Students learn consequences of online posting

By Elizabeth Celms
Mercer Island Reporter

It’s an age-old high school nightmare: Friday night. You’re at a friend’s party. You may not even be drinking, but there is beer all around. The music is loud. Things get a bit rowdy. Everyone is having a good time. And then, just when you’ve decided to head home — panic. Kids scramble into bedrooms and closets. Beers are dropped, cigarettes tossed. But it’s too late. The police are inside, their notepads are out and sure enough, you and your friends are “busted.”

Well today, there is a new teenage nightmare; another way to get caught. It’s called Facebook.

In the past five years, online social networking services such as Facebook and MySpace, Web sites in which members chat with friends and share personal information, have become a part of nearly every teenager’s life. It’s hard to find a high-school or college student today who isn’t a member. If you have a friend, you’ve most likely got a network.

“I’d probably say, of all my friends, 90 percent are members of Facebook,” said Mercer Island High School senior Cullen Russell. “And then a lot of people do MySpace. Pretty much everyone has a friends’ network.”

As of October, Facebook registered over 42 million members worldwide and expects to surpass 60 million by the end of this year. It is the seventh most visited Web site (MySpace is the sixth), and the number one site for photos in the United States with over 8.5 million pictures uploaded daily. The free site, which generates revenue from advertising, grosses over 1.5 million per week.

As popular as these social networking sites are, they have also opened a whole new can of virtual worms. Whatever a student posts — say, an offensive joke about a teacher or candid photo from last weekend’s keg party — is subject to public view; whether it’s your best friend, your mother or the high school principal.

Jane Winn, a University of Washington law professor, points out that Internet freedom and online responsibility go hand-in-hand.

“You know that old rule — never put anything in an e-mail that you wouldn’t want to see in the New York Times the next day? Well, people forget this, and it applies to Facebook as well,” said Winn, who is a leading international authority on electronic commerce law and information security. “People put photos on Facebook with the illusion that they can control their distribution, but they can’t.”

The American media is testimony to this. With the massive popularity of Facebook and Myspace, newspapers across the country have been awash with headlines: “Student suspended over Myspace posting,” “Alarms sound over athlete’s Facebook page,” “Educators warn parents about MySpace drinking photos,” “Students disciplined for criticizing teacher on Facebook.”

The problem, it seems, comes down to naivet/. Teenagers tend to believe that such sites are restricted to a limited audience, so they upload humorous photos taken at a friend’s party: The star athlete doing a keg stand. That shy freshman, red-eyed and laughing with a joint. A group of girls clinking shot glasses with big rosy smiles.

But it’s all in good fun. Until somebody gets caught.

Shortly after last month’s MIHS Homecoming dance, several athletes were called in by school administrators on suspicion of attending a party with under-age drinking, according to students. Within days, rumors flared that a teacher had gone into Facebook and found photos of the athletes drinking. It was also suggested that administrators were monitoring Facebook for incriminating evidence against students. MIHS Principal John Harrison, however, adamantly denies the rumors.

“The rumors flying around were completely out of control,” he said. “I can guarantee you that no administrators were looking through Facebook for incriminating photos — absolutely, positively not.”

Asked whether any student athletes were being disciplined for drinking after Homecoming, Harrison refused to comment. He did say, however, that administrators did not need “incriminating evidence” to discipline a student under the Athletic Code of Conduct. Therefore, searching out photos would not only be unnecessary but superfluous.

According to the MIHS athletic code, which must be read and signed by each student registering for a sport, “the use, distribution and possession of tobacco, alcoholic beverages or drugs” will result in “athletic probation, suspension or expulsion.” This applies to students on campus or off, during the school year or over summer break.

The rule of proximity says that any student who is “close in distance, time or relationship with other students coming or going from a social gathering where drugs and alcohol are present” is also at risk of punishment.

In an effort to quell last month’s rumors, Harrison organized a school assembly to openly address the issue.

“I told kids that administrators were not monitoring Facebook, that there is absolutely no truth to that rumor,” he said.

Yet many students still believe the hearsay, and those that do are incensed: How dare a teacher look into Facebook? That’s private. They have no right to be there.

But the fact is, they do.

“The Internet is public space, so teachers aren’t doing anything wrong by viewing Facebook,” said Winn.

Harrison addressed this exact point during the assembly, reminding students that anything they post online is open to public view. He asked students to make wise decisions when sharing information on Facebook, and warned against posting anything that could damage their reputation.

“They’re posting pictures they shouldn’t be posting where predators, colleges, employers and, in some cases, administrators can access them,” the principal said.

Harrison plans to send a newsletter home to MIHS parents, encouraging them to discuss Internet safety with their children. Many students, although aware that the Internet is public domain, do not fully realize what this means, he pointed out. It is easy to forget, while blithely chatting away online, the breadth of consequences out there. Even Russell agrees to that.

“I think students kind of have an idea that what they post isn’t private, but they aren’t sure to the exact extent,” he said, adding that Facebook guidelines complicate things.

According to Russell, Facebook allows students to post whatever they like (although a Web manager has the right to censor offensive material) on their own page. Registered “friends” can then view these postings through their shared network. Theoretically, those who are not registered as friends cannot access the page without a password. The system was designed to ensure a certain level of privacy. Yet the system has glitches.

“You get screwed over unintentionally because if a person posts a photo and [sends you the picture], you can delete the picture on your page, but it’s still on their page. Sometimes it’s difficult to get people to delete the picture,” said Russell.

For many MIHS students, last month’s Homecoming scare — rumor it may be — was a wake-up call.

“Once students heard that people were getting called in there was a mad dash to get incriminating photos off Facebook,” said Russell, who plays both football and baseball for MIHS. “I think kids are being more cautious now.”

But today’s technology does not favor caution. Take the ubiquitous use of cell-phone cameras, for example. With phones the size of candy bars, people can snap pictures as indiscreetly and frequently as they like, with or without the subject’s permission.

“Cell-phone cameras are making privacy issues harder,” Winn said, speaking from a legal point of view. “It’s difficult to know whether a student realizes he’s being photographed at a party and if he’s given that person permission.”

Unless teenagers learn to use discretion when posting photos and comments on Facebook or Myspace, the academic — and later in life, professional (employers also have free access to these sites) — consequences are wide open.

“There’s an old Chinese proverb that goes: There is no wall the wind can’t penetrate,” Winn said. “Nothing is ever private.”