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My dad forwarded me a news article about Amanda Tatro, a University of Minnesota who recently was recently banned from the UMN campus because of her Facebook posts. The Star Tribune reported that Tatro, a mortuary science student, posted messages that others found disturbing and threatening. Specifically, she talked about using a trocar (sharp object used in the mortuary field) to take out her aggression in class.
Although I found the story disturbing, I started to ponder a few questions that I did not (still don’t, by the way) have the answers to.
- When can police and the law use material from social media outlets as evidence/reasoning for cases in the offline world?
- Is there a governing body that has created a standard of ethics for the law, stating when it is and is not appropriate to use online-based content for offline purposes?
Earlier this semester, a friend told me about a case in La Crosse, Wis. where police created a fake Facebook account and friended students at a local university to track their drinking habits. Some of the friended students were called into the police station and handed underage drinking citations.
I don’t believe that the police found the evidence of underage drinking in an ethical fashion. Making a false account on Facebook, in my opinion, is wrong and should not stem from the government. Don’t get me wrong when I say that making a fake account is wrong- I follow a few different TV characters on Twitter who don’t actually exist. It’s wrong, however, when the average person cannot distinguish the falsity of an identity online (Mashable posted an article on fake Facebook profiles).
As social media continues to grow and evolve, I feel that large changes in law and ethics will follow.
I might think twice the next time that I post my grumbles about schoolwork the next time that I log onto Facebook. Then again, I would probably talk about throwing my computer out a window instead of using sharp objects.
Read the Minneapolis Star Tribune article mentioned above by clicking here.
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Comments
12.18.09
One of the issues with online postings is that they are written, not spoken. A lost of the inflection is lost, so it is difficult to tell when someone is just venting, or if they are being dead serious.
Additionally, anything written is taken more seriously than anything spoken , especially by the older generation likely to be in the university administration.
Then add to that the unique responsibility of a University. The university is charged with essentially 'taking care' of children as they transition into adulthood. So they have to walk a very fine line between allowing their students a certain amount of freedom, and protecting the students from harm as the parents (who most often are paying the tuition) are expecting them to do.
I don't think the campus police nor the University Administration overreacted.
To put this in another light, how would you expect your employer to react if they saw a online post that you wanted to stab another coworker in the office tomorrow?
12.20.09
And this is just the latest in the world of social media fails.
First of all, they shouldn't have accepted friend invitations from people and organizations they didn't know. Second, this is where they need to review their privacy settings. Thirdly, they need to think twice in positng any evidence of potentially illegal activity.
Call it a learning experience, which is properly placed at a university.
Live by social media, get dinged by law enforcement using social media.
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