:Good for Chase.

[DavidTC]

It actually makes much more sense to complain and try to fix things where society is proactively hurting people than when society is just ignoring people or where some natural problem is.

I mean, an organization trying to figure out why someone is homeless is hard. Getting them off street is hard, as is making sure someone just doesn't show up to take their place.

Likewise, curing a disease is hard. We can spend millions on research that doesn't go anywhere.

Compares to those, not locking people up for drug us and not spending money to do so is incredibly efficient. We don't actually have to solve some biological or social problem. We just have to stop doing something.

It's like, if your house is falling apart, due to termites, random vandals, water damage...and a guy you're paying to run around punching holes in the wall with a sledgehammer.

Which problem are you going to address first to fix your house? I dunno about you, but I'd get the sledgehammer guy to stop, even if the other problems are 'worse' in some objective sense of how damaged your house is.

Re:Pro-"Choice"

[geekboy642]

Well, please do invent the absolute worst kinds of inhumane treatment to prove that women must have no control over their own bodies. A shockingly vast majority of abortions are performed in the first trimester, and if you can make out an expression on a fetus that's less than 12 weeks old, you've got an imagination too vivid to be anonymously yelling on the internet. Of the vanishingly small percentage of abortions that are performed when the baby has passed the normal age of viability, the vast majority of those are performed to save the life of the mother, or to prevent the infant from having a short, brutish, and pointless life. The misogynistic organizations are attacking a strawman that was never relevant in the slightest.

The abuses you've imagined are not because a mother suddenly decided, two weeks before her due date, that she didn't want a baby. Late term abortions are performed to save lives and limit suffering. We find it sane to put down a dog that's been grievously injured, but for some reason ending the suffering of a child born without a brain is some gross unjust cruelty, and you somehow believe that a child cursed to die before their first birthday should be forced to live through a year of brutish suffering, rather than being given the only kindness we have.

Finally, statistics demonstrate that women will still get abortions, regardless of how stringent the theocracy is that you place them under. Legalized abortions mean fewer women die. Which do you want, brassy moral superiority and thousands of women dead, or an unpleasant feeling and those women still alive? That's the only 'choice' offered.