Students should change their Facebook privacy settings to prevent university officials from viewing their personal information and pictures on the site, said Nick Johnson, director of the Student Advocacy Center, at a forum Thursday to educate students about the risks of a public Facebook profile.
Johnson, a senior in the School of Public Affairs, began the awareness session by showing the profiles of university officials - dubbed "Big Brothers" in his presentation - who have created accounts on the popular networking site, including officials in Housing and Dining, Public Safety, Judicial Affairs and Mediation Services and the Office of Campus Life.
"I'm going to let you guys figure out what they may or may not be doing on the Facebook," Johnson said.
Johnson and his assistant director, Rick Edwards, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, warned that these officials can use posted information against students in judicial matters, with a particular emphasis on the dangers of posting pictures of illicit drinking on campus.
"No matter how photogenic you are when you're sober or intoxicated, pictures of you drinking should never be on the Facebook," Johnson said.
The session by SAC, which is the Student Government department responsible for advising students in judicial matters and helping them protect their rights, coincided with this week's expansion of the Facebook Web site to the general public.
"Your mom and dad could get a Facebook account and check out all your funny pictures," Edwards said.
Johnson said students should "be smart" with anything they post online, either on Facebook, MySpace or other Web sites. Students should use the test of "if your parents saw it and you'd be embarrassed, you probably shouldn't put it up," he said.
Administrators aren't the only reason students should carefully consider their privacy settings, according to a sophomore in SPA* who gave a firsthand account of being stalked through Facebook. She told a story of meeting a man on the shuttle who knew her name and interests from her Facebook profile, although they had never met.
She said she quickly realized that her room number was listed in her contact information, and "for that next week, every time I came out of my building, he was there."
"I just happened to find out about it, but it could be happening to you," she said.
Students should be aware that when they send a message to someone, even if their profile is private and that person isn't one of their friends, that person can view their profile for a month, she said.
Edwards briefly addressed the issue of privacy settings on the MySpace Web site, which makes all pages public if the individual is over 18. Students should change their birthday in their profiles so they are under 15, which automatically limits access to only their friends, he said.
Many of the university staff members shown had profiles that were either private or blank and did not have a profile picture. Others, however, had public and active profiles, such as Housing and Dining's Executive Director Julie Weber and Director of Residence Life Rick Treter, who had 50 and 82 Facebook friends, respectively.
Students can change their privacy settings by clicking on the networks tab under "My Privacy" when logged in to Facebook's Web site.
Women's Initiative, also a department within the Student Government, co-sponsored the event in Mary Graydon Center.
*The student requested that her name be removed from the Web version of this article.
