Posted under Branding, Career Management, Networking, Online Identity, Social Networking, Technology on April 8th, 2008
All things Considered, NPR’s afternoon news show, featured this story today, April 7, 2008:
“Police in East Lansing, Mich., used tear gas to disperse thousands of out-of-hand partygoers near the Michigan State University campus at an event promoted as Cedar Fest on Facebook. Police are trying to determine whether the Facebook party organizers can be held accountable.”
How does this news jive with the advice of business bloggers like Bob Gourley, who recently suggested that Executives should use LinkedIn and Facebook?
What will this mean for the cohort of professionals who are streaming over to the interactive Facebook from more static networking forums, like LinkedIn.com?
Are the Facebook “natives” happy about the migration of more professional “immigrants” to the site that has been a place to plan parties, “poke” friends, and check-out fun connections?
Should Facebook friends feel compelled to clean-up their profiles so recruiters and other professionals can use this tool as yet another way to vet candidates? Should professionals be like rain, and go away….?
Will law enforcement authorities be able to hold Facebook members liable for the collateral damage and consequences of postings initiated through the social networking site? Will Facebook’s digital fingerprint and YouTube’s video record of the event put the kibosh on the partying? Will Facebook be able to “grow-up” without going to jail?
Posted by Karen P. Katz; cross-posted on Career Acceleration Notes
Barbara Safani on 09 Apr 2008 at 9:49 pm #
Karen,
I guess like anything else, Facebook can be used for good or for bad. New York Magazine’s recent article, (April 2008), Revolt at Horace Mann, discusses how students at an elite New York private school waged a war against a teacher by creating a Facebook group about her. It will be interesting to see how these kids fare in the college admissions process that is just around the corner for them. Once they realize the long-lasting impact (a.k.a. digital dirt) of their actions, they will think twice about posting anything negative on a social networking site.
But on the flip side, I see many people leveraging their Facebook page in intelligent and meaningful ways and I have to believe that the potential for good outweighs the bad.