A recent Vancouver radio contest has sparked an unprecedented outcry––on Facebook.

On June 11, the Beat 94.5 launched the Facebook 5000 contest through the weekly morning program, The Kid Carson Show. Listeners were instructed to create Facebook groups entitled “Help (name of contestant) win $5,000 with The Kid Carson Show on the Beat 94.5.”

The creator of the group with the most members was promised a $5,000 cash prize at the end of the contest, originally set to finish July 2.

But the imperative that the contestant with the “most friends wins” led to a citywide social network furor that blindsided the station’s broadcasters.

On the first day of the contest, hundreds of Vancouver-area Facebook users were bombarded by “Help __ Win $5,000” messages.

“I was bored between classes, opened up Facebook, and found six ‘group requests’ for the contest,” said Mike VandenAkker, creator of the Facebook group, I Don’t Care if You Want 5 Grand, Fuck You and the Beat. “After deleting the six,” VandenAkker said, “another popped up.”

“I didn’t expect it to spread like it did,” said Kid Carson, host of the Beat’s popular morning show. “People went nuts. Within three hours we had hundreds of newly created groups on Facebook, with each group recruiting as many ‘friends’ as possible, many reaching over 1,000 members.”

VandenAkker said he “realized how much publicity [the Beat] was receiving for this contest and decided to start the [counter] group.”

Created in a one-hour break between classes at SFU, VandenAkker’s anti-Beat Facebook group is now 1,465 members strong, larger than many of the groups competing in Facebook 5000.

“I had absolutely no idea the group would take off like it did,” VandenAkker said. “I hadn’t had much experience starting groups. I thought it would simply be a laugh shared among friends.”

“When the [Fuck You and the Beat] membership was up to 600 in the first 18 hours, I realized this contest was affecting a far greater number of people than just a few friends,” VandenAkker said. “I don’t even have 200 friends on my Facebook list.”

The Beat’s contest came to a halt after Facebook administrators caught wind of the volume of spam generated by its participants.

Matt Hicks, senior manager of Facebook’s corporate communications, officially requested termination of the contest. “We hate spam and our users hate it even more,” he wrote.

“It’s not cool to create thousands of Facebook groups solely to win a contest, or to spam other users to join them. It might be fine for other sites, but it’s not right for Facebook, and our users have been loudly protesting with counter groups.”

Hicks warned the Beat that Facebook would start deleting contestants’ user profiles if the station failed to terminate the contest, causing the contest to be pulled only a few days after it began. The Beat issued prizes of $1,000 each to the top five contestants running.

“[Facebook 5000] was all about having a contest where [the Beat staff] and listeners hang out,” Carson said. “We will continue to use Facebook to communicate with our listeners, but we sure as hell won’t be trying to ruin Facebook again. I’m sorry to all those who were spammed. My bad.”

In the end, Facebook 5000 achieved the Beat’s objective: publicity and audience loyalty. But Ian Favelle, “officer” of the Fuck You and The Beat Facebook group, wasn’t a convert.

“I’ll listen to anything but the Beat. I’m a fan of all types of music, but I really can’t stand the Beat at all,” he said. “If I was a girl maybe you’d catch me listening to that shit – or a girly man. I listen to the Fox, I keeps it real real.”

Favelle expressed a similar disdain for the workings of Facebook itself. “Everybody you ever knew, ever, wants to be your friend. I’d tell them to fuck off too, but they aren’t asking me for 5,000 bucks, so I let it slide.”