In March 2005, the United States Secret Service met with a University of Oklahoma freshman for a message he posted to his profile on the social networking web site, Facebook: “We could all donate a dollar and raise millions to hire an assassin to kill the president and replace him with a monkey.”
Two Louisiana State swimmers were kicked off the team for criticizing their coaches on Facebook.(source) In October 2005, Penn State University police used Facebook to track down students who rushed the field after the October 8 Ohio State game. By November, two students had been charged with criminal trespass for their involvement. (source)
The same month, sophomore Cameron Walker was expelled from Fisher College in Boston for comments about a campus police officer made on Facebook. These included that the officer “loves to antagonize students …. and needs to be eliminated.” The comments were judged to be in violation of the college’s code of conduct. (source)
Was Walker’s suggestion a violent threat, or simply a statement that the students should make a formal complaint to protect their rights?
In February 2007, eleven students at Robert F. Hall Catholic Secondary School in Caledon, Ontario, were suspended after posting comments about their principal on Facebook. (source)
Admissions dean Paul Marthers, at Reed College in Portland, Ore., said in 2006 the school denied admission to one applicant in part because entries on the blogging site LiveJournal included disparaging comments about him.
In October 2006, a male Southern Illinois University student faced expulsion for creating a Facebook page detailing his sexual relationship with a 19-year-old female he’d been involved with in the past. Other male students added to the page with their own experiences with the woman, until she brought it to the attention of Facebook, who permanently removed the page. The female cited slander; while the young man claimed it was an inside joke and he assumed she would understand the humor. In an interview, he stated, “I never thought something on Facebook would get me into trouble out in the real world.” Showing just how far social networking has come, fellow students created yet another Facebook page with updates as the scandal developed.(source: Jadhav, Adam, Shane Graber. “Students learning dangers of Web ‘confession’; Sophomore may be expelled for Facebook page,” The Record, October 5, 2006. )
