Don’t Get Face-booked

A freshman engineering student at Ryerson University in Toronto, Ontario is facing expulsion after creating an online study group via a little social networking site called Facebook. Chris Avenir landed in trouble after his professor stumbled across the Facebook group (called Dungeons/Mastering Chemistry Solutions). Avenir is now facing 147 academic charges, one for every member of the group! For more details on the story, read this article from the Toronto Star.

Let’s put aside the fact that a virtual study group on Facebook is no more conducive to cheating than one that takes place in real-time in some library or residence. Let’s also put aside the fact that this student should probably be applauded instead of punished for his resourcefulness, ingenuity, and enthusiasm in deciding to administer to the group. What stories like this one ultimately teach (and there are so many of them), is that social networking sites like Facebook AREN’T PRIVATE. What makes these sites so valuable is also what makes them potentially dangerous: they are PUBILC spaces.

By now almost everyone has an anecdote or two in their pocket about the perils of facebooking. I know I do. When I was doing my undergrad at McMaster University, several students lost their coveted RA (resident advisor) positions after posting pictures on Facebook of themselves drinking alcohol in their rooms. Big mistake. RA’s are not allowed to drink while they’re on duty (which is basically around the clock). One of the powers-that-be came across the photos and shortly after the RA’s were fired.

The moral of the story (and it’s something of a downer) is that you have to be extremely careful about what information your putting on sites like Facebook. This is especially true in the context of institutional settings like schools, where this kind of technology proliferates so quickly that surrounding rules and regulations seem to be established on a whim. Of course, self-censorship can be tricky, as it’s not always clear what might come back to haunt you (I’m fairly sure Chris Avenir did not think he was doing anything that needed to be kept hidden).

For some more information about social networking and your privacy, watch the following video from Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada:

FEEDBACK:

• How private do you think Facebook is? Do you censor what you post?
• Do you think Avenir’s punishment is fair? Do you think he (and the 146 other members of the study group) were cheating?
• POST YOUR COMMENTS!