What Happens in Eden Prairie Goes on Facebook

Cyndy Aleo-Carreira,

on January 11, 2008,

Eden Prairie High School logo image Yesterday's big news in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area was the walkout of students at Eden Prairie High School as a protest over the punishment of several students for activities discovered when administration was alerted to photos of students on Facebook “in possession of, or consuming, illegal substances,” according to the school's Principal Conn McCartan.

Forty-two students were questioned after school administrators saw the photos, and 13 of those students were punished under rules set out by the majority of Minnesota public high schools, as part of the Minnesota State High School League. The pledge's contract includes text prohibiting using, possessing, giving, or purchasing alcohol or drugs, and the penalty for violation of the contract include suspension from two extracurricular activities or suspension for two weeks, whichever is greater. Additional offenses come with increases to the punishment.

Parents, are, of course, not happy about the national attention. Eden Prairie is a well-to-do suburb, as well as having a high school with an excellent academic reputation. And privacy zealots are “concerned” because many of the pictures were found in profiles which are set to “limited” on Facebook.

I actually had a conversation with my college-aged sitter about this very topic right before the holidays. We were discussing different aspects of Facebook, and the photographic evidence that's often posted to the site by high school and college students. While I keep my social networking activities divided across several sites, using Flickr for sharing photos, Geni for family news and events, etc. many of the younger generation use Facebook for everything, including sharing photos, with little thought to how many people have access to this information, especially when you have hundreds or thousands of friends. She, as the captain of an athletics team at her college, often paged through photo albums of teammates, pointing out possible infractions of the school's and NCAA's rules that would result in punishments for the team, and asked that they be removed.

Teens such as those in Eden Prairie have grown up online, and often seem to lack the caution that an older generation has when it comes to information sharing. They forget that anything shared online, whether it is behind a screen of “limited” or “private” can still be subpoenaed, or viewed by anyone who has access to the area behind the screen. Photos taken and displayed of illegal activity (which, last time I checked, underaged possession and consumption of alcohol still was) are violations of the Facebook Terms of Service in the first place, so I'm not sure that privacy concerns regarding how the school's administrators got access to the photos should be the first thing on anyone's mind.

Hopefully, the press attention that Eden Prairie has received for this story will serve as an example to others that maybe posting pictures of you and your friends inebriated and hanging over a toilet aren't as private as you think that they are. Somehow, though, I doubt it.

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10 Comments (Subscribe to rss)

Grendel - January 11, 2008 at 06:32 pm PDT

You know, as these new-fangled computers and these tubes hooked up to them get smarter, the kids just seem to get dumber. Good thing this rule also applies to the 18 year old girls and their pictures…
AGuy - January 13, 2008 at 05:37 am PDT

Amazing what todays technology can do…. to actually be able to analyze liquids in photos and determine they are alcoholic! School administrators have only become more authoritarian since I was in school not long ago. Glad I’m not in that system anymore
Cyndy Aleo-Carreira - January 13, 2008 at 06:15 am PDT

Grendel, I’m with you. While historically kids don’t think through their actions, they do seem to be using every available technology to showcase their stupidity. See also 30 Signs It’s Time to Call It a Night.

AGuy, I’m pretty sure that unless the kids just wanted to set it up to look cool and refilled things like beer bottles with iced tea to drink with their crumpets, it’s pretty obvious. I don’t think they are at all more authoritarian. I think they are probably LESS authoritarian. When I was in school, you got things like in-school suspension for tardiness. Now it’s for things like bringing weapons to school and BJs on the bus (and in case you think I’m making that up, that exact incident happened in our district… on the MIDDLE SCHOOL BUS.

