Date: Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Is Facebook as good as it seems?

Following the story that Oxford University used Facebook to track the activities of its students, it begs the question, have social networking sites become a victim of their own success? The outrage caused when university professors searched students’ Facebook pages to find out who was responsible for the damage caused during end-of-term celebrations, is yet another in a long line of occurrences in which social networking sites are being used for socially-damaging purposes in the real world. This poses the awkward question, have these sites become victims of their own success?

Although hundreds raged that it was an invasion of privacy, if the pages on these websites are available for anyone to see, can they really be considered private? The ease with which information can be added and shared on these websites has caused an enormous increase in their popularity, but has it come to a point where they may be doing more harm than good? Other instances of Facebook or similar sites being used to the deficit of their members include future employers looking at profiles of candidates and rejecting them on account of something posted on the site. Research claims that one in five employers is now doing this on a regular basis as a way of screening applicants. Another case was that of Miss New Jersey found to have indecent pictures on her webpage, which launched an investigation into whether she should be allowed to retain her crown, and in another US story students from DePauw University in Indiana suffered a backlash when photographs on them vandalising a deer sculpture on the campus were found on Facebook. In Toronto, Canada, five students were barred from going on a school trip after negative comments they had made about teachers were found on the site. Even more concerning was the case of a student from a Pennsylvanian university who denied a education student her degree on the grounds that she was encouraging under-age drinking when a picture of herself on Facebook was found, entitled ‘drunken pirate’.

Arguments have been raised that this is a blatant disregard of people’s privacy, and that what they do outside school, university, work, has nothing to do with those in a position of authority, so this avenue of their social lives should not be open for them to investigate. Others however have said that if what people do affects their professional lives then teachers or future employers have a right to know. Is it the same as reading someone’s mail, or is it merely looking at something that anyone can have access to? The debate will continue to rage, but a word of advice, perhaps you shouldn’t include everything you get up to on your Facebook page; you never know who may be looking!



Sources: Times Online