Freedom to Tinker – March 20, 2006:
The controversy started with a story in the Daily Princetonian revealing that Public Safety had used Facebook in two investigations. In one case, a student’s friend posted a photo of the student that was taken during a party in the student’s room. The photo reportedly showed the student hosting a dorm-room party where alcohol was served, which is a violation of campus rules. In another case, there was a group of students who liked to climb up the sides of buildings on campus. They had set up a building-climbers’ group on Facebook, and Public Safety reportedly used the group to identify the group’s members, so as to have Serious Discussions with them.
Some students reacted with outrage, seeing this as an invasion of privacy and an unfair tactic by Public Safety.
And here’s the really insane part, the university’s police department capitulated!
In the end, Public Safety stated that it would not hunt around randomly on Facebook, but it would continue to use Facebook as a tool in specific investigations.
Between the wayback machine and the googlecache, though, setting to private doesn’t erase old mistakes. Once the bits are out there, they rarely disappear.
I agree with Allen #21. In fact I believe so strongly that people don’t understand the future ramifications of posting something (either criminally incriminating or simply embarassing) that I’ve written two articles myself about it. The first discusses the problem in general with a slant towards future politicians and the second deals with the recent perception of privacy disappearing from Facebook. I would encourage you to read them if you’re interested in this sort of thing.