You sign a contract with the school. This is no regular plain vanilla public school; it’s one that’s nationally recognized. And sure, while it was probably a kid who narced, I highly doubt that the district would have gone to this much trouble, gaining this much national attention, without some pretty concrete proof. Photographic evidence is permissable in a court of law, so why not in this case? The kids were dumb, plain and simple. Hopefully some other kids will learn from it.
Brian - January 13, 2008 at 06:18 pm PDT

Society’s moral decay has a larger impact on the youth of today than ever before due to today’s technology. How many kids will see these pictures and will be influenced to drink or party? I’m sick of hearing from courts of law that only slaps on the wrist are given for corporate wrongdoing, drunk drivers who have had multiple citations, etc. I’m thrilled they received more than just detentions. They broke the law and are accountable for their actions of stupidity.
Grendel - January 13, 2008 at 07:19 pm PDT

Society’s moral decay has a larger impact on the youth of today than ever before due to today’s technology. How many kids will see these pictures of Elvis Presley’s shaking hips and will be influenced to drink or party?
Myra - January 13, 2008 at 08:20 pm PDT

To all:
By today’s standards and thoughts I should be an alcoholic mass murderer. The moral decay has absolutely nothing to do with what the kids see, it has to do with how their “parents” raise and educate them at home. I was raised with guns in the house (and taught how to use and respect them), my father started me drinking at age 15 (JD not beer) and today I may take one drink every two weeks, I’ve used more than one “illegal” substance, and broken several laws along the way; but I was taught “RESPECT” something many children and parents don’t seem to understand.

The other cause of the ‘moral decay’ in this country is the idea that “no one takes responsibility for what they do”. The fad became I grew up in a troubled home so I’m not responsible for anything I do.

Brian:
They won’t wait to see the pictures and be influenced, they’re probably already drinking and partying.
Brian - January 13, 2008 at 08:30 pm PDT

In my opinion, parents have a huge influence on their children, but in the visual society that we are, so does the media. How can you not say that the media (tv, internet, etc) does not have any effect upon today’s children? It has nothing short of an enormous influence. It can influence their language, their thoughts, their actions, if parents are not doing their job as being what they should…mom and dad. Too many parents today are putting family further down the priority list (ie. dual working couples, childcare, etc). Many parents aren’t at home when they should be to teach their children what is/isn’t appropriate. If parents aren’t raising our children, the media is.
Grendel - January 13, 2008 at 08:30 pm PDT

Every generation forgets how much they drank and partied and says the next generation is a bunch of degenerates and that the moral fabric of society is unraveling, and that was my point with my Elvis reference. The difference these days is that kids have camera phones and Facebook accounts, and they’re not smart enough not to use them. Back in my day, I had my 3 mile hike uphill through the snow to sober up before I got home.
Grendel - January 13, 2008 at 08:40 pm PDT

Brian, you’re buying what the media is selling about the influence of the media. Parents are and always have been the primary influence on kids. You’ve fallen into the trap of Dateline NBC putting out fluff “journalism” pieces about the effect of the media. It’s all very meta, but not very real.
Cyndy Aleo-Carreira - January 13, 2008 at 09:55 pm PDT

I do agree with what Myra said, but then again, I’m the parent everyone else thinks is “too strict” for making my kids take responsibility for their actions.

What I’m not understanding about the youth uses of Web 2.0 is the need to share EVERYTHING. I’m sure I did my fair share of stupid, dangerous, and/or illegal things at that age. But the last thing I would ever have done was take pictures of it. Social networks are the equivalent of a bulletin board for the world. If I wouldn’t have posted a pic on the door to my dorm room in college, why on earth would I think it would be a good idea to do that x100,000 by doing it on Facebook?

Brian, I don’t think it has a single thing to do with some imaginary degradation of the family since the days of Ward and June, and to imply that is the case is an insult to working families everywhere. Kids aren’t posting pictures of keggers to Facebook because Mommy went to work. Kids are posting pictures of keggers to Facebook because they haven’t thought it through. Tech is moving faster than many parents can actually get a handle on; I forced a friend to join because her NINE-YEAR-OLD wanted a profile on the site.

I shudder to think what happens when kids are raised in households with technophobe parents who have no idea what happens in this space.

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