Facebook II

This is Michael's second blog on Facebook. This blog shall be on the controversies of Facebook. Facebook has met with some controversy over the past few years. In October 2005, the University of New Mexico blocked access to Facebook from its campus computers and networks. It cited a violation of the university's Acceptable Use Policy for abusing computer resources as the reason, stating the website forces use of the university's credentials for activity not related to the university. The school later unblocked Facebook after the website rectified the situation by displaying a notice on the login page stating the credentials used on the website are separate from the ones used for their school accounts. The Ontario government also blocked access to Facebook for its employees in May 2007, stating the website was "not directly related to the workplace".
On January 1, 2008, a memorial group on Facebook posted the identity of murdered Toronto teenager Stefanie Rengel, whose family had not yet given the Toronto Police Service their consent to release her name to the media, as well as the identities of her accused killers — despite the fact that under Canada's Youth Criminal Justice Act, it is illegal to publish the name of an underage criminal. While police and Facebook staff attempted to comply with the privacy regulations by deleting posts mentioning her name, they noted it was difficult to effectively police individual users who repeatedly republished the deleted information.
Due to the open nature of Facebook, several countries have banned access to it including Syria and Iran. The Syrian government cited the ban was on the premise that the website promoted attacks on authorities. The government also feared Israeli infiltration of Syrian social networks on Facebook. Facebook was also used by Syrian citizens to criticize the government, and public criticism of the Syrian government is punishable by imprisonment. In Iran, the website was banned because of fears that opposition movements were being organized on the website.
On February 5, 2008, Fouad Mourtada, a citizen of Morocco, was arrested for the alleged creation of a faked Facebook profile of Prince Moulay Rachid of Morocco.