All up in MySpace
By Jimmy Greenfield
RedEye
Published March 28, 2006
Until a few weeks ago, Paul Marszalek's myspace.com page had photos of him and his friends partying, dancing and drinking alcohol.
Not anymore.
Marszalek, 18, a UIC freshman, deleted his MySpace Web site after becoming nervous that law firms where he was applying for internships might see the photos. "You never know who's looking at it," he said.
Marszalek isn't being paranoid. What you post online could catch up with you.
High schools, colleges and businesses have begun to use social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and Xanga to keep tabs on students and employees.
"Some of these [postings] are incredibly incriminating," said Steve Jones, a UIC communications professor who studies the Internet. "I wouldn't be surprised if 20 years from now, somebody who's running for an office has to answer a lot of questions to what they had on MySpace 20 years ago."
Some consequences are more immediate.
In Maryland, a high school freshman reportedly was suspended when school administrators found photos of him posted on an online image gallery.
At George Washington University, campus police broke up an underage drinking party after invitations showed up on a social networking Web site.
And here in Chicago, a recruiter withdrew a verbal job offer after reading about a drunken-driving conviction posted on a job candidate's blog, according to a Columbia News Service report.
Some colleges and high schools have reprimanded students for conduct displayed online, and some have even forbidden students to use sites like MySpace, which has more than 32 million users as of February, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.
"We are not out trolling online. But if somebody put this information in front of our face, we do have to react," Richard Justice, an associate dean and director of student conflict resolution at the University of Illinois, told Columbia News Service.
Many students have abandoned MySpace for Facebook to post their party pictures. Facebook, which has close to 5 million users, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, requires a university e-mail address for access.
But Jones said many students don't realize that alumni--who may include police or prospective employers--can get a university e-mail address at some schools and start snooping around Facebook.
Jones also thinks students need to consider another possibility when posting private pictures of themselves on Facebook. What happens if the site gets sold?
"In the future, if Google buys Facebook, who's to say they're not going to make all Facebook content searchable?" Jones said.
For now, Facebook users are promised a degree of privacy.
But pictures and diaries on MySpace are accessible to anybody. Even the police.
"If you don't want it to be my business, then don't post it," Barrington police officer James McNamee said.
McNamee, who specializes in Internet safety, said it's his job to keep tabs on anybody posting possibly incriminating information on MySpace. It's also very easy, he said.
He just goes to the "browse" section, types in criteria for age and gender, then searches for anything suspicious in a 5-mile radius using Barrington's zip code as a guide. MySpace doesn't require entering a city or zip code in your profile, but McNamee said many users do.
"Everything pops up," he said. "We'll look at the pictures and the names. We'll punch up on their site and see what we get."
McNamee has found sexually explicit pictures and personal diaries. He recently came across photos some high school students had posted of themselves painting graffiti on the school. He declined to say what discipline the students faced because they are juveniles.
"They basically posted a confession online," he said.
McNamee compares police officers searching MySpace to driving around in a patrol car looking for suspicious activity. He dismisses any suggestion that patrolling the Web is an invasion of privacy.
"Are you saying we shouldn't patrol it?" he said. "There's too much stuff out there."
The idea that police or employers are monitoring social networking sites doesn't sit well with everyone.
DePaul junior Christina Kobernat, who soon will begin an internship at Merrill Lynch in Chicago, says it would be wrong for her boss to keep tabs on her via her Facebook page, or in any other way when she's not at work.
"As long as I present myself at work in a professional manner, what I do outside of work shouldn't be of their concern," Kobernat said.
But what constitutes "outside of work" isn't always clear.
Mike Wolson, president of Naperville-based recruiting firm The Covington Group, said he recently received a call from a client who was considering firing some employees.
The client told Wolson he had come across several MySpace profiles maintained by his employees. On the sites were disparaging remarks about the company.
Wolson said before making a decision, the client was trying to determine if the employees had posted to MySpace on company time. The situation has not yet been resolved.
"What's really interesting out of all this is when people get a job, the background checks don't end there," Wolson said. "You're always on the clock."
Job recruiters say students' lack of discretion online will catch up to them in their professional lives. A 2005 study by executive job-search agency ExecuNet found that 75 percent of recruiters use Web searching as part of the applicant screening process, according to a Columbia News Service report. More than a quarter of these same recruiters say they have eliminated candidates based on information they found online.
"I hope that students get a wake-up call," said Steven Rothberg, who runs the largest national employment Web site for recent university graduates, collegerecruiter.com, in the Columbia News Service report. "I think of social networking sites much like a tattoo: It seems like a great idea at the time, but you have to live with it for the rest of your life."
