Youthful Indiscretions: Should Colleges Protect Social Network Users from Themselves and Others?

When a concentrated population of the differing groups a person knows from their life merges in one place, like a social networking site, a sense of confusion is eminent. This is due to the fact that there are varying levels of trust associated to every person. According to Petter Brandtzaeg, a Senior Research Scientist at the research institute SINTEF, “A central issue is whether personal networks in which the size and diversity exceed a certain threshold erode social bonds, thereby engendering distrust and less public content sharing.” (Brandtzaeg et al. 1011) This issue comes down to the privacy within a network of people on a website. As one definition states, “Privacy…is control over knowledge about oneself” (Fried 483). With a large diverse audience, a person does not have control over the knowledge being shared to everyone on the site. Therefore, there is a huge loss of privacy in relation to the faint connection a certain person shares with vague network ‘friends’. This causes a problem as a person will resort to sharing less content for fear of oversharing, or overstepping boundaries, to the lesser known groups of people within their network, which, in turn, initiates distrust because the person has no idea what is considered correct sharing etiquette for all persons in the

Thesis Statements: Although it is true that some universities monitor student emails and social media accounts to deal with issues with students, universities institutions should ultimately not be allowed to monitor student email and social media accounts because it invades the student’s privacy, and leads to bias when universities come to conclusions from information on social media by looking at it from one perspective. It is ultimately detrimental to both the student and the university staffs.

How would you feel if you knew someone was watching every move you made online? Well, these days, schools are planning to hire outside companies to cyber stalk students on social media networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, etc. I myself am both a student and a social media account holder, and I find it unnecessary for schools to automatically be involved in a student’s personal life, including their social media. Schools should not hire companies to probe their students’ social media because doing this would be stripping them of their privacy rights, this could risk students’ personal information to be exposed, and it is very pricey for schools to hire a company.

Carly Brandenburg practices law and works at the Indiana University School of Law. Her article was published in the Federal Communications Law Journal (2008) and discusses whether or not employers looking for insight on their potential employees are allowed to violate Facebook’s privacy rights. Published in 2008, “The Newest Way to Screen Job Applicants” rings true with the privacy issues of the time; however, looked at from today’s day and age, Brandenburg’s piece seems inadequate because of all the changes that have occurred on social media.

Internet background checks are a wave of the future, and it is here now. “Internet background checks” refers to the process were employers gather information from the internet about a person-in this case, a job or college applicant, to determine as much as possible of the applicant before they hire them (Rainey; Reicher). With a click of a button, one can type in someone’s name into google, an internet search engine, and find information about them in a second. Social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter allow one to keep in touch with friends and allow you to meet new people. In which, many people spend hours each day updating their profiles, messaging their friends and clicking through photo albums. However, these social media networks are also means for employers and college admissions to see into an applicant’s real life. To see what type of message they are sending, and validating their applicant’s resumes. To some people, this may be unethical. Because of this, internet background checks are a controversial topic due to some people debating that internet background checks are an invasion of privacy. However, with increasing competition for job titles and school admissions, employers and college admissions need a way to insure they are making the right choice when choosing an applicant. Admissions and employers want an applicant that is a good fit for the culture based on the image

Teenagers post thoughtless photos and comments about their personal lives which often come back to haunt them later. More than ever, colleges and employers pay attention to the online life of potential students and employees. A single Facebook

Due to the increasing use of the internet and social media by students, educational institutions, schools and universities, are using the same social media to track their students, or prospective students, social media profiles. While the institutions claim that they only do this to protect their students, the truth is that it is also used as a way to weed out people from the admissions process, and as a way to be notified against any alleged violation against the school or university. The majority of the reason why there is a controversy over this issue is because of these last uses, but there are still some that believe that protecting the students outside the classroom is not the school's job. Because of this students fear that these institutions have too much power and are overstepping their boundaries, most believe that schools should only monitor their students while at the school but that since social media is separated from school, the school should have no authority over it.

