A newspaper covering small, unincorporated communities along the McKenzie River in eastern Lane County is without one of its key tools for reaching community members, and the publisher is fighting to get it back.
On April 2, the Facebook page for the McKenzie River Reflections was hijacked, and the page name was changed to "Marketing AI Lexi.” While the posts made by Reflections remained, new posts focused on products to help companies market their products on Facebook.
Publisher Ken Engelman reported the issue, changed his password and added contact information to his account. But those actions failed to keep the hijackers out.
When community members reached out about the issue, Engelman asked that they help him file complaints that the content was stolen. The complaints also included allegations that the hijackers were committing copyright infringement.
After those complaints, the page was completely erased, losing the history of posts, followers and a page history that had the newspaper’s content being shared through Facebook’s algorithm.
“It was bad enough to steal the page, but to totally wipe it off the internet completely was just underhanded,” he said.
McKenzie River Reflections has been in business since 1978. It joined Facebook in 2011, and had garnered about 4,000 followers in that time. Its three to five weekly posts drew around 164,000 views in March of this year, according to Engelman.
That compares to its 850 e-edition subscribers and 100-150 printed editions it distributes weekly.
"I want my page back,” said Engelman. “I know that it exists somewhere in the Metaverse or wherever it is. Facebook has access to it."
Engelman said he has launched a new McKenzie River Reflections Facebook page, but it has been slow to catch the traction that its original page had.
“I have to rebuild that 15 years of work and acceptance by the community,” he said.
Neither Facebook owner Meta or Sandwich Lab, which makes Lexi AI, returned KLCC’s requests for comment.
