First off, unless they're breaking the law, I think that what someone does on their own time on their own computer is nobody's business. With that said, people should be careful about what they put online as someone, somewhere, will find it. I can't help but think about a post IJ made on his livejournal linking to the blog of someone he found in his hometown. I'm not going to link to it, as it was not kidlet friendly (well, Jones' entry was, but the blog it linked to was not).
It's completely reasonable to expect that employers will look you up online. For that reason, posting pictures of yourself smoking pot or having sex or something like that online is probably not a good idea.
I have a weird opinion about this whole thing. I don't think that it's unreasonable for an employer to not hire someone for something they've posted online (in recent time, anyway), BUT I think firing an otherwise good employee because they said something behind someone's back is a bad idea.
We actually got an email from Dept. of Student Affairs about facebook.
A New “Face” on Campus- Delois H. Smith, Vice President for Student Affairs
The FaceBook that launched a thousand profiles.
Launched in February, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, a Harvard undergraduate computer science major, FaceBook.com has quickly become the most popular online website directory connecting college students through social networks at over 2000 colleges and universities nationwide. According to a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article, “Facing the Facebook,” January 27, 2006, FaceBook tallies 8 million users and has 250 million hits every day and ranks ninth in overall traffic on the Internet. According to Paperclip Communications, a college support network, at least 85% of college students, age 18 – 24, use FaceBook with 60% of them logging on daily.
Elizabeth Weiss Green, in a recent U.S. News and World Report short article, “The Web of Social Networking,” November 14, 2005, describes FaceBook as being 11th of the 20 most popular sites on the Internet. Green states that, like cousins Friendster, MySpace, and Xanga, FaceBook’s social networking allows you to update your profile, look up people at your school, see who knows whom, find people in your classes, send cute strangers flirtatious “messages,” “poke” them (a tease message) or reaffirm interpersonal relationships by formally asking people to be your “friend.” One student at UAH touts ninety-five “friends” from 48 different campuses.
Although FaceBook is a great site for social connections, precaution should be taken as you form these connections, create your profile and post information.
Showing your FACE – TMI (Too Much Information)
“Think about it before you give it up.” – Kevin Mannix, Embry Riddle University.
Revealing too much information on FaceBook, like listing home and cell phone numbers, home and/or residence hall addresses and clubs and organizations you belong to can have detrimental consequences. Posting such information could lead to identity theft, unwanted personal contact, and even stalking. Future employment can also be affected by what is written on a personal profile. Use common sense; personal safety should be your first priority. Don’t list personal phone numbers and addresses if you don’t want strangers to know them and you should disregard emails sent to you by people you don’t know. What you write on your profile and how you write it can project an unintended bad image about you, your family, UAH and present a bad first impression to future employers.
Just as you can browse other FaceBook profiles by putting in specific parameters, your personal information can be accessed by anyone, and you don’t know who is looking at your profile. Therefore, edit, restrict and protect your private information. Officials at Brandeis University, as well, cautioned students about giving out too much information. Some general guidelines to follow:
· Be aware of the scope of the web. Even secure sites can be hacked, so your information may be open to the public.
· Create passwords that others can’t easily figure out. Use complex alphanumeric passwords, unrelated to any of the information you have already posted (e.g., not your birthday).
· Consider posting only information already available in the public domain. Just because there is a field on the site doesn’t mean you have to populate it or fill it in. True “friends” can always email you to ask for more contact information.
· Post general rather than specific information. For example:
o Birthday – Sept. 19 (leave out the year).
o Address – Huntsville, Alabama (leave off name of residence hall or address).
o Don’t post information such as phone number, address, social security number, or schedule of activities.
· Consider the impact of what you post. Be aware of the image your profile and information projects about you to future employers, family, school administrators and your university. Being a member of a group called, “I Steal from Annenberg,” may not bode well with future employers or interviewers.
· Change privacy settings to keep your identity safe:
o Who can see your profile
o Who can see your profile in searches
o Who can see your contact information and details.
o Go to
http://uah.facebook.com/privacy.php. You can click on Advanced Settings to add even more privacy.
o Look at FaceBook.com terms to understand what you’re getting into when you log on (
http://facebook.com/terms.php).
When you do not restrict and edit information, wrong and unintended individuals can gain access to your private information exposing you to identity theft, obscene phone calls and voicemails, threatening emails, and mysterious online messages; these are all forms of cyberstalking.
