"Reminder: Don't use Twitter to report crimes," noted Sgt. Tim Burrows on the @TorontoPolice feed last Sunday, accompanied by a ping to reformed gossip blogger Perez Hilton.

The social media officer cleverly referenced an incident that surely faded in the brains of anyone concerned with the MuchMusic Video Awards. Three years earlier, when Twitter was just catching on, Mr. Hilton used the service to tell police to come to his aid at the hotel where he was staying after an entourage with a member of the entourage of the Black Eyed Peas.

Perez has moved on to hosting nightclub parties put on with the hopes that other nominally famous folk will show up for a hug.

Concurrently, the Toronto Police Service launched a social media strategy and a related training program. But the emphasis has been squarely placed on putting a face on its community relations.

Government could never have invented something like social media. Yet, more than anyone else, politicians are expected to be accountable to the public when using it.

Ottawa Citizen reporter Glen McGregor was recently inspired — by a similar Slate monitor of Sarah Palin — to track potential Facebook comment deletions on the part of Stephen Harper's squad. And he was rewarded with evidence that many comments critical of the prime minister didn't last long — although some remained.

Should there be a federal standard for which responses are considered acceptable? What if they're attached to a page that fully verified where the commenter was coming from?

Curiously, there are two different official Facebook pages for Harper. The more popular one — with over 67,000 followers — is run by the Conservative party, while a more obscure one is maintained by the Prime Minister's Office, even though their content has been nearly identical. So, the lack of civility might have something to do with its assertively partisan origins.

These issues related to effective communication have now become an inextricable part of the discussion surrounding Government 2.0.

Does the Canadian music business need a spoonful of Sugar Crisp? Cereal company Post Foods has promised studio time, producer support and $5,000 for the most popular song submission to a contest called "The First15."

The official explanation for the venture, though, is a relatively nonsensical reflection of how cautious many are about stepping into this arena.

Presumably, the company was inspired to link itself to independent home recording artists after being approached by rapper Ish Morris to use the vintage 1960s "Can't get enough of that Sugar Crisp" jingle in a harmless ditty that itself sounds like a commercial that would air between Saturday morning cartoons circa 1989.

No doubt it would've been easier to just exploit the association with a viral video aimed at kids. So, why go through the hassle of trying lure musicians to upload their own tune?

The fact that Post has been forced to stop skewing its sugar cereal to children — while maintaining that 40 per cent of its eatership is over 18 — might have something to do with it.

"The track is allowed to incorporate the Sugar Bear jingle," stipulate the rules, "but this isn't required."

Calgary.ca earned some attention this week for being transformed into what a press release deigned to claim is the "first search-based website in Canada."

The venture is powered by Google Search Appliance, even though the home page looks more like rival engine Bing, with the search bar augmented with large photos of the resurgent city.

Indeed, the effort combined Microsoft Share Point software with other Google tools, and was highlighted on the promotional blog for the Search Appliance. Predictably, the new format was motivated by complaints that would be familiar to anyone who ever wrestled with a government website.

While the launch fit into the outreach narrative threaded by Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi, his Toronto counterpart was exposed for being trigger-happy on Facebook — even if Rob Ford has delegated social media management to others in his office.

Questioning the fact that Ford showed up to dance in his dress pants at the Caribbean Carnival, while steering clear of anything to do with Pride week, was not welcome on the wall. Asking for answers about his behaviour is apparently enough to have your "like" undone.

Amidst the other communication-related shenanigans surrounding Toronto City Hall, though — including a Ford administration support group on Facebook where the administrator, city councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, promised to block the input of any communist he could smell — the idea that the elected leader of the city would stifle discussion from citizens couldn't stir up any new outrage.

Facebook came up in conversation over dinner with a group of friends from university. We all attended McGill between 2004 and 2008, and we entered university at exactly the same time that Facebook began to be available outside of those first Ivy League schools, the first Canadian school they expanded to being McGill.

In a sense, we're Facebook veterans. We remember before liking, before fan pages, before grown-ups or high school kids could have profiles. We remember when the Wall was anonymous, when you logged in at http://www.thefacebook.com and all the many upsets of Facebook design changes.

And so it's now that I am beginning to worry, now when the flames of fury that we felt about every minute change have finally died down. Resignedly, we discussed the new features of the site ("why can't they stay the same? it worked fine!"), and trotted out the same tired "I'm seriously thinking of committing Facebook suicide." lines. But whereas we once complained about the privacy policy and the Beacon advertising system, we now bemoan the sorting of the News Feed or the 'comment by hitting enter' aspect.

Similarly, this Techcrunch article outlines a handful of concerns Orli Yakuel has with Facebook redesigns, but, as with my friends, the concerns are with cosmetic changes, not the privacy issues or data-mining tactics Facebook is angling to implement. There's a reason for this:

This talk Danah Boyd gave distills the reasons why we see a generation divide within Twitter users, and why the most active people on social networking sites (those with the most friends or the most avidly involved in apps) are middle-aged folks, not the youngsters assumed to be early adopters.