Facebook privacy

[Icarus]

From the Times today

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol ... 087306.ece

What does anyone think: unfair invasion of privacy or serves the students right for putting their pictures on a publicly accessable place? I wonder how long it'll be before everyone starts increasing the privacy settings on their profiles, although that rather seems to me to be against the spirit and fun of Facebook.

[DrAlex]

As far as tales of real and supposed ways FB can compromise your privacy, getting done for breaking uni rules is kind of old one (some kids in the US were expelled and suspended because pictures of them trespassing were put online). The survey at the bottom is the kind of thing people are talking more and more about. Friends of mine in the US have untagged a lot of photos before applying for internships for instance.

The bottom line is if there is something you wouldn't want to world to know, don't put it on show for the whole world.

That and if you're going to commit crimes (be they against uni law or any other law) don't take pictures!

*disclaimer* The Sinner does not condone crimes, facebook privacy invasion, picture taking, or posting on threads.

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The Sinner: Where no one ever learned "if you haven't got any thing nice to say, don't say anything at all."

[Admin]

The Sinner does not condone Facebook either.

[Jono]

I thought we had the right not to self-incriminate in this country.

In any event, it's not as clear cut as people putting up incriminating photos being idiots. Half of them aren't even their photos I’d imagine. Even if you subsequently un-tag them, people may still recognise you by sight. There's no way to delete other peoples photos of you!

Yes, facebook is a social networking site; open, and all that jazz. But the spirit of that openness is for use as just that; a social network. Not a spying site! Not as the unseen eye of the faculty!

Just because someone can theoretically do something, it doesn't give them the moral right to do it. I could theoretically hurl this chair I'm sitting on though the window to my immediate right. There's nothing to stop me from doing it, short of my own inhibitions. Just because you can do something, it doesn't mean you should.

I have a flat. I share it with flatmates. We have communal areas in the flat. Occasionally someone might leave private papers, bank statements, etc. in one of these communal areas. Just because it's been left in a communal area; open to all, it doesn't give me anymore right to leaf through them than if they were in a private room. Arguing that they’d been left on the table is hardly a defence for a breach of privacy!

Also, why do I get the sneaking suspicion that the similar tactics will mobilised for Raisin weekend this year?


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Exclusive to The Sinner, and all other fora.

[Paranoid]

Does photographic evidence really stand up in court as proof? I mean to dish out fines based on images which were not taken by those handing out the punishments does seem a bit weak to me...lets not forget that images whose sources are unknown could easily become frauds and cleverly stitched together.



I'm not surprised though that Oxford have decided to go down this route...they really seem to get the wrong end of the stick sometimes. I heard they tried to standardise academic families and FORCE students into having mothers/fathers and vice versa, the social context was completely lost...or so I recall reading many years ago!

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..I've got this pain down all the diodes on my left side...

[DrAlex]

Quoting Jono from 15:18, 17th Jul 2007
Just because someone can theoretically do something, it doesn't give them the moral right to do it.

My point was, right or wrong, people will use facebook (and a lot of other internet sources) in this way, and so all users of the web should be aware of what they put out.

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The Sinner: Where no one ever learned "if you haven't got any thing nice to say, don't say anything at all."

[Frank]

When push comes to shove: don't do stupid things.

If a PI can catch you at it, I'd bet that any old busybody can find it via Facebook, Myspazz or Bebo or whatnot. Hell, even intrawebz forums (yikes...they could look on the Sinner...)

However, I think there needs to be another bit too. I don't think Universities, particularly, should be using this. They have the right to, but it seems a bit...random. If they were to do it for everyone...then sure, I can imagine it'd be fair game. But when someone get's picked out it could be a case of 'someone tagged a photo of me being sick in a bucket in Freshers week after my first ever sip of alcohol...now it's counting against my appeal' as much as 'woops, I left the photo of me raping a baby on Facebook, how silly. Ah well, I lose PtP as they know now I wasn't ill when I missed that tutorial...'

I don't think it's an invasion of privacy...but there are limits to how far you can feasibly and consistently go with it.

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"There is only ever one truth. Things are always black or white, there's no such thing as a shade of grey. If you think that something is a shade of grey it simply means that you don't fully understand the situation. The truth is narrow and the path of the pursuit of truth is similarly narrow."

[David Bean]

I don't think the principle is unreasonable either. I mean, if I shot someone and then posted pictures of it on Facebook, I wouldn't expect to be able to stand up in court and argue that the evidence should be inadmissible, and I also don't see why an employer shouldn't check out an applicant's profile on Facebook either. I don't know about anyone else, but I'd be happy for anyone to see what I'd posted on that site.

But if the some of the parts of this story are true, it does appear that the university has overstepped the mark; if they've really fined someone on the basis of a photo showing them with some shaving foam on them, that's clearly absurd because it doesn't show that the individual in question was complicit in what happened to them, and any half-decent magistrate would say the same.

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Psalm 91:7

[Midget]

Wasn't someone fined before actually doing anything, ie because they'd created an event to do with spraying.

Taking Bean's analogy that would be like being done for murder because you made a facebook group called I want to kill so-and-so. (Ok conspiracy to murder is a crime) But conspiracy to squirt foam -we are getting into silly minority report territory.

I don't post stuff that I don't want seen on facebook. I suppose a homophobic employer might turn me down (but it would be bloody unwise if they were too blatant due to current legislation). And as for misdemeanours, those are very long elegant cigarettes.

