Wednesday, January 25, 2006
The Web site facebook.com, known for connecting old friends and starting new friendships, may be causing unexpected problems with the law.
Police have reportedly been monitoring the networking Web site for large parties at at least two universities. Though University of Kansas officials said they hadn’t used the Web site to monitor the site’s 22,000 KU members, they do have the capability of doing so.
The New York Times reported that Kyle Stoneman, a student at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., was convinced his party was broken up by the campus security force because he had posted it on facebook. Officers discovered underage drinkers at the party.
Stoneman and his friends fought back. They again posted a party on facebook, but this time when the university police showed up, they found cake and cookies with the word “beer” on them and a “cake-pong” table instead of a beer-pong table.
Other cases like Stoneman’s occurred at schools such as the University of Kentucky and Northern Kentucky University, when students posted pictures of themselves illegally drinking in dorm rooms, according to The Courier Journal of Louisville, Ky.
No such accounts have been reported at KU, but it would be easy for any employee of the University with a KU e-mail account, including the KU Public Safety Office, to set up a facebook account to monitor students.
Schuyler Bailey, spokesman for the office, said the department had no plans to monitor the Web site.
Sgt. Dan Ward of the Lawrence Police Department also said his department doesn’t monitor facebook, adding, “We do respond to complaints from the citizens of Lawrence who feel the parties are disturbing their peace.”
There are additional problems on top of getting in trouble with the law. At the University of Missouri, a task force has gone into effect for this semester to inform students about the consequences of facebook. Students are being educated in classrooms about the problems of putting personal information on their profiles.
“Students think facebook is just a one-on-one conversation, but it’s not,” said Mary Jo Banken, director of the MU News Bureau. “It’s not a place to post a lot of information about yourself that is available for anyone to see.
Ann Eversole, assistant to the vice provost for student success and dean of students at KU, said she had heard comments about students posting photos to the site that show inappropriate behavior
“People are too trusting,” said Eversole. “They put way too much information on there. Those who put their class schedules up there are just asking to get robbed or be stalked.”
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