Facebook Friends

The posts at Volokh and at PrawfsBlawg about the "ethics" of law professors (and academics more generally) being "Facebook friends" with their students has prompted long strands of commentary at both sites.  One matter of the debate which seems not to have been articulated is that Facebook is simply a platform for relationships - not a new relationship in and of itself.  To the extent that there are "ethical" or other professional concerns with relationships between professors and students, they apply in exactly the same fashion whether the relationship exists on Facebook or not.  If a friendship or relationship would be inappropriate when taking place in the student lounge, then that same friendship or relationship would inappropriate, and to the exact same extent, if it takes place on Facebook.  I think there's decent reasons for professors and students to preserve their social interactions at some distance, but Facebook has no bearing on that conclusion.

Comments

[Mark Dowling]

Interesting post Bob, and welcome back by the way. I would add that one social networking sphere does not fit all. The intersection between my LinkedIn profile, which I see more as an employment site and my Facebook profile is slim - at present I am not FB friends with anyone at work and I think that's best for now at least. As you noted, offline life is somewhat segmented, at least between differing levels of hierarchy, and so should online life be.

There should also be concern about hosting class-related materials or discussions on Facebook or other third parties without a contracted relationship such as Google Apps Education Edition, since there is no commercial relationship and thus the institution could get tagged with a security breach or secondary use of posted materials at the host site - especially if said site is hosted in the US.

As an aside, I am hearing that Facebook profiles, especially those which expose information to their "geographical network" are becoming fertile ground for lawyers preparing to examine witnesses at discovery in fields such as personal injury.