Facebook is suffering through a run of bad publicity in Ontario: First a supermarket fired several employees who used the site to criticize the store. Then a few schools suspended students who bashed teachers on the social network. And now the province has banned political staffers and other government employees from visiting the site on office computers, according to the Canadian Press.
The government ban has sparked something of a debate north of the border. Weighing in against the social network is Yoni Goldstein of the National Post, who appears to have condemned Facebook without ever visiting it: "I've asked numerous friends with Facebook accounts what the big deal is about this social-networking site — and their answers convince me that Facebook is a colossal waste of time."
But Michael Geist, the Canadian research chair in Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa, says there are plenty of reasons a government official might justifiably log on to Facebook. "Is there really no benefit to have government policy makers access and participate in the hundreds of groups discussing Ontario health-care issues?" he asks in the Toronto Star. "Would it be so bad for elected officials to actually engage with their constituents in a social-network environment?"
When Facebook was first conceived, criticism of the site as a mere diversion might have held some weight. But now that the social network is raising its political profile, government officials may come to acknowledge what many campus administrators have already realized: The site is just too popular to be ignored. –Brock Read
