The risks of sticking it to the man on Facebook
By ADAM REILLY | February 21, 2007
Back in 2005, a former Fisher College student was the poster boy for the perils of social networking. Cameron Walker, previously a sophomore and president of the Boston school’s student-government association, was expelled after using Facebook to post critiques of a campus security officer.In a profile of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Rolling Stone cast Fisher in a heroic light: “[I]t’s not just bad behavior that’s raising red flags. Cameron Walker, the twenty-year-old student-body president of Fisher College in Boston . . . [was] expelled after starting a Facebook group to rally against an unpopular campus cop.”
Really, though, that description may have been too kind. Walker didn’t just criticize the officer in question; he actually advocated framing him to take him down. “Either we get a petition going [we need at least 500 signatures] or we try and set him up,” Walker wrote, according to the Globe. “He’s got to do something wrong, in either case, he’s gotta foul up at some point . . . anyone willing to get arrested?”
In the end, though, it was Walker who took the fall — and the ACLU of Massachusetts opted not to champion his cause. All of which reinforces the point: when using sites like Facebook to stick it to the Man, discretion is the better part of valor.
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