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The Fulcrum's Facebook page

On Oct. 22, the Fulcrum’s Facebook page was unpublished for, allegedly, breaking Facebook’s page policies. Which policies? We couldn’t tell you. Since then, our editor-in-chief has launched two appeals to Facebook, but we still have yet to hear back from the social media giant.

“It’s been a technological crisis for the last decade or so, and an advertising crisis, and now it’s sort of an existential crisis. If these things don’t exist – if the reporters and the institutions disappear from towns, campuses, cities, provinces – all of a sudden it’s just news darkness.” — Brett Popplewell, journalism professor at Carleton University.

“It’s a scary world … I’m just thankful to not have been a teenager in the world of the iPhone.” — Lynne McInally, clinical social worker, therapist and instructor at Humber College.

The SFUO had no right to delete these comments. After all, this is not their personal Facebook page where they can just block whoever disagrees with them (@JimWatsonOttawa). At the end of the day, the people they disagree with are still people they represent.

Illustration: Jennifer Vo Scroll down your newsfeed on Facebook and chances are you’ll see political news, a new pumpkin cheesecake recipe, and maybe a meme or two. Social media sites represent some of the largest variety of content from around the web, and along with all the articles come opinions.  With the sheer amount of conflicting …

Stunt videos needed to keep ownership of user content Photo: CC-Ed  Gregory, Edits by Kim Wiens This week Facebook announced its decision to collect user photos, videos and information beginning early next year to steal users data for their own use.  This move has lead to a high volume of legal declarations on Facebook feeds, …

When your potential employer Googles you someday, what do you want them to see: a locked-down Facebook profile with nothing but your name, or a picture of a dedicated young professional who’s active, engaged, and enthusiastic?

I’m the guy behind you. And I’m here because I want to succeed in my courses, and your online shopping experience is making that decidedly difficult. Who knows, you might even find the lecture interesting if you cared to look up from your screen — what a novel idea.

I don’t know if I expected angels to sing, doves to cry, or something special to happen, but the act of logging out was surprisingly anti-climactic. However the four months that followed my social media absence was anything but.

Was Facebook at fault for using that photo without permission? The answer is a definite yes, and Facebook obviously realized this given their hasty response in taking it down. But the fault is not theirs alone.

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