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."
Max Remer
Issue date: 9/30/05 Section: Opinions
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?
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?