The Facebook Face-off: Faculty, Staff, and Rollins Very Own Orwellian Tyranny

A response to the on campus fallout regarding The Facebook as a "Big Brother."

By: Max Remer

Posted: 9/30/05

Last year students of Rollins College finally were given the opportunity to participate in an online interactive website known as The Facebook.

Most people know exactly how this website works. For those who do not know, students are allowed to freely sign up under their respective school and place a picture of themselves as well as information about who they are. Students can also join clubs for people with common interests and other students can post messages on their respective "walls."

Facebook is extremely open forum for students to express themselves any a manner of their choosing. However, recent developments have put quite a damper on the freedom of expression at this school.

Recently Rollins College faculty members and staff members have been joining Facebook. To date there are 23 faculty members listed on Facebook. As this has been happening, there have also been many reports of students getting in trouble with the college over pictures placed on Facebook and another website called Webshots.

It should be noted however that in no way am I blaming the Faculty joining Facebook for the reason that students have been getting in trouble. When I first found out about such actions taken against the students, I was outraged.

The entire situation of Facebook begs for debate. Students' right of privacy seems to be under fire by an overzealous Residential Life team. If these events are true, it shows a desperate move by this institution to try to clean up. I feel however, this is the wrong move. Searching through personal pictures and reading statements or clubs made as jokes can have dire consequences.

First, it destroys any level of trust between the students and the college. The college comes out as the "bad guy", who looks as if it is hunting down students and trying to entrap them.

Second, students who gave no consent to have pictures placed online are not discriminated against when punishments are handed down. Residential Life needs to stop playing internet police and concentrate on actually catching students in the act rather then simply finding incriminating evidence on internet websites. What happened to actually having credible evidence to convict people?

The other side of this argument has a strong case as well. Although Residential Life still seems somewhat overzealous, they are doing it for good reason. Rollins has a reputation as a party school. We are looked at as an institution of rich kids at a country club and not academics at a liberal arts college. This reputation is trying to be changed by the current staff. Thus, a crackdown on policies is enviable.

Students who break policies need to be punished; there is no way around this. Thus, Residential Life is simply doing its job in finding students who publicly disobey policy. The way in which Residential Life is doing this is through online anonymous reports placed through their website. Thus, someone is snitching on students, finding their pictures and turning them in.

I applaud this school for trying to change a negative reputation. However, I do not applaud snooping on students. Yet, students with pictures of themselves breaking policy are just as much at fault.

If you are going to break a law and/or a policy why publicly display yourself doing it? That is simply not a smart move. I beg the student body to take some responsibility and accountability for your own actions.

I would like to state that I am quite sympathetic to individuals who are simply in other people pictures. It is completely unjust to punish students who gave no consent for their pictures to be on websites. Although what the college might be doing is not desirable, it is what might be happening. When signing up for Facebook you represent Rollins College, as it is tagged to your login name and your page. Thus, the school has some right to monitor how its name is used.

I also call out to the college to think carefully about which roads it chooses to pursue. Although a picture is "worth a thousand words", it is not proof that a cup holds anything alcoholic.

The college needs to be very careful not to start an "us vs. them" mentality with the students. It also needs to stop jumping on students who turn up in pictures on internet websites doing crazy things. Students should only get in trouble when caught by an RA, CA or member of Residential Life.

I am in no way condoning breaking policy and getting away with it, rather I am fighting for a fair system relaying on eyewitness testimony rather then internet hearsay. Hopefully Residential Life will reexamine its policies, notices and ethical flaw with its current activities. Until that happens, students of Rollins: be warned, your privacy is not as safe as it once was.