At FACE Value
You may believe that anything you say on FaceBook is allowable because of free speech protections of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, but not all speech is free, protected, and absolute. Gary Pavela, editor of Synthesis: Law and Policy in Higher Education, provides a summarization of lawful limits on freedom of expression. Freedom of Expression, Part I, Volume 16, Number 1, Summer, 2004, pp. 1125-1127.
Exceptions to protected speech include:
* Obscene Speech - speech which is “patently offensive,” appeals to “prurient interests” (marked by arousing, or appealing to unusual sexual desire), and, taken as a whole, lack “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”
* Fighting Words – words, which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.
* Commercial Speech – speech that “proposes a commercial transaction” that is unlawful and misleading.
* Defamation – false statements about a private person that harms their reputation.
* Copyright Infringement – unauthorized use of a copyrighted product.
* Disruption of the Academic Environment – expression or “associational activities need not be tolerated where they infringe reasonable campus rules, interrupt classes, or substantially interfere with the opportunity of other students to obtain an education.
* Invasion of Privacy – unwanted and unwelcome views (verbal and nonverbal) that are a substantial intrusion into privacy interests and that are done in an essentially intolerable manner.
* Sexual and Racial Harassment – “ethnic, racial or sexual epithets which engender offensive feelings and are sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter conditions for an individual or create an abusive working environment.”
* True Threats – communication that is a serious expression of intent to inflict harm. The context in which the statements are made, the reactions of listeners and others, as well as the nature of the comments are taken into consideration.
* Advocacy Directed to Inciting or Producing Imminent Lawless Action – “expression directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action” and be “likely to incite or produce such action.”
UAH administrators do not police or monitor the FaceBook website. However, when violations of the Student Code of Conduct are formally reported and initiated, an administrative response, investigation and action is required. Sara Sweitzer of the Boston Globe, recently stated in her coverage of FaceBook, “As the FaceBook has become a phenomenon at schools across the country – a virtual bible for campus socializing and networking – the unintended consequences of overly comprehensive, brutally frank, or mischievous entries are surfacing.” Additionally, in a recent Paperclip Communications audio conference, November 17, 2005, Laurel Christy, a Community Development Educator of New York University stated, “speech that is malicious, dangerous, hateful, harassing and abusive is not protected in the virtual world and it is not protected in the non-virtual world either.”
Therefore, exercise extreme caution in these areas to avoid litigious consequences.
FACEing the Music
Be advised, you can be held accountable for behavior or speech you place on an off-campus message board if that behavior or conduct violates institutional and/or residential policies and if a student, staff or faculty member files a formal judicial complaint as a result of what is posted on your profile concerning them.
FACEing Up To Future Consequences
FaceBook is a great website for keeping up with friends, advertising campus events and getting the word out, but some postings go beyond the pale for civility and decorum. Discussions about, “ peeing in the shower”? Believe it or not, there are many grandmas who are quite computer savvy and log on to FaceBook. Imagine a conversation between your Mom and Grandmother: “Helen, does John really urinate in the shower? Now really Helen, talk to the boy!” It is not likely they would be interested in the ph balance of urine for cleaning the shower.
Sarah Schweitzer, reporter for the Boston Globe, states in a recent article, “When students open up…a little too much: colleges cite risks of frank online talk,” September 26, 2005, the plight of a Brandeis University junior who posted the following on her personal profile, “I enjoy the festive greens.” The reference to marijuana on her profile was read by someone in her home community who shared it with her parents in Georgia. Eventually, word reached her grandmother. “”My bubbe,” the junior said, using the Yiddish word for grandmother, “told me her seniors home was abuzz with the news, and I was like: ‘I hate the FaceBook.’”
Be advised that employers conduct web searches for candidates for future employment. So be very careful about the content of what you post. Words often last well beyond the time, place and person who spoke them; they often live on in cyberspace and can come back to haunt you years later. A case in point was the recent confirmation hearing for Supreme Court Justice Alito. He was questioned about things he said and did years before in college! Well, maybe you won’t be questioned as a Supreme Court Justice, but you may need a security clearance for a job or maybe one day run for public office. You may come “face-to-face” with those words and that profile sometime again in the future. Therefore…choose your words and profile wisely.
Saving FACE
So, give your FaceBook profile a FACElift. It will do wonders for your “rep.” and the new look could take days and years off of current and future consequences if you do. Put a new FACE on it!
The Office of Student Affairs will soon schedule a presentation that will cover the specific points of this article in depth. We’d be glad to have you attend. Details of the presentation will be coming soon.
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