Many of you will have a Facebook account and think nothing of using it to create events and give opinions. However, have you ever stopped to think about your privacy being compromised?
Students are no longer the only people accessing social accounts; they are being accessed by professionals and authority figures from both inside and outside universities. Our University students became victims of this cyber-policing towards the end of last semester when an event called the “Lawns Mashup” was created, whereby residents at the Lawns were invited, via Facebook, to a large party and football match on the fields surrounding the halls. Within a short while of this event being created a notice went up in each block from the head warden indicating the severe penalties that would result from any student attending the event, as laid down by both the police and the University.
Students at the Lawns were left wondering as to how the Wardens had found out about this planned party. When asked, the head warden confirmed that the Lawns Mashup was indeed discovered on Facebook but that he was also “made aware of a text message being sent to students as well”by the organisers themselves. Apparently there had been a decision taken due to earlier unauthorised parties in the year to ban all parties which were not in the Lawns Centre itself.
However, did the wardens have the right to ban the Lawns Mashup and other parties when students were paying to live there? Would the party, if it had gone ahead and not been cancelled by the head warden, have classed as a breach of our contracts?
It does state in the Lawns Residence’s conditions that residents must “refrain from doing anything which would damage or litter the grounds, gardens and pathways around the Residence” and “refrain from any behaviour which may be perceived as riotous or disorderly”. Therefore the wardens were fully within their rights to stop the event taking place.
Despite this, it was the fact that the University found out about the event via Facebook which, to some, indicated the use of cyber-policing by the University. There has, naturally, been a backlash in response both online and through word of mouth as students resent having what they see as harmless fun put to a stop.
The issue at the heart of the matter seems to be not about the cancellation of the Lawns Mashup or the penalties put in place for attending; it is the issue of privacy. The University were correct to stop the event but was it right that our communications were screened to find out about it? The Lawns Mashup is not the only instance of the University stepping in in response to events on Facebook and it will probably not be the last. They are in their rights to prevent these events but ultimately, are the ends justified by the means?
Jennie Harrison
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