Columbia News Service contributed.
RedEye
Published March 28, 2006
Until a few weeks ago, Paul Marszalek's myspace.com page had photos of him and his friends partying, dancing and drinking alcohol.
Not anymore.
Marszalek, 18, a UIC freshman, deleted his MySpace Web site after becoming nervous that law firms where he was applying for internships might see the photos. "You never know who's looking at it," he said.
Marszalek isn't being paranoid. What you post online could catch up with you.
High schools, colleges and businesses have begun to use social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and Xanga to keep tabs on students and employees.
"Some of these [postings] are incredibly incriminating," said Steve Jones, a UIC communications professor who studies the Internet. "I wouldn't be surprised if 20 years from now, somebody who's running for an office has to answer a lot of questions to what they had on MySpace 20 years ago."
Some consequences are more immediate.
In Maryland, a high school freshman reportedly was suspended when school administrators found photos of him posted on an online image gallery.
At George Washington University, campus police broke up an underage drinking party after invitations showed up on a social networking Web site.
And here in Chicago, a recruiter withdrew a verbal job offer after reading about a drunken-driving conviction posted on a job candidate's blog, according to a Columbia News Service report.
Some colleges and high schools have reprimanded students for conduct displayed online, and some have even forbidden students to use sites like MySpace, which has more than 32 million users as of February, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.
"We are not out trolling online. But if somebody put this information in front of our face, we do have to react," Richard Justice, an associate dean and director of student conflict resolution at the University of Illinois, told Columbia News Service.
Many students have abandoned MySpace for Facebook to post their party pictures. Facebook, which has close to 5 million users, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, requires a university e-mail address for access.
But Jones said many students don't realize that alumni--who may include police or prospective employers--can get a university e-mail address at some schools and start snooping around Facebook.
Jones also thinks students need to consider another possibility when posting private pictures of themselves on Facebook. What happens if the site gets sold?
"In the future, if Google buys Facebook, who's to say they're not going to make all Facebook content searchable?" Jones said.
For now, Facebook users are promised a degree of privacy.
But pictures and diaries on MySpace are accessible to anybody. Even the police.
"If you don't want it to be my business, then don't post it," Barrington police officer James McNamee said.
McNamee, who specializes in Internet safety, said it's his job to keep tabs on anybody posting possibly incriminating information on MySpace. It's also very easy, he said.
He just goes to the "browse" section, types in criteria for age and gender, then searches for anything suspicious in a 5-mile radius using Barrington's zip code as a guide. MySpace doesn't require entering a city or zip code in your profile, but McNamee said many users do.
"Everything pops up," he said. "We'll look at the pictures and the names. We'll punch up on their site and see what we get."
McNamee has found sexually explicit pictures and personal diaries. He recently came across photos some high school students had posted of themselves painting graffiti on the school. He declined to say what discipline the students faced because they are juveniles.
"They basically posted a confession online," he said.
McNamee compares police officers searching MySpace to driving around in a patrol car looking for suspicious activity. He dismisses any suggestion that patrolling the Web is an invasion of privacy.
"Are you saying we shouldn't patrol it?" he said. "There's too much stuff out there."
The idea that police or employers are monitoring social networking sites doesn't sit well with everyone.
DePaul junior Christina Kobernat, who soon will begin an internship at Merrill Lynch in Chicago, says it would be wrong for her boss to keep tabs on her via her Facebook page, or in any other way when she's not at work.
"As long as I present myself at work in a professional manner, what I do outside of work shouldn't be of their concern," Kobernat said.
But what constitutes "outside of work" isn't always clear.
Mike Wolson, president of Naperville-based recruiting firm The Covington Group, said he recently received a call from a client who was considering firing some employees.
The client told Wolson he had come across several MySpace profiles maintained by his employees. On the sites were disparaging remarks about the company.
Wolson said before making a decision, the client was trying to determine if the employees had posted to MySpace on company time. The situation has not yet been resolved.
"What's really interesting out of all this is when people get a job, the background checks don't end there," Wolson said. "You're always on the clock."
Job recruiters say students' lack of discretion online will catch up to them in their professional lives. A 2005 study by executive job-search agency ExecuNet found that 75 percent of recruiters use Web searching as part of the applicant screening process, according to a Columbia News Service report. More than a quarter of these same recruiters say they have eliminated candidates based on information they found online.
"I hope that students get a wake-up call," said Steven Rothberg, who runs the largest national employment Web site for recent university graduates, collegerecruiter.com, in the Columbia News Service report. "I think of social networking sites much like a tattoo: It seems like a great idea at the time, but you have to live with it for the rest of your life."
Columbia News Service contributed.
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