FROM THE FIRST DAY facebook.com opened to Duke, students embraced the site. Facebook offered students a cocktail of IM, e-mail and personal information. One Yale student likened it to "Internet heroin."
Who knew it could end up getting students in almost as much trouble?
In April 2005, three students at the University of Mississippi were threatened with a civil lawsuit and had to make a public apology. Their crime? Leading a facebook group devoted to their mutual desire to sleep with a certain female professor.
In October, a resident advisor in a North Carolina State University dorm reported nine of her residents for underage drinking. Laura Steen, one of the three students who ultimately received a formal citation, said the RA found the evidence in Webshots albums accessed through one girl's Facebook profile.
Even Duke administrators have found facebook an easy way to go after some of the most contentious groups on campus-sororities. After finding photographs of Delta Delta Delta's bid night celebrations-complete with vats of alcohol and a male stripper-through facebook, Dean of Student Life Sue Wasiolek alerted the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life to the photos. All of the photos were removed.
Why should the University install security cameras when students willingly post evidence of every type of infraction? Drinking, drug use, indecent exposure-it's all there.
Between the birthday reminders and wall posts, facebook has shifted from a social tool to an opt-in surveillance program.
Luis Fonseca, one of the students reported for drinking at NCSU, said University employees nabbing underage drinkers on facebook and Webshots is a transgression of an understood student-staff boundary.
"When we came to this dorm, they told us that if you get caught drinking you will be written up," he says. "They didn't say anything about pictures."
But checking profiles and photos isn't an illegal privacy violation, says Fred Stutzman, a doctoral student in information and library sciences at UNC who is researching how people share their identities online through facebook.
"We've come to a point where people are comfortable sharing their political and sexual orientations in a public place," Stutzman says. "These things that were previously taboo are more okay to talk about now. It's a societal change."
Jedediah Purdy, assistant professor of law, says students simply feel they're sharing sensitive information with pre-existing networks of friends.
"People who post party pictures, what they're thinking is that it's like having a little bulletin board of photos in their dorm room," he says. "They're not registering that it's more like putting an ad in the paper.
"We used to assume that something we did in one context could be kept out of another. This thing you did in the dorm Saturday night and the thing you did in your job interview Wednesday morning would not be compared against one another."
The Internet and the social networking sites it houses are having a "disinhibiting effect," Purdy says, so now everyone will know a little more about people. And that "everyone" includes professors and administrators.
Larry Moneta, vice president of student affairs, has a facebook profile-he's a member of the club "Student Affairs Professionals: We Are More than Ridiculously Attractive." Sue Wasiolek, dean of student life, and Stephen Bryan, dean for judicial affairs, have profiles. The Duke University Police Department is also highly represented and has been rumored to screen facebook event listings before big weekends. ("I've never heard of that happening here," says Lt. Davis Trimmer.)
Moneta says administrators are not going to "lurk" on facebook, seeking evidence of violations. But when the site seems helpful, they won't be afraid to use it.
"I have been directed to Facebook either by a student or a colleague because of some particular group they've become aware of, or some tidbit of information that might be useful," says Wasiolek.
But hey, this is college-a place to make mistakes where everyone can see. Just watch out for those male strippers.
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