The Phoenix Network:
 
 
 
About  |  Advertise
Adult  |  Moonsigns  |  Band Guide  |  Blogs  |  In Pictures
 
Media -- Dont Quote Me  |  News Features  |  Talking Politics  |  This Just In

Post at your own peril

The risks of sticking it to the man on Facebook
By ADAM REILLY  |  February 21, 2007

070223_facebook_guy
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.

Related: Dishonorable Mentions, Let’s get physical, Interkosmos, More more >
  Topics: News Features , Internet, Science and Technology, Technology,  More more >
  • Share:
  • Share this entry with Facebook
  • Share this entry with Digg
  • Share this entry with Delicious
  • RSS feed
  • Email this article to a friend
  • Print this article
Comments

ARTICLES BY ADAM REILLY
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNIE  |  October 19, 2009
    Media feuds don’t come any nastier than the metastasizing spat between Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr and one “Ernie Boch III,” the pseudonymous blogger at the liberal Web site Blue Mass. Group. (Note: the blogger is no relation to the car dealer.)
  •   LATTER DAY TAINT  |  October 10, 2009
    Fifteen years ago, Glenn Beck was a small-market DJ with a drinking problem, no friends, and bleak professional prospects. Today, he’s a Fox News superstar averaging 2.4 million viewers, an inexorably successful author, and the leader of a popular movement that condemns government in general and President Barack Obama in particular.
  •   PHILADELPHIA STORY  |  October 01, 2009
    The local-media story line of the moment is the push by Stephen Taylor — Milton resident, Yale media lecturer, and former Boston Globe executive VP — to recapture the paper his family ran for more than a century, a goal he's pursuing with the backing of (among others) his cousin Benjamin Taylor, the former Globe publisher.
  •   MENINO'S JUNKED MAIL  |  September 16, 2009
    Two years ago, when I wrote a column griping about the Boston media's apathy-inducing disinterest in city politics, Boston Globe metro editor Brian McGrory told me his paper had given the lackluster 2007 elections as much coverage as they deserved, but hinted that things would be different in 2009.
  •   BLOWHARD, INTERRUPTED  |  September 11, 2009
    Former Red Sox great Curt Schilling isn't the only prospective US Senate candidate agonizing over whether to run for Ted Kennedy's old seat. But unlike some of his potential rivals the Bloody Socked One seems determined to share his Hamlet act with the biggest possible audience.

 See all articles by: ADAM REILLY

MOST POPULAR
RSS Feed of for the most popular articles
 Most Viewed   Most Emailed 



  |  Sign In  |  Register
 
thePhoenix.com:
Phoenix Media/Communications Group:
TODAY'S FEATURED ADVERTISERS
Copyright © 2009 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group