So… do you go to college? If you do, you probably spend a lot of time in the dorms, sitting at your desk, and surfing that Internet a lot, huh? You also might have an account at MySpace or Facebook. Yeah, I guess you can see it as a good way to socialize and meet other students online… These social networking services have caught on in the last year or so. It must be great to find old high school friends, see who else is in your class, or just simply learn as much as you want about another classmate.
However, I’ve been learning lately that there are many other uses for these portals which probably weren’t what the creators intended.
First off, a student at UMBC has been charged with murder as a result of a date scheduled via MySpace. If you read the article, this student has been made out to be like a sexual deviant; his roommates “estimate that by the end of his first year at UMBC, he had slept with more than 40 individual women.” He somehow arranged to meet with female students online, finding their profiles and sending them instant messages. Now one can argue that having a sexual appetite is healthy, but this guy has been said to “sometimes videotape himself having sex with a webcam mounted on his computer, not always with the woman’s permission.” There’s something obviously wrong here, violating the girl’s privacy and trust like that.
These portals are probably ripe hunting grounds for sexual predators or stalkers. Of course, it’s always good to know basic web surfing safety. I checked the privacy policies of Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, and Xanga. Most of them were pretty much the same, almost practically coming from the same template. However, none but one site had any noticable tips on online safety; at least I couldn’t easily find any links to any information on their sites. MySpace was helpful enough to provide safety tips (a link found at the bottom of their web pages). Browsing through that, I found that if people were smart enough to read up on the tips, they will most likely be much more safer online. However, I can bet that most users probably don’t even read those disclaimers and user agreements that they’re quick to get through when signing up for their services. My only suggestion is that these services take it upon themselves and make more users aware of online saftey. MySpace takes it only so far with a link, but perhaps they need to make another announcement or two to remind users. They site Wiredsafety.org as an organization that helped them with their safety pages.
Now I’m going to digress a little. My reason for writing this little rant doesn’t include just the safety of students from dangerous predators or stalkers. Think about it. Students are posting on these things practically almost everything about themselves: their interests, their birthdays, and even their own pictures. Some people might think that it’s ok to post something like “I’m drinking! And I’m underage!” or even uploading pictures supporting that. Probably thinking that they’re looking cool in the process and not going to be punished, these unsuspecting students are unaware that school officials and faculty actually do peruse these things! I’ve already heard a few cases on campus where student athletes were punished for drinking underaged. They were caught by pictures they uploaded online to sites like Webshots.
A personal friend of mine had gotten into trouble over nothing but posting comments on a message board like UMBC Forums. He hadn’t done anything, and the school already sent him a letter stating that he is not allowed anywhere on campus except for class. Of course there are other details, but I don’t want to get too specific. Needless to say though, the whole thing is unfair. That whole thing was resolved a while ago, but recently he’s been getting more heat from them. In all honesty, from what I know, the school is being unfair and it gets me riled up that these people are harrassing my friend like this… and it all started because they are stalking students online! Not wanting to steer off the topic too much, but this almost reflects our current situation with the government and their wire taps. Are we willing to sacrifice our freedom for this supposed “safety?”
What I’m trying to get out of this is that students need to take a look at these current social networking crazes. The Internet has been a wonderful thing for us, and we are REALLY lucky because of it. However, we also need to realize that it’s still relatively new and we need to take charge of our safety and rights. Personally I support our police; they are there for our safety. And obviously if you are caught online for drinking underage or making actual threats, you probably do deserve some punishment. I mean it’s almost like a confession! And these practices are legal! However, we need to be aware of this and know when too far is too far. If you were in school administration or a police officer, would you actively go out and ban a student for planning a peaceful protest (i.e. a sit in)? That’s what my friend did online, and apparently our school deemed him a threat to students and their safety. Their sense of justice must have been misguided. This automatically puts my friend in their crosshairs and deemed a deviant from now on and treated as such. Hopefully if you read this you have an opinion or idea to express. Please do so by all means!
Here’s some other sources you might want to check out:
- Wikipedia article that lists social networking sites.
- Wikipedia article that talks about the use of Facebook in college investigations. My favorite snippet is this one: “In response to the monitoring, some students have begun to submit “red herring” party listings. In one case at George Washington University, shown at CakeParty.org, students advertised their party and were raided by campus police. The police found only cake, no alcohol, and later claimed the dorm raid had been triggered by a noise complaint.“
Several relevant articles:
- Site used to aid investigations by Devon Lash, November 10, 2005
- Big Brother is watching you on facebook by James Samons and Ryan King, November 09, 2005
- Facebook profiles could lead to consequences by Meredith Barnett, February 08, 2006
Hmmm… I wonder if any of the faculty at my school reads this and now are out to get me?
