When the wildly popular Web site Facebook.com was created by Harvard University student Mark Zuckerberg in 2004, it began as a safe haven for college students to express themselves through their profiles and to connect with each other.
But with many students revealing such personal information as addresses, cell phone numbers, schedules and sexual preferences on Facebook, privacy issues have been raised. Campus administrators, university police departments, admissions offices, parents and even employers have begun to peruse Facebook in order to check up on students.
In order to sign up for Facebook, all that employers need is an e-mail address ending in ".edu" - meaning that anyone who is a recent college graduate or who has an alumni e-mail address can sign up.
This easy access to the site has resulted in employers figuring out that Facebook could prove useful when conducting background searches on graduating seniors that are applying for jobs.
One recent Tufts graduate working as a consultant in New York City, who requested anonymity, said that his employer told him "to check Facebook to find a kid who was applying for a job at the company." The employer "said he wanted to see if his profile supported what he thought of this kid."
According to Assistant Director of Career Services, Nicole Anderson, "We have heard from alumni in business, law and finance that they are aware of websites such as these."
"They have probably heard about the sites from younger employees in their organizations who are more familiar with the sites. Even though senior employees may not be the ones checking Facebook, you can be sure that they may ask their junior employees to look online," Anderson added.
"I know that when [my girlfriend] was applying for her job in computer programming, they Googled her before the interview," said Rob Fishell (LA'05) who now works for Starwood Hotels and Resorts. "They only told her about it three months after she got hired."
"It's definitely an emerging issue for career services, given that students use websites like this so frequently, and that content is questionable. This topic is popping up at conferences in higher education," Anderson added.
Aware that many students post pictures and descriptions of their drunken debauchery on the site, administrators at Tufts began offering seminars in Facebook propriety last year during freshman orientation.
"We have always warned students about what they put on the Web. We warn them about the content of their own websites, even if they have not chosen to make this website available to employers,"Anderson said. " We have started to warn them about anything an employer could discover in the public domain. "
But the use of the site in this manner also raises ethical concerns.
"It seems to me that people who look at sites such as Facebook in order to, in effect, spy on students are taking advantage of the internet in a way that's not all that different from the way that sexual predators exploit it," said Assistant Professor of Philosophy Nancy Bauer, who teaches Introduction to Ethics.
"Obviously, employers or administrators who look at these sites are not breaking any laws, but they are fully aware that they are covertly looking at information that students might never voluntarily give them and then, at least in some cases, using that information in way that hurts the students," Bauer said.
"I don't think that employers could find anything in my profile to use against me but I still don't think they should do it," said senior Jessica Powers, who has been hired as a financial consultant in New York for next year. "It's not a valid source for background checks. It seems like they stoop to a low level if they actually do that."
"I also think it says something about the firm if they do it," Powers added.
"We use systems like Facebook to share uncensored aspects of our life with the college community, thinking nothing more of it," said senior Ajaita Shah, who one day hopes to go into politics. "However, now that this system is being used as a way to spy on our lives for the professional sphere, we are all in danger." "Clearly we'd all have to become much more aware of our actions, what gets posted online, and reconsider sharing anything at all," Shah said. "But what's more obnoxious is that they are doing this without us being informed. It's a direct infringement upon our rights."
"This is not like a parent sneaking into a kid's room and reading her diary - when an employer, in particular, is involved, one could hardly argue that the motivation in trolling websites that are set up for social purposes is to promote the potential employees' interests," Bauer said. "The motivation, rather, is to take advantage of a certain naivete on the part of students. That's exploitation, and any plausible code of ethics is going to find it, at bare minimum, disturbing."
Some of Facebook's security features include a degree lock that allows users to choose who can view their profile on a social network. By choosing the third degree, the person can only view their profile if they are of a "friend of a friend of a friend."
"Safety and privacy concerns are one of our top priorities - take a look at the extensive privacy settings that we've had from the outset as evidence, and as far as identity theft, we're confident that our members are intelligent enough not to give out any personal information that they want to be public," said Facebook spokesman Chris Hughes (see box).
"If any user does use the network inappropriately, we'll throw that person off the network," he added.
But according to Hughes, while the site was created for students, there is nothing that prohibits college faculty and administrators from using the site.
"They have the legal right to use it because it is a public forum," he said.
Hughes said it seems to be legal for college administrators to look on Facebook profiles for illegal activities such as underage drinking or illegal drug use. But, he added, "that wasn't our first intention for creating the Facebook."
"I think it's 100 percent unethical. I don't have anything in my profile I wouldn't want people to see, but a lot of people do," said senior Jeremy Kirbal, who is currently applying for jobs in the financial sector. "A personal profile is meant for personal use only."
Students, however, seem to be divided on the issue of Facebook privacy. While some are irate that their college hijinx may be used against them, others seem to have accepted that confidentiality may be impossible in the age of the Internet.
"My first reaction is that snooping on the internet for background info is sort of nosy and unprofessional," said senior Dena Miller. "But really, I don't think students should put things on public Internet sites that they don't want seen by others-employers included."
"It's a personality test. What you have on sites like Facebook is just another way the company can do behavioral analysis of you," Fishell said. "If you are going to apply for a big time job with a straight edge company, they want to know every detail they can about who you are, and MySpace or Facebook can tell them a lot about you."
"And from that they can determine if they like you," Fishell added. "I mean, you're putting tons of info about yourself out on the web for anyone to see and it can definitely affect your future."
"It's worrisome that students aren't aware that in posting things about themselves on Internet sites-even sites to which there is in principle limited access-they are in effect abrogating their privacy and making themselves vulnerable," Bauer said.
"That students are naive does not mean that they are to be blamed for what employers are doing, or even that employers are morally off the hook," she continued. "But its does mean that, like it or not, students are in effect asking for trouble."
"The Internet is for public consumption," Anderson agreed. "What a student puts on their own page, or what others choose to add to it, is out there for the world to see and to subsequently evaluate.
"Students put much effort and time into preparing for their job search," she added. "It's unfortunate that they might unknowingly damage their chance for a job or internship offer. Students can be naive in their job search, not realizing that subtle signs or gestures can lead to an employer's hesitancy or rejection."
"Very often, our job as career counselors is to teach students how to investigate companies and how to learn things about them that is not common knowledge," Anderson continued. "Students don't necessarily take our advice, but it looks like the employers have."