Many people state “Kids should not be misbehaving on social networking sites in the first place” as their reason. However, that does not mean that every child should have their privacy invaded because some of their peers made bad choices. Teachers and officials should have more trust in their students. The majority of students don’t partake in inappropriate behavior online, so why should they have to suffer the consequences because a few students do? Not to mention, punishing a student for something they said online is a complete violation of freedom of speech. We should only be censoring our students when absolutely

While one may contend that individuals are purposely sharing individual points of interest via web-based networking media and in this manner, it 's free for everybody 's utilization, information collectors don 't request the proprietor 's assent. Furthermore, this raises a morals and in addition an online security issue, where individuals discuss their enthusiastic issues in what they believe is a sheltered, private condition. “If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest nation in the world…”(page 4). As you can envision many individuals felt their web security was damaged.

The act would also require the making of a website that would be a resource for teachers, parents, and children to help them become more aware of the potential dangers of the internet. Fitzpatrick’s main concern is for the safety of young users of these social-networking sites; therefore, to protect young users from the dangers of social sites, he introduced stringent protective restrictions in his proposed Deleting Online Predator Act.

What do about ninety percent of us have in common? It’s the social networking sites that everyone is a part of these days, whether it’s your twelve year old nephew or your grandmother. Spending hours and hours connecting with your old friends and making new friends over the social networking sites has become a part of everyone’s daily routine. Nonetheless, recently privacy concerns over the social networking sites have taken its peak.

Zizi Papacharissi (2010) questions the impact of social networking on the privacy of an individual and presents a picture where she explores how social networking has penetrated into the privacy of a person in her article, "Privacy as a Luxury Commodity". This assignment attempts to go deep into the aspects of social networking that can interfere into the privacy of an individual.

Growing up computers had terrible graphics and limited pages on the Internet. Most of my friends and I used the computer and Internet only for gaming or messenger (chat rooms). However, over the years, computers and the Internet have improved drastically. Today the Internet is used as a way for people to connect and stay connected to one another, obtain information, along with many other purposes. Twitter and Facebook have become an essential and influential part of the American life. The school systems even have joined into the social media craze and have Twitter and Facebook accounts. Some schools also have downloadable applications (apps) that are accessed on cell phones. Not only are these accounts used as ways to network and provide important event dates, but also as a way to help keep the ones at school safe. Parents, teachers, and students are all encouraged to utilize these online programs or downloadable apps as a way to ensure the safety of everyone on campus. By using these social

As the years go on, the internet is increasingly becoming more accessible to people all around the world. It is practically running our lives, manifesting itself in apps at home and in mobile devices wherever you may be. Regardless of age, billions of people are connected through social media, especially children and teenagers. In 2013, Mary Madden’s “Teens and Technology 2013” was published on the Pew Internet Project. According to the Pew Internet Project, more than three-quarters of American children are expected to have a cell phone by the fifth grade, more than half having smart phones. With an abundance of adolescents using social media, should parents be able to monitor teenagers’ social media accounts? In speculation, this topic has a very intriguing argument. What parents should understand is that they should not feel the need to monitor their child’s social media accounts. Teenagers want privacy, trust, and freedom that the internet provides outside of their physical reality.

People should expect no privacy when it comes to their online activities. Companies like Facebook, Myspace and Google collect data on their users and sell it to advertisers. Advertisers then begin targeting social media users who match their profiles with online ads. As a user of social media, I often do online research on a particular topic or item I’m looking to buy to compare features and learn more about it. The next time I check my yahoo mail account, the side banner advertisements have all the items that I’ve recently searched online. It’s creepy. Social media users seem to have a false sense of privacy because it feels somewhat anonymous. It is anything but anonymous. Even the government is involved in monitoring the activities of internet users, especially social networking sites like Facebook. Consumers are willing to post personal information, photos, use their credit cards on ‘secure sites’ and by doing so, they are allowing their information to be data mined. Emails are not private either and can be mined for personal data to steal or advertising to target what we discuss in emails (Lawrence & Weber, 2014). What really frightens me is the staying power of our online identities. As teenagers and young adults fill their social media accounts with raucous pictures and rebellious statements, they don’t realize that potential employers and universities will have access to the foolishness of their youth. Expect no privacy and be cautious of what you post because it