Officials at North Carolina State University recently used photographs on the popular website facebook.com to cite nine students for underage drinking. A resident advisor found photos of suspicious behavior on the website and reported the nine students Oct. 26. The students will face disciplinary action, which could include probation or assignment to an alcohol education class.
Administrators at N.C. State defend the actions taken by the resident advisor, saying she was just doing her job by reporting suspected transgressions of the university’s policies. Such actions at Duke, however, would violate the spirit of communal trust between students and administration that makes the Duke community what it is. Utilizing facebook.com as a surveillance tool is abusive and would create a “Big Brother” police-state climate. That is not the type of community atmosphere that should be allowed to pervade Duke’s student life.
Granted, the use of facebook.com to detect violations of university policies is legal. But, just because it can be done does not mean it should be done. The objective of cultivating a community of trust supersedes the objective of using non-traditional methods to crack down on underage drinking. In other words, the benefits do not outweigh the costs. There are better, less trust-violating ways of combating underage drinking.
Some may argue that if students do not want to be punished for underage drinking, then they should not post photos of themselves engaging in the act. Photos are often posted, however, without the consent of the people in the image. With the ubiquity of camera phones and digital cameras these days, a student can quickly snap a photo of a bacchanalian Friday night party and post it without anyone’s consent the next day on facebook.com.
Ultimately, this issue highlights the broader question of public and private spaces on the Internet.
Students should realize that as a password-protected site, facebook.com has the image of a private network, but in reality it is an open space where one can learn all sorts of details about someone’s personal life. If the University were to use facebook.com to detect low-severity violations, such as underage drinking, then it would have a chilling effect on facebook.com’s purpose of serving as an online networking forum. It would not reduce the number of students imbibing under age 21; it would just reduce the number of photos posted online…
Clearly, in some instances, it should be permissible to use facebook.com to prosecute students. If there is evidence of a rape or assault, for example, the website’s evidence should be used against the offending student. With a low-level “everyone does it” violation such as underage drinking, however, the severity of the offense does not justify the use of privacy- and trust-violating methods of obtaining evidence.
The bottom line is that the ends do not always justify the means. Using facebook.com to cite people for underage drinking is simply not worth the price of violating the spirit of trust and community that we enjoy here at Duke.
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