Privacy and Social Networking

An issue that came up at a work meeting this week was privacy and social networking.

Many teachers (and many students...more on that soon) do not realize that things that they post on blogs, Twitter, Facebook and the like are in the public domain. Comments, photos, videos and other artifacts (whether or not these items were posted by the teacher or another person) of an "immoral" or unprofessional nature can be grounds for dissmissal.  For example, look at these articles:

• http://www.hrtechnews.com/employee-uses-racial-slur-in-facebook-profile-can-you-fire-her/
• http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-03-02-facebook-professors_N.htm
• http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2009/11/13/barrow-teacher-done-in-by-anonymous-e-mail-with-perfect-punctuation/

All internet users need to be careful of what they put on the internet.  But, society holds teachers to a higher standard (that debate not in thei post!) and uncooth comments and artifacts can be harmful.
Once it is on the internet, you can never get it back.  People can save, screen capture, get archived pages, etc.  I always tell teachers (and students) not to write anything they would be ashamed or embarrased about seeing published next to their names in the Washington Post.

In terms of students.....

Students need to learn about social networking and the privacy concerns.  One day the students will be the young adults job searching.  They must know that employers hire internet savy people to do websearches to find out about the type of digital footprint that exists on each job candidate.  Students need to learn early on as internet users about the trail they are forging.
They need education on this topic, not an "internet ban"  - the issue needs to be addressed.

What do you think about this topic, in terms of teachers and/or students?