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IMAGE:img9.imgspot.com/u/04/241/18/160019.jpg new shite
http://standrews.facebook.com/profile.php?id=37100090

[Paranoid]

OK having read the posts, I would admit that Facebook can be used fairly to raise suspicions and trigger someone to look into a violation thereafter.

But the way in which I read the original post, Oxford were using Facebook as sole evidence of a misdememour which I don't think is right. If they find a photo which suggests a wrong has been made, then Oxford should go away and investigate further and find their own primary source to confirm this as I still assert that to use secondary sources from a social network group would be very fragile and allow people to be easily framed.

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..I've got this pain down all the diodes on my left side...

[KateBush]

As someone who is currently in Oxford, let me tell you that people are very angry about all this here. Conduct on facebook is also looked at by the proctors- eg if someone says uncomplimentary things about another student/staff member here via facebook, they can be hauled in front of the proctors and asked to explain themselves.

It's no wonder th eproctors used to be called he university POLICE- that's exactly what they are.

I suppose they feel safer checking for trashing evidence on facebook than when they turn up to the exam schools. Last year the proctors were trashed themselves, and not just with flour and water either. There was actually some squid involved!!! (not meant to find it funny, but somehow I just DO...)

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Intelligence can leap the hurdles which nature has set before us- Livy

[munchingfoo]

Surely thrashing is a University crime on when done between two or more people wanting it to be done. In any other instance it is common assault and becomes a criminal matter. Surely the proctors could follow those routes in these instances?

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Tired Freudian references aside - your mother played my mighty skin flute like a surf crowned sea nymph trying to rouse Poseidon from his watery slumber!

[Midget]

exnihilo was right spelling and grammar do make all the difference.

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IMAGE:img9.imgspot.com/u/04/241/18/160019.jpg new shite
http://standrews.facebook.com/profile.php?id=37100090

[exnihilo]

I was? I mean, they are important, but I don't recall saying so recently...

Quoting David Bean from 21:58, 17th Jul 2007
I don't think the principle is unreasonable either. I mean, if I shot someone and then posted pictures of it on Facebook, I wouldn't expect to be able to stand up in court and argue that the evidence should be inadmissible, and I also don't see why an employer shouldn't check out an applicant's profile on Facebook either. I don't know about anyone else, but I'd be happy for anyone to see what I'd posted on that site.

Why not? If the police had obtained the pictures by entering your house without a warrant they'd be inadmissible. Where evidence comes from and how it was obtained are very important matters at law.

[bdw]

Quoting exnihilo from 21:10, 18th Jul 2007

Quoting David Bean from 21:58, 17th Jul 2007
I don't think the principle is unreasonable either. I mean, if I shot someone and then posted pictures of it on Facebook, I wouldn't expect to be able to stand up in court and argue that the evidence should be inadmissible, and I also don't see why an employer shouldn't check out an applicant's profile on Facebook either. I don't know about anyone else, but I'd be happy for anyone to see what I'd posted on that site.

Why not? If the police had obtained the pictures by entering your house without a warrant they'd be inadmissible. Where evidence comes from and how it was obtained are very important matters at law.

But, to stretch the Oxford analogy, is this not more broadly comparable to someone posting a photo of this behaviour up in the JCR than someone stashing the photo within their home? I don't know how accessible photos are on facebook but if these ones were presented in such a way that any user of the site could view them, then they would appear to be in the public domain.
I would agree with David that, while the evidence might be admissible, the presumption that the victim was complicit in the act is easily rebuttable - those involved in the commission of the act would be more likely to feel the pinch.
But presumably (Kate Bush might confirm?) this fine is levied as a result of a breach of the student's contract with the university (good behaviour clause or equivalent to the sponsio academica). This is presumed as, if it were a true criminal damage matter, the police would be involved. As such, if I were in the shoes of the commissioners of the act, I would like the authorities to demonstrate that the fine levied was not disproportionate to the remedial cost (£40-70 seems an awful lot for tools and labour to mop up some eggs and shaving foam) and therefore unenforceable.

[Bonnie]

Can they prove when the photo was taken? What if someone put flour on themselves on some other day of the year?

[KateBush]

Well it's usually easy to tell if someone has just finished exams here. They will have on sub-fusc- the uniform of sorts that everyone wears to do exams: black gown, trousers/skirt and white shirt and tie (for fellas) or black ribbon for the lasses. In addition, they will be wearing a red carnation if it's their last exam. Ergo, if someone is covered in flour etc dressed like this, the evidence looks quite conclusively.

I think the fine is made according to the brach of the contract one makes with the University, as Eliot was saying. The Proctors always decide at random how much to fine people. I remember reading last year's oration on their demitting office, and they included a list of who had been fined for what, and there was one instance where someone was fined something silly like £35 for trashing a friend outside exam schools, "and a further 10.25 for running away."

I mean what do they do? Shout "That's £1.50 for every ten paces you run," or something?

Oxford is so strange sometimes. Much like St Andrews in that no matter how strange one is, there's always someone stranger.

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Intelligence can leap the hurdles which nature has set before us- Livy

[David Bean]

Quoting exnihilo from 21:10, 18th Jul 2007
Why not? If the police had obtained the pictures by entering your house without a warrant they'd be inadmissible. Where evidence comes from and how it was obtained are very important matters at law.

Of course it is - but we're talking about something that's posted on the internet here, and I hardly think downloading a photograph constitutes an illegal search.

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Psalm 91:7