Social networking - more specifically Facebook - has changed the way most people - who are connected to the internet - communicate. It has enabled new avenues of personal connection, collaboration and information sharing that was only conceived a few years ago and because of the raw nature of the internet, it has exploded in population; with some sites having more members than countries have citizens (Pingdom).

1. An Overview of Social Networking
Social networking - more specifically Facebook - has changed the way mostpeople - who are
connected to the internet - communicate. It has enablednew avenues of personal connection,
collaboration and information sharing thatwas only conceived a few years ago and because of
the raw nature of theinternet, it has exploded in population; with some sites having more
membersthan countries have citizens (Pingdom).
The law enforcement community has always been forced to change their tactics asnew
technologies are developed, evolve and generally adopted by the generalpublic but in recent
times they have had to accelerate the adoption of newcyber technologies to remain only a step
or two behind the criminals.Facebook has simultaneously complicated and simplified
investigations byallowing large amounts of personal and private information to become
availablewith only a few keystrokes yet providing criminals with many new and innovativeways
to communicate, thus avoiding eavesdropping. Making this even moredifficult for law
enforcement, Facebook pride itself on providing ease ofaccess, widespread access and a robust
feature set to anyone with an internetconnection.
Facemesh
On October 28th, 2003 Mark Zuckerberg - a sophomore at Harvard - was dumped byhis
girlfriend (Bertoni and Gell). In an attempt to get his mind off ofhis broken heart, he started
developing a ‘hot or not' site that promoted usersto choose the ‘hotter' looking picture
between the two pictures displayed tothe user. Harvard administration quickly shutdown the
site after only acouple days when it was revealed that Zuckerberg had hacked into a
Harvardserver to get the private dormitory ID images from nine houses for use onFacemesh.
This was only the first attempt to get Facebook started and dueto an overwhelming acceptance
by the student body at Harvard during the shortfew days that Facemesh was online, Zuckerberg
decided to make a few changes andstarted TheFacebook in February 2004 (Hoffman).
TheFacebook
On January 11th 2004, Zuckerberg registered the domain name ‘thefacebook.com'and began
the process of turning the social networking world upside-down(Who.is). In only a few hours
after the site went live on February 4th2004, there were already over twelve hundred
registered users and by the end ofFebruary, over seventy-five percent of the undergraduates at
Harvard wereregistered on the site (Cassidy). At first registration was limited tothe students at
Harvard but just after a month online, TheFacebook expanded toinclude several other Ivy
League colleges followed shortly by allcolleges. In 2005 the domain name facebook.com was
purchased for $200,000dollars and TheFacebook.com became simply facebook.com (Williams).

2. Facebook
It didn't take long before venture capitalists were knocking down the doors,offering double
digit millions to invest with the latest and greatest upstartcompany that was spreading like a
California wildfire. Currently Facebookhas over 400 million active users with more than half
logging into the site onany given day (Facebook). As of March 13th 2010, Facebook
overtookGoogle.com and became the number one visited website for the week(Dougherty).
Taking into consideration the 1.6% equity stake Microsoftmade - costing Microsoft $240 million
- in Facebook on October 24th, 2007,Facebook is now estimated to be worth over $15 billion
dollars(Microsoft).
The popularity of this site has been highly attractive to campus administrators,law enforcement
and just about anybody who is looking for a cheap backgroundcheck on another person as most
people do not consider the ramifications ofposting something on the internet. The amount of
information that somepeople post on Facebook is enough for other people to live another
lifevicariously through an online profile or provide officials with enoughincriminating evidence
to take action against the Facebook user.
The use of Facebookin investigations
High School and Middle School
Facebook has been used throughout its short life as an investigation tool byvarious college
officials to penalize students and staff alike for theirmisdoings. Underage drinking has always
plagued college campuses but nowwhen students post their pictures from recent debaucheries,
they often forgetthat once something makes it online, it cannot be taken back. Over ahundred
Eden Prairie High School students found this out the hard way in late2007 when photos posted
on Facebook surfaced showing the students at variousparties. Several students were suspended
from school sanctioned sportsand extracurricular activities (Smith and Blanchard). High
schoolstudents are not the only ones finding themselves in hot water over Facebookpostings,
more than 20 middle school students in Seattle were suspended forbecoming fans of a group
that focused on belittling an 11 year old McClureMiddle School student (Hana). Studentsare
also being suspended for verbally attacking teachers. A sophomore atOak Forest High School in
Chicago was suspended for five days after creating afan page titled “Anyone who has had a bad
experience or plain dislikes*teacher's name+” (Greiner).
High school and middle school students seemly do not take into considerationthe ramifications
of posting questionable material and how it can impact theirimmediate future… particularly
college acceptance.

