Facebook

Introduction
Facebook, like much of the Internet, is a great innovation! It offers you an opportunity to interact with an extraordinarily expansive universe of old and new people. You can sculpt your on-line identity and learn more about how the Internet and its various programs work to create new relationships and communities. However, People make the technology, not only in the fundamental sense of discovery and invention, but also in the sense that they make it happen and that they contour it in ways that reflect our basic humanity. Our basic humanity is for better or for worse. It is vulnerable to context, circumstance and interpretation. And so it is important to remember that Facebook is malleable and creates as many obligations as it does opportunities for expression. Below are five concepts to keep in mind when you use Facebook, MySpace  and other online chat rooms.
Five Things to Think About When Using Facebook

1.  Invincibility
   
   A long time ago, well before the advent of Facebook, there was a student at a university who used a chat room to post some facts about the size of his penis. What a surprise when he went for his first job interview, all nicely tailored in a new suit and armed with a good G.P.A. He was rejected. Fortunate for him, there was a friendly alumnus on the search committee who told him the reason. The HR person on the hiring committee had looked him up on the Internet and found the boasting posting! Frantically, the student called the university officials asking them to remove it. Alas, they could not help him, because a commercial ISP was the domain of the posted information. In time, the student learned about the labyrinthine procedure in which he had to engage in order to have the posting removed. It never occurred tohim that a relatively harmless boast could cause him so much trouble.
   
   Thought: Think about not only your marketability today as a cool person in your college social circle, but who you might want to be in five or ten years when posting an "identity" on the Internet.
   
   
2. Caching
   In the days before Google became the dominant search engine for the Internet, ISPs that sported chat rooms had policies regarding caching information. Nowadays, Google is the main corporate entity with which one deals when it comes to cached information. To date, Google has tended to be good about removing material within a certain number of days pursuant to a proper request. But let's take a step back and see what caching means. Caching, means that if you post something on Facebook, let's say for a day or two, just to be funny or to make a point, even if you take it down or change it, it remains accessible to the rest of the world on the Internet anyway. Take a moment to think about how you want to "brand" yourself on the Internet. Almost everyone is more complex of a person than a single label can explain, but for most people it takes time and effort, if not real friendship, to get to know people's complexities.
   
   Thought: Think about how much you would be willing to have to go through the bureaucracies of at least three to five search engine companies to remove cached material before you post something about yourself on-line.
   
   
3.  MHC LITS Policy: Freedom
   Under normal circumstances no monitoring the network for content of files or email. Mount Holyoke College is very proud of its policy against monitoring the network for content as a practice. That policy has put the college in good light not merely as a response to content industries that have requested that we monitor in order to enforce their intellectual property rights, but more important as a statement about its role in higher education. Mount Holyoke College is a private not for profit entity, it is not required to observe the First Amendment on free speech. As a research institution it prizes free inquiry, and free speech. Thus, for Mount Holyoke College, free speech is a part of our values as an important center for research, teaching and outreach internationally.  I am sure you have all heard that with freedom comes responsibility. Facebook is an excellent example of that adage. No official at Mount Holyoke is going to monitor your posting and make suggestions to you about it, good or bad, either way. Most entering first years are young adults and we treat you that way. It is time for you to be away from your families and make your own decisions about who you want to be.
   
   
4.  MHC LITS Policy: Responsibility
   No limiting authorized viewers from your site on Facebook or other Internet expressions of your identity.Here is the responsibility part: no one is going to limit those people who are authorized to use the Internet or view Facebook postings from seeing what you post on-line. The Internet is an open, unlimited international community (that is why it is such an exciting innovation!). Facebook is open generally to .edu addresses. That authorization includes faculty and staff - as well as alumni. Such people might be members of your family, your parent's neighbors, the local bank manager where you want to get a loan for a new car, your insurance agent, an advertising industry in NYC with whom you might want a summer internship, or a law firm where you want to work your second summer of law school - anyone, world wide! Thus, if you are applying for a job as a resident advisor there is nothing keeping the residence hall staff from looking you up. Got referred for alcohol abuse? The Dean can look you up as well. Trying to get a deal on car insurance? Who knows, maybe that little Geico gecko went to MHC! In other words, there is nothing to keep just about anyone from looking you up. On Facebook, you have absolutely no expectation of privacy. You also might want to take a moment and reflect on the physical safety of this tool when posting information about yourself. No expectation of privacy combined with the full range of humanity represented in these forums means that you may be exposing yourself to someone who may not have the same values, assumptions about appropriate behavior or may even have a mental defect or disease which could put you at risk as a victim of criminal behavior. Very likely you would not place a placard in the front of your house or dorm describing intimate details of your personal life, private sexual matters, detailed comings and goings or anything else that someone less careful and competent than you might construe as an invitation for communication or even harassment and stalking that could prove dangerous. Use physical space as your guide. What you wouldn't put on a poster on your residence hall room door you might want to think two or three times about posting on-line.
   
   Thought: With the freedom to post what you want comes the responsibility to do so in your interests not only for today, but also for who and what you want to be tomorrow. And also think of your personal safety.
   
   
5.  The Law
   Most of the time when we talk about Facebook it is a very individual matter. There is yet another angle to consider: the privacy of others.  "Privacy" is a complicated matter in American law. It evokes everything from the right to family planning through Fourth Amendment search and seizure to torts, or civil rights, "to be let alone" in our person.Watch what you say! If you post an alleged fact about someone that proves incorrect, you may be liable for damages under either defamation or libel. Moreover, if you post photographs or information about someone that can be construed to be an "invasion of their privacy" (say while they were sleeping in their own bed), or "false light" (say suggesting that they are of one sexual persuasion when they are of another), or "misappropriation of likeness" (a claim usually reserved for celebrities, but then again we have them here at MHC too!) then you may be liable for a tort under the broad rubric of "privacy."
   
   Thought: Think not only about what identity you create for yourself online, but also how you represent others. At the very least, be sure that you take their feelings into account. You would not want to find yourself as a defendant in a tort case that alleged you invaded their privacy.

Revised and Reprinted with permission, Tracy Mitrano, copyright Cornell University. More information available at Thoughts on Facebook online.