Post Tagged with: "facebook"

Angus Launches ACTA Secrecy Facebook Group

NDP MP Charlie Angus has launched a new Facebook group called ACTA: End the Secrecy.

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February 5, 2010 Comments are Disabled News

Privacy Commissioner Launches New Facebook Investigation

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada has launched a new investigation into Facebook's privacy practices.  The new investigation stems from a complaint filed in the wake of Facebook changing its privacy default settings.

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January 28, 2010 1 comment News

The Anti-Proroguing Rallies By the Numbers

David Akin does a nice job of tallying up the numbers from this weekend's Facebook-inspired anti-proroguing rallies.  I wrote about the impact of the Facebook group and digital advocacy last week.

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January 25, 2010 2 comments News

Critics Misjudged Power of Digital Advocacy

With the Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament Facebook group now over 200,000 members, my weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) looks at how its success provides the clearest indicator yet of how poorly the Canadian political community understands social media and digital advocacy.

When the Prime Minister announced he was proroguing parliament in the midst of the holiday season, political commentators applauded the tactic, confident that few Canadians would notice or care.  In less than three weeks, Christopher White, a university student from Alberta, proved the experts wrong, building the largest Facebook group in the country, one that's the focal point for national discussion and voter discontent.  

As the group began to take flight, it was surprising to see political leaders and analysts blithely dismiss the relevance of Facebook advocacy. Editorials pointed to other large groups to demonstrate the group's irrelevance, noting that joining a Facebook group was too easy – just click to join – to mean much of anything.

This represents a shocking underestimation of the power of digital advocacy, which today is an integral part of virtually every political or business advocacy campaign.

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January 18, 2010 23 comments Columns

Critics Misjudged Power of Digital Advocacy

Appeared in the Toronto Star on January 18, 2009 as Critics Misjudged the Power of Digital Advocacy The new year is less than three weeks old, but the Canadian Internet story of 2010 may have already taken place. Ridiculed by political parties and analysts, the growth of the Canadians Against […]

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January 18, 2010 Comments are Disabled Columns Archive