3. College
Facebook has its roots in college and from the beginning it has had more thanenough
controversy to go around. Not only did a survey show that collegestudents who use Facebook
get lower grades than students who do not use thesite but social networking has also been
used to prevent at least one studentfrom getting a degree (Hsu). Stacy Snyder - a
MySpace[1] user - was denied a teaching degree in 2007 after apicture that she had posted to
MySpace was brought to the attention of Jane S.Bray, dean of the School of Education at
Millersville University inMillersville, Pennsylvania (Feldman).
In late 2005 a group of college students at George Washington Universityorganized a party that
was shut down by campus security and local police.Several students were charged with
underage drinking and most of the studentsblamed the campus security for monitoring
Facebook for parties and otherquestionable activities. The students retaliated by hosting
another partywith a few modifications to the activities, menu and drink selections.Instead of
beer, they had cookies and cake decorated with the word“beer”. Instead of beer-pong - a
popular drinking game - they hadcake-pong. The students insist that the campus security and
local policeknew about the party and waited an hour after it started before coming in toshut it
down. According to Kyle Stoneman - the party organizer andplanner - “The look on the faces of
the cops was priceless” (Hass).
Law Enforcement
When it comes to Facebook, the law enforcement community has much more thanprankster
college students. On August 28th 2009, Jonathan G. Parker brokeinto a house in Fort Loudoun,
Pennsylvania. He came in through a bedroomwindow, stole some jewelry and riffled through
the homeowners belongings beforeusing her computer to check his Facebook status. To make
matters worsefor Parker, he forgot to logout or even close the web browser window, leaving
atell tale sign who was in her house (Marshall).
Stupid criminals are not the only ones who have been caught thanks toFacebook. Pasquale
Manfredi was once on Italy's top 100 wanted criminalslist for being a ferocious and violent
Mafia boss until his Facebook habitallowed law enforcement officials to track him to his
hideout. Manfrediwas on the run for several months prior to being arrested by Police
ChiefAngelo Morabito. In an interview with ABC News, Morabito said that eventhough Mafia
members are in hiding, they still “need to keep in touch either bypassing notes, using cell
phones or, in these days, via computer” (Wise).
Police are not immune to Facebook blunders. In a small village nearSowton, Devon, a man was
celebrating his 30th birthday with a few of hisfriends when officers wearing camouflage and
body armor stormed the party anddemanded that the party disperse or everyone would be
arrested. To addinsult to injury, the police that stormed the property were accompanied by

4. apolice helicopter, RIOT van and four police cars. The police decided toraid the event after
Andrew Poole created an event on Facebook and invited 17people - of which only 15 showed
up - to his birthday party. Poole saidhe advertised the party as an “all night party” just in case
people decided tospend the night (Daily Mail).
Law enforcement officials have admitted to creating bogus Facebook accounts togain access to
other users profile information. In the fall of 2008,Tyrelle Luebker was 20 years old and a
student at the University of Wisconsinat La Crosse. He and several other students had posted
pictures ofthemselves and others drinking at a local festival. They quickly foundthemselves in a
La Crosse Police Department interview room answering questionswith the pictures printed and
presented to the students. It was later discoveredthat the La Crosse Police Department had
created a Facebook account under thefalse name Jenny Anderson and they used an attractive
woman in the profilepicture to entice the students to accept the friend request (Aujla).
Privacy
Millions of people are posting intimate details about their sex lives, criminalactivities and other
information generally considered private so does that meanthat privacy is dead? Webster
defines privacy as “secrecy”(Merriam-Webster) and it defines secrecy as “the habit or practice
of keepingsecrets or maintaining privacy or concealment” (Merriam-Webster). Thatbeing said,
with all the information available for an individual, it couldeasily be conceived that privacy is
dead and that point would agree with acomment Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg made at a
recent conference. Hesaid that a reasonable expectation of privacy is no longer the “social
norm”(Johnson).
Danah Boyd is a Social Media Researcher at Microsoft Research New Englandand she takes a
different approach to the subject of privacy. She arguesthat privacy is not dead but is evolving
and that like everything else, thedefinition of privacy needs to evolve with the times (Bradley).
Boydargues that people still care about privacy and that privacy has evolved intothe control of
information and not the actual information itself. Herviewpoint on privacy contradicts
Zuckerberg so who is right and why?
Ethics
Is it ethical to use Facebook to investigate people? Just becausesomebody posts to their
Facebook profile something that they would freely talkabout in public, does it make it right to
use that information during aninvestigation, as grounds for eviction or even arrest and
incarceration? Severalethical issues are raised when looking at these questions luckily there
aremany different widely accepted ethical viewpoints that can be used to look atthese issues;
some are workable and practical whereas others are onlytheoretical.

