The Observer, April 28, 2006
Volume XXXVIII, Issue 26
Facebook stalking: not just for kids anymore
Facebook has become an almost essential tool for social survival on college campuses. Students at institutions can sift through each others' profiles looking at everything from e-mail address and hometown to a person's relationship status and favorite book.
"Facebook stalking" is the term that has developed for this typically harmless practice of finding people (or finding their profiles, at least) on Facebook and learning about them without their knowledge or consent. "It's a lot easier than the real thing," said freshman Abe Del Rio. Facebook stalking is mostly harmless and used to find out someone's e-mail to coordinate a class project or to discover other people on campus with common interests and tastes.
But it isn't just students that are Facebook stalking anymore. Campus security and residence life staffs have begun using pictures posted on the social networking site to find and prosecute students for alcohol violations. At Western Washington University, four students were placed on probation and one was asked to leave the housing system based on alcohol violations that were documented and discovered through Facebook. Two weeks ago, a resident assistant at John Carroll University was asked to resign after similar pictures were discovered on her Facebook profile. When she refused, the university terminated her employment.
Case has had three cases involving alcohol and Facebook since Residence Life began watching the issue. The most recent incident was caused by an album of a party at a campus fraternity and has been used to bring proceedings against the fraternity for alcohol violations, as well as against individuals who appear in pictures of that party. Residence Life says that the pictures were delivered to them and that they currently have no policies that ask Residence Life staff to scan Facebook looking for alcohol violations.
"We're not actively seeking out these things," said Lisa Marsalek, assistant director of Residence Life, "but if someone gives us information from Facebook which shows a campus policy being violated, we have to act on it."
Evidence that can lead to judicial action is anything that openly admits to breaking a campus rule or law. This includes text and pictures posted in any public forum including, but not limited to, blogs, MySpace, and Facebook.
Students should also be cautioned that unlike a typical court of law where evidence must be conclusive beyond a reasonable doubt, Residence Life judicial hearings can be called based solely on a preponderance of evidence. This means that if you're under-age and it looks like you're holding a beer in a picture proceedings can be brought against you before any other information will be taken into consideration. Also, because the judicial process is educational rather than criminal, there is not a statute of limitations on online evidence.
Using such public student forums to observe behavior is not something unique to universities. Law enforcement has been known to use pictures or information from MySpace and Facebook in prosecuting people for vandalism, drug possession, and other illegal activity.
Employers are also beginning to hop on the Facebook stalking bandwagon to look at the digital profiles of potential employees, using the digital networking site as an impromptu and probably more revealing interview. The unfortunate fact, however, is that most students are unaware that their profiles are being used this way and so they continue to post information meant only for the eyes of their peers and never for their would-be bosses
There are privacy controls that allow Facebook users to limit who is able to access their accounts, but users should keep in mind that anything in a profile is public domain and that it is very difficult to hide the information completely. Albums which feature under age drinking are dangerous to both the person who posts it and to all under age persons who are featured in the picture since any evidence of illicit drinking can be used in a judicial hearing. The most effective preventative measure is not to drink or at least to do it in a very private venue without cameras present.
