The Ethics of Facebook
by Natalie Gould, Reporter
Facebook. It consumes college campuses. But did you know that what might be your most entertaining distraction could also lead to your destruction further down your academic and career path?
The ethical standpoint of this dilemma is whether or not these authorities have the right to make judgments and decisions about students based on the information provided on Facebook. On one hand it seems an invasion of privacy that teachers, employers, parents, etc. could access private information and pictures at anytime, but isn't it also your responsibility to make sure you are practicing discretion in deciding what is appropriate to let others see on your very public profile.
It is the students' responsibility to use appropriate judgment in choosing the information they voluntarily provide online. By putting anything online it is an invitation for the world to see because nothing, absolutely nothing, is private. If teachers or employers want to search for you, find you, and then make decisions about you based on your Facebook or other social networking site, that is your fault for making it accessible to anyone who would wish to search for it.
College campuses nationwide often use the contents of students' Facebook and Myspace profiles to enforce policies. What this means is that if you have pictures with alcohol or vulgar material, this could be used as evidence of violations. Even more is that there is no way you can deny it; hence the popularity with school administrators and staff. It is as convenient as this, doing a name search on Facebook, and even though there may be multiple persons with your same name, it is likely you have provided your school and your graduation year, making it extremely simple to find any person anyone would be searching for. Of course there are privacy blocks you can set, but your friends "Tag" photos of you, so if there are any incriminating photos of you on the Internet, they will most likely be found by the searcher one way or another.
"Facebook checking" has become increasingly popular in the corporate world. Several renowned executives have admitted to checking Facebook and other internet sites before hiring prospective employees. Some even say that if they see anything slightly offensive, they will throw the applicant's resume in the garbage immediately. It may come as a surprise that prospective employees cannot be discriminated against in the areas of gender, race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, and political views in their applications or resumes as outlined in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, but anything posted online is fair game in the hiring decision.
"I would expect that, this fall, 25 to 50 percent of employers who are engaged in college hiring will use MySpace and Facebook as part of their backgrounding process," said Steven Rothberg, president of CollegeRecruiter.com. In fact, it is such a risk to have a Facebook at all that studies have shown that it will either make or break your ability to get a job in today's extremely competitive market, according to news-record.com.
Be cautious when using Facebook, Myspace, etc. because you have no idea who is looking at your profile and how it will affect you immediately or in the future. The amount of privacy settings you apply to your profile really make no difference at all. "Privacy" and "Internet" are not two concepts that should ever be together.