5. Subjective Relativism
Subjective Relativism relies on an individual to choose what is right andwrong while only taking
into consideration how the decision is going to impactthe decision maker and nobody else. This
is not practical becauseif it was left up to each individual to choose the ethically correct answer
tothe question “Is it ethical to use Facebook to investigate people?” then therewould be more
privacy standards than there are users on Facebook because eventhose who do not use
Facebook would most likely want their own privacystandard.
Cultural Relativism
Cultural Relativism is similar to Subjective Relativism in that theethically right and wrong
decisions are decided by what best for the decisionmaker but it differs in that Cultural
Relativism takes into consideration theoverall impact on the culture. This is also an unworkable
ethicalpractice because it leaves out the individual and does not take intoconsideration the
impact of an opposing viewpoint by another culture.
Divine Command Theory
Divine Command Theory is almost a workable theory but it does not take intoaccount that
there is no universally accepted “higher power” or “supreme being”to look to for answers.
While the vast majority of people believe in theChristian God, there is a large population that
does not (The Pew Forum).Divine Command Theory leaves out and ignores those who do not
believe and assuch, this theory becomes unworkable in real life.
Kantianism
As the first workable theory, Kantianism is dynamic in that it looks atethics and morality
through a set of universal laws that are defined by areasoning process. According to
Kantianism, it is wrong to use a personas a means to an end but instead, each person should be
considered an end ontheir own.
Facebook investigators are not using individuals as an end, the ethically rightthing to do
according to Kantianism. Instead they are using people togain knowledge about other people,
the ethically wrong thing to do in thissituation.
Act Utilitarianism
Act Utilitarianism allows an ethical decision to be made by weighing theoverall good against the
overall harm to all parties involved with thedecision. The problem with Act Utilitarianism is that
it can easilyfacilitate discrimination by neglecting various parties in the decision makingprocess.
During the past few years, Facebook has changed their privacy policy severaltimes. Some
people - like Mark Zuckerberg - argue that it is for thebenefit of the users to force these policy

6. changes on over 400 million peoplebut others - like Danah Boyd - argue that by changing these
policies, it isfurther eroding the general public's reasonable expectation of privacy.Taking into
account the vast numbers of people impacted by the changes, thefact that the changes usually
open up areas of user's profiles to the generalpublic and that these areas were closed to the
public prior to the changes, ActUtilitarianism would declare these changes to Facebook as not
ethical.
Rule Utilitarianism
Rule Utilitarianism is another non-workable ethical theory because itfocuses on everybody
following a universal set of rules. In theory, ifeverybody were to follow a carefully selected set
of rules and guidelines,everyone would have the maximum amount of happiness. Rule
Utilitarianismdoes not take into account that there are people who will choose not to followthe
rules, thus throwing off the balance that Rule Utilitarianism creates.
Social Contract Theory
Social Contract Theory is about the most accurate theory to best describethe current status of
Facebook, investigations done via Facebook and privacywithin Facebook. In Social Contract
Theory everyone unconditionallyagrees to allow the establishment of a set of moral rules and
to allow agovernment - provided the capacity - to enforce the rules. In short, themasses are
controlled by a few elite who make all the decisions that everyonemust follow. If anyone in the
masses decides not to follow the rules,they are exiled from the society. Exile in the digital world
can comefrom simply being denied access to a site or by doing something stupid in thedigital
world resulting in real world consequences.
Closing
Facebook has changed the way the majority of people communicate. It hasallowed people to
freely express themselves but there are those who will takeadvantage of this general trust in
humanity. Education is needed to helpprotect people new to the social media world and there
has to be some form ofrecourse taken against those who prey on the digitally inexperienced.
Criminals, college students, grandparents and about one third of the entirepopulation of the
United States have a profile on Facebook(CheckFacebook.com). Regardless how any one
individual feels aboutFacebook, it has the potential to impact over six percent of the
globalpopulation and it is here to stay.
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[1] MySpace is acompetitor to Facebook