The Chroncle of Higher Education just published a short article on student bloggers and online privacy. Here are the opening paragraphs. If you're a UC student and want to read the rest, you'll need the library logon information -- I can give it to you if you want. The article also has some comments on cyberstalking. Worth a read.
When Pennsylvania State University's resurgent football team scored a victory last October against its archrival from Ohio State University, throngs of students rushed the field and set off something of a postgame riot. Overwhelmed, campus police had difficulty identifying the perpetrators and made only two arrests on game day.
But less than a week after the game, Tyrone Parham, the university's assistant director of police, got an unexpected tip: Several students had posted pictures online of their friends storming the field. Campus police officers logged onto Facebook, the immensely popular social-networking site, and found a student group titled, unsubtly enough, "I Rushed the Field After the OSU Game (And Lived!)"
Within days, officers had examined images posted to the discussion group, identified the offenders, and referred about 50 students to the university's office of judicial affairs. "For us, it was just a matter of a couple of mouse clicks," Mr. Parham says.
But some of the students who were identified saw it as an example of police overreach and a violation of their privacy — even though their images were accessible to anyone with a working Penn State e-mail account. For many students, the incident was an unwelcome lesson that the Web sites they socialize on are far from private.
The moral of the story is, always remember that anything you post online can be seen by anyone. If you're not comfortable with your mother, your future boss, or the police reading your posts, you might want to reconsider -- or don't use your real name. Of course, on the other hand, the Internet is all about transparency and openness, right?
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