http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/22/keele_facebook/
Should you be held accountable for what you write online? This is the central question behind the article published by Chris Williams in reference to a recent legal dispute at Keele University. Several students have contributed to a group on Facebook, "James Knowles is a Twat." Dr. Knowles is an English professor at the Staffordshire university. The university said that any more contributions on web sites like Facebook that could hurt the university would be dealt with very seriously." The university also sent out a waring e-mail to all students. Granted, this is not the most interesting case, but I feel it brings up several important issues. First, the idea that colleges actually look a social networking sites is something new to me. It was until recent that I learned that several prestigious universities actually looked at your profile on Facebook to determine admittance/scholarships. Second is the idea of censorship. Should the university have the right to tell its students that they cannot write what they feel about their professors. Does writing not also have some therapeutic benefit as well that allows the students to relieve some frustrations that they have with their professor? At Durham University, they went as far as blocking social networking sites between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. To me this seems to go a little far. By the time we reach college we are SUPPOSED to be developing into responsible adults and reducing our freedoms by treating us like children does not help matters. For me, as a college student addicted to Fcebook, I feel that these issues should be carefully analyzed because there is always a chanche that there will be a ripple effect from college to college in policy making.
3 comments:
I agree with you, I think that blocking these social networking sites at certain universities is taking it a little too far. Sure, students may post unnecessary thoughts about their professors and peers, but isn't it their right to do so? I personally wouldn't do that, but many students choose to do so and shouldn't be punished directly from the university for what they express about someone on Facebook. We are legal adults now, we shouldn't have to be blocked from getting on Facebook during certain times of the day.
I am really glad this isn't happening at Alabama! Something similar to this happened at my high school, but it wasn't as big as this. Our school had most networking sites blocked on the school computers, but administrators could get on Facebook. Some people got in trouble for talking bad or making groups about our administrators. I thought this was unfair because they should have freedom of speech.
That's very interesting. I never really thought about universities checking facebook either. It reminds me of all those times in high school when someone would make a derogatory group about one of the teachers and immediately everyone would join. Those kids probably didn't even give it a second thought. I'm sure it never crossed their mind that those teachers might one day see what they had written. It's kind of scary. I'm gonna be more careful what I write from now on. :)
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