• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Students may now want to think twice before posting provocative pictures on Facebook of Undie Run debauchery or of those unpredictable Thursday nights, as their audience may extend well beyond their fellow classmates.

With a recent string of schools including UC Santa Barbara regulating inappropriate Facebook conduct, the popular social-networking Web site can potentially work against students.

Some students at George Washington University in Washington D.C. recently experienced the downside of campus officials having access to Facebook.

One student claimed the campus police used the online site as a means to put a halt to his party, the New York Times reported in a Jan. 8 article.

While campus officials at numerous universities may be taking aggressive disciplinary action toward students displaying questionable behavior in their photos and profiles, university officials at UCLA said they have yet to turn to such drastic measures.

“We do not currently have a policy in place where we monitor Facebook,” said Brian Carlisle, associate dean of students.

Though UCLA administrators do not monitor the plethora of information that is widely available online, if information that clearly violates university policy is presented to campus officials, Facebook can be a vital source of evidence, Carlisle said.

“Anytime anyone brings us information that violates policy, we will investigate,” he said. “We are not interested in searching out information on students. ... We are interested in students making good decisions.”

The university police department takes a similar attitude regarding the growing site.

“We don’t use it preemptively. Sometimes people will send us stuff from the Facebook,” said Nancy Greenstein, director of police community services. “When (students) give us reports, then yes, we investigate.”

Though the thought of administrators, staff and faculty with UCLA e-mail addresses easily stumbling upon embarrassing photos or unprofessional postings may be unsettling, no law prevents it.

“Undergraduate students don’t have immunity to the law,” said Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor. “It’s a publicly accessible Web site, so you can’t complain about privacy violations.”

Volokh also emphasized that specific policies addressing Facebook are not necessary for information on the Web site to be used against a student.

“The underlying rule is you can’t drink in your dorm room,” he said, referring to students who could potentially receive disciplinary action for posting pictures of under-age drinking on campus.

But using Facebook to provide evidence of unlawful behavior among students could potentially become a common tool for administrators.

“I’m not going to rule anything out,” Carlisle said.

Nonetheless, students should be extra cautious when revealing intimate details of their lives to online audiences, as future employers and graduate school admissions officials have also been known to use Facebook as a source in their hiring and admissions processes, Carlisle said.