Facebook - Public Information

I have told you many times to be careful what you are putting on Facebook and other social sites. "What goes out there can never be brought back", and how you should not put any personal information about yourself or your family out there, not pictures, names, vacation dates, likes or dislikes, etc. It is all being recorded and could easily be used to commit a crime against you. Identity theft, extortion, profiling, just to name a few.

Facebook's Terms of Use specify that "the website is available for your personal, noncommercial use only," misleading some to believe that college administrators and police may not use the site for conducting investigations. 

Facebook spokespeople have made clear that Facebook is a public forum and all information published on the site should be presumed available to the general public, school administrators included. 

Legal experts agree that public information sources such as Facebook can be legally used in criminal or other investigations. (If lawyers say that Facebook is a good thing, that should be a Red Flag right there).

Facebook, a social network service, is increasingly being used by school administrations and law enforcement agencies as a source of evidence against student users. The site, a popular online destination for college students, allows users to create profile pages with personal details. In the early years of the site, these pages could be viewed by other registered users from the same school, including resident assistants, campus police, or others who signed up for the service. The user privileges and terms of service of the site have since been changed to allow users to control who has the ability to view their content.

Recent disciplinary actions against students based on information made available on Facebook has spurred debate over the legality and ethics of school administrators' harvesting such information.