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Kent State Banning Athletes from Using Facebook
denebian devil links to a Columbus Dispatch story about athletes at Kent State being forbidden to use Facebook — "not by the Web site, but by university administrators."
From the article: "Athletics Director Laing Kennedy recently told student-athletes they have until Aug. 1 to remove their Facebook profiles, citing a need to protect both their identities and the university's image. "We're really concerned about the safety of our student-athletes and some of the personal information some of them have on there," he said. ... If student-athletes don't remove their profiles by the deadline, they risk losing their scholarships, he said. Coaches and athletics counselors will monitor the site for violators."
denebian devil continues "Arstechnica also has an interesting take on the subject. Makes you wonder why they even bother providing internet connections on college campuses."
Facebook pretty similar to myspace except it is geared more towards student(post-secondary) networking. It's basically the easy target, I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happens to myspace (like it is in high schools).
I don't know how it works at Kent but when I went to BGSU (as a scholarship athlete) we had to sign tons of paperwork including a "Code of Conduct"-like document that would have waived my right to pretty much anything legally binding.
If you weren't 18 you couldn't sign it without your parents co-signing it. I was 18 and thus a legal adult. I assume that Kent would be doing something very similar (hell they probably use the same paperwork being that they're in the same conference).
Kent doesn't exactly have an "image". They are just another college in the Midwest that no one cares about.
Isn't Kent State the college where they executed Vietnam War protesters in the 1970s?
I guess the only lesson the college learned from that hideous exercise was that published pictures of their students can get the college into trouble.
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make install -not war
I ain't evil, I'm just good looking.
it's also impossible as you have to be a registered student at the same university to view any information on a facebook member.
Or you'd have to have a pliable intern who's a registered student at the university in question. Or have $50 and/or some alcohol to bribe a freshman to log on using his account information.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
Myspace is the networking site for the Facebook rejects. Everyone in college uses facebook, and only a few use Myspace, also. But since you can't get on Facebook without a college email address, the uneducated masses (and the old people) have no option but to use Myspace.
Facebook is the "cool kids' table" at lunch, and is technically superior to Myspace in almost every way.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
to totally ban them from having a facebook profile is a very restrictive kind of thing to impose upon a student. i can understand if they monitor the profiles or force the students to keep them in a reasonably "family friendly" manner, but to totally keep them from it? that's kinda stupid. Facebook does AMAZING things for finding people at college. say, one of ur buddies mentions somebody's name.. and ur wonderni who that is.. its very easy to just search the name on facebook and viola.. you found out who that person is... mayby thats' why at a lot of colleges 1/3-1/2 of the students have one of those profiles?
Yeah, but can you retroactively add to the contract? That is, when they signed on (for their scholarships), was that restriction there, or anything remotely resembling it (for example, an NFL contract stating that you can't do dangerous activities, which could be applied to trying to do stupid things on a motorcycle, ala Kellan Winslow Jr.).
Speaking as a graduate of BGSU and a scholarship athlete there (same conference), you signed the forms at the end of every year accepting your scholarship funds and then differnt forms at the beginning of each year that dealt with issues like this Facebook bullshit.
Could you alter your contract during the middle of the year? I doubt it.
Constitutional rights are the law of the land unless you're in the army or work for the fed government in some capacity as a spy. A state government cannot pass a law that violates a constutional liberty. If it does then it can be taken to court. Far be it for a uni to pass some assinine policy to keep their students' mouths shut.
Actually, I believe that any university (state or private) can refuse to allow the miltary to recruit on campus. The catch is that they have to accept the forfeiture of federal funds for that decision.
I HAVE CUBIC WISDOM THAT TRANSCENDS AND CONTRADICTS ONE DAY GODS
Just to clarify, because you're mixing up the authority of the coach, university, and scholarship giver:
If the coach has $10,000 of his own money he wants to give as a scholarship to any girl who will take off her clothes, that is of course perfectly legal. (though he'd likely get fired because of bad publicity)
If the University wants to start a Stripping team and awards scholarships for it, that would be legal (though probably a bad idea due to the inevitable lawsuits and bad publicity no matter how well-run the program was).
If a university gives a scholarship to a player for playing a sport, and the coach declares on his own that he'll stop her eligibility unless she takes off her clothes, that's sexual harrassment. You see the difference? You keep suggesting that somehow the coach gets to dictate the terms of a scholarship or eligibility, and that's just not the case, coaches are coaches, the scholarship committees do the contracts and finances (though often the coach is on the committee, it's unlikely they'll get away with adding a stripping provision to the contracts).
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
What's to stop someone from taking a Kent State player's identity and creating a fake profile of them?
Simple. There's no possible way to hide the e-mail address that you signed up for the account with. Regardless of any other privacy settings, if someone can see your profile on Facebook, they can see the address that the account is linked to.
Now, this isn't entirely foolproof from fake profiles. At my college, anyone with an account can log into the directory and create groups of e-mail addresses. If you can come up with a group e-mail address that's both believable and not already taken and add yourself as the group's only member, you're set to create that fake profile.
But on the other side of the coin, it's incredibly easy to log into the directory to see who an e-mail address is registered to. And if that's not good enough, there are printed directories that, if memory serves, list the person's e-mail in their contact information.
The point I'm trying to make, I guess, is that it's easy to make a fake profile, but it's usually just as easy to figure out who it belongs to.
The school has an even easier time of it. Since there's only one e-mail address per person and since the school has that e-mail address in their records, it simply boils down to looking at the profile and seeing if they match.
Not a definitive answer, maybe, but I hope that helps.
Goo goo g'joob.
Actually, you do not need a *.edu email address to join... You can join a "work" network - or a "High School" network for that matter, and still have access to all of the networks in their database.
Holy crap...
Dude. Seriously, a period. It's "where you take a breath."