Editorial The Facebook thing and what you like to do with it

Author: [no author name found]

Meet Joe Midd. Or wait, maybe you already have. Joe is a sophomore international studies major with an economics minor. He hails from Pasadena, Calif., his mailbox number is 6739, and he currently lives in Brooker 403. This semester he is only taking three classes - West European Politics, Russian and Studio Art. But anyone with a college directory and access to Outlook already knew this much about Joe.

Log-in to Facebook.com and we find a more revealing portrait of the young Joe Midd. Now we see a young man who lists "strippers in Ross," drinking rum and attending cockfights as his top interests. In his own photo albums he enjoys posing naked with strategically placed stuffed animals or plant-life concealing his little Joe member.

Joe, we learn, is a current member of the groups "Sex and the Cowland," "People Who Love Forking," "Everybody Pees" and "The Only Good Whore Is a Dead Whore." Facebook feed says he also recently joined the group "hey babe how would you like to take a ride on my boloney pony."

And for those ladies who are attracted to all this, Facebook feed also says Joe just split his "it's complicated" ties with Sarah Midd. He has already updated his relationship status as, "looking for random play."

If you have not yet figured it out, Joe Midd is a composite of information pulled from a wide range of Middlebury student profiles on Facebook.com. Joe is not just one giant embarrassment to this College - he is actually representative of dozens of embarrassing Facebook profiles that students have tied to Middlebury through the popular social networking website. Even worse, most of these tidbits were pulled from prominent student leaders in the Commons, student government and even this newspaper.

Many students may fondly recognize some of Joe's "clever" personal information from their friends' profiles or, perhaps, even their own. The Deans in Old Chapel and the Student Affairs Office - who, yes, do have their own Facebook accounts - probably recognized some of Joe, too. Just not as fondly.

And then there are the job recruiters who contract students and alumni from Middlebury and other colleges to research possible job candidates via their insider Facebook access. They probably did not remember Joe's witty little nuggets of personal information, since they were taken from the profiles of people these firms and non-profit organizations chose or will choose not to hire.

Facebook offers amazing potential for classmates and friends to stay in touch no matter how far apart they might end up. Students should make available their phone numbers and e-mail addresses so people can stay in touch. And there is nothing wrong with posting your birthdate or memorable - but appropriate - pictures to share. But somewhere a line needs to be drawn.

Collectively the gross and sometimes offensive Facebook groups we identified had literally hundreds of Middlebury student members. From groups that celebrate peeing in inappropriate places on campus, to groups that honor men who use derogatory pick-up lines and women who say that they do not mind receiving them. Do Middlebury students truly stand behind the things they post on Facebook? We hope not. Does that make them any more acceptable? Not in the least.

The Middlebury campus is a safe haven where students can do many things that they will never be able to do anywhere else. The World Wide Web, however, is not Club Midd. The curtains of anonymity that students foolishly assume are hiding the stuff they write and things they do on the Internet, simply do not exist.

It is time students reconsider how they use Facebook to present themselves, and their institution, to the world.