Facebook Activism

From watching various sites and being sent links to join them, it would seem that the prevailing trend in methods of voicing displeasure online has moved away from the free, online petition towards the Facebook group.

I can't help but wonder, however, whether the Facebook group method is any more effective than the free, online petition method — which seemed to have an effectiveness rating of 0%.

I suppose it all comes down to: do people actually do things with these groups?  (e.g. Arrange campaigns/schedule events and actually follow through.)  Or is it just largely composed of people who either join and bitch/swap conspiracy theories on the group wall and or who join as a method of voicing their displeasure and never do anything else?

If it's the former, then good on them for finding a way of adapting the Internet to suit more widely-distributed participants.  If it's the latter, which the pessimist in me thinks that it is, then they serve little more point than slapping a ribbon magnet on one's car and never doing another thing — feel-good actions that assuage one's conscience about doing something without the effort of actually doing anything.